IBUSHICommission
The record · 棟札

A house signs itself
where nobody looks.

When a frame is raised, a wooden tablet is written in ink and nailed up inside the ridge: the date, the owner, the tōryō, and a line asking for the building's safety. It is called a munafuda 棟札, and it faces into the dark of the roof void where no one will read it again until the thatch comes off, thirty or forty years later.

That is the record below. Everything this workshop has put its name inside since 1968 — with the one line that matters at the end of each, which is whether the fire is lit.

Entries shown
8
Nōka
3
Gasshō-zukuri
2
Machi-ya
2
Gyoka
1
Surveyed, all told
340
Of those, gone
61

  1. Ogimachi, Shirakawa-mura · Gasshō-zukuri

    Work
    Re-thatch, north slope
    For
    Yamashita
    Frame
    5 × 11 ken
    Hearth
    Fire lit

    Eleven thousand bundles. One day, ninety-one people, of whom fifty-two were not from the village. The lashings were re-tensioned; two neso ties in the second truss were renewed.

  2. Kamioka, Hida-shi · Nōka

    Work
    Revival
    For
    Furuya
    Frame
    4 × 7 ken
    Hearth
    Fire lit, 2025

    Empty nineteen years. Sills and post feet scarfed on the north and west runs; roof stripped to the bamboo and re-laid. The daikokubashira was sound and was not touched.

  3. Sanmachi, Takayama · Machi-ya

    Work
    Frontage and tōriniwa
    For
    Kubota
    Frame
    3 × 14 ken
    Hearth
    In use

    Kōshi lattice recut to the 1890 profile from a photograph in the town archive. The hibukuro had been ceiled over in 1974; reopened.

  4. Sosogi, Wajima · Gyoka

    Work
    Relocation
    For
    Not recorded
    Frame
    3 × 6 ken
    Hearth
    Fire lit, 2024

    Taken down over one winter and re-raised four hundred metres inland. Yakisugi recharred on site; ridge stones lifted and relaid in the same order they came off.

  5. Miyagawa, Hida-shi · Nōka

    Work
    New frame on the old methods
    For
    Ōtani
    Frame
    4 × 6 ken
    Hearth
    Fire lit, 2023

    The first frame we raised entirely from timber cut within the valley. Ishiba-date on stones dug from the river below the site.

  6. Ainokura, Nanto · Gasshō-zukuri

    Work
    Structural survey and truss repair
    For
    Village association
    Frame
    6 × 12 ken
    Hearth
    Fire lit, 2022

    No re-thatch. Two principal rafters had checked badly along the grain; splinted and re-lashed. Recommended the hearth be relit and it was.

  7. Furukawa, Hida-shi · Nōka

    Work
    Revival
    For
    Ibushi
    Frame
    4 × 5 ken
    Hearth
    Fire lit

    Our own shed. Bought as a collapsing storehouse, re-raised as the workshop. Everything we know how to do wrong, we did wrong here first.

  8. Ōjinmachi, Takayama · Machi-ya

    Work
    Revival
    For
    Not recorded
    Frame
    2 × 12 ken
    Hearth
    In use

    Two ken to the street — the narrowest we have worked on. The tsuboniwa had been roofed over; reopened, and the back rooms got a through-draught for the first time in fifty years.

Entries before 2019 are transcribed from the paper survey books. Where a client asked not to be named, the line reads "not recorded" and stays that way.

Add one.

Tell us the site and the weather. If it comes off well, your name goes up inside the ridge where nobody will see it.

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