The purpose of this paper is to clarify the changes of children's play space in a mountainous village. This research examines a case of the changes in Hofukujimachi, Shiga-mura, Nagano prefecture. The author analyzes comparing of play space in three generations among the residents on the basis of their age: the first generation consists of the persons from the 60s to 80s, the second generation is those from the 30s to 40s, the third generation means the present children in elementary school. The author investigated their playing fields, play activities and playfellows on each generation through questionnaire survey and interviews.
The first generation mainly used to play at outdoor. They had many playing fields that extended to forests,
sawa(mountain small streams and around them) and river. Their plays were close to nature and they obtained playthings from natural resources such as
Takeuma (bamboo stilts),
Chanbara(wooden sword fight),
Jirunta(sliding down slopes with sacks for firewoods),
Kawahoshi (damming up to catch fishes) and so on. They also played at open spaces such as school grounds, shrine and temple precincts.
The second generation also played at outdoor, but their playing fields in forests,
sawa and river dominated around the settlement. It used to be important work for children to gather firewoods until the 1950's. However, with the spread of the electricity and the gas after the 1960's, gathering firewoods became less important. Therefore, children did not play in the resource area of firewoods, i. e. forests and
sawa far from the settlement. The playing fields of river were gradually bounded because of building the facility for shore protection.
The third generation's play space became remarkably smaller recently and they play in their house. Their plays tend to be separated from nature. This change is based on that children can have playthings just like ones in urban such as computer games. Children's play space in Hofukujimachi tends to become smaller as same as one in urban superficially.
However, Hofukujimachi still has many places that can be playing fields in the forests,
sawa and river. Although children are also permitted to play in shrine and temple precincts, they don't play in these places. Children play at school ground because that is convenient for gathering playfellows. Because, in Hofukujimachi, the number of children is decreasing and density of them became sparse. It has become difficult for children to find their playfellows within neighborhood. In some cases, they play around
Tsukisawa dam, where is forbade playing by parents and teachers. On the other hand, children seldom play at the stairs to river that was constructed by parents.
In Hofukujimachi as a mauntainous village, the large changes of land use have never occurred. Thus, there were not so much decrease of play space for children than urban area. Children never lose the places they can play and their playing fields are not restricted extremely. Nevertheless their play space has remarkably changed. This indicates that children tend to select the playing fields and play activities on their decision.
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