The origins of Kuchikamizake and the story of sacred rituals: Learning about doburoku's distant ancestor from the saruzake in "Hajime Ningen Giatrus"

Tracing the roots of the Japanese word "kamosu" (to brew) leads us to the fact that people in a certain era literally "chewed" rice.

This was kuchikamizake (mouth-chewed sake).

It's a process where rice, potatoes, or nuts are placed in the mouth, chewed, mixed with saliva, spit into a vessel, and then left to ferment by natural wild yeasts. It was one of the earliest brewed alcoholic beverages obtained by humankind and is a distant ancestor of sake and doburoku.

As briefly mentioned in our previous article, "Welcome to the World of Doburoku," kuchikamizake was not merely a "pre-stage of sake" but part of a grand fermentation culture distributed across the world.

This time, we will shine a light on kuchikamizake itself, detailing its origins, its connection to religious rituals, its differences from the saruzake (monkey sake) appearing in the manga 'Hajime Ningen Gyatoruzu,' and the unimaginable hardship involved in actually making it.

The origin of kuchikamizake was not unique to Japan

For Japanese people, kuchikamizake is like the "ancestor of sake and doburoku," but it was actually a fermentation method found all over the world.

It has been confirmed in ancient Japan, Okinawa, the Amami Islands, Ainu society, the Takasago indigenous people of Taiwan, and even parts of Central and South America and Africa.

Especially in Central and South America, before contact with Europeans during the Age of Discovery, kuchikamizake made from corn and cassava was widely consumed.

It is said that it is still made in the lowlands of the Amazon and the high Andes today.

Although its exact place of origin is unclear, Southeast Asia to the South Pacific region, where starchy plant foods were primary, is considered a strong candidate. The theory that kuchikamizake made from rice originated in Malaysia, a point of convergence with rice farming culture, is prominent.

In the Japanese archipelago, rice kuchikamizake is thought to have been practiced from the late Jomon period onward.

It is clearly documented in an extant passage from the "Osumi no Kuni Fudoki" (compiled after 713), which is one of the oldest records of rice wine in Japan.

In the National Tax Agency's research report on "Traditional Japanese Sake Brewing Using Koji Mold," while the "Harima no Kuni Fudoki" (716) is cited as the oldest record of sake made with koji, kuchikamizake is positioned as a cultural lineage preceding it.

This means that the sake made with koji, like nihonshu, and kuchikamizake existed in the Japanese archipelago along separate routes.

"Village-wide Kuchikamizake" as depicted in the Osumi no Kuni Fudoki

It might be surprising, but kuchikamizake was not necessarily made in silence by a single miko (shrine maiden).

In the "Chiribukuro," an encyclopedia from the Kamakura period that is said to contain an excerpt from the "Osumi no Kuni Fudoki," the following description remains:

Water and rice are prepared at one house, and word is spread throughout the village, bringing men and women together. Everyone chews the rice and spits it into a "sakabune" (sake vat), then returns home. When the aroma of sake eventually rises, everyone gathers again and drinks the sake made by those who chewed and spit. This is called "kuchikami no sake."

What is depicted here is not a mysterious ritual by a single miko, but a "brewing festival," so to speak, involving the entire village.

The description that both men and women chewed rice without distinction suggests kuchikamizake as a simple custom of a settlement, an extension of daily life.

We tend to have an image of "kuchikamizake = sacred sake chewed alone by a miko," but that is only one aspect among many forms of kuchikamizake.

On a festival night, villagers would gather cheerfully, chew rice, and then all share the sake that was made.

That is another original scene passed down in Osumi Province (present-day eastern Kagoshima Prefecture).

Kuchikamizake as a ritual remained in Okinawa until the Showa era.

On the other hand, kuchikamizake as an offering to the gods, a mikisake, was more solemn.

It remained particularly strong in Okinawa.

In the Okinawa Islands, before the widespread adoption of awamori (distilled liquor), kuchikamizake, which utilized human saliva for fermentation, was central to religious ceremonies and was routinely made until modern times.

Ritually cleansed women would meticulously brush their teeth with salt, then chew raw or freshly cooked rice and spit it into a container.

A small amount of water was mixed in, then it was ground into a paste with a stone mortar and fermented in a pot.

The sake produced this way was called by various names depending on the region, such as unsaku (unshaku), miki, michi, or mishagu, and all carried the meaning of "miki (sake for the gods)."

Remarkably, it is said that this ritual of kuchikamizake survived in parts of Iheya Island, Miyako, and Yaeyama until the early 1930s (the early Showa 10s).

Stepping beyond the image of "ancient sake made by sacred miko," it becomes clear that kuchikamizake was a technology quite close to us, one that humanity actively used for a long time.

It was not a legend found in old texts, but something actually "brewed" in the hands of people just a few generations ago.

Is Saruzake from 'Hajime Ningen Gyatoruzu' kuchikamizake?

When the topic of kuchikamizake comes up, people of a certain age invariably recall the saruzake (monkey sake) featured in Shunzou Sorayama's manga 'Hajime Ningen Gyatoruzu'.

In episode 127 of the anime, "Uhoho! Drinking Monkey Sake," the primitive humans living in the Gyatoruzu Plains feed fruit to monkeys and gorillas, have them chew it and spit it out, then ferment the liquid and drink it. This is how the story unfolds.

The episode where "Tou-chan" (father) drinks saruzake and undergoes a complete personality change is surely an unforgettable scene for anyone who's seen it.

However, the original term "saruzake" refers to something slightly different.

According to sources like the Shogakukan Japanese Dictionary, saruzake is defined as "fruit or nuts that monkeys had stored in tree hollows or rock depressions in the mountains, which then naturally fermented into a sake-like substance when mixed with rain or dew."

Also known as "mashira-zake," it is a legendary sake that hunters and woodcutters supposedly found and drank by chance in the mountains.

It is also a kigo (seasonal word) for autumn.

In other words, the original saruzake is a purely wild-fermented fruit wine, without human saliva involved.

The image is of wild grapes or sarunashi (named because monkeys supposedly used them for saruzake) falling and naturally fermenting.

It's quite similar to the roots of how mead was discovered.

Someone supposedly discovered and drank something like fermented honey that had fallen into a puddle and been acted upon by natural yeast.

Incidentally, there are also claims that "wild monkeys don't actually have food storage habits," so the explanation of sake intentionally made by monkeys is itself questionable, existing more in the realm of legend.

The saruzake in 'Gyatoruzu' can be understood as a humorous fiction that combines this "legend of naturally fermented monkey sake" with the concept of "kuchikamizake, where humans chew and spit out." Saruzake, perfectly fitting into a primeval setting, is a gateway to the true history of fermentation, disguised as a gag.

Making kuchikamizake was far more arduous than imagined.

After reading this far, some of you might be thinking, "I could probably make this myself."

Indeed, in 2004, Takeo Koizumi, then a professor at Tokyo University of Agriculture, had four female students in his lab conduct an experiment to recreate kuchikamizake.

The result was that bubbling began on the evening of the third day, and by the tenth day, a respectable but intensely sour sake with over 9% alcohol content and 9.8 acidity was completed.

You might think, "That's surprisingly easy," but here's the main point.

Let's consider it in the scale of craft brewed sake.

For example, to brew 10 liters of doburoku moromi (mash), you generally need about 2kg of steamed rice and 1kg of rice koji.

In the case of koji-free kuchikamizake, all 2kg of this steamed rice would have to be chewed into a muddy paste by mouth.

2kg is more than 20 convenience store onigiri. Chewing this amount repeatedly is, upon imagining it, quite a strenuous task.

• Your jaw muscles would definitely scream.
• Saliva would be nonstop; your mouth would be overwhelmed.
• To prevent contamination by germs, meticulous teeth brushing and purification before and after are essential.
• Furthermore, chewing rice for a long time causes pain around the temples (komekami).

In Professor Koizumi's experiment, participants reported pain around their ears, or "komekami," while chewing rice, leading to the speculation that this might be the etymology of the word "komekami" (temples), meaning "rice-chewing."

The practice in Okinawa of "brushing teeth with salt before chewing" was also a very rational custom from a hygiene perspective, indicating that proper kuchikamizake could only be achieved with such thoroughness.

Moreover, this was not a one-time task.

It was repeated for every village festival and ritual. Since it's not realistic for one person to chew the entire amount, it's quite natural that methods like "village-wide chewing" as described in the Osumi no Kuni Fudoki, or "multiple women taking turns chewing" as in Okinawan rituals, were adopted.

This scene is completely different from the modern image of "sake brewing," which evokes a quiet steaming of rice and gentle monitoring of the moromi.

The reality of kuchikamizake was a more earthy, physical, and communal endeavor.

"Chewing" became "brewing," and the baton was passed to koji.

Kuchikamizake gradually disappeared from the forefront because sake brewing using koji mold became established.

With koji, rice starch can be saccharified in larger quantities and more stably without human intervention. Koji was the technological "answer" to the hardship and instability of kuchikamizake.

Nevertheless, the theory that the Japanese word "kamosu" (to brew) itself shares the same root as the act of "kamu" (to chew) remains strongly supported (though there are various theories, and some consider them to be of separate origins).

Even today, when we can brew liters of sake with the power of koji, every time we say "sake o kamosu" (to brew sake), we may be quietly repeating the gestures of the kuchikamizake era within our language.

Even in National Tax Agency documents, the history of sake aligns the kuchikami no sake from the "Osumi no Kuni Fudoki" with the niwaki (sake made from mold) from the "Harima no Kuni Fudoki," classifying them as distinct lineages.

Modern doburoku and seishu mainly inherit the koji lineage, but the physicality of kuchikamizake certainly flows through them as a cultural undercurrent.

Re-savoring the origin of craft-brewed sake

Modern craft-brewed sake, doburoku, craft sake, and other brewed alcoholic beverages exist in a precise world of fermentation supported by technology and hygiene management.

At our brewery, we meticulously monitor temperature and fermentation progress with IoT, and then let gravity take over for the final touches.

Nevertheless, if we trace far upstream, we arrive at the sight of people chewing rice, offering it to the gods, and sharing it with their villagers.

Behind the white cloudiness of a glass of craft doburoku lies the grand culture of kuchikami that spread from Southeast Asia to the Japanese archipelago, Okinawa, and the Amazon lowlands, quietly breathing.

Like the night we laughed at the saruzake in 'Hajime Ningen Gyatoruzu,' the story of kuchikamizake is somehow cheerful yet deeply human.

The next time you raise a glass of craft-brewed sake, please take a moment to think of those "people who chewed the first sip."

The act of "chewing," repeated for thousands of years, is certainly being brewed in that glass now.

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References

• National Tax Agency "Research Report on Traditional Japanese Sake Brewing Using Koji Mold"
• Extant passages from "Osumi no Kuni Fudoki" (collected in "Chiribukuro")
• Koizumi, Takeo. "Ningen wa Konna Mono o Tabete Kita" (Humans Have Eaten Such Things). Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 2004.
• Yamamoto, Norio (Ed.). "Saké-zukuri no Minzoku-shi: Sekai no Hishu Chinshu" (Ethnography of Sake Making: Secret and Rare Liquors of the World). Yasaka Shobo, 2008.
• Shogakukan "Nihon Kokugo Daijiten" (Japanese National Language Dictionary), entries for "Saruzake" and "Mashirazake."
• TV Anime 'Hajime Ningen Gyatoruzu' Episode 127, "Saru Sake Nonde Uhoho! no Maki" (Drinking Monkey Sake and Going Uhoho!).