Gasshou-Mura

What is Gasshou?
Japanese Gasshou means join one's hands in prayer. Gasshou Zukuri means private house built like a shape of Gasshou. There are some Gasshou Zukuri dismantled in Shirakawa Village and reconstructed here. These great thatch houses remember of Hida Area's ancient times. Ohdo's house is one of them. It was built in 1833 Edo era and named as a greate property of Japan in 1956,

Shirakawa Village is a small settlement in a mountain valley up Shoukawa river, Gifu Prefecture northwest part. As in the very mountains , there is completely separated from other regions, and outmoded customs still survives. Typical of the customs is the architecture of Gasshou.

But in Japan's economic growth time 1960s, this unexplored region sealed to be gone under the Shoukawa dam and the Miboro dam for power source. Gassho Zukuri's architecture is honor to the village and the prefecture. Gero town dared to dismantle and reconstruct for future generations to see them. This project needed 80 large trucks for transport and 40 people for construction, and completion was in 1963.

Ohdo's ancestor was Shigenori Ohdo, a son of Tsunemori Taira, vassal of Heike in Heian era. Iwasaki's house is refurbished for stocking many historical materials such as statue of Buddha, farm implements and ancient manuscripts written about Kyubei Takekawa had advanced to ancient Hokkaido Ezochi.

Structure of Ohdo's house

Width of the entrance：11.63 ken (1 ken=1.818 meter)
Depth:6.75 ken
Floorage:76 tsubo (1 tsubo= 3.3 square meter)
Floors:4
Gradient of thatch:60 degrees
Thickness of thatch:1 meter

There are some variations of Kiritsuma-Gasshou Zukuri structure ; 3, 4, 5 floors etc. These are as it were wooden building, so a large family ,30 or 50 people family, had lived in a same house since middle of the Meiji era.

A large room under the thatch roof was very good for sericulture. Sericulture had earned for Shirakawa Village that had small cultivated fields. Small fields, small living area. For application of the limited space, floors piled up, and the result was the steep roof structure that endure heavy snows successfully.

No nail or clamp used. Wooden chocks ,sticky wood called Neso and straw ropes used. Upper the 2nd floor, floor boards were used limitedly , almost all floors were weaved bamboo like a slatted drainboard. By its well breathing, smoke from the basement floor shrouded throughout every floors, therefore pillars, beams, Neso, and ropes were smoked. Then it made all house dried lacquered without intention. The smoke dried lacquer ought to keep vermins at a distance, and preserve condition of the house.

Large family

Till middle of the Meiji era, large families had been in Gasshou Zukuri living with collateral lines, without establishing branch families. Simply because it was impossible to divide small soil to smaller plots by branching families.

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