Fuels Used by Pit Workers #4
1958 - 1963

Yamabito no Nenryo #4
[Fuels Used by Pit Workers #4]
21.0 x 29.9 cm Ink Painting

Each small space among densely-built humble row houses for pit workers, each of which was called a naya (barn), was a dream of a playing area where children in the pit always wanted to go. Their parents forbade their children to play in such spaces, where they burned coal to make coke. However, children played in such coke making places, being stained with soot and black ashes. Mine director did not stop his employees making coke. In other words, making coke was authorized by the mine company. These coke making places were full of soot and black ashes (subai). Children got as dirty as miners working underground after they played there, jumping rope or doing something. Innocent children were absorbed in playing. By the time when the evening came, they became so dirty that it was hard to tell if each of them was a boy or a girl at a glance.

Seventeen-syllabled Comical Poems (senryu) at the Bottom Left
Sangashi (Stilts)
Sangashi wa tomaru to korobu hidarizuma.
When we walk on stilts, we possibly fall (korobu) if we stop or stay at one place (tomaru). It reminds me of the geisha girl who possibly allow us to touch her (korobu) if we stay with her (tomaru).

Toshiyorite furusato shinobu chikuba tomo.
When I feel homesick after I became old, I recall childhood friends who walked together on stilts.


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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