Rohu Miki served as a literature instructor at the Tobetsu Trappist Monastery from 1920 to 1924. This paper investigates literary works he wrote about the monastery, aiming to clarify his perspective on the landscape and the focus of his interest through the sound environment of the 1920s. First, quantitative text analysis of the Trappist Songbook revealed that bird songs and wind sounds were frequently heard. Rohu Miki particularly felt a kinship with bird songs and could distinguish between various bird calls. Next, to understand the specific content of the sound environment, passages describing it from the Trappist Songbook, Monastery Miscellany, and Monastery Life were extracted and examined, categorized into “Sounds from Living Creatures,” “Sounds from Natural Phenomena,” and “Sounds from Daily Life and Culture.” Analysis revealed a focus on the sound environment of “silence” brought about by monastic life. Multiple passages contrasted the sound of the monastery bell when describing this stillness. The stillness at Tobetsu Trappist Monastery, where animal sounds like birdsong and the monastery bell overlap, contributes to recognizing a rich ambient soundscape. It can be said that the interaction between monastic life and the natural environment shaped the region’s soundscape.
MATSUDA et al. (Thu,) studied this question.