Dynamics of Technical Change in a Village Community

Problem of the Transposition of Cultural Elements

Abstract

1. For a long time, the inhabitants of Koma Villages, Saitama Prefecture (See fig. 1), lived mostly on forestry due to the limited arable land in this district.
2. About sixty years ago, however, a great culutural change took place in these villages. The stimulative factors to this change were as follows.
(1) The development of the capitalistic economy in Japan as a whole.
(2) Improvement in the means of communication (roads, railways, bridges, etc.) due to public and private investment.
(3) Increasing demand for wood.
(4) Development of forestry in other districts and a resulting competition with them.
3. Among others the most remarkable change occurred in the transportation of wood from the villages to the city (Tokyo). Formerly rafts of wood were made and floated down the rivers to Tokyo (See fig. 1) Now the rafts have been replaced by trucks and carts as means of transportation. As a result the whole procedure in forestry changed from A to B as indicated in Tab. 1' and fig. 2-1, 2-2.