Hello!

I have been studying about urushi for the last some years, and found out that there is few information about it in English; so, I decided to make posts by myself, hoping it might help others getting to know more about Japanese culture.

Urushi is natural material made from tree sap of urushinoki (urushi tree).  It has been used as adhesion, protection and decoration material in Japanese traditional art and crafts for more than 9,000 years.  Although it is sometimes translated simply as "Japanese lacquer", urushi has many unique features that other types of lacquer do not obtain.

In this blog, I'd like to introduce you to the charms of urushi and share current information about it.  Comments, questions and advises are more than welcome!  If you are familiar with Twitter, please follow me through: urushi_info

Here are some keywords you might be interested in (will add more soon):
News / History / Urushikaki / Joboji

The History of Urushi - 1: From Ancient to Modern

The history of urushi utilization in Japan dates back to about 9,000 years ago in the Jomon Period.  Since that time, it has been used as an adhesive and protective material for daily necessities, especially tableware, as well as aristocratic art crafts, buildings, and other industrial purposes.  In order to meet the multiple demands, urushi was planted in areas all over the country from southern Hokkaido to Kyusyu island. 

The production of urushi remarkably expanded in Edo era, seventeenth to eighteenth century, when many daimyos, feudal loads, eagerly promoted its cultivation; it was a profitable cash crop because, not only its tree-sap, but also its seeds could also be sold as material for candles.  In this period, the modern urushi industry, based on division of labor and sectors, was established and each region eagerly developed individualistic techniques for cultivation of urushi or artworks.  The trend lasted until the Meiji Restoration in late nineteenth century, by which hans, their feudal domains were disassembled and Japan started to import urushi from foreign countries.

The History of Urushi - 2: Recent Trend

Along with industrialization, lifestyle of Japanese greatly changed and demand of urushi-ware decreased.  Many sites abandoned production of urushi and it was substituted by cheaper import urushi from foreign countries.  In 2009, only 4 % of urushi used in Japan was supplied by domestic production; the other 96 % of it was imported, mainly from China.  

Figure 1: Urushi Production Volume in Japan, Iwate Prefecture and Joboji from 1984 to 2009

(Data from Urushi Promotion Division of Ninohe City Office, 2010 and Forestry Agency, 2010)

Figure 1 above shows the urushi production volume in Japan, Iwate Prefecture and Joboji from 1984 to 2009.  For the last twenty years, the total production has declined from around five tons to one and a half ton.  Compared to its highest peak of 750 tons recorded in 1877, it has diminished by 99.8 %.  Production volume in Iwate goes along with it, and from the year 2001, all of production in Iwate is made in Joboji.  After 2003, a slight increase can be observed in the line of Japan, but this increase is mainly due to Joboji, going up from 900 kg in 2000 to 1,437 kg in 2009, while production in the rest of the country kept declining.  

Figure 2: Urushi Import Volume in Japan from 1984 to 2009

(Data from Urushi Promotion Division of Ninohe City Office, 2010 and Forestry Agency, 2010)

At the same time, there is also less import each year as described in Figure 2.  Especially from 2009 to 2010, it decreased by almost forty percent, from 70,476 kg to 41,050 kg.  This is also because of less demand of urushi and urushi ware in Japan, which is expected to continue decreasing for the next some years.  

Figure 3: Ratio of Joboji Urushi in Total Production in Japan from 1985 to 2009

(Data from Urushi Promotion Division of Ninohe City Office, 2010 and Forestry Agency, 2010)

Finally, Figure 3 indicates change in percentage of Joboji urushi in total national urushi production; ratio of Joboji urushi covered less than half of total production in 1985, then gradually increased up to nearly eighty percent in the last twenty years.  These data suggest the significance of Joboji in the whole urushi production industry, both national and global.  For this reason, I have visited the town three times in 2011 to see what's going on there. 

Joboji: The Town of Urushi

Joboji (see the map on Google Map)  is a town in Iwate Prefecture with a population of approximately 5,000.  It is no longer an independent administrative section after it underwent merger with neighboring Ninohe City in 2006.  Yet Joboji is still known for the central site for urushi and the name is normally used when referring to its production.  

In this area, there is a traditional art craft called “Joboji-nuri,” meaning urushi ware made in Joboji.  In the Nara era, starting and ending in eighth century, a Buddhist priest Gyoki built Tendai Temple in Joboji, and priests from Tokyo brought urushi techniques to the area  [1].  Since then, it has been a famous productive site of urushi ware as well as urushi, both for local uses and export to other parts of the country.  

In the Edo Period, the ruler at that time eagerly promoted planting urushi for tree sap and seeds.  In order to collect seeds every year, they tried to keep trees alive for several years; this methodology of urushi-kaki is called yojogaki.  After the Meiji era, when demand of seeds decreased and tree sap increased, a group of urushi-kaki workers called Echizensyu came from Fukui Prefecture and brought technique of koroshigaki, a methodology to tap trees and cut them down in one year, to the region [2].  

Like other sites, industrialization brought a change of lifestyle and production of “Joboji-nuri” was abandoned in 1930’s.  However, production of urushi, not ware but tree sap as material was kept in those years, as there was still a demand for it such as industrial and artistic uses.  This small town in Iwate will became the center of revitalization of urushi industry in the late 20th century, but I'll talk about it on another post.

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[1] Joboji Town History Editorial Committee ed., Joboji Choshi (Joboji Town History). Iwate: Joboji Town, 1997.

[2] Kudo, Koichi. Nambu no Urushi wo Sasaeta Hitobito: Echizensyyu no Kiseki (People Who Supported Urushi in Nambu: The Path of Echizensyu) Iwate:Kawaguchi Insatsu Kogyo, 2006.

Kyoshinkai: A Competitive Exhibition of Urushi

Kyoshinkai is a competitive exhibition annually held in November in Joboji.  It is divided into three sections in accordance with three tapping seasons: Hatsu, Sakari, and Sue.   As an experienced urushi tapper slots in a paddle into each barrel and pull it up, judges quickly check quality of the urushi by their eyes and record it on a rating form.  Receiving a prize in Kyoshinkai is a great honor for tappers.

Collection of Urushi: Urushi Tapping

The process of urushikaki, or tapping urushi trees, consists of 3 steps.  It might seems very simple and easy, but it's NOT! It requires delicate sensitivity and years of experience to be able to collect urushi for one whole season without killing trees. 

1. Bark tree with "kawahagi kama" to make the rough surface flat and easier to work on:

2. Make a horizontal scratch with "kakikama":

3. Scoop up urushi drop using "kakibera" and put it into "kakidaru":

The white line on the top is the scratch we just made.  Here you can see white tree liquid is pouring out from it!  

From the moment it is taken out from trees, urushi quickly starts oxidization and changes its color from white transparent to milky brown. 








All the pictures were taken in Ibaraki Prefecture, 2009 summer.

Collection of Urushi: Season and Tools

You might have seen natural rubber being collected from a tapped tree; they make a scratch on a gum tree and put a small pail under that, letting rubber to drip down automatically into it.  However, process of urushi tapping, urushikaki in Japanese, is very different from the image.

    

Tree tappers make the rounds of each tree everyday (except rainy days) during summer time from June to October or November.  One urushi tree is tapped once a four days, so scratches look like the above picture in the middle of the season.  This is a technique to get the maximal amount of urushi from one tree in accordance with its biological nature.

An experienced tree tapper usually works on about 400 to 500 urushi trees in one summer and collects 180cc to 200cc of urushi from each. After the season, they cut down the trees they tapped, and wait the stumps sprout out again and grow for the next 10-15 years (this method popular in Japan today is called "koroshigaki").

These are tools they use for urushikaki.  Names and combination seem to vary by region; since this picture was taken in Ibaraki Prefecture, I would like to explain them in its manner.

The long blade in the lefthand is called "kawahagi kama" and used to strip bark off a tree.  The small one with a complex curving at the point (see the closeup picture on the right) is "kakikama," a knife to make a scratch on tree surface.  The flat metalic spatula,  "kakibera" is used to collect urushi sap into the container called "kakidaru".  The next post will explain the process of urushikaki using these tools.