Tatara Ironmaking: Iron from the Mountains of Hino

In the Hino district of western Tottori, iron was once made from iron sand and charcoal. This traditional method is called tatara. It grew into the district's core industry, and its iron was prized as a brand called Inga steel.

In 1884, by Tottori Prefecture's calculation, about one in three people in the district was involved in tatara. Yet in 1918 the last ironworks stopped. This article follows how the industry grew, how people lived around it, and where its traces can be seen today.

What is tatara?

According to Tottori Prefecture, the word tatara first meant the foot-operated bellows used to strengthen the fire. Later it came to mean the furnace that melted iron sand, and then the whole ironworks with all its equipment.

An interpretive text of the Wakō Museum in Yasugi explains that tatara is a method unique to Japan, which uses iron sand and charcoal rather than iron ore and coal. Tools and equipment changed over time, but the basic principle has stayed the same since the late sixth century. The industry flourished in the mountains of the Chūgoku region, including Tottori, where good iron sand was plentiful.

Tottori Prefecture's own chronology also places the start of ironmaking from iron sand in Japan in the late sixth century.

Tatara needed large amounts of iron sand and charcoal. In the Izumo area of eastern Shimane, the Agency for Cultural Affairs explains, iron sand was collected by kanna-nagashi: hillsides were cut away and the soil was washed down water channels to collect the iron sand. Forests for charcoal were cut in a cycle of about thirty years so that charcoal burning could go on.

Old roots in Hino

For Hōki province as a whole, there is a firmer written record. Tottori Prefecture's chronology, citing the Heian ibun collection of documents, records that in 1073 Hōki province sent a total of 1,140 pieces of iron to the temple Tōdaiji.

Inga steel and the Tottori domain

In the Edo period the district's iron came under the Tottori domain. The prefecture notes that, according to the Hino-gunshi, Hino became an o-teyama, a domain-run ironmaking area, from around the Jōkyō and Genroku eras.

The prefecture dates the period of direct domain management to 1694–1698. Iron wholesalers handled sales and transport.

Hino produced a high-quality iron sand called masa, well suited to making blades. Its iron was highly valued as a brand, Inga steel, and tatara grew into the district's core industry.

Local people also wrote down what they knew. The prefecture's chronology records that in 1784 Shimohara Shigenaka of Miyaichi village in Hino district wrote Tessan hitsuyō kiji, a record of what ironworks needed.

Large ironmasters emerged. The chronology records that the Kondō family of Neu began their first tatara in 1779.

In 1800 a domain scheme to support the ironworks began, and Hino iron was shipped from Yonago port to markets around the country. In 1836 the Kondō family opened a shop in Osaka to sell iron.

Life in a tatara settlement

A tatara was more than a furnace. Tottori Prefecture describes the works at Tsugōdani in Hino. At the site stood a workshop called the takadono.

Under a chief called the murage worked banko who pumped the bellows, smiths, kanna-shi who collected iron sand, and yamako who burned charcoal. Together these specialists, a group of more than a hundred, formed their own settlement.

The settlement was called a sannai, and it formed a society separate from the farming villages around it. The people of the sannai bought rice, sake, vinegar and other food from nearby villages, making it a large market for local products. In winter, the farming off-season, some villagers went out to work at kanna-nagashi.

A tatara god, usually Kanayago-gami, was worshipped at the works. When the forests nearby could no longer supply wood for charcoal, the whole settlement moved on to a new site. A local saying survives: "Three thousand households of Okuhino lived on tatara."

The scale was national. The Agency for Cultural Affairs states that at the industry's peak, from the late Edo period into the Meiji era, about 80 percent of Japan's iron was made at the foot of the Chūgoku Mountains, centered on Izumo. Tottori Prefecture adds that in the Meiji era, Tottori's share of Japan's production value of traditional iron reached 40 percent.

Changes, numbers and the end

The prefecture's figures show how large the industry was in Hino. A record from 1884 lists about 600 places where iron sand was collected and 34 where steel was made and iron refined. The district then had just over 31,000 people, so by the prefecture's calculation about one in three was involved in tatara.

New methods were tried. The prefecture's chronology records the founding of the Fukuoka-yama ironworks in Hino district in 1887. Around 1889, the bellows changed from the tenbin-fuigo, a balance bellows, to a water-powered trompe, and then to bellows driven by water wheels.

Pressure was growing. According to the prefecture, swings in the economy, government mining policy and the spread of cheap Western iron put tatara in danger after the start of the modern era. In 1918 the works of the Kondō family, the last ironmaster, at Fukuoka-yama and three other sites stopped, ending the long history of tatara in Hino.

Tsugōyama: a tatara in the record

One site shows what a working tatara looked like. The Tsugōyama tatara site was run by the Kondō family from 1889 to 1899. In 1898, Tawara Kuniichi of Tokyo Imperial University surveyed it and recorded in detail how it worked.

Excavation and research in 2008 then confirmed the layout of the takadono, the iron-sand washing place, a pond called the kanaike and two large forges. They also showed that the works moved about every ten years.

According to Tottori Prefecture, this proved that the site keeps the original form of traditional tatara from before machine power was introduced. It became a prefectural Historic Site in 2019.

The local tatara association adds that more than 500 tatara sites are known in Hino district. It says that the Tsugōyama works covered about two hectares and that its takadono was about 19 meters on each side. Tawara published his findings in 1933 in Korai no satetsu seirenhō, a study of the traditional method of smelting iron sand.

Places to visit

Neu Rakusha and the Tsugōyama Tatara Museum (Neu, Hino town).* Neu Rakusha stands opposite the residence of the Kondō family in the old post town of Neu. Its panels introduce the ironmasters of Okuhino and the Kondō family's management of the industry.

Behind it, the Tsugōyama Tatara Museum shows a one-tenth scale model of the Tsugōyama takadono, based on Tawara's drawings. The model includes the workers led by the murage and the places where they rested during three days and nights of operation. Visits are by reservation; check the association's website for details.

Ōmiya Rakusha (Inga, Nichinan town).* In a former school in the Ōmiya area, once known for Inga steel, this center explains how tatara works and the history of human iron use. It also has a corner on charcoal burning. Opening days may change, so check before visiting.

The Tsugōyama tatara site (Hino town).* The prefectural Historic Site is open to the public. According to the prefecture, it is about an hour on foot from JR Kamisuge Station.