A STUDY OF THE ORIGIN OF JORI LAND ALLOTMENT SYSTEM

Abstract

The old Institutional Government of Japan, which was influenced by China, began in the 8th century, but its foundation had been established long before. The “Joni System” was a system about land allotment and land allocation for the purpose of collecting taxes under the old Institutional Covernment. However, the successful execution of this system in the 8th century was due to the existence of a land system up to this time. The new system only followed the old system and developed it. The object of this report is to make clear what this older system was and how it was enforced. For this purpose the author has taken two procedures: (1) to explain the history of the ancient land allotment system by making a historical study of the measure and rules of numeration; (2) to prove that the variations of direction found in land allotments resulted from the values of secular variation in declination, estimated by geomagnetochronology. And lastly he has tried to verify the objective validity of geomagnetochronology applied to ancient land allotments by some historical materials. (1) The “Joni System” originated in “Tsing-tien System” of Chou Dynasty in the 5th century B.C. The “Tsing-tien System” was a grid-pattern land project, and its unit of land area was caller Li (about 355 meters square), which was divided into 9 equal sections. But with the changes in allocation and measures and numeration, a new system called “Chien-mo System” came into existence, in which the unit of allotment area and the land allotment were changed. As the “Chien-mo Sustem” indicates the rectangular boundary lines made by lines running exactly north and south intersecting those running exactly east and west, it is similar to the orientation by the meridian and parallels in modern times. As a result of the execustion of this system, a sort of compass was used for orientation, together with a measure. But this compass was not like a modern compass. The compass consisted of two parts, a spoon magnet and a bronze plate indicating directions at 15 degrees intervals. The “Chien-mo System”, which used the measure and the compass, was imported from China into Japan between the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and it built an incentive to heighten agricultural production. Powerful clans all over Japan then obtained wealth and power by this new system and built enormous tombs as a symbol of their authority. The Mikado family was foremost in utilizing this new system in a large scale, and in the 4th century established the foundation for the powerful Yamato Dynasty after conquering local clans. (2) If the “Joni System” followed the “Chien-mo System” imported from China in the 3rd century, it must have used the measure and the compass brought over from China. It has already become clear that the measure used at that time was the “Komajaku” (Korean), but as for the compass it has been overlooked till now. Only Dr. T. Sekino, a great architect, pointed out in 1907 that the direction of the rectangular land allotment might be based on the declination then. But he did not say anything about the compass. Geographers have since tried to explain the morphology and regionalism of the land allotment by means of geomorphology and cultural factors. On the assumption that the direction of “Jori” land allotment was caused by the declination at the time, the author reconstructed an ancient land allotment in Hyogo Prefecture in central Japan. After measuring itsdirection, he estimated the time when the allotment took place by means of the secular variation curvs of the ancient declination. As a result of this experiment, he found several types in the direction of the cultivation of land about each river system.