Myōgaki Stone Walls
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- Chibu Village
- Remains of the unique rotation farming method on the Oki Islands.
- Myōgaki stone walls were the boundaries of the fields used for 'makihata' rotation farming. 'Makihata' is a unique rotation farming method practiced here on the islands until the late 1960s. In this farming method the land was split into fields, which were divided by stone walls, and used as pasture and crop fields, cultivating crops in the sequence of millets, soybeans and wheat etc., in a four-year cycle.
The ancient islanders have manually gathered, moved and stacked countless basalt rocks to create the walls and work the land, all in order to cultivate grain in times when food self-sufficiency was extremely important to their survival. This effort shows us difficulties of life on islands created through volcanic activity and the wisdom or energy of the islanders.
