The purpose of this article is to investigate changes in the intermarriage spheres of the inhabitants of four villages of hilly districts, throughout the past hundred years or so, with relation to the expansion of the spheres of their village life. In addition to this the writer tries to trace the tradition of old marriage customs in those villages, such as the institution of common houses for young men and women and an old form of marriage in which the husband nightly visits the wife dwelling in her parents home.

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The purpose of this paper is to document the total area of kanna-nagashi sites (stopes) and the area occupied by rice fields lying within these stopes, and to estimate the quantity of earth moved by kanna-nagashi in the Takahashi and Tojo (a tributary) River basins in the Chugoku Mountains.
In Japan iron was produced only by the traditional iron sand smelting method, tatara, until western style smelting was introduced in 1853, and the tatara method continued to be used until the 1920s. The iron sand used as raw material is found in small quantities (about 0.35%) in weathering granitic rocks. It was collected by breaking up weathered rocks and sorting them in running water. This method of mining was known as kanna-nagashi. Mountains and hills in many parts of the Chugoku mountains have been much deformed by kanna-nagashi.
The main results may be summarized as follows:
1. Numerous kanna-nagashi stopes are distributed in the upper parts of the Tojo river basin (Fig. 1). Most of the stopes are geomorphologically located in the gentle piedmont slopes and mountain ridges, and geologically located in the regions consisting of granite or granito-diorite.
2. Most of the rice fields lying in the stopes are located on gentle piedmont slopes.
3. The total area of stopes, estimated by the interpretation of aerial photographs, is 2, 673 hectares in the Tojo River basin and 570 hectares in the main Takahashi Riever basin; the area in rice fields is 288 hectares in the Tojo River basin and 71 hectares in the main Takahashi River basin.
4. The quantity of earth moved by kanna-nagashi can be estimated by two methods, the documentary method and the geomorphological method. For the documentary method, the following data were used:
1) the ratio of the volume of iron sand collected to that of earth cut; 2) the volume of iron sand collected at one stope for one year; 3) the number of stopes; 4) the ratio of iron sand used for tatara to the tatara output; 5) the volume of iron sand used for one tatara for one year; 6) the output of one tatara for one year; 7) the number of tatara; and 8) the period, which was about 220 years, from the beginning of the 18th century to the 1920s.
Judging from the above calculations we concluded that the quantity of earth moved was 1.9×10⁸m³-2.3×10⁸m³ in the Tojo River basin and 4.1×10⁷m³-6.6×10⁷m³ in the main Takahashi River basin.
For the geomorphological method, the area of stopes and the heights of man -made cliffs and kanna-zankyu (mounds left in the stopes) were measured. From these calculations, the quantities of earth were 1.5×10⁸m³-2.2×10⁸m³ in the Tojo river basin and 3.3×10⁷m³-4.8×10⁷m³ in the main Takahashi river basin.
5. The reason for the great difference between the volumes calculated by the documentary method and those calculated by the geomorphological method for the main Takahashi River basin is the shortage of historical records. So we suppose that the figure calculated by the geomorphological method is closer to the actual volume of earth moved.

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Many geographers say that the grazing on mountain pastures or upland pastures prevailing in almost all mountain lands in the world dose not exist in Japan. But I think it is not necessarily true. In the mountains of Japan there are many types of an “alp” and “mayen” which are necessary to develop the mountain grazing. A pasture on a gentle slope extending from just upon the forest line downwards is a type of alp, and so, a pasture on summit, plateaus, or higher crests in an other type of alp. Its examples are so many in Japan. If the pasture located over 900 m. were an alp, such pastures would be numberless. A pasture on lower slope or foot hill is a type of mayen. Its examples are a few.
Many pastures in Hokkaido and eastern part of Aomori prefecture, have the characters of lowland pasture. Mountain pastures in Japan groups in following four regions ; north-eastern parts in Ôu, dispersed portions from southern Ôu to central upland in Honshu, middle and eastern parts on Chugoku mountains, and central Kyushu (Fig. 1). Those regions are mountain lands which are used roughly, and have low producing capacity of agriculture. The Grazing regions in eastern Japan are in situ correspondence to the unstable regions of rice culture.
There are several types of mountain grazing in Japan, as follows ;
(1) Type of grazing throughout the warm seasons.
(2) Type of grazing in spring and autumn on high and cool land.
(3) Type of grazing in spring and autumn on low-altitude and warm-climate land.
(4) Type of grazing in three seasons.
(5) Type of grazing in one season.
(6) Type of daytime grazing.
(7) Type of grazing of combined form.
Some types have a grazing in the intermediate seasons on mayen, that is a lesser transhumance, or estivage. But the proper or greater transhumance lack in Japan. Some types are turned into new types i. e. the type of free grazing on forests and fields to the type of grazing on pasture, or the grazing in spring and autumn to the grazing in one season, or vice versa. Certain similar kinds of geographical phenomena have a tendency to be seen grouped in a certain area ; i, e. (1) and (2) types group on eastern Japan, (3) group on western Japan, (4) and (5) group on central Kyushu, and (6) group on Tazima province.
The horses and cattle with few caretakers are grazed in those grazing regions. Some pastures have not a hut and caretaker. Japanese graze a smaller number of animals on the mountain pastures than that europeans on the alp, for animal densities in Japan is much less than that in mountain lands in Europe.

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