In the autumn of 1828, Suzuki Bokushi visited Akiyamago, a remote region on the border between Echigo and Shinano. Akiyamago is a mountain district of small villages scattered along the deep valley of the Nakatsu River. It could be reached only by walking for days over steep mountain paths.
The people of Akiyamago said they were descendants of Taira refugees: Taira people defeated in the Genpei War, it was said, had fled their pursuers and hidden in these deep mountains.
The life Bokushi saw in Akiyamago was astonishingly simple. The houses were small, their posts sunk straight into the ground, with roofs and walls of thatch. There were almost no rice paddies; people lived by growing millet, barnyard millet and buckwheat in slash-and-burn fields, gathering nuts and wild plants in the mountains and catching fish in the river.
In winter deep snow shut them in, and all contact with the outside world was cut off. They kept the fire in the hearth burning and got through the winter on stored food.
Even so, the people of Akiyamago were honest and without greed, and they welcomed Bokushi, a traveler, warmly. Bokushi went from village to village and wrote down in detail, with illustrations, how people lived, how they spoke and the legends they told. This is Akiyama Kiko.
Bokushi's record is a valuable source on life in a mountain village in the Edo period.