from large floor mats to small ones for seating to “hot pads” and decorative items. Large mats require a specialized weaving frame, usually homemade, and the technique is really that of textile weaving. They also weave pouches and carrying bags from straw, either rough and open weave for heavy-duty work or close and finely woven with decorative patterns for more presentable occasions.
They weave a number of clothing items from straw as well, primarily foot-wear, aprons, and foul-weather gear. Straw footwear ranges from lightweight sandals to heavy snow boots, as well as gaiters and overshoes. In fact, straw overshoes are even made for horses. Straw aprons are mainly for outdoor use, and because they require flexibility, they are usually very finely and decoratively woven. Raincoats and cloaks are made thick and bulky to minimize the amount of moisture that can penetrate, but they are surprisingly lightweight; their collars and neck closures are comfortably thin and flexible. Many kinds of hoods and hats, as well as mittens, can be made from rice straw, and when twisted into rope, its uses are multiplied.
They make bales in which to package and transport rice, as well as brooms, brushes, and even toys from rice straw. It is durable enough to last a season or a year, but most straw items need to be replaced regularly. (There is a particularly high built-in demand for new footwear.) Finally, of course, Shinichi’s family can easily recycle straw items into mulch or fuel, resulting in a zero-waste cycle of use.
They use woven reeds and bamboo strips for more durable items such as basketry and hats. Because of its resiliency, bamboo is particularly appropriate where stiffness and flexibility are desired, and it is fashioned into a variety of implements such as strainers, sieves, funnels, lids, dividers, as well as boxes, tubs, and even ceilings—all using basket-weaving techniques. Bamboo is extremely hardy, prolific, and fast growing, and like straw is easily recycled. It is an irreplaceable feature of Japan’s technical and material culture.
green cottage industries
There are many kinds of textiles that lend themselves to cottage industry, and some have evolved into mass production. True textiles include bast fibers (hemp and ramie), cotton, and silk. Of these, hemp is technically the most ancient and also the easiest to produce, and Shinichi’s family produces enough for its own use. Silk was introduced from China in about 300 ad as a labor-intensive elite good, but Shinichi’s household does not produce it. Cotton, though introduced from Korea and China initially in the twelfth century, was not produced on a large scale until the late seventeenth century, making it the most recent textile fiber. Shinichi’s household does not grow cotton, but weaves and dyes cotton they obtain from relatives.
All of these cottage industries involve trade-offs between resource allocation, environmental impact and the value and utility of the finished products. Examined in this light, straw work represents a nearly ideal process, while devoting farmland to cotton instead of less-productive textile plants represents environmentally sound judgment. Until the dyeing step, the textile processes are nonpolluting in general, their products reusable and recyclable. The finishing steps are essentially indoor activities, and as such they allow the architectural space to be efficiently used for other purposes as well.
Brewing and fermentation at the cottage-industry scale do not consume large quantities of either fuel or freshwater, and their intermediate products are consumable or compostable. The equipment required is primarily wooden barrels and earthenware jars, both of which can be used for years if not decades; these activities do not significantly increase the household’s environmental footprint. Making charcoal for sale is a special case because it involves the direct consumption of limited forest resources, transforming wood from a highly efficient heat source into a less efficient but more easily transported one. It is essentially a gathering activity, and it provides the fuel supply for city dwellers, a large fraction of the population.
Of the industries described above, only silk production embodies extravagance in several areas: acres devoted to mulberry trees, large architectural structures for raising the worms and, consequently, large consumption of building timber for the purpose, a several-fold increase in fuel consumption for heat, and a large outlay of human labor.
Two additional cottage industries should be considered from the standpoint of fuel and resource use, namely smithing and pottery. At the home-industry scale, these activities require several times the amount of fuel a typical household uses, and so their presence decreases the share available to all. Smiths require an intense charcoal fire to be kept burning at all times, while potters consume vast amounts of firewood every few weeks when the clay is fired. Both industries depend upon nonrenewable primary materials, namely iron and potters’ clay. It may be surprising to think of clay as nonrenewable, but extracting clay is in fact a mining operation, albeit with shovels and relatively shallow pits. Sources of suitable quality are relatively rare and rights of access and use are contentious issues.
Good-quality pig iron must usually be transported great distances and has a high initial cost, but full use is made of its easy recyclability. Though many repairs to iron implements can be improvised at home, villagers require access to a smith, even if he devotes part of his day to farming as well. Having a local potter is less essential except in cases where the local economy and other cottage industries depend upon having a ready supply, and it is not surprising that potters tend to form specialized villages close to good sources of clay.
into the forest
Shinichi and the other residents of Aoyagi Village spend most of their time in and around their homesteads and fields, some of which occupy the lower hillsides. They frequently spend days a bit deeper in the mountains gathering food and fuel. But the villagers also participate periodically in logging activities that take them even deeper into the forest. While some of their farming activities provide for local needs, most of their rice finds its way to Edo and the other large cities. Similarly, the lumber they help produce is intended almost entirely for the urban market, linking the well-being of the city to the environmental health of the countryside even more closely.
In forestry, as in farming, an ethic of conservation and husbandry prevails. The forests around Shinichi’s village are farmed for lumber products in a way that satisfies both the subsistence needs of the farmers themselves and the cities’ voracious appetite for timber products.
Man has altered the balance of natural species in the archipelago, and the forest shows human influence clearly. Even at this point, very little is left in a virgin state, and the climax stands of sugi and hinoki trees that are so highly valued were mostly cut in the time of Shinichi’s distant ancestors. The culture and the economy prefer these straight, aromatic, close-grained, and easy-to-work conifers for building material, and so much of the effort of forestry has involved finding and nurturing the best ones, cutting and extracting them, and planting more in their
