Tokuyama Family Residence Furiya

A Stone Toilet and Pigsty from 1894

The Tokuyama Family Residence Furiya (渡久山家住宅フリヤー, Tokuyama-ke Jūtaku Furiyā) is a stone-built combined toilet and pigsty of 1894 on the Tokuyama homestead in Ōkawa, Ishigaki City, Okinawa Prefecture, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 2 October 2007.

A furiya put the household toilet and the pig pen in one structure, handling both human waste and the keeping of livestock in one place. The national database also lists examples of the same kind elsewhere in Okinawa under the name fūru.

The Tokuyama Family Residence Furiya stands to the rear left of the main house, northwest of it according to Ishigaki City. Dated to about 1894, it is some thirty years older than the present house of 1925.

Why It Was Registered: A Base That Still Explains Itself

The Tokuyama Family Residence Furiya was registered as a model of its type. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a large furiya: 16 square metres in plan and 1.5 metres high.

Its superstructure, the roof and whatever stood above the walls, has gone. The stone base, though, is well kept, and each of its compartments still holds its tōni, the stone feeding trough for the pigs. Even without a roof, you can tell from the stonework where the animals were kept and where their food went, and that legibility is what gives it value.

The Meiji-era stonework survives with its troughs and was registered alongside the house, which makes it possible to see what went on at the back of a Yaeyama homestead.

What to Look For: Three Compartments in Two Kinds of Stone

The Tokuyama Family Residence Furiya is built of cut blocks of two stones: Ryukyu limestone and a local building stone called awa-ishi (粟石). Both have long been used for building in Yaeyama, and the same local awa-ishi appears in the stone wall at the front of the plot.

The interior is divided into 3 compartments, each fitted with its own trough, so the pigs could be kept apart. At 1.5 metres, the walls come up to roughly the chest or shoulder of an adult.

The points to notice are the mix of stones, the number of compartments and the trough in each. The photographs in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database show the stonework clearly.

Viewing the Furiya

The Tokuyama Family Residence Furiya stands behind the main house on private land and is not open to the public. The grounds cannot be entered, and we have not been able to confirm if it is visible from the road.

To see the stonework and troughs, use the photographs in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database. On site, please keep to the road outside the gateway and do not try to look round the back of the house.