奄美大島の船の代替・消滅・継承 : 住用(すみよう)村山間(やんま)集落の事例から

抄録

In this article, I examine the boats of Sumiyou-Yamma Village on Amami Oshima. Through field surveys and observation, I have found that over time one type of boat is substituted for another and that some types disappear all together. This paper determines which type of boat succeeded during these processes, paying special attention to changes in environmental factors like nature, society, and the culture of the village. Before the 1940s, the number of subune or dugout canoes was steady. Then the entire number of vessels increased in the 1950s and '60s only to see the subune disappear abruptly. Plank built boats called itatsuke and ainoko were substituted for the subune. In the 1970s, temma or Japanese plank built boats and mota-sen or powered itatsuke and ainoko appeared. Temma grew in number rapidly and were substituted for other types of boats. FRP-sen or modern fiberglass boats appeared in the 1980s, but the total number of vessels decreased. There were also cargo-passenger ships called kakyaku-sen that appeared in the 1950s. They increased in the 1960s and then disappeared suddenly afterwards. All boats in the village were for multipurpose use: tools of fishery, transportation, agriculture, freight, and for the village festival. The dugout canoes were community property, and this was true for a few of the plank boats as well. The mota-sen and FRP-sen, however, were completely privately owned. The culture of boats in the village including the system of construction and their ownership had changed. The village's festival, called the "Hamaori", which was clearly a farming festival in the 1960s, now uses many boats as a festival to bring safe seas and a big catch. Some ainoko which belong to the Sumiyou Village Office are used in the festival's boat race, and most of the FRP-sen take part in the boat parade. As the festival itself changed, boats have taken over the role that agricultural played in the past. All these changes occurred in the '60-70s. Boats of Yamma Village changed not only in quantity but also in quality during the period. Moreover, the biggest feature, the multipurpose-ness disappeared completely. Meanwhile, forestry practices and loading changed, the number of people employed in agriculture and fisheries decreased, the use of LP gas spread, and the number employed in the manufacturing of pongee cloth and the amount of cloth produced increased rapidly. Also observed over this period was a rapid increase in the number of males enrolled in high school. Meanwhile, the land transportation network of the village had changed completely. In the late 1960s, as a result of the changes in the village's social environment, the residents flowed out of the village and the "Hamaori" festival was temporarily discontinued. Moreover, because shore protection construction was done as a part of highway maintenance, the water current was changed, and sludge accumulated at the shore. The temporary discontinuation of the "Hamaori" festival can be considered a result of this. The change in the social environment was accompanied by a change in the natural and cultural environment of the village, but both the people and village adapted. The substitutions, disappearance, and partial succession of types of boats occurred not only in Yamma Village and Sumiyou-son but also in whole areas in the Amami archipelago. Therefore, we can assume that limited events like the substitution, disappearance, and succession of different boats in Yamma Village reflect changes that occurred all over Japan in that period.