The ‘Yamato-mune’ Roofing : its Distribution and Genealogy

Abstract

The ‘yamato-mune’, or ‘takahei’, is a type of roofing popular among private houses. What characterizes it is the way that the thatched gable roof has its gable-walls plastered with wall mud and then covered with tiles. The aim of this thesis is to classify its varied forms and examine the distribution as well as the route of distribution of those various forms in order to throw light on the process of development of the ‘yamato-mune’.Several varieties are found in the ‘yamato-mune’ roofing:I. the fundamental type; ‘takahei’, ‘naka-takahei’, ‘hizumi-takahei’;II. the tiled-roof type; ‘hakomune’, ‘daimune’, ‘okimune’;III. the intermediate type; ‘ryogawa-danchigai’, ‘kata-takahei’;IV. the ‘Koshiore’ type;V. the Kawachi type;VI. the cryptmeria bark- or board-roof type;VII. the zinc-roof type;IIX. other varieties.The ‘yamato-mune’ is mainly used in the Yamato Basin, but the range of its distribution extends west to Kawachi, Settsu, and Izumi, east to the Iga Basin, south to the basin of the River Yoshino (or Kinokawa), and north as far as that part of southern, Yamashiro along the River Kizu. It is also found at a few specific places outside this general range. Distrtbution of several of its varieties is as follows:the fundamental type: to be found in the Yamato Basin;the Kawachi type: Kawachi, Settsu, and Izumi;the ‘hizumi-takahei’ Kawachi: southern and middle Kawachi, Kii;the ‘daimune’ tiled-roof type: north Kawachi;the ‘higashi-sanchu’ tiled-roof type: the Yamato Plateau;the ‘uda-sanchu’ cryptmeria bark-or board-roof type: Oku-uda districts.The ‘yamato-mune’ roofs seem to be distributed along routes of traffic or along rounts of migration of the carpenters. As we move along the principal rountes of traffic from the Yamato Basin to the surrounding districts, we find the fundamental type gradually changed to or replaced by other types. For instance:the fundamental type—the intermediate type—another type of roofing, principally the ‘irimoya’ roofing, which originally belonged to those districts surrounding the Yamato Basin;the fundamental type—the ‘hakomune’—the ‘daimune’;—the Kawachi type;—the ‘daimune’ or the ‘koshiore’;—the ‘higashi—sanchu’—the Iga type (the tiled-roof ‘yosemune’); etc.The fundamental type found in the Yamato Basin is obviously the original ‘yamato-mune’, and the genealogy of the fundamental type is to be further questioned. At present the writer of this thesis tends to think that its prototype would be either the ‘takahei’ roof or the ‘naka-takahei’ roof. This, however, will have to be treated in another thesis.