Coal Pits (Yama) in the Old Days: Drinking Water; A Line of Pails
May 1965

Mukashi no Yama: Inryosui; Tago no Gyoretsu
[Coal Pits (Yama) in the Old Days: Drinking Water; A Line of Pails]
38.1 x 54.1 cm Painting in Watercolors and Ink

Without water, we human beings will soon go to the other world, even if we were buried in as much rice as we could possibly want. All creatures share this fate.
When K Coal Pit run by Mr. A was opened in 1895, water came out of the surface of the cut mountain, and the spring water supported the life of the people (yamabito) in the pit. There were no wells near the pit (yama) and no water came out if miners bore holes in the ground. Though there was a well in a mountain covered with Japanese cedars at the border between a village and the pit, it was as far as 1 kilometer away from the pit and its water was not good to drink because of the amount of iron contained in it. But then again, though the above spring supplied enough to support all the people in the pit during the rainy season, during the dry season it trickled out like the urination of a horse. So, the people in the pit used the water as carefully as eye lotion, so as not to waste it. They lined the road to the spring with pails (tago) and filled them with the spring water in turn. Each family used a pair (ikka) or three pails (ikka-han) of water a day. Sometimes in summer, they had to wet pails to prevent them from drying up and warping. It was a struggle to soak pails with water.

The Homemaker's Words at the Bottom
Yoyaku ikka moraeta: At last, I've got my two pails of water.


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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