Chonmage

It was originally a method of using hair to hold a samurai kabuto helmet steady atop the head in battle, and became a status symbol among Japanese society.

The remaining hair was oiled and waxed before being tied into a small tail folded onto the top of the head in the characteristic topknot.

[citation needed] Between the 1580s (towards the end of the Warring States period, 1467–1615) and the 1630s (the beginning of the Edo period, 1603–1867), Japanese cultural attitudes to men's hair shifted; where a full head of hair and a beard had been valued as a sign of manliness in the preceding militaristic era, in the ensuing period of peace, this gradually shifted until a beard and an unshaven pate were viewed as barbaric, and resistant of the peace that had resulted from two centuries of civil war.

The style of the chonmage ("topknot") was dependent on the social status of the wearer, with that of the samurai being more pronounced than artisans or merchants.

However, the hair may be thinned in this region or the crown of the head shaved, called nakazori, to allow the topknot to sit more neatly.