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Une fois dans son hameau montagnard, l'Americain s'affuble de vieilles défroques couvertes de suie gardées là dans un coffre; sa chaumière, comme celle de tous le habitants du village, n'ayant que le foyer central des vieilles demeures paysannes attardées un peu partout dans la pré-histoire, du Japon à l'Italie et de l'Italie à l'Islande. La fumée s'échappe, quand elle s'échappe, par un trou pratiqué dans le toit. Ici végètent, paraît-il, les anciens descendants de Taira, dont les rares survivants abordèrent Shikoku après la défaite navale de Dannoura, et parlent encore entre eux la langue archaïque du XIIe siecle.
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Once in this mountain village, the American puts on his old soot-covered clothes which have been kept in a chest; his thatched cottage, like those of all the inhabitants of the village, has the central hearth of old country residences surviving a bit here and there from pre-history, from Japan to Italy, and from Italy to the island. The smoke escapes, when it escapes, through a hole made in the roof. Here vegetate, as it were, the ancient descendants of the Taira, a few of whose survivors reached Shikoku after the naval defeat of Dannoura, and who still speak among themselves the archaic language of the 12th century. Marguerite Yourcenar, from Le Tour de la Prison Iya Valley, Traditional History
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The central mountains of Shikoku are known for a settlement pattern unique in Japan, namely, people live in scattered homes far up on the mountainsides. The typical “pattern of rural landscape” in Japan is a cluster of houses at the foot of a hill, bordered by rice paddies. In Iya there are almost no flat areas suitable to rice paddies, and the valleys are so steep that in order to get sunlight people needed to live on the heights. This is what created the “look” of Iya, unlike anything to be found elsewhere in Japan: people live in homes here and there high above the clouds – looking rather like the hermits’ cottages that appear in old ink paintings. |
Iya not being suitable to rice-growing, the old dwellers of the valley lived on grains such as soba (buckwheat), barley, and millet. After they were introduced from the New World in the 15th century, potatoes became a staple, and today Iya potatoes have the reputation of being Japan’s most delicious.
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Another import from the New World was tobacco. Iya became a premier tobacco growing region, and tobacco provided a major source of income until the early 90s. People harvested the tobacco and then hung the leaves from the rafters in their houses, where the rising smoke from the irori floor hearths cured the tobacco and gave it a distinctive flavor. This led to another particularity of Iya, which is that the old houses don’t have ceilings. They left the rafters open in order to cure the tobacco, and this gives even small houses a spacious, almost cathedral-like atmosphere. | ) |
Iya’s most famous tourist draw is Kazurabashi, the Vine Bridge, featured on many a tourist poster and beer mug. Originally Iya had about twenty such bridges, but Kazurabashi in West Iya was the only one to have survived. Sadly, the Kazurabashi area has been drastically transformed by ill-planned tourist development. However, East Iya reconstructed a pair of vine bridges deeper in the valley (Oku-Iya Kazurabashi), and so visitors can still see the bridges hanging in a natural setting.
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Iya in modern times
Until 2006, Iya is was divided into two municipalities of a type known as known as yama-son (“mountain villages”): West Iya, centered on the hamlets of Itchu and Kazurabashi (the Vine Bridge), and East Iya. East Iya is more poor and remote and has been rarely visited by tourists. The main hamlets are Kyojo (site of the village office), Ochiai (designated a historic landmark by the government because of its many surviving old houses), Asa (residence of the Heike descendants), and Tsurui (where Chiiori is).
During the early 2000s, Japan carried out a massive consolidation (gappei) of rural towns and villages, and Iya too was caught up in this process. As a result, in 2006, West and East Iya merged with the town of Ikeda and several other villages along the Yoshino river, to create the new Miyoshi City. The Miyoshi City office (in the town of Ikeda) now oversees the two Iyas.
Iya suffers seriously from depopulation (kaso). Kaso affects almost all rural regions in Japan, but Iya was especially hard hit because of its remoteness and the hard life peasants led on their rocky hillsides. The building of roads into Iya began with Iya Kaido in 1920, but really picked up steam in the 1980s and 1990s, and once built the roads acted like the plug being pulled out from a bathtub. In 1960, when Iya’s population peaked, 8,000 people lived in the valley; today they number only about 2,000, and most of these are very old. There are almost no children.
The impact on the local society has been devastating. It resulted in the closure of schools and abandonment of old festivals; hundreds of abandoned and rotting homes; the collapse of traditional agriculture and forestry; the turning of once fertile fields into sugi (cryptomeria tree) plantations; and a cycle whereby the villagers became dependent on government-subsidized construction money (roads, dams, and monuments) for their living income. For more details on the mechanism behind the construction boom and its impact, see Alex Kerr’s book Dogs and Demons.
Chiiori
Alex Kerr first entered Iya in the summer of 1971, and even then there were numerous abandoned houses. In the fall of 1972 Alex began looking throughout the villages of East and West Iya and also villages in neighboring mountain ranges in Kochi and on the eastern side of Mt Tsurugi. After exploring over a hundred houses, Alex settled on Chiiori, in the hamlet of Tsurui.
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Chiiori is one of the oldest extant houses in Tsurui, and it can be dated to roughly the Genroku Period (1699-1720), the same time that the Kimura House down the hill (a designated Important Cultural Property) was built. The houses are very similar. In size they measure 8 bays by 4 bays (a bay, or ken, is the space between two pillars, the length of one tatami). With just a few exceptions, this is about as big as houses get in Iya.
Inside is one large zashiki (reception room, grand, but traditionally rarely used except for parties and special guests), a central ima (living room, where the family gathered around the irori floor-hearth), two small nema (sleeping rooms), and the kitchen.
In June 1973, Alex bought the house. At the time it had been abandoned for seventeen years. Originally it belonged to the Kita family (who live today just below Chiiori) for many generations, before changing hands several times before Alex found it.
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Early guests included poet Minami Shokichi, and one night Shokichi, Alex, and the village children (there were many in those days) got together and came up with a name for the house. The name is “Chiiori”, made up of Chi an archaic un-used character they found in the dictionary for “Flute”, and Iori, meaning “Thatched Cottage”. Hence Chiiori, meaning “House of the Flute.” Shokichi wrote a poem about it to music from an old Quaker song, and the children used to sing it. |
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The villagers of Tsurui have always been very friendly, but right from the beginning the “best friends of Chiiori” were the Omo family living next door. Omo-san played a major role from then onwards in the upkeep and restoration of the house.
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To read more about the history of Iya and discovery of Chiiori, please see the first two chapters of Alex’s book Lost Japan.
1973~1996 The Early Years
In 1973 the house was in poor condition. There was no electricity or running water, and nearly fifty years after the most recent thatching, the roof had rotted badly and was leaking. Alex was still in college, but used to go up in summers with friends (including Shokichi and Tom Barron), and in the summer of 1975, everyone got together and thatched the roof.
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There wasn’t enough money to thatch the whole roof with new thatch, so Alex bought the thatch on an old house that was being torn down further up the village. Shokichi, Tom, myself, and the others carried the sooty old thatch from one end of the village to the other, on our backs, and then Omo-san and the roof-thatcher thatched the back of the roof. That held for ten more years. |
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In 1977 Alex finished university and started living in Kameoka and working at Oomoto Foundation running the arts program. That meant that he could come more regularly to Iya. A new group of friends started visiting, including Diane Barraclough, who would spend summers, vacations, and New Years Eve at Chiiori.
The house witnessed many unusual events and performances during this time, such as a Noh drama performed with silver dust sprinkled on the zashiki floors; and an evening when Shokichi’s wife (a butoh performer) danced right out of the house at midnight and into the snow.
The roof, however, having been only partially repaired with used thatch began to deteriorate. Starting in 1980, Alex began collecting thatch, bamboo, and other materials, and in 1986, the roof underwent its second, and this time a full re-thatching. Kita Satoshi acted as contractor, and he and Omo-san together felled and carried to the house 99 cedar logs which they used to replace the rotted taruki (upper rafters). Later, other friends gathered to help Satoshi and Omo-san conduct the re-thatching, which was completed in spring 1986.
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Unfortunately, this was followed immediately by a long period during which Alex was unable to visit the house regularly and there was nobody living there full time. This is a serious problem for a thatched-roofed house. With the irori burning every day, the smoke rises up and dries and cures the thatch. Insects, snakes, and other animals stay away, and the thatch, covered by soot, becomes resistant to rot, almost as if covered by creosote. With the irori burning regularly, the thatch can last up to seventy years. However, nobody was living in Chiiori so the house began to decay again.
1997~2007 Founding of Chiiori Project
In 1997, Alex moved his official base to Bangkok. Although he was still visiting Japan regularly, he was concerned that the house, already in poor condition, would decline irreparably with him away. So he got together with Mason Florence, who assumed half-ownership of the house and agreed to look after it.
Mason brought carpenters and a fresh group of friends up to Iya, and brought new life to the house which had been long neglected. Notable among the caretakers in the late 90s and early 2000s were Chris and Lauren Shannon.
After many a late night discussion, in 1999, we all got together and founded “The Chiiori Project” (TCP). This was the seed from which later grew Chiiori Trust. Zulkifli Mohamed, a dancer from Malaysia, performed in the zashiki, while the villagers watched, to inaugurate the new volunteer organization.
Since then many volunteers have lived at Chiiori. Following Chris and Lauren came Shea Ingram, who is still an advisor and director to the Foundation. Hirayama Yuki lived at Chiiori 2001~2004, and Bo Zhang and Wayne 2004~2007. And there were many others, too many to mention. In 2005, The Chiiori Project was incorporated officially with Tokushima Prefecture as a Japanese NPO (non-profit organization).
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By 2006 it was becoming clear that the project needed a new direction. Alex had stayed largely away since 2004 due to pressing work in Thailand, and as a result, the house once more was deteriorating, and the NPO had run out of money. However, by 2006, Alex was spending more time in Japan and with his activities in restoration in other parts of the country, he was in a better position to help the project. So in June 2007, Mason sold his ownership back to Alex, and the project entered its third, and hopefully most significant phase.
2007 ~ onwards. The new Chiiori Trust
In July 2007, the NPO was reorganized with a new board of directors, and re-named “Chiiori Trust.” After a few months of cleaning and restoration, the house reopened on November 1, 2007, with new volunteers.
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Many people — Shokichi, Tom Barron, Omo-san, Kita Satoshi, Diane Barraclough, Mason, the Shannons, Shea, Hirayama Yuki, Bo & Wayne — have dedicated much energy and large parts of their lives to Chiiori. It’s now time for the new Chiiori Trust to make their dreams come true.
As a house, Chiiori is today unique in Iya. When Alex first entered Iya in 1971, many homes still burned fires in their irori. Today, Chiiori is the last. In many respects (the use of bare wooden floorboards, without coverings or tatami, the open rafters without ceilings), Chiiori is a precious heritage of a lifestyle that dates back thousands of years. Even in the Edo Period, Iya’s houses already belonged to a mythical era, and the Lord of Awa once described this region as “Awa’s Shangri-la”.
Preserving Chiiori is to preserve a touchstone to this ancient era. At the same time, it’s important for Iya to move on in order to survive in the 21st century. In order for this to happen, Chiiori Trust will need to expand beyond Chiiori, into the village at large. This will involve the mobilization of resources and volunteers for organic agriculture, restoration of old houses, building of new houses as resorts and vacation homes, development of sustainable tourism, and programs for people to experience nature and traditional culture in the mountains. For details, please see Goals and Activities.