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The Omato Hajimeshiki

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1/11 The Omato Hajimeshiki Every January 11th there is a special festival in Nishinoomote that marks the beginning of the new year on Tanegashima. Held in the kyudo-dojo adjacent to the Seirin Shrine, the festival has been held on Tanegashima for over 500 years. The preparations start long before the actual event, with the 6 shooters practicing everyday for at least a week before. On the day of the event the archers gather together in the afternoon to get dressed in their traditional robes and prepare their bows. The 6 archers will each shoot 6 arrows for the festival, doing so in a ritual way. According to tradition, one of the 36 total arrows must miss the target. Ideally this will be the final arrow, but that is not always the case. The reason that only 35 of the 36 arrows actually hit the target was explained to me like this. If all the arrows are successful, then the there is no room for improvement in the next year. So for the year to be a good as possible, but also...
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Tanegashima Tea

Tea on Tanegashima Tanegashima is a secret haven for tea in Japan. It's climate matches that of Shizuoka and the rest of Kagoshima,  the two main tea regions of Japan. But because Tanegashima is a bit more south than the others the tea grown here matures faster than its counterparts on the mainland. In fact tea grown on Tanegashima has a special name, 極早生種(gokuwaseshu) meaning a very fast growing varietal. It is sometimes also called 早葉(hayaba) meaning fast or quick leaf. The earliest teas to be made in Japan often come from Tanegashima and its sister island Yakushima. They are valued as an indicator of the quality of year to come. Most of the tea produced on Tanegashima is 煎茶(sencha) which is actually broken up into more distinct groups. The three types that we are concerned with today are 浅蒸(asamushi), 普通蒸(futsuumushi), and 深蒸(fukamushi). In Kagoshima proper fukamushi reigns supreme. Most of the tea in this region has been deeply steamed to maintain a verdant green color in...
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Pines On Tanegashima

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Pines On Tanegashima There is a type of pine cultivar only found on Tanegashima and Yakushima.  It is called the 屋久種子五葉松 (Yaku-Tane-Goyoumatsu) Or the YakuTane Five Needle Pine. It is a smaller tree often used in Bonsai and is known for its unusual number of needles. Most pine trees in Japan have bunches of 2 or three needles, but the YakuTane pine has five needles per bundle making it a rather unusual type of white pine.   The Yakutane hozenkai is based out of Nishinnoomote, and is currently working to protect the remaining Yakutane pines and the Japanese black pines that are still on the island. Recently a good number of these trees have be downed due to Pine Wilt caused by Bursaphelenchus xylophilus a nematode also known by the name Pine Wood Nematode (PWN). Native to North America, the nematode is an invasive species in Japan. In fact, wood from America and Canada has been banned from import to Japan unless it has undergone significant disinfection processes...
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Making Sugar on Tanegashima Pt. 2

Sugar Cane Harvesting Today I spent the whole of my morning harvesting sugar cane. Well, that is not actually true, let me try that again. Today I spent the whole of my morning cleaning sugarcane and bundling it up. The cane had been already cut down by the time that we had started, and all that I needed to do was cut off the dried leaves from the green sugarcane stalks. I was working with five other people, only one of whom was not over the age of 60. That being said, I was the slowest among them. Everyone had a role to play in their well practiced harvesting method. First, (a few days before) they would cut the cane down and leave it in the field to dry out. Then once he leaves had dried the two oldest men would walk up the rows of cane and trim the tops off of the stalks. They determined where to cut based on the diameter of the cane, once it had narrowed to be smaller than your pinkie finger it was a good place to cut if it was within the top 40 cm of the stalk. They w...
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Making Sugar in Tanegashima

For the next four weeks I have been invited to help make a traditional type of Japanese Sugar here on Tanegashima. On Friday I went early in the morning to help with the distillation of the sugar from freshly pressed sugarcane juice. The type of sugar made on Tanegashima is called kokutou or kurozato. It is a unrefined sugar that has been made in the area since at least the 800s. The process that we are using has stayed the same for at least 2 generations according to the old guys I asked at the sugar making hut, but they were sure that it has been going on unchanged for much longer. The basic process as far as I understand it goes like this. 1- Crush the year old sugar cane that has been stacked up near the crushing machine. (We dumped the leftover cane bits into a truck. I don’t know what they were going to do with it, but I imagine that it will be used for something. I’m planning on asking next time.) 2- Strain the juice into a wooden box inside the sugar hut. ...
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Our Intern's Blog

Hi Everyone! For the past month and a half we have had an intern from Taiwan at TGI. His name is Hamilton, and he has been writing a blog about his experiences on the island. He has traveled all over the island and says that he plans to come back in December! He says that he has a really fun time on Tanegashima and that he wants to come visit in the summer too! You can check out his blog here ! More news to come!
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Island Salt

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Salt Salt is vital to the survival of almost all living things. Entire empires have been built on the salt trade, and the salt industry still has a global reach today. While much of the salt we eat has been created industrially, you can still find old traditions of salt making around the world. The two sources of traditional salts are rock salt and sea salt. While much of the world has access to both types of salt, Japan has no natural forms of rock salt and much of the country is too humid throughout the year to rely on solar evaporation techniques. This has lead to some very unique salt producing techniques. But without salt production life on the island chain would have been impossible. Even Tanegashima produced much of its own salt until the industrialization of the industry and imports made it impractical for most producers. That said, there is still one couple who are making salt on the island.   Tetsuya and Yukiko Seki (Island Graphic, 2014) Lo...
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