Kasa (hat)

A kasa is any one of several traditional Japanese hats. These include and.

Grammar and etymology
is the correct way to pronounce the word when it stands alone. causes to change to  when it is preceded by another word specifying the type of hat, as in.

shares its etymology with the Japanese word for "umbrella" (also pronounced, but written as ).

Types of
A number of different styles of exist. Varieties of were used throughout most all levels of Japanese society.

Some types of include:


 * Ajirogasa (網代笠): a wickerwork kasa made of shaven bamboo or wood.
 * Amigasa (編み笠): a wickerwork . An is a straw hat of the type traditionally worn in some Japanese folk dances.
 * Fukaamigasa (深編み笠): a deep wickerwork.
 * Jingasa (陣笠): a type of commonly worn by samurai and  (foot soldiers). The samurai class in feudal Japan, as well as their retainers and footsoldiers, used several types of  made from iron, copper, wood, paper, bamboo, or leather.   almost always had crests on them.
 * Rōningasa (浪人笠): typically a conical with a flat top, often worn by.
 * Sandogasa (三度笠): a bamboo for traveling with a wide, flat shape that offered protection from the sun and rain. Favored by, couriers who regularly traveled between Edo and Kyoto.
 * Sugegasa (菅笠): a conical, pointed wickerwork made of sedge. This hat shape is called a nón lá in Vietnam or do'un in Cambodia.
 * Takuhatsugasa (托鉢笠): a Buddhist mendicant's . A woven rice-straw worn by mendicant Buddhist monks, the  is made overlarge and in a bowl or mushroom shape. Unlike an Asian conical hat, it does not come to a point, nor does it ride high on the head like a samurai's traveling hat, instead covering the upper half to two-thirds of the face, masking the identity of the monk and allowing him to travel undistracted on his journey.
 * Tengai (天蓋): (see )
 * Torioigasa (鳥追笠): a folded, famously worn for the Awa Dance Festival.
 * Yagyūgasa (柳生笠): the family crest of Yagyū clan, not an actual kind of.