Old farmer's house in Gifu Pref. 

This farmer's house is registered as the oldest in Gifu Prefecture. And it was built at 1701, about three hundred years ago. Also a typical one-storied and with a steep-slope thatched-roof farmer's house. Such as when we imagine Japanese farmer's houses.  

It has a rectangle shape, and, the entrance sliding door is in a little right to a long side of the rectangle. Inside of this house is separated to 2 parts, and right-hand side is a dirt floor area, and the opposite side is a raised-floor area. In this raised-floor area, there are 3 rooms. The first room which connected with a dirt area is a wooden floor room with a hearth in the center. And in the back of the room, there are 2 tatami-matted rooms.

The bright side is the finest room in this house, and a Buddhist alter is placed out there. The opposite side is supposed to be a bedroom with many old-fashioned wardrobes all surface of the walls. Once, people spent almost all days at the wooden floor room, for example eating, taking rest, doing side jobs and more.

In the dirt area, there are several spaces such as for an antique kitchen range, farm-equipment stock space, horse. It snows deeply every winter there, so farmers had to spend long winter time in this house only. A pit toilet hut was outside, and there was no bathing space in this house. 

A high ceiling attic space is behind the ceiling material. There is a ladder placed in the corner of the dirt area. We suppose that tatami-matted room was a little high-class for farmer's houses middle Edo period. So, we think tatami-matted room was not original, and renovated in a certain period of time. The shining golden-colored Buddhist alter in the tatami-matted room looks like relatively old one, but isn't also supposed to be an original. The condition of wardrobes is also supposed to be the same.  

By the way, in the Edo period, governors at that time made farmers trapped in their living area. Lifestyle deifying Buddhist alters started for resisting spreading of the Christian religion. According to this policy, farmers had to belong to temples, and became followings of them. They were prohibited to change religions and temples they belonged when they had born. After that, farmers started to place their Buddhist alters in their houses, to respect ancestors, to live in families. In addition, they were deprived freedom to change their living places. 

This scenery remembers us such historical violent. We don't know how high-ranking the owner of this farmer's house was in the regional society. However, guessing from the size of the house, he would not be a village headman but a self-sufficient farmer. 🏡

It is the Makimura family's house in Ono town.