ESTABLISHMENT AND FORM OF MOUNTAIN HUTS ON THE YOSHIDA TRAIL, MT. FUJI

Abstract

 From ancient times, mountains have been worshiped in Japan. Mt. Fuji is archetypal and the stone huts that served its pilgrims can be regarded as the original form of current mountain huts. Nowadays, since Mt. Fuji is a world cultural heritage site, its huts are required to be historically based. We examined historical materials, held interviews and conducted field surveys on the Yoshida trail to investigate their development. Great numbers of pilgrims who belonged to Fuji-ko societies made worship ascents from the trail.
 In the late Muromachi era, the Chugu shrine was built halfway up Mt. Fuji's Yoshida trail. Around the shrine, the oshi (owners), who controlled the worship practices there, managed 18 huts, assisted by their servants, the hyakusho. At the huts, called Chugu koya, they collected admission fees from the pilgrims, enshrined gods and the Buddha, sold water and offered resting spots. Eventually, the recognition of worship changed, and huts could be built above the 5th station on the Yoshida trail. These, called “ishimuro” (stone huts) might have developed from small shrines or temples into accommodations by adding water and fire places or expanding resting rooms to be like the Chugu koya huts. These stone huts already existed in the early Edo era before Fuji-ko flourished. They were concentrated around the boundaries of Mt. Fuji's religious areas, “Kusayama, ” “Kiyama” and “Yakiyama”, and where trails met. The current mountain huts sit in almost the same locations as the huts in the late Edo era.
 Travel guidebooks for Mt Fuji from that time state that the wooden huts located below the 5th station were for resting and stone huts higher up were for accommodations. There were 2 types of stone huts. Some were spontaneous “cave” type huts that began as religious training places. Other were artificial “building” type huts. The building huts were hirairi, wooden frame structures with cinders piled on the kiritsuma roof and around the walls. They had 1 or 2 entrances facing the trail. Some had a separated shrine and others had a shrine somewhere inside the hut that faced the trail or the interior room floored with tatami mats.
 The stone huts were shrines or temples and also shelters. The Chugu koya huts were located in the woods (Kiyama) but the stone huts above the 5th station were in the harsh mountain environment (Yakiyama). Based on our knowledge of the Chugu koya huts, the wooden huts had cinders piled on their roofs and around the walls and came to be the stone huts. These were built to protect against the harsh environment using cinders that were abundant in the Yakiyama area. Around the 5th station, on the edge of the forest, the buildings developed into a style intermediate between the wooden and stone huts.
 The width of the stone huts gradually expanded in the ketayuki, or ridge direction along the trail rather than in depth (hariyuki, beam direction) to suit being built on sloping ground. With breadths set to be reminiscent of shrines, the stone huts were 2 ken wide × 2 ken deep or 3 ken wide × 2 ken deep in the middle Edo era, growing to 5 to 8 ken wide × 2.5 ken deep in the latter part of the era. Oshi and hyakusho owned these huts, which might have been built by the hyakusho themselves or partly donated by Fuji-ko.
 As with the Chugu koya huts, equality among the stone huts was regarded as important by the oshi and hyakusho. They followed specific rules about the management of the stone huts and might have controlled their size and uniformity.