In the Shikoku Mountains, villages are also an autonomous environment where houses stand on slopes while keeping their distance and grow their own food in the fields around the houses. The balance between isolation and solidarity is exquisite and suggestive to modern society.
Ochiai of the Iya Valley is a village designated as National Historical District. A network of paths that go straight down the slope and another paths that runs east and west along the contour line connects the houses. Now, this east-west paths are connected so that car could go up to the highest point.
And yet, the steep slope of the fields is terrible. In addition to hard agricultural work, people have to raise the falling soil with a special tool called "Sarae."
Akamatsu of Ichiu is the village with the highest altitude difference in Japan, and its difference is 750m from the lower house to the upper house. It took me about an hour and a half to walk to the highest point. At the top, an unobstructed view spreads out. Even in May when I visited, the wind was cold. According to the wind and the difference in temperature between day and night, dried persimmons produced near the top are very sweet and sold at high prices at department stores.
落合集落 / Ochiai village
赤松集落 / Akamatsu village
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Ochiai
Akamatsu
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