豪雪山村における村落社会の変容と入会林野の再編成 : 新潟県北魚沼郡入広瀬村大白川新田の事例から

The Changing Process of a Mountain Village in Heavy Snowfall Japan, with Particular Reference to the Reorganization of Common Forest : A Case Study of Oshirakawashinden in Irihirose-Mura, Niigata Pref.

Okahashi Hidenori

広島大学文学部紀要

The Hiroshima University studies, Faculty of Letters

This paper presents a study of recent changes of a mountain village based on a systematic scheme of village society and discusses the significance of the reorganization of common forest (Iriairinya) for the development of mountainous areas.

The study area, Oshirakawashinden which is located in the heart of Echigo-mountains is one of the heaviest snowfall area in Japan (about 3-4m in an average year). In spite of such a bad condition, this village has maintained its viability and has not depopulated so much. So the author searched for the factors of the viability investigating the changing process of the villate structure. As a result, he focused on the significance of the reorganization of common forest carried out in 1972.

The changing process of this village is summarized as next three types, that is 1. closed-integrated society 2. semi open-semi integrated society 3. semi open-integrated society. Traditional kinship structure (Maki) had been the most important factor of the social integration since the village had been settled. But now it has weakened. After the second World War, the common forest was reorganized and the forest cooperative was established. Today, the cooperatives has played an important role of integrating this village by controlling mountain environment and creating employment. It makes this village possible to change to a recreational area based on the natural resourses, especially beautiful beech forests.

General geography. Description and travel [ 290 ]

jpn

広島大学文学部

[ISSN] 0437-5564

[NCID] AN00213701