Kinship and Economic Organization in Rural Japan

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS MONOGRAPHS ON SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY No. 32

KINSHIP AND ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION IN RURAL JAPAN BY

. CHIE NAKANE

1

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

r-

THE ATHLONE PRESS NEW YORK: HUMANITIES PRESS INC.

1967

Published by THE ATHLONE PRESS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

. at 2 Gower Street London WCI Distributed by Constable & Co Ltd 12 Orange Street London WC2 Canada Oxford University Press Toronto

© Chie Nakane,

1967

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 66-10915

Printed in Great Britain by ROBERT CUNNINGHAM AND SONS LTD ALVA

PREFACE In this essay I present the principles of one important sector of social organization in Japan, and establish its framework. Japan is a difficult setting for anthropological study because of the enormous diversity and complex integration of the social factors involved. Japanese kinship structure, with its multiple historical and local factors, and unlike that of the Chinese or of the Hindus, does not belong to the category of unilineal systems, nor to any kind of descent pattern found in the published literature of social anthropology. Social anthropology, developed by micro-synchronic studies of simpler societies, and with its major analysis devoted to descent systems, has to face in Japan a critical methodological test. In this essay, I, as a social anthropologist, want to overcome these drawbacks of anthropological method, and to demonstrate one of the new approaches by which an _ •anthropologist can cope with the data from a sophisticated society. I also wish to show how social anthropology can contribute to a field normally dealt with by sociologists, historians and economists. The materials on which this discussion is based come fronl a vast amount of data covering various rural areas in Japan as well as more than three centuries of time (frOln the beginning of the Tokugawa period to the present day). These data partly arise from micro-sociological studies carried out by Japanese scholars during the last fifty years. There are a nUlnber of interesting studies of Japanese rural society carried out by American anthropologists, including the important pioneering work of the late J. F. Embree (see Bibliography Ill). However, my concern here is with the Japanese literature, written in the vernacular by Japanese sociologists, economic historians and other social scientists, and containing a wealth of material not yet fully analysed by western scholars. The examination of this nlaterial in the light of modern tnethods of social anthropology is my chief concern. (In order to avoid confusion, I do not discuss the differing views and the disputes exhibited by these works, because Inany are not only

VI

PREFACE

irrelevant to issues in current social anthropology, but also cannot be understood without explanation of the Japanese academic climate. Also I discuss rather than present the data, a detailed bibliography of which is given at the end of this book-Bibliography n.) Most of this literature, however, is concerned either with the description of particular ethnographic data, or with ideological interpretations of the Japanese family or village structure. Again, many recent works concerned with Japanese kinship use a typological approach, being interested in local varieties of custom in which kinship is taken as one of the cultural elements. None of them has attempted systematic theoretical generalization on the basis of a structural analysis of the data concerned with Japanese kinship, which is the major subject of this essay. I have supplemented the literary materials by a slnall set of data derived from field observation of my own in several villages in different areas, including two villages where I have been continuing intensive studies: Gorohei-shinden village in N agano prefecture and Koshiozu village in Aichi prefecture. I take the view that the value of the findings froln an individual's own field work is extrelnely restricted for the purpose of generalization in a society such as that of Japan, whatever lnay be the intrinsic ilnportance of the data. Hence my own work is integrated with an imlnensely greater bulk of research published by others. What I am most concerned with in this study is to interpret different, sometimes apparently contradictory, ethnographic data from various areas, and synthesize theln for generalization. I think Japan presents a fortunate field for such a study by an anthropologist, because research by historians and economists is available at the local as well as at the state level. I have used these studies, not as a simple addition to anthropological data, but to give more sophistication to my anthropological method, and as an aid to 111y interpretation of data. I particularly want to call the attention of anthropologists to this since they have tended to interpret Japanese data within a synchronic context only and with comparatively shallow time depth. Indeed, to some extent the results of my analysis contradict conclusions arrived at by recent field anthropologists who have dealt with Japanese social organization. I focus upon a couple of major problems which are in lny view the lnost significant, rather than describe the full configuration of elelnents. Since the social organization constantly changes, any

PREFACE

vii

descriptive picture of a given situation cannot present the Japanese social structure. Also, for comparative purposes in a wider historical and geographical context, a certain reduction and selection of elelnents which comprise a micro-society should be made. Hence, a total descriptive picture of a micro-society is neither the starting point of my discussion nor the model image ofJapanese society. I approach the central problelns intentionally through the household and local corporate group of the rural comlnunity, whose economy is based on i~rigated rice cultivation. In Japan for centuries past the greater part of the population has lived by this traditional pattern of agriculture. The reason I use household and local corporate group instead of family and descent group, in the conventional anthropological Inam1er, is that the data from Japan have dictated this. By this approach I expect to uncover problelns which those social anthropologists who have concentrated their interest on kinship study have tended to overlook. Theoretically these corporate groups are not kin groups, and though they involve kinship elelnents, economic factors and local political power-relations are lnore important. That is why the title of this book is 'Kinship and Economic Organization in Rural Japan', instead of simply kinship organization. The discussion will deal in detail with one form of local corporate group known as dozoku in Japanese sociology. The dozoku has had fairly wide geographical distribution in agricultural villages in many areas of Japan, with considerable time depth-roughly two hundred years. Research by Japanese social scientists on social organization during the last thirty years shows a fairly strong concentration of interest on the subject. Apart from this richness of material, the reason why I have chosen this particular form of local grouping for study is that it has been found in the middle and upper strata of village populations, strata which are involved in land ownership and property transmission. This dozoku is a s0111ewhat sil1ular institution to thq\ lineage of China in its functional role within a total comlnunity structure. I take the view here that a structural principle closely related to kinship appears in the handling of property. Only when a set of individuals related through kinship or other ties is faced with the allotment or translnission of available economic resources does each given society seem to produce regularities

VUl

disciplines: particularly to Dr S. Oishi, econolnic historian, ~ith whom I had the opportunity to conduct field work in the same village, and with whom I have had many stimulating discussions; to Professor K. Ariga, sociologist, who kindly helped me by presenting his unpublished data for my scrutiny; and to Professor M. Fukushima, lega~ sociologist, and Professor T. Ouchi, agricultural economist, for their kind guid'lnce. My thanks go also to the Institute of Oriental Culture, the University of Tokyo, through whose generous understanding I have had every facility to pursue this work. My thanks are also due to Professor Ronald Dore, who luade useful suggestions and criticisIns on the final stages of the 11lanuscript; to Professor Maurice Freedman and Mr Anthony Forge, who were kind enough to check the final typescript; to Mrs D. H. Alfandary for her help with the nlanuscript. Finally, a special acknowledgelnent luust be luade to Mr Junkichi Mukai, the well-known contemporary Japanese artist, for his most generous help in drawing 'At Togakushi' especially for the frontispiece of this book. It exquisitely captures the atmosphere of a Japanese village.

by which to react to the situation. In each given society the alternatives for choice are fairly liluited within the available range. This kind of regularity has produced a local corporate group in the fonn of dozoku in Japan, and of lineage organization· in China. The difference in the structure of such institutions seems to be due to the underlying kinship principles, and to economic factors. The reason I have chosen a broad historical range of more than three hundred years is as follows. First, considerable data from this period are available for analysis by the techniques of social anthropology. Secondly, this period shows economic changes at the national level so pervasive that no single village conl1utmity escaped their influence: the introduction of a cOlumercial economy and of industrialization. Politically also Japanese society in this period was transformed: from the feudal to the modern system of government. Thus it can be observed how the original structure reacted to econ0111ic change, and in what way it produced new organizations to adjust to such change. It can be seen also which eleluents were discarded, which were modified and which were retained unaltered. Japanese social organization can be understood only by the exalnination of such dynamic processes. The franlework of this study was formed, and the nlajor part of the luanuscript was written in I960-6r, when I held a lectureship in the Department of Cultural Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies, and was also associated with the Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. My profound acknowledgeluents go to lUY colleagues and students at these institutions, and also to the selninar members in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge and the University of Manchester, with whom I had Inany stimulating discussions on this subject. ~ Above all I owe a great deal to Professor C. von Fiirer-Haimendorf who kindly gave me all the facilities to do this work while I was in London; and to Professor Raymond Firth, lUY teacher, whose stimulating suggestions and detailed comments encouraged me to complete this work, and who kindly suggested its publication. Also I alU greatly indebted to Japanese colleagues in_different

IX

PREFACE

PREFACE

Tokyo, September r965

I

C. N.

1

CONTENTS I.

BASIC STRUCTURE OF HOUSEHOLD AND KINSHIP

2.

BASIC VILLAGE ORGANIZATION IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Setting of Rural Japan Internal Structure of the Village 3.

41 41

S8

ANALYSIS OF LOCAL CORPORATE GROUPS WITHIN A VILLAGE A. B. C.

4.

1

Dozoku Oyako-kankei Kumi

82 82 12 3 133

THE FUNCTION OF MARRIAGE RELATIONS

ISO

CONCLUSION

167

BIBLIOGRAPHY

173

INDEX

199

xii

I.

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

PLATES

TABLES

'At Togakushi' Irrigated paddy fields just after the transplantation

Jrontispiec e

I. 2.

3.

2a. Irrigation at Gorohei-shinden village between pages

b. Thrashing paddy after harvest 3a. A farmer's house b. A young couple working in a greenhouse

4.

74 and 75

5.

4. Transplantation in the Togukawa period 6.

5. Urushi Buraku in Kagoshima prefecture

6. At a gathering of tanokami-ko in Urushi buraku

7. Record books of the ko association of Koshiozu

8a. I-liyoshi-jinja, the village shrine of Koshiozu b. Wedding cerelnony at Hii Buraku

between pages

7. 8.

138 and 139

9.

MAP

ID.

facing page

Map of Japan with prefectures

I

I I.

FIGURES

plan of a Fanner's House 2. Establishment of shinrui relations 3. Category of kin nonnally included in shinrui 4. Shinrui in terms of household category

3 27 28

5. Japanese kinship terminology 6. Major scheme of Five Categories

34 39 78

1.

of Shinzoku

7. Basic scheme of irrigation in Gorohei 8. Relations of households of a

dozoku

9. Basic schem.e of relations between households of the dozoku 10. Genealogical relations of household heads of Saito dozoku Graveyard of Saito dozoku 12. Variations of household relations in Saito dozoku 13. Household relations in Nishilnura koochi in Asao 14. Marriage relations among four households centred on Furukawa household in Koshiozu I I.

29

I I

! I ~

t

i

\

89

!~ Ir

99 100

!

87

104 13 2 165

12. 13.

Increase and decrease of agricultural population Rate of distribution of the yield from tenant wet rice land The number of agricultural households by tenure Distribution of lands by households of honbyakusho and kakaebyakusho in Gorohei in 1713 Number of kakaebyakusho grouped by honbyakusho in Gorohei in 1758 Distribution of kakaebyakusho· grouped by a honbyakusho with indication of temple affiliation, in Gorohei in 175 8 Composition of Gorohei village in 1667 Changing process of the holdings by each household in Saraike during the period between 1644 and 1702 Distribution of holders by koku in Shimo-daiichi in the period 1685-1871 Distribution of plots by owners, with the number of tenants, in Gorohei in 1771 Distribution of plots and cultivators according to the water flow in Gorohei in 1771 Distribution of households in terms of kumi, koochi and maki in Asao The basic scheme of the ko proceedings in Koshiozu

X1l1

52 55 57 62 68

72 73 75 76 13 0 .147

I

Basic Structure of Household and I{inship ~ CONCEPT OF lE (HOUSEHOLD)

,

The primary unit of social organization~1~J2~Qjs~~~h~J!qE.~.th9Id. an agranan comln\,iiii~hQ1!seliQ[a]i.~~..p~!~kl!~L!!llportant fUl\ction~~,,_~gj~t.il1c:t body for economic management. A house-

In

~Cl1s~orpaUy forme~:?y';'~_or---arol~_~:'-1g~-'~i1;?~e4~Qf~ii-'eIe-

OkiO

oL-.... _ - - - 1_Miles _- - - 1 _

I. 2.

3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Fukuoka Saga Nagasaki Kumamoto Oita Miyazaki Kagoshima Ehime Kagawa Tokushima Kochi Yamaguchi

13. 14. IS. 16. 17. 18. 19.

Hiroshima Okayama Shimane Tottori Hyogo Osaka Kyoto 20. Nara 21. Wakayama 22. Mie 23. Shiga 24. Gifu

25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

Aichi shizuoka Nagano Yamanashi Fukui Ishikawa Toyama Niigata Kanagawa Tokyo Chiba Saitama

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

300

Gunma Tochigi Ibaragi Fukushima Miyagi Iwate Yamagata Akita Aomori

J

mentary fam~ly, and may include relatives _~md .. non~relatives o:ther ··than these. in~mediate .. familY,lnemhe.r.s •..Jts composition varies according to the specific situation, such as the stage in the cycle of the dOlnestic family, and the economic situation of the household. However, its sociological in~portance is such that a ,.::v h9~~hoI4_g,f_~,~'y.~ind of ~~~E~~si!!Qnjs~regarded_"as .ol1~__~!.s.!ii1ct' uni~i.g,,