Coal Pits in the Old Days: Negotiation for the Allotment of a Better Coalface
1958 - 1963
Mukashi no Yama: Kiriha (Saitan Kasho) Morai
[Coal Pits in the Old Days: Negotiation for the Allotment of a Better Coalface]
20.1 x 30.4 cm Ink Painting
This picture shows a pit worker under the direct control of the mining company (chokkatsu kofu: direct worker) negotiating with his underground boss for the allotment of a better coalface. He is wearing a short working jacket (konai-fuku) and a Japanese face towel as a headband around his neck and carrying his lamp and pickax. Coalfaces for miners under the control of the miners' group called an o-naya (boardinghouse for singles) were allotted to their hitoguri (personnel supervisor) all together.
The direct worker had a talk with his boss at an underground station called a sasabeya. The lazier (the lazybones was called a sukabura in dialect) the worker was, the more often he had a talk with his boss on the allotment of his coalface. It was because such miners were so unskillful in mining that they could not mine coal efficiently except from coalfaces in good condition. They often withdrew from underground without working (such behavior was called noson). In such cases, the surface personnel boss blamed those miners' bosses for letting them be sent into the pit and exit in vain without allotting them good coalfaces to mine. Even bold underground bosses seemed to worry a little about this kind of lazy miner.
Conversation between the Miner and the Boss
Miner: "Toryo san, yoka kiriha hitotsu kun-nai. (Boss, allot me a good coalface, please.)"
Boss: "Hoki de tatakiotosu yona kiriha wa neezo. (There's no coalface that you can easily sweep through with a broom.)"
Lettering on the Chalkboard
oroshi bakku sarae: dredging of the backwater basin in the main slope
san-nin: three people
fudo bota-tori: removal of debris from the air course
futari: two people
Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro
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