[VILLAGE Report vol.43] 90% of Japan’s shogi pieces | Yamagata Prefecture

Yamagata Prefecture’s nationally designated crafts are Tendo shogi pieces, Yamagata cast metalwork, Yamagata Buddhist altars, Oitama tsumugi silk, Uetsu shinafu in total.

A Side Job for Samurai

Tendo shogi pieces account for the majority of domestic production. The raised-letter pieces used in professional shogi title matches are also made in this town.

It began in the late Edo period. The Tendo Oda domain was small and financially strained.

So the domain encouraged lower-ranking samurai to make shogi pieces as a side job.

In this series, we have looked several times at the relationship between samurai and crafts.

• In Shiga (vol.21), armor craftsmen shifted to Buddhist altars
• In Kochi (vol.17), swordsmithing skills became mountain tools
• In Yamagata, the samurai themselves became makers

It is also said that there was a belief that “carving shogi pieces did not harm a samurai’s dignity,” because shogi was considered close to the martial arts.

What is made is also decided by what the people of that land allowed.

Iron That Competed in Thinness

Yamagata cast metalwork The feature of Thinness in total.

Tea ceremony kettles and iron kettles are cast as thinly as possible. The thinner they are, the lighter they become, and the faster heat is transferred.

Alongside Tenmyo cast metalwork from Tochigi (vol.39) and Nambu ironware from Iwate (vol.44), it is an iron production area, but Yamagata has taken on the role of “thinness.”

Even with the same material, each production area has different strengths. This is something we have seen many times in this series.

South and North in a Large Prefecture

Oitama tsumugi silk is made in the southern part of the prefecture, Uetsu shinafu is made around Tsuruoka in the northern part of the prefecture.

Uetsu shinafu is a cloth that uses fibers from the bark of the linden tree. It is even stiffer than hemp and resistant to water. one of Japan’s oldest textile lineages according to estimates.

This name also extends across to the Niigata Prefecture side (vol.33). No matter how many times we look at the map of crafts, it is not cut off at prefectural borders.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Are there different types of shogi pieces?
A. Yes. There are “written pieces,” where the characters are written; “raised pieces,” where lacquer is built up; and “carved pieces” and “carved-and-filled pieces,” where characters are carved and filled with lacquer. The number of processes and the prices vary greatly.

Next issue, we go to Iwate. It is a story about iron kettles and domestically produced lacquer.

References: Yamagata Prefecture, Tendo City, Yamagata City, Yonezawa City, Tsuruoka City, Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries

—The Value Village Editorial Team

Photo: くろふね / CC BY 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)