SHIFU: A HANDWOVEN PAPER TEXTILE OF JAPAN DOROTHY MILLER Fibers from plants grown in Japan are used in making handmade Japanese paper, washi; kozo (paper mulberry, Broussonetia genus) mit- suinata (Edgeworthis papyrifer, Sieb et Zucc.) and gampi (diplomorpha skiklokiana, Fr. et Sev.). (Hughes, pp. 76-80). A variety of the paper mulberry grown in Northern Japan, (Broussonetia kajinoki, Sieb.) pro­ vides the fine fibers used in making shifu. The Gampi plant is wild and is not so readily available in Japan today. Gampi paper is very strong and smooth but, because of the decrease in its availability and its expense, it is not used today for shifu. Mitsumata is a plant which is cultivated in Japan. Plants can be bought in local nurseries. The paper is strong and smooth and those papers which I have seen dyed with vegetable dyes have been soft and rich in tone. This paper, too, is expensive and less available. Kozo paper, still made in the traditional manner, is now used for shifu. At present, I have found that kozo paper for shifu (shifugami, Jap.) is made by paper makers in the cooperative at Kurotani, in the Tamba area, and at the Tadao Endo paper making workshop near Sendai, in the Tohoku area of Japan. The kozo is harvested after the leaves drop in the fall. The branches are cut and brought to the paper makers in the villages to be prepared for the vat. (Mies Illustration 1). In Kurotani, where I learned to make paper the Japanese way, most of the homes are involved in the paper making process. A paved high­ way has replaced the country road. It is not unusual to see a worker cutting wood on weekends, having worked all week in one of the larger cities' businesses or at the shipyards off the coast of the Sea of Japan. A cooperative under Gen Nakamura takes orders for shifu paper, and one or another of the paper makers of the village fills the order. Since Kurotani kozo paper is known for its strength and purity, it is sought af­ ter by others than shifu weavers; by temples for their writings and repair of old books, by Japanese home owners for their fusuma (paper sliding doors) [1], and for the shoji, the wooden sliding doors with sectioned areas covered with paper. Others who use Kurotani paper are the shops selling paper to calligraphic artists and for the backing for kakemonos and hanga, the artistic works of calligraphic and block print artists. ARS TEXTRINA 4 (1985), pp. 43-66 Preparation of the fibers for paper. After the branches are brought to the paper makers, they are put through many processes before being made into paper. In Kurotani, the bark is stripped off and the wood is steamed. Members of the family strip off the bark, and put the fibers in the stream of running water which runs through the village. (Mies Illustration 2). In Kurotani, I saw an old man stomping on the fibers, rubbing them over the stones to remove more of the bark and to soften the fibers. (Mies Illustration 3). Again the fibers are boiled in a cauldron of water with caustic soda, the steam kept in by a large woven straw cover. After this, the women take the fibers and soak them in large basins of water, picking out bits of bark which might be left on the fibers. (Mies Illustration 4). This is done two or three times, depending on the purity of the paper wanted. The fibers are then beaten in a tub with a stomper, a wooden pole with wooden battens attached to the bottom. The stompers that I saw were run by electricity, and a cam-attached toe rod turned the stomper right and left to beat the fibers evenly. This is a crucial step and some paper makers still prefer hand-beating over electrical-beating, but, generally, electrical-beating has taken the place of the hand-beating of former times. In the Shiroishi workshop, the fibers are then soaked. The pulp is put in the paper making vat and beaten with a large stick and a rake-like frame, both of which separate the fibers in the vat and aerate them. Aeration is important so that the fibers will distribute evenly on the bamboo screens on which the paper is made. To help with the distribution of the fibers in the vat, a viscous sub­ stance, called neri, is used in the vat. The substance used at both paper-making workshops is tororo-aoi (Abelmoschus manihot, Medicus), a plant grown in the gardens of the paper makers. The root of the plant is crushed, put in a bag and is allowed to ooze out into a bucket. A portion of this liquid is put into the vat, along with the fibers, and it is beaten until the right consistency is reached. I can still hear the slush- o-slosh, slush-o-slosh of the paper maker beating the pulp over and over again. One of the women I visited, while attending a workshop in the village in 1983, and whom I saw again during a cold snowy visit in 1984, was Mrs. Nishino of Oku-Kurotani. Mrs. Nishino had a small shed in front of her home. One room was for the families' washing machine and storage of household equipment. The other, no more than eight feet by ten feet in size, was the paper-making shed. The paper-making vat was under a sliding window which looked down a small walkway to the narrow village street. 44 Mrs. Nishino stood in a pit with a charcoal burner at her side. On top of the burner, there was a teakettle of water slowly simmering. Mrs. Nishino warmed her hands over the steam, in between pulling sheets from the screen, on which she made her paper. The rhythm of making a sheet of paper intrigued me and I stayed and photographed her, and then just watched. With a deft movement, she dipped her mold with the screen into the vat, picking up just enough of the pulp and water to let it flow over the surface of the screen. At the end of her short, quick movements to evenly distribute the fibers, she nipped off the extra pulp into the vat and let the screen in the mold sit on boards extended over the vat, to drip. When sufficient liquid had drained off, she took the screen from the mold and let it stand, on end, on a ledge against the wall. (Photo 1). Behind her was a post of papers, one paper laid on top of another. She picked up another screen, put it in the mold and made another sheet of paper. While that sheet was draining, she took the first screen and deftly placed it on top of the post of papers to her rear. As she rolled the screen over the pile of papers, she released the newly made sheet of paper from the screen, where it was held by the suction of the other papers on the screen, by pressing gently at the edge of the paper. Then, pulling from the side where she first laid the paper on the post, she gently lifted the screen off the newly made sheet of paper. This process was repeated numerous times until she had used all of the pulp. (Mies Illustration 5). At night Mrs. Nishino put the screen, with a cloth over the post, and let it drip its excess water out naturally. The next day, with the help of another person, she moved the heavy post of papers, still filled with water, under a press. There, she put a wood board cover over the post, adjusted some large beams on top and pressed down, by turning a large screw handle on the metal bars which fitted on top of the beams. Periodically, she would give the handle another turn, just enough to release the water without applying enough pressure to harm the paper. (Mies Illustration 6). As I looked out of her window, I could see a row of boards with newly made paper drying in the sun. I climbed up a small pathway in the snow and watched another man removing the papers, one by one from the post, laying them on a smooth board and brushing oxit the air bubbles with a soft bristled brush made for that purpose. The boards were put out in the sun and were left until the papers were thoroughly dry. (Mies Illustration 7). Then they were removed one by one by carefully lifting a comer and piling them one on another to be taken, another day, to the cooperative to be sold. The second year when I returned I saw Mrs. Nishino working steadily, 45 no matter that the snow was piled six feet deep around her home and workshop. The water in the vat was very cold and her hands were very red. She had been doing this for years. I had been told that few of the young people in the village cared for this labor and were not making paper. But the middle aged women such as Mrs. Nishino and the older men and women who worked in the village devoted much of their time to paper making. In Mr. Endo's workshop, the process was much the same. It was another blustery, windy, snowy day that we visited his workshop. He was making a special paper called Kamiko, a paper used for Buddhist priest's robes. The paper is thick and treated with neri made from konyaku, a gelatinous substance.