Onta Pottery Village (小鹿田焼の里) 小鹿田焼の里
Zero motors: the current crushes the clay, the foot turns the wheel, the kiln is wood-fired.
The village dates from 1705, when a local craftsman brought here the pottery technique of Koishiwara, in present-day Fukuoka Prefecture. Since then the process – water-powered mortars, a wheel turned by foot (蹴轆轤, kerokuro), a wood-fired kiln – has remained without electricity or machines, and the craft is passed down only from father to son, within the same families. On 31 May 1995 the 小鹿田焼 technique was designated by the Japanese government as 重要無形文化財 (Important Intangible Cultural Property); on 28 March 2008 the whole landscape of the village (houses, kilns and the terraced fields of nearby Ikenotsuru) was designated 重要文化的景観 (Important Cultural Landscape), the designation that protects the place as a whole rather than a single building. The rhythmic sound of the mortars was chosen in 1996 as one of the hundred ‘soundscapes of Japan to be preserved’ (日本の音風景100選).
Oita
皿山 (Sarayama)
