Rice Culture

The foundation of Japanese diet

(This article was first published in the KVG June, 2012)

Taken from the perspective of a Japanese farmer, the rainy season is nothing less than a blessing from the gods. Nothing loves water as much as rice, the backbone of daily life for more than half of the world. Of the more than 100,000 different strains of rice worldwide, several thousand can be found in Japan alone.

If visitors come to Kyoto this month, they might even see a farmer or two ankle-deep in the fields, patiently sticking rice seedlings through the water into the rich bed of muck below. June is the month when the bright green and precious rice seedlings are transplanted into the rice paddies (which remain as shallow ponds for most of the summer).

These rice paddies can be found all over the northern part of Kyoto, especially around Iwakura (along the Eizan line from Demachiyanagi to Kurama), Ohara, Shizuhara (one village west of Ohara) and Ichihara (same Eizan line). If you can’t get to those areas then have a wander around the area north of the Kitayama or Kamigamo areas.

Rice cultivation began in Japan about two thousand years ago. And over the course of two millennia, rice-related rituals and activities became the notes that created the rhythm of the yearly Japanese cycle. For obvious reasons, rice cultivation, from the very start, was strongly connected to religious and spiritual rites in Japan. Ta-no-Kami, or God of the Rice Paddies, was thought to protect rice plants and have the power to bring about abundant harvests. Like the other Shinto gods, this one did not dwell in the human world, but descended at times of festivals — a belief which explains the origin of the taue ceremony held on the 10th of this month at Fushimi Inari Shrine (see below for details).

Despite the fact that rice consumption has decreased dramatically since it peaked in the early 1960’s, rice, miso soup, and pickles for many people is still considered to be a basic Japanese meal.

History of Rice in Japan

Rice first came to the northern area of Kyushu Island from China or along the Korean peninsula. By the 3rd or 4th century, cultivation had reached all along the island of Honshu to the present-day Tokyo region. Four hundred years later, rice had permeated the northern area of Honshu, reaching the very tip of the island sometime between the 12th and 14th centuries.

In the beginning, rice seeds were planted directly in the paddy fields. This method persisted until about the 5th or 6th century, when the practice of raising seedlings first in nursery beds and then transplanting them to the fields began. Seedlings, actually tall shoots, are raised in tight clusters during April and May in special nursery beds. In June, with the rains and the resulting high humidity, the seedlings are ready to be transplanted to the flooded fields in a process known as taue, or “field-planting.”

Rice is harvested in early autumn. The present method of cutting the entire stalk along with the rice husks began from about the time Kyoto became the capital of Japan (late 8th century), before that only the kernels were cut off; the remaining stalk was then allowed to rot through winter and ploughed under.

By the 8th or 9th century, intensive rice cultivation methods had developed to the point where 1 metric ton of polished rice could be harvested from every hectare (2.5 acres), equal to what many Asian nations are usually harvesting from their fields. Today, Japanese yields have reached more than 4 metric tons per hectare, due to strain hybridization experimentation to produce rice that matures earlier and is resistant to adverse weather and disease.

Taue Rice Planting Ritual at Fushimi Inari Shrine (June 10)

Fushimi Inari Shrine is an important Shinto shrine in southern Kyoto. It is famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates, which straddle a network of trails behind its main buildings. The trails lead into the wooded forest of the sacred Mount Inari.

Fushimi Inari Shrine is the most important of several thousands of shrines dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice. Foxes, regarded as the messengers, are often found in Inari shrines. One attribute is a key (for the rice granary) in their mouths.

Every year on June 10th, important ritual for rice seedling planting is held. The shrine possesses a sacred rice paddy in the precinct where they plant and grow rice every year. Newly harvested rice in autumn is offered to the deity in another ritual in October that people offer gratitude for the deity for a good harvest for that year.

In the rice planting ritual, or taue matsuri, shrine priest offers prayers for good harvest in autumn and shrine maidens dressed in special white costumes perform the kagura dance. Then about 30 women wearing traditional farming costumes enter the rice paddy and plant rice seedlings by hand, one by one.