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18 The Social Background Relating to the Construction of Shishigakis in the Yaeyama Region, Okinawa EBIHARA Ippei In the Edo period, especially from the 1700s tothe1800s, the local people in rural areas began to make cooperative efforts toward the construction of long walls, which were mainly built using stoneblocks, around their agricultural fields. The aim was to prevent wild animals, such as wild boars and deer, from damaging the crops. The walls, which were referred to by terms such as shishigaki, extended far across the west of the Kanto region. Ishigaki and Iriomote Island in the Yaeyama region in the southern part of Okinawa are noteworthy for their many shishigakis that were built in the Ryukyu era. The objective of the present study is to discuss the social background relating to the construction of shishigaki in these islands, based on the governmental records and the results of the field studies on the shishigaki ruins; the focus of the investigation is on the local officers supervision of the construction and maintenance of the shishigakis. The author studied some records and traditions that suggested that the shishigakis were constructed in both the islands from the middle to the late 1700s. This period was characterized by a rapid increase in the population of the region, and the governor encouraged the villagers to engage in agriculture in order to sustain the kingdom. As a result, shishigakis became a crucial part of the social infrastructure for each village and the governor endorsed their construction around farms through the requisition of manpower from the adjacent villages. The terrible tsunami disaster of 1771 led to a decline in the population and caused depressed situations in many villages. This seemed to have increased the local officers involvement in the maintenance of the shishigakis in each village, to ensure food security. The officers appointed some villagers as igakiatari, those in charge of maintaining the shishigakis and patrolling each shishigaki on a daily basis. The local officers also inspected the plans of the shishigakis before construction as well as the completed structures. On their supervision, the officers primarily paid attention to the adequate length of the wall for the amount of manpower required by each village to maintain. However, the results of my field research on the shishigaki ruins in the western part of the Iriomote Island revealed that the walls were built after taking into account the topographic features of the region and, furthermore, that their lengths did not always correspond to the population of the villages, as was shown in the records. We can, therefore, conclude that although the involvement of the authorities was certainly effective in the construction and maintenance of shishigakis in this region, the villagers contribution was also important in undertaking these processes at local levels. Key words: agricultural defensive wall (shishigaki), local governance, tsunami disaster in the Meiwa period, population change 61

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