About 200 yards down the valley from the main mine entrance, a footpath leads off up a slope and comes out on a flat terrace where there is a wooden statue and a stone memorial to the wretched water carriers. The inscription on the slab records that 1,800 of them died in the mine during the last 100 years of the Tokugawa shogunate. The figure may be arguable, but what is significant is that it was ever noticed at all: if Sado's resident population of exiles and convicts had been regarded as a pool of free labor to be tapped as required, there would have been no need to press-gang innocent vagrants from distant cities, still less to erect a memorial recording their fate.
With effective pumping systems and techniques improved by experience, the Kinzan mine went on producing but never returned to the boom levels. In the fifteen years from 1688 to 1703, a serious effort was made to raise productivity, but the result was less than expected and enthusiasm flagged. Things declined even more when the shogunate was overthrown in 1868 and the country opened to foreign trade; Aikawa suffered immediate economic distress because gold could now be imported more cheaply than it could be produced by the primitive methods used on Sado. But the emperor intervened personally to avert calamity. Financial help was provided by the national government, and new foreign techniques were introduced, including the use of explosives and the first rock drills.
Kinzan's swansong began in 1918, when it was taken over by the Mitsubishi Mining Company. The new administration made an energetic start, quickly boosting the amount of ore extracted, but the payback was less than they hoped. Some records claim that in the early days, the most productive ores ran as high as 5,000 grams per metric ton, but by the twentieth century the very best did not exceed 500 grams and the average was more like five.
Still, even five grams was better than nothing. From 1931 to 1943, placer operations were resumed on Aikawa's beach, with workers panning the alluvial deposits and picking through rocks and pebbles originating in the outcrops of Doyu-no-Wareto or that had accumulated as old waste dumps. This beach placer had already been worked in the early days of the mine, but Japan's wartime need for cash made it worth sifting through the same deposits all over again. In 1940 alone, 189,787 metric tons of ore were recovered from the beach gravel, each yielding an average of 4.1 grams of gold and 73 grams of silver. Such was the "feverish zeal for gold" that Aikawa's beachside houses and the shore road behind them, which had been built on top of old dumps, were demolished to recover the low-grade ore beneath. During these years, forced labor was certainly used: of the tens of thousands of Koreans imported to work for imperial Japan, more than 1,000 are known to have been sent to Sado. Of these, 145 are said to have "escaped" (but where to?) and a dozen or so — surely a low estimate — were killed. Their existence became public knowledge in 1991, after records were released of Mitsubishi's distribution of cigarette rations to its workers.
After the war, the U. S. Occupation forces conducted a study of gold and silver mining throughout Japan, and produced a report that made specific reference to operations in the Kinzan mine. The author, Robert Y. Grant, noted that hand drilling (with hammers and chisels) was still widely practiced, timbering was still done on an ad hoc basis, with even wedges rarely prepared in advance, and in general, safety was "poor, due to the indifference of both employees and management." Other comments from the report have a comparable ring of truth for people familiar with how things do and don't get done in modern Japanese companies. "It is in the field of exploration that Japanese gold- and silver-producing mines exhibit the smallest amount of progress," it states. "Outstanding geologists have published excellent papers on their studies but little or no use has been made of them by the mine operators. Mitsubishi, for instance, did not systematically assign geologists with geological duties to each mine until 1947." Elsewhere the report observes that in Japanese mines, a much smaller proportion of the workforce is engaged in actual production than is the rule in other countries. "The number of assistants, or helpers," its author notes dryly, "bulks large in comparison with, say, drill runners."
Now that operations have been abandoned, one tantalizing question remains: given the occurrence of such a vastly productive mine, isn't it likely that there is more gold to be found nearby? The true answer is "Not necessarily" — but that satisfies no-one. Spurred on by visions of still more enormous wealth almost literally within its grasp, the Golden Sado Company, which presently owns the mine, has commissioned numerous geological surveys in the surrounding tangle of woods and mountains. To date nothing exploitable has been found, and although the company announced in 1988 that the search would be called off the following year, their brochure wistfully admits that "exploration of further gold is continuing."
***
The sky growled with menace and big raindrops spattered round me as I walked the last few hundred yards up the road to the mine. Just as I reached the entrance, the storm broke; I ran for cover under the long wooden bus shelter where a group of tourists were scrambling out of their coach, holding folded newspapers or plastic bags over their heads to protect them from the thrashing rain. A uniformed girl in a little booth sold me an entrance ticket, which she handed over with a brochure in English and a map of the route I was to follow — without deviation, please — inside the mine.
The entrance tunnel was comfortably wide and high, so I could easily stand up straight. Its floor was of smooth concrete, and along the rock walls hung a succession of colorful backlit displays giving statistical information about different stages in the mine's history, the numbers of workers, their various jobs, and the grades and quantities of gold they recovered. At the end of a long slope, the tunnel emerged into a large chamber with several shafts, passageways, and subchambers leading off it; the smallest of these, high off the ground, looked like the hollowed-out homes of giant woodpeckers. All the chambers contained mechanical models of human workers, acting out their various tasks with slow, robotlike movements to the recorded accompaniment of clanking wheels, banging hammers, and the shouts of overseers. One was chopping pit props with an axe, another hammering slowly at a chisel embedded in the rock face, another scooping water in a bucket and then tipping it out again, another sitting cross-legged on the ground with a notepad, keeping some kind of tally. To the sound of sloshing water, the water carriers cranked the handles of their archaic pumps. In one short tunnel a group of workers was supposed to be resting after their shift; some were lying asleep on the bare rock floor, using their folded forearms as pillows, while others squatted over bowls of food, miming the gestures of eating. One paused between each mouthful and turned his head, by means of a faintly squeaking hinge inside his neck, to look toward the spot where the tourists were gathered. It was an extraordinary scene, as technically ingenious as a mechanical zoo, and equally unrealistic. The intention was good but its execution ineffective, even laughable, as it might be if applied to a Chamber of Horrors in which supine plastic victims endured slow-motion cruelties at the hands of black-hooded robots while prerecorded shrieks and groans issued through stereo speakers; or to an erotic tableau showing stone-faced mannequins stiffly piston-pumping each other in complicated positions, their gasps of ecstasy compromised by electronic faults on the soundtrack.
Even so, there were details to be learned. The dummy workers lying on top of log platforms close to the roof, blacksmiths repairing tools, porters trudging along under heavy baskets, surveyors frowning at their plumb lines and scales, all gave some idea of the different tasks involved. Ventilation was provided by hand-operated bellows, light by oil lamps and paper candles. The atmosphere underground was cold and damp, even now in late May, and must have been worse still in winter, guaranteed to invite every respiratory disease in the book; yet the miners were dressed only in light cotton robes and straw sandals, with cloth turbans on their heads. The turbans were topped off with little straw mats, like beer coasters, tied under the chin with string and designed to offer some minimal protection from falling rocks or other objects — the only concession to individ
ual safety that I could see.
The route from which I was not supposed to deviate led me out of the mine and into a museum, where the whole operation was re-created in miniature. In a glass case stood a model of the mountain, sliced through from top to bottom to show the network of tunnels. Inside were dozens of tiny workers clambering up and down ladders, pumping water, sorting ore, lighting lamps. It looked like an ant farm. At the foot of the mountain was a cavelike exit, beyond which lay a vast relief model of the whole valley, all the way down to the town of Aikawa and the sea. The open-fronted buildings were all roofed in traditional snow-country style, still seen on Sado's oldest houses, using overlapping shingles of cedar weighted down with stones. Inside them, workers were performing different jobs under the stern gaze of overseers dressed in samurai costume and girded with swords. First the ore was crushed, using an ingenious system based on a water-powered wheel: this turned a ratchet whose irregular spokes raised a line of heavy vertical hammers, one by one, and then dropped them onto the ore beneath. There were several smelters where the ore was heated in huge charcoal firepits by workers dressed only in loincloths; and after this, a succession of purification procedures that eventually produced long, sausage-shaped cylinders of gold. These were hammered flat into thin sheets and cut to a manageable size with large, heavy scissors; then they were melted, cooled, hammered out, and cut up yet again until their purity was deemed sufficient for them to be made into the ultimate product, the koban coins. Each stage of the operation was supervised by armed guards, and was provided with an adjoining room for its own administrative department. Here a small army of clerks kept the records, seated on tatami floors with their weights, measures, scales, brushes, ink, and ledger books spread out on low tables in front of them.
The road down the valley passed through several security checkpoints on its way into the streets of Aikawa, where more model buildings attempted to show something of the life of the town. There were spacious houses with broad verandahs lit by colored paper lanterns, where off-duty workers lounged around drinking while girls entertained them with music. There were eating shops and gambling joints, a public bathhouse, a temple and several stalls set up along the streets to sell fish, vegetables, clothes, and tools. Although the model was not realistic, it gave a good idea of relative scale and clearly showed that operations outside the mine were far more complex and occupied far more workers than what took place inside the mountain.
It was still raining when I came out of the museum, and to judge by the leaden sky overhead, the rain looked well set in for the rest of the day. I would have liked to wander around Aikawa, which, although a dull-looking town even in fine weather, contains many well-preserved temples and shrines as well as curious reminders of its odd history. Some of the street names, recalling the long-ago presence of exiled nobles from the old imperial court, are copied from those of Kyoto: Nakagyo-cho (Middle Street) and Shimogyo-cho (Lower Street), for instance, as well as others which reflect the grouping together of trades and occupations, such as Daiku-cho (Carpenter Street), Yaoya-cho (Grocer Street), and Misoya-cho (Miso Street). Other well-known sights in Aikawa include Daijo-ji Temple, the burial place of the mother of Ryokan, a famous Zen hermit, poet and calligrapher; Daian-ji, dedicated to Okubo Nagayasu, Sado's first bugyo; Oyamazumi, a shrine built in 1605 to the god of the Kinzan mountain; and high on a hill above the town, the sacred lair of Futatsuiwa ("Two Rocks") Danzaburo, Sado's most famous mujina.
Despite the rain, I decided to make a detour to the Futatsuiwa shrine. Unlike its decaying counterpart in Seki, which I had explored the day before, this one was carefully maintained and obviously still in regular use. The torii gates that made up the long tunnel from the entrance to the shrine must have numbered more than a hundred. They had been presented by adherents from all over the country, and each one had the name and hometown of its donor inscribed with brush and ink. The shrine itself wore a brand new coat of gleaming vermilion paint.
Tradition holds that Danzaburo was Sado's "boss" mujina, maintaining contact with and authority over his comrades elsewhere on the island. One story tells that whenever a ship came down from the coastal villages further north, Danzaburo would change himself into a woman, don a straw hat, and go to the docks with a package, which he would ask the crew to carry, unopened, to his friend Sabuto, the resident mujina at Seki. The return journey to Seki was an easy one (before the prevailing southerly wind), so the crew could look forward to relaxing along the way. On one trip, however, their curiosity led them to open the package and eat the grapes and akebi (a kind of mountain banana) that they found inside. Moments later the wind changed, and the ship was wrecked with the loss of all hands.
Danzaburo's special claim to fame was his habit of lending money. Humans in need of a loan would write down the amount and proposed date of repayment on a piece of paper, sign with their name and seal, and leave beside the mujina's lair. If he felt inclined to grant the loan, the borrower would find the money waiting for him in the same place the following morning. But over the years, the number of borrowers increased, and many failed to make repayment; so that eventually, Danzaburo stopped lending. Another expression of the same generous spirit, paralleled in numerous wankashi densetsu ("bowl-lending" legends) from all over Japan, had Danzaburo loaning bowls, cups, trays, and other domestic articles; but this practice also was abandoned when too many people failed to return them. Sometimes, it was said, a curious human would clamber down into the lair and follow a tunnel leading to a sumptuous palace where he would find Danzaburo and his family wearing fine clothes and seated at a long table loaded with delicious food. When (and if) they emerged, such adventurers would find themselves victims of a supernatural distortion of time, three days in Danzaburo's palace being the equivalent of three years in the human world.
By now soaked through and footsore, I trudged down into Aikawa and took a room for the night at an inn. The owner accepted me with some reluctance, as though he were used to a better class of customer than wet and weary foot travelers, but could not quite find it in himself to turn me away. I was given a gloomy little room whose window faced the grimy wall of the next-door building, close enough to touch; but I was too tired to care. A hot bath made me feel better, and when the maid came in with the dinner, I was watching the television news. The lead story for the day was about the weather, which was analyzed in detail and then diagnosed as "changeable." After that came a story about a bunch of local bureaucrats wearing identical dark suits, bowing repeatedly to each other, and approving the route of a new road. I switched off the set and turned to the food. It was dull and poorly prepared. The rice was actually cold, something I had never come across in Japan before. Just at that moment there was a tremendous burst of noise: a karaoke party was just starting up in a room across the corridor. "How long will that be going on?" I asked the maid. She bowed deeply and apologized for the inconvenience. "They have booked the room until ten o'clock," she said. "After that, I'm sure it will stop." She didn't sound sure at all. The singing was interrupted by an almighty crash, followed by cheers, clapping, and laughter, as though someone had fallen over a table. "I am so sorry," said the maid again as she backed out of the door.
I decided to abandon the dinner and go out into Aikawa for something to eat. The first place I tried had a large red lantern hanging outside and clouds of charcoal-scented smoke billowing out of a small ventilator. Ducking past the half-length curtain in the doorway, I found myself in a small, shabby yakitori-ya, or chicken kebab shop. The owner and his wife were red in the face from drinking, but welcomed me cheerfully without breaking off from what they were doing. Two large plates lay on the counter, piled with ready-to-go yakitori, and more was cooking on the two grills. Even so, they regretted that they couldn't serve me any, since it had all been ordered by a hotel along the street. One of the hotel's employees was hanging around with an air of impatience, and I wondered if this was an order from the karaoke party I had just escaped from. I asked for bean curd, as this nee
ded no cooking and would give my puffing, panting hosts the minimum of trouble. The wife handed me a nutty-tasting bowlful and, after a few minutes, a stick of yakitori made of some strange meat I didn't recognize — white, wrinkly skin on one side and little gobbets of flesh on the other. It was tough and gristly, and while I tried to eat it, the woman tried to explain what it was. "Buta, buta," she said. Okay, pig. Some part of a pig. "Baby," put in the husband, using the English word. He leaned across and patted his wife's abdomen. "Baby place." The light dawned. It was pig's womb. I laid the stick down and went back to the bean curd. Soon another customer came in and barked an order that I didn't catch. They served him a large plate filled with raw onion rings and a sloppy mess of bloody uncooked offal that looked like — "Same, same," said the owner, addressing me. Raw onion and raw pig's womb. I paid up and left.
At the other end of the street was a sushi shop. I sat at the counter and let the owner, who was intrigued to have a foreigner in the place, take me on a guided tour of his stock. We got talking about fugu, globefish, which are plentiful in the sea around Sado. He asked if I wanted to try some. I declined as politely as possible. Fugu can only be prepared and served by restaurateurs with a special license, because some of its organs contain a poison that can kill the eater if they are not completely removed. Japanese gourmets consider it a great delicacy, and I've always felt they're welcome to it. Even a whole lifetime isn't long enough to sample every food in the world, and I'm content to miss out all the ones that contain deadly toxins. But the shop owner wasn't going to take no for an answer. The globefish was on the house. "It's wonderful," he assured me. "You're going to love it." I glanced around, searching for some diversion to change the subject. There were only two other customers in the shop, two women facing each other over a small table in the corner. One was staring vacantly into space while the other, with the mirror of her open powder compact held close to her face, was picking shreds of food out from the gaps between her yellow and silver teeth.
Sado: Japan's Island in Exile Page 8