トン……パキッ。木材の割れる音は工房の中から漏れて、川上村東川地区の空気中へと消えていった。僕は『吉野カネ利』の看板の下の網戸を開けて、その工房の中へと入った。入り口の近くには、丸太を「みかん割り」にした三角とほかの木材が積んであって、杉の木の香りがした。工房の奥で、薄い「」という板が積み重ねられて、1000枚ずつの大きな束でまとめてあった。それの束に囲まれていた前田崇さんは、作業台から顔を上げて静かな声と優しい笑顔で挨拶してくれた。
縦に長くて四角い、3ミリメートルほどの厚みのは、神社、お寺、城などの伝統的な建物の屋根で使われる。前田さんは4年前から自分の工房でこのを作っているが、彼はもともと人工林を管理する「山守」だ。木を植えたり、育てたり、原木市場まで運んだりする仕事だ。あるとき、川上村の製材所で作りの実演を見て、「吉野杉で作ってみたら？」と知り合いに提案されたのがきっかけで、前田さんは山守の仕事を続けながら、自分の作りを挑戦することにした。
先日、前田さんは気軽に作りの作業を見せてくれた。彼は作業台のみに24ミリの材料をはめて、左手で「小割り包丁」という刃を材料の真ん中に当てた。それから右手で「バンバ」という大きな木槌で「小割り包丁」の刃を釘のように一気に叩き、材料を半分に割った。その作業を繰り返し、12ミリの材料を6ミリに割り、6ミリの材料を3ミリへと割っていく。彼は残っていた小さな一片を「小割り包丁」で取り、をきれいにしてから、最後にその一枚を積木の上に載せた。
『吉野カネ利工房』での前田さんは、「バンバ」と「小割り包丁」の作業を繰り返して、を1枚ずつ作っているけど、彼が一人でずっと作業をしているのではなく、仲の良い友達と一緒に作っている。「アホな話ばかりだけど」と前田さんは友達を見て、みんなで笑った。みんなは山守や山の仕事の経験者だ。「この木材の木を育てたのは、僕らのおじいさんや、そのもっと前からだった。そういう時代の話だ」と前田さんは工房の木材を指した。3ミリの厚みしかないを真正面から見たら、数の多い年輪が見えて、一本の木を育てるための数百年を感じられる。前田さんたちは過去の世代の木を大切にして、その木でを作りながら、将来の世代の木を育てている。村の山々を覆っている森林は世代を超えるもので、前の世代と次の世代をつなげているのは、のんきなこの工房で作業をしている前田さんたちだ。
Vol.25 Making Kokera Shingles and Trees That Connect Generations
“Thud…crack”, the sound of splitting wood spilled out of the workshop, and disappeared into the air of Kawakami Village’s Unogawa district. I opened the screen under the Yoshino Kanetoshi signboard and entered the workshop. Near the entrance were stacked parts of logs cut into triangles, and the workshop had the scent of cedar. Farther back in the workshop were thin wooden boards called kokera, bundled in large stacks of 1,000. Surrounded by those stacks was Takashi Maeda, who looked up from his work bench and quietly greeted me with a smile.
Long lengthwise, square-cornered, and 3 mm thick, these kokera shingles are used on the roofs of traditional buildings like shrines, temples, and castles. Today, Takashi is making these in his workshop, but up until four years ago, he just worked as a yamamori, managing forests of planted trees. It’s a job of planting trees, raising them, and carrying them to the auction yard. One day, he watched a demonstration showing how to make kokera shingles at a lumber yard in Kawakami Village. When someone suggested to him, “What about making these out of Yoshino cedar?,” Takashi took on the challenge of making his own kokera shingles while continuing his job as a yamamori.
The other day, Takashi casually showed me how he makes a kokera shingle. He stuck the 24 mm thick piece of wood into the notch on his work bench and placed his kowaribocho blade on top of it and down the middle with his left hand. In his right hand he took his banba, a large wooden hammer, and hammered the blade into the wood as if it was a nail, splitting the wood in half. He repeated that process, splitting the 12 mm wood into 6 mm, and the 6 mm into 3 mm. He used his blade to scrape away any remaining shreds, and after cleaning up the kokera shingle, he finally added that single board to the top of the stack.
At the Yoshino Kanetoshi workshop, Takashi repeats this work with the banba and kowaribocho, making one board at a time, but he’s not doing this all alone, as he has some close friends working with him. “We just talk about stupid stuff the whole time,” Takashi looked at his friends and laughed. They are all experienced yamamoris or do other forestry work. “It was our grandfathers, or even before them, that raised these trees,” he said, and pointed to some of the lumber in the shop. Though just three millimeters thick, if you look at a kokera shingle directly from the front, you can see all of its year rings, and feel the hundreds of years it takes to grow a single tree. Takashi and his friends take care of the trees of previous generations, turning them into kokera, while also planting trees for future generations. The trees that cover the mountains of Kawakami Village go beyond generations, and it is Takashi and his friends in their easygoing workshop that connect the previous generation with the next.
