One of the most important fishing method of coastal fishery in present Japan is to use a kind of a set net, called Teiclziami in Japanese. The author wishes to examine the origin and the history of Dai-ami, a kind of Teiclzi -ami, which was diffused, during the first three decades of Meiji Era (the late 19th century), almost all over the fishing-villages in Japan, where the physical and social conditions allowed this net-setting.
It is said that there are four areas in Japan where Dai-ami fishing was already popular even 250-300 years before its later diffusion. The coast of Toyarna Bay is famous for the area where this method was first adopted.
The author, when he surveyed fishing-villages along Wakasa Bay, from which Toyama Bay is 300km. distant by coast-way, had a chance to inve-stigate a great deal, of historical materials concerning Dai-ami of Wakasa fishing-villages. Judging from these materials, Wakasa. Dai-ami resembled very much to that of Toyama Bay. And the origin of Wakasa Dai-ami was as early as that of Toyama Dai-ami, so that, while even now Toyama Dai-ami is considered to be as one of the four origins of Japanse Dai-ami fishe-ry, it can be said that this fishing method might have diffused from Wa-kasa to Toyama.
