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Kitayama Maruta
Amazing trees raised by amazing tree farmers
Two regions in Japan are famous for specialty lumber. Kyoto's Kitayama is the most prestigious area of them all. The Kitayama maruta (sugi or Japanese cedar logs in the round, and lumber) industry developed in the mid-Muromachi period (1333-1568). The logs were used as lumber for tea houses, and almost every traditional and modern Japanese home has a sugi pillar in the ceremonial alcove (tokonoma), usually in the living room.
Kitayama sugi require year-round work. From the time the trees are five or six years old until they are felled 20 or 30 years later, the branches have to be kept trimmed. Called eda-guchi, this procedure is what separates Kitayama sugi from all other lumber industries; it also adds ten times the amount of work. The trees are so close together that the trimmer will, instead of descending, just grab onto a branch and leap across to the next tree. Trimming takes place in spring and fall.
After the tree is cut down, it is peeled its skin and left under the strong summer sun. Then it is soaked in water and carefully polished with soft sand. Kitayama sugi are priced per log. The average log sells for about 50,000 yen but they can run as high as 500,000 yen, special logs can exceed one million yen.
The village of Nakagawa, the center of Kitayama sugi cultivation, is only about one and a half hour round-trip car or bus ride from the center of Kyoto. Just north of Nakagawa is the Kitayama Sugi Museum (Tel: 075-406-2241), which explains the Kitayama sugi world. Open: 9:00-17:00, 300 yen; take JR Bus from Kyoto Station and get off at Kitayama Green Garden.
