THE WEATHERED PLANKS skirting the lime plaster walls of the merchant houses in Gokasho are cryptomeria boards from the hulls of maruko-bune, sturdy single-mast sailing vessels that once ferried commodities across Lake Biwa to Kyoto. Over a thousand maruko-bune plied Lake Biwa in the 17th and 18th centuries. Following shipping routes on the Sea of Japan, large junks (sengoku-bune with a capacity for 1000 koku of rice) transported commodities to Echizen-Tsuruga and other ports near Lake Biwa. From there, maruko-bune sailing vessels carried the goods from Lake Biwa’s north shore to Otsu, in the south, for overland transport to Kyoto and Osaka.
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GOKASHO, NEAR THE EAST SHORE OF LAKE BIWA, has an old town quarter of 19th century merchant houses. Before the houses run stone watercourses 1/2m deep and nearly 2m wide, with carp swimming in clear water. The aged houses have white shikkui (lime plaster) walls, boarded on their lower portions with weathered cryptomeria planks from maruko-bune sailing boat hulls. The planks are pierced at intervals with a ragged groove where an iron spike once held the plank fast to the boat hull. ►IT WAS THOUGHT WASTEFUL to discard such boards, because they were sturdy boards from trees a century old. There was also the necessity of boarding the white plaster wall to protect it from mud splatter. Another factor was the “wabi-sabi” beauty of the weathered boards. (photograph © K. Shimizu) ►The watercourses of Gokasho provided spring water from the mountains for daily living, while giving the town a unified appearance and producing a cool atmosphere in the summer. ►Inside their front gate, the houses have a square utility pool with underwater doors that open into the watercourse. Here, the vegetables and eating utensils were washed, with the carp and other fish cleaning up the crumbs of food rinsed into the water. (photograph © K. Shimizu) KAKU-NO-DATE’S 150 WEEPING CHERRY TREES are descended from three saplings packed from Kyoto to this far northern city in a bride's dowry around 1680. The cherry blossom strands falling over the black panel fences (kuro-itabei) of the samurai houses give the city its distinctive beauty. ► Kaku-no-date’s black panel fences are painted with shibu-sumi-nuri, a mixture of persimmon juice and pine ash that sheds water and prevents wood rot and insect infestation. Persimmon juice, which contains tannic acid, was also used to waterproof Japan’s traditional oil-paper umbrellas. (photograph © K. Shimizu) |
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