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Life of Kameda rice farmers
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Before World War II, there used to be a large lake in Kameda. However, no Kameda maps then showed the lake. The reason was simply that the lake was considered to be farm “land” then. Needless to say, farming in the marshlands was extremely difficult. The farmers would have to work in cold water to plant and harvest rice, which was basically growing in water and floating at farmers’ waist level. Kameda was situated near the mouths of two large rivers that flew into the Sea of Japan. Seawater would flow back up in the rivers and sneak into the rice fields when the weather and sea conditions deteriorated. That often ruined rice and consequently devastated farmers’ lives. A famous Japanese writer, Ryotaro Shiba wrote about the plight of the Kameda rice farmers in his travel essay “Kaido o yuku – gata no michi”, or “On the highways” in the English title. He expressed that agriculture in Kameda meant a series of life or death struggles.
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Kamedajima weaving factories flourish
Kamedajima was developed by Kameda rice farmers who were in desperate need for work clothes that were durable against the constant exposure to water and mud. With its superior physical characteristics and the unique stripes patterns, Kamedajima gained popularity from across the country. Record shows that the production of cotton textile, which refers to Kamedajima in this case, began in 1696 and the most flourished during 1869-1926 (throughout the Meiji and Taisho eras). The golden age of Kameda textile business lasted for about 310 years. The Kameda area also prospered with the rise of the textile industry, which was made possible by highly skilled textile craftsmen who worked in over 600 factories at its peak. The lively atmosphere of the time was depicted in the lyrics of Kameda’s old dance song that says, “If weaving girls come and gather, guys will get fired up.” The once thriving industry began to decline as Japan was drawn into World War II. As mechanization and more price-competitive foreign fabric were brought into the textile industry, many weaving factories were forced to shut down. Currently there are only two left in Kameda.
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Reviving Kamedajima
Kamedajima became history. There were no remnants of the once-flourishing textile industry in Kameda. However, in 2002 Teruo Nakabayashi, the third generation president of Nakaeikigyo Co., Ltd. based in Kameda, decided to bring Kamedajima back to life. The company president was faced with challenges and hurdles, but strongly determined to revive Kamedajima because it was a tradition too valuable to lose. He would go to the Kameda history museum and spent a great deal of time examining remaining Kamedajima fabric samples and original stripes pattern documents to capture every detail of the extinct textile. Three years later, Nakabayashi succeeded in reproducing a complete Kamedajima textile sample overcoming a highly complex thread weaving patterns; the pattern repeated a set of three vertical threads of different colors accented by an insertion of one tsumugi* yarn like thread every 40 vertical threads while the horizontal treads were only in black.
Tsumugi is a twisted yarn that provides durability into the yarn. It is used in many kinds of traditional Japanese fabric.
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Kamedajima today
In 2008 Kamedajima was featured in a home shopping catalogue, which was promoted by a Japanese actress Tomoko Yamaguchi and published by Senjukai (a leading Japanese on-line/home catalogue shopping firm). Since then Kamedajima has been utilized in new genres of products including Samue, work clothes originally created for monks, Furoshiki, Japanese decorative wrapping cloth and Sensu, Japanese portable fans for its simple yet elegant stripes pattern. New products exhibitions and events are
