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[Another Hakeme]

Koishiwara ware's hakeme. The regular, unruly, but never mechanical pattern is the result of craftsmanship. You can look at it as long as you like. Hakeme of Koishiwara ware is painted by the traditional technique of applying a brush to a vessel while turning it on a potter's wheel. In addition to this, hakeme has another explanation as an archaeological term. In this article, I would like to introduce it under the title of "Another Hakeme."

In archaeology, hakeme (a brush mark) is a series of closely spaced thin parallel lines on the surface of a vessel, such as earthenware, which are thought to be the traces of tool strokes used to smooth the surface of the vessel. Typical examples of hakeme include Yayoi earthenware and earthenware of the Yayoi period, and haniwa terra-cotta tomb rings arranged in kofun tumuli (burial mounds). During the Asuka, Nara, and Heian periods in present-day Honshu, a culture different from that of Honshu developed in Hokkaido. This culture is called the "Rubble Culture" because of the characteristics of the earthenware that was actively produced during this time. As the character for "rubbing" indicates, the term "rubbed pattern" refers to the marks made by rubbing the surface of earthenware with a tool, in other words, hakeme.

The interest of hakeme lies in the tooling. The term "hakeme" makes you think that the tool is not a brush, but actually it is not. Various opinions have been presented about the tool of hakeme, but a researcher named Koichi Yokoyama has revealed that it was a palm-sized piece of wood. But why do wood chips make brush marks on clay?

The key to the mechanism lay in the nature of the annual rings of the wood. When we look at the annual rings, we can see that there are light-colored and dark-colored areas. It is easy to understand if you imagine a baumkuchen. The light-colored part is called earlywood or springwood, which grows from spring to summer, and the dark-colored part is called latewood or summerwood, which grows from summer to late summer. The earlywood is relatively soft and the latewood is relatively hard.

The wood chips used for brushwork are thought to be mainly softwood planks cut perpendicular to the direction of the annual rings. When clay is brushed with such a wood edge, the difference in wear rate between earlywood and latewood due to the difference in hardness causes unevenness at the tip of the wood edge, and lines appear on the adjusted surface of the vessel in a form corresponding to the unevenness. The other hakame are the result of nature, the annual rings of the wood.

Although it is impossible to see the actual techniques of the craftsmen who lived in those days, it is very interesting to catch a glimpse of some of their work through the traces that have been preserved to this day. I am deeply impressed by the luxury and happiness of being able to see the artisans of the present day in various forms as they share their techniques with us at the same time.

Koishiwara ware's Hakeme Sansunzara and Hakeme Mamekobachi
https://www.shokunin.com/en/koishiwara/mame.html
Otaru Showroom
https://www.shokunin.com/en/showroom/otaru.html

References
https://www.crossroadfukuoka.jp/traditionalcrafts/jpcraft/crafts/koishiwarayaki/
https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%88%B7%E6%AF%9B%E7%9B%AE-600681