[VILLAGE Report vol.21] Armor Craftsmen Made Buddhist Altars | Shiga Prefecture

Shiga Prefecture’s national designations are Shigaraki ware, Hikone Buddhist altars, Omi jofu ramie fabric these 3 items.

This time, we begin with Hikone Buddhist altars.

People who had made armor and bows and arrows

Hikone Buddhist altars had their beginnings in the middle of the Edo period. Craftspeople who had made arms and armor for the Hikone domain turned to making Buddhist altars.

Armor requires woodwork, lacquer, and metal fittings. Bows and arrows require the skill to carve wood. Those were, in themselves, the techniques of Buddhist altar making.

In Kochi, the skills of swordsmiths became blades for mountain work. In Shiga, the skills of arms and armor became tools for prayer. When war disappears, the technologies of war become something else.

The defining feature of Hikone Buddhist altars is thorough division of labor Woodwork, palace-like interior structures, carving, lacquering, gold leaf application, maki-e decoration, and metal fittings are divided into 7 trades, with specialists in each contributing their work.

No one person does everything. That is why each part grows deep.

One of the Six Ancient Kilns

Shigaraki ware is one of the Six Ancient Kilns of Japan. It is one of the few kilns that has continued producing from the medieval period to the present day.

In this series, we featured Okayama’s Bizen ware as pottery made “without applying glaze.” Both Bizen and Shigaraki are among the same Six Ancient Kilns.

Shigaraki clay contains coarse grains. That is why large pieces can be fired. Water jars, mortars, and tanuki figurines.

It was not so long ago that those tanuki began standing in front of shops across Japan. Yet today, Shigaraki is almost synonymous with tanuki.

Tradition can also have things added along the way.

Weaving hemp

Omi jofu ramie fabric is a hemp textile made around the Echi River. It is said that the humidity around Lake Biwa was well suited to handling hemp.

Climate determines industry. The hot springs of Oita and the plums of Wakayama were the same story.

Three items, each with its own reason

Buddhist altars came from the needs of the domain. Pottery came from clay. Hemp came from humidity.

Not one of them began for the same reason.

The next issue is Kyoto. The number will be on a completely different scale.

References: Shiga Prefecture, Hikone City, Koka City, Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries

—The Value Village Editorial Team

Photo: Motokoka / CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)