[VILLAGE Report vol.8] White and Black, Two Types of Pottery | Kagoshima Prefecture

From Miyazaki to another production area of Oshima Tsumugi. In Kagoshima, there are 3 nationally designated traditional crafts They are Honba Oshima Tsumugi, Satsuma ware, and Kawanabe Buddhist altars.

Oshima Tsumugi is woven twice

Honba Oshima Tsumugi is made through more than 30 processes before it is completed.

What is distinctive is Woven both before and after dyeing This is why people say, “Oshima Tsumugi is woven twice.”

It is woven once in order to be dyed, then unraveled and woven again. This means that work invisible in the finished piece accounts for half of the process.

traditional mud-dyed Oshima and mud-indigo Oshima as well as colored Oshima and white Oshima. At places such as Oshima Tsumugi Village, visitors can actually experience mud dyeing and hand weaving.

White Satsuma and Black Satsuma

The origins of Satsuma ware lie in the Satsuma lord bringing potters back from Korea.

From there, two types of pottery branched off.

White Satsuma features intricate painted decoration. It was favored by the feudal lord.
Black Satsuma was practical everyday ware for ordinary people.

The same land, the same kiln, the same line of techniques. Yet depending on the person using them, they took completely different forms.

Neither is above the other

When I learned this story, my hands stopped.

It is easy to assume that White Satsuma has greater value. It takes more work, and it looks more ornate.

But it is the black ware that has continued to be used for hundreds of years. For everyday meals, in everyday kitchens. When they broke, they were bought again, and each time the kilns were fired.

What supported the production area was not an expensive single masterpiece, but affordable everyday use.

Beppu bamboo craft also began as kitchen tools for hot-spring cure visitors. Hasami ware, too, was folk craft tableware. In this series, we arrive again and again at the same conclusion.

Kawanabe Buddhist altars and the Densan Mark

Made in Kawanabe, Minamikyushu City, Kawanabe Buddhist altars is known for combining splendor with sturdiness. The area's deep historical ties to Buddhism form part of the background of this production region.

For these 3 items, the “Densan Mark” may be used. It is a red mark combining the character for tradition with the Hinomaru.

If you see it at a shop, please think of it as a sign that the national government has verified the production area and techniques.

We have made a full circle around Kyushu

Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Oita, Miyazaki, and Kagoshima. After traveling through the seven prefectures, something became clear.

Every prefecture had “crafts that began as everyday tools.”

Surprisingly few began with the intention of making something beautiful. There were people who wanted to use something, and people who answered that need. After that continued for hundreds of years, it was later called “craft.”

I hope that what we are doing can stand as an extension of that.

Next issue: across the sea to Okinawa.

References: Kagoshima Prefectural Government, “Traditional Crafts of Kagoshima Prefecture” and “Kagoshima Traditional Crafts”; Kagoshima City, “Designation Status of Traditional Crafts”; Kagoshima Prefecture Official Tourism Site

—The Value Village Editorial Team

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