Taruki

What taruki are

Taruki are the sloping members running from the ridge down to the eaves, carrying the roof above them. Seen from beneath the eaves they read as a row of parallel timbers.

Records describe them with a fixed formula combining the number of tiers and the spacing. The subsidiary Itsukushima Shrine at Kasuga in Oita Prefecture has two tiers set close together; the middle gate at Hashikuraji in Tokushima Prefecture has a single tier set wide apart; the main hall of Shounji in Aichi Prefecture has two tiers set wide apart.

A single tier uses one run of rafters. Two tiers add a second, shorter run projecting beyond the first at the eaves. Close spacing packs them tightly; wide spacing leaves gaps between. The four combinations give the eaves quite different appearances.

Variants occur. The pagoda at Chinzanso in Tokyo has parallel rafters closely set at every level, and the imperial gate at Ninnaji has an unusually wide spacing. Quoting the term the record uses is safer than translating loosely.

Sealed in plaster, or shown off

Buildings in Dozo-zukuri sometimes seal the eaves and rafters in earth and plaster against fire. The archive storehouse at the Sakai brewery in Nagano Prefecture, from the later Edo period, is described as a two-storey plastered storehouse, Kirizuma-zukuri with Sangawara-buki and entered from the eaves side, with a lean-to at the centre of its south face and its eaves and rafters carefully sealed in this way.

Elsewhere the rafters are precisely where the carpentry shows. The Kadoboshi shop in Miyagi Prefecture, from about 1930, is described as a two-storey plastered building, gabled and pantiled, whose irregular quadrilateral plan followed the shape of the site, so that its columns, projecting beams and rafters were all cut to a rhomboid, an entry the record singles out as rare craftsmanship.

On site, stand under the eaves and look up. Timbers packed tightly together indicate the close spacing, gaps between them the wide. A second, shorter run projecting past the first marks the two-tier arrangement.