The Custom of <i>Ōtaue</i> and the Local Community: The Case of Kawahigashi, Toyomatsu Village, Hiroshima Prefecture in the Pre-war Shōwa Era

要旨

The custom of ōtaue (rice-planting festival) in the Chūgoku Region has often been dealt with in Japanese folklore studies and historical studies on Japanese performing arts. In these studies, this custom has been treated as what remains of old-fashioned rice-planting in Japan or the preservation of a performance carried out before the establishment of dengaku. Research on ōtaue has been driven by such academic interests and many papers about it have been written. The point that most of these papers focused on was not the relationship between local community and ōtaue, but problems related to ōtaue itself, its performance or style of worshipping the gods. The nature of the community within which this custom was held, and its meaning and function in the inhabitants’ everyday lives, were seldom discussed.

主題