Japanese Journal of Human Geography

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The purpose of this article is to make a contribution toward re-examining the origins and their nature of small territorial groups by investigating them in the Shodoshima Island and comparing with the others in Japan. Concerning the origins of small territorial groups, it has been claimed that they had developed successively from the kinship groups or “Myo(_??_)”as small political-territorial groups in the Middle age. It has been also claimed that the nature of their origins is autogenetic. By the way, the small territorial group is, not to speak, a kind of social system interdepending on the lower-and higher-order social systems. Unfortunately the studies treating the origins of small territorial groups have hitherto failed in considering the lower-and higher-order social systems. In this article, therefore, I intended to examine not merely small territorial groups themselves, but the lower and higher-order social systems historically and arrived at the following results.
i The small territorial groups in the Shodoshima Island-Jo(_??_)-didn't indicate the feautures that would emerge successively from the kinship groups or the “Myo”.
ii According to the local records of the late Middle Age, the term “Jo” wasn't quite found in the residencial names and it should seem that the small territorial groups hadn't been substantive at the times.
iii According to the local records of the early days in the Edo era, it seemed that “Jo” had appeared in the process of establishing the local-political systems, “Go-Son-Sei(_??__??__??_)”in the Edo era, and that they had been constructed territorially by the political authorities as sub-groups of “Han-Sei-Son(_??__??__??_)”.
The latter also applied to other small territorial groups, “Hogiri(_??__??_)”in Satsuma province, “Kumi(_??_)”in Suo-and Nagato province and “Menba(_??__??_)”in Sanuki province, etc.
As a result, I would insist on the hypothesis that the establishment of the “Go-Son-Sei” would be the premier factor for originating the small territorial groups in Japan.

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