Tsuneichi Miyamoto (1907-81) was a a leading scholar of Japanese folklore and customs. He walked over 160,000 kilometers through rural Japan, collecting the songs, stories, and images of a dying way of life, and was an advocate of social and economic invigoration of rural Japan.

Jeffrey S. Irish is a scholar who has long been immersed in life in rural Japan. Irish wrote a column for a Japanese newspaper for ten years and is the author of four books in Japanese about rural Japan. He served twice as "mayor" of a village, population 30, and teaches courses in community regeneration at a university in Kagoshima.

Contents

Translator's Introduction 7
Author's Preface 14

Part One Life Stories
I Meetings 21
2 Folksongs 30
3 Grandpa Kajita Tomigoro 41
4 Nagura Talk 58
5 Women's Society 90
6 Tosa Genji 108
7 My Grandfather 128
8 The Worldly (I): Masuda Itaro 145
9 The Worldly (II): Sakon Kumata 161
1O Literate Transmitters (I): Tanaka Umeji 178
11 Literate Transmitters (II): Takagi Seiichi 195

Part Two Village Stories
12 The Child Hunt 213
13 Tosa Terakawa Night Tale 217
14 Village Meetings 226
15 The Story of Kawame 237
16 Totsukawa Landslide 264
17 Birth of New Totsukawa Village 281
18 The Wanderers' Family Tree 285

Glossary 305