ELEVATION 2,700 FEET
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“A traveler” |
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let me be called; |
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the first autumn rain. |
—Basho
WHEN the samurai physician and philosopher Kaibara Ekiken passed through Niekawa in 1685, he only noted, “It is a rather confined, squeezed-together village of some sixty to seventy houses and a barrier station. From here, the road goes uphill.” The author of the Kiso meisho zue, 120 years later, informed his readers that
a long time ago, there was a hot spring here, and for this reason it was called Niekawa, or Boiling River. [The kanji 
(nie) actually means “gift” or “offering,” but is homophonous with the verb “to boil or cook.] . . . It is a town of quite some wealth, with people’s homes scattered here and there.
In 1839, Okada Zenkuro, a samurai serving the Owari branch of the Tokugawa at their Edo mansion, was sent on a secret mission to investigate conditions in the Kiso Valley in order to revise rice allotments. In his report, the Kisojun koki, we can see that the population had grown—no doubt due to the heavy traffic on the Nakasendo—and he wrote the following:
There are some 227 houses here concerned either with commerce or agriculture, and the population stands at 1,016 people.
There are in this post town some fifty-nine people who work both agriculture and commerce, and are thus involved in trade. For this reason, in years of bad harvest, with some prudence, there are not as many people starving to death or leaving the area as there are in Narai or Yabuhara. In the traffic of officials and horses, the post town officials are excellent, scrupulous men, and there are no hindrances in going forward.
Nowadays, Niekawa is a small town of a few shops and private homes. Once a thriving post town, it partially burned down in 1782 and then suffered a number of other fire disasters, which eventually dried up the small streams of water for common use that went through the town. Niekawa was entirely destroyed by fire in 1930 and then rebuilt to appear mostly as it does today, the important waki-honjin being replaced by a sake shop. The inns that once attracted weary travelers are gone altogether.
The main point of interest in Niekawa is its small barrier, or bansho. Built on an elevated place only a few paces down a slight incline from the post town, it was originally established by the Kiso clan in 1335 to control all movement through the Kiso Valley. By the mid-1600s, however, it was being operated by vassals of the Yamamura magistrates of Kiso Fukushima to monitor the passage of women, firearms, and Japanese cypress. The bansho is positioned such that it would be difficult to pass unnoticed by officials stationed there, but the building itself is small—really only three rooms and a tiny office. Large rocks secure its shingled roof against the winds that come through the valley. An array of weapons is displayed on the walls, and when walking through the close quarters, one understands that the inspection was a deadly serious business.
By the time I arrived at the barrier, I was soaked from hat to boot and stopped to rest on the raised wooden veranda once trod by the magistrates’ watchmen. Here, I transgressed one of the cardinal rules of the Ryoko yojinshu: “When resting at a tea house, do not sit down dangling your feet with your footwear on. Even if it is just for a short time, take off your footwear, sit on the bench or porch, and rest with proper posture. Strangely enough, this will lessen your fatigue.” To my good fortune, the lady taking admission fees noticed me sitting there and came out to talk; she then kindly made me a cup of hot coffee. As I warmed myself with the coffee, she offered me some ginger-coated black-sugar candies, most of which I put in my coat pocket for later. As we sat and chatted, my benefactor revealed that she was a local and spent some time teaching elementary school but loved the mostly quiet job of tending the barrier. Tourists came on the weekends, especially in autumn, but otherwise she was often alone, reading contentedly and looking out to the north—from which direction I had just come—with its beautiful view of the valley.
We talked for a while about the area—she was especially interested in the Neolithic Jomon people who lived here once—and she invited me to look through the small museum of Jomon and other historical artifacts of the area. By this time, however, the warming effect of the coffee had worn off, and I was feeling a slight chill, so we bowed our good-byes. Many times in the days that followed, dipping into my pocket for a refreshing taste of sugared ginger, I wondered at the Japanese people’s great gift of kindness to strangers.
It was a short walk through the town, and after about two hundred yards the Kisoji winds around to the right and passes what was once a bubbling spring that was the community’s source of water. Today it is just a large cistern with a zinc roof, but still all-important for the life of this isolated village. Along the way, I looked for the Shingon Buddhist temple that, according to the Kiso meisho zue, was established here in 806. Eventually abandoned and allowed to become dilapidated but rebuilt in 1616, either nothing remains of the temple or I completely missed it in the rain. Sadly, the hot spring of long ago is also gone.
After a winding walk through an area dense with Japanese cypress, juniper, and cryptomeria, the road once again joins the national highway and then splits away from it, joining it again at the hamlet of Nagase. In 1755, the author of the Kisoji junranki stated only, “Nagase—one house. The owner is a doctor who possesses various specific remedies, one of which is a wonderful medicine for lumbago.”
Today Nagase boasts at least a few more homes, a convenience store, and a souvenir shop selling items of lacquerware and wood. Its biggest draw for me, however, was the Nagase noodle shop, a restaurant outfitted with solid cypress slab tables, smoke-darkened rafters, and a huge heater with a pipe chimney in the center of the room. Just outside and visible through the windows is a tiny stone garden punctuated with small trees and a pond filled with koi (carp). I had last eaten here with my friends Gary Haskins and Robertson Adams when we walked the Kiso Road as a sort of moving bachelor’s party a few weeks before my wedding. Gary, a life-long friend, is a potter and artist, and we were constantly losing sight of him along the trail as he stood enraptured among the huge trees that grace the Kiso Valley. Robbie, a graphic designer, had lived in Tokyo years before, and he also loved this view of Japan that his previous experience had not afforded him.
After a very satisfying meal of thick udon noodles and tempura shrimp, I walked out to find that there was still a light rain. Donning backpack and struggling with the poncho, I was off once again down the national highway. Shortly, the Kisoji turns off to the right, and after a time, there is a sign informing the traveler that he or she is approaching the Hirazawa Lacquerware Hall, a museum displaying the methods and tools of lacquerware production, goods made here over the years. Gary, Robbie, and I spent a good bit of time here on our walk, looking at the various items on display and sampling the chestnut coffee they make here, but today, I carried on.
The village of Hirazawa, a few minutes’ walk from the museum and with a main street lined with shops, has been a center of lacquerware production since the Edo period. With its cold temperature and deep valleys, it is not suited for agriculture, but it is surrounded by an abundance of lumber. Everything from expensive heirloom-quality items with gold and silver inlay to folk ware bowls and trays for everyday use are available here, but unfortunately, most are too large to cram into a full backpack. However, it is worth a visit to the museum and/or a walk through the town just to appreciate the simplicity and elegance of these beautiful and quintessentially Japanese wares.
Near the museum entrance, there is a large stone monument engraved with a verse by the famous haiku poet Basho:
Being sent off,
in the end, sending them off:
autumn in the Kiso.
Basho wrote this verse when he passed through the Kiso in 1688, and the magistrate of Kiso Fukushima had the monument erected. A copy of the monument also stands at Shinchaya, the southern entrance to the Kiso Road.
Turning to the right, I found myself on narrower and narrower roads and eventually came out onto a willow-lined path along the Narai River. Passing the miniscule U-Life Coffee Shop, loud and lively even at a distance, and crossing the bridge over the river and then the Chuo-sen railroad tracks, I passed the railroad station and walked into the post town of Narai.
COURSE TIME
Niekawa-shuku to Narai-shuku: 7 kilometers (4.2 miles). 3 hours.