The purpose of this paper is to consider why the wives of merchant families had the authority to manage their family businesses (with the help of several apprentices) under the Japanese patriarchal "Ie" system before World War II.
　In this paper, I will describe the "Goryonsan" who were the wives of merchants in the Osaka Senba area. Goryonsan had great influence and considerable authority in the management of the merchant families. Looking at this type of female role, I intend to analyze what gave these women their authority.
　Some researchers have explained their authority in terms of "continuation and prosperity of the Ie family". They assert that the Ie family was very important to merchant families and it was therefore required that women with business skills participate in its management in order to accomplish the continuation and prosperity of the Ie family. I think this is a reasonable explanation. But in this paper, I concentrate on the human relationships in the shops and homes in Senba merchant families.
　In the Senba merchant stores, the merchants' families lived with their employees, and the work space was family space as well. Goryonsan had the role of caring for, disciplining, and managing the boy apprentices both in the house and the store. In particular the women's role in disciplining the boy apprentices so that they would become good merchants was very important to the family business. And these relationships between Goryonsan and the employees continued for a long time. Under these circumstances, it seems to have been inevitable that women would take on a dominant role in the management of the house, as well as the store.
　It was this system of the merchant families that gave them authority.

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Sickness can be diagnosed and treated in two contexts-medical and socio-cultural. This paper looks at the latter. One socio-cultural method for relieving pain and discomfort are therapeutic ceremonies-prayers to gods, spirits, and the souls of ancestors, and therapeutic trances. Kagura (sacred Shinto music and dance) is an example of such socio-cultural therapy. This type of therapeutic performance is one of the roots of Japanese folk dance. To my knowledge, no research of folk dance in Japan has been carried out from this perspective. Medical science has progressed, while socio-cultural therapy has been continuously practiced, but ignored by research. This paper aims to address the need for more research into the therapeutic functions of Japanese folk dance.
The object of this research is hoso-odori (“smallpox dance”), a prayer dance for the cure of smallpox practiced by women in Kagoshima Prefecture. In my previous research, I had only identified the movements unique to hoso-odori. The goal of this research was to clarify the meanings of those characteristic movements. Motion analysis was used to reveal the characteristics, with special attention given to the arm movements.
The research methods were :
(1) interviews
(2) fieldwork
(3) motion analysis from images
(a) of the dance structure
(b) of the arm movements
In (1), the objects of research were hoso-odori in 25 areas of Kagoshima Prefecture. In (2) and (3), I focused on the forms of the dance found in six areas- Tsuruta-cho, Satsuma-cho and Iriki-cho in the north, and Hiyoshi-cho, Oura-cho Sakaki, and Mishimamura Iojima in the south.
Hoso-odori appeared in response to an epidemic of smallpox at the end of the Edo period. It originated as a form of worship to the god of hoso (smallpox). Pilgrimages to Ise shrine were popular, and hoso-odori was also practiced out of devotion to the god of Ise.
A survey of spatial structures (in each of the six areas) showed that hoso-odori are held at festivities or religious ceremonies. Costumes and ornaments were also surveyed, and each showed distinct characteristics. Survey of lyrics revealed as content common to all six areas devotion to the gods of hoso and Ise. In (3), I analyzed the dance movements in on the basis of these results.
In (3a), the analysis of the dance structure, I first illustrated with diagrams the movements (especially of the arms) of the dance forms from the six areas. Next, I identified the phrases. I defined “phrase” as a set of movements in a given time. Also considered as elements of a phrase were direction (which way the dancer faces) and formation (how many dancers in what configuration). As a result, I found that the characteristic arm movements manekite (“beckoning”) and gassho (“prayer”) that I had previously identified appeared frequently. I also identified, for the first time, another characteristic arm movement, harai (“expel”).
In (3b) analysis of the arm movements, I measured the frequency of the three arm movements manekite, gassho and harai.
Conclusion : From the analyses of space structure, costumes and ornaments, lyrics, and movements, and this analysis revealed that hoso-odori has two essential characteristics : a prayer structure, and prayer content, which differed between north and south. In terms of structure, the women use manekite to invite the god of Ise to bring happiness to the area Then they also beckon (maneku) the god of hoso. The power of Ise and their harai movements serve to repel the god of hoso and hoso.
In the North, manekite movements to beckon the god of Ise appear more frequently. In the south, harai movements to repel the god of hoso appeared more frequently. This difference may be attributed to the fact that the god of Ise is thought to come from north of

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the characteristic and origin of the techniques of "ARAI" by analyzing the tools. "ARAI" is a traditional purification cortex technique in Japanese wooden architecture, using wooden buckets and brooms of straw. To confirm the characteristic of the technique, we investigated the names, the uses, the shapes, and the making methods of the tools. Moreover, we considered the origin of "ARAI" from the three viewpoints of acquisition, technique, and symbols of the tools. These viewpoints shed light on different characteristics of tools and lead three origin theories that "ARAI" derives from a farmer, a plasterer, or a ritual.

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