Currently, salt pots for the kitchen are usually made of coarse pottery with a glazed lid, and there is nothing special to note about them. There are salt chests in tea bowls and water jars used in the tea ceremony. These are said to have been originally Korean salt containers, but there are no examples with a lid. In the Edo period (1603-1867), people from the Sakai area of Izumi-no-kuni (Osaka Prefecture) produced salt in jars, or jar salt, and sold it throughout the world. The fact that these pots have been excavated not only in Kyoto and Osaka, but also in Hakata, Edo (present-day Tokyo), suggests that this type of salt was widespread throughout Japan at that time. The shapes of the pots are similar, but they are cylindrical and have lids. The height is about 8 to 10 cm, and the diameter is about 7.5 cm. They are reddish-brown in color and made of unglazed red clay bricks. The Sakai-kan, published in 1684, states, “Minato Tsuboshio, the ancestor of today’s Tsuboshio, is said to have been the youngest grandson of Sarumartayu as Fujitaro, a man of the village of Hatakeeda in Kamikamo, Hanaraku, who came to live in the village of Minato, Tsu, during the Tenmon period (1532-155). In 1654, the imperial court of the Empress of Japan announced that he had the most beautiful name in Japan and that he would not suffer from it, and in 1679, he received a letter from the Lord Takaji, which gave him the name Iori. The Funamatai Shrine in Sakai holds a letter of dedication given to the Iori family by the court lady and a letter from Tosamori Ishikawa, a magistrate, to the Iori family. On the reverse side of the scroll is an inscription with the names of Keien II, Sokei III, Sojin IV, Sosen V, Enryo VI, Ryosan VII, and Kyushin VIII, along with the signature and seal of Tozaemon IX. In other words, during the Tenmon period (1532-155), a man named Fujidayu made jars using the Hataeda earthenware method of Kyoto, filled them with salt, and sold them from Sakai Minato-mura, later calling himself Tozaemon and using the name Iori for generations. Later, he called himself Tozaemon and used the name Iori for generations. The name “Fujitaro” in “Sakai-kan” is an error for “Fujitayu”. Those with the mark “Senshu Asou” or “Senshu Mau” are said to be imitations of the Iori family’s jar salt.
