Before and After the Age of ‘Sumiyaki Kogoro ga Koto’ by Yanagita Kunio, Particularly Concerned with Steel and Iron Manufacture in Okinawa（V. PERSPECTIVES ON CULTURAL HISTORY）

本稿は，柳田國男が大正9年の暮れから大正10年の3月にかけておこなった南島紀行の成果である『海南小記』ならびに『炭焼小五郎が事』において，沖縄の職人文化の伝承をどのように理解したかを「鉄器加工」をめぐって検討しようと試みたものである。柳田はここですでに鉄器文化の南下説を示しており，それに随伴した口承文芸として炭焼小五郎を位置づけたのであるが，その根拠となった沖縄の「カンジャー小屋」や「旅の鋳物師」に対する理解は，本土のさまざまの伝承によって説明されているにもかかわらず，あるいは，であるから故に，必ずしも当時の沖縄の金属加工文化の実態を反映したものではなかった。ここに早くも柳田の南島観を伺うことができる。沖縄本島における鍛冶職人組織は，ある時期から町の職人組織として那覇に形成されて，かれらが鍬先の新品供給に従事したが，一方，村々には「カンジャーヤー（鍛冶小屋）」が設けられて「羽地仕置」以来の在村鍛冶役が直し仕事に従事してきた。この制度的な区分が，町職人と在村鍛冶役を分断して，新品製作と再生修理のあいだに技術的な不連続を生み出し，独特の鍬の使い卸しの慣行を生み出していた。一方，先島においては，町の形成がおこなわれなかったから，古い時代から継承する所遣座の鍛冶職人が新品製作に従事し，直し仕事に関してのみ，沖縄本島と同様の方法が採られてきたのである。しかし，この所遣座における新品製作は「与世山親方八重山規模帳」によって停止されて，以後は在村鍛冶役に委ねられ，おそらく，ほとんど鍬・

This report attempts to look at how YANAGITA Kunio understood the Okinawan traditional crafts, as shown in his ‘Sumiyaki Kogoro ga Koto’ and ‘Kainan Shoki’, written after his travels in Okinawa from the 9th to the 10th years of Taisho (1920-1921).In these books, YANAGITA showed that the traditional crafts might have been introduced to Okinawa from the main islands of Japan, and also ranked the story of Sumiyaki Kogoro (a charcoal maker named Kogoro) as a legend that mignt have accompanied it. So his understanding consisted of the existence of the legend, and itinerant workers who whould have come from the main islands of Japan, and, the techniques and customs they whould have brought with them, also seemed to have been handed down from generation to generation in Okinawa.However, although he stressed that the two areas had many factors in common, his understanding of the subject was not based on factual Okinawan history.From the time of the Ryukyu Dynasty, there had been in Naha, the largest city on the island of Okinawa proper, an organization of blacksmiths, the so-called Mind-kari Kanja, and it was engaged in making new hoe-blades for all the villages on the island.However, outside Naha each hamlet had its own smithy, and a blacksmith selected from among the peasants worked at repairing broken tools, especially hoes. This system had come about because of a policy called ‘Haneji-Shioki’.Thus for a long time there were two systems―the production of new tools in the city, and the repair of broken articles in the hamlets―existing side by side.In the Sakishima Islands, no cities nor towns were established and there were no private blacksmiths for making new hoe-blades, but the local authorities organized laborers to make metal implements and meet the demand for agricultural tools.In 1768, the policy known as ‘Yoseyama Oyakata Kujicho’ brought this system to a stop in the Yaeyama area; it may be supposed that this had a crucial effect on the supply of new tools in the islands.The situation was not resolved until the Meiji period, when itinerant blacksmiths from the northern part of Okinawa Islands, called ‘Yanbaru Kanjah’, arrived at Shika on the Ishigaki islands and began to work around the island villages.The traditional blacksmith whom YANAGITA observed and recorded in ‘Sumiyaki Kogoro ga Koto’, perhaps after listening to accounts by the natives, was this kind of craftsman, who put in an appearance during the period of constitutional upheaval when Okinawa was brought into modern society; he did not represent a traditional itinerant worker.

source:https://www.rekihaku.ac.jp/outline/publication/ronbun/ronbun2/index.html#no36