Iya Valley

Agriculture The traditional culinary offerings in the valley are based on what can be grown in the small terraced farm plots that climb up the hillsides through the valley's hamlets. Very few mechanized tools are used, though some people have small hand-pushed tilling machines. Nearly all crops are organically grown, with the main fertilizer being the susuki grass (also called kaya) that is also used for roof thatch. This grass is harvested in the mid-autumn and bundled into small pyramids around the fields so that it can be used in the spring.

Grains and Vegetables

Various vegetables are still produced for local consumption or for use in the valley's inns. In the past rice was grown but was difficult to cultivate in abundance, so the main staples are soba (buckwheat) and potatoes. The soba is either prepared as a whole-grain porridge (soba-gome) or as noodles. To this day noodles are still grounded by hand in traditional stone mortars in some households, and several people in the valley offer classes. The famed Iya potatoes are small and dense due to the rough and rocky soil conditions. Usually served roasted or in soups, a local dish consists of whole boiled potatoes mixed with miso paste and garlic.

Other foods include the locally produced tofu, which is rather unusual for Japan, and called ishi-dofu or iwa-dofu by the locals, which literally means "stone tofu". It gets its name from its thick density, so stiff that a brick sized piece would be traditionally carried by a single rope wrapped around it. This is prepared in soups, roasted over charcoal with miso paste, or served uncooked with ground ginger, green onions, and soy sauce. Konnyaku is another locally produced delicacy, which is a rubbery gelatin produced from a Japanese yam. Renowned for its medicinal and health qualities, it is served in soups, roasted, or uncooked with miso paste.

A common treat is called dekomawashi which consists of a whole Iya potato, a square of iwadofu, and a wedge of konnyaku all skewered together on a bamboo stick, then slathered with miso and slowly roasted over coals. This can be found at roadside shops and most hotels and restaurants.

Various types of wild mountain sprouts collectively known throughout Japan as san-sai (mountain vegetables) are a garnish for soups and noodle dishes and are a rather sought after delicacy in the Iya Valley as such mountainous terrain is where they tend to randomly grow. However, like elsewhere in the country, due to the expense and difficulty in producing, it is probably more common at most local restaurants and hotels to be (unknowingly) served cheaper imported san-sai, usually from China. However, local people do produce san-sai for their own use, and if staying at a small inn or homestay you would probably have an opportunity to sample the real thing.

Meat

In the past farm animals were standard but nowadays (at best) one may find the occasional chicken or two.

Hunting and fishing were once common, but are now less so. Wild boar and deer are still prized and the few hunters/trappers around can now sell their finds through the new (opened in 2014) hunters' butchery located in Higashi Iya. As a result, such wild game is becoming available in some local restaurants and hotels. Traditionally however, the local hunters would have huts deep in the mountains (only a dozen or so remain active) where their kills would be brought and butchered, the hunting dogs would be fed, and a feast of meat would be grilled up and shared. As the meat was so fresh, it was common for the prime cuts to be eaten raw.

River trout (amego) is a popular delicacy and though still fished by some, it is more commonly gotten by the few local hatcheries. To prepare, usually the whole fish is encrusted in salt, skewered with a bamboo stick, and then roasted slowly over charcoal.

The amego fish is also a main ingredient in hirara-yaki, which is an offering unique to the Iya Valley. This meal is traditionally slow-cooked on a large stone with a fire beneath, but nowadays it is more common to have it prepared on a large iron griddle. To prepare, thick walls of miso paste (both red and white miso) are formed in a circle around the edges, and inside a collection of fish, potatoes, tofu, onions, and konnyaku are cooked in a sake based broth which steeps in the surrounding miso. While usually only (and rarely) prepared at festivals or special occasions, it is possible to find it on the menu in individual portions at some inns and hotels.

Iya people love to drink; however, there is no local alcohol (legally) produced. While beer is common, the oldest generation still prefers sake, while the middle-aged men are more partial to shochu.

The Iya drinking etiquette is usually practiced at shrine festivals, home parties, and banquets. In this drinking style, a person has his own small cup from which he must first consume a cupful in order to 'break it in'. Then he passes his cup to his neighbor and pours him a cupful (usually sake, but any alcohol or even non-alcohol is allowable). The receiving person must immediately drink this, so that he can return the cup. The cup is then filled for the original owner, and he must drink this cup quickly because he will then be given the cup owned by the person he just gave his to. This sharing and serving of cups will go on back and forth between two people for as long as their conversation continues, and then they both move on to other people in the room. It is proper to share at least one cupful with every person present at the occasion, which could take a rather long time and result in heavy intoxication at large gatherings.

It is still common for local people to grow and roast their own tea, called bancha (番茶), and is primarily used for household consumption. Each spring the youngest leaves are picked, roasted, pressed by hand, and dried in the sun on straw mats laid out in front of homes. When visiting a home, it is common to be served this either hot or lukewarm.

Several festivals of various size are held throughout the year.

Most local Shinto shrines host their own festivals for the surrounding neighborhood, usually once or twice a year according to their own traditions. In these events, local customs often call for a group of men to carry a small (70–150 kg) portable shrine around the shrine grounds while accompanied with drummers, people in costume, and sometimes pairs of people throwing long bamboo staffs. Each shrine and neighborhood has its own customs (one or two even have the attendees engage in sumo), but due to an ever-dwindling population, many of these traditions are being lost.

The largest festivals in the valley are the summer festivals, one each in Nishi-Iya and Higashi-Iya. They are held at the middle-school grounds on the weekends before and after the national Obon Holiday (August 15) as this is a common time for family members who have moved away to return home for a visit. These events are open to anyone and include food tents, games, performances, and fireworks, so if visiting the area at this time, ask around or look for promotional posters.

The Yukigassen (Snowball Fight Competition) is held each January in Higashi Iya, and has become a major event at a time when few visit the valley. Not simply a free-for-all, this event is team-based and participants often practice for months to coordinate their skills in the tightly ruled sport. There are several classes of participation including children, women's, men's, and 'just for fun' leagues, and the winners of the main event get to advance to the national competition annually held in Nagano Prefecture.

The original Iya hamlets extend up the valley walls in clusters and only in the past forty years or so have roads been built connecting them to the main roadway at the base of the valley, with many hamlets only getting roads as recently as the 1990s. Many homes sit abandoned.

The traditional home building style in the Iya valley is called kayabuki ( 茅葺 thatched roof house, also called minka 民家) and many examples of these buildings still exist, though those with exposed thatch are now usually used as inns, restaurants, or historic sites and not for personal use. Since cutting, bundling and replacing the thatch is a time-consuming and costly endeavor, most personal homes which still have thatch now have it covered over with corrugated tin panels to prevent it from rotting. Though the thatch isn't visible, it is easy to spot these homes on the hillsides as they have thick, high-pitched roofs. Since the 1950s or so many of the thatched homes have had their roof pitch lowered and the roof completely replaced with either tiles or corrugated tin.

Historically, it was common for a home site to consist of three buildings: the main home, a barn, and what is locally called an inkyo (隠居) "retirement home" which would be a smaller but independently functioning house for the family's oldest generation. As one set of grandparents died, the next would move into this separate house for some most likely much sought after peace and quiet.

The most modern homes from the 1960s onwards lie along the main valley roadside and are often built on heavy steel scaffolds due to the lack of flat space.

The frames of the traditional homes are made with massive, interwoven red pine (akamatsu 赤松) or southern Japanese hemlock (tsuga 栂) logs for horizontal beams and squared-off chestnut (kuri 栗) for vertical beams. All are connected through traditional craftsmanship without nails, allowing the wood to expand and contract with the seasons. Some of the oldest building examples still standing date back to the seventeenth century. The foundations are usually made entirely of chestnut beams due to its high strength and anti-rotting properties, and the base beams simply sit upon stone piles such that nothing is actually secured to the ground (that is, no concrete or planting of beams).

Irori

Inside, the center point of the home is the approximately one meter square irori (囲炉裏 sunken floor hearth) which would usually stay alight with low embers at all times. To maintain the burn, four chestnut logs would be placed inward at each corner and a small, flameless charcoal fire within the joining point at the center would slowly burn on the tips of the logs, and as the logs burned out they would be pushed slightly more into the center. The irori would be used for cooking, either with an iron pot stand or with the suspended jizai-kagi (自在鈎) which consists of an adjustable hook connected to a ceiling beam above and from which a pot could be hung, with the height adjusted according to the temperature sought. Often the jizai-kagi would be made of a bamboo pole with a carved wooden fish used for the hook adjusting mechanism (with the fish serving as a water talisman to ward off the danger of fire).

As the fire would constantly burn, and since there are no chimneys, the ceilings and beams in these homes have now become blackened with soot, particularly the higher in the house they are. The internal bamboo lattice to which the roof thatch would be lashed to would accordingly turn a deep red-brown when polished (called susutake 煤竹), and it was sought after by handicraft workers whenever a roof was replaced. One of the main reasons to have such a smokey atmosphere was to help dry out the roof thatch from the inside and extend its lifespan (usually about 25 or 30 years). However the smoke-filled homes did serve an additional purpose, which was to help cure the tobacco leaves that would be hung from the rafters during the winter (until the 1970s, tobacco was the primary cash-crop in the valley. Currently it is no longer grown anywhere in Iya).

Also standard in the homes is the storage cellar, located under a removable pair of floor boards. This cellar would be dug about one meter deep into the ground and would be used to store potatoes, pickles and other foods as the temperature would be cooler and more consistent down there in the summer.

The best known historical houses of East Iya are:

Asa-ke House 阿佐家住宅. Located in the hamlet of Asa 阿佐, this is one of the largest houses in Iya, formerly lived in by the leader of the descendants of the Heike warriors who fled into Iya in the late 12th century. The present house dates from 1862, and was fully restored in 1917.[2][3]

Kita-ke House 喜多家住宅. Located in the hamlet of Oeda 大枝, this was formerly a samurai residence, like Asa-ke a very large house for Iya. It was built in Horeki 13 宝暦13, which corresponds to 1763. It was moved to its present location and fully restored in 1990.[4]</ref> 武家屋敷 旧喜多家住宅</ref>

Kimura-ke House 木村家住宅. Located in the hamlet of Tsurui 釣井, this is oldest house in Iya, dated to Genroku 12 元禄12, which corresponds to 1699. In 1976 it was declared an Important Cultural Property 重要文化財, and it was fully restored in 1984.[5][6]

Chiiori 篪庵. "Sister house" to Kimura-ke, just up the hill in Tsurui hamlet. It's believed to have been built around the same time or soon after Kimura-ke in the Genroku Era 元禄時代 (1688-1704). Bought by writer Alex Kerr in 1973, it has been the center first of a volunteer movement, and since the 2000s, NPO "Chiiori Trust" and company "Chiiori Alliance" dedicated to rural revival in Iya and elsewhere in Japan. The house was fully restored in 2012.[7]

Houses in Ochiai Hamlet 落合集落. Ochiai hamlet, perched on a steep hillside, includes numerous old houses dating from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. In 2005 the hamlet was designated by the national government as a Juyo Dentoteki Kenzobutsugun 重要伝統的建造物群, (abbreviated to Judenken 重伝建), "Important Group of Traditional Structures." From 2012 to 2016, the City of Miyoshi, to which Iya belongs, restored eight houses, re-thatching the roofs, and installing modern comforts. The planning and design were done by Alex Kerr and the Chiiori staff. The houses are now managed for the city by Chiiori Alliance as "Tougenkyo Iya" 桃源郷祖谷 ("Shangrila Iya") [8][9]