<研究ノート>農民一揆後の「付ケ火」と近代移行期の地域秩序 : 熊本県阿蘇郡を事例に

Abstract

Research on people's movements in early modern and modern Japan is a field of history that boasts a vast number of research studies that have been composed from the pre-war period until today. Nevertheless, in comparison to studies dealing with the movements themselves such as ikki and popular disturbances, the number of studies focusing on the situation after an ikki or similar event had subsided has been extremely limited. In this article, I consider the problem of how order in villages and local societies that had been shattered in ikki and similar events was restored and reorganized, chiefly examining the character of a local society after an ikki. The specific object of my analysis is Aso county in Kumamoto prefecture, where a large scale peasant ikki (known as the Asoikki) occurred in Meiji 10 (1877). First, I elucidate the circumstances of local society immediately after the ikki had subsided and the nature of the frequent incidents of arson, tsukebi, that occurred during the period. Next, I trace the process of reorganization of local society during the period of transition from the early modern to the modern period and consider the historical significance thereof. This effort will likely be significant in producing a portrait of a local society that showed 'continuity' before and after the ikki. In addition, regarding recent studies of acts of arson during the period of transition to modernity, there has been a tendency to emphasize its 'deviation' from modern people's movements and its 'violence, ' but in this article I make a critical evaluation of this position by carefully examining the reality of tsukebi. In Aso-gun immediately after the ikki had subsided, the situation remained unstable as many village officials who had been harmed during the ikki hoped to resign their posts and the wealthy class who had also suffered injury were unable to return to their homes. Furthermore, when the authorities began arrests for participation in the ikki, inexplicable fires (tsukebi) targeting the homes of village officials and the wealthy class frequently erupted thereafter and lasted for more than a year. As such tsukebi had seldom been seen prior or during the Aso ikki, they indicate a strong dissatisfaction with government authorities and those associated with them and also a demand on the wealthy for a social restoration of the wealth of local society. However, these tsukebi that seem at first glance to be "deviant acts" that departed from the modern people's movement that had grown orderly, were not intended to incite violence or cause bodily harm as the sites (stables) that are thought to be the origin of the fires were spatially removed from the living space, the moya, and they instead showed consideration for human life and their character was that of a check on local society. Thereafter, the wealthy who had suffered from the tsukebi and the Aso ikki became actively involved restoring social wealth in projects to help the poor and the like in local society after the ikki. On the other hand, the middle and lower class members who had once been the leaders of the ikki made a political return with the development of the local legislatures under the new system of three branches of government where they opposed the wealthy in the legislative arena. Moreover, in the latter half of the decade of Meiji 10, public school education was promoted with the cooperation of wealthy and middle and lower class in Aso-gun, the productive sectors shared many burdens for the benefit of all in local society, and the modern social order of productive classes began to function and became fixed. With the abolition of feudal domains as a result of the Meiji Restoration, restraints on 'private desire' of the wealthy class were loosened for a time, but with the experience of the Aso ikki and the tsukebi immediately thereafter, the wealthy class recognized the importance of justice and social restoration of wealth in local society and thereafter their actions became more restrained. It can be surmised that the so-called "moderation" of local society, whose core was the wealthy class, continued at least until the end of the First World War. In short, although peasant ikki had met with "defeat" and thereafter ikki like movements become impossible after Meiji 10, it was clearly not the case that an overbearing rule by the wealthy "victors'" over local society had become possible. Under the people's movement in which tsukebi lingered in latent form after the ikki, the wealthy class had to learn to act as "distinguished leading families" in local society.