An Ecological Study of Bear-Hunting Activities of the Ma Tagi, Japanese Traditional Hunters

J. Human Ergol.,1: 167-187,1972

AN ECOLOGICAL STUDY OF BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITIES OF THE MA TAGI, JAPANESE TRADITIONAL HUNTERS

Jun TAKEDA

Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

The Matagi, traditional hunters of Uttoh, Akita Prefecture in northern Japan, were investigated in 1970, in order to elucidate the ecological and behavioral characteristics of their black bear (Selenarctos thibertanus japonicas) hunting activities. Their hunting activity was shown to be closely correlated with the snow factor which limited the hunting seasons and methods. Though hunters were not engaged regularly in hunting, hunting was generally conducted as a well-organized group hunt, ob- serving traditional regulations, and the role played by each hunter as either a shooter or beater was strictly fulfilled. The game was shared equally by all the participants. The time per day spent hunting varied according to hunting stages, reaching about 9-10 hr in the case of a communal driving. The spacio-temporal structure of hunting activities recorded by individual tracing seemed to have large variations in locomotion and posture. Walking or running occupied from about one-third to more than two-thirds of the total time in the mountains, and waiting including shouting, either standing or sitting, proved to comprise an important part. These variations were presumably due not only to hunting conditions but also to role-playing and other personal factors such as age and physical capacity.

The Matagi are hunters who live by old hunting traditions in the mountainous areas of the northern part of Japan. They observe strict regulations in hunting and wander far into the mountains in search of animals throughout the winter season (YANAGIDAand KURATA1941). Before World War II there were about twenty major villages or settlements occupied by the Matagi hunters in the northern part of the country (TAKEUCHI,1958),but recently it has become very hard to find a settlement where most of the male adults are, individually or as a group, engaged at least to some extent in hunting. At present there is no Matagi hunter

Received for publication October 25, 1972

167 168 J. TAKEDA whose income exclusively depends upon hunting. Generally in most of these settlements the inhabitants are engaged in farming or lumbering work in snowless seasons and in snowy periods of the year most male adults leave home for jobs in cities or towns as seasonal industrial workers. The process of urbanization which is rapidly going on throughout Japan has inevitably changed the traditional mode of life among the Matagi. In pa- rallel with this, young people are prone to quit hunting because of the physical hardship required especially in the snow and because of the old regulations that must be strictly observed. The Matagi hunters have so far been investigated only from the viewpoint of folklore by YANAGIDA(1916), TAKAHASHI(1937), MUTOH (1933, 1969) and others. These works were chiefly devoted to the description of the local vocabularies, customs, so-called material culture (typology of arti- facts), and so on, while ecological and behavioral aspects of the Matagi have been left out of consideration for a long time. Therefore, it is urgent to study ecological- ly those Matagi hunters who have kept the traditional hunting techniques, though they are not so-called hunter-gatherers in terms of their mode of making a living. When I made preliminary surveys for two days at Tamaniwa, Yamagata Prefecture, in December 1968, for four days at Akatani and Kasabori, Niigata Prefecture, in February 1970, and for two days at Uttoh, Akita Prefecture, in February 1970, it was revealed that there were a few aged hunters who were well versed in the traditional hunting techniques, but that they scarcely participated positively in the hunting except those of the settlement of Uttoh, Ani Town, Akita Prefecture, in the middle of the Northeast. Uttoh was thus selected as my intensive study site, also owing to the following facts. There were, even in midwinter, several hunters who remained in the district, without leaving for cities as seasonal workers, and who hunted not only black bear but also other small fur- bearing animals by means of a gun and various kinds of traps or other hunting implements. Uttoh was rich in hunting grounds which were also frequently utilized by the Matagi living in the other settlements downstream along the river Uttoh. Hunting activities among them are concentrated on the winter season when their hunting grounds are covered withhsnow. FoRMozov (1946) put great empha- sis on the influence of snow factors on the life of plants and animals, and I have intended to analyze the interrelationship between the natural environment, especially the snowcover, and the hunting activities by a direct observation method widely applied in the field study of animals. There were actually very few chances for me to participate in the bear hunting, so that only tentative conclusions can be drawn in this paper, and it is hoped that the data will be reinforced by future studies. The purpose of the present study is to reveal those behavioral characteristics of hunters in general which have been neglected in past studies which did not involve actual participation in hunting as well as to elucidate the aspects of wintering. The problem of wintering should be concerned not only with the BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITIES OF THE MATAGI 169

spread of the population into the snowy regions but also with their survival as indicated by WATANABE(1966). As the first step of the study, I have tried to analyze (1) the behavioral, in particular spatio-temporal, structure of their black bear (Selenarctos thibertanus japonicus, Schlegel) hunting activities, and (2) the variation of factors influencing each type of locomotion and posture pattern taken in their daily hunting activities.

METHOD

The basic data in this paper were collected mainly through my actual participation in the bear-hunting activities of the Matagi hunters of Uttoh (39•‹55' N., 140•‹32' E,), Ani Town, Akita Prefecture. The period of hunting bear, the main

game, is restricted to winter seasons between late fall and early spring. Bears did not always appear when I visited the district and stayed there, and complemen- tary data were obtained by the interview and questionnaire methods. The study period consisted of eight days between March 15 and 23, nine

days between April 26 and May 4, seven days between August 9 and 15, eleven

days between November 7 and 17, and four days between December 24 and 27,

Fig. 1. Map of Ani Town. Numbers indicate the approximate location of settlements. 1. Uttoh; 2, Uttohnai; 3, Nakamura; 4, Tochinokizawa; 5, Todorinai; 6, Nagahata; 7, Hitachinai; 8, Kohya. 170 J. TAKEDA

1970, totalling 39 days. During the period from April 28 to May 2 and on Novem- ber 13 when the individual tracing of hunters was carried out, the division of hunting work according to their strategic positions and in relation to the age com- position was studied, which will also be reported for other occasions. The patterns of locomotion and posture of the hunters were recorded while tracing the hunting activities. In this paper, each hunter is given a letter and a number, indicating an ab- breviation of his settlement and his age. U37, for example, means a hunter aged 37 who lived at Uttoh. The abbreviations of settlements concerned are as follows : G, Nagahata; K, Nakamura; N, Uttohnai; T, Todorinai; U, Uttoh; and Y, Kohya. The approximate locations of these settlements are illustrated in Fig. 1.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF UTTOH SETTLEMENT

Fig. 2. BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITIES OF THE MATAGI 171

Table 1. Meteorological records at Hitachinai* in fiscal year 1969. The first day of snowcover was Nov. S, 1969 and the last day was Apr. 29, 1970. The duration of snowcover was 176 days.

* The nearest meteorological station to Uttoh is located at Hitachinai .

Fig. 2. Map of the vegetation and the hunting sites of 1970 around Uttoh settlement.

A : Urayama B : Ketagura C : Todoro D : Maenoyama E : Nokurazawa F : Jinba 172 J. TAKEDA

Uttoh is situated at the foot of a branch of the Ou mountain range and is about 300 meters above sea level. The settlement is surrounded by mountains, the highest of which is Mt. Moriyoshi (1,454 meters) to the north of Uttoh. The vegetation around Uttoh is diversified, as shown in Fig. 2. The nearest meteorological station stands at Hitachinai, 7 kilometers west of Uttoh, and its monthly meteorological records are given in Table 1. Snow falls from early November to mid-April, covering the district from late November to early May. Uttoh is situated further into the mountains and the snowcover of Uttoh is deeper than that of Hitachinai. Uttoh belongs to the heaviest snow-

Fig. 3. The population pyramid and distribution of seasonal workers of Uttoh, as of January 1970.

Fig. 4. Distribution of the licensed hunters in the male population of Uttoh in 1970. BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITIES OF THE MATAGI 173

fall regions of the country. Heavy snowfalls, especially in February and March , frequently interrupt the bus service connecting Hitachinai and Uttoh . Uttoh has 37 households with a population of 112 males and 117 females (Fig. 3). Several households earn their livelihood through lumbering work, while others depend upon agriculture. Of 37 households 32 have rice fields, the area of which varies from 0.20 to 1.50 ha., about 0.60 ha. on the average. Owing to the heavy snowfalls, about half of the male inhabitants over 15 years of age leave the village in winter to work in big cities such as Tokyo. In 1969 the age of those seasonal workers ranged from 17 to 61, as shown in Fig. 3. In 1970 the settlement had fifteen licensed hunters of from 22 to 69 years of age (Fig. 4). Six of them left in winter for seasonal work but were engaged in the spring and fall hunting of bear or hare, while the rest remained in Uttoh even in winter to go hunting. It was also noticeable that there were some male adults, about fifteen persons in April 1970, who participated in hunting as beaters or shooters in spite of their having no game license.

BEAR-HUNTING METHODS AT PRESENT Hunting seasons The Matagi hunt bear in two major seasons, namely in late fall after the first snowfall and in early spring when the snow has become compact. In fall, when bear prepare to hibernate, the first snowfall is of great help in finding tracks. In early spring when bear come out of their dens after hibernation, hunters can walk easily on the snowcover with snowshoes, while it is very hard to find tracks after the middle of May, as the snow melts away in the mountains. The snow is convenient for hunting because it makes it easier to recognize animals and also because it carries their tracks. In midwinter when the snow is still fluffy, bear hunting is rarely conducted because hunters have difficulty in going far into the mountains to look for the dens. In spring hunting the hunters use wakanjiki,

Table 2. Bear hunting at Uttoh in 1970. See also Fig. 3 which shows the site of a bear hunted in 1970,

* The members consisted of lumbering workers . ** I participated in hunting . 174 J. TAKEDA wooden snowshoes, or kanakanjiki, iron snowshoes, while in fall hunting only the latter are worn. In 1970 the spring hunting was done during the period from April 23 to May 10 and the fall hunting from November 12 to 18. The successful hunts in that year are listed in Table 2.

Hunting techniques The first step in bear hunting is to find a bear's kura, the ranging area around its den for hibernation or other sleeping sites, A bear-finding party consists of several persons, all of whom carry guns to use on any bear that might happen to appear on the way. They are usually divided into subparties, each of which is responsible for an area determined by consultations before climbing up the mountains. When a bear is located in the mountains, a bear-hunting party is organized the next day. Shikari, the chief of the party, decides how to surround the kura and how to conduct the hunt when all the participating members get together at the appointed time in the settlement. The bear-hunting techniques can be divided into the following three categories. The first type is composed of two subparties, shooters (called matsumae) waiting at individual strategic sites (motsupa) on the mountain ridge and beaters (called nari) who stay at arranged spots, often without their own guns, and continue to shout in order to drive the bear toward the mountain ridge. The shooter waits for a bear to turn up in his sphere. This is the commonest communal driving technique, called makigari. The next type is composed of three subparties; shooters, beaters waiting at the arranged spots where they continue to shout, and beaters moving across the mountainside in order to drive the bear with shouting calls. The former beaters try to drive the bear toward the mountain ridge, but are ready to shoot it at any time if it takes a different course from the expected one. The latter beaters also carry guns to shoot the bear in case they happen to meet it very closely. The two techniques mentioned above are adopted when the hunters do not know the exact place where a bear is hiding, although they can roughly locate it, and when the area to be covered is considerably large. The third type is, on the other hand, adopted when hunters know exactly where the bear is hiding. Several hunters carrying guns surround the den in a small circle. One of the members approaches the den to shoot the bear inside, while the others assume a shooting posture at strategic sites to be ready to kill the bear at any moment. They are very careful in their movement and are totally silent throughout the action. According to the Matagi of Uttoh, there is another bear-hunting technique which is adopted by a single hunter when a bear is hibernating or comes out of the den in early spring. When a bear is located and expected to continue to stay in the hollow of a tree, three wooden poles are put in front of the hole so that the bear cannot spring rapidly out of it. The bear is said to draw the poles up to itself. BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITIES OF THE MATAGI 175

Another wood stick is thrust into the hole from the opposite direction, and as soon as the bear puts its forelimbes on the poles, it is shot. When a bear is found in a takashi, a hole in a tree trunk, the hunter sometimes puts sulfur wrapped in pieces of cloth into the hole to drive it out. This method was observed on April 28, 1970, but no bear was in the hole. This kind of hunting at the den site can be classified as an individual bear-hunting technique, because killing of the bear is carried out wholly individually, although other hunters may be asked later to help carry the dead animal. Even though a hunter knows as many as 50 dens where bear are expected to be wintering, he cannot always encounter an animal at the den sites with which he is very familiar. At Uttoh it was rarely that a hunter succeeded in getting a bear with the individual technique; it occurred only once or twice in five years.

INDIVIDUAL TRACING OF BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITY

Participants' roles in the bear-hunting activities investigated are shown in Table 3. The hunters usually formed a single party on each day of the observation. Except for the case in which the hunters were engaged exclusively in looking for tracks, the roles of bear-hunting participants could be divided into five types; those of moving shooters, nonmoving shooters, moving beaters, nonmoving beaters, and nonmoving beaters without a gun. Another type, F, is also shown in the table, indicating those who look for tracks. Recordings of the individual tracings of bear hunters on April 28 and on November 13 are described.

Looking for bear tracks On April 28, 1970, I traced U67 the whole day. His traveling routes are given in Fig. 5. 06.20: U67 and I left home. 06.45: We arrived at Todoromagi. Before we got there, U68 had already arrived. 06.50: U33, U32, and U39-1 joined us. Hunters were grouped into two parties. 07.04: A party composed of U68, U67, and me left the resting place. Another party composed of U33, U32, and U39-1 took a different route. 07.25: We turned aside from the road and began to climb up the slope. 07.42: We took a rest sitting on the stumps of trees. U68 was slow in walking and we waited for him for seven minutes. 07.55: We climbed up again. On the way we drank water from a stream formed of melting snow. 08.15: We arrived near the summit of Mt. Ohmori, except for U68. Around there the snow was 50-70 cm in depth and was very compact. 09.28: U68 caught up with us. U67 and U68 rested with their rucksacks on their backs. 176 J. TAKEDA

Table 3. Division of work among members of the bear-hunting party after arriving at their strategic positions. A : shooter with a gun, moving (nonshouting) B : shooter with a gun, nonmoving (nonshouting) C : beater with a gun, moving and shouting D : beater with a gun, nonmoving and shouting E : beater without a gun, nonmoving and shouting F : bear track scout BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITIES OF THE MATAGI 177

Fig. 5. Routes of chasing a bear and the staying places on April 28 and May 1, 1970. Time of stay: A, 0620; B, 0645-0704; C, 0742-0755; D, 0815-0830; E, 0923-0950; F, 1010- 1013; G, 1048-1114; H, 1235-1305; I, 1407-1432; J, 1505-1526; K, 1612-1620 (April 28). b, 0622; c, 0639-0659; d, 0709-0717; e, 0750-1330 (May 1).

09.50: We started off. On the way we rested from 10.10-10.13. 10.48: We stopped walking. U67 gathered small twigs and laid them down on the snow. We sat on them and took lunch. 11.14: We started off again. U67 and I took a route to Mt. Takabamori, while 178 J. TAKEDA

U68 went toward Mt. Bunamori. A little later, after we passed beside Mt. Warisawamori, U67 cut a small birch tree with a two-bladed knife and stripped off a small branch of about 5 cm in diameter and 2 m in length. He had found a bear's tracks 80 cm downward from the ridge, although I had not noticed them. Carrying the stick, he climbed down the slope and stood beside a large birch tree. He agreed to let me come down. There was a hole in the birch tree, 2.5 m high above the snowcover. The hole was oval, 1 m high and 50 cm wide. Then he took out a piece of cloth and a lump of sulfur from his sack. He wrapped the sulfur in the cloth and tied it to the top end of the birch stick. He set fire to the cloth with a match. Holding up the lit tip, he brought it in front of the hole. As soon as he put the pack into the hole, he aimed his gun at the hole. But nothing happened. He said the bear might have left on the previous day. 13.03: We left there, walking by way of Mt. Shibakuradake. The snowcover reached 1.5 m in depth. 14.07: We took a rest near Ketoba and ate apples. 14.32: We set out. At 15.05-15.26 we had a rest on a snowless patch of a thicket. 16.21: We reached a provisional wooden bridge crossing over the river Iwaino- mata. Its surface was covered with deep snow. He wiped away the snow with a wooden stick which was then thrust into the snow on the opposite side. Using the stick for balancing, we crossed the bridge. 16.45: We arrived at a forest path. A few minutes' walk brought us to the place where we had gathered in the morning. There were no hunters waiting for us. U67 made a bonfire, collecting small pine twigs. 17.15: U68 joined us. 17.30: U33, U32, and U39-1 appeared. Although they had come across a bear's tracks on their way, they did not follow them but went further toward Mt. Shibakuradake, they said. On hearing this, U67 told them that they should have followed the tracks. He told them to remain in the mountains until they located the bear. Finally it was decided to go around Mt. Kurosawamori starting at 05.45 the next day. They left there to return home. "

Activity after finding a bear's tracks On the evening of November 12, 1970, at 18.15, T57 telephoned U67, saying that he had found a bear's tracks at Uttohnaisawa. T57 asked him to gather fifteen hunters at the entrance of Uttohnai at 05.00 the next morning. On Novem- ber 13 I traced U68 until 12.00 and then traced U41. The routes of the bear- hunting parties of that day are given in Fig. 6. 04.20: U67 got up. BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITIES OF THE MATAGI 179

Fig. 6. Routes and arrangements of bear-hunting parties on Nov. 13, 1970.

A, U69; B, U68; C, U67; D, U59; E, U50; F, U41; G, U35; H, U33; i, N47-1; k, T57; s, K33; t, K42; y, N22. 180 J. TAKEDA

04.45: He left home. It was cloudy and dark. We arrived at the appointed place at 05.00. 05.10: Four hunters, U33, U59, U41, and U50, came up from Uttoh. 05.15-40: N22 and N47-1 came from Uttohnaisawa, and U69, U68, and U35 from Uttoh. They cut off pine branches with a hatchet and made a bonfire to warm themselves. 05.54: T57, K33 and K42 joined us. T57 explained about the site of the bear's tracks he had found. 06.00: All the hunters present started to walk by way of Uttohnai. 06.35: We took a rest. While half of the hunters took breakfast, T57 and U67 explained to the others how to attack the bear. All of the members consulted with each other about the spots where each should stay in the mountain. 06.52: They were divided into two subparties and set out. The subparty I joined was composed of U69, U68, U41, T57, and N22. The other subparty included U67, U59, U50, U35, U33,N47-1, K42, and K33. My party took the route on the rightside of the river Uttohnaisawa. 07.10: We had a rest. 07.14: U69, U68, U41, and I started off. T57 and N22 took a different route. 07.38: We saw on the thin snowcover tracks of a bear which had been made the previous day. 07.45: U68 and I parted from U41. 08.15: U68 cut off the twigs of shrubs around him in order to see the opposite mountainside more clearly. 08.20: U68 took out a pair of kanakanjiki from his rucksack and put them on. 08.26: We heard the first call of T57 from the downstream direction of the Uttohnaisawa. Soon U68 took seven bullets from his rucksack. He assumed a shooting posture and pulled the trigger as a trial. He tied strings around the top of his boots. Standing there, he strained his eyes. 08.47: We heard a second call from T57. 08.51: U68 shouted twice making a "woo, woo, woo" roaring sound. He shouted again at 08.54 and 08.57. Between 09.06-10.12 he shouted 20 times. 10.14: We heard two shots from U34's gun. In the meantime T57, N22, U69, N41, and U68 shouted back and forth. The members of the other subparty which had been waiting for the bear to turn up to their sphere on the opposite ridge kept silence. 10.40: The shouting voices stopped. 10.42: N22 came to us. We left out position at 10.45 and went toward the opposite mountain. Together with U69 whom we met on the way at 11.03, we crossed the river Uttohnaisawa and climbed the mountain ridge where the other party waited. BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITIES OF THE MATAGI 181

11.55: We met with U67 at the ridge. He told us of the success of the bear shooting. He ordered N22 to return back and prepare a car quickly for carrying the dead bear to Uttohnai, waiting at the place where we rested the first time in the early morning. U68, U69, and U67 remained there. 12.00: I climbed up the ridge and began to trace U41. The dead bear was carried by a sledge made of bamboo branches. U33, U35, N47-1, U41, K33, and K42 pulled the four ropes tied to the sledge. U50, U59, and T57 carried the guns and rucksacks of all the hunters. 12.15: The back fur of the animal became muddy, so they put branches of a cedar between the bear's back and the bamboo leaves. 12.32: They gave up pulling the sledge, for bamboo leaves had fallen off. They prepared two cedar trees, each of which was 2.5 m in length and 15 cm in diameter. 12.50: They set out again, carrying the bear on the two trees on their shoulders. The ridge became very narrow, and the path was narrow and slippery, so that they had a lot of difficulty carrying the bear. They sat for five minutes from 13.00. 13.20: They arrived at the place where we had rested the first time in the morning. They untied the bear. 13.24: A car which N22 drove came up. After spreading a piece of vinyl cover in the trunk space of the car, they put the bear in it. 13.30: Except for U69 and U68 who got in the car, the hunters went on foot to Uttohnai. 13.57: We arrived at the house of N47-1. Taking the bear out of the car, they put it on a wooden board in his garden near the stream. While U50 sprinkled the bear with water from the stream, U41 washed away the blood and the mud on the fur. It took six minutes. 14.10: U67 prayed about one minute after he put mozukushi, three branches of kuromoji tree (Benzoin unbellatum Rehd.), beside the bear. Then U67 put koyori, a kind of a flaying knife, on the anus of the bear, and began to cut toward the chin Talong the belly. After this cutting was finished, six persons were engaged in cutting the fur from the subcutaneous fat. 15.33: When the skinning was over, the naked bear was put on a piece of vinyl cover by five persons. 15.36: Facing northward, U67 held up the fur of the bear with both hands and prayed for about two minutes. Afterwards, the forelimbs were cut off from the body. The rear limbs and then the thorax were cut off. The gallbladder had already been broken because of the bullet shot by N47-1. Then the viscera were taken out. While the meat of the four limbs was cut from the bones by other persons, U67 divided the flesh of the left 182 J. TAKEDA

neck, heart, and liver respectively into three parts, which were stuck on the three mozukushi which had been put beside the bear before dissecting. These sticks were roasted on a fire beside the flaying site. After roasting, the chops of meats were served on the table. 16.15: Ribs were cut off from vertebrae with a hatchet. The meat and fat were shared equally among fourteen persons, that is, thirteen hunters and me. 16.56: The sharing of the viscera was over. The viscera were also equally divided and the allotment of each person was wrapped with straw bundles. 17.05: The auction (called seri) began. Those who had not participated in the hunt were also permitted to join it. The skull of the bear was bought by U68 at the price of 3,000 yen. The bones of four limbs were bought for 2,000 yen by a man who had not taken part in the hunting. The intestines were bought for 700 yen by U69 and U50, who later divided them into two equal parts. The rest of the liver was bought for 1,600 yen by U69, and blood amounting to about 0.7 liter for 2,000 yen by U59. The auction proceeded very noisily. 17.15: The auction ended. The piece of vinyl cover and other materials were straightened. 17.25: In the living room of N47-1, the auction of the fur began. The persons who wanted to get it had to write the price they would pay on a small piece of paper. 17.37: Finally, the fur was bought by N47-1 for 53,500 yen. Then the dinner began in the next room. T57 who was the discoverer of the bear's tracks offered three bottles of sake. The bear's meat with bones were boiled with garden radishes and served.

TYPES OF LOCOMOTION AND POSTURE IN HUNTING

Types of locomotion and posture of the Matagi hunters who were engaged in the bear-hunting activities were recorded when I traveled with them in the mountains for five days in April-May 1970 and one day in November 1970. Each bear-hunting party consisted of from 5 to 31 hunters. One of the members was selected and traced from morning till evening, and his physical activities were recorded. U68 was traced for three days, U67 for two days, and U60 for one day. Types of locomotion and posture observed could be divided into four categories; running, walking, standing, and sitting. The time of each type of locomotion and posture was also noted. The daily activity pattern of each hunter thus obtained is shown in Fig. 7. The total time spent by a hunter per day in the mountains varied from 272 to 626 min. Except for the shortest case of May 2 when hunters did not find a bear in the expected den and returned soon, the average BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITIES OF THE MATAGI 183 184 J, TAKEDA BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITIES OF THE MATAGI 185

Fig. 8. Percentage of time spent for each type of locomotion and posture in daily bear hunting activities of six cases. time of the stay in the mountains was 572 min, about 9.5 hours (Table 4). The distance of travel the hunters covered on April 28 while they were searching for bear tracks was 25.8 km for U67, 27.0 km for U68. and 29.3 km for U32, U33, and.

U39-1.

Percentage of the time spent for each type of locomotion and posture of the total time of the day's hunting activities is illustrated in Fig. 8. Locomotion and posture seemed to be influenced by the following factors: (1) the total time of travel; (2) purpose of the travel and the role of the hunter in the whole party, for example. whether he is a shooter or a beater, or whether he is to find the bear or to kill it, and so on: (3) the number of hunters forming the party; (4) individual differences due to age. experience and physical capacity: (5) climate, snowcover, and topography in the hunting area.

In order to know how each of these factors works on the daily locomotion- posture pattern, more informations will be needed concerning the range of individual variations and concerning the interrelationship between the change of the pattern and personal conditions. So far as the results of Fig. 8 are concerned,

I would like to compare cases ‡V and ‡W, in which the above factors were similar, the subject U67 traveling for about nine hours as a beater in a party of 16 or more persons. The rate of the time of standing, sitting. or walking was nearly the same for both cases, each of these three components occupying respectively more than 30 percent of the total time of hunting. Running was seen for a short time in case ‡V in which the subject ran as if sliding along the slope in descending the mountain. The difference of the locomotion pattern between cases I and 11 and the other four cases might have resulted from the fact that the role playing of

U67 was quite different from that of U68 or U60. U67 did not shout, searching for bear tracks in case I and acting as a shooter in case ‡U. It is thus expected that 186 J. TAKEDA the day-to-day variation of the locomotion-posture pattern of a certain person would be fairly small, provided that his role remains the same.

CONCLUSIONS

The hunting activities of the traditional Matagi hunters of northern Japan were shown to be closely correlated with the natural environment, especially with the local topography and the snow factor. Although the bear-hunting seasons were very limited and the hunters did not used to go hunting regularly every season, hunting proved to be conducted, as it is even nowadays, as a well-organized group hunt in which hunters from several neighboring settlements took part. The hunting method pertained to traditional regulations in which the role of each subparty or of each hunter was strictly prescribed according to mutual consultations made in advance. Not only the chasing but also all the processes involved in bear hunting were conducted as group activities, beginning with searching for tracks and ending in dissection and auction of the game. The division of chasing work after tracks were discovered was smoothly done by appointing shooters and beaters, each of them also being given a role of moving or nonmoving and shouting or nonshouting, with or without a gun. The game hunted was shared equally by all the participants by means of a dinner, partition of flesh, and a free auction. The total time spent per day for hunting in the mountains varied according to the hunting stages and to chances of finding an animal, reaching about 9-10 hours in a group hunt. Spacio-temporal structure of the hunting activities recorded by individual tracing technique had large variations. These variations were presumed to be due not only to general hunting conditions but also to the role playing and other individual conditions such as age and physical capacity. While the time of walking and running varied from about one-third to more than two-thirds of the total hunting time, waiting and shouting, either standing or sitting, proved to occupy an important part of the activities especially among beaters. Since the data obtained are still insufficient because of the shortness of the available hunting periods, only tentative conclusions can be drawn in this paper. The way of life of these traditional hunters is being disintegrated by urbanization processes which overtake even remote areas of the country. This is reflected in the age distribution of the active hunters and the unstableness of hunting parties. More information should be gathered concerning the Spacio-temporal structure of hunting activities from ecological points of view.

I am deeply indebted to Prof. H. Watanabe of the Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo, for his advice and support in this study. I should like to express my thanks to Dr. T. Nishida, Mr. R. Ohtsuka, and other members of the ecological study group in the Department of Anthropol- ogy, University of Tokyo, for their cooperation in the field as well as for their assistance in com- pleting this paper. And I also want to express my thanks to all the inhabitants of Uttoh, Ani BEAR-HUNTING ACTIVITIES OF THE MATAGI 187

Town, Akita Prefecture, especially to Mr. Tatsugoro Suzuki and his family , and to Mr. Waichiro Suzuki. As regards the meteorological data, I owe thanks to Mr. S. Adachi, chief of the Meteo- rological Station at Takanosu Town, Akita Prefecture.

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