Aerial photo of Kumano

Kumano town is located in a basin that lacks flat plains, making it unsuitable for rice growing. For this reason, since the Edo period men from this town would travel to Kumano in Kishū or Yoshino in Nara to work during the agricultural off-season. On their way to these places they would pass through areas that produced writing brushes (such as Arima in Hyōgo or Nara) and because brushes were easy to transport, they began selling brushes as a commodity, thus began the history of brush making in Kumano town.