Kasama: Home of Famous Pottery and Fox-gods
Kasama is a delightful little town tucked away in the hills of central Ibaraki Prefecture. Due to the numerous temples, shrines, and the local arts and crafts still practiced there, Kasama is called a 'Little Kyoto'. Virtually every town in Japan that has some type of thriving traditional artform and has some semblence of traditional Japanese architecture calls itself a 'Little Kyoto'. Some towns, like Kanazawa and Takayama, have very good claims to such a name. They are thriving artistic and cultural centers, and their regions revolve around them. They have lasted for centuries and the traditional artforms of Japanese do truly THRIVE there. Kasama is a fine place, but I don't know if I'd call it a 'Little Kyoto'. Still, Kasama is a nice town, and has a charm all its own.
Kasama's thriving traditional artform is Kasama-yaki, a type of pottery. As you drive into the town, the roads are lined with Kasama-yaki outlets, selling the wares of the numerous potteries in and around the city. As you enter the city limits you are greeted by giant urns made in the style of Kasama-yaki. There is even a Kasama traditional arts park (which I haven't visited, but which is on my list of sights to see). The pottery is the lifeblood ot the Japanese tourist industry in Kasama. You cannot escape the pottery, and it is in every shop in the city in some way, shape, or form. I had been hearing so many things about the reknowned pottery of Kasama that I was actually a little disappointed when I found my first batch.
While Kasama pottery is pretty, every piece I found myself eager to buy ended up being some other variety, from Gifu or Tochigi Prefectures. Kasama pottery may just not fit my ideals. As ignorant as I am of pottery types, I'll try to explain Kasama pottery. The glazes range from vivid earthly tones to pale pastels. They tend to favor a sort of dripped technique in applying the glazes, so that after they are fired, it looks like the glazes are dripping down the edges of the pottery. The most typical type of pot seems to be a small cylindrical dish with high sides and a small-handled lid. It looks like the special type of pots used for baking chawamushi, a Japanese type of egg custard that usually contains vegetables and seafood. But there seem to be Kasama pottery of all shapes and forms. I just found myself going for the more elaborate and colorful pottery from neighboring prefectures. I had actually selected them thinking they were Kasama pottery, but upon purchase, I asked the saleswoman and she clarified things for me. 'No, that pretty sake set is Minou-yaki from Gifu Prefecture.' Thwarted in my attempt to find something spectacluar in Ibaraki Prefecture...
I just think I had grown accustomed to some of the other pottery forms in Japan. While in Kanazawa, I enjoyed Kutani and Ohi-yaki. Both of these forms are varied and exquisite, but all peices share similar traits, whether those be shape, design, or color. Tobe-yaki, from Ehime-ken, is magnificent, and among the most famed pottery in Japan. Most of its pieces utilize a blue-on-white glaze pattern. Tsugaru-yaki as well features a uniform glaze technique. Now, traditional Kasama-yaki may have a uniform look, but all of the pieces I was encountering varied immensely. Some pieces had smooth, uniform glazes, while others were mottled. I found tea cups with metallic glazes, and sake sets with pale, earthy tones. I was just having trouble seeing the guidelines under which Kasama-yaki are made. I guess it just calls for more research.
Kasama is also a town of shrines and temples. I had limited time in the town, so I made sure to see THE big shrine. Kasama has one of Japan's three great Inari shrines. The two other Inari shrines of note are in Yutoku, Saga Prefecture, and Fushimi in Kyoto. I had been to the Fushimi Inari Taisha twice and it remains one of my favorite places in Japan. The buildings at Fushimi are immense and a vivid red. Fushimi's red torii gates cover and entire mountainside and you can spend the better part of a day exploring the shrines and environs of the precincts. Kasama Inari Taisha, while very pretty, is small in comparison. The main gate stands extremely close to the street, and the entire shrine complex could easily fit in the space taken up by Fushimi's courtyard. The buildings look a nice vermillion, but fail to reach the blinding red hue achieved in Fushimi.
The Shrine itself dates back to around A.D. 650 or so. During the reign of Emperor Kotoku, a shrine was started in Kasama to worship Uka-no-Mitama-no-Okami (or Inari-no-Okami). This god is the ancestral diety who protects food, clothing, the household and gaurds 'the source of our lives'. He is also worshipped as the guardian diety of agriculture, callte breeding, marine industry, sericulture, and fire prevention. With all of these attributes under his belt, you can see why O-Inari-san was such an important god to the Japanese people. He touched numerous parts of their daily lives. But O-Inari-san still attracts many worshippers. Millions visit the Kasama shrine annually and offer prayer for good health, prosperity in business, and for safety in traffic.
The current buildings date back to the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The main hall was built in the Ansei (1854-59) and Manen (1860) eras. The sides of the building are covered with elaborate wood carvings, depicting court nobles sharing sake, a lion, and a three-headed dragon staring in all directions. It has been designated an important cultural property. The Main gate of the shrine was built in 1961, just after the completion of the ferro-concrete oratory hall the year before. It is constructed in a traditional style and is called the Bansei-Taihei-Mon, or the Coexistence-Coprosperity Gate.
During my visit there were still remnants of Kasama Inari Taisha's famous Chrysanthemum festival, although the flowers were mostly spent and many of the plants looked a little wilted and fatigued. The two large 400-year-old wisteria vines in the counrtyard, designated important cultural properties, were covered with magnificent yellow leaves, and these glowed in the afternoon sun. The shrine was very serene, and the noises of the town were completely inaudible in the rear of the shrine, where a wonderful gathering of fox statues grabbed my attention.
Inari shrines are often covered with representations of foxes and horses, two of the symbols of the patron god of the temple. The god enshrined is not a fox-god, as many people may believe. The fox is simply his messenger, and is associated with the god's work. Long ago, when foxes were still numerous in Japan, their periods of activity would coincide with the people's festival to Inari. The foxes would 'show' the people when they should start planting their rice, and when they should begin harvesting the rice. Because of these actions, the people saw the fox as the symbol of O-Inari-san. The bushy tails of the fox statues in the shrines represent bountiful rice plants. The jewels in the foxes' mouths represent the spirit of O-Inari-san, and the keys in the foxes' mouths represent the keys to filled rice granaries.
In all, it was a nice day trip. I am making myself give Kasama another chance, but I can't help but feel slightly disappointed after seeing so many of the other wonderful shrines and potteries of this fine country. I just entered with very high expectations, and that wasn't fair to Kasama. I constantly compared and contrasted what I saw of Kasama with every other place I had seen in Japan. I failed to give Kasama a chance to stand on its own, and I feel a bit jaded for doing so. I realize I have to give Kasama another chance, and I know I will take the time to visit it again. But in all, Kasama is a charming city in Ibaraki. It shines forth in a prefecture which seems to have an abundance of nuclear research facitlies, industrial sprawl, and polluted coastline. On the national scale, there may be plenty of cities which outshine Kasama, but within the prefecture, there seem to be few which can compete.
Below are some photos I took during my visit to Kasama on December 5, 1999:
Links:
Introduction to Kasama from the Kasama Junior High School Homepage.
