A social geography of preindustrial labour migration in Japan: Tajima and Kurome villages in the...

Journal of Historical Geography, 4, 2 (1978) 105-128

A social geography of preindustrial labour migration in Japan: Tajima and Kurome villages in the nineteenth century

W. Mark Fruin

Labour migration to and from two preindustrial villages in Japan is examined over nearly three-quarters of the nineteenth century. The history and geography of migration are related to local and regional conditions, and to natural events. Natural disasters are demonstrated to offer the best single explanation for much of the movement of labour.

There is evidence of high migration rates in various preindustrial societies, including Japan, although the evidence is sketchy and limited to a few case studies for each country. Because of the paucity of published information, not to mention the scarcity and unreliability of the basic data, traditional research methods of demographers, geographers and historians have rarely been used. Rather, ingenious and original research strategies have been developed and, as a result, fascinating glimpses of the mobility of preindustrial populations are now emerg- ing. In the late seventeenth century, for example, certain English villages experienced as much as a 60% turnover in their populations in less than ten years.[ll Labour migration to three preindustrial East Anglian towns in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was essential to the survival and growth of the towns and was supplied from the immediate surroundings of these towns, from other smaller towns in the region, and from areas with which they had a special link, such as similar manufacturing interests.121 In France, glassworkers of Carmaux during the nineteenth century were likely to stay less than five years before moving on. r31 A larger percentage of Americans, relative to the national population size, moved west in the decade from 1850 to 1860 than in any decade of the twentieth century. [*I Apart from the movement west, population turnover and migration for work were considerable but commonplace elsewhere in the

[l] Peter Laslett and John Harrison, Clayworth and Cogenhoe, pp. 157-85 of H. E. Bell and R. L. Ollard (Eds), Historical essays 1600-1750, presented to David Ogg, (London 1963). It is unclear how much of the turnover found by Laslett and Harrison was due to mortality or marriage as opposed to labour migration

[2] John Patten, Patterns of migration and movement of labour to three pre-industrial East Anglian towns The Journal of Historical Geography, 2 (1976) 11 l-29

[3] Joan W. Scott, The Glassworkers of Carmaux, 1850-1900, p. 16 of Stephan Thernstrom and Richard Sennet (Eds), Nineteenth century cities (New Haven 1969)

[4] Hammond Incorporated Quarterly World Review, II (April 1971) 13

0305-7488/78/0004-0105/$02.00/0

106 W. M. FRUIN

United States.[‘l As far as Japan is concerned, we know that towns and villages

in Awa Province recorded migration-related population changes of as much as 20 % in one year during the eighteenth century.L21

More generally, many writings from the Tokugawa period (1600-1867)-the diaries of wealthy peasants, government reports, the journals of foreign visitors and village population records-suggest that population mobility was a characteristic feature of Japan during that period. Further, there are other reasons, apart from the literary evidence, to suppose that preindustrial Japanese society manifested high rates of migration. Japanese families practised single-heir inheri- tance, a modified primogeniture, which often required that non-heirs eventually move out of the household. In areas where there was no new land to be cultivated, the disinherited were often forced to leave their village and perhaps even their district unless local handicraft industries or relatives’ farms were able to absorb them. Commerce, household industry and agriculture also expanded rapidly during the Tokugawa period, and these developments have often served to stimulate migration flows elsewhere. t31 Many of the great cities of Tokugawa Japan grew in size during these two and a half centuries and since their death rates exceeded birth rates, one may infer that their growth was sustained by net urban in-migration.t41

Nevertheless, there have been very few systematic studies of any aspect of migration during the Tokugawa period. In an attempt to discover the actual variation in rates of migration and to determine what social, economic and geographic factors seemed to be correlated with it, this paper presents a case history of migration for two Japanese villages in the nineteenth century. My conclusions reveal that the rate and kind of migration depended largely on the social and economic geography of each village: namely, on the type of agriculture, the nature of the industry and commerce, the demographic structure and location

[l] See, for example: Stephan Thernstrom and Peter Knights, Men in motion: some data and speculations about urban population mobility in nineteenth-century America, pp. 1747 of Tamara K. Hareven (Ed.), Anonymous Americans: explorations in nineteenth-century social history (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1971); Tamara K. Hareven, The laborers of Manchester, New Hampshire, 191&1922: patterns of adjustment to industrial life Labor History, 16 (1975) 249-65 ; John Model1 and Tamara K. Hareven, Urbanization and the malleable household : an examination of boarding and lodging in American families, pp. 164-86 of Tamara K. Hareven (Ed.), Family and kin in urban communities, 1700-1930 (New York 1977) 164-86

[2] Minoru Kishimoto, Awa ni okeru nzmin rison genshS (The rural exodus of farmers in Awa Province) Tokushima kiyo, shakai kugaku 9 (1959) 49-79. Other articles on migration in preindustrial Japan include: Robert J. Smith, Aspects of mobility in pre-industrial Japanese cities Comparative Studies in Society and History 5 (1963) 416-23, and Robert J. Smith, Small families, small households, and residential instability: town and city in “pre-modern” Japan, pp. 429-71 of Peter Laslett (Ed.), Household and family in past time (Cambridge 1972); recently, Keio Economic Studies, under the editorial direction of Akira Hayami, published an English language issue devoted to Migration before and during industrialization 10 (1973); Gilbert Rozman discusses migration to Edo (Tokyo) in his Edo’s importance in the changing Tokugawa society The Journal of Japanese Studies 1 (1974) 91-112. The following is an excellent article in Japanese : Akira Hayami and Nobuko Uchida, Kinsei nomin no ksd5 tsuiseki ch?%a (Long-term survey of peasant mobility in the Tokugawa period). Tokuguwa rinseishi kenkyGjG (1972) 217-56

[3] Everett S. Lee, A theory of migration Demography 3 (1966) 47-57 [43 Irene Taeuber, The population of Japan (Princeton 1958) 267; Akira Hayami, Kinsei noson

no rekishi jinkogukuteki kenkyii (An historical demographic study of farming communities in the Tokugawa period) (TOyZ Keizai Shinposha 1973) 225-6; Gilbert Rozman (1974) op. cit.

LABOUR MIGRATION IN JAPAN 107

of the particular village. More specifically, it was hypothesized that the greater the diversity of income sources within agriculture, industry and commerce, and the more balanced the population age structure of the village and region, the smaller the amount of population loss through migration was to be expected. Relatively greater availability of various employments would tend to attract and hold potential migrants, whereas a village or region with too many people, having little or no commerce or industry and dependent on one crop, could inevitably expect to lose population-unless it consistently enjoyed exceptional harvests. Erratic harvests, whether, like famines, in part a cause or effect of natural disasters, upset the best-laid plans and disrupted the efforts of individuals, families and villages to cope with social and economic change through migration.

This discussion will, therefore, focus on the rate and kind of migration as it illustrates the social, economic and climatic conditions in two nineteenth-century villages (mura), Tajima and Kurome, located on the Japan Sea approximately 100 miles (160 kilometres) north-northeast of Kyoto in Echizen, a major domain under the jurisdiction of the Matsudaira family of Fukui (Figs 1 and 2). Each village had a de jure population ~1 of between 250 and 300 people. Although both places were small, they were no different in size from thousands of other villages at the time. They were different, however, in terms of their economic organization. One village specialized in wet-rice agriculture, while the other practised a mixed economy of fishing, household manufacture and merchandising. These villages were selected because their records cover more consecutive years than any others available in the six-volume collection of printed population records from Echizen during the Tokugawa period. r2J Case studies of individual villages are essential to an accurate account of peasant life in Tokugawa times, since a larger sample of villages, if dealt with in the aggregate, would mask and cancel out the change and adaptation to local conditions which make up the unique past of every place.[31

The setting

Echizen ban or domain, present-day Fukui Prefecture, lies on the Japan Sea coast to the north-northeast of Kyoto, southwest of Kanazawa and west of Tokyo. During the Tokugawa period, Echizen was divided into two major geographical regions called Reihoku (region north of the Rei Mountains) and Reinan (region south of the Rei Mountains). Northern Echizen was approximately three times larger than southern Echizen, in both area and population. All of the major inland cities of Echizen were located in the north along three navigable rivers that

[l] De jure as opposed to de facto population is the recorded count of men, women and children given on an annual basis for each village. The actual count, which is not recoverable from most population registers, may vary for reasons of laxity in record-keeping, failure to report vital events and other administrative deficiencies. For further discussion, see note 6, p. 111, note 3, p. 113, and note 1, p. 114.

[2] Takashi Saku (Ed.), Echizen-no-kuni shiimon nimbetsu ZnaratamechZ (Census registers by religious affiliation for the Echizen Domain) 6 vols (Tokyo 1967-72)

[3] Regrettably, the lack of more specific information on Tajima and Kurome villages forces me to speculate on a great many issues in this paper. Information other than that contained here could not be found, and in this deficiency as well, Tajima and Kurome are typical of thousands of other villages of their day. Nevertheless, the overall patterns of migration which charac- terized Tajima and Kurome in terms of the rates of migration in different periods, and the age and sex selectivity of migrants match closely with findings on fifty villages in the same area at the same time

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connected the three inland valleys of Fukui, Katsuyama and Ono to one another. These rivers provided excellent water transportation. Additionally, a number of

good roads ran north and south along the coast and within the inland plain, and west to east from the coast through the Fukui valley, a relatively narrow strip of alluvium which broadens in the vicinity of Fukui City, on to the upland plains of Ono and Katsuyama. In the southern region, by contrast, the major concentration of population was along a well-indented coast and the inland region was hilly to mountainous with relatively little agriculture practised there. The Rei Mountains must have seemed quite a formidable barrier in that day (today, the longest railway tunnel in Japan bisects the range) and because of them, the northern region of Echizen, where this study is focused, remained relatively isolated during the Tokugawa period. The only easy land passages into or out of the region lay northward where coastal highways led to Kaga and Kanazawa.

Although agriculture was the mainstay of the economy in the northern region, the climate and topography of the area made the practice of agriculture difficult.tll Heavy precipitation, in the form of either late spring rains or heavy winter snows, combined with the poor soil drainage characteristic of much of the region, meant that most of the cultivated land was in wet-rice and that the rice was grown in fields of standing water. This combination of unpredictable weather and poor drainage encouraged the planting of early-ripening rice with a shorter growing season. Thus, the agriculture of the region was of the single-crop variety. Double-cropping was almost unheard of because it would have required farmers to elevate their fields to escape standing water, and this would have been very expensive in terms of land, labour and capital. Climate and topography drove farmers to depend on one crop, yet these very factors accounted for a high rate of crop failure.

The amount of new land brought into cultivation during the Tokugawa period was small. The official agricultural output of the region increased by a slight 5,000 koku from 684,000 koku in 1701 to 689,000 koku in 1834.r21 A koku is a dry measure of almost five bushels in amount. Although official estimates of land productivity are thought to underestimate notoriously actual production in most cases during the Tokugawa period in Japan, in Echizen’s case the long history of agricultural settlement, the scarcity of low-lying land for development and the peculiar characteristics of climate and topography made an important increase in agricultural productivity by way of land reclamation unlikely.

In the southern region, Echizen’s disfavoured agriculture was offset by its well- developed fishing and marine industries. In the north, the slack was taken up by a number of preindustrial enterprises which each employed several hundred to several thousand workers. The largest such enterprise was the extractive industry centred around the city of Ono, deep in the most remote inland valley of the region. Gold, silver, bronze and iron were carved from the mountainside and brought into Ono which, in turn, supplied the more remote mining towns with rice, salt and rice wine among other things. More famous, although employing fewer people, was the Echizen paper industry. One paper manufacturer in the north, for example, employed nearly fifty contract labourers in his operation, exclusive of day labourers and family members who worked in the business in the middle of the Tokugawa period. Day labourers steamed, peeled, scraped and washed the raw material-

[l] Nihon Chishi KenkyLijo Nihon chishi (Topography of Japan) 10 (Tokyo 1967-68) 314 [2] Fukui Ken Shihenkai Fukui kenshi (History of Fukui Prefecture) 2 (Fukui 1925) 437, 514


usually mulberry bark-used in making the paper. Women contract workers strained the paper in a water process and generally kept the shop clean while men under contract beat, smoothed, dried and cut the linal paper product. Unfortu- nately, since samurai were the principal consumers of this high-quality paper and since the income of warriors progressively declined during the Tokugawa period, so did the output of Echizen paper. [11 Echizen lacquerware, by contrast, by the end of the Tokugawa period was prospering and employing over a third of the workers producing lacquerware in Japan. One village was reported to have had an astonishing eight hundred seasonal migrants employed in the industry.r2’ These industries were not the only large-scale enterprises in northern Echizen during the period in question. Echizen ceramics, metal utensils and decorative metal oma- ments were also famous industries, each employing several hundred workers.

Besides large-scale enterprises, handicraft or domestic industries were every- where practised. They were regarded as by-employments or part-time work by those otherwise occupied. Even when people moved primarily for other kinds of work, they often laboured part-time in handicrafts. A list of such merchandise produced in Echizen would be too lengthy to include here, but a partial listing would contain all varieties of oils; charcoal; silk thread; silk, cotton and hemp cloth; ceramic and wooden utensils; rope; medical drugs; mosquito netting; candles; nails and tacks; matting and screening; cut and uncut lumber; pots and pans ; sandals and socks, and much more.

This brief description of the geography and economy of Echizen during the Tokugawa period should indicate the need and importance of a mobile labour force. In other parts of the country, where research has been carried out, close to half of the inhabitants of a village who survived to maturity could expect to spend part of their lives in the employ of someone else,[3’ and close to half of a village’s income could come from non-agricultural employments.[4’ The situation was probably similar in Echizen at the time.

Migration in Tajima, a wet-rice agricultural village

ZTigenchb registers,cs’ running from 1808 to 1869, show that the annual rate of out-migration for work from Tajima rose to just over 5% in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, fell to 4.3 % and rose again to 5.5 % in the second quarter, and finally dropped down to 0.7% in the third quarter. The annual rate of in- migration for work, by contrast, changed little during this period, averaging 1-2 %.[6’

[l] Chih&hi Kenkyii KyEgikai Nihon sungyZshi tuikei (Series on Japanese Industrial History) 5 (Tokyo 1959-61) 249

[2] YiJtarTi Tone, Urushikaki dekasegi no ninzu ni tsuite, (The number of workers in the lacquerware industry) Jukuetsu g%hi kenkyii 13 (n.d.) 63,65 --

[3] Akira Hayami and Nobuko Uchida, Kinsei &min no kodo tsuiseki ch?isa (Long-term survey of peasant mobility in the Tokugawa period) Tokuguwa Rinseishi KenkyiijO (1972) 217-56

[4] Thomas C. Smith, Farm family by-employments in preindustrial Japan The Journal of Economic History 29 (1969) 687-715

[S] ZZgenchZ registers were annual listings of persons who were either added to or subtracted from the village population. Reasons for the fluctuations were birth, death, marriage, divorce, adoption and migration

[6] Annual rates of migration are tabulated by dividing the number of migrants (either in- or out-migrants) by the total population and multiplying this figure by 100 to give a percentage

112 W. M. FRUIN

We see three clearly defined periods in Tajima’s out-migration. The first lasted from 1808 to 1823 and was distinguished by a sharply ascending rate of outward movement; the second, from 1824 to 1839, was notable for its sudden drop followed by an equally sudden rise; and the third, from 1840 to 1869, saw the rate of out-migration fall sharply throughout (Fig. 3).

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In the first period, the effects of famine can be discerned. Although this cannot be studied directly since the records on which this study is based begin too late, it can be inferred from age pyramids available from registers for twenty years after the Temmei Famine (1783-7). A twenty-year gap in documentation makes specu- lation risky, but it appears that a fertility rebound following the famine resulted in a rising village population, a rising rate of out-migration and a declining rate of in-migration. Assuming that this post-famine “baby boom” was sustained for fifteen to twenty years, children born in the post-Temmei Famine period would have come into the labour market around 1805, and rates of out-migration could be expected to climb from 1805 to approximately 1825, and in fact this occurred in Tajima.

A sharp increase in manpower following recovery from a demographic disaster may itself become critical unless there are places to go and work to be done for the burgeoning labour force. Fortunately for Tajima, the neighbouring village of Miyarya was able to absorb the surplus labour. Miyaryb was situated only several hundred yards from Tajima and it had a highly favourable ratio of land to population (nearly twice as much recorded agricultural income for only slightly more population than Tajima), and was presumably in a good position to import labour from Tajima. Thus, from 1808 to 1840, and particularly from 1815 to 1830, most out-migrants from Tajima went to Miyarya.


After 1850, however, migration to Miyaryb dropped to a low level and stabilized. There were numerous reasons for this decline in migration to Miyaryb, but the following four stand out. First, fertility increases following the Temmei Famine were spent by the late 182Os, and there was less need for Tajima’s youth to go elsewhere for work. Second, there may have been an increase in opportunities for men at home, owing to a wealthy outsider’s acquiring land in Tajima and employing local men to work it. ~1 Although the number of women going to work in Miyaryo, where they were employed primarily as household domestics, remained steady even into the 185Os, the number of men going there after this date declined. Third, it is likely that long-term agricultural servants were being replaced by short-term labourers at this time .L21 Since short-term migrants were less likely to be registered,[sl the decline in male workers going to Miryarya may in part be a statistical illusion. Finally, it is possible that Miyaryb, also recovering from the effects of the famine, no longer needed labour as badly as before.

In the second period, from 1824 to 1839, while the rate of migration lost and then recovered its momentum, it was again the attractions of a particular destina- tion as well as a famine that influenced Tajima’s rate of out-migration. From 1824 to 1839, 89 of 330 annual out-migrants from Tajima (or 27%) went to Edo (modern-day Tokyo), the largest city and the seat of the military government of Japan. In succeeding years, the number of migrants to Edo continued to rise. Certainly, it is most surprising that a small agricultural village isolated by bad weather, formidable mountains and considerable distance-over 200 miles (322 kilometres)-from Edo somehow managed to send better than a third of her migrants overall and three-quarters of her migrants in one twenty-five-year period, 1840-65, to that city.

A number of factors explain this unusual relationship. First, the Tempo Famine (1836-8) struck with ferocity in the Hokuriku area of Japan where Echizen was located.t41 Like its predecessor, the Temmei Famine, it disrupted normal village economic and demographic patterns, but Tajima was fortunate to sustain and greatly expand an earlier established migratory stream to Edo at this time. Edo was less affected by the famine than Echizen, and many sources describe the great influx of farmers into the cities during famine crises. Once people from Tajima were established in Edo, others followed; migrants often follow friends and relatives who lead the way, and indeed Tajima migrants worked in the same stores and lodged in the same neighbourhoods as their predecessors.[51

[l] Details of the land purchase were related to me by Prof. Takashi Saku, a native of Tajima and editor of the six-volume series of population registers from which the data for this article were drawn. Actual employment opportunities in the village may or may not have increased-this would depend on how the man/land ratio was changed by the purchase- but in terms of a relative decline in recorded migration this might be due simply to the fact that men who previously worked for the wealthy outsider in MiyaryZi and were required to register as out-migrants were no longer so registered because they now worked for a “villager”

[2] This is basically because of an increase in the use of contract labour. See my discussion of this point in William Mark Fruin, Labor migration in nineteenth century Japan: a study based on Echizen Han (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1973)

[3] Since registers were normally updated once a year, those leaving or entering a village for less than this period were likely to be under-numerated

[4] Akira Hayami, Tokugawa k5ki jink5 hend5 no chiiki teki tokusei (The regional features of population change in Late Tokugawa Japan) Mita gukkai zusshi 69 (1971) 73

[5] The notations accompanying the zZgench5 recordings of annual comings and goings indicate that approximately half of Tajima’s migrants to Edo lived in the same section of Kyobashi while many others lived in the same ward of GdemahorichTi. Two stores, one in Kyobashi and one in Gdemahorich5, hired many of the Tajima migrants

114 W. M. FRUIN

Migration to Edo from Tajima dropped off precipitously around 1860, and this seems partly related to the length of time men had been in service there, and partly due to the overall drop in emigration at this time.[ll Some of the men going to Edo from Tajima stayed there only a year or two, but many remained until death. When these men first left for Edo around 1840, most of them were between the ages of 20 and 30. r2’ Twenty years later, presumably many had died and apparently were not replaced by new migrants. This may have been because, over the twenty years, contacts between former Tajima residents who had settled in Edo and their native village had been broken, or because political and economic conditions in Edo at this time discouraged peasants from going there, or simply because there was enough to do at home without going off to Edo. In any event, by 1867 Tajima residents were no longer going to Edo for work, and, according to village records, a sixty-year tradition came to an end.

In the third period, from 1840 to 1869, an overall decline in out-migration, including the emigration to Edo, seems to have been associated with certain changes in Tajima’s population structure: that is, an increase in population size, an increase in the number of households and an increase in mean household size. During this third period, all of these measures were recovering from an earlier drop during the Tempfi Famine.

An age pyramid from 1848 (Fig. 4) demonstrates the disastrous effects of this famine on the population of Tajima. Those aged 7-l 5 in 1848 and born just before, during and just after the worst famine in Tokugawa history were particularly hard hit by the famine. By 1850, when the surviving youth were of migratory age, their group was smaller than in previous years, and contributed to the relative drop in rates of migration from Tajima. [31 Labour was short in the aftermath of the famine and all available manpower was presumably concentrated at home instead of being allowed, if not encouraged, to migrate.

By 1855-60, Tajima’s population regained and surpassed pre-famine levels. Migration rates, however, failed to increase. Indeed, they remained below pre- famine levels. By this time, youth born after the Ternpa Famine had reached maturity, and according to pre-famine patterns some of these youth could be expected to move elsewhere for work. Few did, however. Perhaps they stayed on because opportunities within the village were greater than before the famine; for example, if the famine had killed off some of the older household heads, or if, in the distress of the famine, household heads were forced to quit the village to secure

[l] It is not possible to tell from the records whether these men returned to their native village to renew their work-leave permits annually; one suspects they did not. Counting them as annual migrants, as I and the village records have done, would inllate migration rates. In lieu of more accurate population counts, I have been forced to consider the de jure population as the de facto population. In practice, however, I believe the bias to overnumerate long-term, long-distance migrants is balanced by a tendency to underenumerate short-term, short-distance migrants whose moves fell between census-taking activities

[2] After 1848, when the examination of Tajima village population from Gmon aratame& (a more complete register of population than zCgench5 listings) becomes possible, there appears to be a pinching-in of the age pyramid of men between ages 28 and 36. This probably represents migrants from Tajima to Edo who did not return home. See age pyramid on page 115

[3] Tajima’s population is small, perhaps too small for statistical reliability, and one would like to test the 1848 age pyramid against a normal distribution. Unfortunately, a “normal” age distribution pattern has not been established for Japanese populations in the Tokugawa era


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work elsewhere,rll making way for younger men. Unfortunately, the age and sex distribution of Tajima’s population immediately before the famine is unavailable, and therefore these speculations cannot be verified. Other kinds of information are available to document the causes of the decline in emigration.

One might suppose that, as most out-migrants were male, the village had a surplus of males. But the 1848 age pyramid (Fig. 4) indicates that females outnumbered males 128 to 119. This is the first year for which the sex ratio by age is known, but from the running totals given at the end of each zBgench8 listing dating back to 1808, it is clear that for at least forty years females had outnumbered males in Tajima. r21 The rate of out-migration did not fluctuate with the supply of men in Tajima and evidence from other studies in progress confirms this assertion that men were not much more likely to move for work than women, where their numbers were relatively even.

The decline in out-migration was most directly related to changes in the number of households and in the distribution of people by households. The number of households increased from 59 in 1839, just after the Tempo Famine, to 61 in 1848 and 64 in 1866. Meanwhile the mean household size increased slightly. This growth in the number and size of households becomes more graphic when the proportion

[I] In a larger aggregate study of fifty villages, a great many household heads apparently migrated out of villages in the aftermath of the famine

[2] A normal sex distribution could fall anywhere in the range of 0.9 to 1.1. A good part of the time, therefore, Tajima’s sex ratio is not normal. Although females were more numerous, males predominated four to one among out-migrants. It is difficult to explain this anomaly. In the age bracket 16-39 from which most migrants come, there was no significant surplus of males (58 males to 55 females). There was no overwhelming bias in favour of male births (274 registered males born to 252 registered females born); nor was mortality higher among men (222 recorded male deaths to 246 for females). In fact, as this tally has shown, more males were born and fewer died, yet females were more numerous in the village. Thus, it could only be that men, because of their greater out-mobility, were undercounted relative to women, and this accounts for the consistently higher female count in the village

116 W. M. FRUIN

of population by age and sex who were residing in parents’ households and in service elsewhere is compared with data on the heads of households for 1848 and 1866. It is clear from the following tables (Tables 1 and 2) that fewer men and women were in service and that more young to middle-aged men and women (ages 15-39) were residing with their parents in 1866. The result was larger households. [II

In this period, then, Tajima had both more and larger households, and this was consistent with the lower migration rate. The precise relationship between demographic structures and migration rates remains uncertain; whether migration rates declined because families were larger or whether families were larger because migration opportunities were declining is unknown. Because migration rates are less stable than fertility rates in Tajima over this period, the weight of the argu- ment supports the inference that declining migration opportunities increased family size.

The most likely explanation for this unexpected finding of a larger population coupled with lower migration rates in the post-TempD Famine period might have been increased industrial or agricultural activities within Tajima. A survey done in 1872 reveals that only one out of 58 households in the village at that time specialized in non-agricultural enterprise. ~1 Secondary employments, as opposed to full-time occupations, were not recorded by the 1872 survey, and these may have been important to Tajima, but the survey indicated at least that the pheno- menon was not caused by an increase in new full-time non-agricultural opportunities in the village.

Hence, the increased population size and decreased emigration from Tajima were probably associated with growing agricultural productivity, and possibly with by-employments. From 1865 to 1869, for example, recorded agricultural productivity rose by 29 koku,t31 an increase of 4%. It is unlikely that this increase came from land reclamation. The land around Tajima had been long settled, and no documents mention land development in this immediate area.t*l Thus, the increase was likely to have been the result of increased labour inputs, of people stay- ing in Tajima to work rather than seeking employment elsewhere. If these inferences are correct, widening opportunities within Tajima in the post-famine period partially account for the changing pattern of migration. Some of the widening would have been the result of deaths caused by the famine and some the result of more intensive use of labour in farming.

[l] Normally, household division occurs only when there are enough human and material resources for the branch household to succeed largely on its own; where success is unlikely, division is unlikely. See Chie Nakane, Kinship and economic organization in rural Japan (London 1967) 86

[2] Takashi Saku, Waga kuni no n&on no hattatsu to hembi5 [Change and development in agricultural communities] Fukui daigaku gakugei gaklcb0 kiyo ZZZ-shakai kagaku 9 (1959) 48. Research has shown that by-employments were crucial in many parts of Japan and in this regard Tajima may be unusual, although no survey of the geographical distribution of by-employments exists. See Thomas C. Smith, Farm family by-employments in preindustrial Japan Journal of Economic History 29 (1969) 687-715

[3] A koku is a dry measure of approximately five bushels. This apparent increase in agricultural productivity was derived by comparing production upon which land tax was levied as recorded in the 1865 and 1869 shiimon aratamechc. Unfortunately, Tajima’s shiimon aratamech5 do not survive in a continuous series and thus an exact rendering of changes in productivity during this period is impossible

[4] Various histories of Fukui Prefecture specifically mention that land reclamation in Echizen was quite rare during this century

TA

BLE

1

Pro

port

ion

by a

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ex

in p

aren

tal

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and

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Taj

ima

vill

age,

184

8*

Par

enta

l In

ho

useh

old

serv

ice

Age

N

o.

%

No.

%

M

arri

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No.

%

Hea

ding

ho

useh

old

Wid

owed

N

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%

Sin

gle

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-9

32

100.

0 10

-14

4 80

.0

15-1

9 9

47.3

20

-24

2 15

.4

25-2

9 3

20.0

30

-34

35-3

9 40

-44

45+

1 20

.0

4 21

.0

1 5.

3 5

38.5

1

7.7

4 30

.8

4 26

.7

33.3

2

13.4

2

22.2

::

77.8

2

15.4

9

69.2

2

15.4

10

10

0.0

10

63.0

1

6.0

1 6.

0

32

100-

o 5

100.

0 5

26.3

19

10

0.0

1 7.

7 13

10

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1 6.

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9 10

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100.

0 10

10

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.0

16

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0

Fem

ale

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lo-1

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20-2

4 25

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30-3

4 35

-39

34

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80.0

3

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44

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3 17

.6

4 41

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5 29

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1 7.

1 3

21.4

9

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9 90

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.0

1 9.

4 6

23.1

1 20

.0

2 22

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2 11

.7

1 7.

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1

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132

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34

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100.

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10

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14

100.

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134

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186

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28

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88

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57.1

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63.6

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.0

1 20

.0

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.0

8 80

.0

1 4.

0 18

72

.0

32

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0 32

10

0.0

15

93.7

1

6.3

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0 12

75

.0

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.5

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.5

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0 7

36.8

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26.3

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31.6

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0 6

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6

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12

10

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3 60

.0

1 20

.0

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4 44

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4 44

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6 85

.7

1 14

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42.4

18

24

.2

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33

10

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11.8

17

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1 48

21

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0 11

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.0

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0 F

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144

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In summary, we may note that migration from Tajima occurs in three phases: 1808-23, 1824-39 and 184069. In the thirst two periods, famines and the exodus of labour from Tajima to other population sites were paramount, while in the last period changes in migration seem to be related to demographic and socio- economic developments within the village.

Migration in Kurome, a mixed-economy village

Throughout the nineteenth century, Kurome’s migration generally reflected economic stagnation resulting from famine and climatic disaster. At times, however, migration was influenced by positive factors, such as the development of a new by-employment industry in the district, and Kurome’s proximity to Mikuni, a prosperous port.

1610 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70

Figure 5. Kurome village, demographic rates (persons per thousand).

Three distinct periods are discernible in the history of migration in Kurome between 1801 and 1860.r11 In the first period, 1801-26, rates of in- and out- migration both plummeted; in the second period, 1827-41, both rates rose modestly; and in the third period, 1842-69, the rate of out-migration dropped sharply at first but then rose rapidly, while in-migration fell to a new low (Fig. 5).

From 1801 to 1826 the combined rates of in- and out-migration in Kurome dropped by more than 50x, from 14 per 100 to 6 per 100. This decline was preceded and stimulated by a general economic and demographic decline in Kurome and the surrounding area, attributable to climatic changes that began in

[l] The periods, slightly different in each village due to minor differences in the timing of famine onset and recovery, were roughly as follows: (1) the post-Temmei Famine period, (2) the TempTi Famine period, and (3) the post-Temp5 Famine period

9

120 W. M. FRUIN

the early seventeenth century and continued to the Temmei Famine, 1783-7. In the late sixteenth century, Kurome supported 240 households on farmland with a taxable output of 406 koku. [11 By the time the records used in this article begin in 1801, however, the village had only 68 households and by 1869 only 56 households. This was a decline of 184 households, or about 77x, in not quite three hundred years. Nor did the decline stop there, judging from the rice output figures, which fell to a mere 80 koku by 1900.[21

The decline of Kurome was nature’s doing. Beginning in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, unusually strong winter winds from the Siberian landmass began blowing sand inland. Over half of the cultivated lands of the five villages within the sandy hills district where Kurome was located were ruined, and salt manufacture, which in Kurome had supported nearly half of the village’s 240 households,t31 also suffered.

During this period, much of the population left the village on labour contracts.[41 Some, going up the coast to Kaga, the most accessible region by overland route, left Echizen domain entirely. t51 When the zfigencha documents used in this article begin in the nineteenth century, Kurome had been losing population for two centuries.

Thus, the decline in Kurome migration in this first period was both absolute and relative. Not only had Kurome’s population been reduced through deaths and out-migrations from the seventeenth century onward, but opportunities for migration for those remaining were limited by the economic depression which gripped all the villages in the sandy hills region, within which most of Kurome’s migration normally took place.

Another factor in the decline of migration in this first period was the Temmei Famine (1783-7). The effects of the famine on the age structure of the village were clear in the 18 18 age pyramid (Fig. 6) which shows a noticeable thinning of persons aged 28-33, the cohort born during and after the famine years. What part of this thinning was due to mortality in this age group and what part to the lower fertility of a smaller than average cohort, those aged 43-51, cannot be determined. Thus, at the time of the pyramid, some seventeen years after our record begins, there were fewer persons of an age to migrate than there had been in earlier times. At the same time, the rate of in-migration was declining, presumably because of the slow contraction of the village economy, exacerbated by the effects of the famine.

The second period in Kurome’s migration history, 1827-41, begins with an initial recovery in the rate of out-migration that lasted for fourteen years. The increase was largely due to an expansion of the age group 15-25, though declining opportunities within the village may have encouraged the outflow. In-migration moved upward briefly in the 1830s but declined again after 1837 with the onslaught of the Ternpa Famine. From 1827 to 1831, the population of Kurome increased by 3 % while the rate of out-migration increased by 20%. Most of this difference can

[l] Fukui Ken Shihenkai, Fukui kenshi [A history of Fukui Prefecture] 2 (Fukui 1925) 167 [2] Ibid. [3] Kunio Kanemaki, Mikuni c&hi [A history of Mikuni] (Mikuni 1964) 553. For a provocative

article in Japanese on the subject of environmental, including climatological, change during the Tokugawa period, see: Hidetoshi Arakawa, Akira Hayami, Kazuaki Ito, and Hideo Nishikawa, The natural environment of the Tokugawa Period ShEkkun 8 (1976) 184-99

[4] Ibid. [5] Ibid. 554


FEMALE

KUROME

20 I5 IO 5 0 0 5 IO I5 20

Figure 6. Kurome village, age and sex pyramids, 1818 and 1866.

be explained by an 18 % increase in the age group (15-25) most likely to migrate. In the years 1832-6, the migration rate increased another 26x, but whether this reflected another rise in the migration-age population is uncertain, as the age structure of the population during this later period is not known.

The portion of the increase in out-migration, not accounted for by the increase in migration-age population, may be related to two other factors. First, after more than a century, provincial government aid to Kurome came to an end in 1825, a circumstance that may have led some people to seek residence and employment elsewhere. Second, agricultural productivity of the village was decreasing at this time,[ll and other employment opportunities in the village appear to have been limited as well. By the late nineteenth century, according to a survey of that time, 61% of the population of Kurome was employed in service industries, such as general merchandising, selling firewood, making and repairing fishing gear.c21 Most of these occupations did not require a large household to supply manpower ; in fact, most could be successfully followed by one or two persons. Although there is danger in applying the results of an 1872 survey to the situation a half-century earlier, other evidence is unfortunately unavailable. Accordingly, it seems likely that a decline in agricultural employment could not have been fully offset by other occupations, especially at a time when the working-age population was increasing.

Kurome’s third phase of migration, 1842-69, began with a decline in mortality and an increase in fertility following the Tempo Famine. The rate of out-migration dropped for the first fifteen years of this period and then climbed steadily to a high of 4.3 % by 1864. The initial drop seems related to social and economic disruptions caused by the famine. Not only was the absolute population of the village reduced, but also the relative disposition of persons available to migrate

[l] Fukui kenshi 2 op. cit. 167 [2] Mikuni chiishi, op. cit. 790

122 W. M. FRUIN

was adjusted. Second or third sons, who had little chance of inheriting before a disaster, suddenly became heirs or potential heirs due to the death of an elder brother. Thus, a likely migrant becomes instead a household head, a man of limited mobility. tll The later increase reflected the growing prosperity of the districts around Kurome. The fact that in-migration remained low at 1.5-2.0x throughout the post-famine period was probably related to the decline of the wealthy class of peasants in Kurome.

The revival in the rate of out-migration after 1859 may reflect the reversal of the demographic picture of the previous fifteen years. Whereas high mortality caused by the famine had apparently lowered the rate earlier, high fertility from 1842 to 1858 caused a considerable increase in the proportion of young people in the village. An 1866 age pyramid shows an unusually large number of persons aged 19-25 (Fig. 6). Unless employment opportunities expanded rapidly within the village, a large number of these youths born after the famine would have to migrate out for work. In fact, out-migration from Kurome doubled in the last decade of the Tokugawa period, going from 2.1 to 4.4%.

The increase in emigration seems associated with more than the proportion of young persons in the village. There appear to have been improving sex-related economic opportunities in the area beyond the sandy hills district. Females went increasingly to the ports of Mikuni and Shimpo, both of which were growing at this time, where they worked in inns and restaurants;L21 males, much fewer in number, went northeast to two villages where documentation suggests that double- cropping was practised and land reclamation was proceeding.[31

A further stimulus to out-migration for the people of Kurome was the development of a district by-employment specialty. The onions used to make rakkya, a pickled scallion onion, came to be grown extensively in the sandy hills district around 1860.t41 The delicacy was soon exported to other areas of Echizen and, indeed, to other areas of the country. I51 Since the growing and pickling process was done in the area, but not necessarily in Kurome itself, it seems likely that some of the increased movement of Kurome residents within the sandy hills district was related to the development of this local specialty.

In-migration for work, unlike out-migration, lagged during the third period. It fluctuated at a low rate of between one and two migrants per hundred. This persistently low rate seems related to both an absolute decline in the number and size of households, and a relative decline in the class of wealthy landed peasants.

A comparison of Kurome’s demographic structure in 1820 and 1866 reveals that population size, number of households and mean household size all declined between these two dates (Table 3). Although the overall number of households declined by 20% at the time of the famine, most of this decline, 75% of it, was accounted for by the reversal suffered by wealthy landed households.C61 Before the famine, the ratio of landed households to landless households was I.44 to 1 .O

[l] In a sample of 300 out-migrants taken from the region where Tajima and Kurome were located, only 16% of all migrants were household heads who, charged with the duties and obligations of maintaining the household over time in Japan, were the least likely theoretically to move from the home

[2] This is known from the names of work destinations given in the ZgenchZ [3] Fukui kenshi 2 op. cit. 437-8 [4] Nihon Chishi Kenky’ijo, Nihon chishi [Topography of Japan] 10 (Tokyo 1967-8) 320, 366 [5] Ibid. [6] In 1838 there were 27 landed households to 33 landless households; in 1840, there were 23 to

26


TABLE 3

Number and size of all households in Kurome village, 1820 and 1866

Size

1820 Households

No. % Persons

No. %

1866 Households

Size No. % Persons

No. %

l-3 23 38.3 21.0 l-3 22 39.4 59 21.8 4-5 16 26.7 28.2 4-5 17 30.3 75 30.2 6+ 21 35.0 133 50.8 6+ 17 30.3 119 48.0

Total 60 loo*0 262 loo.0 56 100.0 248 100.0

(36 to 25 households); after the famine in 1841, the ratio had become virtually 1 to 1 (26 to 25 households). Thereafter, landed households continued to decline, dropping finally to only 24 of 32 households in 1850. It was mainly landed households that employed servants ;tll a decline in their numbers, therefore, suggests a reason for the decline in in-migration.

The lag in immigration to the village was associated, then, with two kinds of decline: one, an absolute fall in size of population and households, which was symptomatic of Kurome’s more general economic and climatic difficulties and which resulted in an overall closing down of employments; and the other, a relative decline in the number of wealthy households which tended to lower the number of in-migrating servants needed in the village.

In summary, the history of migration in Kurome village was closely connected with the history of famines and natural disasters. The high mortality associated with both the Temmei and TempB famines seems to have stimulated countervailing increases in fertility that resulted eventually in abnormally large birth cohorts. When these cohorts matured, they were forced to leave the village for employment, as economic opportunities had not kept pace with population in the post-famine periods. This “push” of people out of Kurome was only occasionally matched by a “pull” of persons to growing areas such as Mikuni port and Ikemi and Kano villages in the 1850s and 1860s.t21

Interaction of migration with village economic and demographic structmes

Tajima’s growing economy and population produced different patterns of migration from those produced by Kurome’s failing economy and declining population. Further, the economies and populations of these villages must not be considered in isolation, but should be placed in the context of their environs. Expanding the analysis to villages and their vicinities does not raise one’s com- ments to a general level, however, as the technology of preindustrial communica- tions kept the workday environment of villages small, exemplified by the imprison- ing and debilitating effects of microclimatic change on the sandy hills region.

The patterns of labour migration were substantially different for the two villages (Table 4 and Figs 7 and 8). Tajima, a wet-rice agricultural village, maintained a steady annual in-migration rate of approximately l-2% throughout the

[1] In a sample of over 300 in-migrants taken from this region, it was found that 90% were employed by landed households. See source cited in note 2, p. 113

[2] Ikemi and Kano villages, located about 4 miles northeast of Kurome, were two of the few villages engaged in land reclamation in Echizen at this time. They were across a river from Kurome and effectively isolated from the calamities of the sandy hills region

124 W. M. FRUTN

TABLE 4

Labour migration characteristics for Kurome and Tajima villages

Migration characteristics

Period 1 (to 1823)

Period 2 (to 1839)

Period 3 (to 1869)

Tajima village* Labour migration in

out Range of movement in

out Consistencyt of movement in

out Sex of migrants in

out

3-l % l-20/, l-2% 3.2-5.2 % 5.2-4.3-5.5 % 5.5-0.7 “/, 3.7 miles (6 km) 2.5 miles (4 km) 4.5 miles (7.2 km) 1.1 miles (l-8 km) 0.7 mile (I.1 km) 2.5 miles (4 km) 58% (5 of 21) 67% (5 of 18) 63 % (5 of 19) 84% (5 of 21) 95% (5 of 13) 97% (5 of 13) 66 % female 64 % female 56 % female 74 % male 81% male 54 % male

Kurome village (to 1826) (to 1841) Labour migration 7.7-3.6 %

rut 64-2.0 % 36-3.0 % 2.0-3.4 %

Range of movement ’ Et

4.5 miles (7.2 km) 2.2 miles (3.5 km) 8.0 miles (12.9 km) 4.7 miles (7.6 km)

Consistency of movement in 66% (5 of 31) 69% (5 of 27) out 75% (5 of 21) 81% (5 of 23)

Sex of migrants in 56 % female 56 % female out 91% female 85 % female

(to 1869) 36-1.6-2.0 % 34-1.9-4.3 % 2.1 miles (3*4km) 3.5 miles (5.6km) 77% (5 of 22) 71X(5 of27) 50 “/, female 83 % female

* Data on out-migration from Tajima to Edo have been excluded from the figures here for purposes of greater comparability with Kurome data. An exception is the cell reporting consistency of movement where Edo obviously belongs.

t Consistency is a measure of how frequently migrants went to the same places; here the top five places are reported.

i __ ---/ i ._Ts_- ’ ---‘r ! j 1 ; 4

.

! - Tajima 2

30

t

../ __j_ i _LJ : ,,’ \\ .,

------ i

20 -- ; --.-- ------ !

I t

IO --- j.__ -,

!

_-. j,, y” . / \/ -, - _j ‘

i -1

- 25 30 35

.

45 50 55 60 65 70

Figure 7.Out-labour migration for Tajima and Kurome villages (persons per thousand).


I

I

1810 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70

Figure 8. In-labour migration for Tajima and Kurome villages (persons per thousand).

three periods studied. Its rate of out-migration, by contrast, was variable; until 1850 it was relatively high, 4.4-52 % annually; thereafter out-migration declined steadily to an eventual low of O-7 %.

Kurome, a seacoast village with a mixed economy, experienced a rapidly falling rate of in-migration to the mid-century. Thereafter in-migration stayed in the range of 1*5-2.0%. Kurome’s rate of out-migration dropped very sharply from 6.4 to 2.0 % in the first quarter-century; thereafter it rose again to 3.4 % until the Tempo Famine (1836-8) when it dropped to 1.9 %. In the latter part of the third period, out-migration from Kurome rose to 4-O%, a fifty-year high mark.

In brief, in spite of the Tempo Famine, Tajima was able to continue to grow: population size, number of households and mean size of households all increased in Tajima after 1840. Part of Tajima’s strength-and perhaps that of the district around it-was its traditional agricultural economy. When times were good, marginally productive workers could be sent elsewhere, to places mostly close to Tajima. This lowered consumption at home and probably brought in some cash income as well, in the form of wage remittances. When times were bad, the labour of these people could be used within the village, in either agriculture or handicraft industry.[ll Wet-rice agriculture has a seemingly infinite capacity to absorb larger labour inputs and to repay them by larger grain outputs, although owing to somewhat decreasing returns to scale, the added inputs would result in somewhat less than proportional grain outputs.[21

[l] An unfortunate weakness of this comparative study is the unavailability of good information on the non-agricultural economic structure of these two places. Although some villages and regions could depend heavily on non-agricultural income, as described in Thomas C. Smith’s Farm family by-employments in preindustrial Japan op. cit., similar conditions cannot be assumed for all places

[2] Clifford Geertz, Agricultural involution (Berkeley 1968) 32-7

126 W. M. FRUIN

In Kurome, by contrast, from 1801 to 1869, population size, number of households and mean size of households all declined. Kurome’s migration history was affected during this period not only by its own decline, but also the decline of the district where it was located. Windborne sands ruined Kurome’s economy of rice agriculture and salt manufacture, and thereafter it was forced to rely increasingly on service industries. This dependence on a service economy, however, was doubly unfortunate. When a village is economically depressed, relatively less money will be spent on services. Moreover, service industries normally depend on the business of an area more extensive than the particular place where they happen to be located,rl and Kurome’s only close customers resided in a district that was experiencing the same economic decline as Kurome. Kurome apparently tried to improve this difficult economic and demographic situation by the only means still available: family size was curtailed, the number of households was allowed to decline and, when possible, migrants were sent outside the sandy hills region to work.

A comparison of the social geography of migration of Tajima and Kurome reveals some interesting similarities and differences between the two places. Most significant, perhaps, was the fact that both villages were open; they were in contact with a great many other places through migration. People maintained extensive personal and business contacts outside their native places; peasants were not living in closed and isolated communities. Overall, Tajima sent migrants to thirty places while receiving them from forty-three, and Kurome sent migrants to forty-four places and received them from fifty-four. Not surprisingly, villages important for out-migration were rarely important as sites of in-migration. In Tajima’s case only one village among the first ten places sending migrants to Tajima also ranked in the top ten receiving migrants from Tajima; and in Kurome’s case, only two fit into this category (Figs 1 and 2).

Although migration kept these villages open, the flow of migration was by no means regular. The volume of migration fluctuated with the economy and demography of the village and its district. In general, the flow of migration was low in times of depression and high in times of prosperity. The net redistribution of population was always higher in Tajima than in Kurome. This was related to the greater economic prosperity of Tajima and the greater economic diversity of the area within which Tajima migration occurred. Volume of migration varies directly with both of these factors. t2J Tajima’s area of interaction (including Edo) was larger than Kurome’s, and it included great cities and a variety of small villages; Kurome migration, on the other hand, was confined to an area with less economic diversity. Except for Mikuni, most of the places to which Kurome’s out-migrants went and from which its in-migrants came were similar in size and function to Kurome and most were just as adversely affected by the climatic reversal of the sandy hills region, so that economic opportunities were generally restricted. Net redistribution of population through migration in this area was consequently low.

There were also sex-related differences in the migration patterns of the two villages. Where limited opportunities as in the sandy hills region around Kurome tended to “push” people out, the most disadvantaged groups would presumably

[l] Brian J. L. Berry, Geography of market centers and retail distribution (New York 1967) 26, 35,42

[2] Lee op. cit., 288


feel the strongest push to leave. ~1 Indeed, in Kurome’s case, out-migrants tended to be young, female and poor. By contrast, opportunities outside Tajima “pulled” migration, attracting the more mature male members of the village. Thus, the sex distribution of the out-migration group in both villages tended to vary with the ratio of push to pull or the degree of comparative economic advantage in the motivation for migration.c27

Conclusion

This paper has traced the history and geography of labour migration for two preindustrial Japanese villages during nearly three-quarters of the nineteenth century. Although migration was common in both places, the relative number of migrants, the location of work sites and kinds of work to which they migrated varied considerably. This variation in the rate and kind of migration depended on local and regional conditions.

Locally the degree of economic heterogeneity and demographic age-regularity of the village in question, and of the district where it was located, directly affected migration. Tajima’s area of labour migration and labour exchange was more varied in terms of number, size and distribution of places producing and consum- ing goods than Kurome’s, and Tajima’s age structure was likewise more regular. These factors increased migration potential, and indeed Tajima had a larger amount and variety of migration.

The history of population movements for Tajima and Kurome villages suggests that the socio-economic determinants of local migration in nineteenth-century Japan, and perhaps for other preindustrial societies, were most directly related to minor changes in the social economy of villages and their surroundings. Ostensibly minor innovations, like the cultivation of a new crop, rakkya, in the case of Kurome, could bring new life to a declining village and region. Tajima’s apparent ability to squeeze even more yield out of already well-worked fields illustrates the value of small changes in the lives of peasants. Annual expansion and contraction of village migration streams were further examples of local level minor changes, which in the cases of Tajima and Kurome villages resulted in the modification of rates of in- and out-migration by as much as two-thirds in a sixteen-year period.

Widely occurring natural events, however, were more important than these local social and economic changes in understanding the overall course of migration in nineteenth-century Japan. The demographic variable, in the form of natural disasters, offers the best single explanation for the movement of migratory labour. The Temmei and Tempo famines were the principal determinants of the availability of and the need for labour within the Echizen domain and presumably throughout much of Japan. On a larger geographical scale, then, the efforts of peasants in Echizen villages to manage their economic and social environments were often

[I] Selectivity of migration depending on whether a “push” or “pull” is in effect is discussed by Donald J. Bogue, Internal migration, pp. 502-3 of P. M. Hauser and 0. D. Duncan (Eds). nie study ofpopulution, (Chicago 1959)

[2] The difference in rates between the two places is difficult to evaluate: they appear significant relative to each other, but one should remember that these were small places and that the difference in the rate of labour migration, when it was greatest, was of the order of 34-3.5 %, which adjusts out to 7-9 more or fewer migrants in villages the size of Kurome and Tajima- 250-300 people. These differences, however, persisting for more than half a century, as they did, resulted in significant overall migration differences in the two villages

128 W. M. FRUIN

matched and overcome by nature. These findings support the long-held Malthusian conviction that high mortality levels have shaped the course and content of life for most men. Nature, not man, commanded preindustrial society, yet within the contours of fate set by nature, man persisted by working changes within his world, and migration was one important device for change.

Department of History, California State University, Hayward

Announcement

Permanent European Conference on the Study of the Rural Landscape

Preliminary notice

The next conference will be held in Denmark in 1979, probably in early July and based at a college near Copenhagen.

Conference papers and excursions will concentrate upon three themes :

1. Continuity and change in rural settlement location. 2. The manorial system and its impact on the rural landscape. 3. Place-name studies and their significance in settlement research.

The Danish organizer will be Professor Viggo Hansen, Geografisk Centralinstitut, Karbenhavns Universitet, Haraldsgade 68, 2100 Karbenhavn 0. Enquiries and requests for futher details should be sent to him at that address.

A social geography of preindustrial labour migration in Japan: Tajima and Kurome villages in the...

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