Abstract
‘TATARA’ is a process of smelting sand iron found in granite or granodiorite by charcool fire to produce ‘Japanese’ iron and steel.
The sand iron is collected from the weathered surface rock, crushed and dumped into streams by peasants in their slack seasons.
The Origin of ‘TATARA’ can be traced back to the dawn of Japanese history. The supply of iron in Japan had depended almost wholly upon this primitive method until the western smelting method was introduced at the close of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The Chukoku Region used to produce 60% of such iron.
In the management of this particular industry numbers of artisans and peasants were employed in a manner which reminds one of the medieval ‘manufacturing’ system. A remarkable contrast can be observed between the mangerial systems of ‘TATARA’ in Izumo and Iwami provinces when considered in terms of its regional characteristics.
1 In Izumo the owners of the industry were descendants of medieval feudal lords, while in Iwami the industry was under the control of land lords of more recent origin who had risen to their positions from peasantry.
2. The relation ship between the employers and employees was, more rigid, in Izumo, being more feudal and clannish, while, in Iwami, the status of the employees was more free because they were employed, to a much greater degree, on a wage basis.
3. The local feudal lords under the Tokugawa Shogunate exacter more powerful influence over the owners of the industry than they did in Iwami.
4. The scale of management was greater in Izumo than in Iwami.
5. In Iwami the employers sometimes hired labowers from distant district, while in Izumo all the work was done by local peasantry.
6. The modern ‘monetary economy’ be cause universal in Iwami earlier than it did in Izumo.
Thus it may be feasible to draw the conclusion that in the process of social and economic development Izumo was more backward than Iwami.
With the Reconstruction in 1868 ‘TATARA’ cane to be over whelmed by the import of cheaper iron from western countries, and has never developed a factory industry, though it is still being locally pactised on a more and less negligible scale.
