Tracing the history of poop and toilets that supported the development of Japan!

Go, see, and feel the world of art
File 26　Kawasaki Municipal Japanese Minkaen " Poop and Life - From Toilets to Fertilizer - "
Miyuki Inoue (Magcal Editorial Department)

Located in Ikuta Ryokuchi, the Kawasaki Municipal Japanese House Garden is an open-air museum with a total of 25 old folk houses, including 7 nationally designated important cultural properties, scattered on a spacious site of about 30,000 square meters. The lush green garden where you can enjoy seasonal flowers is also perfect for going out with a lunch box.
In such a peaceful landscape, quite unique exhibitions are being held.
Entitled "poop and life - from the toilet to manure -".
What a straight-ball title. I have to go for this!

After buying a ticket at the main entrance, first visit the exhibition room in the main building.
The exhibition consists of four chapters, starting with an introduction to the various tools used in the "toilet", which is an indispensable part of our lives, and displaying how "human waste" has been used and disposed of in an easy-to-understand manner. ing.

In the title, "poop" is the main character, but first from the "urinal" collection.
The chubby form is cute and the colors are colorful. Rakugo "Shibin" is a story that begins with a samurai who visits an antique store and buys what he thinks is a vase.

This is a urinal and footrest for men. Perhaps it should be called "beauty of use", and even when it is placed in a display case, it is strangely comfortable.
It also introduces the history of using faeces as fertilizer and that Kawasaki was the first city in Japan to use a vacuum truck. It's a compact exhibition, but if you take a closer look, it's surprisingly deep.

Once you've learned the basics of the process, from the toilet to the fertilizer, let's take a look at the "Obenjo Map" and do a field survey at an old private house in the park.
First, from the horse inn (hatago) on the Oshu Kaido, the Suzuki Residence.

This is the toilet next to the guest room, and it seems that it was mainly used by the guests. The inside is divided into two parts, a toilet and a urinal.

Next is the "Sasaki Family Residence" in Shinshu.
The urinal next to the entrance (back right in the photo) is for family use. It is mainly for men, but it is said that women also used it when there was no one, so you can feel the generosity of the times. It seems that the toilet was in another hut.

Since the Sasaki family was a village headman, they had a toilet for guests when they received guests such as government officials. It is usually closed to the public because it is located in the back of the room, but this time it is open to the public from the back side.

There are tatami mats on the floor.
At that time, even the village headmen didn't use tatami mats in their daily lives, so it must be a pretty high-class toilet.

Gassho-zukuri "Yamada Residence" has a gassho-style toilet!
The small hut in the foreground is a toilet called "Henchagoya". It also served as a fertilizer hut, and was connected to the main house by a covered bridge.

The Sakuda Family Residence was a seine netter at Kujukuri Beach in Chiba Prefecture.

It is a toilet for visitors, with a urinal in front and a large toilet in the back.
Even though no one is using it, it feels strange to "peek" at the toilet...

This is the urinal in front of you. From what I've seen so far, it's pretty wide.

This is the toilet in the back.
It may be new to small children, but this form was common until Western-style toilets became popular.

The Kitamura Family Residence, which was relocated from Hadano City, Kanagawa Prefecture, is the house of a farmer who used to grow tobacco leaves.

The family urinal is next to the entrance, just like the Sasaki family.
The toilet was in a separate hut, but at the Kitamura family, the children would clean the toilet every morning, saying, "If the toilet is dirty, the house will not prosper."

Next is the outside toilet of "Koizumi family" in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture. It was in the back of the main house and was surrounded by a hedge so that it could not be seen from the outside.
The right one is for feces and the left one is for urine. Excrement accumulated in the urn was transferred to a manure pit and fermented for two to three months before being used as compost in the fields. In the sense that it was indispensable for the cultivation of crops, there is no doubt that compost made from excrement contributed to the development of Japanese society.

If you look into the "Farm Tool Hut Exhibition Room" next to it, you can see fertilisers and other items on display.

The last is the toilet of the nationally designated important cultural property "Kudo family residence" which was relocated from Iwate prefecture. It's a large building for a toilet, but it also served as a storeroom, and it seems that the ash from the hearth that was used as fertilizer was also placed there.

This is what the inside looks like. It has a simple structure in which two boards are placed on top of a "feces pot" to store feces. You can even ride on the board here, so you can step over the toilet bowl and enjoy the feeling of the past.
However, please note that it is NG to actually use it.

“Of course, old folk houses also have toilets. It was popular with children, so I wanted to hold an exhibition that mainly dealt with it someday. Please also try to think about
and curator Rina Tamai.

Excrement collected from latrines was once used effectively as nutrient-rich "manure" to grow vegetables. It is only natural that toilets will change with urbanization. However, as long as humans live, bowel movements will always occur. With this special exhibition as a starting point, I would like to think about “beyond” rather than the end after excretion.

This event has ended.
《Poop and life-From the toilet to fertilization-》
[Date] Until May 31, 2020 (Sun)
[Time] 9:30-17:00
[Place] Kawasaki Municipal Japanese Folk House Garden Main Building Exhibition Room
[Fee] Free (entrance fee required)