Scraping

Historically, the bark is then soaked in a pond near the papermakers house. After one or two nights they are brought back to the main house and brought to the dirt floor or the porch. Wet bark strips are then placed one at a time on a small shelf of straw bags, and with a sharp knife pressure is used and the outer bark is removed by holding the knife tightly and passing the bark underneath it while pulling. This scrapes off the outer bark. The scraped off parts are called hiki-kasu or hikasu and can be used as a material in chiri-gami. What is left in the hand is the white bark and is the raw material for high-quality paper. This video shows experienced and novice locals doing a version this process, albeit with different tools.