ln the 8th centurv AD the Shirakawa-go/Gokayama area was opened up as a place for ascetic religious mountain worship, centred on Mount Hakusan, for a religious order that combined ancient pre-Buddhist beliefs with Esoteric Buddhism. In the later 13th centurv it came under the influence of the powerful Tendai Esoteric sect. which was in turn replaced by the Jo do Shinshu sect, which still very influential in the area. lts teachings played an important role in the development of the social structure of the region, based on the kumi system of mutual cooperation between neighbouring households.
The earliest written documents confirming Shirakawa-go as the name of the area date back to the mid-12th centurv; Gokayama does not appear until the beginning of the 16th centurv. The village name of Ogimachi is found in late 15th centurv documents, Ainokura in the mid-16th centurv, and suganuma in the early 17th century. Shirakawa-go was part of the territory of the Takayama Clan at the beginning of the Edo Period, but from the late 17th centurv until the Meiji Resto ration of 1868 it was under the direct control of the Edo Bakufu (military government). Gokavama was under direct rule by the Kanazawa Clan throughout the Edo Period.
Because of the mountainous terrain traditional Japanese rice-field production was not wholly successful in the a rea, and so the farmers turned to alternative grains such as buckwheat and millet, cultivated in small fields, but even with these the farming was at little higher than subsistence 1eve1. The few marketable products from the area were Japanese paper (washi), made from the fibres of the paper mulberrv, which occurs naturally in the area, nitre (calcium nitrate) for gunpowder production, and the basic products of sericulture (silkworms and raw silk thread). Paper production continued throughout the Edo Period, but declined when western paper-making processes were introduced in the 19th century. Nitre production, which had begun in the mid 17th centurv, was also brought to an end with the importation of cheap saltpetre from Europe at the same time. The silk industrv survived longer, from the late 17th century until the 19705; its requirement of large enclosed spaces for silkworm beds and storage of mulberrv leaves, was an important factor in the development of the gassho-style house.
Shirakawa-go was part of the territory of the Takayama Clan at the beginning of the Edo period, but from the late 17th century until the Meiji Restoration of 1868 it was under the direct control of the Edo Bakufu (military government). Gokayama was under direct rule by the Kanazawa Clan throughout the Edo period.