VILLAGE Report vol.8 Ibaraki Prefecture | Yuki Tsumugi, a Single Thread Hand-Spun from Silk Floss

VILLAGE Report now enters its Kanto edition. The first stop, Ibaraki Prefecture, features Yuki-tsumugi. It is both a traditional craft of Japan and a silk textile known around the world, listed as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.

From a Nara-period tribute item to “the finest pongee”

According to Yuki City, the prototype of Yuki-tsumugi is said to be ashiginu, a silk fabric presented from Hitachi Province to the imperial court during the Nara period. It later came to be called Hitachi-tsumugi and was favored by Kanto warriors in the Kamakura period. In the Muromachi period, it was presented to the shogunate and the Kanto Kanrei under the name Yuki-tsumugi, becoming known nationwide. In the Edo-period encyclopedia Wakan Sansai Zue, it is introduced as the finest pongee.

The production area extends mainly around Yuki City in Ibaraki Prefecture and Oyama City in Tochigi Prefecture, formerly Kinu Village, which borders it along the Kinugawa River. For this reason, Yuki-tsumugi is listed under both Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures in the list of traditional crafts.

The Three Requirements of an Important Intangible Cultural Property

In 1956, plain-weave Yuki-tsumugi was designated a national Important Intangible Cultural Property. On Cultural Heritage Online, the Agency for Cultural Affairs lists the following three requirements for the technique.

• Thread: only thread hand-spun entirely from floss silk is used
• Kasuri: kasuri patterns are made by hand-tying the threads to resist dye
• Weaving: woven on an old-style backstrap loom, with the warp threads suspended from the waist and the tension adjusted by the body

Mawata is made by boiling cocoons and stretching them into a bag-like form, and the untwisted yarn drawn from it holds a great deal of air. Most of the spinning, kasuri tying, and weaving is done by hand, while only the dyeing incorporates modern methods. In 1977 (Showa 52), it was also designated a Traditional Craft by the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, then the Minister of International Trade and Industry.

Onto the UNESCO List

In 2010, Yuki-tsumugi was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. What was registered was not the finished product itself, but the techniques from thread spinning to weaving, and the people who carry them on. What earned recognition across borders was the accumulation of processes that support a single bolt of cloth.

Key Points
・It is said to originate from ashiginu presented from Hitachi Province during the Nara period
・Designated an Important Intangible Cultural Property in 1956 and a traditional craft in 1977
・The three requirements are hand-spun floss silk thread, hand-tied kasuri, and weaving on a backstrap loom
・Inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2010

Last time, we visited Obori Soma ware in Fukushima Prefecture as the closing entry of the Tohoku edition. VILLAGE Report vol.7 Fukushima Prefecture is here.

References: Agency for Cultural Affairs (Cultural Heritage Online), Yuki City, Ibaraki Prefectural Board of Education, Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries, UNESCO

—The Value Village Editorial Team

Photo: タバコはマーダー / CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)