Tokoyama
A professional hairdresser to sumo wrestlers, who dresses their oiled topknots.
A tokoyama is a hairdresser employed by the Japan Sumo Association to dress the hair of wrestlers. Every wrestler wears a topknot, the chonmage; senior wrestlers wear the formal oicho-mage, its folded end shaped like a ginkgo leaf, for bouts. Tokoyama comb the long hair with scented wax and shape it each day. When a wrestler retires, his topknot is cut in a ceremony at the Kokugikan, sometimes with hundreds of guests each taking a snip.