Gassho-style architecture is the gem of the long history of Gokayama

Gokayama is one of the world heritage sites in Japan, it’s famous for its gassho-style architecture. Gokayama is near Shirakawa-Go which is the other world heritage site of gassho-style architecture. It is located in a tiny mountainous region deep in Toyama prefecture, it is approximately an hour away by tourist bus from Kanazawa in Ishikawa prefecture. Many foreign tourists come to Gokayama to see gassho-style architecture. In addition you can enjoy being in a clean and quiet atmosphere between looming high hills and the Shokawa River filled with cold water. In a house you can relax among the smell of the thick wooden pillars, the stems of the roof and the ash of a sunken hearth, which all have existed for long time.

Moreover the more you know about the long, long history of this region, the more fun you will have in this world heritage site.

The Jomon Era:The Era before recorded history

The history of Japan is very long. Recorded history started from 16 centuries ago, the Chinese national history books noted the lifestyles of Japanese people of the fifth century and the governing styles of some countries in Japan at the time (before the unification by the Yamato Imperial Court). Moreover unrecorded history is far longer, Japan has the time streaming with twists and turns for fifteen thousand years.

Gokayama has history since the Jomon Era (approximately 13,000B.C. - approximately 200B.C.). Amid the Jomon Era, people hunted fishes, shells or animals to eat. They had no field to produce any grains, they made their houses near a hill, a river or the sea to catch their ingredients. They lived in a simple house (the picture above), “Tateana-shiki-jukyo”. Tateana-shiki-jukyo was built on the ground directly and with several wooden poles supporting the roof made of many long stems. A family lived in a house with all its generations together.

 Gassho-style architecture kept all generations of one family as well. About ten thousand years separates tateana-shiki-jukyo and gassho-style architecture, the lifestyles of two houses are similar.

Gokayama has barely any tiny rice fields, the residents had never been able to make a living only by rice. This environment above all else had demanded the minimum consumption to the residents. They had been making such compact lives throughout the several thousand generations that a large house including many people had been inevitable.

Hiding place of “Heike”

At the transition between the Heian Era(794-1192) and the Kamakura Era(1192-1333) large scale wars had taken place between two large samurai groups, Heike and Genji. Heike was beaten by Genji completely, with the surviving samurai of Heike escaping to some isolated mountainous villages to hide. Gokayama was such a hiding place. The residents in Gokayama had lived secretly eliminating interaction with other regions, and the residents and the refugees kept their door closed to other regions. I wonder if residents at that time had opened up to the samurai of Heike, nobody knows the answer, as a result they ended up living together.

In addition I am sure that the culture of Gokayama changed widely over time as a result of the merging of the Heike samurai refugees. Because the Heike samurai had been in Kyoto and they had had noble customs and advanced knowledge. Since this time the people of Gokayama had raised silkworm and had produced silk thread.

As a result the texture of the originality of Gokayama, including artistic spirit, mountainous country culture and a little bit of grace, was organized.

The country of gunpowder

In the Edo Era all of Japan had been governed with separation by many clans. Gokayama had been involved with the Kaga clan, which was the largest of all clans next to the Tokugawa Bakufu. Even in peace with no war the clan had kept its power of gun weapons secret, it had had to produce gunpowder and keep its stock. To begin with, the clan had made a manufacturer of gunpowder at Kanazawa where the castle of the clan is, but repeated explosions of the gunpowder stock made it transfer the manufacturer to a distant place. Gokayama was chosen because it was far from Kanazawa and a very secret place, nitrate which is the raw material of gunpowder could be made there, and the residents were very patient for the nitrate production which took a very long time from many mountain grass. When it comes to patience, residents in Gokayama might be second to none in patience (at least rather than people in Kanazawa) in the clan. The clan had aided Gokayama, residents had built big houses of gassho-style architecture in order to be able to produce nitrate and silk thread, and had lived surrounding of heavy snow.

Still in present times, when almost all Japanese people live their lives filled with a lot of electronics, some residents in Gokayama live in inconvenient houses of gassho-style architecture.

Excluding the inconvenience of electronics, a house of gassho-style architecture is the gem of the long, long history since the Jomon Era, I think. It is, in a lot of ways, a rural, functional, artistic, mysterious and lovely house.