JAPANESE MINKA LXVIII - INTERIORS 9: KAMADO 3

This post is the last on Japanese stoves (kamado 釜土), and will simply present more examples, if only to give a sense of the great variety of kamado that once existed in minka.

The picture below shows a small ‘two-burner’ kamado in a house north of Lake Biwa. It is located in the dwelling’s earth-floored ‘habitable doma’, known in this area as the niuji (にうじ). Likewise, in this region the kamado is called the fudo, and the large ceremonial kama, the о̄-kama (大釜 ‘big kama’), is called the о̄-fudo. The niuji is swept clean until it appears polished, and wearing footwear in it is not allowed. A mat (goza 茣蓙) is laid on the earth floor in the framed area in front of the kamado.

The fudo in an earth-sitting dwelling (doza-sumai 土座住まい). The doma is kept impeccably clean, and shoes are not allowed to be worn in it. The stove is tended from the reed mat (goza 茣蓙) laid in front of it. Hirai family (Hirai-ke 平井家) residence, Shiga Prefecture.

Below is a kamado from a minka at the foot of Mt. Akagi (Akagi-yama 赤城山) in Gunma Prefecture; here the kamado is called hettsui. This example is built into one corner a deep, stone-lined irori; the wife tends both the irori and the hettsui from the ki-jiri (木尻) position between the irori and the doma, from the ki-jiri-dai (木尻台, ‘wood tail platform), which is a step down in level from the main floor.

A kamado built into a corner of the irori, expressing a division of function: the kamado is used for ‘boiling’ (ni-taki 煮炊き) cooking. Akuzawa family (Akuzawa-ke 阿久沢家) house, Gunma Prefecture.

The image below, from Tottori Prefecture, shows an example of a kamado built on the sill (agari-kamachi 上がり 框) side of the kaka-za (かか座), the wife’s seating position, from which the irori and kamado are used in combination for cooking.

A kamado built next to the wife’s seat (kaka-za 嚊座) at the irori, at the edge of the doma. The irori is used only for heating, and boiling water. Tottori Prefecture.

Below is an example of an old, primitive style of kamado: the pot or kettle rests on three stones placed in the irori, which is surrounded by a timber frame. This example is from Amami-О̄shima (奄美大島).

A primitive kamado suggestive of the kamado’s origins, consisting of three stones plastered with clay. Kagoshima Prefecture.

The picture below is an example of how, in regions with cold climates, there is a tendency over time for the kudo to sidle up to the raised, board-floored ‘living room’ or multi-purpose room; a duckboard or slat panel (sunoko 簀の子) is placed in front of the kudo, or a low board floor built there, from which to tend the stove.

Here the kamado has drawn up to the edge of the multi-purpose room. The sink area behind it has already acquired a board floor (and modern kitchen unit); next in the modernisation of the doma, a timber slat floor panel (sunoko 簀の子) would be laid in front of the kamado, then this area too would eventually be floored. Kyо̄to City.

In even colder climates, the kudo is moved right up into the board-floored ‘kitchen’ or daidoko, which also contains an irori, as shown in the image below; the irori and kudo are united within a single perimeter frame. The mountainous region of northern Kyо̄to Prefecture is once such area.

Here the kudo has migrated to the centre of the gathering room for eating and family time (danran 団らん). The irori and the kamado are enclosed within the same frame. Kyо̄to.

Kudo in Kinki region prefectures such as Kyо̄to and Nara are, as in the picture below, often built in a semi-circular magatama plan-form, and carefully finished in fine plaster. After being smoothed with a trowel (kote 鏝), the plaster is polished with camellia (tsubaki 椿, Camellia japonica) leaves.

A seven-burner kudo in the Rakuhoku (洛北) district in north Kyо̄to City. The curved plan-form allows a single person to tend each fire and pot from a central position.

The kamado shown below is in the doji (doma) of the Tsurutomi villa (Tsurutomi-yashiki 鶴富屋敷), built in the early 19th century, in Shiiba village (Shiiba-son 椎葉村), Miyazaki Prefecture. The stove consists of two units: a two-burner stone о̄-kama, and a smaller two-burner kamado for everyday use. The board-floored area behind the stove is called kama-no-ushiro (釜の後ろ, ‘stove’s behind’), kama-sedo (釜背戸, ‘stove back door’), etc., and is used for food preparation and serving.

A two-part, four-burner kamado for both formal and everyday uses. Miyazaki Prefecture.

Below is a kudo installed in the tо̄ri-niwa (通り庭) of a townhouse (machiya 町家) in Kyо̄to City. The tо̄ri-niwa is the long ‘strip’ doma that runs the full length of the narrow machiya, from the street to the rear. From right to left in the picture is the white-plastered о̄-kama-sama, the to-gama (斗釜, ‘to stove’; one to 斗 is 18.039 litres), and the roku-dai (六台, lit. ‘six platform’, presumably a six-burner unit), only partly visible.

A kudo in the tо̄ri-niwa of a Kyо̄to townhouse (kyo-machiya 京町家). The о̄-kama-sama is decorated with a pine branch.

Finally, the picture below shows another о̄-kama-sama (大釜様, ‘honorable big stove’; sama is an honorific, more formal and respectful than san) in Kyо̄to adorned with pine and sakaki branches, enshrining the stove deity. It is not used day-to-day, but only on formal occasions.

An о̄-kama-sama adorned with pine and sakaki branches. Inoue family (Inoue-ke 井上家) residence, Kyо̄to.

JAPANESE MINKA LXVII - INTERIORS 8: KAMADO 2

As discussed in a previous post, many of the dialect names for irori, including the word irori itself, express the meaning of ‘a place of people/a place where people are’ (hito no idokoro 人の居所); many others, such as hidoko (火所) and hodo (ほど), have the sense of ‘fire place’ (hi-sho 火所). There are places where these same names are used to refer to the kamado, and regions where the word kamado is used to refer to the central part of the irori; thus we can observe the same mixing and blurring of boundaries in the names for the irori and the kamado as we do in the geographical distribution of the things themselves.

In many regions, the kamado is called the kudo (くど), or less commonly the hettsui (へっつい); in Shiga Prefecture and elsewhere, it is called the fudo (ふど). Kudo and fudo are both cognates of hodo and so belong to the ‘place of fire’ group of names. Especially grand kudo can be found in Kyо̄to and Nara in the Kinki region, and the section of the doma where they are installed is called the kamaya (釜屋, lit. ‘pot house’), a name that originally referred to a separate building, and has survived the merger of this building with the main house. The kudo of the Kinki region have characteristically beautiful magatama-shaped (magatama-gata 勾玉形) plan-forms, and are carefully finished in fine plaster, sometimes into pillowy, marshmallow-like shapes.

A collection of magatama (勾玉),the curved, comma or embryo-shaped stone beads produced from the late Jо̄mon period (from roughly the 6th century BC) into the Kofun period (300 AD - 586 AD).

Smaller kudo might consist of just three pots, each with its own fire, pot opening, and ‘feeder opening’ (taki-guchi 焚き口, lit. ‘burning mouth’): the ‘rice pot’ (meshi-gama 飯釜), the ‘greens pot’ (sai-gama or na-gama 菜釜), and the ‘tea kettle’ (cha-gama 茶釜). The image below shows a three-burner kamado constructed in a shallow pit dug into the doma floor, an old method that is often seen in very old minka. Its perimeter would have been spread with nekoda (ねこだ, large mats of woven straw or rope) and a wooden bench (suwari-ki 坐り木) placed in front of it.

The older the style of kamado, the lower the ‘firebox opening’ is. When tending such a stove, one sits on the doma (on a stool or bench) with one’s feet in the shallow excavation; this style probably originated in the pit dwellings (tate-ana jūkyo 竪穴住居) of the Jо̄mon period. Former residence of the О̄ta family (О̄ta-ke太田家, originally in Ibaraki Prefecture, now in the Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum (Nihon Minka-en 日本民家園) in Kanagawa Prefecture.

To borrow a term from the modern gas stove, the largest stoves might have as many as eleven ‘burners’, each with its own fire, arranged in order of size in a curved enclosure that allows a single person to manage each fire and pot from a central sitting position.

In the ‘head house’ of the main family line (honke-suji 本家筋), one of these ‘burners’ will be of extremely large construction, and is called o-kama-san (おかまさん, ‘honourable stove’) or some similar name that conveys a sense of respect. These kama were not for daily use, but were decorated with pine branches or sakaki (榊, Cleyera japonica) cuttings, and enshrined the ‘stove gods’ such as Sanbо̄ Kо̄jin (三宝荒神, often simply Kо̄jin), the Japanese Buddhist deity of fire and the hearth. In Kyūshū, these kama are called doku-don (どくどん), ugama-don (うがまどん), or the like; don (殿, usually dono) is an honorific somewhat higher in respect than san, with the meaning of ‘lord’ or ‘master’. These stoves were only used for once-a-year tasks such as boiling the beans to make miso (味噌, fermented soy-bean paste) or the rice to make mochi (餅, cooked rice that is pounded into a smooth, glutinous, gel-like texture), or on formal ceremonial occasions. There was no real need for such a large kama in the houses of the branch families, as these families would gather at the main house to use its oya-kamado (親かまど, lit. ‘parent stove’), which had to be large enough to accommodate them all.

The image below shows the interior of the kama-ya of an old Yamato (current Nara Prefecture) family minka. Only the lower few kama are for daily use; the majority are о̄ya-kamado reserved for the public or communal events of the branch families of the village. As it is an eleven-burner stove, and tended by multiple people at once, the kamaya space in which it stands is also extremely large.

In the houses of district administrators/authorities (о̄jо̄ya 大圧屋) and other officials, there were ‘parent stoves’ (oya-kamado 親かまど) for use by the villagers (burakumin 部落) for formal events. This large eleven-burner kudo, built in the form of arc, stands at the centre of an expansive kama-ya. Nara Prefecture.

The are also examples of o-kama-san built as stand-alone ‘one-burner’ units, separate from the everyday cooking kudo. The image below shows a huge o-kama-sama in the Rakunan (洛南) area of southern Kyо̄to; it is around 140 cm in both height and width. It has grown to this size over the years as a result of the house custom of adding a coat of plaster to it at each year’s end.

A seemingly standalone o-kama-san used for ceremonial and special occasions. The stove has grown over time as it accumulates new layers of plaster year after year. Kyо̄to Prefecture.

In northern Japan, there are large stoves called to-gama (とがま) that are used for heating up horse feed, but when necessary the pot is changed out and they are put to serving the same functions as the o-kama-san.

JAPANESE MINKA LXVI - INTERIORS 7: KAMADO 1

Long ago, when minka were still single-space dwellings and their interiors were not yet partitioned, all the activity of the household - not only cooking, but heating, illumination, drying, and so on - was focused on the large central fire that burned brightly all year; at night, too, the inhabitants of these ‘earth-sitting dwellings’ (doza-sumai 土座) would sleep on mats spread around the fire. In northern Japan, the cold climate forced people to lead indoor lives even during the day, and the houses were close and dark.

In the warm south of the country, on the other hand, houses were only for sleeping and resting in. These dwellings had raised timber floors to keep out venomous insects, snakes, and animals, and had good cross-ventilation. Bringing fire into this type of construction was problematic, and a fire was hardly needed other than for cooking anyway, so it was preferable to keep it outside; this also removed smoke and hot air from the house.

As we have seen in the last few posts, the internal fire of the northern dwelling eventually evolved into the modern, multi-purpose irori. In contrast, the external fire of the south developed into the subject of today’s post: the Japanese stove, the kamado (かまど or 釜土, lit. ‘kettle earth’), which was specialised for cooking. The kamado did not develop out of the irori, but was distinct from the beginning.

A fine example of a comma-shaped Japanese stove (kamado 釜土, here kudo くど) built in the earth-floored utility area (doma 土間) of the Iguchi family (Iguchi-ke 井口家) residence, Kyо̄to City. This fine example is a ‘seven burner’ stove (nanatsu kudo 七つくど). Usually the large ceremonial pot (о̄-gama 大釜) is at the endmost position, but rarely, as here, it is located in an intermediate position.

Eventually the two mixed together, so that minka in the northern Tо̄hoku region also have kamado, minka in the mountains of southern Kyūshū also have irori, and it is not possible to draw a clear or exact border between ‘irori country’ and ‘kamado country’; but we can make the broad distinction that from the Chūbu region north-east the irori is primary, while from the Kinki region west the kamado is predominant.

When using fire to cook in a pot (nabe 鍋 or kama 釜) under primitive conditions, there are basically two possible methods available: either to suspend the pot above the fire via a rope and hook or some other method, or to sit it on a stone or stones placed in or around the fire, with the simplest stable configuration consisting of three points of support. Whereas the irori primarily employs the former method, making use of the ready means of suspension offered by the dwelling’s roof beams, the kamado, with its origins in the outdoor fire, employs the latter principle; even today the kamado is represented symbolically in some regions by three stones, for the purpose of veneration.

Presumably the Japanese had been building simple stone windbreaks around fires since the Jо̄mon period (Jо̄mon jidai 縄文時代, c. 10,000 BC - 500 AD), but the relatively sophisticated, portable clay kamado first appeared in the Yayoi period (Yayoi jidai 弥生時代, c. 300 BC – 300 AD). These kamado are recognisably ‘modern’ in that they almost completely enclose the fire, with an opening in the side to feed and tend it, and a circular hole in the top on which the pot (kama 釜) sits. They functioned not only to shield the fire from wind and prevent the escape of sparks, but also to concentrate the flames under the pot so that scarce fuel could be used more efficiently. Some of the impetus for this development may have been provided by the cultural and demographic transition from a relatively sparse population of Jо̄mon hunter gatherers to one of sedentary Yayoi farmers living on the increasingly denuded and crowded agricultural lowlands.

A Yayoi period (Yayoi jidai 弥生時代) earthenware kamado from the О̄saka area, excavated from the traces of a dwelling. Rice was cooked in the pot, made of the same earthenware, that fits neatly into the opening at the top.

Eventually the kamado grew to become an immobile structure of stone and clay with substantial thermal mass, and the kama was improved by the addition of a lip or brim (tsuba 鍔) to create what is known as the tsuba-gama (鍔釜), which both supports the pot on the edge of the opening and forms a seal with it, thus preventing any of the heat of the fire from being lost upwards. There was also the migration of the kamado indoors, into the earth-floored utility area (doma 土間) of the minka interior. With these changes, even fuels of low energy density, like straw (wara 藁) or pine needles (matsu-ba 松葉), could be made effective use of, a development that would have been especially welcomed by the farmers of the firewood-poor plains.

An old cast-iron tsuba-gama with prominent tsuba, ring handles, and a wooden lid.

A modern aluminium tsuba-gama.

As its convenience came to be recognised, the refined kamado was adopted even in what had previously been exclusively ‘irori country’, and we can see a division of function between irori and kamado emerge, with a kamado for pot-cooking being built in a corner of the irori, and the irori presumably relinquishing this role to the kamado.

Development of the kamado did not end with modernity and electrification, but took a somewhat unrecognised path, and the kamado is still in widespread use today, albeit in disguise: the electric rice cooker, which first appeared in its familiar automatic form in 1955 with the Tо̄shiba ER-4. With its lipped and lidded kama fitting snugly into a heated enclosure, this kitchen appliance is a direct descendant of the kamado, and forms part of the lineage of a cooking technology that stretches back 2,000 years.

The Tо̄shiba ER-4 automatic (jidо̄-shiki 自動式) rice cooker (denki-gama 電気釜, lit. ‘electric pot’)

JAPANESE MINKA LXV - INTERIORS 6: IRORI 6

Aside from the hook (kagi 鉤) and the fire shelf (hi-dana 火棚) discussed in the last two posts, there are other items associated with and found at or around the irori that are worth mentioning.

One such item is the fairly self-explanatory firewood (maki-gi 薪木) box (hako 箱), called moshigi-ire (もしぎ入れ, ‘firewood container’) in Gunma, ki-wara (きわら), in Toyama, shi-baya (しばや) in Kyо̄to, takimon-buro (たきもんぶろ) in Ishikawa, and so on.

A screen (tsuitate 衝立) is often placed around the firewood box, or around any mess at the irori, to hide these from the entrance. This screen is variously called the soda-gaki (そだがき ‘sleeve fence’), erami (えらみ), mendо̄-gaki (面倒垣 ‘care fence’), and the like.

A delicate semi-permeable tsuitate (衝立) is placed between the entrance and the irori to screen the ‘mess’ from casual visitors standing in the doma.

An additional, smaller screen, called the ita-shо̄ji (板障子, ‘board shо̄ji’), may be placed at the edge of the irori to protect the fire from draughts and prevent sparks from landing on the straw cushions or mats (goza 茣蓙).

An ita-shо̄ji (板障子) made with a thick board of Japanese cypress (hinoki 桧, Chamaecyparis obtusa) and a short length of cypress log (hinoki-maruta 桧丸太) split into two halves to form the legs.

The white stool-shaped object seen in the image below, and the upside down tree root bole (ne-moku 根木) in the image below that, are both crude lamps: called hide-bachi (ひでばち), matsu-dai (まつだい, ‘pine platform’), etc., they are for burning scrap wood (ki-kata 木片, lit. ‘timber odds’) on, for the purpose of illumination. Before electricity, thinly split resinous pine (matsu 松) root, white birch (shira-kaba 白樺, Betula platyphylla) bark, and other timbers were burnt on these platforms to provide additional light.

A ‘platform lamp’ (hide-bachi ひでばち) next to the irori in the former Shiiba family (Shiiba-ke 椎葉家) residence, originally in Miyazaki prefecture but now in the Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum in Toyonaka City, О̄aaka Prefecture.　

This image shows a ‘platform lamp’ (hide-bachi ひでばち) made of an inverted root bole.

From northern Kyо̄to to Hokuriku, and in one particular area in the mountains of Chūbu, there are many minka in which adjustable hooks (jizai-kagi 自在鉤) are not employed, even when a ‘fire shelf’ (hi-dana 火棚) is present. Instead, a large iron trivet (go-toku 五徳, lit. ‘five virtues’) is used. The trivet is also variously called kana-wa (鉄輪, ‘iron ring’), kana-go (かなご, ‘metal go-toku’), or simply kane (かね ‘metal’); large examples might weigh as much as 60 kilograms.

There is a small hi-dana over this irori in a minka in Shiga prefecture, but no jizai-kagi; in its place is an electric light, and the pot is held over the fire by a trivet (kanawa 鉄輪).

This irori from a the former Wakayama family (Wakayama-ke 若山家) residence, originally in О̄no County (О̄no-gun 大野郡), Gifu Prefecture, but now in the Hida Folk Museum in Takayama City, combines a large hi-dana, what looks to be a simple jizai-kagi, and a trivet (kanawa 鉄輪). Hanging from the irori are tsuto (苞, tubes made of bound straw) filled with dried fish.