Pit Workers in the Old Days: Rabbit Miners
March 1965

Mukashi no Yamabito: Usagi Kofu
[Pit Workers in the Old Days: Rabbit Miners]
37.9 x 54.2 cm Painting in Watercolors and Ink

The miners who entered the pit later than others and exited it earliest were called "rabbit miners (usagi kofu)." It is because rabbits have short paws and can run up slopes very quickly but cannot run down them. Even expert miners could not mine enough coal in half of the working hours of others. Lazy workers called sukaburas sometimes exited the pit without mining coal. Such a deed was called noson. I hear the people at Miike Coal Mine [closed in 1997] still call this noson "hibote." These sukabura miners left the pit at least after eating their lunch.
Their lunch pails were called gagas or kuragais, and they had elliptical frames of curved Mo-so bamboo boards and bottoms of Japanese cedar boards. People could cram about 4 gos (about 600 g) of rice in the pail and lid of a gaga piled together. They carried other small pails for other foods. Tea was carried in a tin canteen called a game with the capacity of more than 1 liter.
At that time around 1899, 1 sho (1.8 liters) of polished rice cost 10 sen (0. 1 yen), a pickled Japanese radish (takuan or konkon) cost 1 sen (0.01 yen), and 1 kin (600 g) of sweet potatoes cost 1 sen 5 rin (0.015 yen).

The rabbit has long ears and the hare has shorter ears.

Text at the Top Left
There was no good place to eat lunch underground. Miners had lunch at the makitate (landing or turnout), kabudashiba (place to temporarily store coal), or kanekata (level) but they were all very narrow. The two people in this picture are eating lunch in the kairo (normally kaido: haulage way) beside their kiriha (coalface). The pickled radish was cut lengthways into small pieces and the shape of each piece was made into a rectangle. Miners called the rectangular piece of radish a surippa (sleeper or tie).
In the levels of some pits, there was no room to step aside because of lots of heaps of fallen bota (rock refuse).


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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