Masters of a 5,000- year-old craft

I arrived in Miyama in the dead of winter and under the cover of darkness. As I entered my accommodation for the night, a 160-year-old thatched-roof house called Hanabusa, I was struck by its warm appearance. The natural tones of the wooden fixtures and earthen floor were soothing, and I was immediately drawn to the rectangular hearth at the heart of the house where a cast iron pot was being heated over fiery embers.

It was not until the next morning, though, that I got my first glimpse of Hanabusa’s impressive roof, the very reason I had chosen to stay here. As I walked out of the front door, craning my neck, a steep, triangular carpet of brown-grey thatch with patches of moss on it filled my vision. The roof was so large that it seemed to gobble up the rest of the building, and I was grateful for the rare opportunity of sleeping in a structure seldom found in the Japanese countryside these days.

For at least five millennia, Japanese communities have constructed roofs from grass, reeds or straw. However, only a few clusters of this architectural style remain. Some are rural dwellings, while others are places of worship. Thatching, in fact, is closely related to Japan’s Shinto religion, with the imperial family at its head. “When the emperor accedes to the throne, a thatched building is created specially for this occasion,” explained Haruo Nishio, one of Japan’s last remaining thatchers, and the owner of Hanabusa.

Nishio recounted that the sound kaya, which means “thatch” in Japanese, forms part of the name of a god, the mythological father of Japan’s first emperor, who was born in an unfinished hut made from thatched cormorant feathers.

To Nishio, thatching is more than just a profession; it is a ritualistic practice connecting him to Japan’s roots. In the mid-1990s, aged 23, Nishio moved from Kyoto to the rural Miyama region, a 50km drive into the mountains north of the city, to become a thatcher at a time when this craft was nearing extinction. He bought Hanabusa, which is registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in Japan, and lived there with his family for seven years.

The experience was profound.

“Thatched roofs… create a space of nothingness, including invisible energies,” Nishio recalled. “Perhaps this isn’t a house, but a place of worship, and it was built out of gratitude for God, Buddha and our ancestors.”

The Nishio family eventually moved out and opened the doors to their former home, and several other renovated houses in Miyama, to overnight visitors. Their business, Miyama Futon & Breakfast, aims “to welcome visitors to experience our hometown’s wonderful lifestyle”, as Nishio explained.

The night I spent in Hanabusa didn’t connect me to a higher being, at least not that I’m aware of. But as I looked up at the thatched roof, stepped onto the raised wooden floor with the hearth at its centre, and noticed the absence of fences around the house – which, Nishio explained, represents the “open-mindedness” of the people who built Hanabusa – the thatcher’s vision of a sanctuary, rather than a house, resonated with me.

BBC