Nagasaki 1910s
Human Conveyor Belt (3)

How Bucket Brigades Consisting Mostly of Women Beat Modern Machinery

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4

An extremely rare onboard view of Japanese women coaling a US cruiser in Nagasaki. The majority of harbor workers coaling ships in Nagasaki were women. In other ports they also played a crucial role.

This is the third article of a fourt-part essay about Japan’s distinctive way of coaling steamships during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Harbor workers standing on scaffolding erected on the sides of a ship passed each other baskets of coal up into the ship’s bunkers at lightning speed and with clockwork rhythm.

Known as a “human conveyor belt” in English and tengutori in Japanese it fascinated observers. Especially so because indomitable women who considered themselves equal to men played a leading role in the work. They managed to do the work cheaper and quicker than modern machinery at Western ports.

The first article looked at tengutori through the eyes of foreign observers, as well as how coal was stored and used on steamships. The second article explained how the tengutori system evolved, and why.

In this article we look at Japan’s coaling ports and the people who did the work, especially the women.

The Ports

Countless foreign accounts of coaling in Nagasaki agree on the same points. Many women did the work, they were not spared, the backbreaking work continued for hours on end, yet the workers laughed and joked. Like many others, this account from 1898 (Meiji 31) makes the workers look indefatigable:²⁴

In the distribution or the work among a gang of coolies the woman is shown no favors. At the bottom of the line the first lift becomes larger as the coal recedes in the lighter and at the top of the line the lift over the rail is hard, and the woman could be favored by placing her in the center. On the contrary, however, she is seen more often at the ends.

The work is very hard, and there is the added discomfiture of the flying coal dust, but both men and women seem very happy. They laugh and gibe as they hurriedly pass the seemingly endless line of laden baskets.

The women do not bear the marks that the American or European “sweatshop” leaves upon its victims. They all seem to have health and its accompanying color. Some of the women, and particularly the older ones, show biceps and shoulders that would make some of our men shame-faced.

Although most reports were from Nagasaki, there were actually three main ports with offshore coaling, each one connected to a different mining district. A quick look at each before meeting these indefatigable women that worked there.

The first one was Nagasaki (2 on the map) which received its coal from the small island of Takashima (1 on the map), just 12 km away.

Takashima was Japan’s first principal coal mine for export. Between 1867 (Keiō 3) and 1880 (Meiji 13) it supplied an astounding 97% of Japan’s coal exports.²⁵

Coal was initially transported to Nagasaki by isaba-sen (いさば船), Japanese style sailing vessels. In later years small tug steamers pulled rows of barges.²⁶ Upon arrival the coal was transferred to hundreds of flat barges known as danpei-bune (団平船, also danpei-sen). They completely dominated the landscape in Nagasaki’s Oura foreign settlement (大浦居留地).

In 1876 (Meiji 9) Kuchinotsu (3 on the map) was opened as a special export port for coal from the government mines in Miike (5). Kuchinotsu was some 48 kilometers away from Miike but was the closest port that could accommodate large ships. During the 1880s it overtook Nagasaki as Japan’s main coal export port.

Here too coal initially arrived by sailing ships and later by barges pulled by tugs.

In the 1890s Nagasaki and Kuchinotsu were both overtaken by Moji Port (7) in what is today Kitakyushu. Moji’s coal came from the Chikuhō mines (the area between numbers 4 and 7). By 1897 (Meiji 30) they produced 50% of Japan’s coal exports.²⁷

Coal first arrived by ship in Moji as well, but in 1893 (Meiji 26) a railroad between the mines and the port was completed.²⁸ It transformed the Moji coast into a vast coal storage area.

All three ports faced the same hurdles: coal had to be shipped in from afar, coastal waters were shallow, and there were no modern harbor facilities. These conditions gave birth two unique groups of harbor workers: onshore dockworkers to take in and send off the coal, and stevedores doing offshore coaling.

The People

Onshore dockworkers were known as oka-nakashi (陸仲仕). Besides unloading the coal barges and trains, they filled straw baskets with coal and carried these baskets from the coal dumps to the barges for offshore loading. Women generally filled the baskets while men carried them.

Each basket held about 15 kilograms of coal. The dockworkers balanced two of them on a pole over their shoulder, effectively carrying 30 kilograms. According to Japanese school health statistics in 1900 (Meiji 33) the average weight for 18 year old men was 52 kilograms, for women it was 47.²⁹ So for most oka-nakashi 30 kilograms would have been well over half their body weight.

However, I also found an oral account stating that the weight of coal was 90 kilograms. This would have been almost two times the carrier’s body weight.³⁰ The work required unimaginable strength and endurance.

The stevedores doing the offshore coaling were known as gonzō (ごんぞう) or oki-nakashi (沖仲仕). Their work was dangerous. The currents, waves and wind made boats heave, roll and pitch rocking the scaffolding they stood on.

Few concessions were made for the weather—staying in harbor was expensive for ships. Rain, wind, or snow, the work had to be done, and as quickly as possible.

Former oki-nakashi Haru Take (竹ハル)—fourteen when she started in Kuchinotsu around 1906 (Meiji 39)—recalled this in a 1981 interview with Japan’s “father of modern cargo handling” (荷役近代化の父), Sunao Hirahara (平原直, 1902–2001):³¹

It was dangerous so you had to be very experienced. With foreign ships, no matter how much the ship and the barges moved, the work would not stop. It only happened once. The ship was torn off its anchor and we were all swept away. That is the only time we stopped working.

The Women

Although it was hard and dangerous work, records and photos suggest that over the decades tens of thousands of women may have worked as oki-nakashi. They could handle the hard work just as well as men, said Take:³²

When a woman comes of age she is no different from a man. Unlike women today, women in the past worked alongside men from childhood, so they were strong. When I was seventeen, I worked just as hard as the men, no matter how hard the work was.

Especially hard was shoveling coal onto baskets. Known as ireguwa (入鍬), it was done with a coal-trimming rake (雁爪, ganzume) with a short handle and four claws. It required bending over and using the front half of the body.

In his 1983 history of female oki-nakashi Japanese journalist Eidai Hayashi (林えいだい, 1933–2017) mentioned that men ran away screaming from this job:³³

Sometimes male oki-nakashi helped with ireguwa, but after two or three hours, they would run away screaming, complaining of back pain. It was unimaginably hard work.

Yet, women did this job routinely. As well as many other oki-nakashi jobs. Based on reports and photos from the 1870s through the 1910s it appears that Nagasaki’s oki-nakashi were mostly female. Even when their number decreased it remained substantial. In a photo from 1923 it is about half.

Kuchinotsu also seems to have had many female oki-nakashi. There were fewer in Moji, but they were still crucial. In 1903 (Meiji 36) Moji counted over 9,000 port workers. Some 3,200 of these were women, many of them working offshore.³⁴

When Danish women’s rights activist Johanne Münter (1844–1921) saw these women at work in 1895 (Meiji 28) she was so impressed that she saw in them an ideal image of gender equality.³⁵

Ironically, this apparent equality was the result of harsh inequality. Women earned 50 to 60 percent of a male oki-nakashi’s daily wage.³⁶ Nonetheless, this was still twice as much as women could earn in “ordinary occupations” reported regional newspaper Moji Shimpo in 1898 (Meiji 31).³⁷ This may be why so many women did the work—both employers and employees benefited.

Incidentally, women coaling ships was not unique to Japan. It was seen in other countries as well. But photos suggest that they only worked onshore and did not share the work with men. As can be seen in these photos of Spain and the Virgin Islands, they carried the coal on their head and walked it onto the ship.

Continue to Part 4 : How the work was done from the workers’ viewpoint.

Notes

²⁴ Women as Coal Passers. Ablebodied [sic] Feminine Laborers along the Wharves in Japanese Cities, Daily Newburgh Journal, Oct 19, 1898, 2. Retrieved on 2023-10-20.

²⁵ Mihalopoulos, Bill (2012). Women, Overseas Sex Work and Globalization in Meiji Japan. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Aug 26, 2012, Volume 10, Issue 35, Number 1. Retrieved on 2023-10-24.

²⁶ ibid.

²⁷ ibid.

²⁸ ibid.

²⁹ The average height for 18 year olds was 160cm for men and 147 for women. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 明治33年以降5か年ごと学校保健統計. Retrieved on 2023-11-14.

In a study published in 1885 (Meiji 18) by German medical scientist Erwin Bälz (1849–1913) the average weight of 20 to 50 year old Japanese men varied between 52 and 60.9 kilograms. Baelz, E. (1885). Die Körperlichen Eigenschaften der Japaner. Mittheil.d.deutschen Gesell. f. Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens. Bd. 4, H. 32, 63–64.

³⁰ 平原直(2000年). 物流史談 : 物流の歴史に学ぶ人間の知恵. 東京：流通研究社, 125.

³¹ ibid, 123.

「外国船は沖に停船するでしょう。だからゆれます。それに箱に乗って仕事するのですからあぶなくて、よっほど慣れた人でないと。それでも、外国船のときは、どんなにゆれても、仕事はやめません。いっペんなですよ。船が碇をひっ切られてよ。どこさんでも（あてどもなく）流されました。そんときだけは、（やんちょいを）止めました。」

³² ibid, 120.

「女も一人前になったら、男といっちょん（ちっとも）ちがいません。今の女の人とちごうて（違って）、昔の女は子供のときから、男にまじって働いていましたから、強かったですもん。わたしも一七になったときや、どんなきついところも（男と同じように）やりました。」

³³ 林えいだい(1983年). 海峡の女たち―関門港沖仲仕の社会史. 福岡：葦書房, 68.

「男の沖仲仕が入鍬を手伝うこともあったが、二、三時間もすると、腰痛を訴えて悲鳴を上げて逃げ出したという。想像に絶する重労働だった訳だ。」

³⁴ 林えいだい(2018年). 関門港の女沖仲仕たち. 東京：新評論, 151.

³⁵ ibid, 12.

³⁶ Phipps, Catherine L. (2015). Empires on the Waterfront: Japan’s Ports and Power, 1858–1899. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Asia Center, 173.

³⁷ 林えいだい(1983年). 海峡の女たち―関門港沖仲仕の社会史. 福岡：葦書房, 60.

Published November 25, 2023
Updated December 22, 2023 2:10 PM

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