Legends and Community Mental Maps -The Case of the “Kubi-kiri Uma” Legend in the Waki-Town, Mimagun, Tokushima-Prefecture-

This paper approaches locations appearing in legends as community folktales from the viewpoint of community mental maps. First, I consider the intersection of mental maps and legends from the theoretical direction. Next, I perform a structural analysis of the Waki-town legend of the “Kubi-kire Uma ” (headless horse ) to investigate the meaning of the places associated with the legend. Last, I look into the relationship between the legend and the natural surroundings and means of sustinence of the place of origin of the legend, from an examination of the results of the structuralist analysis. As a result, I conclude that the place of origin of the legend is reflected in the two levels of mental maps