Awa Ikeda Udatsu House & Museum of Tobacco

 

Awa Ikeda was in important transport and trading hub on the Yoshino River in what is now Miyoshi City in Tokushima on Shikoku.

This very large Edo period property belonged to a wealthy tobacco manufacturer and is open to the public.

In the entrance area is a nice display of puppets, as this area of Shikoku, Awa, is home to a long tradition of puppetry.

After sitting in the entrance for a while, trading tobaccos and smoking with the curator, he then took me on a guided tour of the house. It was a huge complex surrounding a nice courtyard  garden.

This first section of the property was formerly the residential area and each room was tastefully arranged with traditional, minimal, decorations...

Incidentally, udatsu are the external architectural features that are found protruding from the second floor of buildings and are meant to prevent the spread of fire from building to building. They are a common feature of a historic town a little further down the river in Mima.

At the rear of the property, which was where the workshops were, is the tobacco museum, spread over about ten rooms with a wide range of displays.

Tobacco was introduced into Japan in the late 16th century, probably by the Portuguese. The government unsuccessfully tried to ban it, but its use became widespread among men and women, and it became a lucrative cash crop throughout Japan.

Tobacco was smoked using a kiseru, a small pipe with a metal bowl and mouthpiece. Kiseru developed into an artform, some with intricate engraving. Another artform that came from tobacco was netsuke, the tiny ivory ornaments used in tobacco pouches.

The type of tobacco for kiseru was called kizami, a very finely chopped form. Kiseru and kizami began to disappear after the Meiji Restoration when cigarettes started to become available.

In 1898, to secure the considerable tax income, the Japanese government established a monopoly on the sale of tobacco leaf. In 1904 they expanded the monopoly to cover all aspects of tobacco production. In 1985 the government sold off Japan Tobacco, but retained a large percentage of shares, and JT has become one of the biggest tobacco companies in the world, buying u foreign companies like the Gallagher Group.

Even if you have no interest in Tobacco, it is a fascinating small museum to visit. The displays are all well made and though there is no English, the very friendly curator does his best to explain things. The traditional house is also worth a visit by itself. I find many museums in Japan to be overpriced and not so interesting, but there are plenty like this one that are excellent value for money but rarely visited.

I visited on the 4th day of my walk along the Shikoku Fudo Myoo pilgrimage. The previous post was Maruyama Shrine.

Maruyama Shrine Awa Ikeda

 

Maruyama is the name of a small hill in the town of Awa Ikeda in what is now Miyoshi cIty, Tokushima, on Shikoku.

Maruyama is a very common name as it literally means "round mountain", ... we have one a few kilometers from my place.

Ikeda is also a very common placename, so it is prefaced with Awa, the old name for the province to distinguish it from other Ikeda's around the country.

The shrine is fairly unexceptional, just a typical village shrine.

There are a variety of ways of reading the enshrined kami's name but they are all versions of the great Izumo kami Susano. Here it seems it was probably Gozu Tenno, the original "plague god" of Gion whose origin is disputed but heavily connected with Korea, as is Susano.

The honden is fairly new, and other than that I can find no other info on the shrine. I visited at the start of day 4 of my walk along the Shikoku Fudo Myo Pilgrimage. The previous post in the series was on the walk along the river to end the day before.

Up the Yoshino River to Ikeda

 

A wayside Fudo Myo statue is a timely reminder that I am walking the Shikoku Fudo Myo pilgrimage as I leave the Teramachi district of Mima in Tokushima and continue west along the Yoshino River.

For these first three days of the pilgrimage, I have been following the river upstream as it heads almost perfectly East to West. I had spent the morning visiting interesting sites in Mima after first visiting temple 3 of the pilgrimage. The next cluster of three temples was around Ikeda 20-30 kilometers upstream, and also where I had a room booked for the night, so I simply walked West along the north bank as quickly as I could, forgoing any distractions.

After the three temples in the Ikeda area, I would be heading back down the river on the southern bank where another couple of temples lay.

The river continued to be wide as did its valley, and there were relatively few bridges.

The valley narrowed as I approached Ikeda, and the river made a turn here and eventually headed into the middle of Shikoku through the spectacular Oboke Gorge and the now-famous Iya Valley. Across from Ikeda the very steep mountainside is terraced with rice paddies and scenic villages.

Once I reached Hashikura I jumped on a train that crossed the river and took me to Ikeda. Hashikura is the site of the next temple but I wanted to return the next day for the next leg.

My room for the next 2 nights was perched high above the river looking down on the Shikinoue pedestrian suspension bridge.

The previous post in this series was on Ganshoji Temple in Mima Teramachi

Ganshoji Temple Mima

 

Ganshoji is one of seven large Buddhist temples located in a teramachi in rural Tokushima. Most teramachi, literally "temple town" were created in the Edo period as part of the castle towns that sprang up across the country, but this teramachi is located in a rural area that has been a centre for Buddhism since ancient times with the ruins of the very first temple in the region nearby.

Ganshoji also has a long history, said to have been founded in the Nara period. It is a Shingon temple with Amida Nyorai as the honzon.

The Niomon was built in the Meiji era but because of its unique design is registered as an Important Cultural Property

Behind the main hall is a small garden that was "discovered" by the famous 20th-century Japanese garden designer Mirei Shigemori who noted its similarity to the garden at Tenryuji. It is possibly the oldest garden in Shikoku.

Unfortunately, when I visited there was no one around and I couldn't see the garden.

The previous post in this series on day 3 of my walk around Shikoku on the Shikoku Fudo Myo pilgrimage was the neighboring Anrakuji Temple and its magnificent vermillion gate.

Anrakuji Temple Mima

 

Anrakuji is the oldest temple of the Jodo Shinshu, True Pure Land Sect, in all of Shikoku and is located in the administrative city of Mima along the Yoshino River in Tokushima.

Known locally as Akamonji, literally "red gate temple", because of the impressive gate which was built in 1756. It and several other buildings in the temple are registered as Important Cultural Properties.

It was founded around 1256 when an existing Tendai Temple, Shinnyoji, which had been in existence since the Heian Period was converted to Jodo Shinshu and renamed.

Anrakuji is located in a Teramachi- a cluster of large temples- though most teramachi were Edo-period creations whereby new castle towns built all their temples in one district, this one is located in a rural area and has been an area of temples since ancient times.

In fact the ruins  of one of the first temples ever built in Shikoku are located nearby, adjacent to some late burial mounds indicating that this was an important political center in ancient times.

The previous post in this series on my third day walking the Shikoku Fudo Myo Pilgrimage was Mima Snaphots.

Nagaoka Family 18th Century Farmhouse

 

The former Nagaoka Family farmhouse is located in Mima on the north bank of the Yoshino River in Tokushima on Shikoku.

It was built in the early decades of the 18th century a few kilometers to the north of its current site but was dismantled and rebuilt here in 1979.

The first noteworthy thing is that the walls are made of earth/clay, which is standard, but the exteriors are not covered by boards or bark as is normal. Apparently, this is because the area gets relatively little rainfall so the walls don't need the protection. 

In the interiors, the floors are heavy, polished floorboards, not tatami. They did have some tatami but they were brought out and used temporarily, not laid permanently. This is how they were used further back in history.

There are plenty of tools and furniture scattered around the interiors, and the roof structure is much simpler and lighter than later architecture that used tile roofs.

Entry is free and is worth a visit if you are in the Mima area.....

I visited on my third day walking the Shikoku Fudo Myo pilgrimage. The previous post in the series is Saimyoji Temple which is a few minutes away.