[VILLAGE Report vol.35] Gathering Wood to Make Patterns | Kanagawa Prefecture

Kanagawa Prefecture’s nationally designated items are Kamakura-bori, Odawara Lacquerware, Hakone Yosegi-zaiku these 3 items.

The previous issue on Tokyo had 23 items, so the difference next door is striking. However, all three are clustered in the same area.

Making color without dyeing

Hakone Yosegi-zaiku uses no dyes at all. It creates geometric patterns by combining only the natural colors of the wood itself.

White comes from mizuki and mayumi woods, black from kurogaki persimmon, yellow from nigaki, reddish brown from akagashi oak, and greenish tones from honoki magnolia.

Hakone is a mountain with an exceptionally wide variety of tree species. Its elevation range is large, allowing both warm-temperate and cold-climate trees to grow. Because the mountain had such a variety of colors, this technique came into being.

This is how it is made. Woods of different colors are shaved into triangular or diamond-shaped rods, bundled together and glued into a block called a “taneita” to make a block. It is then shaved with a plane as thin as paper.

This thin sheet is pasted onto a box. The pattern is not drawn; it is a cross-section.

Yamanashi’s Koshu Inden (vol.29) placed patterns on leather using lacquer. In Hakone, the pattern is made first and then cut. The order is reversed.

From Buddhist altar fittings to vessels

Kamakura-bori is said to have originated in carved lacquer, or tsuishitsu, which was brought from China during the Kamakura period.

Tsuishitsu is a technique in which lacquer is applied dozens of times to build up thickness, and then carved. It takes far too much time.

So in Japan, the wood was carved first and then lacquer was applied reversing the order. This is Kamakura-bori.

Niigata’s Murakami Kibori Tsuishu (vol.33) followed the same idea. Replacing an imported technique with a less labor-intensive form. This is a pattern that appears again and again in Japanese crafts.

Originally, it was used to make Buddhist altar fittings, but as tea ceremony spread, it shifted to tea utensils, and then to trays and plates.

Odawara shows the wood grain

Odawara Lacquerware is lacquerware made by applying a thin coat of transparent lacquer to a wooden base such as zelkova, allowing the grain to show.

It is the same idea as Gifu’s Hida Shunkei (vol.26). It is the exact opposite of Wajima-nuri (vol.31), which thickens the base layer and hides the wood.

Good-quality wood came from the mountains of Hakone, and Odawara was a post town on the Tokaido road. Both the materials and the customers were in the same place.

This is exactly the same structure as Aichi’s Arimatsu Shibori (vol.25). Crafts along the highways grow into souvenirs.

All 3 items come from the same mountains

Hakone, Odawara, and Kamakura. All three are concentrated in areas near Sagami Bay.

All of them sit on the wood of the Hakone mountains and the flow of people along the Tokaido road.

The number of crafts is determined not by the size of the land, but by the variety of customers. Putting it beside Tokyo as 23 versus 3 makes that clear.

Next issue: Saitama. A story about hina dolls.

References: Kanagawa Prefecture, Hakone Town, Odawara City, Kamakura City, Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries

—The Value Village Editorial Team