Pit Workers in the Old Days: Demanding Miners to Enter the Pit
May 1965
Mukashi no Yamabito: Kurikomi
[Pit Workers in the Old Days: Demanding Miners to Enter the Pit]
37.9 x 53.9 cm Painting in Watercolors and Ink
Text on the Right
Otsukata, the 2nd shift working hours, started at 3:00 p.m. However, most small-scale coal pits did not adopt alternative systems.
Three whistle blows at 3:00 a.m. told miners the time to enter the pit. The regulator (torishimari) in Western clothes and straw sandals (waraji) and the personnel supervisor (hitoguri) in Japanese clothes and rubber or leather boots visited every miner's row house to urge them to enter the pit. Since the miner groups (o-naya) in small-scale coal pits had no personnel supervisor, each miner group boss (nayagashira) had to visit the row houses of miners of whom he was in charge. The regulator was in charge of direct workers.
During the decade starting from 1897, clocks were hardly seen in miners' row houses. Some miners forgot to get up. On the contrary, some hewers (sakiyama) entered the pit before their helpers (atoyama) around 1:00 a.m. Some did it because they wanted to mine more mine-car-loads of coal than other miners. Others did it because they were unskilled hewers who could not mine as much coal as other hewers if they did not.
There were also wicked pairs of miners (hitosaki: a sakiyama and an atoyama) who took 5 or 6 empty mine cars which had been left behind since the previous night by the 2nd shift workers. They spent all day loading the mine cars with their mined coal, laying them so as not to be taken by others (taoshibako). The laid mine cars (nesebako) caused mine car flow stasis. If someone told the wicked ones that they should hand over the mine cars to others, they picked a fight with the person, saying that they had gotten up early to take the mine cars. (As such wicked miners had the backing of chief regulators and behaved like bosses, even personnel supervisors would not beat them.) Personnel supervisors wore knitted underpants and lace-ups or rubber boots.
Text at the Bottom Left
The regulator and the personnel supervisor handed out mining slips to miners the previous night to make the miners promise them to undertake the next day's work. If a miner asked them to give him a day off because he was in bad shape or sick, they would not easily accept his request. They beat him, saying, "You bastard! Do I look like a fool to be deceived by your fake illness?"
Lettering on the Doorplate
san-ban naya: No. 3 Row House
Kono [family name] Otsukichi [given name]
Doh [the same family name] Keta [given name of Otsukichi's wife]
Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro
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