The custom of ōtaue (rice-planting festival) in the Chūgoku Region has often been dealt with in Japanese folklore studies and historical studies on Japanese performing arts. In these studies, this custom has been treated as what remains of old-fashioned rice-planting in Japan or the preservation of a performance carried out before the establishment of dengaku. Research on ōtaue has been driven by such academic interests and many papers about it have been written. The point that most of these papers focused on was not the relationship between local community and ōtaue, but problems related to ōtaue itself, its performance or style of worshipping the gods. The nature of the community within which this custom was held, and its meaning and function in the inhabitants’ everyday lives, were seldom discussed.

In this paper, building on an awareness of these issues, the author focuses on the case of ōtaue (‘ushikuyo’) which was held in Kawahigashi, Toyomatsu Village around 1935, and has analyzed the relationship between it and the local community. To put it concretely, he has tried to interpret religious and non-religious representations concerning the inhabitants’ everyday lives as measured against the background of their modes of livelihood, the social organization, and social structure of this area. The aim of this paper is to elucidate the meaning and function of ōtaue through such analysis. In other words, it is an attempt to describe this custom considering its connection with the local community.

In Chapter 2, the ceremonial procedure of ōtaue and representations in it are introduced. The following five distinctive features are pointed out: (1) ōtaue was thought of as a memorial service for cattle; (2) the tanushi (the sponsor of ōtaue) paid its costs and provided his house for meetings; (3) the tanushi’s dignity was emphasized by participants’ speeches and actions; (4) the tanushi’s house was described as a point of contact between this world and the spiritual realm including the traveling routes of the gods; and (5) the ceremony included many elements of amusement or recreation.

In Chapter 3, the mode of livelihood in Kawahigashi around 1935 is explained. In those days, inhabitants of this area got substantial income from the cultivation of cash crops (tobacco, konjaku) and cattle raising aimed at producing calves. Especially cattle raising was very important. Such common sayings as “ushi-no-sakidachi” (the ups and downs of farming households are caused by the results of cattle raising) reflect this importance. The characteristics of this livelihood were caused by an environment unsuitable for paddy cultivation in this area.

In Chapter 4, the social organization and social structure of Kawahigashi around 1935 is analyzed. Through this analysis, the following two points become clear: (1) Kawahigashi consisted of four autonomous kin groups called myō, and (2) each myō was a stratified organization in which one head family (shinozuka) took the leadership. In addition, it is argued that the primacy of konjaku and cattle in this area maintained such a social structure.

In Chapter 5, the distinctive features of ōtaue in Kawahigashi, which were pointed out in Chapter 2, are considered on the basis of the facts elucidated in Chapters 3 and 4. Through this consideration, the author draws conclusions concerning the meaning and function of this custom. For one thing, some important representations in the ceremony reflected the inhabitants’ everyday lives. For instance, its purpose as a memorial service for cattle was a reflection of their livelihood.

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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that there is some latitude in the descriptive contents and teaching methods under the Japanese system of textbook authorization.

To achieve this purpose, after the introduction, the second chapter describes features of the textbook authorization system during prewar times. We refer to the transition and the organization of the textbook authorization system. The third chapter presents a number of issues and writers of geography textbooks. We examined relations between the guidelines and the rules for junior high school geography textbooks, and we divided this evolution into periods: prior to 1902, 1902–1919, 1919–1937, and after 1937. The fourth chapter presents specific content of the geography textbooks during each period. We clarify the concrete content of the geography textbooks during each period and the differences in methods.

From the examination of these textbooks, we concluded that some latitude can be observed in the descriptive contents and the teaching methods in textbooks under the textbook authorization system. We learned of the existence of various views of geography education.

Xi’an is one of China’s most historically and culturally renowned cities and is well known for its preservation and maintenance of local historical sites. During the 1990s three representative historical streets, Shu Yuan Men, Bei Yuan Men and De Fu Xiang were restored. By focusing on the management of these three streets this paper examined the present state of Xi’an’s conservation strategy.

The author introduced the history and origin of these streets, as well as their conservation plan. Due to oversights in the conservation philosophy and unscientific techniques used in the reconstruction, the residents of these streets now face many problems.

From data collected in June 2005, the author examined in detail the conservation of the three streets, changes in the local population make-up, the operation of local stores, and references interviews with locals and residents of Si He Yuan traditional housing. Through this examination, the author demonstrated that the attempt at conserving these historical streets was unsuccessful given that the small alterations to the landscape only caused more problems for the local residents.

By referring to information gained from Japanese conservation strategies, the author proposed several solutions. For example: private initiative conservation, intensive studies of architectural criteria and character, and other recommended improvements to the restoration process.

The purpose of this report is to consider the identity of the discipline of human geography, focusing on urban geography. In order to do this, the author first examined the urban geography articles-research essays, short reports, research notes, views, and editorials-published in Geographical Review of Japan, Japanese Journal of Human Geography, Tōhoku Geography Quarterly, Annals of the Japan Association of Economic Geography, and Geographical Sciences from 1945 to 2005, considering them from the three viewpoints of: 1) whether they analyzed cities as points (point analysis) or areas (area analysis); 2) whether they analyzed cities or phenomena in cities; and 3) the changes apparent in the descriptive style of analytical results.

As a result, it was clear that the number of urban geography studies had increased between 1945 and 2005. Moreover, the following points became evident: 1) a decrease in point analysis studies; 2) an increase in area analysis research; 3) an increase in studies of urban functions; 4) a decline in studies using quantitative methods; 5) an increase in studies that looked at people or social groups; 6) an increase in studies hard to classify by existing categories; and 7) an increase of studies ‘in’ rather than ‘of’ cities.

As for changes in the descriptive style of analytical results, studies recording the actual voices of those surveyed increased. This is a descriptive style seen in folklore and sociology.

Next, the mutual interaction between human geography and other humanistic and social science fields was considered from three perspectives: 1) the research citations listed in human geography articles published in Geographical Review of Japan, Japanese Journal of Human Geography, and Annals of the Japan Association of Economic Geography from 1971–1975 (earlier period) and 2001–2005 (later period); 2) the research citations listed in articles in Japanese Sociological Review during 2003–2006; and 3) research citations listed in single-author books.

The results: 1) In the geography articles, the number of citations in each article had increased. 2) But the proportion of citations from within the discipline of geography itself declined. 3) In the earlier period, many of the citations were from the fields of history or economics, but in the later period the citations from sociology increased. 4) In the later period, there was an increase in citations from many ‘other fields’.

In the articles published in Japanese Sociological Review, it was evident that: 1) citations from within the field of sociology were proportionally higher when compared to those from geography in geographic articles; and 2) there were extremely few citations in sociology articles from the field of geography. This trend was about the same in single-author books.

How should we think about these facts? Does the fact that citations from geography are so few in sociology (and not only in sociology!) mean that geography’s research findings are not valued? But surely it must indicate that they are ignorant of and indifferent to geography’s findings.

On the other hand, how should geographers themselves think about the fact that the level of citations from their own discipline has declined? If one reacts negatively, it means they do not value their own field, but if one reacts positively it means that geographers have an abundance of curiosity and spare no pains in hunting down the findings of other disciplines.

Along with the changes in the descriptive style of analytical findings, as people who have chosen the field of geography, surely we need to seriously reconsider our own standpoint and the identity of human geography. We should be deeply concerned that if we are lax in this effort, it may mean the withering and even extinction of human geography.