Onta Yaki
Introduction
Onta yaki (小鹿田焼) is pottery made in the hamlet of Sarayama in Hita, Ōita Prefecture, on Kyushu. Production began around 1705 and has been carried on by a small number of households, roughly ten, each working a family kiln and passing the craft from parent to child. Pieces are not signed by individual makers.
The village was documented by Yanagi Sōetsu as part of the mingei movement, and Bernard Leach stayed and worked there in 1954, which brought it international attention. Onta yaki was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1995.
The karausu
Clay is prepared by karausu, water-driven hammers set along the stream that runs through the village. A wooden beam is pivoted with a scoop at one end and a hammer head at the other. The scoop fills with diverted stream water, the beam tips, the hammer falls into a stone mortar and crushes clay, the scoop empties and the beam swings back. It is the same mechanism as a sōzu doing useful work.
The hammers run continuously, and the sound of them is constant in the valley. In 1996 the Ministry of the Environment selected the sound of the karausu at Sarayama for its list of 100 Soundscapes of Japan, which recognises sounds worth preserving as environmental heritage.
The arrangement has several properties worth noting:
- Processing rate is set by the flow of the stream, so production is paced by the watershed rather than by demand.
- The machinery has no operator. Clay preparation happens while the village sleeps.
- The sound reports the state of the whole system. A change in rhythm means a change in water.
Just as a village hears its clay being made without anyone watching the machine, a well-made process reports itself through the sound it already produces.
