ABSTRACT
We have seen that Onta potters form a close-knit community in which their households are linked by kinship, residential and other formal ties. In this respect, Sarayama would appear to form the kind of communal society of which Yanagi Soetsu dreamed as he depicted how craft objects could - or should - be beautiful. Let us now examine how these links have been reenforced and new ties created through projects involving labour cooperation. The description here is again idealized, in that it is valid for Sarayama only as it was at the time Bernard Leach visited it in 1954, before the mingei boom seriously affected community life. Later I will describe changes in social organization that have occurred as a result of the Mingei movement and will contrast the ‘model’ given here with life in Sarayama 25 years later. Thus I hope to offer a guideline by which community solidarity and the emergence of individuality may be measured.
