Urugi（売木村）

Urugi（売木）: Uru（売） means sell and gi（木）means wood.
Therefore, Urugi（売木） literally means “sell wood” and as its name shows, Urugi village has had enough wood to sell untill today.

As Japan is a mountainous country (about 67% is covered by mountains), mountains are a familiar existence for Japanese. In addition, mountains bring us countless blessings; fruits, mushrooms, wood, waters, etc. Therefore, Japanese people have lived in harmony with forests / woods and made full use of trees since ancient times. Wood is their most familiar material. In the past they made almost everything with wood and bamboo.
However the abundance and importance of wood in Urugi village is huge and exceptional. Because most of the village is covered with woods, surprisingly 88% of its land. It’s much higher than the average of the Japanese archipelago(67%).

During the feudal period, people were obliged to pay tax usually by rice, because rice had served as money for quite a long time in Japan, until the end of the 19th century. But in Urugi, quality timbers to build walls and roofs were widely accepted as tax instead of rice, because of their high usefulness.

Furthermore, during the Edo period (17-19th century), a special career group called Kijishi placed themselves in Urugi village.
Kijishi is a craftsman who processes wood to manufacture wooden items such as bowls and trays using a wheel which is usually used in pottery. It means that they can handle wood just like clay. What a marvelous technique! Undoubtedly, Kijishi is a highly professional group and their existence itself testifies the quality of Urugi wood.

Let’s experience the mythic beauty of Urugi woods. Her tenderness will embrace you from the heart.

100-year Hinoki project

They have launched the “100-Year HInoki Project” to create something that will last more than 100 years.
As their first step, they started cutting down the Hinoki trees to get material wood for the creation.
Not simple cutting.
As the YouTube video shows, he cut the tree down using only an axe and a saw. Although it took much longer time he had initially expected (over two hours), he carried it through.

Please watch the process of his hard work and the spectacular sight of the 100- year- old HInoki tree is finally falling.