Mukai Family Residence

What Is the Mukai Family Residence?

The Mukai Family Residence (向井家住宅, Mukai-ke Jūtaku) is the estate of an old family in Kada, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture; four of its structures, a main house raised in 1860, a late-Edo storehouse and an early-Showa front gate and wall, became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 4 February 2021.

The estate sits on the north side of the old Awashima Kaidō road (旧淡島街道, also written 淡嶋街道) as it passes through the fishing town of Kada, and opens its gate onto the street. For centuries the Mukai family has been bound up with Katsuragi Shugen, the mountain-ascetic tradition of the ranges east of here, and Wakayama Prefecture values the Mukai Family Residence as a place that keeps that link alive while shaping the look of Kada's old streets.

The House That Welcomes the Ascetics

Katsuragi Shugen follows a pilgrim circuit known as the Katsuragi Twenty-Eight Stations: 28 sutra mounds, each said to hold one chapter of the Lotus Sutra, strung along the mountains with training sites in between. According to Wakayama University's Institute of Kishu Economic and Cultural History, Kada marks the western end of that route. Across the water lies the island group of Tomogashima, home to the first sutra mound, the Johon-kutsu cave.

Kada once had a temple called Kadaji (伽陀寺), the first lodging station of the Katsuragi circuit. The prefecture's description says that from the late Kamakura period onward the Mukai family held the post of its administrator, or bettō.

The family is also known as Mukae-no-bō, roughly "the lodge that receives" (迎之坊; the prefecture writes 迎ノ坊). The Japan Heritage story for Katsuragi Shugen, published by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, describes the Mukai as a household that has long put up and looked after the yamabushi ascetics on their way into the mountains. The family's closest tie is with Shōgoin in Kyoto, head temple of the Honzan school of Shugendō, and when Shōgoin makes its Katsuragi mountain entry today its party still calls at the Mukai house.

The family papers, the Mukai-ke Monjo, are on deposit at Wakayama University's Institute of Kishu Economic and Cultural History, which built a 2019 special exhibition on Kada and Tomogashima around them.

Four Registrations

All four Mukai Family Residence structures entered the national register together in the 97th round, on 4 February 2021, under consecutive numbers 30-0291 to 30-0294. Each was listed for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the following dates and sizes:

• Main House: 1860, renovated in 2000, single-storey timber house with a tiled roof, 162 square meters in plan
• Storehouse: late Edo period, single-storey earthen-walled storehouse with a tiled roof, 18 square meters in plan
• Front Gate and Flanking Walls: early Showa period, a timber gate 1.9 meters wide with timber walls 4.6 meters long in total, all tiled
• Wall: early Showa period, concrete with a tiled coping, 8.2 meters long

The database uses the span 1830 to 1868 for the late Edo period and 1926 to 1945 for the early Showa period. Only the main house has a firm date, taken from its ridge tablet; for the storehouse and the gate, the prefecture notes that the year of construction is unknown and places them in the last years of Edo and the early Showa period respectively.

How the Estate Is Laid Out

The front gate of the Mukai Family Residence stands at the middle of the south side, opening onto the old Awashima Kaidō. Short walls run east and west from the gate, and on the west side a longer wall carries on to close off the western half of the street front.

The main house is set well back, in the center of the lot, and also faces south toward the road. The storehouse stands behind it to the north, pushed slightly west; the Agency's description notes that seen from the west it forms a pair with the main house.

The result is an estate in two layers. The street sees a gate and wall of the early Showa years, and behind them stand a house and storehouse from the end of the Edo period, some seventy years older.

Visiting and Getting There

The Mukai Family Residence is privately owned and is not open to the public. Visitors cannot enter the grounds, and we found no regular opening of any of the four buildings in prefectural or city listings.

What can be seen from outside is the front gate with its flanking walls and the wall beside it, all of which face the old Awashima Kaidō. The main house stands too far back, and the storehouse too far behind it, to be seen properly from the street. The road is also an everyday lane for local residents, so please stay off private ground and keep out of the way of traffic.

The nearest station is Kada, the terminus of the Nankai Kada Line. The Mukai Family Residence lies west of the station, about 450 meters in a straight line, or roughly a 7-minute walk. Trains from Wakayamashi Station take about 30 minutes to reach Kada.