a filtering and purifying effect on the water. For this reason it can be argued that these systems actually improve the local water supply, with benefits to those downstream.
sharing the wealth of water
At every step, from planning to construction and utilization, cascade irrigation requires very close cooperation among community members, and often among members of different communities. This is particularly true because—due to successive projects of clearing and reclamation as well as inter-marriage and redistribution of assets—a single family’s fields are likely to be scattered and interspersed with those belonging to others. Consequently, simply deciding the order in which fields will be flooded requires tremendous coordination and agreement, and the earthen dams separating one paddy from another must usually be considered assets shared by more than one family. The canals, ponds, sluices, and other major components of the irrigation system require the mediation and guidance of village headmen and possibly government representatives, and they are therefore assets shared by the village as a whole, under the jurisdiction of the village’s suiri kumiai, or water-use association.
The effort expended on constructing, maintaining, and intensively farming the extensive rice paddies goes far beyond what would be needed for self-sufficiency on a local scale, and beyond what would be necessary to secure a good living through open-market sales, because the government has saddled the peasantry with a large tax burden. Officially discouraged from eating the rice they grow, the peasants surrender a third or more as tax, sell some, put some in communal emergency stores, and keep a portion for consumption despite the prohibitions. Through their taxes, the 80 percent of the population that are farmers support the entire ruling class and subsidize the feeding of the remaining 10 percent who live in cities.
The lower slopes of many of the surrounding hills have been cleared for dry field agriculture, but they represent less than half of the total crop acreage. Although these proportions may be reversed in some areas where the market for cash crops is so well developed that tax liens can be paid from crop sales, by and large the lower hillsides are the only land that can be used for other crops once the premium land has been reclaimed for growing rice. Too steep to be terraced for paddies but not too steep to retain soil, the hillsides themselves are divided into two agricultural strata.
The lower level is devoted to vegetables, yams, grains such as wheat, millet, and barley, and fibers such as hemp and cotton, while the higher, steeper slopes can be used for orchards—apples, persimmons, peaches, mikan—as well as tea and mulberry bushes (to feed silkworms). These dry fields may be small enough to be considered family garden plots and satisfy subsistence and community needs alone, but where resources and market size allow, they may develop into truly commercial-scale activity. Many such crops can be grown with rainfall alone, but these fields must also be provided with a water supply, usually in the form of spring-fed ponds or additional wells (with the approval and assistance of the village well association, or igumi). In extreme cases, farmers resort to water lifting devices or buckets hauled by human power.
The hundred or so houses of the village are grouped in loose clusters, with one cluster of about twenty houses here at one end of the valley, along both sides of the dirt road we are following as it descends from the hillside. Somewhat uniform in size and general configuration, they nevertheless present great variety in detail and in the particulars of their layout. While in some regions multistoried farmhouses are the norm, here they are all essentially single-storied buildings with occasional second-story additions and other modifications, sheltered under thick, steep thatch roofs.
Homesteads consist of several related buildings arrayed around a roughly rectangular work yard. The largest structure, the house, is placed on the northern side of the yard, so that it will receive maximum southern exposure. The complex is not fully enclosed but is rather loosely delineated by the buildings themselves, some hedges, a few low walls and pathways, a small garden, a simply marked open gateway, as well as a line of sugi trees that appear to have been placed as a windbreak. It seems less of an architecturally designed unit than an incrementally evolved one, and in fact over the course of one hundred and fifty years it has undergone significant change and adjustment.
There is almost as much variety in the type, size, and placement of outbuildings among the various homesteads as there is among the houses themselves. Here as elsewhere, pragmatism and frugality rule. The wealthier farmers are likely to have a two-storied, whitewashed, fireproof storehouse for valuables and records. There is at least one family with a small, open-sided smithy, where others come to have tools repaired or hardware made. In some cases, home industries like weaving or brewing warrant the construction of extra work sheds and storage.
the homestead of the first-born son
We are on our way to the house of a man named Shinichi. Like most peasants, Shinichi has no family name, and though this sometimes leads to confusion, each family has other identifiers: the location of their homestead—near the bamboo grove, along the river, uphill from the well; dominant features of their house—a large roof, board fence, big storehouse; or job identifiers—roofers, carvers, smiths. Shinichi’s name means “Shin’s first-born son,” and there’s only one person who fits this description in this village.
Shinichi’s homestead is typically modest, with a simple open-sided shed for firewood, another for drying heaps of straw for household use, a green fertilizer shed, one for composting night soil, a small shed for ashes, and another for storing the bales of rice that represent a year’s ration for the family. There are simple roofed storage racks for ladders and bamboo poles, for buckets, lumber, and miscellany. Other homesteads may have special storage buildings for soy sauce and miso, for cotton or other cottage industries, or special work sheds. These outbuildings are usually dirt-floored.
Noticeably absent are large barns or separate stables. Very little meat is consumed, and no dairy products, and the use of draft animals as aids to farm labor has gradually declined to the point where it is extremely uncommon, largely because acreage cannot be spared for growing feed. Stable space for those families that possess a horse or an ox (about 10 percent of the total population) is often integrated into the main house, but a stable may also be combined with one or more of the other work functions.
Shinichi’s young son spots us and runs to announce our arrival. His father emerges from the house, wiping his hands on his short cotton tunic. His legs are bare because it is summer and, like most of the men and boys in the village, he wears only a loincloth under the tunic.
He welcomes us with excitement, and with his wife, Misaki, leads us to the well. She draws a bucket of water and hands us a wooden dipper. The water is clear and nearly ice cold, and we all express our appreciation and compliments, exchanging a moment of social ritual that establishes good will and gratitude for natural abundance. As Misaki hurries back into the house to prepare tea, we sit outside on a rough bench with our host.
