Onta ware is pottery made in Onta village, which lies in the center of Sarayama, a valley in Hita City, Oita Prefecture. They use many techniques including “Tobikanna,” “Uchi Hakeme,” “Yubikaki,” “Kushikaki,” “Uchikake,” and “Nagashikake.” Those pottery techniques were designated as Important Intangible Cultural Property of the country in 1995, and in March 2008, the whole village was selected as an Important Cultural Landscape under the name of “Onta Pottery Village.”
They refrain from adding personal marks on their own ceramic pieces, which resiliently preserves folk pottery, thus many of their products come with the distributor’s label on them.
Onta ware was founded to locally supply and meet the demand for everyday containers in the mid-Edo period in 1705 or in 1737 by the local governor of Hita, a land that was directly under the control of the shogunate (shogunal demesne). Yanase Sanemon, a potter from Koishiwara, Fukuoka Prefecture, and Kuroki Jubei from Otsuru village, Hita district were invited to start Onta ware. It is said that the kiln was originally built in the Kyowa period as a branch of Koishiwara ware. This is why there are techniques common between Onta ware and Koishiwara ware.
For Richo-type climbing kilns, the head of the pottery traditionally did not take on apprentices, and passed down their techniques to their firstborn child. Therefore, their traditional techniques have been well preserved since the kiln was founded. This was one of the main reasons they were designated as Important Intangible Cultural Property.
Well-known potters, such as Bernard Leach and Hamada Shoji, have visited the place and left some of their works there.
