Origin of Japan from tatami floored room By Kunio Yanagita, the father of Japanese folkloristic.
“What is being Japanese?”
Pursuing an answer of the question, Kunio Yanagita who is known to be the father of Japanese folkloristic.
Based in Tohoku, Japan, he gave his attention into the Japanese old local customs and mythologies.
He wrote several writings including the famous writing
“Tono Monogatari”
and laid the foundation of Japanese folkloristic.
It is said that Kunio’s aspiration is coming from his birthplace, which he called it by himself
“The smallest house in Japan”.
Kunio was born in Fukusaki-cho, a town located in Kanzaki District, Hyogo prefecture, Japan.
His birthplace has been kept as
“This is the Japanese Old House”.
A tatami floored old house, which built up a history.
About 5 square meters of several small Japanese-style rooms have a Japanese paper screen called Shoji and a Japanese sliding door called Fusuma, a home shrine called Kamidana, and tatami floors.
Standing on the back of an Idyllic landscape of mountains with a wide sky, there is an indescribable atmosphere of Meiji Era of Japan there.
Sitting on a veranda-like porch at the old house and deep breathing in beautiful scenery.
Taking a look back, there is a Japanese style room with a taste of zashiki-warashi (※1) sitting on tatami mats.
Kunio’s mind may have been thinking about many things sitting on tatami mats and this is the place you can feel origins of Japanese people.
※1 zashiki-warashi is a sprite looking like a child with bobbed hair and a red face, which inhabits in tatami floored room of a house and brings great fortune to the people living there.
