Tachikawa Silk History Walk: Japan’s No.1 Mulberry Village, Sunagawa

A village full of looms: from Sunagawa futo-ori to Murayama Oshima Tsumugi

Once the silkworms have made their cocoons, next come thread and cloth. The museum’s handout says that weaving was women’s work, done as a side business on the farm.

In Sunagawa, a cloth called Sunagawa futo-ori (砂川太織, “Sunagawa thick weave”) was woven from the end of the Edo period. In the Meiji era, under the influence of Murayama gasuri, an ikat-style cloth from the neighbouring Murayama area, the focus of production shifted from futo-ori to Murayama gasuri. After that, improvements in equipment made weaving busier than ever.

And then comes this line. According to a survey carried out in Sunagawa Village in 1889, 500 households, or 85 per cent of the village’s farm families, were weaving.

Eight and a half houses out of ten. You could almost say every house. Walk along the Itsukaichi Kaido in Sunagawa at night and you would have heard looms from every home. 1889 was also the year the Kobu Railway opened and Tachikawa Station was born. Beyond the whistles celebrating the new station, Sunagawa was at its looms.

The thick thread of double cocoons

What sort of cloth was Sunagawa futo-ori?

The Aoyama Square shop and gallery, which introduces Japan’s officially designated traditional crafts, explains that around 1920 two streams merged: Murayama kongasuri, a cotton cloth dyed with pure indigo, and Sunagawa futo-ori, a silk cloth made from tamamayu, “double cocoons.” The result, silk Murayama Oshima Tsumugi, became the main product. Elsewhere the same page puts it this way: the stream of indigo-dyed cotton Murayama kongasuri joined with the stream of silk Sunagawa futo-ori, and over time evolved into a silk cloth with patterns dyed into both warp and weft threads, which is Murayama Oshima Tsumugi.

A tamamayu is a cocoon that two silkworms have spun together, when normally each worm makes its own. According to Wikipedia, this happens in roughly 2 to 3 per cent of cases, and because the thread reeled from it is knotty, it was once considered low-value.

Draw thick thread from cocoons considered worthless, and weave your own cloth from it. It must have been a cloth of farm thrift, a way of wasting nothing. And that knotty thread became one of the two sources of what would become Tokyo’s representative silk textile. A rags-to-riches story, told by a cocoon.

The only traditional craft in Tokyo

Murayama Oshima Tsumugi has been made mainly in what is now Musashimurayama City, just north of Tachikawa. According to Aoyama Square, production peaked around 1933–34, and demand rose dramatically after it was designated a national traditional craft in 1975. Wikipedia says 1975 was the first round of designations under that system, and that Murayama Oshima Tsumugi was the only item in Tokyo to be designated.

One of the two sources of the first textile in Tokyo to become a nationally designated traditional craft was woven in Sunagawa, Tachikawa. I think this is something Tachikawa people could boast about more. The name of the cloth does not contain the word Tachikawa. But half its thread came from Sunagawa.

According to Wikipedia, when the area’s weavers were absorbed into the Hachioji Textile Trade Association in 1921, the name “Murayama Oshima section” was used. The sound of Sunagawa’s looms flowed through Murayama and into the great river of Hachioji’s textile trade.

1910 and 1916: a silk mill closes, a silkworm-egg station opens

Tachikawa City’s timeline has only three short entries about silkworms. One is the arrival of Kokage Shrine in 1860. The other two sit side by side in the Meiji and Taisho eras.

1910: “Sunagawa silk-reeling industry closes.”

1916: “Tokyo Prefectural Silkworm Parent-Egg Production Station established in Tachikawa Village.”

One line each, so there is little detail. But the first tells us there was a time when Sunagawa reeled silk thread from cocoons on an industrial scale. And the second, judging by its name, shows that a Tokyo prefectural facility dealing in genzanshu, the parent stock from which silkworm eggs were bred, was set up in Tachikawa Village.

Issue 14 of Tachikawa Monogatari compares maps from 1921 and 1930 to show the town before and after the Tachikawa airfield. Among the facilities on both maps, alongside Tachikawa Station, the Prefectural Second Middle School, the Tachikawa Village office and the Sunagawa Village office, is the name “Tokyo Prefectural Silkworm Parent-Egg Production Station.” An office for making silkworm eggs was marked on the map with the same standing as the station, the middle school and the village halls. On the town map, too, the silkworm was a full resident.

The road to the City of Mulberries

West of Tachikawa lies a town once called Soto, “the City of Mulberries”: Hachioji. According to Wikipedia, because silk weaving and sericulture flourished there, it earned the poetic names “Kuwa no Miyako” and “Soto,” both meaning mulberry capital, and the name is woven into the Hachioji city song, whose lyrics were written by the poet Kitahara Hakushu. When the port of Yokohama opened at the end of the Edo period and raw silk became a leading export, Hachioji prospered both as a producer of silk and as a relay point for sending it on to Yokohama. From the Meiji era, raw silk and silk cloth gathered from the regions further inland were carried to Tokyo on the Kobu Railway.

That Kobu Railway opened from Shinjuku to Tachikawa in April 1889 and was extended from Tachikawa to Hachioji in August of the same year, according to Tachikawa City. The railway, the city’s handout says, was first planned along the Koshu Kaido highway and then along the Ome Kaido, but both plans met strong opposition from residents along the routes and came to nothing. Meanwhile the people of Tachikawa and Sunagawa villages, who had noticed the railway’s convenience and carrying power, campaigned actively to attract it, and the present line, running dead straight across the Musashino Plateau, was laid. The railway other towns had turned down was invited in by a village of mulberry and looms. In the very year that 85 per cent of Sunagawa’s farms were weaving, the line to the silk capital passed through Tachikawa. Today that line is the JR Chuo Line, which you probably rode to get here.

In 2020, Wikipedia notes, the story of Mt. Takao and the City of Mulberries became the first in Tokyo to be recognised as a Japan Heritage by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. At the eastern edge of that mulberry-capital story, in its nursery, stood Tachikawa’s Sunagawa.

A detour quiz for travellers

In the survey carried out in Sunagawa Village in 1889, what share of farm households were weaving? (A) About 10 per cent (B) About half (C) About 85 per cent. Look for the answer as you read on.

The Sky Capital landed on mulberry fields

What changed the face of Tachikawa completely was the Tachikawa airfield of 1922. I have told that story many times in this series. Seen from the side of the mulberries, though, the same event looks a little different.

Issue 14 of Tachikawa Monogatari says of the 1921 map that most of the airfield site was woodland, wild land and mulberry fields. All the houses on the site, an isolation hospital for infectious diseases and the telephone lines were moved, and the village roads were abolished or rerouted after talks between Sunagawa and Tachikawa villages. Issue 15 adds that construction used tractors, rare at the time, and that woodland, wild land and mulberry fields were transformed into an airfield.

The Sky Capital, as Tachikawa came to be known, landed on mulberry fields.

Where silkworms’ food had grown, aeroplanes began to taxi. A field for an insect that crawls along the ground became a meadow for machines that fly. I know of no more extreme career change. Mulberry field became runway; after the war the runway became a US base; it was returned to Japan in 1977, and today it is Showa Kinen Park, the Tachikawa Regional Disaster Prevention Base and the Faret Tachikawa district. Dig down under Tachikawa’s lawns, and in the bottom layer you would find mulberry roots.

After the silkworms left

When did silkworm-raising in Tachikawa end? The museum’s handout says it was the centre of farming until the start of the Showa era, and the city’s notes on udo say udo growing began in the decade after 1945, when sericulture declined. Yet in 1954 there is the record of a peak season when “every day is a war,” and in 1979 there is a photo of mulberry fields. It faded, but it hung on for a long time.

And the city’s notes on Kokage Shrine state the present simply: today, no silkworm-raising is carried on in Sunagawa. Kokage Shrine once had a building of its own in the grounds of Azusami Tenjin Shrine, but since grounds improvements in 1980 it has been enshrined together with other minor shrines, including a Konpira shrine and a god of smallpox, beside the main hall.

In 1979 the village still had wide mulberry fields. The following year, the silkworm god gave up living alone and moved in with fellow gods. The turning of an era shows up even in the housing of gods.

Sunagawa then, Sunagawa now

Older Tachikawa residents may remember Sunagawa as it was in the Showa era. Join the records together and the scene lines up like this.

In the early 1950s, the youth association’s magazine was printing pieces that called peak silkworm season “every day is a war.” Around the same time, the “Sunagawa Ondo” folk song was composed, and the youth association spent years discussing how to unify the summer Bon dances, which each hamlet did its own way, finally holding a “unified Bon dance” in 1960, Tachikawa Monogatari reports. Chased by silkworm season, dancing to their own song in summer: Sunagawa’s young people in the Showa era were busy.

In 1961, mulberry saplings left Kamisunacho by truck. In 1975, when Murayama Oshima Tsumugi became a national traditional craft, demand surged. Speaking to Aoyama Square, one weaving house recalled that time: “We made and made, and the stock was always gone at once.” When production was at its height, the article adds, you could hear looms late into the night from any house where there were women.

Back then, mulberry fields spread across Kamisunacho and trucks loaded with saplings drove its roads. Now, Tachikawa City writes, “Today no silkworm-raising is carried on in Sunagawa.” Back then, the silkworm god had a shrine of its own. Now it sits beside the main hall, listening to the prayers of people looking for lost cats.

For young people, learning that the road they take every day once ran between mulberry fields may be a small surprise. For older people, it may bring back the low mulberry hedges and the sound of looms on a summer night. Either way, the next chapter of that scene is in Sunagawa’s fields today, in the udo cellars underground, and in the lawns of Showa Kinen Park.

The answer: walking the traces of the mulberry village

How did a plateau village that could barely grow rice become Japan’s top producer of mulberry saplings?

Lining up the records as best I can, the answer comes in three layers.

The first is soil. The Kanto Loam plateau was unsuited to paddies, so it was turned over to fields and mulberry instead. By the Kyoho era, it was already known as a mulberry area.

The second is technique. From the end of the Edo period into Meiji, grafting was established for sapling production, making the work simpler and mass production possible. Grafting also suited breeding, and new varieties appeared almost every year. The plateau’s nursery beds became a workshop for new mulberries.

The third is demand. Raw silk ranked among Meiji Japan’s top exports, and silk farmers wanted good mulberry. Tama became a great sapling-producing region, Hachioji became the town where silk gathered, and the Kobu Railway tied them together.

The other question: where did the mulberry fields go? Half of the answer lies under the runways of the Sky Capital, and half under postwar housing and udo fields. But not all of it vanished. Kokage Shrine receives cat lovers beside the main hall, the mulberry room in Wakaba-cho is being measured by the city historians, and the thread of Sunagawa futo-ori is still woven, warp and weft, into Murayama Oshima Tsumugi.

Tachikawa is thought of as an unremarkable town. Some people even say there is nothing there. But the northern half of this city was once the nation’s top mulberry nursery, a silk village where more than eight households in ten wove cloth. Long before the signs glowing above the department stores, the nights of Sunagawa rang with the sound of looms.

Walking the Itsukaichi Kaido, you sometimes see a low clump of bushes behind a house. Whether it is mulberry, I am still not sure. I will learn the leaf shape at the museum, and then come back.

Answer to the detour quiz

The answer is (C), about 85 per cent. According to the Tachikawa Museum of History and Folklore, a survey of Sunagawa Village in 1889 found that 500 households, 85 per cent of the village’s farm families, were weaving. To the Sunagawa futo-ori made since the end of the Edo period, Murayama gasuri was added in the Meiji era, and improved equipment made weaving busier still.

Before you go

• Tachikawa Museum of History and Folklore (立川市歴史民俗資料館, Tachikawa-shi Rekishi Minzoku Shiryokan): 3-12-34 Fujimi-cho, Tachikawa, Tokyo. A city facility for learning about Tachikawa’s history, culture and natural setting, opened on 1 December 1985. Check opening hours and closing days on the city’s facility page before you go: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/shisetsu/1008065/1008098.html
• The museum’s learning handouts “Sericulture and Weaving” and “Sunagawa’s Mulberry Saplings” (in Japanese) can be read on the city website, including the captions for the Taisho-era photos mentioned here: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/bunka/1004244/1004849/1004905.html
• The museum’s publications include a book recording the life of a Sunagawa farmer who grew mulberries and raised silkworms (in Japanese). For how to buy, see the city’s page: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/bunka/1004244/1004851.html
• Kokage Shrine (蚕影神社, the “Cat-Return Shrine”; a city-designated historic site, “Site of Kokage Shrine”): in the grounds of Azusami Tenjin Shrine, 4-1-1 Sunagawa-cho, Tachikawa. Today it is enshrined with other minor shrines beside the main hall. City page: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/bunka/1004244/1004847/1019994/1004857.html . This is a working shrine; keep your voice down, and bow at the gate if you like.
• Getting there: Tachikawa City’s walking course “Walking the birthplace of Sunagawa Shinden” guides you along a route that takes in Azusami Tenjin Shrine and Kokage Shrine. Start from Tamagawa-Josui Station, on the Tama Toshi Monorail (the monorail that runs above Tachikawa Station) and the Seibu Haijima Line, and the route overlaps with this series’ episode on the Tamagawa Aqueduct and Sunagawa: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/bunka/1004244/1004848/1004892.html
• From central Tokyo: Tachikawa is on the JR Chuo Line from Shinjuku, the same line as the old Kobu Railway in this story. Carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO to save buying tickets each time.
• The latest city-history research (including records of silkworm rooms and mulberry rooms) appears in the Japanese newsletter Tachikawa Monogatari; back issues are online in the Comprehensive Database of Archaeological Site Reports in Japan: https://sitereports.nabunken.go.jp/ja/article/121485
• Combine it with: Tokyo udo, grown underground in the same Kanto Loam; the strip-shaped fields of the aqueduct village; and Showa Kinen Park, spread over the old mulberry fields. You can walk the whole northern half of Tachikawa in a day with the eyes of the mulberry village.
• Much of Sunagawa is still farmland and private homes. Enjoy the fields and hedges from the road, and do not step onto farmland or private property.

After the walk: the North Exit of Tachikawa Station

The Itsukaichi Kaido through Sunagawa is long. Locals once called the village “Niri Hatcho, Naga-shinden” — “two ri and eight cho (old units of distance), the long new field” — and walking it east to west leaves your legs more tired than you expect.

Back at Tachikawa Station, a 1-minute walk from the North Exit, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店), a hot yoga studio heated with lava stones, on the 3rd floor of the Etoile Building, 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo. Besides lava-stone hot yoga, it offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

It is open every day, 8:00 to 23:30, so it fits whether you visit the museum in the morning or come back from Sunagawa in the evening.

For first-timers there is a trial yoga lesson for ¥1,980 (tax included), with two bath towels, one face towel and a mat rental included, so you can drop in almost empty-handed after a walk. Pregnant guests cannot join lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

Studio information: https://ontheshore.jp/ Trial lesson booking: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

The silkworm slept four times before it could spin its cocoon. A person needs only one night. Before that, it does no harm to loosen up a little.

Cover photo: Young people picking mulberry leaves to feed silkworms, photographed in Japan in 1918 (not taken in Tachikawa) (Photo: Cheney Silk Company / Public domain / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

More Tachikawa Walks

• Tachikawa Air Raids: WWII History and a Memorial Walk Guide
• Tachikawa Autumn Leaves Guide: Ginkgo, Zelkova and Where to Walk
• Tachikawa Base Town History: Cola Bottles, Yuming, the Laundry Gate
• Tachikawa Air Base History Walk: The Sunagawa Struggle and After
• Tachikawa Sento Guide: Public Baths, Their History and Bath Etiquette
• Tachikawa Disaster Base and Life Safety Learning Center: A Guide
• Tachikawa Bridges Walk: ‘Nameless Bridge’ to a Double-Deck Crossing
• Tachikawa Cinema City Guide: Tokyo’s First Multiplex and Its Big Sound
• Tachikawa Museums Guide: Art, 2,558 Instruments and Things to Do
• Tachikawa Cycling Guide: Showa Kinen Park’s 14 km and the Tama River
• Tachikawa Festivals Guide: Bon Dances, Flamenco, Nebuta and Yokai
• Tachikawa History Walk: Famous People, from Seiji Ozawa to a Comet
• Tachikawa History Walk: Famous People Who Passed Through the Town
• Tachikawa Public Art Walk: A Guide to the 109 Works of Faret Tachikawa
• Tachikawa Farms Guide: Farm Stands, Harvest Days and Tokyo’s Fields
• Tachikawa History: Japan’s Firsts, from Electric Cars to Sazae-san
• Tachikawa Folktales and Legends: A History Walk Through Old Stories
• Tachikawa Walk: Fusai-ji Temple’s National Treasure and Suwa Shrine
• Tachikawa Business Guide: Where West Tokyo Works and Starts Up
• Tachikawa Culture Guide: Ballet, Ice, Anime and Art Near the Station
• Tachikawa’s Green Future: Zero Carbon, Farmland and Springs Guide
• Tachikawa for Foreign Visitors: Haneda Bus, Things to Do, Future
• Tachikawa Population and Family Life: A Guide to the Town’s Future
• Tama Monorail Extension: When It Opens and Tachikawa’s Future Guide
• Tachikawa and Tokyo’s Next Big Earthquake: Disaster Base Guide
• Showa Kinen Park Guide: The Future of Tachikawa’s Unfinished Park
• Tachikawa Station Redevelopment: A Guide to the Future Station Area
• Tachikawa’s Next Decade: Tachihi, GREEN SPRINGS and a New Hotel Guide
• Tachikawa GREEN SPRINGS Guide: Goats, a Rooftop River, Things to Do
• Tachikawa Travel Guide: Things to Do, Walks and History West of Tokyo
• Tachikawa Walk: Slopes, River Terraces and a Flat City’s Hidden Tilt
• Tachikawa History Walk: How a Mulberry Village Became Tama’s Hub
• Tachikawa Airfield History: The 2:12 a.m. Flight to London, 1937
• Tachikawa Was Once in Kanagawa: A History Walk to the 1893 Transfer
• Tachikawa Keirin Velodrome: History, Guide and the Grand Prix’s Home
• Tachikawa Childhood History: Candy Shops, a Base Christmas, Showa Kids
• Tachikawa Aviation Shrine History: The First ‘Tokyo Airfield’ Walk
• Showa Kinen Park Guide: Komorebi Village, Japanese Garden and Bonsai
• Tachikawa Libraries Guide: Raccoon Dogs, Lucky Cats, Local History
• Tachikawa Live Music Guide: Basement Venues and Where TM Meant Tama
• Tachikawa Manga Park Guide: 40,000 Manga in a Former City Hall
• Tachikawa Fireworks Festival Guide: History, Tips and Things to Do
• Akishima Day Trip from Tachikawa: Whale Fossil, Wisteria and History
• Fussa Day Trip from Tachikawa: Yokota Air Base History, Route 16 Walk
• Fussa Sake Brewery Walk: Day Trip from Tachikawa, Water and History
• Hachioji Castle Ruins from Tachikawa: History Walk and Silk Town Guide
• Mount Takao Day Trip from Tachikawa: Hiking Guide, History and Forest
• Hino Day Trip from Tachikawa: Shinsengumi History Walk and Guide
• Kokubunji Walk from Tachikawa: Otaka-no-Michi Springs and History
• Kunitachi Walk from Tachikawa: Daigaku-dori, History and Yaho Tenmangu
• Mount Mitake Day Trip from Tachikawa: Wolf Shrine, Valley Walk Guide
• Ome Day Trip from Tachikawa: Showa Retro Walk, Things to Do, History
• Tachikawa Walk: Nekawa Green Path to the Tama River, a Riverside Guide
• Tachikawa Cat-Return Shrine Guide: History, Ema and Suitengu
• Tachikawa Night Views and Mount Fuji at Dawn: A Walking Guide
• Tachikawa at Night: Bar Alleys, Black Markets and Cinema History Walk
• Tachikawa Ramen and Udon Guide: Ramen Square and Noodle History
• Tachikawa vs. Central Tokyo: Why the West Side Wins on Space and Sky
• Tachikawa Old Villages Walk: History Guide, Shibasaki to Nishisuna
• Tachikawa Oni Park Guide: A Red Demon Slide and Trains for Kids
• Tachikawa Parks Guide: Things to Do Beyond Showa Kinen Park, a Walk
• Tachikawa Place Names: A History Walk Through Its Town-Name Origins
• Tachikawa Antarctic and Arctic Science Museum: Free Guide and History
• Tachikawa on a Rainy Day: Indoor Things to Do, a Local Guide
• Tachikawa History Museum Guide: Local History and Folklore, Free
• Tachikawa Cherry Blossoms Guide: Where to See Sakura, and the History
• Tachikawa Schools Walk: History of Night Classes, Bells, Antarctica
• Tachikawa Filming Locations Guide: Anime Pilgrimage and TV Dramas
• Tachikawa Shopping Guide: Why It Has Everything, a History Walk
• Showa Kinen Park, Tachikawa: A Walking Guide to Highlights and History
• Tachikawa and San Bernardino: The History of Tokyo’s First Sister City
• Tachikawa Souvenirs Guide: What to Buy, from Tokyo Sake to Paper
• Tachikawa Sports Guide: Things to Do for Fans, Runners and Walkers
• Tachikawa Station Guide: The History Walk of Tama’s Busiest Station
• Tachikawa in Summer: Things to Do, Water Play and Heat Tips Guide
• Tachikawa Sun Sun Road Walk: History, Festival and Winter Lights
• Tachikawa Tachihi History Walk: Aircraft, a Beach and Things to Do
• Tachikawa History: The Samurai Clan Behind the City’s Name, a Walk
• Tama Monorail from Tachikawa: A Guide to Views, Mt. Fuji and History
• Tachikawa Tama River History Walk: Floods, Ferries and Bridges
• Tachikawa Walk: Tamagawa Aqueduct and Sunagawa History Guide
• Tachikawa Udo Guide: History of Tokyo’s Underground White Vegetable
• Tachikawa Trains Guide: Railway History and Where to Watch Trains
• Tachikawa Water History: Where the Tap Water Comes From, and Wells
• Tachikawa History: Why Tokyo’s First IKEA and Cinema Complex Came Here
• Tachikawa Wildlife Guide: Birdwatching, Fireflies and Tanuki Walks
• Tachikawa Yagawa Green Space Walk: Springs, Hake Cliffs and History
• Tachikawa from Yokota Air Base: A Weekend Guide and Things to Do

All Tachikawa Walks (English)