Kokerabuki

What kokerabuki is

Kokerabuki is a roof of thin split wooden shingles laid in overlapping layers. Each shingle is only a few millimetres thick, and they are pinned with bamboo nails in shallow overlaps, much as Hiwadabuki is laid with bark.

Shrine halls use it. The main hall of Sugio Shrine in Shiga Prefecture, built in 1707, is recorded as a single-storey timber hall of 2.4 square metres under wooden shingles. The worship hall of Miho Shrine in Shimane Prefecture, built in 1924, is recorded under the same covering at 203 square metres. Small halls and large ones alike carry it.

Buildings in Sukiya-zukuri combine it with other coverings. The Daijokaku at Okochi Sanso in Kyoto, built in 1941, is recorded as roofed in cypress bark with thatch, shingles and tile in part. The Tekisuian at the same villa, from the Meiji period, carries thatch with tile and shingles in part.

A record that lists bark, thatch, shingle and tile on one building is describing the tea-influenced practice of changing the covering from part to part.

Spelling, and telling it apart

The records of the Agency for Cultural Affairs write the Japanese name with two different characters, one of them identical to the character for persimmon and the other a distinct character often regarded as the correct one. Both occur, and the spelling of the entry being quoted is the one to follow.

The difference from cypress bark is the material. Bark roofing stacks strips of bark; this stacks split boards. At the eaves the bark roof shows fibrous layers while this shows thin flat boards.

On site, look at the eaves from the side. Layer upon layer of thin boards with visible grain is the shingle roof, and the surface above is smooth with none of the ridges of tile.