Since 1457, when Dokan Ota built Iwatsuki Castle as the northern fortress of the eight Edo-period provinces of Kanto (Musashi, Awa, Kazusa, Sagami, Shimousa, Hitachi, Kouzuke and Shimotsuke), the history as a castle town began. After Ieyasu established the shogunate in Edo, Iwatsuki prospered as a castle town near Edo and as a post town on the Nikko Onari Highway. Iwasaki Castle is ruled by the Tokugawa clan’s hereditary daimyo (whose ancestors supported Tokugawa Ieyasu prior to the battle of Sekigahara). In 1697, Kyoto Horikawa (京都坊目誌) Buddhist sculptor Eshin fell ill in Iwatsuki. It is said that he started making doll heads by kneading the powder that turns into starch extracted from wheat flour into a kneaded form.

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