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Omihachiman (1) – Town of Omi Merchants

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Omihachiman City in Shiga Prefecture is located in the middle part of Shiga Prefecture and on the east side of Lake Biwa. It takes about one hour from Osaka Station using the Shinkaisoku train or about one and a half hours using the Kaisoku train. Omihachiman is famous as the cradle of Omi merchants in Japan and, at the same time, as the town where William M. Vories, who was an architect in the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa Era, and left many famous western buildings in Osaka and Kobe, lived.
I’d like to introduce Omihachiman City in a few separate parts.

First of all, at this time, I’d like to guide you through the townscape retaining something of the old days, where merchant houses in the Edo Era left by Omi merchants stand.
According to the explanation written on the guide board in the town, after the fall of Azuchi Castle (around 1582), Toyotomi Hidetsugu built a castle on Mt. Hachiman, which was adjacent to Azuchi, built a castle town at the foot of Mt. Hachiman, and transplanted merchants there from Azuchi, whereby a merchant town, Omihachiman, was completed. This place became an important position of land transportation in association with preparation and improvements of roads, and transportation to Lake Biwa could also be utilized there. Among Omi merchants, merchants in Omihachiman were specifically called Hachiman merchants. The Hachiman merchants could affect from the beginning of development the traffic network, and so they opened their branches in Nihonnbashi, which was the center of Japan at that time, in Edo. Their business practice was a way in which they went to sell specialties of their local industry and stocked specialties in that place and went back. After building a certain market by peddling, their branches were opened. Their trading areas expanded not only throughout Japan as a whole but also Vietnam and Thailand before the national isolation.
Toyotomi Hidetsugu and then Kyogoku Takatsugu became the loads of the castle on Mt. Hachiman, but in 1595, the castle was completely destroyed, and it was never rebuilt. In 1600, Omihachiman became the dependent domain of the Edo Shogunate. The management of the town, however, was left to influential persons (merchants) in the town.

Now, let’s see the townscape in some streets and along canals, retaining the taste of the Edo Era.

1. Local History Museum
2. Former Ban Residence
3. Former Nishikawa Residence
4. Streets in Omihachiman
5. Hachimanbori Canal

As clearly shown on the map, the roads of this town form a checkerboard. The town design created in the Toyotomi Era may remain even now as it was. I reached the place where the buildings that I wanted to see were gathered using a bus in about 10 minutes from the JR Omihachiman Station. Omihachiman Municipal Museum, Former Nishikawa Residence, and Former Ban Residence stand along Shinmachi Street, and you can see the interiors of the buildings besides the appearances. There are many fine old Japanese wooden buildings in this street and other streets and around Hachiman Moat.

1. Local History Museum and History and Folklore Museum
Local History Museum, a western-style building, designed by Vories, was built in the site of the residence of the Nishikawa Family, who is the representative merchant in this area, and was used as a Hachiman Police Office building before. As I went there in March, many Hina dolls were exhibited (the Hina Doll Festival is held in March in Japan). History and Folklore Museum also standes in the same site from which we can know the life of Hachiman merchants in the Edo or Meiji Era, and in which art works, traditional artifacts, and antiques are also exhibited in addition to the household furniture and furnishings. The Hina dolls were all of a luxury type that I’ve never seen before, similar to their household furniture and furnishings. It seems that the Hachiman merchants had vast wealth.

  • Local History Museum

    Furniture and Household tools used at that time

  • History and Folklore Museum

    Hina Dolls

2. Former Ban Residence
This was the residence of a wealthy merchant family, the Ban Family, who exceled in the early stages of the Edo Era, and handled linen or hemp cloth, tatami facing, and mosquito nets, and whose shop name was Ogiya. The building was built over ten-odd years from 1827 to 1840. This building was used as an elementary or high school building, or a library building after the Meiji Era. Now it is opened to the public as the Former Ban Residence. The solid 3-story wooden house, which was rare at that time, is sufficiently impressive. I can’t believe that the building made for a private house was used for the public. Many gorgeous Hina dolls were also exhibited there.

  • Hina Dolls

3. Former Nishikawa Residence
This was the residence of a wealthy merchant family, the Nishikawa family, who accumulated wealth in the business of mosquito nets and tatami facing, their shop name was Daimonjiya. The building was built in 1706, which is designated as a national important cultural asset. It is opened to the public as a facility of Omihachiman Municipal Museum.

4. Streets in Omihachiman
There is an area where the streets are lined with old shop buildings or the residences of Hachiman merchants, which were built in the Edo Era and Meiji Era, and the area is designated as a national important preservation district for groups of historical buildings. The area, accordingly, not only has a beautiful townscape but also is important as a historical spot. In the buildings in that area, people actually live or engage in business even now.

5. Hachimanbori Canal
The area where Hachimanbori canal runs is also designated as a national important preservation district for historical buildings, similar to the area described just above. The emotional view in which warehouses having white walls are interwoven with old merchant houses gives us an atmosphere of a middle castle town even now. Hachimanbori canal is a shipping canal linking to Lake Biwa, and was a great artery of this town on which the town flourished in the Azuchi-Momoyama Era (1573 to 1600). The canal played an important role in the origin and development of Hachiman merchants, and the prosperity of the town. It was an indispensable means of transportation up to the beginning of the Showa Era, but it became unnecessary in association with the development of land transportation after World War II. Hachimanbori canal went out of use and became a ditch, and so a plan in which it was to be filled up with earth once arose. The canal, however, has recently taken its former beauty owing to the conservation and regeneration movement by local people. The scenery of warehouses having white walls and old buildings standing along the canal is often used for the location of historical dramas in TV and films.

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