[VILLAGE Report vol.14] 83 million a year, 90% of Japan’s total | Kagawa Prefecture

Crossing the sea from Tottori to Shikoku. This time, the story is about a town with overwhelming numbers.

83 million fans a year

Marugame uchiwa fans have an annual production volume of about 83 million, a 90% share of the national market in total.

Nine out of every ten uchiwa fans made in Japan come from this region.

It was designated a national Traditional Craft Product in May 14, 1997. You may think that sounds surprisingly recent, but its history goes back to the early Edo period.

It began as souvenirs on the temple approach

Its origin was a souvenir for visitors to Kotohira-gu Shrine.

A red fan with a gold mark inside a circle. People took it home as proof of their pilgrimage to Konpira-san.

Having many worshippers means there is a market without having to say a word. The production area grew there.

As side work for lower-ranking samurai

This is where the town becomes distinctive.

The Marugame Domain encouraged this work as a side job for lower-ranking samurai.

The fact that the domain officially recommended it means that the lives of samurai at the time required it. And this rapidly expanded the production area.

As we have seen many times in this series, many traditional crafts began from practical needs. Kumano brushes came from migrant work, Beppu bamboo crafts from kitchenware for hot-spring visitors. Marugame uchiwa fans were pilgrimage souvenirs and side work for samurai.

They are still finished by hand today

83 million fans. At this scale, it would seem only natural that production had been mechanized.

In fact, most of them today are fans with plastic ribs. Even so, traditional craft Marugame uchiwa fans are still bamboo, cotton thread, and washi paper natural materials such as these, and each fan is finished by hand by a craftsperson.

A fan is an inexpensive tool. Making something inexpensive, by hand, in large quantities. The very fact that this works is a form of technique in itself.

Making inexpensive things properly

Making a single expensive piece is, in a sense, easy to understand. The more labor you put in, the more you can raise the price.

What is difficult is Maintaining the quality of inexpensive things is the point. Within a price ceiling, they do not lower the quality of the materials or stop hand-finishing.

Next issue: Tokushima, a prefecture where one color gave rise to three crafts.

References: Kagawa Prefectural Government, “Traditional Crafts of Kagawa” and “Kagawa Mono: Marugame Uchiwa Fans”; Marugame City, “Uchiwa Fans” and “The Process of Making Uchiwa Fans”; Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries

—The Value Village Editorial Team

Photo: Toto-tarou / CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)