"An actor making up as a woman. The female parts in kabuki are played by men. The Kabuki theatre was developed in the sixteenth century, and the action of the plays is normally set in feudal Japan. The actors are accompanied by an orchestra of shamisen-players (the shamisen is a three-stringed mandoline) and by singers."

From: Bischof, Werner. Japan. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954.