Page 242 - Changing Living Spaces

Satoshi Murayama, Hiroko Nakamura, Noboru Higashi and Toru Terao

The payment of the annual contribution was the most important task
in villages like Takahama, which had a relatively large population. The
kokudaka of Takahama village, which served as a standard for assess-
ing tax payment, was not particularly high. However, purpose-built rice
fields were set aside for the collection of annual contributions. Thus, af-
ter the flood of 1803, when the rice fields that had been specially planted
for tax payment were severely damaged, the local self-government of the
village immediately requested assistance from the regional government.
The villagers received funds to restore the flooded fields and damaged riv-
er irrigation systems. This enabled them to restore the rice fields as early
as possible the following year through their own paid labour.
On the other hand, it should be noted that all other types of damage,
such as the destruction of the harbour by high waves and tides, were re-
paired on the village’s own responsibility, and this also happened in the
case of floods when the damage to the rice fields was minor. In other words,
the facilities associated with the annual contribution were supported by
the government in return for collecting the annual contribution, but al-
most everything else was left to the villagers alone. This meant that in the
second layer of Braudel’s composition discussed at the beginning of this
chapter, the market was largely divided into two parts, one of which was
the rice market, which was directly under the control of the government
because of the collection of the annual tax. However, rice cultivation is
also highly constrained by climatic and weather conditions such as water
shortage and frequency, rainfall volume, and solar radiation. Ecological
constraints should also be included in the bottom layer of Braudel’s com-
position, along with sub-economies. In addition, other market transac-
tions, such as participation in the Kitakyushu porcelain market by min-
ing and transporting pottery stones, were very important in Takahama.
They are the second type of market economy that involved self-responsi-
bility, and are believed to have been dismissed to some degree.
It is true that despite being a society driven by an organic economy
based on sunlight, discretionary freedom was never small. In the event
of a bad harvest, a request was made to the government for a tax reduc-
tion. In some cases, they purchased items with other funds, such as those
from the pottery business, and also rebuilt themselves. Villagers’ self-dis-
cretion could further their future or destroy their subsistence. For exam-
ple, in 1817, some plots had sufficient water while others suffered from
water shortages. The only way to avoid a drought crisis was to adapt with-
in the village.

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