ABSTRACT
Wolfram Eberhard suggested a division into primary and secondary villages. Eberhard "would hesitate to use a word like 'prehistory' for a concept which has no direct connection with history". Niyazi Berkes, referring to Eberhard's original proposal, wonders whether "the actual or derived prehistoricity of a village" is relevant to main interest. In general, Berkes thinks "that we may avoid" some of the difficulties of genetic typology by classifying peasant communities by the type of origin not in terms of time or of space but in terms of 'archaic-ness' of their social composition in so far as it affects the type of social structure and the attitudes and values. Of course, some rituals and prayers and religious ideas were brought in from the great traditions, and most Japanese peasants, at least ostensibly, became adherents of Shintoism or Buddhism. Buddhism within Japanese peasantry has been transformed into ancestor worship.
