in his brother’s house.
More prosperous families with much larger landholdings might be able to consider allowing a second or even a third son to build a house and start a family, and many are taken into childless households or those with only daughters as adopted heirs. But the second son’s lot is assumed to be a solitary, if not strictly celibate, one. This value system definitely sacrifices a large measure of personal liberty for the greater common good. It may seem unfair, and some aspects of it, such as infanticide (dataimabiki, or literally “thinning out”), even extreme. But the voluntary limitation of birthrate and family size has led to a stable population nationwide for nearly two hundred years, to the benefit of all.
From where we sit we can see most of the rest of the house. Beyond the hiroma lie several other modest rooms, all opening onto each other and to the hiroma itself by large sliding doors. In inclement or cold weather, each room can be individually closed, shuttered, and independently heated with small braziers if needed. But on warm days like today everything is opened to the breeze, and it is possible to look from the doma all the way through to the other end of the house and into the garden beyond, a free-flowing enfilade of subtly differentiated living space.
Nearest the hiroma is the zashiki, a tatami-matted space that is less purely utilitarian but nonetheless well suited to many kinds of work as well as to the comfortable reception of guests. It is the most formal room of the house, and is where the third spiritual space, the butsudan, or Buddhist family altar, is located, concealed behind sliding or folding doors. Funerals are held in this room, as are the periodic devotional observances dictated by the faith that require the presence of a Buddhist priest.
The design and features of the zashiki provide a good indication of the prosperity of the household—and perhaps of the community as a whole. It also serves as a barometer for the broad cultural shift in which aspects of the aristocratic lifestyle have gradually percolated through society and become available to nearly everyone, even average families like Shinichi’s. There are many communities around the country where a zashiki with tatami mats would be considered an unnecessary luxury. In those areas, the zashiki would be nearly identical to the hiroma in terms of walls and flooring, and it would most likely not have a ceiling. Large straw mats might be placed on the floor as a kind of proto-tatami (for in fact tatami evolved from rougher, thinner woven mats).
But Shinichi’s zashiki is representative in its construction. It has a ceiling of lightweight battens and boards that is suspended from the beams above, requiring the services of a good carpenter. It has sliding doors as well as shoji made of rice paper over a fine wood framework, and although they were a bit pricey initially, they have proven to be quite durable and easily re-covered when the paper gets ragged. But these all require specialized craftsmen (like the “door and window man” who did the work here) and materials like paper—which cannot be made by most families at home, and so they represent a step away from true self-sufficiency and into the wider cash economy. At the same time, the design is simple to the point of austerity, is unembellished, and relies primarily on the harmonies and counterpoints of unadorned natural materials for its beauty.
a beautiful extension of space
The zashiki is also located to take best advantage of the engawa. With the exterior shutters open, the space under the eaves becomes a beautiful extension of the tatami room. The deep, low eaves shade the interior and modulate its light, and the shoji may be closed fully or partially to control the light even further. The engawa is an intermediate zone, and people can remain in that part where they are most comfortable at the moment or that part best suited to what they happen to be doing, without needing to break off conversation. It also allows visitors to drop by and chat very informally, standing under the eaves or sitting on the edge of the veranda.
To enter the house proper by removing one’s shoes and stepping up to the hiroma implies a long visit and, consequently, the expectation of further hospitality in the form of food and drink. The intermediate space of the engawa, however, with its “here but not really here” ambiguity, enables both parties to end conversation easily and return to what they were doing.
Tucked most deeply inside the house is the nando, or sleeping room. Like the zashiki, the nando has changed over the course of recent decades due to technical and economic developments. From time immemorial, it seems, the nando was a small, wood-floored room with a deep sill into which straw would be thrown as bedding for the entire household. Cotton futon bedding was unavailable, and actual bedding of any sort was only available to the wealthiest classes. Commoners slept in their one set of daily clothes, covering themselves with piles of loose straw and huddling together for warmth. It was uncomfortable and not particularly warm or hygienic.
The early eighteenth century witnessed an agricultural revolution, however, when cotton was grown on a large scale with the encouragement and support of the government. From the point of view of the government, cotton textiles present obvious advantages for outfitting armies because of their durability and strength when compared to hemp, the most commonly used fiber until then. (Silk, of course, is a superior fiber in these regards, but it remains a luxury item.) As cotton has become more widely available, it has declined in cost to the point where even commoners can afford more than one set of clothes as well as bedding, and everything can be repeatedly washed at high temperatures. Mortality records show that the overall health of peasants has improved with the introduction of cotton.
Like the zashiki, the nando of Shinichi’s house is floored with tatami—as is a small anteroom—and it has the deep closets for bedding storage that have started to become common around this time. It is still a fairly small room, however in which the whole family sleeps together, clean, warm, and comfortable.
We ask to use the toilet and are led there by Shinichi’s daughter. This is the smallest room in the house, and while located close to the entrance, it is an almost separate structure. It consists of two cubicles: one an open urinal for men, another just large enough for a wooden-floored squat toilet. The latter has a lightweight wooden door and latch, though there is no separation by gender, age, or status. It is simple and easy to clean, and though no one would consider it a pleasant place, it is made less offensive by incense and flowers. To the user, the toilet serves its purpose well. It is well ventilated (and consequently quite cold in winter), and a concern for hygiene is clear from the nearby hand-washing basin, which is found even in the poorest homes.
To the household, the toilet has an essential and positive economic value. Human waste, or night soil, has become an irreplaceable fertilizer, and considerable ingenuity has been expended on toilet design to allow these waste products to be easily collected and processed. The toilets are built over large wooden casks or earthenware jars sunken into the ground, with lids easily accessible from the ground level outdoors. The provision of a separate urinal is not purely for the convenience of the user; solids and liquids are processed differently before they are ready for the fields, and the underground holding tanks are also separate. From time to time, one sees outdoor urinals built directly over tanks, conveniently located for men working outdoors and intended to encourage them to deposit their waste fluids into the collection system rather than in the open field. Farmers also build toilets and urinals along well-traveled roads for public use, in the hopes of increasing their yields of fertilizer.
