Smoke rises in a mountain valley. It’s the path of fire, still flowing without end. Here in Tachikui, fire has been lit, and pottery has been made for more than 800 years.

If you listen closely to the wind, you can hear the sound of kneading clay, the splitting of firewood, and the quiet presence of people watching the kiln in silence.

Here is the memory of fire, earth, and people – a memory called Tambayaki.

Tambayaki is pottery that has spanned many eras, changing its forms again and again, yet has always existed here.

In Japan, historic pottery-producing regions date back to the Middle Ages, known as the “Six Ancient Kilns.”
Seto, Tokoname, Shigaraki, Bizen, Echizen, and Tamba.

Among them, Tambayaki may be the most difficult to sum up in a single phrase.
In the world of antiques, there was once a saying:

“If you can’t tell what it is, call it Tamba.”

“Tamba no nanabake” – “Tamba’s seven transformations” – is how people described its seven different faces.
So diverse are its appearances, yet Tambayaki has been made for some 800 years.

Its beginnings are said to date back to the late Heian Period. The first kilns were built in the mountains at Sambon Pass, where the three provinces of Harima, Settsu, and Tamba met.
Excavated shards reveal the influence of Tokoname and Atsumi from the Tokai region, indicating that techniques from distant lands had already reached this valley.

On works from that time, you can see finely carved motifs such as chrysanthemum and autumn grasses. They were perhaps used as urns for the ashes of nobles.

Time passed, and by the mid-Muromachi Period, the pottery of this region began to shine with a light of its own.

On a vivid reddish-brown surface, natural ash glaze flows down. Ash from the firewood dances in the flames, falls onto the pottery pieces, melts like glass, and fixes itself there – a beauty of “accident,” beyond human control. This natural ash glaze was both the origin and the greatest allure of Tambayaki.

You don’t “make” pottery so much as “wait for it to be born.” That feeling still lives on in the kilns of Tamba today.

With the start of the Edo Period, Tambayaki underwent another change.

First to appear was a technique called akadobe – literally “red earth surface”.
Clay slip, initially applied to prevent leakage, gradually came to be appreciated for its beauty as a decorative medium and evolved into red-brown pottery.

This technique is said to have been passed on from Bizen yaki, but by using Tamba clay, it achieved an even more vivid color. This technique blossomed into an expression unique to Tamba.

Later, by layering glaze over akadobe and adding various forms of decoration, a group of works known as “White Tamba” emerged in the late Edo Period, distinguished by the beauty of white slip and painted designs.

Tambayaki has continually learned from outside, absorbed it within, and retold it in its own way.
This is precisely the path of “seven transformations.”

Supporting this long journey of pottery is the “noborigama,” or climbing kiln.
Among them, the oldest one, built in 1895, is still fired once a year today as a cultural symbol.

Using the mountain's slope as a guide, this giant kiln stretches some 47 meters. In Tamba, it’s also called the “snake kiln” for the way it winds up the hillside.

The sound of stoking firewood, the smoke rising from the “beehive” smoke vents – each of these is a clue that connects us to 800 years of history.

This type of kiln has disappeared in other pottery regions and now remains only in Tamba.
It’s proof that the fire has continued to live here without ceasing.

Today, a total of 50 potteries are gathered in the village of Tachikui, each pursuing its own unique mode of expression.

They say, “We want to create things that can only be made in Tamba.”
That means not simply firing clay, but creating works by engaging with every aspect of Tamba – its climate, its lifestyle, its entire way of life.

Accepting the inevitability of place, wrestling with the times, and searching day by day for new forms of expression.

Each step they take weaves yet another chapter in the ongoing history of Tambayaki.

For example, some artists continue to pursue the red tones of akadobe.

The thickness of the glaze, the path of the flame, the balance of the clay – How did the vivid reds that took the Edo Period by storm come into being?

The core of these once very real techniques has now been forgotten, and is sometimes said to be impossible to reproduce.

Even so, they continue their trial-and-error approach.

It’s also a journey of returning, with a blank and honest heart, to the question of what kind of landscape should dwell within a piece of pottery.

“What is Tambayaki?”

It’s not confined to a single style or technique. From the natural ash glazes of the Middle Ages to the akadobe of the early modern period to the challenges of contemporary artists today.

Changing its form with each era, yet never letting the fire die out. Living together with the clay and core of quiet strength. Holding both of these qualities at once, Tambayaki truly deserves the name “Tamba’s seven transformations.”

And yet, if at any point in this journey you find your heart moved by a single piece – that, in itself, is proof that you’ve touched the landscape of Tambayaki.