Imoarai

Imoarai, not Hitokuchi

In Kumiyama Town, 東一口 is read Higashi-imoarai (ひがしいもあらい) and 西一口 is read Nishi-imoarai (にしいもあらい). Looking only at the kanji, you might want to read 一口 as hitokuchi ("one mouthful"), but as a place name it is Imoarai. The name is also used for local events, such as the Higashi-imoarai Tondo, a registered intangible folk cultural property of Kyoto Prefecture.

In Higashi-imoarai, every year on January 15, the three shrine guilds (miyaza) known as Hontōza, Gohei-za, and Ohashi-za hold a tondo bonfire together, and similar events are held in Nishi-imoarai and elsewhere. Note that the Kyoto Keihan Bus stop name is written 東いもあらい, partly in hiragana.

A fishing village that lived with Ogura Pond

Higashi-imoarai was a settlement that made its living from fishing on the shores of Ogura Pond. Embankments built in the Toyotomi era divided the pond into several ponds, and only Higashi-imoarai Village and two other towns and villages could fish in the Ōike (Great Pond), which made up 80% of the total. Higashi-imoarai Village in particular held privileged fishing rights granted in the time of Retired Emperor Toba, and it occupied 70% of the Ōike.

Higashi-imoarai is a fishing settlement that formed in a long strip on top of an embankment at the southwest of the former Ogura Pond. This embankment has been identified as the one built on Toyotomi Hideyoshi's orders, now called the Taikō Embankment (Taikō-zutsumi).

Higashi-imoarai was a village of part-time farmers and fishers, and it lived mainly by fishing until reclamation work on Ogura Pond began in 1933 (Shōwa 8). The fishing rights were managed by the Yamada family, the village's head officials (ōjōya), who represented the fishers of the Yodo River and Ogura Pond and led the 13 villages of Makishima-gō.

Why is 一口 read Imoarai? Several theories

The place name 一口 (literally "one mouth") is said to come from its being the only outlet from Ogura Pond to the Yodo River. In the Meiji-era improvement works on the Yodo River, the "Ogura Pond drainage channel from Higashi-imoarai" was abandoned, which suggests that Higashi-imoarai was where the pond's water flowed out.

On the other hand, there are several theories about why it is read Imoarai, and none is considered conclusive. The main ones are as follows.

Higashi-imoarai stood at the "outlet" of Ogura Pond

• Imi-harai theory: epidemics spread in the marshlands around Ogura Pond, and imi-harai (忌み祓い, "warding off misfortune") changed into imoarai
• Imo-arai theory: because this was the only waterway from Ogura Pond to the Yodo River, people washed mud off taro (imo-arai, 芋洗い, "washing taro") there
• The idea that imoarai was originally a word describing the landform, and that simply writing 一口 came to be read imoarai

Until Ogura Pond disappeared

Ogura Pond was a retarding basin formed in the area where the Katsura, Kizu, and Uji rivers meet to become the Yodo River. It was a shallow pond about 16 km around, with an area of 794 ha, and 90% of it was less than 1 m deep. The changes in Higashi-imoarai and Ogura Pond can be summarized as follows.

Where to see it today, and walking tips

The first place to visit is the former Yamada family residence in Higashi-imoarai. Built on a stone foundation wall in preparation for floods, it is estimated to date from the late 18th to the early 19th century. As of October 2026, it is open to the public on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays from 9 a.m. to noon, with an admission fee of 200 yen. From Keihan Chūshojima Station, take a Kyoto Keihan Bus bound for Kintetsu Ōkubo, get off at Higashi-imoarai, and walk about 10 minutes.

The nearby Maekawa River is the main drainage channel for the former Ogura Pond. Both banks of the Maekawa embankment are lined with more than 200 cherry trees planted after the reclamation, and the blossoms are usually at their best from late March to early April. Comparing the wide rice fields with the settlement on top of the embankment, you can really feel that this was once the shore of a pond.