Fuels Used in Coal Pits (Yama) #4 (Portable Stove)
June 1965

Yama no Nenryo #4 (Shichirin)
[Fuels Used in Coal Pits (Yama) #4 (Portable Stove)]
38.0 x 53.9 cm Painting in Watercolors and Ink

(The "shichirin" portable stove was dialectally called a "hichirin." "Kisama" was a disparaging term for "you.")
A. Figure on the Right
Since couples working together underground could not collect coal from refuse (botaishi) dumps, they exited the pit with some mined coal (namaishi) and burned it in hichirin stoves handmade from oil cans, whose tops were cut off. Wives of such couples brought their stoves into their houses while the coal in them was still remitting smoke because coal tar was not completely burnt. How awful it was to do so! Miners' row houses were separated only by about-two-meter-high earthen walls on both sides or on the backs and there were no ceilings. That is why the smoke swirled around under each ridge of miners' row houses. If someone complained about it, quarrels never failed to begin among miners. Those who used their smoking hichirins in their houses used to say, "Oidon wa kisama-dachi no yo ni asonde gara o tsukutteoru n ja ne zo (I'm not making coke just to pass the time like you)."
A row house (naya) 9 shaku (about 2.73 m) wide and 2 ken (about 3.63 m) long was normally shingled and better ones were thatched.

The Homemaker's Mumble Written above Her
O samuu: Oh, it's cold.

B. Figures on the Left
Hakata Hichirin [Inset]: This stove made of clay was white and fragile. It had no lid on its air gate at the bottom nor handle to lift it up.
In addition to this, some miners asked lamp craftsmen to make tin stoves.
During the decade starting from 1897, the grilled heater (gotoku) made of cast iron was popular not only in the pits but also outside of the pits. This heater could efficiently warm up miners' houses. However, it had defects such as it consumed much coke and was liable to release clouds of ashes.
Row houses (ko-naya) in the pit had no fireplace except boardinghouses for unmarried miners (o-naya). A row-house room with 4 and a half tatami mats was too small to make a fireplace. Additionally, as its floor was made of bamboo which was weaved and tied with straw ropes, no fireplace or hori-gotatsu (built-in foot warmer) could be installed in it. (No hori-gotatsu was used in miners' houses.)


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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