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 mid- winter, 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.

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