Akita Prefecture Specialty Products, Souvenirs, Shrines and Temples, and Travel | 47 Prefecture Guide

Most of Akita’s specialties come from snow and rice. Both its food and crafts connect back to them.

Specialties

Akitakomachi is an original rice variety developed by Akita Prefecture over many years.

With rice, sake can be made. Akita is known as a prefecture with many sake breweries, and it is well suited to cold-weather brewing, where fermentation proceeds slowly at low temperatures. The winter temperature itself becomes a condition of production.

Fukui’s eyeglasses, Niigata’s ramie, and Akita’s sake all share the same starting point. A long winter. Industries diverged depending on how those unfavorable conditions were used.

Tonburi, pickled junsai, and iburigakko all came from the wisdom of preservation.

Souvenirs

Kiritanpo is made by mashing rice, wrapping it around a skewer, and grilling it. It was originally portable food for mountain work. Today it can be shipped in vacuum-packed form.

Sake and a cherry-bark craft tea caddy. Both are things to use after bringing them home.

Shrines and Temples

Mayama Shrine (Oga City) is a place of mountain worship enshrined on Mount Shinzan on the Oga Peninsula, long flourishing as a sacred site for Shugendo practice in total.

This shrine’s “Saito Festival” is held every year at dusk on January 3, when a saito fire is lit, a Shinto ritual in which large rice cakes toasted over that fire are offered to the mountain deity. Many of the forms of faith we have seen in this series involve only worship, but Tohoku’s mountain worship preserves forms in which people prove faith using their own bodies. The Namahage of Oga are the same: the gods were not something to look at, but something people performed, coming to each house.

Koshio Shrine (Akita City) is said to have been restored by Sakanoue no Tamuramaro. Chokaisan Omonoimi Shrine (Yuza Town, Yamagata Prefecture) is an inner shrine at the summit on the border between Akita and Yamagata, and its affiliation has long been disputed. Places of faith can take shape according to a logic separate from administrative lines.

Sightseeing

Kakunodate has a samurai residence street designated as a National Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings. In spring, it is known for its weeping cherry blossoms. It is no coincidence that this town is also a production center for cherry-bark crafts. That is because the craft began as side work for lower-ranking samurai.

Namahage is an event of the Oga Peninsula, and is included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage “Raiho-shin, ritual visits of deities in masks and costumes”. Lake Towada and Nyuto Onsenkyo are also in this prefecture.

Traditional Crafts

Nationally designated items are Kabazaiku cherry bark craft, Kawatsura lacquerware, Odate magewappa bentwood ware, and Akita cedar tubs and barrels: 4 items in total.

The “kaba” in kabazaiku refers to the bark of the Japanese mountain cherry tree. And Odate magewappa is made by bending Akita cedar and stitching it in place with the same cherry bark. A single material supports two crafts.

For details, see 【VILLAGE Report vol.45】Making Vessels with Cherry Bark

Articles About This Prefecture

View all articles about Akita Prefecture　 ← List of 47 Prefectures

References: Akita Prefecture, Semboku City, Odate City, Oga City, Yokote City, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries — Value Village Editorial Team