One of Japan's most prized textiles comes from a subtropical island where the makers still hew to the methods of 1,300 years ago. Using indigenous plants and ponds of iron-rich mud, the artisans of Amami-Oshima create luxurious silk pongee, threading the island's long history of poverty and oppression into their craft.

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A single white silk thread becomes a beautiful black cloth by more than 30 manual work. Oshima Tsumugi is a silk fabric that originated in Amami Oshima and has a history of 1300 years. It has been introduced as "a high-class textile that you want to wear once in a lifetime", but when you trace the background, you find that the people of Amami, especially the women who lived as Oriko, are sad.

During the war, the village was burned by air raids, and after the war, Oshima became an isolated island under the American rule. He says he has survived hunger by eating poisonous cycads (starch) due to extreme food shortages. In a difficult time, "a woman works as an oriko after graduating from junior high school," that was the life decided by her parents.

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