Recent Expansion of the Debata of the Nishijin Brocade and Some Changes of Fishing Villages to meet it in Far Tango

Abstract

Far Tango is the northern-most of Kyoto prefecture, forming Tango peninsula. Concentrated there is more than 20% of silk and artificial silk factories and domestic industries, 10% of power-looms, and the greatest crape manufacturing region in Japan. The crape manufacturing region could be divided into two distinct subregions. One of them is the traditional region where Tango crape has been manufactured since the latter half of the Tokugawa era, and the other is the newly developed one which became a crape manufacturing region with the expansion of the debata of the Nishijin brocade in the last decade. The Omeshi crêpe of Nishijin is manufactured in both sub-regions, but the Tango crape is manufactured in the former only. Whereas most of the latter is manufactured in factories which have the whole processes of manufacturing, the former is manufactured in houses of farmers or fishermen as debata which employ a weaving process only.
The debata is a system common to the Nishijin brocade originally: the enterpriser gives the yarn to the weaver who has a few power-looms in his own house and make him to weave for piece-work wages. Sometimes we call the weaver in this system debata too. The debata had been confined to the Nishijin district of Kyoto city depending on cheap labourers in the city, but the rapid expansion of Japanese economy recently has eliminated such workers from the cities. On the other hand, small farmers and fishermen in Tango were seeking a subsidiary income, since their livelihood were difficult by the schere expanding. The enterpriser of the Nishijin brocade employed them as debata, for most women in Tango have had experience in weaving as weavers of the Tango crape.
Debata began to permeate into Tango about 1947, but it increased markedly in the last decade, with the kimono boom which has led to the use of wool. It was noticeable that the internal demand for kimono made of wool but not silk enlarged far since it had of lower price and did not need so much skill in weaving. For this reason the debata could expand rapidly. By 1955 the debata had permeated gradually into the southern half of the traditional sub-region, and expanded to the northern half after 1958, and finally overflowed to form a newly developed sub-region since 1962. In spite of the fact that the debata has few power-looms and are scattered throughout Tango the enterpriser wants to gather from 30 to 50 powerlooms as a operating unit. So middle-men group many small debata and administrate them in place of the enterpriser. They have made a great contribution to the expansion of the debata by this (invention) in order to increase their commission.
The writer inquired in detail into the process of the expansion of the debata and especially some changes to meet it in fishing villages. We have no report about the debata in fishing villages. As a sample I took Tango-cho which comprises two sub-regions and some diffrent types of fishing villages: Taiza, in the western-most region, was a center of manufacture of Tango crape, (and of fishing on northern shores of Tango peninsula) Takano, adjacent to Taiza, and Nakahama, near to Kyoga-misaki, tip of Tango peninsula, are fishing villages on the northern shore of the Tango peninsula and are both included in the new sub-region, though the former was a half-farming and half-fishing village, where people got a livelihood half from farming and fishing respectively, and the latter was a pure fishing village where people engaged in fishery exclusively.