Comments: 2
CHAPTER NINE
After we quickly walked through some of the other houses that didn’t have their own guides and looked at a waterwheel that operated a large wooden hammer that kept pounding away on something or other, we found the ‘another-house’ to be only three stories high. And the ‘quite a character’ Yamanaka-san turned out to be a grinning old man with a sparkle in his eye who bent down and pointed for us to look at the empty space between the bottom of the floor and the ground.
“Why now, you young’uns see them holes they dug in the ground underneath the house, hmm? They stuck barrels in them and then they dumped horse shit, cow shit, but mostly silkworm shit -- they had a real shitload of that stuff what with everybody growing ‘em ha-ha! -- and anything else that would decompose like plant roots into the barrels.”
Keiko wrinkled her nose.
Yamanaka chuckled at her. “Fragrant, hmm? And just to make sure that perfume smelled real nice and sweet they’d piss into those barrels for about a year or so. Why now, that fragrant enough for you, hmm?”
Keiko blanched.
“Yep. And then they’d take all that decomposed shit and piss and run it through sieves.”
“And that makes gunpowder?” Kenji asked.
“Well, no. Not by it by itself, no. But after they’d run all that piss and shit and stuff through them sieves, they’d boil it down. And what they had left was saltpeter. Saltpeter, it’s about three quarters of the stuff you need to make gunpowder. Got a good price for it from the daimyo baron in Kanazawa Castle. Not that the daimyo gave them any choice, mind. He’d just tell ‘em, 'Make it! For me! Nobody else! Or else!' Ha-ha!”
“But how could the daimyo make gunpowder from that?” I asked getting interested myself.
“Why now, just about to tell you that, young’un. The daimyo, him and some of his samurai warriors, they’d take all that saltpeter and have their servants mix it with just the right amounts of charcoal and sulfur and, bang, the daimyo had himself a real shitload of gunpowder to blow away any other daimyo and his samurai greedy enough to try and butt in on his domain. Kaga Domain it was. Richest in Japan back then and Shirakawa, it was a part of it.” He rubbed his hands together. “’Course if one of them servants screwed up on the mixing of the amounts just right then, bang! the daimyo had himself a real shitload of blown-to-smithereen servants and maybe a blown away samurai or two and, well who knows, maybe even part of his castle to boot! Ha-ha!”
“But why would the daimyo pay so much for just saltpeter?” Kenji asked. “I mean, why not just make the saltpeter in his castle instead?”
Yamanaka’s grin spread from ear to ear.
“Think, young’un! Why now, can you imagine any noble daimyo or any of his dainty samurai shitting and pissing into barrels year after year like the people here in Shirakawa, hmm? And how about all that nice sweet fragrance perfuming up the daimyo’s ceremonial reception room, hmm? ‘Sides the daimyo, he could get all the charcoal he needed real easy from the town that was sprouting up around his castle. Kanazawa City nowadays it is. And sulfur? Ha, why now, that he could get all he needed from the smelting of the rocks they dug up in his mines. But saltpeter? Why now saltpeter, that takes time to make. A real shitload of it. And the daimyo, he had to keep the place where he was having it made top secret from all them other daimyo that were trying to get their hands on their own shitloads of saltpeter to make their own gunpowder to blow him away. Ha-ha! Why now, can you young’uns think of a more secret place to have it made than an isolated village stuck way up here in the mountains that was cut off from everybody else for a good five or six months of the year, hmm? Why now, back then in the winter the people here in Shirakawa, they couldn’t even make it over the mountains to Gokayama. Gokayama, it’s the other isolated village the daimyo had making saltpeter for him, too. All them mountain passes to it and anywheres else, they was all blocked by real shitloads of snow. And as for that real shitload of time? Why now, in the winter up here in Shirakawa, time was something people had way too much of. Ha-ha!”
He grinned at Kenji. “Why now, that satisfy you, young’un, hmm?”
Kenji nodded, grinning himself now and me along with him.
“Why now, you young-uns see, hmm? The people here in Shirakawa, they didn’t make these houses just as places to sleep. No, no, they made them so they could make lots of real whizzbang stuff with ‘em. Upper floors for silkworms and their shit. Ground under the houses for saltpeter. Why now you young’uns, you want me to show you some of the other whizzbang stuff they used them for, hmm?”
Kenji looked like he did but Keiko pulled at this arm. “I don't think we should, Kenji. We should go see some of the other houses while we’ve still got time.”
Kenji looked at his watch and reluctantly nodded. “Okay. But this will have to be the last one.”
“Why now that being the case, you young’uns seen the village head’s house yet, hmm?”
“I think so,” I said. “Wasn’t that the one with all the polished wooden floors instead of tatami mats and two irori fireplaces?”
“Yep! Why now, back then the local honcho, he’d swipe his cut right off the top of everybody else’s! And the daimyo? He'd take his cut off the top of what little the people had left over. Ha-Ha! Why now, let’s see, . . . you young’uns seen the straw museum yet, hmm?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why now, I’d make that my last place to go if I was you. See all them whizzbang stuff the people here made with all that straw they had left over after harvesting what little bit of rice and grain and stuff they could grow on what teensy bit of flat cropland they had.”
I pointed to the bundle of straw hanging on the wall that was somewhat in the shape of a person. “Hey, I think that was the straw thing that the farmer’s wife was wearing on the night of the storm I was telling you about. But what is it? A scarecrow?”
Keiko read the attached tag. “No, it’s a raincoat! And just like the ones my grandfather kept telling me he wore when he was a little boy. "
“Well I sure hope it kept her drier than mine did that night.”
“Feel free to look all you want at all the other things they made from the straw,” the matronly guide said. “There are tags to explain what each item is. If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them for you.”
Kenji grinned. “Why now, you got a real shitload of whizzbang stuff to tell us too, hmm?”
“Kenji!” Keiko exclaimed.
“Ha, ha, it’s all right,” the guide assured us with a motherly smile. “You’ve obviously just come from Yamanaka-san’s. I’ve heard Yamanaka-san’s rather, uh, earthy explanations quite a few times myself. And that was good imitation of him you made by the way. He certainly does make his explanations a lot more colorful than just reading them from a guidebook.”
“And he sure makes 'em a real whizzbang shitload lots more fun, too!” Kenji said.
“Why now, that he does,” I agreed
“You have to be a little careful about the accuracy of what he tells you, though. Once he gets all wound up with a group, particularly young ones like you, he tends to exaggerate and make up some of his own facts.”
“Some?" I said. “Ha, I’d say a whole shitload!”
“What are those things over there?" Kenji pointed. "They look like tennis rackets.”
Keiko read the tag. “Snowshoes!”
The guide smiled. “Yes, and they certainly needed them in winter just to get to each other's house.”
With Akiko leading us this time, we went around looking at all the different straw items like the pointed straw hats, the straw zori sandals, the straw ropes like the ones that tied the roof beams together and on and on. This time Kenji was the one who seemed to be lagging back and getting more and more bored the more things made of straw we looked at and started looking at his watch again.
Finally after we had circled almost the whole way around the first floor and finding the ‘stairway’ to the upper floors roped off, we came to a display of large photos in color that showed many scenes of the village during the different seasons, more than half of them obviously taken during the winter.
“Look at all that snow around the houses!” Keiko exclaimed. “No wonder they needed snowshoes. But those steep roofs do seem to keep most of the snow off them.”
Frowning Kenji pointed to a photo of the road to one of the other villages. “Yeah, and look at that snowbank a snowplow must’ve piled up along the side of the highway. It’s more than twice as high as I am. I sure wouldn’t want to drive my bike on a road like that!”
“That’s the road to Ainokura,” the guide explained. “It’s a smaller village with houses in gassho-style, too. And that photo was taken in the spring, which comes much later here, just after the snowplow cleared the road for the first time after the winter. They close that road at the beginning of winter. The only road they keep open during the winter is the main highway to the Kanazawa and Toyama area.”
I looked at the last group of photos. “What are these people doing?” I asked her pointing to a few people dressed in period costumes who seemed to be dipping large square wooden sieves into vats of some kind of thick white liquid.
“They’re making washi, Japanese-style paper.” The guide explained. “That and saltpeter and the raw silk from the silkworms were their three most important commodities for trade.”
“That looks just like the paper the shoji wall panel into my room is made of.”
The guide smiled her motherly smile again. “That’s because it is. It’s much stronger and thicker than ordinary paper and was used for many things back then because it was the only paper they had. Even now washi is still used for many traditional Japanese arts like shodo calligraphy and origami paper folding.”
“Isn’t that the same kind of paper the bamboo umbrellas the Okusan lent us were made with, too?” Keiko asked.
“That’s right. And if you’re really interested there’s a demonstration of how they made it at two o’clock today down by the Shogawa River. They even let some of the visitors make their own washi.”
“Kenji, can we stay till then?”
Kenji looked at his watch, shook his head. “If we’re going to see any of Takayama Old Town today, we’ve got to start right now.”
Submitted: February 10, 2019
© Copyright 2025 Kenneth Wright. All rights reserved.
Chapters
Comments
I purposely didn’t reply to your comment on Chapter 8 since as you can probably guess, it and Chapter 9 are the same chapter, but it was getting so long I had to break it up into two chapters. I hope the break doesn’t seem too obvious.
I’m glad you liked my Yamanaka-san! I couldn’t see my readers going through a bunch of boring facts without some sort of relief. But he took a frustrating long amount of time and work to create.
Also, note the disclaimer I put in about what he says after the section break. Just how the people of Shirakawa actually created their saltpeter seems to be totally different depending on what Website you are using. The tourist ones for Shirakawa only say they made it using silkworm waste and no mention of holes under the house. Other, harder to find Websites however . . . Most of the method I use relies on how they got their saltpeter during the English Civil War which is hilarious! For more info on it, try Googling “saltpeter, pisse (sic)”.
Ken
Facebook Comments
More Romance Books
Discover New Books
Boosted Content from Other Authors
Book / Romance
Short Story / Other
Short Story / Other
Poem / Poetry
Boosted Content from Premium Members
Book / Literary Fiction
Book / Fantasy
Poem / Other
Short Story / Horror
Other Content by Kenneth Wright
Book / Romance
Book / Romance
Book / Science Fiction
B Douglas Slack
I'd say this was a shitload of information, Ken. Loved the way you had an old-timer give the lecture. It added zest to the whole presentation. I still have a few small samples of Washi I bought long ago. Doggon tough stuff.
Sun, February 10th, 2019 4:25pmBill