Mount Hakkai (Hakkaisan) Overlooking Rice Fields of the Minamiuonuma Valley

The snowy humid winters of Echigo were ideally suited to weaving this delicate fiber. Dealers would carry the raw material of dried ramie fibers over the mountains from Aizu (including present day Showa Village, Fukushima) to Echigo (including present day Minamiuonuma, Uonuma, Ojiya, Tokamachi, and other regions) where they would be plied into thread by women often living in mountainous villages. Other women then wove this thread into cloth. The finished cloth would then be washed and bleached on the snow.