The Vietnamese seem to have had a tendency to symbolize their king and kingdom as a mountain. Kings of the Former Le (980-1009) and the Ly (1010-1225) dynasties built bamboo Nam So'n(Mountain of the South, namely of Vietnam) on their birthdays to annually revitalize their kingdom as well as themselves. And some mountains assumed the protector of the kingship and the superviser of Sino-Vietnamese moral principles. The god of Mt. Dong Co (Thanh Hoa) joined the future Ly Thai Tong in his expedition into Champa. Thai Tong also could repress rebellious princes on the advice of this god. He and his mandarins swore loyalty and filial piety annually before the god's shrine. Mt. Dong Co, however, is not near Hanoi but is situated, as is suggested in the chronicle, in the rugged terrain of the southern fringe of the Red River delta, on the line of demarcation between the delta and the less consolidated southern provinces. The Ngu Hanh So'n(Mountains of Five Elements) or Montagnes de Marbre of Quang Nam. Central Vietnam, were believed to be the protectors of the Nguyen kingdom. And this agregate of rocks is not near the capital but is in the liminal region around Da Nang, a port frequented by Europeans. According to P. Poivre, it was believed that an enemy who could capture this Protector would become master of the kingdom. And in the middle of the eighteenth century, when Poivre came into contact with this belief, Vietnam seems to have been 'en proie. . . a une crise religieuse, a une veritable fievre prophetique' (L. Cadiere) . Bonzes claimed that Heaven's anger had begun to explode because people had abandoned the cult of traditional gods and the teachings of Confucius to worship the God of the Europeans whose aim was the usurpation of the kingdom. Though it is difficult to clarify the relationship between these prophecies and the belief in the Mountains Ngu Hanh, it is important to note that it was the emperor Minh Mang, a hard-liner against western influence, who revived the old beliefs fervently and prohibited Europeans from going on an excursion from Da Nang to the Protector-Mountain. My hypothesis is that during the long history of the Vietnamese southward movement there might have existed similar masses resistantes in the frontiers, that the Protector-Mountain belief might have contributed to the maintenance of the Sino-Vietnamese cultural tradition and to the Vietnamese indefatigable southward movement, and that such mountains might have sometimes become the symbolic nuclei of the Vietnamese 'nationalism' or nativism against foreign threats or invasions. The Protector-Mountain theme was fully elaborated by the Bti'u So'n Ky Hu'o'ng (Radiant Mountain Unearthly Fragrance) sect in the last frontier, western Mekong delta. This sect emerged from the peasants who were exposed, in the reign of Thieu Tri (1841-47) , to the loss of Cambodia, a Vietnamese protecorate under the emperors Gia Long and Minh Mang, and to the Siamese invasions. The Bu'u So'n Ky Hu'o'ng believed that the Ideal King would appear from the Seven Mountains (That So'n or Bay Nui) of Chau Doc province. Some sources suggest that the Ideal King might have been an idealization of the late, the strongest emperor Minh Mang. The eschatology seems to have been widely diffused among the southerners after the establishement of French colonialism and the Seven Mountains region afforded the most important base for southern activists.

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Symbolic representation of time is a frame of reference to include past into present, and symbolic representation of space is one with which a society can distinguish itself from other societies. Further, these two sorts of representation tend to be interrelated to each other. This paper aims to illustrate in abstract terms this interrelation between them with special reference to the people on the island of Sumba. Eastern Indonesia. Division of the day is analyzed first. Sumbanese people divide the day according to the place of the sun. Apart from this, they divide the day into two parts, morning and afternoon (when the sun appears) being one and night (when the sun disappears) being another. Between them there is a liminal period called rudung. As in other cultures, it is the dangerous period, when monsters roam about. Division of the month, and that of the year have much the same framework. The remarkable fact is that liminal periods are marked by redundancy/absence of prescriptions and/or redundancy/absence of noise. Division of a man's life has almost congruent structure, too. It is also repetetive and divided into two parts : the period when he is alive and the period when he is dead. Marking points which differenciate these two phases of life are birth and death. Furthermore, the period when he is alive is divided into two parts by circumcision. These three rites de passage are also accompanied by redundancy (or absence) of prescriptions and/or redundancy (or absence) of noise. Such representaion of time is, as I said before, interrelated with that of space. For example, in the division of a man's life, three liminal periods were named, birth, circumcision and death. Birth takes place within a village community, circumcision out of it, and finally death (mortuary rites) within it again. Consequently, we must deal with representation of space before proceeding the analysis any further. Katodas are taken into consideration first. These stone alters are erected at places which are topographically significant ; in a sawah (wet rice field), in a garden, by a spring or in a village etc. Village structure needs special mentioning. According to the ethnographies available, there are three types of village structure. I call them, following LEVI-STRAUSS'S terminology, 'diametrical dualism', 'concentric dualism' and 'tripartition'. As for liminality, there are a number of intermediary terms between the outside and the inside of village. One is called pamangahu (below-garden), another kambata (before-village) , another katoda pindu (gate way) etc. These terms function without redundancy, that is, in one context one term is pertinent and in another, another is so. As for house structure, the above-mentioned three types of dualism are also found. Further-more, the intermediary terms between outside and inside of a house are corresponding to those of village structure. Essential spacial oppositions are outside and inside of a village and outside and inside of a house. These oppositions appear in the context of repetitive time, a year, a man's life. If LEACH'S assumption of there being two sorts of representations of time, repetetive and irreversible, is accepted, there must be two in Sumbanese cultute. Irreversible time is expressed, in Sumba, by the opposition of tana mema (original land) /tana dawa (foreign land, literally, Java) . This opposition develops itself in a series of stories. In the stories, three sorts of foreign lands are mentioned in the context of irreversible time. According to this type of concept of time, time has its beginning in the primeval period and has influence upon the present situation.

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There are many villages in the high mountains which surround Aizu district. They are located at altitudes of about four to six hundred meters. People in these villages have been engaged in mountain labor and agriculture until recent times. Annual rites strongly reflect these occupations. The matter to be dealt with in this paper is the rituals of Jichin-sama and Oyoka in which the deity's coming from and returning to heaven is characteristic. Jichin-sama is the ritual in which the deity comes from heaven on February tenth of the lunar calendar and returns to it on October tenth of the lunar calendar. Oyoka is a ritual in which a benevolent deity and a wicked deity come from heaven on February eighth of the lunar calendar. Only the benevolent deity is invited into the house by suspending a mekago (a bamboo basket) at the entrance. Finally this deity returns to heaven on December eighth of the lunar calendar. Japanese folklorists have said that Yama-no-kami (a deity of mountains) is replaced by Ta-no-kami (a deity of fields) in spring. However, the author believes there is still room for discussion in this matter. The points to be considered in this study are as follows ; 1. The transition of agriculture in mountain villages of Aizu. 2. A supposition of crops in which in the system of agrarian rituals are rooted. 3. A study of the character of the deity's coming and returning to heaven. The conclusions of the study are as follows : 1. The mountain villages in Aizu converted from superior dry field cultivation to paddy field cultivation. Although the conversion began during the middle of Meiji and Taisho, complete conversion was not realized until after World War II. 2. Agrarian rituals as we know them at present center around rice. Nevertheless, the consideration of ritual crops appearing in Koshogatsu (Minor New Year festival on the full moon 15 th day of the first lunar month) , Jugo-ya (full moon festival of the 15th day of the eighth lunar month) , Jusan-ya (full moon festival of the 13 th day of ninth lunar month) and Jichin-sama, indicates that at the base of agrarian rituals millet and cereal have played an important role in the formation of agrarian rituals. 3. In a detailed investigation of Jichin-sama and Oyoka in the mountain villages of Aizu, it became clear that these rituals were closely related to Yama-no-kami. In other words, the deity who appears in these rituals is Yama-no-kami and it is believed he comes in spring. By taking into this point as well the noted items I and 2, it can be concluded that Yama-no-kami came in spring as "Hatake-no-kami" (a diety of dry fields) in the stage of dry field farming. Thus, in mountain villages of Aizu it is difficult to state that Yama-no-kami comes as Ta-no-kami in spring. The interrelationship between Yama-no-kami and "Hatake-no-kami" would become clearer by an analysis of the concept of the deity seen in swidden farming.

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