People Living with the Sea and Sea Creatures: Nafune Village, Noto Province since the Edo Period

Off the coast of Wajima City, a town at the tip of the Noto Peninsula, are islands called Nanatsujima and Hegurajima. Hegurajima, widely known as “the island of divers,” was already inhabited by people in the Yayoi period. It is known that people were also active from early on in Nanatsujima, which is on the way to Hegurajima. The greatest motivation for people to go to Hegurashima from as far back as the Yayoi period was to hunt Japanese sea lions. In Noto, Japanese sea lions were called ‘Todo,’ and it has become clear that while Todo hunting was held on Nanatsujima even in the Edo period, it ceased in the Meiji period. The main subject of this paper is the battle of the people living by the sea over this hunt or, In other words, the battle between sea creatures and people living by the sea. The Japanese sea lion, which has been confirmed to have lived throughout the sea around the Japanese archipelago since the Jomon period, is currently classified as “endangered” on the Ministry of the Environment Red List, which marks it as particularly vulnerable to extinction. With this fact in mind, this paper attempts to examine the many battles over hunting called Konyu fought on Nanatsujima Island by people living in Nafune-mura, Fugeshi County, Noto Province (present Nafune-machi, Wajima City, Ishikawa Prefecture) in the Edo period, with a focus on ‘nature and civilization.’ As a premise, theis paper also refers to the conflict over Hegurajima Island between Nafune-mura and the divers of Kanegasaki of Chikuzen Province who had settled in Noto. Sea lions had a thick layer of fat under their fur, so oil extracted by boiling the fat was mainly distributed as a commercial product in the Edo period. Fur pelts were also used as raw material for leather products, and the meat and bones remaining after the oil had been extracted were used as fertilizer. This article is also an attempt to investigate the positioning of this in the overall history of civilization in the Edo period by examining in detail not only the battles among fishermen, but also with the merchants and the Kaga domain over hunting and competition, as its commercial value increased.