Page 159 - Changing Living Spaces

Horses in Early Modern Japan

80 400
70 350
60 300

50 250
40 200
30 150
20 100
10 50
0 0
1697 1703 1709 1715 1721 1727 1733 1739 1745 1751 1757 1763 1769 1775 1781 1787 1793 1799 1805 1811 1817 1823 1829 1835 1841 1847 1853 1859 1865

Horses Households Population (right axis)

Figure 11 Population, Households, and Horses (Hidenoyama)

Cattle were also documented for Komaya in 1775 and 1779. In 1775, the
household of a nanushi (village head) whose mochidaka (the legal amount
of rice produced in one’s rice field; this index represents the household’s
socioeconomic status) was 30.553 koku5 owned three horses and two cat-
tle, and a household with a mochidaka of 21.65 koku owned two horses and
two cattle (the average village household produced 6.346 koku). There were
years when the nanushi household owned more than 10 horses. Another
household was recorded as owning two cattle in 1775. The same house-
hold owned one bull in 1779. The mochidaka of this household was 7.171
koku, a moderate amount of yield. In 1775, the family consisted of the head
of the household, his wife, a son (age 17), a daughter (age 9), and no serv-
ants. Records show that in some years they kept a horse. The horse is of-
ten referred to as a ‘chichikoma’ (literally, ‘father horse’, i.e. stallion), sug-
gesting that they kept a horse that they leased from the domain to raise
good horses. In 1819 and 1820, for example, they kept a chichikoma. The
family at that time consisted of the head of household, Heizō (age 66-
67), who was engaged in shichimotsu-bōkō (indentured servitude to pay off
the mortgage) in the village, and the three remaining members: his wife
Natsu (age 53-54), his daughter (age 37-38), and her husband from Echigo

5 1 koku is approximately 180 litre.

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