A papermaking site can explain work that a finished sheet conceals. Mino-Washi Museum’s account of Kanbei-san’s kawaya describes chiritori, the hand selection of unwanted material from kozo fibres, and the workspace that supported it.
Technique and structure
The museum describes putting the fibres in baskets or sieves, washing them in running water and selecting them by hand in ample natural light. Dirt and damaged fibres are removed during this work. Water flow and visibility therefore serve different needs within the same preparation stage: washing the material and allowing the worker to inspect it. This is a fibre-selection account, distinct from forming a wet sheet on a papermaking screen.
Read the surviving workspace accurately
The museum describes the kawaya as an open-ended, roofed workspace with a spring-fed stone water channel and a window admitting daylight. It says the site is no longer used for chiritori and is preserved to convey the importance of clean water and shared work in papermaking. It should not be presented as a currently operating production workshop.
The value of the site is the connection it makes between a material-preparation task and the environment arranged around it.
For international readers
This evergreen account uses the museum’s March 2024 reference, checked now. It does not establish a tour programme or a quality grade for a sheet offered for sale.
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日本語
本美濃紙の塵取り：流水と自然光を使う仕事
美濃和紙の里会館の資料は、楮の繊維から汚れや傷んだ部分を手で取り除く塵取りと、川屋の構造を説明しています。流水と自然光はその作業を支える要素です。勘兵衛さんの川屋は現在、塵取りには使われず、共同作業の歴史を伝える施設として保存されています。