This article aims to clarify the reality of bunke （stemming and stemmed family branch） in an early modern Japanese village, using the database of various documents including the Shumon Aratame-cho（Religious Faith Registers） and family trees from Kami-shiojiri, Ueda, Nagano.
　　　Compared to the results of other studies, Kami-shiojiri Shumon Aratame-cho indicates that the bunkes by the second and third sons account for less than one tenth of the total of 94 cases and ‘cousins’ account for more than two fifths. The current article has found that, regarding the ‘cousins’ on the Shumon Aratame-cho who became bunke, only one third of the total are real cousins. The others are 5 and more degrees apart, i.e. the fathers or even grandfathers were cousins. Therefore, referring to the family trees, the bunkes had been set up in the previous generation and there are often generation gaps between the Shumon Aratame-cho and family trees for the timing of the bunkes. This suggests that they had been substantially stemmed for they were independent enough. The family trees as informal documents recorded such a reality. However, the bunkes were not established enough to be independent as an administrative unit and the Shumon Aratame-cho, as more formal documents, do not show them. Nevertheless, over some generations, they became economically independent enough to be considered administratively independent of the village society and stemmed on the Shumon Aratame-cho, too. Since bunkes were informal, they came in different circumstances and the contemporaries made some notes on them. To understand bunkes requires cross-referencing with the Shumon Aratame-cho, family trees and other such documents, for the reality can be discerned between these various documents.

View full abstract

　　　The Community Stores which exist even now in Okinawa have been established by the residents in the rural community（buraku）. But, because of the development and the subsequent changes in the community, a lot of Community Stores have been closed during the last 20 years. At present, there are some Community Stores whose management is stable, but many others with the difficulties in management.
　　　It is thought that the rural community can be well understood by studying Community Stores.
　　　How the rural communities have been able to continue to manage these stores in spite of the difficulties in management is the question to be raised in this paper. My argument is that by addressing this question 1） we can understand how the Okinawan communities are wavering between the urbanization of their life and their consciousness of maintaining the spirit of community, and 2） we can develop a new theory of policies matching to the circumstances.

View full abstract

　　　In this paper I take up the agricultural high school that is concerned with both agriculture and education. Making reference to the case of Shonai Agricultural High School in Yamagata, I will discuss about the role that the agricultural high school and its agricultural education have been carrying out in a district. At first, I explain the change of the agricultural education in the agricultural high school from the today’s trend of agricultural newcomers after the graduation from the agricultural high school. Namely agricultural high school is changing its educational aim from training of independent farmer's education into multifold agricultural education. Moreover the social expectation is growing day by day that agricultural education needs to be useful to solve the problems of agriculture, environment, foods, and so on. Now a new connection between a community and agriculture comes about.

View full abstract

　　　The residents of village communities have been obtaining fuel by cutting down trees on nearby mountains or harvesting grasses for use as agricultural fertilizer. These nearby mountains have come to be known as Satoyama. However, starting in the 1960’s, the rapid proliferation of chemical fertilizers led to fossil fuels taking the place of wood fuel. As a result, the Satoyama underwent changes and social problems involving maintenance and management of Satoyama were encountered, including the threat to the existence of the diverse range of wildlife found there. Although government administrators and volunteers are attempting to maintain and manage these Satoyama through the use of modern technology, this technology remains underdeveloped.
　　　This report describes my experiences during my participation as a forestry engineer in activities targeted at sharing the Satoyama scenery once again during the course of reconstruction of a local community by residents of a village scheduled to be flooded by a dam in the town of Mirasaka in Hiroshima prefecture.
　　　The residents have expressed the significance of sharing the scenery of their Satoyama while taking advantage of daily conversations and local technologies for sharing their Satoyama scenery. I understood the significance expressed by the residents and deployed forestry technologies based on that understanding. The residents accepted these forestry technologies when they judged that they could contribute to the sharing of their Satoyama scenery. Since Satoyama have been maintained and managed by local technologies, it will be necessary to establish technologies for Satoyama maintenance and management by accumulating technologies accepted by local residents.

View full abstract

　　　K. Ariga’s most important book, “The Family System and the Farm Tenant System in Japan” was published in 1943. This book was a revised edition of “Studies on Rural Society in Japan” published in 1938. In this revised edition, Ariga adapted a lot of new keywords and added large amount of sentences. By this revision, the new book become a voluminous work of more than 700 pages.
　　　In this article, we examined the details of this revision and shed light on the basic plan by which Ariga’s historical theory on the farm tenant system was reorganized into the more advanced theory of the social structure in Japan that was based on “dozoku” concept.
　　　In the original book, “Studies on Rural Society in Japan,” Ariga used a method of folklore studies established by Kunio Yanagita and his main subject was a historical analysis of the landlord tenant farmer system. On the contrary, in the new edition, Ariga adopted a sociological method based on the dozoku theory and tried to examine the national character of Japanese by the sociological analysis of rural societies.

View full abstract