When Japan encountered paper in the premodern period (280–610), the new import was referred to as "Tang paper," or tōshi 唐紙, reflecting its status as something Other, emanating from Chinese origin.2 After the steady transmission of these papermaking techniques by way of Korea, paper was naturalized, imbued with a native spirit within Japanese cosmology and firmly rooted in Shinto rites and agrarian rituals. In the process of assimilating paper into native culture, the character 和 (wa), meaning "Japanese," eventually displaced the original Chinese character 唐 (tō), construed as "Chinese," to become washi 和紙. Washi gradually became an indispensable part of cultural practice. Demand was neither limited to symbolic Shinto rituals and Buddhist indoctrination nor to the exclusive markets of book publishing and fine art. It proliferated in daily life for such myriad use in fans, dolls, amulets, sweet wrappers, door coverings, children's toys, and provincial currencies. Subordinate to the finished object's function and artistic expression, washi served as the vehicle for these objects. However on account of its unusual flexibility, durability, and aesthetic appeal, washi accrued a special status that is well recognized today beyond Japan's island coasts. The Long Life of Echizen Washi claire cuccio The papermaking apprentice (Karen Kandel) and Oshin (Sonoko Soeda) in the background as Oshin's spirit melds with Najio papermaking in Recycling: Washi Tales (Washi monogatari), stage adaptation of Najio River by Kyoko Ibe and Elise Thoron, http://www.washitales.com. Performance at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinios Urbana–Champaign. Photo: Isaac Bloom, 2011. 16 - hand papermaking Even as a base material, washi refuses to be passive. As a plant-based substance, washi breathes, naturally expanding and contracting in reaction to surrounding physical conditions, particularly as temperature and humidity fluctuate. A paper's surface and composition respond to light exposure, also altering it. Consequently, a multitude of production techniques for washi were developed to adjust the look, feel, design, and longevity of the range of items that it supported. Papermakers, artists and artisans, and buyers and sellers developed an intimate relationship with the material and ascribed to it anthropomorphic qualities. Personification metaphors, to be sure, reflect the human impulse to connect to inanimate mediums and objects with which they have regular encounters. Washi is perceived as astonishingly animate with a definite, reactive anatomy of eyes (me), ears (mimi), face (kao or omote), skin (hada), legs (ashi), and a body (koshi). Washi's "eyes" denote the prevailing direction of fibers set in a sheet. A sheet's eyes impart its distinctive striations of design and irregularity. The deckle edges are said to be the sheet's "ears," that the papermaker chops off in pairs, like ears on either side of the head, with a specialized cleaver.3 When people in the papermaking industry discuss a particular variety of washi, they are likely to refer to its "face," or its unique qualities, as well as its "skin," which represents the paper's texture and temperament over the course of the papermaking process. Most emblematic of all, the fibers embedded in washi are its "legs," and like humans, some sheets have long legs while others have short ones. The qualities of resilience and elasticity constitute the paper's "body," where, for instance, those preferring a lighter weight of washi generally wish to ensure that the "body" of the variety they select is ever strong. In a more specific case, the familiar variety of washi known as Hōsho-gami 奉書紙 ("document" paper), prized for its use of kozo (mulberry) bark, may be described as possessing a "smooth and silky" (nameraka) skin, "long legs" (ashi ga nagai), and a "firm and robust" (joubu de shikkari shita) body—much like a sommelier might describe the profile of a wine.4 Such paper characteristics convey that Hōsho-gami is a suitable match for multicolor woodblock prints, where a sheet's uniform surface and sturdiness ensure it can withstand as many as 25 separate impressions as might be needed for a traditional ukiyo-e print. This system of personification facilitates rational thinking about paper as an inanimate object based on its internal structure. Over time washi, the object and the craft, became a cherished emblem of traditional culture and values. Prolific writer Mizukami Tsutomu (1919–2004) took up papermaking as both site and subject in his novella Najio River (Najiogawa, 1969). Written after Tokyo's 1964 Olympics when Japan's post-World War II recovery had become assured, Najio River reflects a newfound confidence in native culture that stimulated reevaluation of indigenous craft and customs. Mizukami set his fictional tale between two historical papermaking hamlets that are still active today: Echizen, well known for over a millennium of washi production, particularly Hōshogami, and Najio, noted for the washi variety Najio-gami made of gampi fibers and fine clay.5 Building on extant myth, song, legend, and poetry, Mizukami's poignant story follows Oshin, a papermaking apprentice of Echizen, and her daughter Katsu, as they set out on an arduous journey to reunite Katsu with her father, Higashiyama Yaemon, who had abandoned them and returned unannounced to his hometown of Najio. Even in scenes where paper makes no appearance, it is the catalyst behind the story's drama—much like it enables the creation of other arts and crafts—and emerges as the hero through Mizukami's elaboration of paper's role in each of the fragments from which he weaves his narrative. To establish paper's omnipresence, the story opens with a panoramic sweep over the massive gabled roof of Okamoto Ōtaki Tadashi Tamura setting the Echizen papermaking scene in Recycling: Washi Tales. Set pieces (hanging panels, floor objects) are paper, hand-crafted by Kyoko Ibe. Photo: Valerie Oliveiro, 2011. shrine erected to honor Kawakami Gozen, the papermaking goddess of Echizen. Zooming into the deep foliage of the mountainside, the narrator's eye settles on Oshin and Katsu who are returning along a snow-covered path at nightfall. Oshin has just presented her first, flawless sheet of Hōsho-gami of the New Year to Kawakami Gozen at the shrine's most sacred site up the mountain. The ritual offering of the apprentice's sheet of paper transpires under the shadowy light of the moon and Oshin's flickering torch in the thick of an old-growth forest where indigenous deities are believed to reside. Also called kami in Japanese, these Shinto deities share not only a homonymic relationship with paper, but, inevitably, imply a mystic one too. Oshin, herself an ordinary female apprentice, evokes, if only momentarily, the figure of a miko, a Shinto shrine maiden, further signaling purity and the divine. Mizukami's narrator interrupts the intimate exchange between Oshin and Katsu on their descent from the shrine by inserting an abrupt retelling of Echizen's papermaking legend: Long ago the shrine at Ōtaki immortalized the paper deity known as Kawakami Gozen said to have transmitted papermaking to the crown prince Ōdono, who had stayed in Goka village in Echizen province. The prince later moved on to Tamaho-no-miya, the new palace built for him in the capital of Kyoto, and became Emperor Keitai \[reign 507–531\]. As his imperial standing rose, the townspeople learned the papermaking techniques that the prince had left behind, made a trade of them, and ever since, lived on there keeping watch over the shrine. Now Kawakami Gozen sleeps atop the mountain where the apprentices made their pilgrimage. Gozen was the creator of papermaking. When Buddhism came to Japan, and the transcription of sutras onto paper by hand grew popular, it was she who was the channel for teaching the provinces what is known as washi.6 Echizen local history showcases a more lyrical version from over 1,500 years ago that is purportedly based on actual events: A beautiful princess appears before the crown prince in the Ōtaki upriver valley, and removing her outer garment and raising her staff, advises, "Though this village boasts valleys and rice paddies aplenty, it is surely hard to eke out a living. But blessed with pure spring water, this is a fine place for making paper."7 The dual appearance of crown prince and Shinto deity in the Echizen valley—binding paper to authority both the imperial and the divine—presages its transcendence in Najio River from the common and the earthly. Mizukami's narrative proceeds to reveal the special nature of Echizen washi. As the story unfolds, we learn that Yaemon had deserted his first family in Najio to seek work, eventually settling on the goal of mastering the unique papermaking techniques of Echizen and bringing these secrets back to Najio to revive his village's dying economy. Once in Echizen, Yaemon, an outsider, first must gain the confidence of the locals, hauling water indoors for one Echizen family, then working as a cook in a nearby temple, and finally moving into Oshin's family home as a houseboy. While Yaemon is determined to learn their papermaking secrets, his efforts come up short: Within two years, he had learned what everyone had to teach him about cooking the mulberry bark, weaving the screens for the paper moulds, rinsing the mulberry fibers, removing the foreign particles that remained, and fixing the finished sheets of paper on cassiawood boards. But he couldn't be taught the crucial work of making paper in the vat by rocking the mould, nor the amount of binder to add by mixing tororoaoi into the soft white pulp. The excuse given was that he was from another province. Echizen belonged to the Matsudaira clan. For ages \[the Echizen region of\] Goka had produced the paper for the clan's currency. That meant that there was also a local office for clan officials within Goka. And because the clan lord had protected the secrets of Echizen Hōsho-gami for generations, villagers were prohibited from transmitting the techniques to people from other provinces. At last Yaemon discovers that diligence alone is not enough to master the techniques: When he stole glances inside the papermaking houses, he observed the women amusing themselves while at work. The work looked simple enough. And even though it was painful just to watch the women in their rolled up sleeves with their hands dunked in icecold water rocking the moulds back and forth in rhythm, a man could handle it, it seemed. Whatever it took, he yearned to know their secret. Yaemon realizes the secret lies less in the hard labor of the men who singly carry out their duties than in the communal work of the women. After a villager pulls Yaemon aside, advising him to find Title page of Mizukami Tsutomu's Tanpen Meisakusen: Kusagakure \[Selected Stories: Hidden in the Grass\], which includes his novella Najio River. Published by Kōshōsha. 18 - hand papermaking a girl in the village to marry if he is serious about papermaking, he also comprehends the crucial component of kinship ties. Even when Yaemon goes as far as entering into a formal relationship with Oshin, he is beholden to his father-in-law Ichibei who must still teach him paper's mysteries and its fickle nature: When Ichibei dropped in at their small papermaking home, he often said, ‘Yaemon, paper is the raw expression of the human heart. Paper worked in happy times wears a happy face. It's uncanny. Paper worked in sad times wears a sad face. Now, let me take a look at how you've worked the pulp.' Ichibei plucked a ball of mulberry paper pulp from a vat that Yaemon had worked early in the morning and popped it into his mouth. He chomped on it noisily. ‘Ah, the pulp is crying out. There isn't enough starch here. Yaemon, the starch gives the paper life. Cloth may be woven with its threads all in perfect alignment, but you can't call it silk if it isn't of the finest quality. It's the silkworm spitting glue from its mouth that brings life to silk. It's the same thing with paper. What I mean is, the glue that brings silk to life is for you the amount of starch you work into the paper fibers, son. And that means it isn't in the starch of the tororoaoi root itself. And if you don't rinse it like this, the paper weeps. For eight hundred odd pounds of fiber you wash in the river, you get half that back. The yield is poor, but the paper has a strength that can't be beaten by cloth. You understand? Every one of us tosses the excess. What's leftover is the life of the paper. Do you see?' While Mizukami takes creative license with the mulberry pulp that in reality retains too much liquid to actually chew at this stage,8 his dramatization of paper in this scene reverberates with traditional personification metaphors. Paper does not simply evolve as a venerated craft in the story, it bears both a face and the capacity to weep. Najio River provides other keys to unlocking the mysteries of Echizen washi. In a spectacularly devised but otherwise tangential scene, Oshin offers what appears at first to be an ordinary coin as a token of gratitude for lodging at a farmer's home on the journey to Najio. But refusing the payment, the master of the house avows: That's a coin used to make screens for paper moulds, now isn't it? I know that from some moonlighting in papermaking work I did some time ago. Isn't it used as a weight when you and your husband weave papermaking screens? You know I can't accept a special coin like that. The road to Najio is still a hundred twenty miles off. You have no idea what may happen along the way. Go on now, and keep the money. Mizukami's narrator again interrupts, as if the farmer's casual explanation is insufficient for the uninitiated: The five-mon coin for weaving paper mould mats is something you see a lot of if you visit a papermaking village. Because farming families throughout Echizen carry out this work by hand at home, the screen that extends across the top of the paper mould's frame is an important papermaking device when it comes time to mix the mulberry pulp with the starch dissolved in water, adding it to the vat, and finally making the paper. Weaving these screens was normally the winter work for the townspeople near Goka. They wove the screens in the same manner as weaving with reeds by extending very thin madake bamboo rods and merging them on a plank base with hemp strings. But whereas round wooden pieces like tops are used as the weights for weaving reeds, five-mon coins are fastened through their center holes with string and used as weights for the papermaking screens. Even in this momentary exchange, Mizukami devotes text to highlighting the most quotidian of Echizen's papermaking secrets. Washi's crowning moment occurs at the end of Najio River where it transcends mortality to assume an ethereal form. Soon after Oshin and Katsu reach Najio, Oshin learns that her husband has a former wife and child for whom he was returning Sonoko Soeda as Oshin and Karen Kandel as the papermaking apprentice in Recycling: Washi Tales. Actors are wearing paper clothing hand-crafted by Kyoko Ibe. Photo: Isaac Bloom. to Najio. In despair, Oshin slips to her death at the river's edge into a pool of floating cherry blossoms. Her body is discovered by Katsu, who collects the clay clinging to her mother's corpse and works it into the kozo pulp to inspire Najio's innovation of clay-infused paper. The closing of the story appends a "citation" from an invented archival record documenting Katsu's commemorative creation: There was a kind of mud unique to Najio, and by mixing it into the mulberry, Yaemon made a distinctive paper. In one person's words, he had heard a girl named Katsu visiting from Echizen…pulled her \[mother's\] corpse from the river, and mistaking the Najio mud clinging to her clothing as cherry blossom petals, had come up with the idea of adding mud to the paper vat. Yaemon felt he could know the depths of despair of his wife, whom he had deserted in Echizen, in the last sorrowful moments of her life. He could say, fittingly, that it was she who had taught him to mix mud into Najio paper, and Katsu who made it. While impressive that Mizukami could market a story starring a humble local craft as Japan's post-war global economy climaxed, it is equally striking that washi still plays an enduring role in an Echizen paper festival dating back centuries. The observance of the festival occurs every May 3–5 over Japan's national Golden Week holiday. Ritual drumming attracts Kawakami Gozen and other Shinto deities down the mountain to Ōtaki Shrine at nightfall of the first day; on day two, children reenact the Kawakami Gozen myth; and on the third and final day, village men parade a portable shrine (mikoshi) around surrounding neighborhoods to encourage young and old residents alike to pay their respects to the paper shrine's deities.9 The festival culminates in a lantern-lit night hike of villagers who escort the deities back up the mountain, a scene reminiscent of Oshin's own pilgrimage in the opening scene of Mizukami's story. Even into the twenty-first century, Echizen aims to sustain paper's sacred association as the billing on brightly colored promotional posters touts, "A Spring Festival in the ‘Village of Kami \[gods\] and Kami \[paper\].'" Cultural cynics might protest that Echizen's paper festival commemorates Shinto agricultural rituals gone obsolete. It is no longer relevant, for instance, to mark the date of the first growth of spring in Echizen now that local kozo is largely supplanted by fiber delivered instead from Ibaraki and Shikoku, where it is specially cultivated. That the traditional festival's dates fall over Japan's string of national holidays in coordination with a host of other touristic events—from a community food bazaar to a screening of Iriya Tomomi's fantasy drama Hesomori (2011) that happens to be set in Echizen—suggest more than a whiff of commercialism. But the Golden Week holiday also includes Children's Day (Kodomo no hi),10 implying that the selection of these dates for the Echizen festival is not primarily commercial, rather, it ensures school holidays to enable children's participation. Featured prominently on the festival's promotional poster is a tagline identifying Echizen washi as a "Prefectural Intangible Cultural Property." In conjunction with the festival's emphasis on child participation, this coveted designation proclaims the cultural permanence of washi in Echizen, and nationally, for Japan. In this context of the eternal life of paper, the other activities held over the shrine festival period, such as the paper fair, hands-on papermaking and paper crafts, and youth exhibitions at the local papermaking museum, take on greater purpose, advancing the power of myth in Kawakami Gozen's prophecy that Echizen is "a fine place for making paper." ___________ notes 1. "Echizen Paper" from Japan Traditional Crafts Aoyama Square website, http://kougeihin.jp/en/crafts/introduction/paper/2951?m=cu (accessed November 2, 2013); also similarly phrased by Iwano Ichibei, interview by the author, Ōtaki-cho, Echizen, Fukui prefecture, October 26, 2009. 2. "Tang," in this case, may refer to the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD), in which papermaking took off in Japan, as well as more broadly to China and Chinese people. The reading of both Chinese characters should be further distinguished from the native Japanese gloss of the same characters, karakami, referring to a specific type of thick paper that originated in China, but evolved as a printed patterned paper in Japan to cover traditional doors. Once the craft was domesticated, it appropriated the native Japanese reading of the characters. The alternate sinified reading of tōshi is still used today to refer to paper manufactured in China. For more on karakami, including samples, see Senda Kenkichi, Karachō no "Kyō-karakami" monyō \["Kyō-karakami" patterns of Karachō\] (Kyoto: Shikōsha, 2003). 3. This attribution may also allude to the samurai practice of hacking off an opponent's ears, although further substantiation is required. 4. Gosho Kikuo, Mokuhanga no sekai \[The world of woodblock prints\] (Saitama: Published by author, 2009), 11. I am also indebted to Nakajima Takayoshi, a chemist in the paper industry. For more on paper personification, see Nakajima's website, http://homepage2.nifty.com/t-nakajima (accessed October 31, 2013). 5. The name Echizen collectively refers to the Goka area of Imadate-cho in Fukui prefecture, including the papermaking villages of Oizu, Iwamoto, Shinzaike, Sadatomo, and Ōtaki, which is considered the center of Goka. Located in a mountain ridge in Hyogo prefecture, Najio lies between Kobe and Osaka in Nishinomiya, approximately 120 miles from Echizen. Living National Treasure Tanino Takenobu and his son Masanobu are among the only remaining papermakers who know the technique of adding "mud" to Najio paper, a type of gampi paper that is highly resistant to insects and burning and thus was the preferred paper for screens and currency. Today it is a favored paper among conservators for all manner of repairs and restoration. Currently, Najio hosts a public papermaking workshop affiliated with its local primary school and a small museum, in addition to producing other promotional materials. For an English reference, see http://kanko.nishinomiyastyle. jp/m/english/spot/najio_papers.html. 6. Mizukami Tsutomu, Najiogawa, in Tanpen Meisakusen: Kusagakure \[Selected Stories: Hidden in the Grass\] (Tokyo: Kōsōsha, 1982), 31–56. Unpublished translation by the author. 7. Many sources document this legend. For official Echizen versions, see, http:// www.echizenwashi.jp/english/aboutus/history.html (accessed December 10, 2013), or the Fukui Prefecture Washi Making Cooperative (Fukui-ken Washi Kōgyō Kyōdō Kumiai) website, http://www.washi.jp/history/index.html (accessed December 10, 2013). 8. I would like to thank artist and paper specialist Kyoko Ibe for pointing out this discrepancy in Mizukami's text. 9. Editor's Note: For more on the annual festival, see Paul Denhoed, "The Echizen Washi Deity and Paper Festival," in Hand Papermaking, vol. 26, no. 2 (Winter 2011), 10–13. 10. The traditional celebration was known as Boys' Day (Tangu no sekku), whereas Doll's Day (Hinamatsuri) evolved as a girls' festival. In 1948, the Japanese government designated May 5th as Children's Day to celebrate the happiness of all youth.

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