In this paper I am analyzing the regional character of the folk culture in the Central Chugoku Mountains area. This region is an incorporating area of Shimane,Tottori,Okayama,and Hiroshima Prefecture. Even though each parts in Izumo,Houki,Bitchu,and Bingo has its own separate cultural traditions since the ancient times,we can verify the strong similarity of folk cultures over this area on the whole. We can mention lots of inter-marriages over the boundaries of prefectures. And most of villages in this area have a couple of families derived from other regions.
Green manure was indispensable to manage paddy fields in the Chugoku Mountains and forests owned in common were available to provide paddy fields and cattle with grass. It is also a characteristic custom over this area to use the grass fields combined with pastures. The ownership types of pastures are divided into forests owned in common by village and privately-owned forests. The latter is the utilizing form which we can trace back to the mountains availed for tatara,that is traditional iron manufacture.
I took two viliages,that is,Yukawa and Fukuda,from Bingo area as samples,to prove the regional character of utilizing the forest owned in common.