Bonito character

鲣 means bonito, especially skipjack tuna. Chinese 鲣鱼 names the fish; Japanese uses 鰹 as its traditional form. By about 934, a Japanese dictionary records 鰹魚 beside the older spelling 堅魚 (“hard fish”); Japanese borrowed 鰹 from Chinese, where Classical Chinese dictionaries also give it the meaning “large eel.”

Bonito bones occur at sites from Japan’s Jōmon period. During the Ritsuryō period, an early court-government era, processed bonito went as tax and offerings. Dried-bonito stock is documented by the 13th century, earlier than the once-assumed 16th-century date. In the Sengoku period, preserved bonito became a ceremonial good-luck gift linked to victory.