Many villages in the Kinki region have miyaza (ritual organizations or parish guilds) which play a significant role in festivals for village shrines (ujigami). Some miyaza organizations consist of a few ritual groups which are sometimes called za. At least two of such za are often referred to as ‘right’ and ‘left’. For example, they have names relevant to space classified in that way, and take seats apart on both the right and left sides at festivals.
The study of miyaza has been made by many scholars from various perspectives and disciplines. In this paper I would like to present a new point of view by treating the miyiza as a vehicle by which the symbolic spatial order is represented. But the symbolic spatial order is also closely concerned with the ordinary social relations. In order to understand the structure of symbolic space in a village, I set up four relationships on co-ordinates sectioned by cultural-social and sacred-profane axes (Fig. 2).
1) ritual order of space……ritual organization
2) mundane order of space……mundane social relations
3) ritual organization……mundane social relations
4) ritual order of space……mundane order of space
I will examine the four relationships above in the village of Miyajiri, Omi, because the structure of symbolic space lies behind the ritual and mundane orders of space (as in the four categories above).
Miyajiri is a small village located to the south of Lake Biwa. During the pre-war days, the village economy was dependent on tea growing and sale of timber (mainly for firewood). Two settlements, Nojiri and Okei, compose the village of Miyajiri. Nojiri lies one km. above Okei along the Otani River.
The ritual organization of Miyajiri is divided into three groups, Daiza, Wadaza and Okeza. Male members of Nojiri settlement belong to the first two groups (Daiza and Wadaza), while those of Okei to Okeza. Each za has five miyadoshiyori or shrine elders, who are responsible for the management of village shrine festivals. For the annual festival, each za provides a toya or shrine servant, who prepares offering rice cakes (goku), asisted by some of the shrine elders.
My field observation goes into: 1) the seat arrangements for miyadoshiyori, toya and other participants and ritual procedures at the annual festival; 2) communal obligations and the location of hon-ke (head families) and bun-ke (branch families); 3) the distribution of marital relations and village politics; and 4) two principles of spatial classification (the right: left rule for ritual setting and the above: below rule for everyday occasions).
Results derived from the observation above indicate that the symbolic space in Miyajiri is ordered by the two binary classifications of space based upon the right: left and the above: below principles, and that the priority of the right and above should be remarked. It seems, however, that social process and oral traditions imply the legitimacy of the left and below and maintain the balance between the above and the below as well as the right and the left.
The symbolic space in Miyajiri is equipped with a structure that always needs relativization and equilibrium. It is a structure for the exchange of predominance and equality.

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