Most timber in our workshop was a standing tree not long ago. Jindaimoku wasn't. It went into the ground hundreds or thousands of years back, knocked flat or buried where it stood by a volcano, a landslide or a river in flood. It sat there with no air getting to it. Then someone digging a road or a building site hit it with a digger bucket. That's the wood we're talking about.
What the name means
Jindaimoku (神代木) translates roughly as "wood from the age of the gods". It's not a scientific term. People called it that because, for a long time, there was no way of dating it. It was just very, very old. Cedar is the best known, sold as jindai-sugi. But any tree that grew at the time can turn up: pine, chestnut, horse chestnut, ash, zelkova, oak.
The Japanese timber trade splits it roughly in two. Wood buried by volcanic activity is jindai. Wood laid down in riverbeds after earthquakes, floods or tsunami is usually called umoregi, which simply means "buried wood". In practice the two words get used loosely, and you'll see both.
Within jindai there's a further split. Trees knocked over by a collapsing mountain or a blast come out lying flat and tend to be black. That's kuro-jindai. Trees buried standing up under heavy ash or a pyroclastic flow come out a warmer brown. That's cha-jindai.
How a forest ends up underground
Two places in Japan show it clearly.
On the north side of Mt Chokai, on the Akita–Yamagata border, the top of the volcano collapsed in the autumn of 466 BC. A debris avalanche ran north and north-west and buried the forest below. Huge cedars have since been dug out around Nikaho in Akita. Some had a diameter of over four metres at the root. When the Kisakata interchange was built on the Nihonkai-Tohoku expressway, workers found a zelkova log 1.6 metres across and 10 metres long. About nine in ten of the logs there were broadleaf trees: chestnut, oak, horse chestnut, beech.
At Sanbe in Shimane, a forest was buried about 3,500 years ago. A debris avalanche dammed the valley. Then a pyroclastic flow hit the water, which cooled it enough that the trees were only lightly charred. Fine ash filled in the rest. Cedars are still standing upright there, over ten metres of trunk intact. Some were around 1.5 metres across and are thought to have been over 500 years old when they were buried.
These finds are nearly always accidents. Farmland improvement, tunnels, roads, housing. At Kannami in Shizuoka, farmers had known for years that their rice paddies leaked. When the land was dug over in 1972 they found out why. Buried cedar.
There's a Hokkaido link too. One Tokyo timber dealer lists Meakan-dake, out east near Akan, among the three best-known sources in Japan, alongside the Izu Peninsula and Mt Chokai. In Izu, groups of specialist diggers were working the ground for buried cedar by the end of the Edo period.
Why it goes dark
The wood doesn't rot because it's cut off from oxygen. No air, no fungi, no insects. So it keeps its structure and enough strength to work.
The colour is chemistry. Over the centuries, iron moves from the surrounding soil into the wood. It reacts with the tannins already there. It's the same reaction that made old iron-gall ink black. Researchers working on cedar from Mt Chokai showed this in 2020. Treat the wood with oxalic acid, which strips the iron out, and the dark colour goes. The cedar goes back to something close to a fresh board.
So the colour isn't a stain or a finish. It runs right through the timber.
Working it
In Japan, jindai has traditionally gone into sukiya-style buildings and tea rooms: alcove posts, ceiling boards, panels and inlay. Smaller pieces end up as trays, boxes and tea scoops. It has never been cheap, and it can't be produced to order. When it's gone, nobody can grow more.
At the bench it behaves like old wood. It's been through a lot. Some boards are sound and close-grained. Some have checks and soft patches and need sorting before you commit to a cut. You don't get long, perfect boards, so you plan around what you have. The best thing you can do is keep the shape simple and not get in its way.
The side table
That's the thinking behind our Jindaimoku Solid Wood Side Table. Simple shape. The wood is the point.
It's 400 × 400 mm on top and 340 mm high. That's a height that sits right next to a lounge chair, a sofa or a bed. It's made and finished by hand here in our Niseko workshop. The finish is Osmo Polyx matte clear oil-wax, so the colour of the wood shows as it is, without a gloss sitting on top. Care is easy: wipe it with a damp cloth.
It's a one-off. The table in the photos is the table you get. When it's sold, that's it. Shipping is quoted separately, so get in touch before you order and we'll sort it.
If you're in Niseko and want to see it, or the wood, come by the workshop.
