It’s an ancient Japanese crib which is made of woven straw or bamboo, and looks like a modern “ku-han.” It is said that mothers in the past were busy with both the field labor and household labor, and put this “izumi” beside them to see how their children were doing in it while working. An izumi-like item appeared in “Taketori Monogatari”, a novel written in the Heian Period (the mid-10th century).
