1. Kitakami-province includes three regions, (1) Kitakami Valley (2) Southern Kitakami Highland (3) Northern Kitakami Highland. They are divided according to their economic conditions. In this province old lineages have their mascot that appeared from the water in the figure of a boy. It is deemed that this is the origin of wealth for the lineage and when the boy disappears the lineage begins to decline. This is an old belief among Japanese. The appearance of the mascot from the water means that the old lineage of a community had managed the natural irrigation of rice-field.
2. The regional difference of this distribution according to the difference of recent regional economic processes. In Kitakami Valley the old lineages had been declined by the advancement of artificial irrigation, higher development of modern capitalism and political pressure by the feudal lord. In these conditions the mascot had been transformed into a kind of spectre or a cherub.
In the southern part of Kitakami Highland earlier rice-products and trade of marine-products had given a power of resistance against capitalism to the old lineages. Therefore, they could remain rich families, maintaining that folklore.
Since in almost all part of northern Kitakami Highland, rice-growing can't be certain, the management of irrigation is not so important as to give rise to the rumours of the mascot. Moreover, these conditions continued until recently, since the economic life had been of self-support with the minimum development of capitalism, and as the result, newcomers who had been usurers, brewers or cloth-sellers became rich, and others fell into decline. Therefore here in this region the mascot is becoming to be ghostly.
3. At present the distribution of this folklore are limited within Kitakami-province, but a few years ago it was found out in the mountainlands of middle Japan and Kyushu. In Kitakami-province the economic and social conditions had held this folklore until recently.
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