The origin of the Kumano-fude is said to be that, at the end of the Edo period, farmers who worked as seasonal migrant workers in Yamato Province during the agricultural off-season purchased writing brushes and ink in Nara Prefecture on the way back home and then peddled them, as well as produced them on their own to sell, and later its manufacturing developed with the help of incentives for industry from Hiroshima Domain.
江戸時代末に農閑期を利用して大和国へ出稼ぎに行った農民が帰りに奈良県で筆や墨を仕入れ、行商するとともに自ら製造し販売したことが始まりと言われ、広島藩の生産奨励も手伝って発展した。