While it was originally exported all over the world as stencil paper, tengujo-shi has been used mainly for typing paper, after being treated, and for address cards. Some has also been used for wrapping jewels, as napkins, for filtering coffee, for polishing glass lenses, and, because of its ability to absorb liquid, for medical uses by dentists. Tengujo-shi is now also being used as tracing paper and in conservation applications. (3) Tengujo-shi has always been made with great care, using local kozo, cooking with lime, and using natural bleaching to keep the fiber strong. The fiber is kept long and the refining process ( koburi ) is an important step. The sheet forming action at the vat -- keeping the mould moving at high speed, like an acrobatic dance -- twines the fibers. These factors contribute to making tengujo-shi very thin and tenacious. A true tengujo-shi has the following qualities: a. great strength and toughness relative to its thickness, despite its softness; b. extreme thinness; c. great folding strength; d. the ability to easily absorb liquids or chemical agents; e. the quality of allowing an absorbed liquid, like ink, to fill the spaces between the fibers in drying. Below follows an outline of the steps used by the Hamadas in making tengujo-shi . 1. Raw Materials: The fiber used is from the pure white bark of akaso (4) (red kozo ) growing along the Niyodo, Yoshino, and Mononobe Rivers. The kozo tree is steamed and the bark is peeled off. Then the outer black bark and the middle green bark are carefully scraped off, as well as scars on the remaining fiber. Tororo-aoi root is used as neri (a formation aid). 2. Cooking: Conservation tengujo-shi is cooked with a mixture of five percent washing soda and thirty to fifty percent slaked lime, relative to the amount of fiber. Normal tengujo-shi is cooked in caustic soda. The fiber is soaked in water overnight. It then takes four to six hours to cook the fiber after it has been brought to a boil. It is necessary to turn the fiber completely several times during the cooking. The fiber is then left to cool overnight. 3. Rinsing and Bleaching: The cooked fiber is rinsed in a river or pool, which takes two days in the summer and four days in the winter. The rinsing process serves to provide a natural bleaching as the fiber is exposed to the sunlight. The fiber is turned over once during the rinsing process. 4. Chiritori : Impurities in the rinsed and bleached fiber are picked out by hand using the process of chiritori . (5) 5. Pounding: After chiritori the fiber is pounded by either a stamper or by hand. Two hours of rough pounding are followed by 20-30 minutes of pounding the fiber more gently, with water added little by little. 6. Refining ( Koburi ): (6) A basket is put into running water, filling it to within one inch of the brim. Seven hundred twenty grams of pulp is then refined by either a koburi machine (7) or by hand for thirty minutes. The pulp is divided into three sections for a second refining. Each of these two hundred forty grams of pulp is then refined for five more minutes. Koburi serves to remove the hemicelluloses from the fiber through the action of shaking or agitating the fiber. The result is almost 100% pure kozo fiber. 7. Sheet Forming: Tengujo-shi is made using the nagashizuki method with a sha (silk cloth) attached to the su . (8) A greater amount of neri is used than for most papers and the sheet is formed in three distinct steps: keshomizu, chosi , and sutemizu . A small amount of pulp is scooped onto the screen making a very thin layer. This is keshomizu . Next a large amount of pulp captured on the screen with a deep scoop is shaken four or five times from side to side and also agitated to form a whirlpool on the screen; this is chosi (see photo), which gives tengujo-shi its scrollwork effect, visible when held up to the light. The last step, sutemizu , requires shaking the pulp back and forth on the screen, sending the extra pulp to the far edge of the screen and then tipping it off into the vat (see photo). 8. Pressing: A post 54 cm x 158 cm is pressed gently for several hours. Then it is cut in half. The second post, 54 cm x 79 cm, is pressed under greater pressure for two to three hours. 9. Drying: Formerly the Hamadas dried the sheets on wooden boards, but a flood in a large typhoon in 1975 destroyed all of their drying boards. Since then the paper has been dried on flat heated metal, (9) using a horse hair brush to apply the paper to the dryer. 10. Finishing: Although tengujo-shi used to be trimmed to several sizes for export, now the Hamadas' tengujo-shi is 54 cm x 79 cm, unless they are asked to make a special size. There are two thicknesses of tengujo-shi , thin (9 g/m2) and thick or double-layered (16.5 g/m2). The sample featured here is from a thin sheet. While they formerly made only plain, natural colored tengujo-shi , the Hamadas are now making some colored tengujo-shi , using about forty different colors from chemical dyes. (10) Colored tengujo-shi is used for paper collage and paper dolls. Since the use of plain tengujo-shi is limited, they have to make these new products to support their family. The Hamadas make about one hundred twenty thousand sheets of colored tengujo-shi and three thousand sheets of plain conservation tengujo-shi per year. The hardest times for them were the years from 1973 through 1979. They had only enough orders for tengujo-shi to occupy them for two or three months of the year; the other months Mr. Hamada found other jobs. (11) Although there are no papermakers other than the Hamadas now making tengujo-shi , at least the history of the paper is assured a good chance of surviving -- a paper museum in Ino Town opened in March 1985, featuring these papermakers as well as the equipment they use. (12) NOTES 1. Shi means paper. 2. Machine-made tengujo-shi is also produced on a very limited scale. With only a 5000 kg yearly production in 1985, the Naigai Tengujo Paper Co. Factory alone remains. tengujo-shi made by hand has both the shadow of the ribs and the scrollwork effect, while machine-made tengujo-shi has neither of these. 3. Some sense of the amount of tengujo-shi made over the years is provided by the following figures on annual export and total production (for both export and domestic use): YEAR EXPORT (kg) PRODUCTION (kg) ---- ----------- --------------- 1897 28,704 1928 469,248 1948 30,645 1951 92,651 1966 46,291 1972 4,151 1986 509 4. Broussonetia kazinoki Sieb. 5. Chiri means 'impurities' and tori , 'picking'. 6. Koburi means little or small shake. There are two other refining processes seen in Japan, nigoridashi for Yoshino-gami (kozo paper used for filtering lacquer, made in Nara Prefecture), and kamidashi for Echizen hosho (thick kozo paper used for wood block printing, made in Fukui Prefecture). 7. A koburi machine slowly stirs the fiber to remove hemicelluloses, turning it about 120 times per minute. 8. This practice is noted as having been used for tengujo papermaking first in 1897. 9. A stainless steel dryer has been used since early 1986. Formerly a cast iron dryer was used. 10. They have also experimented recently with making lace tengujo-shi. 11. During this time Mr. Yasutaka Morita, owner of a paper shop in Kyoto, suggested that the Hamadas make colored tengujo-shi . This idea has helped the art of tengujo[r papermaking to survive. 12. About four million dollars was spent for the museum, primarily from the town budget. The address is: Ino Paper Museum / 110-1 Saiwai-cho, Ino-machi / Agawa-gun, Kochi-ken 781-21, JAPAN. Mr. Hamada has made 12,000 sheets of conservation tengujo-shi this year for the Ino Paper Museum.
This text was compiled in part from Tosa Tengujo-shi by Mr. Kenichi Miyazaki of the Paper Industry Section of Kochi Prefecture, 1974. Mr. Yoshinori Machida of the Ino Paper Museum and Mr. Sajio Hamada gave additional information. Calligraphy for Tosa tengujo-shi is by Mr. Hamada.
Sajio Hamada at the vat forming a sheet of tengujo-shi : chosi stage. Sajio Hamada at the vat forming a sheet of tengujo-shi : sutemizu stage. Detail of sheet forming. Detail of sheet forming. Kozo fiber being cooked in slaked lime. Setsuko Hamada carrying drying boards. Mr. Hamada watching different weights of tengujo-shi on metal dryer. Koburi basket and mixer.
