Abstract
Two villages of Daianji and Tatsuichi, where the community of protégés of t telary deity and also that of irrigation pond remain, show distinct characters as rural community, notwithstanding their. situation in the suburbs of Nara City. As a result of the present study, we have found that preservation of such a rural community is surely due to the moats formed as a counterr measure against drought. It comes from the following facts; the community of protégés of tutelarly deity and that of irrigation pond almost completely overlap each other, and the intensity of union in the former is closely related with the frequency of droughts in the latter. Such communities as formed. from necessity of control on irrigation water, with a tutelary deity as their nucleus, are already known in other regions too. Thus, the community of irrigation pond plays a very important role in economic life in these two villages, while the community of protégés of tutelary deity, in the meaning of its existence, should be subordinate to the former. After all, preservation of the rural community has close relation to the geographical. environment of the Nara Basin.
