東北地方の奥地山村におけるゼンマイ生産地域の形成

明治後期から大正期における奥地山村の商品経済化の一類型として

抄録

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the distribution of zenmai producing regions and their formation in the Tohoku region during the late Meiji and Taisho Eras. The young shoot of the fern zenmai (Osmunda japonica) is a traditional edible plant in Japan. Zenmai is distributed densely in the steep slopes of mountains which receive heavy snow. Therefore, zenmai of good quality has been produced in mountain villages of Tohoku facing the Japan Sea. The present writer identifies“zenmai settlements”where zenmai producing is economically important to village life.
This paper is based on 50 days field research in the mountain villages of Tohoku and Hokuriku from August 1981 to October 1984. The author conducted oral research among many old people, and gathered a lot of information from brokers and wholesalers about zenmai producing and circulation.
The results can be summarized as follows:
The zenmai producing region expanded from the late Meiji Era to the Taisho Era, and the zenmai settlements appeared in the snowy region facing the Japan Sea, They were distributed at the foot of the Moriyoshi Range, the Waga Range, the Kurikoma Range, the Chokai Range, the Asahi Range, the Iide Range, and the Echigo Range. (See Fig. 3.) This zenmai production brought people a secure income of a lot of money in about one month of each year. The custom of Maegari also arose, in which brokers advanced rice and other staples to villagers each fall in exchange for zenmai deliveries the next spring.
The formation of the zenmai producing regions was caused by two trends. First, village people close to the old producing regions spontaneously began to produce zenmai upon learning of its value. Second, brokers began to visit places distant from the old producing regions and advise village people to produce zenmai and sell it. These two behaviors were stimulated by the imcrease of demand as population grew in the cities, and by merchants' easy access to the remote mountain villages with the completion of the railroad network.
From the above, we can see how the mountain villages of Tohoku facing the Japan Sea, having difficult access to markets, were drawn into commodity production of zenmai, a light and expensive food formerly gathered in the wild. This pattern is similar to the development of specialized commercial production in conjunction with shifting cultivation in other remote and mountainous parts of Japan: wild tea in Kyushu, Mitsumata (for paper making) in Shikoku, and sericulture in Central Japan. This shows the development of a commercial economy through particular products in the remote mountain villages of Japan.