Description

A small but heavy disk shaped toy of approximately 3cm in diameter, it is spun by wrapping a thin 60 cm cord around it, then throwing it while releasing the cord to spin it onto a surface such as matting spread across the top of a barrel. The thrower aims it at another beigoma that is already spinning to knock it out of the playing area. The loser is the player whose top either stops spinning first or is knocked outside the area. If spun correctly it makes a humming sound.

They are often decorated with kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

, for example with names of famous baseball players.

Origin

Beigoma may have come to Japan from China, originating as Koma (wooden toys), popular with ordinary people in the Kamakura period

Kamakura period

The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura Shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo....

. The toy was well known in the 17th century Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

 and was originally made by filling spiral seashells with sand and sealing them with molten wax. By the 20th century, they were made of lead and later, cast metal. Their popularity peaked in the first half of the 20th century, losing favour as newer post war toys became available. Recently, the popular Beyblade

Beyblade (toy)

Beyblade is a line of high-performance spinning top toys originally developed and manufactured by Takara starting in 2000. Both the toys and their name were inspired by "Beigoma", a traditional spinning top. The introduction of the toy corresponded with the broadcast of the Beyblade anime...

 toy, which is modelled after beigoma has caused a re-surge in interest. Beyblades are similar to beigoma but have no stem.

Makers

In 2001 there was only one factory still making them, in Kawaguchi, Saitama

Kawaguchi, Saitama

is a city located in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. The city was founded on April 1, 1933.As of January 1, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 517,171, the second largest in Saitama Prefecture after Saitama, and a population density of 9,276.61 persons per km². The total area is 55.75 km²...

 prefecture.

Fictional uses

In the film Titanic

Titanic (1997 film)

Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...

a boy is seen playing with a beigoma on the ship's deck.