“Kaya-jimai” — The Day We Store Away the Roof’s Blessings in Spring

As the snow melts and the signs of spring begin to appear, the Kitamura village carries out the traditional work called Kaya-jimai. This is the spring ritual of putting away the thatch—harvested before winter and naturally dried throughout the cold months—into storage.

In the past, each household kept their thatch in their own attic. Nowadays, a large communal warehouse in the village serves this purpose. The way everyone cooperates in this shared effort echoes the teamwork involved in rethatching the roofs.

This year, three members from our company joined the work. Along with locals, more than twenty people took part in the process.

The harvest totaled 14 shime—a unit referring to bundles of thatch with a circumference of about 4 meters each. Fourteen shime is roughly enough to cover one gable side of a thatched roof.

Of course, this amount alone is not sufficient. Actual rethatching requires combining thatch from other areas as well. However, we increasingly feel that using locally grown thatch, woven in the traditional local style, helps the roof last the longest.

To nurture better thatch, some regions practice “wild burning”—controlled burning of dry grass and small trees to promote healthy growth. But in Kitamura, this is difficult to implement because the thatch fields and the village are close, making the risk of fire spreading too high.

Therefore, we carefully maintain the existing thatch fields through meticulous effort and innovation.

One day, we hope to restore the foothills around the village into thriving thatch fields. But for now, our priority is to preserve this small cycle without interruption. Every bundle we carefully store away carries the hope that connects the roof to daily life.

With this spirit, we cherish and use this thatch to protect the Kitamura village’s traditional roofs. This year, once again, we completed the Kaya-jimai with deep care and dedication.