Abstract
This article aims to trace a brief history of hill villages in the present Kokone county of Iwate prefecture during the Edo period. These villages were originally migrated by the war remnant defeated by Hideyoshi Toyotomi and came to be governed by Nobunau, Nambu, new fewdal lord. As the climate was not adequate for the oaddy-field agriculture, villagers was forced to make their living in the lowest condition comparing with other areas. Since the latter part of the Edo Period when iron mine was discovered, the economic life of villagers suddenly changed from static to active one. Raw iron of which yearly output was well over forty to fifty hundred kans was exported to many clans not only in the Tohaku but also Kanto area. Although the iron industry was actually under financial control of te city merchants, the living condition of villager become to be better off. With the change of economic life brought about by the rise of iron industry, such new industries became popular among villagers as charcoal, silk-raising, silk-reeling, fish-oil and salt industries and villagers who engaged acitvely in them had come to live in ease and comfort. These villages might develop more rapidly and could take a leadership in industrializing of the district, if the han government took more progressive policies for encouraging iron and other iron and other industries. Actually, however, it taxed villagers more heavily and prohibited strictly to introduce new tecnology. This was a reason why these villages were economically devastated when once Takato Odhima built a westetrn-type furnece in Kamaishi and started a modern iron works first time in Japan.
