| ■Tokyo National Research
Institute for Cultural Properties |
■Center for Conservation
Science |
| ■Department of Art Research,
Archives and Information Systems |
■Japan Center for
International Cooperation in Conservation |
| ■Department of Intangible
Cultural Heritage |
|
Researchers from South Korea and Japan discussing a display on “Documentation of Intangible Cultural Heritage” in the Lobby of the Institute
The Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage is actively encouraging international cooperation in the study of intangible cultural heritage with several foreign institutions mainly in Asia in accordance with greater momentum worldwide with regard to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. As part of these efforts, the Department concluded an agreement with the Folkloric Studies Division of the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage, South Korea on Research Exchanges between Japan and South Korea in relation to the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2008. International research exchanges have taken place in the 3 years since. Culminating these exchanges was an international conference on the intangible cultural heritage of Japan and South Korea that was held at the Institute on August 9th. Participants included 6 researchers from South Korea. Research presentations on intangible cultural heritage were given by 6 researchers, 3 of whom were Korean. The Department and the National Research Institute also agreed to continue exchanges as part of a 5-year plan starting in 2012.
Listening to villagers and former villagers talking about their lives from 1945 to 1955
Techniques of mushiro [a type of straw mat] manufacture in Nishi-hira-dani in the Yonegawa area (formerly Yonegawa Village) in the City of Kudamatsu, Yamaguchi Prefecture were studied from July 4th to 5th. Nishi-hira-dani is a set of small mountain villages consisting of Nishi-dani and Hira-dani and is located deep in a valley of the Chugoku Mountains. After 1955, village inhabitants flooded to urban areas on the coast, leading to such severe depopulation that there are fewer than 10 families left in both villages combined.
As part of efforts to promote the region, the Yonegawa area began efforts through local volunteers to revive techniques of making mushiro starting last year. Mushiro are folk implements that had long been an essential part of the lives of Japanese peasants. Techniques of manufacturing mushiro are more or less the same throughout Japan and have been so since the rise of modern Japan. However, the ubiquitous nature of mushiro meant that techniques of mushiro manufacture were seldom properly recorded for posterity. Since the mushiro in Nishi-hira-dani are made for personal use, mushiro are manufactured using the simplest of tools, presumably preserving an ancient form of mushiro manufacture. The current study seeks to revive, record, and carry on with techniques of mushiro manufacture through the assistance of local volunteers. This study also seeks to delve into and document life and conditions in villages that created folk implements like mushiro.
Hut on a cliff where young cormorants are caught in flight.
A young cormorant of suitable age for use in fishing
This study examined techniques of catching Japanese cormorants (an intangible folk cultural property of Hitachi City) in Jyu-o Town, Ibaraki Prefecture from June 7th to 8th. Most of the wild Japanese cormorants used in cormorant fishing, a traditional fishing technique now found mainly in western Japan, are caught here in Jyu-o Town at a little hut located on a precipitous cliff facing the Pacific Ocean. Both the technique and the present status of its transmission were studied. The hut had been affected by the collapse of the cliff due to the huge earthquake in March but had been repaired by cormorant catchers before the spring cormorant season starts (from the end of April to the middle of May). In all, 11 cormorants were caught and sent to fishing sites around the country. Plans are to visit the site again in the autumn cormorant season and to study the techniques firsthand.
