通草豐收

[英文]A man harvesting tongcao 通草 in forest. Tongcao (tongtuomu 通脱木)was an important raw material for export from Taiwan. Its fiber can be used to make paper and Chinese herbal medicine. Ide (1937) indicates that this man is stripping the bark from a tongcao (p. 197). The 1932 Guide to Japan$s Railways wrote that a preponderance of the world$s tongcao grew in Taiwan, in the central and northern Aborigine districts at altitudes on either side of 2000 feet. Lengths of stalk suitable for making tongcao paper are cut from a tree, and the outside bark is stripped. Before the 1920s, tongcao paper was only used to make artificial flowers, but by 1930 it was used to make postcards, name cards, poetry scrolls, festival paper goods, calendars, etc. It was exported to Japan and throughout the world. In 1930, 78,220 jin 斤 of tongcao valued at 189,680 yen was exported from Taiwan (Taiwan sotokufu, 1932, p. 108). See (Nihon chiri taikei 1930, p. 332) for a photo of tongcao cut, bundled, and stripped, together with other mountain trade goods like Aborigine cloth 蕃布 in a a trading post. Ide and H. Suzuki used the caption 慈抜, $affectionately removing the bark$ to describe this photo.