Origami History

The word origami really means folding paper in Japanese. Ori means folding and gami means paper. Long ago it was called orukami so it would be oru meaning folding and kami meaning paper. We do not know exactly when origami began; however people think origami originally started in China around the early seventh century. Eventually, Japan found out about origami and began to use the idea. It became significant in Japan and started to spread to Japanese peoples' every day lives, including their architecture and traditions.

 

Origami wasnt always a hobby like it is today. In the beginning origami was very practical and used for special purposes like folding letters. Later on origami became an art form. Thats when it changed from being simple paper folding into a piece of art like a folded crane. It started to become very popular in 1797 A.D when the first written origami book was published. The book was called Senbazuru Orikata which means how to fold one thousand cranes. In the 1930s A.D a man named Akira Yoshizawa created all different types of origami which is like our origami right now.

 

One of the most famous stories about origami is Thousand origami cranes. It is a great story about a girl who gets really bad sick and needs to go to the hospital. So she thought that if she makes 1,000 origami cranes she will get better. Therefore the making of the 1,000 origami cranes is based on a traditional legend.