Kumihimo is a Japanese braid-making technique which dates to about 550 BC, when the Buddhist religion spread in Japan and people began to use decorative cords in religious ceremonies. Later, people used brightly colored braids to decorate clothing, to hang banners, to lace samurai armor together, and to hang knives.
Although kumihimo is particular to Japan, other cultures in history have used similar braids.
There are several different stands used to create kumihimo braids. Most braids done today are made on a wooden stand (a marudai or "round stand"), allowing the threads to be draped over a flat doughnut-shaped top called a kagami (Japanese for "mirror"). The individual threads are weighted with wooden bobbins called "tama,” and a bag of weights is tied to the finished end of the working braid to produce a balanced tension. Although it is not known how long the Japanese have been using the marudai to create braids, most estimates place it around 1575 or later.
Traditionally, untwisted silk threads, in bundles of a certain number of threads or "ends,” would be used in making kumihimo braids. There are hundreds of different kumihimo stitches, some simple and some very complex, using different numbers of strands from 4 to 100.
For my kumihimos, I generally use eight “strands.” When using silk, I use approximately 39 ends in each strand. I also use ribbon quite a lot, and sometimes strands of beads.