Wisteria Weaving
7/1/2023 Mountain Life
ｌLiving, Breathing, Ancient Artform on the Brink of Collapse
The Tango region in northern Kyoto Prefecture is well known as the produciton center of high-quality kimono silk, with a 1300 year history and 300 year history of the special Tango Chirimen textured silksilk fabric. But these heritage weaving arts are all predated by thousands of years to a rare and unique artform that was kept alive by a tiny village in the seaside area of Kyoto by the Sea. Wisteria weaving is the art of using wisteria vines to make thread to be woven into fabric. And Tango’s wisteria weaving is actually Japan's oldest textile originating thousands of years ago in the Jomon period. It has been designated as an intangible folk cultural asset by Kyoto Prefecture and was thought to have died out with the industrialization of modern fabrics..
thread-making (1981; photo by Kyoto Prefectural Tango History Museum)
ｌWisteria weaving
Woven wisteria is a fabric made by peeling away the bark for the inner fibers of wisteria vines that grow wild in the mountains to make thread, which are then woven into fabric. There are records of wisteria cloth being used as clothing. In the past, wisteria cloth was woven across most of the country, but as cotton became popular in the Edo period (1603-1867), common people shifted from wisteria and hemp to cotton for their clothing, and the art of wisteria weaving was lost.
In the mountains adjacent to Kamiseya, Shimoseya, and Komakura in Miyazu City and Ajidono in Kyotango City on the Tango Peninsula, local women continued to weave wisteria, which they called "nono" (wisteria cloth). Unbeknownst to them, the artform had died out across Japan.
weaving in the tiny village of Kamiseya (1981; photo by Tango Folklore Museum)
ｌA lucky discovery
Wisteria weaving was rediscovered in 1962 when a survey of folk materials by the Kyoto Prefectural Board of Education revealed that special wisteria bags (suma bags) used by pearl divers on the Tango Peninsula to store turban shells and other items caught in the sea was a wisteria cloth made in Kamiseya. In 1980, the Kyoto Prefectural Tango Folklore Museum conducted a survey in the Kamiseya area, and in 1985, two elder wisteria weaving experts from the village were invited as instructors for the first wisteria weaving workshop held in Kamiseya. Just a few years later, the Tango Wisteria Weaving Preservation Society was established (1989) with 58 volunteers who wanted to carry on this heritage art.
ｌLabor-intensive creation process
Ms. Hiroko Sakane, president of the preservation society and owner of the wisteria weaving studio Nagi in Mizoziri, Miyazu City, taught us about the wisteria weaving process.
(1) Cutting wisteria
Around May, we go into the mountains to harvest native wisteria vines, one of which is about 1.5 meters (1 hiro) in length. About 70 vines are needed to weave one kimono obi (belt).
(2) Fuji hegi (peeling wisteria)
Harvested wisteria is stripped of its skin by hitting it with a mallet, and the core is removed and dried in the sun.
(3) Boiling in lye (ash) (akudaki)
The peels are soaked in water to soften them, covered with wood ash, and boiled for four hours. The lye cooking process is said to be a process that involves a strong element of luck, as the women weavers often say that lye boiling is the only part of the process where you need a bit of luck, and that it makes a difference in the finished product.
4) Fujikoki (Fuji koki)
The boiled fibers are rinsed in a river and squeezed between two V-shaped sticks called "kobashi" to remove the bark and the fibers. The kobashi are made from locally found bamboo stalks.
(5) fiber soaking and drying
Soak wisteria fibers in hot water in which rice bran has been dissolved to make the fibers more pliable before hanging them on a pole to dry.
(6) thread making (fuji umi)
Separate fibers are twisted into one another to make a long single thread. The trick to doing this is knowing which end of the thread is the “root” side, and which is the “head.” Since wisteria naturally twists as it grows, its important to connect root to head and twist the thread together in the same way that it twists in nature. This will result in a strong, unified thread.
(7) Spinning
The strands are soaked in water to soften them, and then twisted with a spinning wheel to finish the thread.
8) Wrapping
The spun thread is wound onto a wooden frame.
(9) settin the loom
Warp threads (up and down threads) are arranged on the loom and set to a designated number that depends on the pattern being woven and the wooden loom frame size, complexity, etc.
(10) Weaving
Weft (left and right) thread is put into a shuttle annd women into the warp threads to make cloth.
｜Hard but Incredible Work
According to Sakane, in the Kamiseya district, grandmothers harvest wisteria in April and May, when the snow melts and the wisteria is at its most moist, and preserve it after its peeled for later. After the busy farming season, when the snow begins to fall in November or December, the lye-boiling process is resumed and the wisteria weaving is done in a numbingly cold river.
In spring, the women would carry the wisteria cloth on their backs down the mountain to the town of Miyazu, where they would sell it to wholesalers who came from Kyoto to buy it. The old women's back bent under the weight of the cloth on the long walk to Miyazu, but on the way back they walked tall, free of the burden of so much cloth, but also from the joy of having cash to support their families," says Sakane. Many of the Seya natives became doctors and teachers. "They must have saved their money well and educated their children. Wisteria weaving is hard work, but I think it was also a wonderful job," she says.
Selected as Top 100 Green Destination Story 2023
The Tango Wisteria Weaving Preservation Society, of which Ms. Sakane is the president, has held six workshops from May to July and September to November each year at the Wisteria Weaving Heritage Exchange Center in the Kamiseya district to continue to pass on the art of wisteria weaving. Every year, participants come from all over Japan, and currently there are about 100 members. 5 people are learning wisteria weaving in 2023, including a woman from Iida City, Nagano Prefecture, who is engaged in making wisteria threads, and a woman from Poland who is working as a textile worker in Kyoto City. On the day of the workshop, some people come from Kyoto and Osaka to help out. Sakane wants to bring the technique of wisteria weaving, which once existed throughout Japan, to the rest of the country. Moreover, there are a lot of local people who don’t even know that wisteria weaving exists. Now there are more opportunities to let people know.
Recently, tours for foreign tourists to observe wisteria weaving have begun. A Sweedish company specifically interested in textiles came to the area to learn about wisteria weaving. The company's representative said, "Swedes are highly environmentally conscious, and wisteria weaving is an environmentally friendly traditional craft. With environmental awareness growing worldwide, wisteria weaving will certainly gain more popularity globally.
In October 2023, Miyazu City was selected as one of the "Top 100 Sustainable Tourism Destinations in the World" by Green Destinations, an international organization for sustainable tourism.
Passing on Heritage Arts
Ms. Sakane's studio, Wisteria Weaving Studio Nagi, produces a variety of products using wisteria cloth, including noren (curtains), obi (kimono belts), zori (slippers), placemats, and coasters. The charm of wisteria cloth is that it can be varied by dyeing the threads with natural plants like yashabushi, persimmon, and chestnut dyes. It can also be woven in combination with other materials like silk. The threads will break if you don't find good quality wisteria, remove the bark well, and carefully carry out each step of the process.
“Every step of the wisteria weaving process reflects the personality of the weaver.” says Sakane.
Ms. Sakane remembers that when she learned wisteria weaving from the elder women in Kamiseya, they told her that she was young and didn’t have to do such harsh work.” Wisteria weaving was such a hard and demanding job for people in the past, and they did it with their spare time in agricultural lulls. But now people can choose to learn, pass on the traditions, and see wisteria as an artform that is not only sustainable, but beautiful as well.
