TDthe days I lived in a mountain hut
After I learned falconry for a year as an apprentice to Mr.Kutsuzawa Asaji,
I left his home in Mamurogawa (Yamagata Prefecture) and started to live
with my hawk in a small hut at the foot of Mt.Kabu far from the village.
For he was 79 years old then, so it was very hard for him to go hunting
into the mountains. And also I didnft get along well with his family.
I lived in the hut for 8 years without city water, gas and electricity. I dipped up water from a stream to take a drum can bath and read books by lamplight. I went to a library in Yuzawa City in Akita Prefecture (35km north from my hut) to borrow books by bicycle.
In the season of falconry, when the mountains got snow, I went out hunting
almost every day. But I could only catch 3 rabbits in a day and most of
the meat became food of my hawk and me. There was little rest to sell.
And the fur was about 100 yen each at most. It was very difficult to live
only by falconry, so I earned 200`300 thousand yen by part-time jobs such as woods felling and road repairing during summer. That was all the income that I got in a year.
When winter passed, I made vegetables in front of my hut and gathered wild
plants and mushrooms in the mountains. I didnft spend money on anything
except for rice, some daily necessities and food of my hawk.
I gave small animals that I caught in the mountains to my hawk and I sometimes
picked up cats and dogs run over by a car for my hawk. But that wasnft
enough, so I had to buy chickens at low prices at a poultry farm.
After 8 years of
living at the foot of Mt.Kabu, I moved to Asahimura in between Mt.Gassan and
the Asahi mountain range. And I lived in a small hut away from the village
without city water, gas and electricity as before. I lived there for 6 years
until I had my child. And 10 years ago, I moved to the village Ifm living in
now with my family.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@Matsubara Hidetoshi
