Awa washi paper

The map of Awa washi begins in Tokushima Prefecture, with Yoshinogawa City, Naka Town, and Ikeda-cho in Miyoshi City named as production areas; another account identifies Yoshinogawa City directly as the place where Awa washi is made. At the Awa Washi Traditional Industry Hall in Yamakawa-cho Kawahigashi, visitors encounter tools used for papermaking, books such as sutra texts and textbooks, papier-mache works, postcard-size and hanshi-size papermaking activities, and indigo dyeing, so the local name is tied to visible tools, water, paper pulp, and hands-on sheets.

Awa washi is built around bast fibers such as kozo, mitsumata, and ganpi, with mulberry, bamboo, hemp, and other materials also used according to purpose. Some calligraphy paper may include wood pulp or straw, while art and craft papers can incorporate vegetables, wild grasses, or soil. The key fibers are described as long, strong, and lustrous, producing paper that is thin yet resilient; another account emphasizes the soft touch, water resistance, and durability that come from natural materials.

Kozo is harvested after the leaves fall, cut, stripped, and dried as dark outer bark, then soaked and scraped into white bark. The prepared bark is cooked in alkaline liquid, rinsed, cleaned, beaten, dispersed in water, and formed by nagashi-zuki or tame-zuki. The wet sheets are stacked, drained overnight, pressed for about six hours, and dried on boards in the sun or by dryer, giving the finished paper a path from bark fiber to a thin sheet with strength still held in the long strands.

Awa washi can be formed by nagashi-zuki, in which the papermaker moves the screen through flowing water and pulp, or by tame-zuki, in which the pulp settles more steadily in the frame. Handmade sheets also keep irregular edges known as mimi, the paper's ears. Those edges are not decoration added later; they are the outline left when individual sheets are scooped, stacked, pressed, and dried, and they can remain visible in postcards, craft paper, and art paper.

After the sheet is made, Awa washi may be finished with dosa to adjust absorption, konnyaku treatment to strengthen the surface, persimmon tannin for durability and tone, lamination to join layers, or watermarking to place a pattern or mark into the sheet. Dyeing methods include post-dyeing, momi-zome, itajime-zome, sekka-zome, and indigo dyeing. In Tokushima, indigo-dyed washi connects local color to the surface of paper used for prints, paper objects, and exhibition work.

The uses of Awa washi range from gasenshi, craft paper, wrapping paper, shoji paper, postcards, business cards, coasters, watermarked sheets, mixed-in papers, dyed papers, and indigo-dyed washi. Contemporary uses also include photography inkjet paper, art paper, and interior materials, while the Awa handmade washi cooperative connects hand-scooped paper with art, architecture, and interior spaces. The traditional-industry hall also notes examples of Tokushima sake makers using washi for labels and packaging.

Local accounts trace the beginning of Awa washi to the Nara period, when the Inbe people are said to have planted hemp and kozo in Awa and made paper and cloth, with paper later offered to the court; in the Heian period, Tokushima was among the provinces supplying paper. After Hachisuka Iemasa entered Awa in 1585, kozo became one of the encouraged local industries, and papermaking in the Kawata area grew. Manufacturing households reached about 250 in the mid-Meiji period, then declined under competition from machine-made paper; in recent descriptions, one dedicated producer continues older techniques, and Awa washi was placed among Japan's nationally designated traditional crafts in 1976.