CHANGING ASPECTS OF FISHING VILLAGES AND EMICRANT FISHERMEN

Abstract

In the last half of the 19 th century, coastal fishermen in Japan depended mainly upon off-shores fisher-ies. In the beginning of this century, however, the off-shore fisheries, which were the principal occupa-tion of coastal fishermen, began to decline overwhelmed by the growth of fisheries with a large capital and the development of fishing technique, and the fishermen in coastal villages were in serious conditions. It was under such circumstances that the emigration, especially of young fishermen, to the newly developed fishing ports which were bases of capitalistic fisheries came into notice. (Fig. 2, Distribution of emigrant fishermen.) On the other hand, coastal fisheries have been maintained by old fishermen only on a small scale. There are two types of emigration in the central Japan. The first is found in the Tokai district along the Pacific coast. This district is one of the most prosperous industrial areas in Japan, and the modernization of various kinds of industries in this district, inclusing fishery, has prevailed. Therefore, the district gives typical examples of the declined fishing villages along the coast and the development of new ports as a large scale fishing bases, and the fishermen of the declined villages have found their jobs in the neighbouring fishing ports. For example, the fishermen in Shirahama have found their jobs in Misaki, one of the largest fishing bases in the Kwanto district, fishermen in Yoshida went to Yaizu to work, a big fishing port of the Tokai district. The second type is found in the Hokuriku district, the coast of Japan Sea. This is rather a depressed area with heavy snowfall in winter which restricts to some extent the productive activity of people. The seasonal movement of village people to find work in other districts has been one of the characteristics in this area and many of the fishermen went up as far as Hokkaido to carry on their off-shore fisheries there. With the development of large scale fisheries, the decline of off-shore fisheries has become notice-able and a new type of migration of fishermen has occurred. In the fishing villages of this area, people do not move to neighbouring fishing ports, but go to some remote fishing ports such as in Hokkaido to find their jobs as fishing labourers, because the coast of this district had been their traditionl field of off-shore fisheries, and the migration of fishermen in Hokuriku is going on a larger scale than in Tokai. Recently emigrants who prefer industrial labourers to fishermen has increased in number in the declined fishing villages in Tokai, while many emigrants in Hokuriku villages still remain as fishermen.