Akama inkstones

Akama suzuri carries the sound of Akama-seki, the old Shimonoseki name, while today’s production belongs to the Ube and Shimonoseki area. Older accounts connect the craft with a late-twelfth-century dedication at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu in Kamakura, and the name Akama suzuri was already used in the early Edo period. After the eighteenth century, quarrying centered more on Ube, where the northern Mankura-Iwataki area now gives the maker community a concrete center through the Yamaguchi Akama Suzuri Production Cooperative: named makers, stone hills, quarry work, and inkstone finishing held in one regional frame.

Akama stone is reddish shale, and Ube’s description notes its quartz and iron content. The stone is dense and hard, yet workable enough for carving; it may show round stone-eye patterns and varied tones across the surface. Those details matter before decoration begins, because the material must become both a shaped object and a working plane for grinding ink. The stone’s density, tenacity, color, and pattern give the maker a material that can be cut, flattened, carved, polished, and then used repeatedly with solid ink and water.

Akama stone is taken from quarry tunnels cut into the mountain. Because the raw stone is weak against drying, the tunnels are usually kept filled with water; before quarrying, the water is pumped out and the maker enters a passage low enough to require a crouched body. At roughly five to forty meters in, the Akama stone layer appears. Stone is removed with tools such as explosives or a pick hammer, then lightly tapped with a metal hammer so the sound can help decide whether the piece can become an inkstone. The future writing tool begins with water management, depth, stone layers, and trained listening.

Once a usable stone is selected, the maker roughs out the form with tools such as a diamond cutter, small chisels, and a hammer. In the jigiri step, water and silica sand work as the abrasive while the front and back are brought close to an even plane. During fuchitate, the maker raises the border and separates the land, where ink is ground, from the sea, where ink collects. Further carving, polishing, surface preparation, and thin lacquer or cashew finishing follow; regional descriptions emphasize that more than ten steps may run from quarrying to finished inkstone, often through the hands of one craftsperson.

The working character of Akama suzuri is found in the fine, slightly jagged grinding surface of Akama stone. As solid ink moves over the land with water, the stone can make the particles fine and bring out smooth, well-colored ink; the sea then holds the liquid for the brush. Stone-eye patterns, carved edges, and red-purple tones remain visible around that use, but the central experience is practical: a dense stone surface, a stick of ink, water, and a brush meeting through repeated movement.

In the era when writing relied on brush and ink, inkstones were necessary stationery, and production flourished around Akama in Shimonoseki and Asa in present-day Sanyo-Onoda during the Edo period. Modern daily life sharply reduced the number of inkstone makers. Nobuo Horio in Shimonoseki is described as a successor to Horio Takuji’s technique and as a maker involved in training successors, while the cooperative in Ube’s Mankura-Iwataki area keeps a named maker community visible. In 1976, Akama suzuri was selected nationally as a traditional craft; here, that phrase points to specific work in Ube and Shimonoseki: quarrying Akama stone, shaping land and sea, polishing the grinding surface, and passing on the hand skills.