Cattail Craftwork in Hiruzen, Okayama
On February 22, 2025, a survey was conducted in Hiruzen, Maniwa City, Okayama Prefecture, on techniques for making cattail craft using himegama (Typha domingensis).
Prior to the period of rapid economic growth, cattails were used throughout Japan as materials for a variety of daily utensils, such as backpack baskets, storage containers, traditional gaiters, snowshoes, and rugs. As an aquatic plant, cattails have a hollow structure, and are characterized by their light weight, excellent heat retention, and waterproof properties, as well as their extremely beautiful luster. Because of their durability, in some regions, cattails were used to make more “formal” baskets or gaiters, which are thought to be of a higher quality grade than straw crafts.
Since many of these cattail crafts were made for private uses, the production techniques have been lost in most parts of the country due to changing lifestyles and the rise of chemical products. However, craftsmen in Hiruzen succeeded in revitalizing cattail craft as a local industry during the period of rapid economic growth, and the technique has been passed down to the present day. In 1982, Hiruzen Cattail Craft was designated as a local traditional craft by the prefecture, and today, the Hiruzen Cattail Craft Production Promotion Association (8 members) is working to carry on the craft.
Cattail crafts are made by peeling off the bark of first-year cattail harvested by hand around October and weaving them with a strong rope made from the inner bark of the Japanese linden tree (Yamakage in local name). The rope is made by cutting down a 20-year-old yamakage tree during the end of June to July (before the end of the rainy season), soaking the peeled inner bark in a pond or swamp for about four months to let them rot, washing and drying them, then thinly pealing them layer by layer and twisting them into a thin, thread-like rope. The rope used for old cattail baskets in the Hiruzen Folk Museum collection is more loosely woven than the current version, which suggests that a thinner, more beautiful rope was pursued in the process of refining it as a fine craft.
Hiruzen is about 500 to 600 meters above sea level, and is a region with heavy snowfall, said to be “under snow for a hundred days” from December to March. In the past, good quality himegama could be gathered in abundance in the wetlands of the plateau, but due to climate change and animal damage, the natural good material has no longer been growing in recent years, and now the producers have switched to cultivation in fallow fields to secure the material. However, cultivated cattails have problems such as being too soft or having uneven color or staining. Since it is difficult to secure high quality material as in the past, the craftsmen of Hiruzen are continuing their trial-and-error efforts to improve the situation.
The inability to sustainably and stably secure the raw materials used for traditional techniques has become a major challenge throughout the country. The Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage will continue to survey the current situation in each region regarding the techniques for using materials rooted in the local environment and the issues involved.