League of Guardians Mon
What Are Mon?
Mon, the crest of a family, are commonly found on formal kimono (on each side of the chest and the middle of the back). Less formal garments will have 1 or 3 mon, while the most formal have 5 (the two additional are on the sleeves). They can also be on traditional roof tiles, furniture, crockery, umbrellas, and gravestones. In modern times, they can be the symbol of an organization or business. While modern human use is declining, the tradition is alive and well among the kami and yokai--who seem to put them on everything.
Use in the League of Guardians
These traditional symbols are a requirement for the League of Guardians members to be placed on clothing, or their person (if the member does not wear clothes), organizational buildings--especially shrines, and documents. Members are not always aware of who is in the League. Though they are almost always familier with those in their division. Mon in the League are of a magical nature that only members can see when the wearer needs the mon to be viewed. This identifies members, so they know a particular kami or yokai is safe to work with or if a League member is killed or dies they can be identified and a replacement found. The three divisions of the League each have their own mon and each location and rank is noted by a symbol on it. Soujoubou gives each member the mon on a folded sheet of parchment. Then the member places the mon directly against an item, a copy of the magical mon is transferred to that item. The parchment is encoded to the member. So if it would fall into enemy hands, it will burst into flame. A replacement can be obtained from Soujoubou. There isn't a limit on the number of stampings that can be done with the parchment.
See League of Guardians Mon Code for a listing of the other symbols used.
Man's Formal Robe (Noshime Kosode) by Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Oriental Roof by Jake Heckey from Pixabay
Dimensions
on clothing often about 2.5 cm
Comments
Author's Notes
More examples of mon can be found on wafuku.wordprss.com, oldjapan.org, web-japan.org and Wikipedia. Though the League of Guardians only passes down information on their existence and customs by word of mouth. So the author has no links to share on that topic.