Page 242 - Changing Living Spaces
P. 242

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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