In Japan, there existed a very special land system called “Warikae” or landallotment system which began in the Edo era. This system was observed by the village as a unit. Those villages were widely distributed in the Chubu-Hokuriku district, the Shikoku district, a part of the northern Kyushu, and in the southern Kyushu and the islands around. After the enforcement of the abolition law in the early year in the Meiji era, those villages rapidly disappeared. But there still remaind a few villages where the Warikae system was kept in spiteof the law.
In this report, the author on the Warikae system, comparing two villages along Hino River in Fukui Prefecture-Kamiishida (Sabae City) and Nago (Fukui City), by which this system was observed. The reason he picked up these two villages was that no less than four-fifths out of all the villages along Hino River had ever had this system.
The points which are closely paid attention to are as follows;
1) Relation between the Warikae system and a rural community structure.
2) Characteristic of the allotment of the land by the Warikae System.
3) Durability of the system.
The Warikae system was, in many cases, found in the district along the river, which frequently suffered from floods which wash away the land along the river. Therefore, in an attempt to put the members of the village in equal condition, the land was periodically allotted by lottery to each of “Kuji-gumi” groups. The way how one lot which was allotted to one Kuji-gumi group was formed was;
1) The whole arable land in a village was divided into thirty-five sections, and each section was subdivided into twenty parts. One part or one lot was allotted to one Kuji-gumi in case of Kamiishida.
2) One lot was that a strip group collecting from each land unit, so called “Koaza”, in case of Nago.
The diversity of natural, social and economic conditions made the rural community to change the system itself and caused much variation in durability as well. As to Kamiishida, the system had disappeared in the middle of the Meiji era. As to Nago, that had continued untill after World War II.
Lately the following conclusions may be drawn;
1) In Kamiishida, the differentiation of a rural community structure remarkably progressed. So, the forty percent of the population could be classified as the upper status (Kashirabun). And they actually did the system by themselves. Consequently, there occurred some cases in which a single land-owner aquired two or three Kuji-gumis, while several farmers together got only Kuji-gumi. In such circumstances, the allotment of the land by the Warikae system lost the original meaning because there had happened some occasions that the farmer did not plowed his allotted fields.
2) On the other hand, in Nago, the natural conditions were much worse as compared with those in Kamiishida. A village structure remaind relatively undifferentiated, so no less than eighty percent of the whole population took place in dealing with the allotment. The area of allotted fields almost equaled to that of the cultivated. For many years, the Warikae system had had the function of dispersing the lands in order to avoid the possible dangers due to the poor natural conditions. In addition, it was forbidden to sell fields away to the other village's land-owner, so the Warikae system had been observed, involving various rules of the rural community with it.

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