Traditional craft
Honba Kihachijo
本場黄八丈
A silk from Hachijojima, a Tokyo island 290 km out in the Pacific, dyed in three earthy colours from island plants and woven on hand-thrown looms.
Key facts
- Officially recognised
- 14 October 1977
- Type
- Woven textiles
- Region
- Kanto
- Official name in Japanese
- 本場黄八丈
- Official area (in Japanese)
- 八丈島八丈町
Three colours from one island
Kihachijo comes in just three colours: yellow, a reddish brown and black, in elegant stripes and checks. Every dye comes from plants that grow wild on Hachijojima, an island of Tokyo about 290 km south of the city.
Dyed dozens of times
The silk thread is soaked in boiled plant dye dozens of times. Yellow and brown are fixed with lye made from the ash of camellia and sakaki wood, and black with water strained from iron-rich swamp mud. The thread is then woven on a traditional high loom with a hand-thrown shuttle.
The cloth that named an island
Records show silk was sent from the island as tribute from the Muromachi period, and the scholar Motoori Norinaga wrote that the island's name probably came from its Hachijo silk. The stripes and checks still worn today date from the mid-Edo period.
Good to know
- Hachijojima is under an hour by plane from Tokyo, so the dye workshops make an unusual island trip.
- Real Kihachijo uses only yellow, brown and black. Bright extra colours mean it is not the honba (genuine island) cloth.
Questions travellers ask
What does honba mean?
Honba means the original production place. Honba Kihachijo is the cloth made on Hachijojima itself.
Which colours does Kihachijo use?
Only three: yellow, a reddish brown and black, all dyed with plants and mud from the island.
Where it comes from
More crafts from the same area
Local foods from the same area
Heritage stories from the same area
Sources
We checked the facts on this page against these sources.