b) Description and inventory

ii) Ainokura Village Ainokura has 27 households and a population of 90 (as of August 1994). According to written souses in 1887, Ainokura Village, with 47 households, was the fourth largest of the 25 villages of Taira-mura. The village is situated on a high terraced plateau on the west bank of the Sho River, well above the water level. This terraced area is long and narrow, measuring about 500m from northeast to southwest, with the width varying from about 200 to 300m in the northwest-southeast direction. The village has an elevation of approximately 400 meters and is surrounded by mountain forests. The plateau, mostly flat, contains both residential and agricultural land areas, and part of the sloping land in the northwestern and southwestern areas beyond the flatland is devoted to agriculture. The Preservation District is chiefly comprised of the level ground of the village's residential and agricultural land, but it also includes the "snow-holding forest area" (yukimochi-rin) on the slopes behind the village. The composition of the village layout centers on the old main road (Johana Orai) which gently ascends on a straight path from northeast to southwest, with branch roads extending to the west or east of the main road, curving in response to the changes in topography. These roads, which have existed since before the modern period, have a width of from two to three meters. In addition to these old village roads, a new vehicle road with a width of 4 meters was constructed in 1958, running through the center of the village -- disrupting the harmony of the village landscape. The old main road bends to the southwest and turns into a twisting mountain roadway, passing through a steep valley. This mountain route, opened in 1887, served as the main access road into this area until the new road was built in 1958. The houses are sited on flat terraces supported by stone retaining walls, and are quite open with no walls, fences or hedges to enclose the house sites. With few exceptions, each residential lot is large enough to accommodate only the main house, without large spaces in front. Accessory buildings include earthen-walled or wooden storehouses as well as toilet buildings, but not every house has such secondary structures. The wood or earthen-walled storage buildings are located separately from the main house for the purpose of fire prevention. The Jinushi Jinja, the Shinto shrine in which the guardian deity of the village is enshrined, is situated on high ground at the base of the northwest slope at the center of the village; over the years the shrine has become enveloped in a grove of Japanese cedar trees. To the southwest of Jinushi Jinja is the main hall of Sonen-ji, a Buddhist temple of the Jodo Shinshu Sect (the True Pure Land Sect), the religious center of the village; the main hall is oriented to face southeast. The dojo, another Buddhist building of this sect, stands across the Johana-orai road from Sonen-ji on slightly higher ground to the northwest. Most of the irrigated rice fields which surround the house sites are small in scale and irregularly shaped, but there are larger rice fields to the northeast of the village. Like the house sites, these terraced rice fields are supported by stone retaining walls. On the northwestern slope there is a rice field up on a high terrace, with tall stone retaining walls, but this field was originally used for raising kuwa (mulberry trees). Ainokura had the most flourishing sericulture industry of all of the villages in Taira-mura, but in the 1950s, in response to the need for dietary self-sufficiency and in combination with the decline of the sericulture industry, most of the mulberry fields were converted to rice fields. Other fields in addition to the rice fields and the former mulberry groves were cut into the slopes and were used primarily for the cultivation of vegetables and beans. Most of the water for the irrigated rice fields is brought in by an aqueduct system fed by a river valley in the mountains to the west, and another source is a spring at the edge of the northwestern mountains. The water is efficiently distributed by the network of canals in the village. Groups of Historic Buildings: The Group of Historic Buildings of Ainokura Village (designated as buildings to be preserved) is composed mainly of Gassho-style houses. The Group of Historic Buildings is composed of 67 buildings and 5 other structures; the buildings include Gassho-style houses, Gassho-style houses which have been remodeled into two-story buildings, non-Gassho-style wooden houses, accessory buildings such as toilet buildings and wooden- or earthen-walled storehouses, and religious buildings. Gassho-style houses: There are 20 Gassho-style houses remaining in the Preservation District. Most of these houses were built between the end of the Edo Period and the end of the Meiji Period (early 19th to beginning of 20th century), but the oldest is judged to date back to the 17th century. The three most recently constructed houses were built in the early 20th century. The basic plan of most Gassho-style houses in Ainokura is a four-room square plan (yotsu-madori), but in the case of larger-scale houses the plan has six rooms (mutsu-madori) in addition to the earthen-floored space. In smaller houses there are three rooms (hiroma-gata mitsu-madori). In many cases the entrance is located in the center of the shed-roofed half-bay projection on the gable end. These shed-roof projections now have sheet-metal roofs, but the roofs were originally thatched, joined to the lower portion of the main gable roof -- giving the building a profile roughly resembling a hipped-gable roof form. Thus the houses of Ainokura had a character somewhat different from those of Shirakawa-go, with no gable-end projections and with their entrances on the long side. Remodeled Gassho-style houses: There are five buildings which have been remodeled from the Gassho-style into two-story wooden buildings. This remodeling was done in the middle of the 20th century by removing the roof structure above the usu-bari (the horizontal bottom member of the truss) and constructing a new wood post-and-beam second floor structure and a gable roof framed with roof rafters; the roofing material seen today is either clay tile or sheet metal. Non-Gassho-style houses: There are seven non-Gassho-style buildings. These are two-story buildings which have normal post-and-beam structural systems and roof structures framed with rafters, with sheet-metal or clay-tile roofing. The scale and appearance of these houses resemble the remodeled Gassho-style houses. These houses were constructed during the first half of the 20th century. Among these, three buildings which were constructed around the beginning of the 20th century originally had thatched roofs. The existence of the remodeled Gassho-style houses and the non-Gassho-style wooden houses shows the history of changes in house style in Ainokura Village. These non-Gassho-style buildings and the remodeled houses have over time settled into the village landscape and are now recognized as having historic value as part of the Group of Historic Buildings. Accessory buildings: There are 8 toilet buildings, 7 wooden-walled storehouses, 12 earthen-walled storehouses, and 3 other structures. The toilet buildings, or outhouses, are separate structures located near the main entrance to each house. These toilet buildings are wooden one-story structures with gable roofs; the roofs originally had sasu (truss-like) structures with thatched roofing, but they have been converted to clay-tile or sheet-metal roofing. Among these toilet buildings, two have joint functions, with attached wooden-walled storehouse sections. The wooden-walled storehouses are two-story wooden gable-roofed structures, most of which originally had thatched roofs but which have been converted to clay-tile or sheet-metal roofs. The earthen-walled storehouses are also two-story gable-roofed structures, but the roof is of a type called oki-yane, with the wooden roof frame raised up above the body of the storehouse, which is covered entirely with a clay finish for fireproofing purposes; these roofs were originally shingled with chestnut-wood planks, but all have been converted to either clay-tile or sheet-metal roofing. Religious architecture: In the category of religious architecture there are five buildings. The Sonen-ji main hall has a thatched, hipped-gable roof. The Dojo is thatched, with a hipped-gable roof in front and a gable roof in back. The Jinushi Jinja main shrine building is constructed in the nagare-zukuri style (the style of the main shrine building having the extended curved roof at front), with a wooden-shingled roof. The worship hall is a hipped-gable style which was originally thatched but is now finished with sheet-copper roofing. Other structures: There are five stone structures, including the torii gate and toro (stone lanterns) of Jinushi Jinja. Environmental Features: There are 8 Environmental Features, including the historic cremation site, the shrine grove of Jinushi Jinja, the old main road (Johana Orai), the stone retaining walls, the canals, and the snow-holding forest area. These Environmental Features are all protected by preservation measures.