Bup 6

Hans Dieter Ölschleger (ed.
Theories and Methods in

Japanese Studies: Current State and
Future Developments
Papers in Honor of Josef Kreiner
V&R unipress
Bonn University Press
Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der

Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind
im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.des abrufbar.
ISBN 978-3-89971-355-8
Veröffentlichungen der Bonn University Press

erscheinen im Verlag V&R unipress GmbH.
© 2008, V&R unipress in Göttingen / www.vr-unipress.de
Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Das Werk und seine Teile sind urheberrechtlich geschützt.
Jede Verwertung in anderen als den gesetzlich zugelassenen Fällen bedarf der vorherigen
schriftlichen Einwilligung des Verlages. Hinweis zu § 52a UrhG: Weder das Werk noch seine
Teile dürfen ohne vorherige schriftliche Einwilligung des Verlages öffentlich zugänglich
gemacht werden. Dies gilt auch bei einer entsprechenden Nutzung für Lehr- und
Unterrichtszwecke. Printed in Germany.
Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier.

Table of Contents
PREFACE ...........................................................................................................7
Ronald DORE
Japan – Sixty Years of Modernization? .........................................................11
KUWAYAMA Takami
Japanese Anthropology and Folklore Studies................................................25
ITŌ Abito
The Distinctiveness and Marginality of Japanese Culture .............................43
FUKUTA AJIO
How the Task of Studying Yanagita Kunio Has Developed..........................63
ISHIGE Naomichi
Historical Survey of the Food Culture ...........................................................75
Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER

The Cultural Turn in German Japanese Studies.............................................91
Klaus ANTONI
The Divine Country: On State and Religion in Modern Japan ....................101
Sepp LINHART
The Study of Japanese Values .....................................................................123
Axel KLEIN
Studies on the Japanese Political System.....................................................141
Ralph LÜTZELER
German Geographical Research on Japan ...................................................153
SASAKI Kōmei
The Origins of Japanese Ethnic Culture – Looking Back and
Forward........................................................................................................167
5
Table of Contents
Patrick HEINRICH
Casting Light on the Past: Lessons on the Origin and Formation of
Japanese-Ryūkyūan..................................................................................... 185
TAKARA Kurayoshi
Mainstream and Future Tasks of Studies in Ryūkyūan History.................. 205
Gregory SMITS
Ryūkyū’s Relations with China and Japan.................................................. 215
Rosa CAROLI
Recent Trends in Historiography on Modern Okinawa .............................. 229
Ulrike SCHAEDE
Japan’s Business Practices in the 21st Century........................................... 251
Karl August NEUHAUSEN

Ultima Orientis Thule Reconsidered........................................................... 271
Wolfgang MICHEL
Medicine and Allied Sciences in the Cultural Exchange ............................ 285
Christian OBERLÄNDER
Japan’s Deutschlandpolitik in the Postwar Period ...................................... 303
Claudius C. MÜLLER
Museums of Ethnology and Japanese Studies............................................. 313
Timon SCREECH
An Iconography of Nihon-bashi.................................................................. 323
Justin STAGL
Japan As the Other – A Personal Account .................................................. 337
Harumi BEFU
Consumer Nihonjinron................................................................................ 345
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS............................................................................... 357
6
Preface
On February 2 and 3, 2006, the Institute of Japanese Studies / Center for

Modern Japanese Studies at the University of Bonn convened an international
symposium, »State, Current Developments, and Future Tasks in Japanese
Studies« at the University Club in Bonn. The immediate reason for this sym-
posium was the retirement of Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Josef Kreiner, the speaker of
the Center for Modern Japanese Studies and for decades – with an interrup-
tion of eight years because of his position as founding director of the German
Institute for Japanese Studies between 1988 and 1996 – managing director of
the Institute of Japanese Studies at Bonn University. 19 colleagues and
friends of Prof. Kreiner from all over the world, led by the doyen of Japanese
Studies, Ronald Dore, presented papers on various aspects of the broad range
of interest of Professor Kreiner, such as »Anthropology, Ethnology, and
Folklore Studies«, »Ethnogenesis, Ryūkyū, and Ainu Studies«, and »Images
of Japan, the Role of Museums and Collections, and Japanese-European
Contacts«, as the various parts of this symposium were named. At the end of
the symposium, those present unanimously decided to publish the proceed-
ings in honor of Prof. Kreiner.
The aforementioned threefold structure of the symposium is reflected in
this volume, although some papers – from a variety of reasons – could not be
included here. On the other hand, some colleagues and friends of Prof.
Kreiner who were not present at the symposium in Bonn volunteered to con-
tribute papers covering selected aspects of these topics. The results of this
joint effort to honor Prof. Kreiner and his contributions to Japanese Studies
are presented in this book.
Finally the editor would like to thank the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms-
University of Bonn, which has made possible the symposium in February
2006 as well as the publication of this book by a generous grant. Dr. Carole
Gee and Jeanne Haunschild, both from Bonn, read and corrected several
contributions to this volumes. To both of them, the editor offers his sincerest
thanks. And last but not least, thanks go to Tomoe Steineck, Jeanne Haun-
schild, and members of the Center for Intercultural Communation in Tokyo,
who translated several contributions from the Japanese.
Hans Dieter Ölschleger Bonn, September 2007
7
Preface
Note: For Japanese, Chinese, and other East Asian names, we generally
follow the convention of writing the surname first, followed by the given
name, without a comma separating them. The sole exceptions to this rule are:
(1) names in »References Cited«; here – for reasons of uniformity – the
names are consistently written in the European order and separated by a
comma if the order is inverted; (2) names of Europeans or Americans of
Asian descent; these names are written in the European order.
For the transliteration of Japanese words, the Hepburn system is used; for
Chinese, the Pinyin. In place names, long vowels in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka,
and Kobe have not been marked.
The style of the individual papers has been preserved, therefore standardi-
zation by the editor has been kept at a minimum.
8
Key Note Speech
Ronald Dore
Japan – Sixty Years of Modernization?
It is a great honor and pleasure to be invited to celebrate Josef Kreiner’s

non-retirement. At this distance I don’t very clearly recall what we talked
about when he and Sepp Linhart invited me to Vienna thirty or forty years
ago. All I vaguely remember are pleasant strolls along the banks of the Da-
nube. But I am sure that whatever our talk was, part of our sense of rapport
sprang from our shared experience of having passed from wondering at the
exotic ways of Japanese villagers to finding ourselves comfortably at home
with them. We also shared an acquaintance with the ebullient Oka Masao
whose enthusiastic presence did so much to get Japanese studies going in
Vienna. Nor do I remember what I lectured on, but I am sure that it wasn’t
quite such a demanding subject as the one he has asked me to talk about
today: namely what Japanese studies mean for the world today.
Unfortunately I cannot speak for the world today, I can only say what Japa-
nese studies mean for me, and what I think Japanese studies ought to mean for
the world today. We all have our own Japans, our own personal Japan-
problematik, and what are universities for if not to keep the spirit of curiosity
alive by giving free range to individual curiosities? But there is one particular
question which has been tantalizing me for most of my adult life. It is a ques-
tion which has preoccupied a lot of influential thinkers, from Condorcet to
Weber, from Morgan to Marx, from Spencer to Fukuyama. It is also a question
which ought to be of concern to anyone interested in the long-term future of the
human race. Put in its simplest and most abstract form it is this: is there any
inevitability about the direction of social evolution? More elaborately, it goes
like this. There is one undeniably cumulative and uni-directional trend in the
history of world societies over the last millennium, namely the steady – and for
the last century vastly accelerating – accumulation of scientific knowledge and
its technological application. Is there any reason for thinking that this has inevi-
table and perhaps equally unilinear consequences for social relations and pat-
terns of governance? And if so, are these consequences the same everywhere?
And are those changes aptly summed up as increasing individuation, accompa-
nied by increasing individualism?
Postwar Japan’s Search for Modernity

It is a question which was very much in my mind when I wrote my first
book about a tiny 300-hundred household district of Tokyo in 1950. My
11
Ronald Dore
investigations in that ward were punctuated by visits, often with groups of

sociological researchers, to rural areas, to what people often told me was »the
real Japan« – in Viennese terms, the Japan of the Volk. At the same time I
was still occasionally picking up material for a doctoral thesis on education in
the Edo period, and that gave me some notion of the social structure of pre-
Meiji Japan and the extent of the changes that a near-century of industrializa-
tion and westernization had brought about. A good deal of the book was
about trying to distinguish between industrialization and westernization –
sorting out the processes of cultural diffusion from the processes by which
changes in the means of production bring changes in the social relations of
production; in Austro-German terms, Father Schmidt versus Marx, if you
like.
That smattering of knowledge about Tokugawa Japan was also extremely
useful in understanding the Japan of 1950, because »feudal« was a word still
commonly bandied about as a label used to castigate any social practice that
was deemed undemocratic, unenlightened and unmodern. Employers who
objected to the formation of trade unions, and fathers who insisted that their
daughters should come home before 10 o’clock were alike branded as »feu-
dal«. For Japanese social scientists who knew their German sociology, their
Toennies and their Weber as well as their Marx, Gemeinschaft and Gesell-
schaft were everyday terms, and the manifestations of gemeinschaft-
lich/groupishness were condemned as nothing but hangovers of feudalism.
There was a harking back to the early Meiji spirit of »civilization and enlight-
enment«. Fukuzawa Yukichi and his denunciations of the dead-hand of feu-
dal Confucianism and its suppression of individuality had a great vogue.
Some of the favourite terms of the reformers seeking to create a modern
democratic Japan were jishusei and shutaisei, autonomy and agency. It was
through freeing individuals from the trammeling bonds of community and
cultivating independence of spirit – refusing, that is, to afford that deference
to hierarchical authority which was seen as inherent in the Japanese tradi-
tional community – it was only thus that Japan could and should make its
way to modernity.
Unique Japan?
But most people were ambivalent about how this could be done. For this
thinking in terms of historical stages through which societies evolve, often
went along with a vague assumption of Japan’s cultural uniqueness. Anyone
writing about Japanese society in the 1950s was in some sense engaged in a
dialogue with the arch-exponent of the cultural uniqueness assumption, Ruth
Benedict, whose The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946) was then, by a
long chalk, the most influential interpretation of Japanese society. When I got
12
back to London in 1951, the first thing the sociologists at the London School
of Economics asked me to give a seminar on was Benedict’s book.
The easy and comfortable relations I had with my Japanese friends made
me very skeptical about the uniqueness business. In my book about the To-
kyo ward, I remember writing a long passage arguing that the notion of giri,
which according to her was »[one of the most curious] of all the strange cate-
gories of moral obligations which anthropologists find in the culture of the
world« and something »specifically Japanese« (Benedict 1946: 133), was in
fact perfectly familiar to any Englishman. What was different was the social
structure and pattern of social relations which made the relative importance
of the type of obligation it connoted – relative, that is, to other forms of
obligation – rather different as between Japan and Britain.
For my money, a more helpful guide to understanding Japan was David
Riesman and the notions he had elaborated in his book The Lonely Crowd
(1950) about the evolution of American society. He had built on Weber’s
notions of how, from the hierarchical community-centered society of feudal
Catholicism, the emergence of individualism took the form of the Protestant
ethic, which both formed and was reinforced by early capitalism. Early capi-
talism, when economic activity was based on the family farm and the owner-
managed small business was indeed, said Riesman, the era of the inner-
directed man, proud of his independence, constrained neither by priests nor
community gossip, but by the guiding light of his own conscience. By the
late 20th century, however, that individualism was outmoded. This was the
era of the big corporation, big bureaucratic organizations, public and private.
Organization man was other-directed man, the man who had learned the
virtues of conformity. The virtues of individualistic democracy based on
independent conscientious thought, which the American Occupation was
trying to transplant to Japan were the product of an earlier era, a moral legacy
kept dubiously alive by sheer inertia.
The Skipped-Over Stage

That organization man thesis looks a bit dubious today as a description of
contemporary America. American organizations have imported the principles
of market individualism. They have become more and more organized on the
basis of interpersonal competition and performance rewards rather than loyal-
ty, trust, seniority or a sense of shared destiny. But at the time it seemed plau-
sible enough, and I ended the book by quoting an influential left-wing writer
at the time, the human geographer Iizuka Kōji (1952: 63): It is striking, he
said, how much more often we hear the word democratization than the words
liberalism and individualism. Maybe, he said, that is because a lot of left-
wing Japanese hope for a socialist rather than a capitalist future. But such
hankering after the security of a socialist society was only another manifesta-
13
Ronald Dore
tion of the spirit of dependency. You were only entitled to get to socialism if
you had been through the baptism of liberalism and individualism. The Japa-
nese he said were trying to get a democratic society while skipping over what
he called the »process of individual reformation in the field of conscious-
ness« which should precede and underpin it.
In quoting this I noted that for a Westerner to assume, as Professor Iizuka
assumed, that the Japanese had to become just like us, and that if they had
skipped important stages in the evolution of Western society that was some-
thing they had to make up for -take a make-up exam, as it were – might seem
a bit like arrogant ethnocentrism. But anyway, that was how the Japanese did
see it, as was evident in the frequency with which they classified Japan as a
koshinkoku – a backward country or a following-behind country, not yet up
to the standards of civilization of the senshinkoku, the advanced countries.
But my final word was about the nationalism factor: OK, I said, the Japan-
ese consensus, under the overwhelming influence of the Americans, was that
they had to become »just like us«. And maybe they will succeed. But one can
hardly expect the period to last indefinitely in which the nation is pre-
pared to take its values from, and measure its achievements by the yard-
stick of, other countries. Eventually a sensitive amour-propre may com-
bine with entrenched interests to develop new goals of a different – a
»truly Japanese« – kind, and to create a new sort of society and a new
sort of political regime in which the old forms of dependency are subtly
combined with the new. (DORE 1999: 393)
The Economic Success Story

Well, by the end of the 1980s that new sort of society, that distinctively
Japanese-type industrial society, had arrived. And, in a way that nobody had
envisaged in the 1950s, it was a rich, industrially and financially powerful
society. The Japanese phenomenon brought many more social scientists, in
Japan and elsewhere, flocking into the field of Japanese studies. The concern
was first to explain, second to evaluate. Explanation fell into two broad cate-
gories. On the one band there was the sociologists’ question: how does one
explain the distinctiveness; explain why Japanese corporations and market
regulation got to be so different from those in other industrial societies? And
secondly, the economists’ question: how do you explain the success, the high
growth rates?
On the distinctiveness question there were four main strands of explana-
tion – competing strands, often, because academics always like sparring with
other academics, but in fact complementary strands. The first was the stages
of evolution explanation. Japan was showing an odd combination of modern
industrial technology and the hangover of feudalism – much as Veblen, pro-
phetically at the time of the Second World War, argued that Japan had a
unique opportunity for successful military imperialism in combining ad-
14
vanced military technology with an absurd ethic of fanatical sacrificial loy-

alty. The second was in terms of a distinctive, inherited, and permanently
unchanging culture; low levels of individuation and the weak strength of
individualistic norms, a propensity for group commitment, the emphasis on
group harmony and the avoidance of conflict, the acceptance of hierarchy,
high levels of generalized trust, etc. The third was in terms of late develop-
ment, the particular circumstances of a country industrializing by learning
from other already industrialized countries: being able to learn from others’
mistakes, notably by avoiding class conflict; being able to adopt the latest
and most enlightened organizational techniques unhampered by the institutio-
nal baggage of the past; giving full importance to education and meritocratic
social mobility; creating a strong bureaucratic elite and legitimizing govern-
ment planning and industrial policy regulation by the nationalist drive to
catch up. The fourth strand was in terms of particular idiosyncratic historical
circumstances, notably the brief outburst of class politics and industrial strife
after the Second World War and the search for a more egalitarian pattern of
development as a necessary compromise.
As for the success question, the battle was between those who thought that
many of these distinctive features, notably government industrial policy, had
contributed largely to Japan's high growth rates, and doctrinaire American
neo-liberals who argued that it was, in fact, the entrepreneurial vigor Japan-
ese displayed in their competitive domestic markets which explained their
success – success which they had achieved in spite of the mistaken interfer-
ence of an over-bearing state in the name of industrial policy. The argument
got rather contorted by the fact that these Reaganite economists were also
American patriots who wanted to argue that it was indeed the distinctive
characteristics of the Japanese economy which gave them an unfair advan-
tage and allowed them to gobble up market share in the United States. This
line of reasoning led at the end of the 1980s to what was known as the Struc-
tural Impediments Initiative – a marathon series of negotiations in which the
Americans tried to persuade the Japanese that many of their institutions and
business practices should be altered to make it easier for American firms to
penetrate Japan in the way that Japanese firms were penetrating America.
Those negotiations had no small effect on the changes – what their authors,
together with the enthusiastic chorus of the Western business press called the
»reforms« – of the last fifteen years.
Japan: A Successful, But Also a Good Society?

As for the evaluation, what you thought of Japan depended on where you
stood. For left-wing writers Japan was a repressive society in which the
bosses had co-opted and corrupted the trade union movement and condemned
workers to a life of unremitting toil; a thriving economy in a cultural and
15
Ronald Dore
political desert to Americans like Ezra Vogel whose Japan as Number One
(1979) became a Japanese best seller, Japan had many virtues which America
would do well to imitate – its educational system, its civil service system, the
way it dealt with crime – and its industrial policy.
For me, the evaluation of the Japan of the 1980s was bound up with the
growing awareness of just how naive it was to have talked about »westerniza-
tion« in that 1950s book, about the Japanese becoming »just like us«, about
Japanese ambitions to make Japan just like any other Western society. I had
learned, not least from the experience of living in Mrs. Thatcher’s Britain as
it was becoming a part of Europe, just how importantly Western societies
differed from each other. And I had learned that arguing about the virtues and
the vices of Japan was in effect to argue about some of the central political
issues of our own societies – what should be the balance between competition
and cooperation; how does one resolve the tension between the demands for
individual freedom and the demand for shared collective benefits which can-
not be had without renouncing particular individual freedoms; how much
inequality of income, power and prestige should society allow in order to
provide individuals with the incentives which make the collective benefits
possible.
I find this in the preface to a book on individualism which I wrote in 1990:
For anyone with half a sense of citizenship, writing at the end of the
1980s, a detached, dispassionate treatment [...] of individualism is hardly
possible. No one could be wholly indifferent to the political passions of a
decade in which the collectivist claims of the state were so conspicu-
ously rolled back in so many countries – the decade when Britain's top-
rate income tax fell from eighty-three to forty percent, while Britain
came to accept an unemployment figure of two million as hardly an elec-
tion issue; a decade which saw America create fifty billionaires and one
hundred thousand decamillionaires, while millions of other Americans
slipped below the poverty line; a decade which witnessed the apparent
conversion of half the world from East Berlin to Shanghai from the view
that economies could be run through public-spirited service to the social
good in collectively owned organizations, to the view that economies
only prosper if they give wide scope to individual self-seeking and let
the invisible band of the market do the coordinating.
And, one should add, the decade in which an unindividualistic Japan, and
a Germany which is arguably the least individualistic country of Europe,
confirmed beyond much doubt the superior efficiency of their economies
in almost any kind of fair competition for world markets. (DORE 1991:
6/246)
I thought at the time that on those crucial issues – the balance between com-
petition and cooperation, between individual rights and the claims of society,
between incentives and equality – Japan had more or less got it right in very
much the same way as the Scandinavian societies seemed to have got it right. By
16
contrast the United States, Britain, and the other Anglo-Saxon societies seemed to
be increasingly getting the balance wrong – tipping it too far in the direction of
market individualism, ever more competition, incentives at the cost of rising
inequality. And it certainly seemed at the time that the Japanese recipe, like the
Scandinavian or the German recipe was not only a recipe for a decent society, but
also a means to superior economic performance.
The Turn of the Tide

So much for the world in 1990. And then what happened in Japan, of
course, was the bursting of the asset price bubble; a debt-overhang recession;
what seemed like a steady recovery until the middle of the decade, followed
in 1997 by new disasters: a new recession set off by fiscal tightening, the en-
trenchment of deflation, the Asian crisis, and a big bank failure all coming
together and producing a deep sense of gloom and loss of national self-con-
fidence – all that just as the American economy started booming.
The end result has been a series of changes which have quite seriously al-
tered those balances that I talked of – between individual freedom and the
claims of society, between competition and cooperation, between incentives
and equality. »Privatization«, »small government«, the neo-liberal slogans
which various Japanese governments of the 1980s had endorsed as part of
their admiration for Ronald Reagan without any very great conviction, now
become actual touchstones of policy. Deregulation broke up many of the
arrangements which had prevented competition from being cut-throat compe-
tition; the hollowing-out of the shuntō wage-bargaining system destroyed the
Japanese version of incomes policy; bureaucrat-bashing and privatization
bumped up the moral standing of profit-seeking and poured scorn on the
notion of public service; labor market reforms increased the life-chance gap
between those in secure and those in insecure employment.
Fundamental Change in the Japanese Firm

But the biggest change of all was the shift away from the established Ja-
panese corporate system in which lifetime employment conventions and a
system of mutual cross-shareholding had created semi-community-like firms
run primarily for the benefit of customers and employees. Managers in 1990
saw themselves as something like the eiders of the firm community. Share-
holders were treated as just one outside constituency that the firm had to keep
happy as they had to keep their banks and their suppliers and their distribut-
ors happy.
Since then, there has been a decisive shift away from that conception of
the firm towards the belief that firms should be run according to what has,
over the last twenty years, become the American orthodoxy, the doctrine of
shareholder value. Managers are increasingly seen simply as the agents of
17
Ronald Dore
shareholder principals. Their duty is to maximize shareholder returns, getting

as much as they can out of the work force for as little a wage cost as they can
manage without impairing the quality of their work. The stock exchange
where these shareholders meet and buy and sell their properties has become
the central institution of the economy, the barometer by which the health of
the economy is measured, the nation’s playground where two and a half mil-
lion Japanese citizens have accounts with the internet stockbrokers.
The change is all in one consistent direction – to favor shareholders at the
expense of employees and to make Japanese firms more like American firms.
It is far from complete: some would argue that it has been marginal. A law
designed to encourage firms to adopt a system of governance which gives
external directors a dominant voice on company boards and expects them to
act as representatives of the shareholders has so far attracted only a tiny mi-
nority of firms even though it is a significant minority. Managers use more
and more contract and temporary labor, but are still reluctant to fire workers
they have accepted as regular employees, and are still keen to offer the pros-
pect of lifetime careers to key staff. But pleasing shareholders to keep up
their share-price has leapt to the top of many managers’ priorities; consulta-
tion with the unions has been downgraded and wage and salary differentials
have greatly increased. Japan no longer stands out as a society with a relat-
ively egalitarian income distribution.
So, once again, explanation and evaluation are called for. As far as I am
concerned evaluation is simple. The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times
and the Economist all applaud these changes as changes for the better, and
say they have not gone far enough. I take precisely the opposite view.
The difference lies primarily in criteria of judgment, political values. It is
accompanied, however, by a difference in interpretation of the significance of
these changes. The business press and the Japanese establishment are apt to
describe the current economic situation as a definitive recovery, the pay-off
for the greater efficiency brought by the restructuring of business that all the
changes described above have made possible. I, together with a handful of
unreconstructed Japanese Keynesians, would characterize it as a final emerg-
ence from a period of growth-depressing demand deficiency, too long delay-
ed by the failure to tackle deflation. The growth in output and profits I would
ascribe largely to Chinese demand, and the prospects for continuous modest
growth as depending on the willingness to sacrifice some profits in favor of
wage increases.
Back to Diffusion or Evolution

But explanation – not of the recovery but of the changes described – is
much more complicated. We come back to our original question: cultural
diffusion or the endogenous evolution of individual societies.
18
Clearly, cultural diffusion has a lot to do with it. The mechanisms of glo-
balization are many, and America’s cultural hegemony is not the least impor-
tant of them. Japan’s loss of self-confidence coincided with America’s recov-
ery of economic dynamism and apparent technological supremacy. In serving
to enhance the status of America as role-model society, 1997 was a mini-
1945.
But apart from this admiration of the contemporary American model there
was another more subtle and long-term cultural hegemony mechanism at
work. The end of the century saw the promotion to influential positions of
senior middle management in the corporate and government bureaucracies of
the »brain-washed generation« – those high-flyers who had been sent to the
United States in the 1970s and 1980s to get MBAs at American business
schools. At the same time, the economics and law departments of Japanese
universities and the influential government advisory commissions were in-
creasingly dominated by economists and experts in corporate law who had
got their Ph.D.s in Chicago and Stanford, or even at Milwaukee and Ohio.
Cultural diffusion works through two main mechanisms: imitation and
conquest. Imitation worked through those Japanese economists who came
back from the U.S. thoroughly imbued with the doctrines of neo-classical
economics, and the lawyers convinced by American doctrines of proper cor-
porate governance. American institutional investors took care of the conquest
part. Foreigners owned some 5–6% of Japanese quoted companies in 1990,
about 25% now. The patient silent Japanese corporate shareholders who
made the 1990 system viable, have been in large measure replaced by de-
manding shareholders, always ready to tell managements what they should be
doing to serve their shareholders better and threatening takeovers if they do
not listen.
Modernity or a New Stratification?

So diffusion is obviously an important part of the explanation, but what
about the endogenous evolution part? What does Japan tell us about inevit-
able stages of social change accompanying technological development?
Some would say that 60 years after the end of the war Japan is at last
shedding its remnants of feudalism, at last completing its process of modern-
ization. By modernization they mean what the postwar Japanese Weberians
meant, a process of transition from particularism to universalism, from rigid-
ity to flexibility, from fate to choice, from tied commitments to persons and
organizations to commitment to the principles of the market, from docile
acceptance of submergence in ascribed groups to individual liberation and
deliberately chosen association – association on the basis of individual
achievement and shared interest – all those things that Professor Iizuka was
talking about back in 1950.
19
Ronald Dore
Well, maybe. Greater affluence and the expansion of individual choice

through the increasingly varied complexity of the economy and the social
structure may well have something to do with it. But an even more important
factor, particularly in eroding egalitarianism and changing the community
nature of the firm by shifting the balance between employee and shareholder
interests, is the increasingly stratified nature of Japanese society, the decline
in social mobility, and the increasingly hereditary transmission of social class
status.
After six generations of meritocracy – roughly three generations up to the
Second World War when social mobility was limited by constricted edu-
cational opportunity, and three subsequent generations of much expanded
educational opportunity and much less limited social mobility – class divi-
sions in Japan are hardening. The intergenerational transmission of class
status is increasing. It is not clear which of the four possible mechanisms
which could account for this are the most important. It does not seem to be
the result of any retreat from the principles of meritocratic competition. (I
remember a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, telling me that the last
time a Kingsman’s son was admitted just because he was a Kingsman’s son
was in 1973: Japanese universities had got to that stage in 1886. Even in
private business, a Toyota great-grandson may be promoted to the board
10 years earlier than his peers, but unlike scions of the Agnelli family in
Italy, he doesn’t get to run an important part of the family empire.)
But which is the most important of the other three mechanisms which ac-
count for the hereditary transmission of the ability to succeed in meritocratic
competition? Is it the economic mechanism – the ability of parents to buy
educational privilege for their children? Is it the cultural mechanism – the
effect both on aspirations and on cognitive attainment of the conversation at
the breakfast table and the channels watched on TV? Or is it the genetic me-
chanism – bright parents tend to have bright children for all there is regres-
sion towards the mean? Is declining mobility part and parcel of the polariz-
ation of incomes, or of the final arrival in Japan of tabloid journalism and
tabloid TV and refinement of the techniques of dumbing down? Or is it that
six generations of educational selection have scooped all the talent to the top?
It is quite important to know the relative weight of the three mechanisms
because social engineering can do something to alter the effect of economic
and cultural privilege but not of genetic advantage. Little is known with cer-
tainty about the issue, chiefly because the correlation of intelligence with
either race or class has become a taboo subject for social scientists. But what-
ever the cause the consequences are clear. They are clear, first, in the declin-
ing effectiveness of working class leadership. The talented union leaders of
the 1950s and 1960s, forced on to the shop floor by family poverty, have no
successors. The Socialist Party has evaporated. The managerial middle class
continues to drain talent from below, but in diminishing proportions. It is
20
increasingly self-recruited. It increasingly sends its children to selective pri-

vate secondary schools. Studies clearly show the polarization, not only of in-
comes but also of educational achievement.
And all this has important consequences for social relations. The top man-
agers who are now retiring often came from large families of diverse occupa-
tional destinations, some managers, some craftsmen, some greengrocers.
They rubbed shoulders with their future subordinates in common, often rural,
schools and subsequently with people like their subordinates at family par-
ties. The sense of empathetic cross-class rapport which was usual for their
generation contributed a good deal to the quasi-community character of the
Japanese firm. It is not being passed to younger generations of one or two-
child families, educated at private schools.
Another major difference from the generation that built the postwar cor-
porate system: with the destruction of personal wealth at the end of the war,
most of that older generation had little income apart from their salaries, But
they have built up and passed on to younger generations the financial assets
which gives their owners a strong interest in the return on capital and makes
of them a managerial class far more sympathetic to the claims of shareholders
than to those of rank and file workers.
Cause For Our Concern Too?

So that, for me, is what the study of Japan ought to mean for the world to-
day. Japan became a thorough-going meritocracy – in the sense of allocating
positions in society on the basis of educational achievement, and allocating
educational opportunity on the basis of cognitive achievement and demons-
trated aptitude – earlier than any other industrial society. That was one of the
»late developer« effects. So it is reasonable to suppose that the long-term
consequences of meritocracy are showing up in Japan ahead of European so-
cieties. Marx has the famous phrase about England showing to India only the
image of its own future. It may well be that Japan, as it shows signs of in-
creasing stratification, is only showing us signs of our own future. And we
should be worried.
References Cited
BENEDICT, Ruth (1946): The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese
Culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
DORE, Ronald (1991): Will the 21th Century Be the Age of Individualism? Tokyo:
Simul Press.
DORE, Ronald (1999): City Life in Japan: A Study of a Tokyo Ward. Richmond: Cur-
zon Press (= Japan Library). [Reprint of the orig. edition 1958.]
IIZUKA, Kōji (1952): Nihon no seishinteki fūdo [Japan’s spiritual climate]. Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten.
21
Ronald Dore
RIESMAN, David (1950): The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American
Character. New Haven: Yale University Press.
VOGEL, Ezra F. (1979): Japan as Number One: Lessons for America. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
22
Part I: Anthropology, Ethnology, and
Folklore Studies
Kuwayama Takami
Japanese Anthropology and Folklore Studies
1. A Brief History of Japanese Anthropology

Japanese anthropology has a longer history than is commonly supposed.1
It is always difficult to identify exactly the beginning of a project, but we
may say that, in Japan, anthropology began as an academic discipline shortly
after 1877, when American zoologist Edward Morse discovered a shell
mound in Ōmori near the Bay of Tokyo. This shell mound was later proved
to belong to the late Jōmon period. Morse, who was hired by the Japanese
government as a professor at the Imperial University of Tokyo, found an
unusual pattern in the human bones excavated, and argued that it was a sign
of cannibalism. His argument was not verified by subsequent research, but
aroused strong interest among many Japanese in their ethnic origin. One of
them was Tsuboi Shōgorō (1863–1913), often called the »father of Japanese
anthropology«. In order to investigate the issue, Tsuboi proposed a compre-
hensive approach to the study of Japan, including archeology and biology. He
thus established in 1884 an academic society devoted to the study of the
human race, which is known today as Nihon Jinrui Gakkai (Anthropological
Society of Nippon). Tsuboi’s reputation was firmly established when he was
appointed professor at the Imperial University of Tokyo after studying in
England from 1889 to 1892.
Full-blown ethnological research began shortly afterwards. Among
Tsuboi’s students was Torii Ryūzō (1870–1953), who conducted fieldwork in
many parts of Asia, including Okinawa, Taiwan, Korea, China, Siberia, and
Mongolia. A major factor that made such extensive research possible was
Japan’s newly gained military power. Japan, a victor in the First World War,
put under its control many Asian and Pacific nations, where ethnological
research began to be carried out vigorously, sometimes in collaboration with
Japan’s information agencies. In 1934, the Nihon Minzoku Gakkai (Japanese
Society of Ethnology) was founded, followed by the opening of some ethno-
logical institutes. One such institute was the Minzoku Kenkyūjo (Ethnic
Research Institute), which was established in 1943 with governmental sup-
port. Oka Masao Oka (1898–1982), who received a doctorate at the Univer-
1 A most comprehensive survey, written in English, on this topic is found in Shi-

mizu 1999. Yamashita, Bosco, and Eades 2004 and van Bremen, Ben-Ari, and
Alatas 2005 also contain articles on Japanese anthropology in historical and com-
parative perspective.
25
Kuwayama Takami
sity of Vienna, was among the leading figures there. He emphasized the need
to study contemporary issues, rather than so-called »primitive« society, pay-
ing special attention to political economy – a reflection of the exigencies of
the war. Like Oka, many of the Japanese anthropologists who distinguished
themselves after the war were affiliated with such institutes.2
This history shows that Japanese anthropology has so-called »colonial
roots« as does its Western counterparts.3 In contrast to the West, however,
where these roots remained almost undisputed until the early 1970s (e.g.,
Asad 1973; Hymes 1972), Japan’s defeat in the Second World War revealed
the anthropologists’ involvement in its colonial and imperial enterprise. (The
same may be said of German folklore studies as will be examined later). As a
result, the discipline’s reputation was damaged. Anthropology, which used to
be known in the prewar days as minzokugaku (»ethnology«), was stigmatized
for its collaboration, even though indirect and partial, with the military. Un-
der these circumstances, Japanese anthropologists were forced to reconstruct
their discipline using new concepts and designs. Two major figures who
played a central role in this reconstruction were Oka and Ishida Eiichirō
(1903–1968). Oka, with his superior organizational skills, helped found the
Department of Social Anthropology at Tokyo Metropolitan University, while
Ishida, who had been jailed during the war as a thought criminal, was ap-
pointed head of the newly established anthropology program at the Univer-
sity of Tokyo.4 Although partially trained at the University of Vienna, Ishida
followed the American model of cultural anthropology in formulating the
curriculum. Generally speaking, Great Britain and the United States exerted
the greatest influence on the development of anthropology in postwar Japan.
Until the late 1960s, anthropology courses were offered at a relatively
small number of Japanese universities. Beginning in the 1970s, however,
when the slogan of kokusaika (»internationalization«) was on the lips of
2 For the details on the Japanese anthropologists’ involvement in the Second World
War, see Shimizu and van Bremen 2003.
3 Ethnological museums, in which cultural items taken from colonized nations are
displayed, have frequently been criticized as quintessential examples of the »colo-
nial roots« of anthropology. We must remember, however, that, like many of the
Japanese objects currently owned by, and displayed in, Western museums, these
cultural items were often presented as gifts by local nobility or were purchased
from local people, however unfair the trade might have been, or were even ex-
changed for Western goods and services rendered. It would be too simplistic to
unilaterally blame ethnological museums for the »crime« allegedly committed by
curators and collectors.
4 Ishida is often regarded as the leading figure in the development of Japanese an-
thropology after the Second World War. According to Ayabe Tsuneo, however,
Oka exerted even a stronger influence than did Ishida, especially in the founding
and staffing of anthropology departments in Japan (personal communication).
26
many people, bunka jinruigaku (»cultural anthropology«) became popular

not only among students, but also among the general reading public. This
popularity was owed to the assumption that cultural anthropology was useful
for broadening the Japanese people’s understanding of other peoples’ worlds.
Three anthropologists, Umesao Tadao, Nakane Chie, and Yamaguchi Masao,
even became national heroes. Umesao, the first director general of the Na-
tional Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, wrote in 1957 a legendary article on the
place of Japanese civilization in the world (Umesao 1957, 1967, 2003). He
maintained that, contrary to the common supposition that Japan is an eastern
country, it has in fact many similarities with Western Europe due to the simi-
lar ecological conditions. He labeled his theory as bummei no seitaishikan
(»an ecological history of civilization«). Nakane was initially trained as a
specialist on India, but she is best known today for her 1967 book Tateshakai
no ningen kankei [Human relationships in vertical society], which was later
translated into English as Japanese Society (1970). In Japanese studies
abroad, this book has been one of the most influential works on Japanese
society. For their distinguished achievement, Umesao and Nakane were both
awarded bunka kunshō (Order of Cultural Merits), the highest honor to be
bestowed on Japanese academics, in 1994 and 2001, respectively. Yamaguchi
has written extensively on a wide range of topics. In the 1970s and 1980s, his
innovative views were considered exemplary of what at that time was called
nyū akademizumu (»new academism«). His professional works, centered on
the binary opposition between »center» and »periphery«, are comparable to
those of Victor Turner.
Despite the popularity of cultural anthropology, the word minzokugaku
continued to be used for Japan’s professional community of anthropologists,
Nihon Minzoku Gakkai. In 2004, however, after heated and prolonged dis-
cussion, this society finally changed its name to Nihon Bunka Jinrui Gakkai
(Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology). Today, it has a membership of
more than 2,000 people, which makes it the second largest anthropological
organization in the world only after the United States of America. Due to
Japan’s peripheral status in the »academic world system« (Kuwayama 2004),
however, its influence is limited outside East Asia.
2. Major Characteristics of Japanese Anthropology

Three major characteristics of Japanese anthropology are briefly discussed
here. The first is the strong concern with the self, namely, Japan and its peo-
ple. As mentioned earlier, in Japan, anthropological research was initially
inspired by Morse’s argument about cannibalism and by the subsequent con-
troversy about Ainu. This controversy took place between two competing
groups of scholars, one supporting Tsuboi’s theory that Japan’s Stone Age
people were Koropokguru, a people described in Ainu legends as earlier
27
Kuwayama Takami
inhabitants of their land, and the other group supporting Koganei Kiyoshi’s
theory that the Ainu were the original inhabitants of the Japanese islands
(Shimizu 1999: 125). Until the mid-1920s, Koganei (1859–1944) received
more support from the academic community than did Tsuboi, but the debate
was not settled completely. Even today, the ethnic origin of the Japanese
continues to be debated among Japanese anthropologists. By contrast, West-
ern anthropologists have concentrated on the study of other peoples, leaving
domestic research in the hands of historians and folklorists.
Another characteristic of Japanese anthropology is the affinity with the
people who have been studied. In the West (i.e., the Western part of the
world in general), anthropology began as a science of »primitive« people,
whose history and culture were radically different from those of the West. In
other words, there were, and still are, great differences between the re-
searcher and the researched. By contrast, many of the people studied by the
Japanese have been their Asian and Pacific neighbors. This fact explains why
dichotomous thinking, such as »civilized« vs. »primitive« and »us« vs.
»them«, has been less conspicuous in Japan than in the West (Askew 2004:
75–76). If anything, until the end of the Second World War, the Japanese
emphasized continuity with the people studied, arguing that the Japanese
were, as their neighbors, better able to understand them than the Westerners
could (Yamashita 2004: 103, 109). This argument was presented strategically
in order to eliminate Western influence from the Asia-Pacific regions ruled
by Japan.
Still another characteristic of Japanese anthropology is the duality concern-
ing research subjects and research objects. As is clear from the above, the
Japanese have eagerly studied other cultures since the late nineteenth century.
In the 1960s, when funding for overseas research increased dramatically (see
the next section for details), the geographic scope of Japanese research ex-
panded, and, today, it covers almost all parts of the world. In this respect, the
Japanese are subjects (i.e., active agents) of anthropological research. At the
same time, they have been studied and described by other people, especially
by Westerners, who have found Japan radically different from their own coun-
tries. In this respect, the Japanese are, like the »primitive« people, objects (i.e.,
passive agents) of anthropological research. This duality derives from Japan’s
in-between status in modern history. In Asia, Japan was the colonizer/ruler,
but, in the larger world, it was subdued by the Western powers.
3. The Status of Japanese Studies Within Japanese Anthropology

From the early 20th century down to the end of the Second World War,
opportunities for overseas research increased steadily with the expansion of
Japan’s economy and military. Certainly, the »colonial roots« of Japanese
anthropology left deep scars in many Asian countries, Korea in particular,
28
where resentment against Japanese research is still strong, despite its schol-
arly values. However, as far as research into other cultures was concerned,
Japanese scholars benefited from their country’s power.
The situation changed dramatically, and almost overnight, with Japan’s
defeat in the war: the Japanese government could no longer support overseas
research. As a result, Japanese anthropologists, most of whom were city
dwellers, were forced to study Japan’s countryside as a sort of »substitute«
for foreign cultures. Although unfortunate, this incident brought about some
unexpected and positive results – the discovery of »peculiar« customs within
their own country that had hitherto been practically unexplored. Yoshida
Teigo, for example, carried out research on tsukimono (»possession«) and
produced a classical book on the subject (Yoshida 1972). Afterwards, he did
a comparative study of Japan, Indonesia, and a few other Southeast Asian
countries, focusing on rituals. Unlike his young students born after the war,
as well as his predecessors who had already received overseas training during
the war, Yoshida had only a few opportunities to conduct long-term field
research abroad. Instead, he avidly read ethnographical studies on different
parts of the world and drew on his ethnographic expertise in analyzing Japan
from a comparative perspective.5 We may say, then, that Japan’s defeat in the
war ironically helped Japanese studies grow within the country. It should also
be noted that another major trend of research in the immediate postwar years
was the sudden increase in the study of Okinawa/Amami and Hokkaidō.
In the mid-1960s, when Japan had recovered from the aftermath of the
war, the situation began to change again. As more and more funding for
overseas research became available, the Japanese anthropologists’ attention
began to shift once again to foreign countries. Sekimoto Teruo (1995, 2003)
conducted a content analysis of the articles that were published in Minzoku-
gaku kenkyū (Japanese Journal of Ethnology) from 1935, the year of its in-
auguration, down to 1994. According to his analysis, during the prewar pe-
riod from 1934 to 1944, the number of articles that dealt with core Japan (i.e.,
the Japanese islands excluding Okinawa/Amami and Hokkaidō) was 95 (34%
of the total), but it decreased steadily in the subsequent years: 63 (27%) dur-
ing 1946–56, 53 (25%) during 1957–66, 48 (23%) during 1966–76, 41 (20%)
5 Yoshida frankly admitted, in his lecture given at the National Museum of Ethnolo-
gy in September, 2005, that he had had only a few opportunities to do intensive
fieldwork abroad for a long period. Considering the fact that Malinowski-type of
research continues to be praised among anthropologists, this lack of field experien-
ce is certainly a drawback. However, Yoshida’s comparative study, as represented
by his book Masei no bunkashi [Cultural accounts of the supernatural], shows how
ethnography produced by other scholars may be used successfully for cultural
comparison.
29
Kuwayama Takami
during 1976–86, and 27 (16%) during 1986–94.6 By contrast, articles dealing

with remote areas, such as Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, increased
dramatically after the mid-1960s. Particularly notable was Africa, on which
practically nothing had been reported until the 1957–1966 period, but which
occupied approximately 13 percent of all the articles published from 1966 to
1986. As Sekimoto (2004: 137) explained,
In the last sixty years of its history, Japanese anthropology has been
seeking people in the most remote areas, but they are the most remote
only within a limited space that has been defined differently at various
times by national and international politics. The centrifugal tendency of
Japanese anthropologists is a search for the »maximally other«.
Today, Japanese anthropologists doing research on Japan are almost re-
garded in the professional community as »second-class citizens«. Specialists
on Okinawa and the Ainu are probably exceptions, but, still, a certain stigma
is attached to domestic research. Given the »centrifugal« tendency of anthro-
pology, this is almost inevitable. Anthropologists, whether Japanese or not,
build a career by studying different cultures »far« away from home. The
word »far« has two meanings here. The first concerns space, namely, the
location of a research site. The more distant it is from home, the more diffi-
cult field research is, and the more valuable it is considered to be. This was
particularly true when transportation was undeveloped. The second meaning
concerns time, namely, the assumed evolutionary progress. Anthropology
emerged at the end of the 19th century, when cultural evolutionism began to
prevail among Western intellectuals. As expected, the observing Westerners
positioned themselves at the higher end of the evolutionary line, whereas the
observed non-Westerners were placed at the lower end, hence the dichotomy
between »civilized« and »primitive«. Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society
(1877), in which human societies were classified into three stages of development
– »savagery«, »barbarism«, and »civilization« in ascending order of the assumed
progress – is representative. Even though some scholars advocated relativism, the
colonizer/observer/researcher and the colonized/observed/resear-ched were re-
garded as completely different classes of people. Inevitably, the greater the
6 As noted in the preceding paragraph, in the immediate post-Second World War

days, there was a sudden growth of interest in the study of Hokkaidō and Okinawa/
Amami. In Sekimoto’s analysis, the number of articles dealing with Hokkaido was
10 (4% of the total) during 1935–44, but it jumped to 30 (13 %) during 1946–56,
followed by 19 (9 %) during 1957–66. As for Okinawa/Amami, the figures during
the same periods were 9 (3 %), 23 (10 %), and 23 (11%). When these figures are
combined with those of core Japan, the totals are 114 (41%) during 1935–44, 116
(50%) during 1946–56, and 95 (46%), which clearly indicates a high degree of in-
terest in the study of Japan as a whole. In the subsequent periods, however, it rap-
idly lost its popularity: 63 (37%) during 1966–76, 58 (28%) during 1976–86, and
45 (27%) during 1986–94.
30
assumed distance between the two parties were, the more difficult field re-
search was considered to be, and, therefore, the more highly it was evaluated.
Even today, when the »primitive« world has practically disappeared, this
structure of evaluation has not changed fundamentally. In anthropology,
»far« means authentic.
4. The Development of Folklore Studies in Japan

Turning attention to folklore studies (also called »folkloristics«), in Japan,
the foundation of this field was established in the 1930s with Yanagita Kunio
(1875–1962) as the leader. Although little known outside Japan, Yanagita, a
public intellectual who spent most of his life outside the academia, has been
so influential, both inside and outside folklore studies, that there is today a
field called Yanagitagaku (»Yanagitalogy«), which studies Yanagita’s
achievement both as a person and as a scholar. This is not to say, however,
that he was the only figure that helped found the discipline. Among other
leading figures was Minakata Kumagusu (1867–1941), who, during his long
sojourn in Great Britain, wrote many articles for Notes and Queries. Mina-
kata’s research cut across a wide range of disciplines, including biology and
ecology, and he even got published in Nature. Recently, almost 65 years after
his death, his English publications were translated and published in Japanese
(Minakata 2005). Still another major figure in the early years of Japanese
folklore studies is Orikuchi Shinobu (1887–1953). Like Yanagita, Orikuchi
was a man of letters, who, under the influence of Yanagita, started studying
folklore, focusing on the ancient arts and beliefs. He is best remembered
today for his idea of marebito (literally, »unusual person«), a stranger pos-
sessed of divinity who is believed to come from the other world on ceremo-
nial occasions. This person’s words and deeds are instrumental, in Orikuchi’s
analysis, in producing literature and the arts in this world.
Historically speaking, Japanese folklore studies developed in conjunction
with ethnology. Because they are pronounced in the same way, minzokugaku,
they used to be called »two minzokugaku-s«. The close relationship between
the two disciplines derives from, among other factors, Japan’s relatively late
modernization. Until the mid-20th century, many old manners and customs
had been retained in Japan, especially outside the urban centers. Japanese
scholars, therefore, discovered within their own country what Western schol-
ars had discovered among »primitive« people. In this state of affairs, the
study of traditional culture among one’s own people (folklore studies) coin-
cided in many respects with the study of »primitive« culture among other
peoples (ethnology). This coincidence partially explains why the scope of
Japanese folklore research has been much broader than its Western counter-
parts. In Great Britain, especially in England, and in the United States, for
example, folklore research is ordinarily focused on the analysis of folktales,
31
Kuwayama Takami
folksong, folk dance, folk costume, and so forth,7 whereas, in Japan, social
structure and ideology are important parts of the discipline. In this regard,
Japanese folklore studies may best be understood as the study of folkways,
rather than folklore.
There is one important parallel between Japan and Germany – the appro-
priation of folklore research for political purposes during national crises. It is
widely recognized today that, in relatively undeveloped parts of the industri-
alized world, including prewar Japan and Germany, folklore research played
the role of a »national science« by both awakening and fulfilling the people’s
desire for recognition in the wider world. In terms of European intellectual
history, this role may be understood as a romanticist reaction against the
Enlightenment movement led by France. As the writings of German philoso-
pher Johann Gottfried Herder show, romanticism rejected the Enlightenment
ideal of rationality and universality, celebrating instead the non-rational as-
pects of human thought, the spirit of a nation (Volksgeist) in particular. Once
nationalist politicians and writers declared spiritual independence, even supe-
riority, of their nation, the responsibility of scientifically validating this claim
fell on the shoulders of folklorists. They thus studied passionately distinctive
traditions of their own nation, which were believed to spring from indigenous
ideas uncontaminated by foreign ones. If such traditions were hard to find,
they were often »invented«, if not completely fabricated. As the alliance of
German folklore studies (Volkskunde) with the ideology of the Third Reich
demonstrates, this tendency was strengthened during national crises. Accord-
ing to Hannjost Lixfeld (1994), contrary to the common supposition that
German folklore research was misled by only a handful of fascist scholars,
Volkskunde as »folk-national cultivation« was already evident in the preced-
ing relatively democratic period of the Weimar Republic. Japanese folklorists
were not as extreme as some of their German counterparts, but, still, strong
nationalistic sentiments lurked in their writings. As Oka, Yanagita’s contem-
porary, observed:
Yanagita’s scholarship developed when Japan was full of nationalism.
The Japanese people’s view of their country as »backward« relative to
the West had fostered a strong national consciousness among them.
Thus, they resisted the influx of Western ideas and commodities. It was
a period when the search for Japan’s distinct culture began, and the need
to maintain and strengthen the Japanese spirit was emphasized. Japanese
7 The theme of nationalism was less prominent in England than in Germany and in
Japan. In England, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, industrialization and
urbanization had progressed so rapidly that people felt threatened by the great so-
cial change taking place in their daily life. Eventually, a »nostalgic critique of in-
dustrialization and urbanization« (Mills 1997: 196) emerged, which became a ma-
jor trend of thought in English folklore studies. This trend, in turn, brought about
the strong emphasis on recording and describing the disappearing folklore.
32
folkloristics, therefore, has had fundamental similarities with its German

counterpart (Oka 1979: 82, quoted in Kuwayama 2005: 111).
Yanagita’s concept of jōmin (»commoners«) exemplifies the nationalism
contained in his scholarship. As with other concepts he proposed, Yanagita did
not define this neologism clearly, but its meaning is close to that of the German
word Volk – commoners as distinguished from both the nobility and the out-
caste. According to Fukuta Ajio (1984), who examined Yanagita’s usages of
jōmin from the 1910s, when the term was first used, down to the 1940s and
afterwards, the meaning had gradually changed from a rather restricted sense of
»peasants« to an all-inclusive category of people regardless of class distinction.
In fact, shortly before and during the Second World War, Yanagita went as far
as to juxtapose the Emperor with jōmin on the grounds that some aspects of
ordinary people’s life, rituals in particular, closely resembled those of the impe-
rial family. Jōmin was thus identified with the entire Japanese nation, thereby
buttressing the fascist government ideology, whatever Yanagita’s intention
might have been, which stressed the unity of all the Japanese people as the
Emperor’s sekishi or children (Kuwayama2007).
5. The Relationship Between Japanese Anthropology and Folklore Studies

Until the mid-1960s, when the Japanese resumed overseas research with
governmental support, there were many overlaps between anthropology and
folklore studies. Today, however, they have become increasingly separate. 8
From the viewpoint of anthropology, the most obvious reason is, as noted ear-
lier, the decrease in the number of Japanese anthropologists studying their own
country. There are, however, other reasons hidden in the backstage. Two of the
most significant are discussed below: (1) nationalization of Japanese folklore
studies, and (2) the lack of professionalism among Japanese folklorists.
Nationalization means here the strong domestic orientation of an academic
discipline, which has been caused by both its refusal to learn from foreign
scholarship and its ignorance thereof, and the consequent isolation from aca-
demic communities abroad, despite the popularity the discipline enjoys
within the country in which it is practiced. Due to the far-reaching influence
of Yanagita and the enduring popularity of his books, Japanese folklore stud-
ies have successfully sustained themselves for more than half a century. They
have, however, almost lost touch with Western folklore studies, from which
8 According to Iwamoto Michiya (2006), in terms of institutional organization, this

separation was already observed in the 1930s, when anthropologists and folklorists
established academic societies of their own in 1934 and 1935, respectively – Ni-
hon Minzoku Gakkai (Japanese Society of Ethnology) and Minkan Denshō no Kai
(Society of Popular Tradition). The former was organized by the people interested
mainly in the study of foreign countries, while the latter by the people interested
mainly in the study of Japan under the leadership of Yanagita.
33
Kuwayama Takami
Yanagita learned in his formative years. This nationalization has its roots in
Yanagita’s definition of Japanese folklore studies as a modern version of
kokugaku (»national learning«)9, which in turn derived from his intellectual
nationalism. The following words best illustrate his nationalism, coupled
with a strong sense of rivalry with Western folklorists:
Even if foreigners flock together to make scientific observations [of our
country], the results will be no more than those of »the five blind men
and the elephant«. It is truly significant that our fellow countrymen, who
are familiar with the world’s scholarship, are setting out to study our
own culture […] We must study ourselves. Not only should we attempt
to know ourselves better, we must also lead Western folklorists who
have gone astray [because of the mistakes made in missionary reports on
the non-Western world and by social Darwinism]. This is Japan’s noble
mission (Yanagita 1998a:171, quoted in Kuwayama 2004:72-73).
For Yanagita, a self-appointed leader of the world’s community of folklor-
ists, it was probably inappropriate to openly acknowledge his debt to Western
scholarship. His pride, both personal and national, explains why much of the
European-language literature he had consulted was eventually ignored in his
writings.
A casual review of Yanagita’s career reveals, however, his deep knowl-
edge of Western scholarship. Shortly after his resignation in 1919 as an elite
governmental bureaucrat, Yanagita was dispatched to Europe as Japan’s
delegate to the League of Nations. He took advantage of this opportunity to
attend lectures at Geneva University and to read books by leading Western
scholars at that time. The numerous European-language books he had col-
lected during and after his stay in Europe are currently kept at Seijō Univer-
sity, Tokyo. In the voluminous works Yanagita produced, there are occa-
sional references to the European-language literature he had studied, that of
James Frazer in particular, but, because bibliographies were seldom attached,
it is difficult to identify the sources of his ideas.
One of the best known examples in this regard is that of the three-stage
model of folklore research, which Yanagita proposed in Minkan denshōron [On
popular tradition], published in 1934. In this classic book, Yanagita argued that
researchers should first study yūkei bunka (literally, »culture that has form«,
meaning material culture), and then analyze gengo geijutsu (»language and
art«), and finally explore shin’i genshō (literally, »psycho-semantic phenom-
9 Kokugaku developed during the mid- to the late-Tokugawa period (1603–1868).

Based on the philological study of ancient texts, such as Kojiki, Nihonshoki, and
Manyōshū, it attempted to clarify Japan’s distinctive culture and spirit, particularly
those which were believed to prevail before the introduction of Confucianism and
Buddhism. A major factor behind the development of this nationalistic discipline
is the embryonic awareness of Japan as an independent nation (Kōjien Dictionary
of Japanese, 5th edition).
34
ena«, meaning the mind). He thus proposed to proceed from the visible to the
invisible, namely, from the less complex to the more complex. Many Japa-
nese folklorists are convinced that Yanagita devised this model independ-
ently, but, among Japanese anthropologists, there has long been a suspicion
that it was probably an imitation of Bronislaw Malinowski’s three-stage
model of anthropological research, presented in Argonauts of the Western
Pacific (1922), which consists of the analysis of, in ascending order of com-
plexity, (1) tribal organization, (2) actual behavior in daily life, and (3) the
native mind. Given Yanagita’s familiarity with Western scholarship, it is
unlikely, I think, that he was completely unaware of Malinowski’s achieve-
ment. But my objective here is not to accuse Yanagita of plagiarism. Rather,
my point is that the lack of awareness among Japanese folklorists of the pos-
sible connection between the two great figures has spawned both ignorance
and indifference about foreign scholarship and the resultant isolation from the
academic communities abroad.10
A second reason for the separation of Japanese folklore studies and an-
thropology concerns the difference in the degree of professionalism. Yanagita
maintained vehemently that the study of folklore would flourish only when
the researchers stayed close to the people they studied – jōmin or commoners.
Therefore, he and his associates intentionally distanced themselves from
institutionalized scholarship. Instead, Yanagita actively incorporated local
people, who were, for professional scholars, no more than research objects or
»informants» at best, into folklore research on the belief that only natives
could fully understand or wakaru (»appreciate«) their culture. He thus
10 Another telling example of Yanagita’s debt to Western scholarship concerns the

conceptual distinction between folklore studies and ethnology. Yanagita wrote, in
his widely read book Seinen to gakumon (1928), that when browsing in a used
bookshop in Berlin, he had accidentally met Franz Boas, a German Jew, who had
immigrated to the United States and had established anthropology there. When
Boas asked Yanagita what kinds of books he was looking for, Yanagita did not
know exactly what to say, although he did know the English word »folklore«. Af-
ter hearing Yanagita’s explanation, Boas remarked, »If you want folklore books,
you should say »Volkskunde«. Otherwise, people here would not understand. In
German, Völkerkunde means either ethnology or ethnography« (Yanagita 1998a:
164). We must also remember that Yanagita and his followers frequently used the
term »minkan denshō« for their nascent discipline, the Japanese translation of the
French term »traditions populaires«. Because this origin is well known, and given
the importance Yanagita put on the study of jōmin (commoners), as explained ear-
lier in the text, it is strange that Japanese folklorists have seldom asked about the
possible connection between Yanagita’s scholarship and the Annals school of
French social history, for which the mentalities (mind) of commoners was a central
theme. The Annals school emerged at about the same time Yanagita visited Europe
in the early twentieth century. The »Western roots of Yanagita« are yet to be ex-
plored.
35
Kuwayama Takami
formed a nationwide network of amateur researchers called kyōdoshika (liter-

ally, »people studying the history of their hometown«). Under the leadership
of Yanagita, then, Japanese folklorists chose to be unprofessional, and this
choice has had to date a decisive influence on their position in the academia –
the paucity of folklorists having full-time positions at universities, which
contrasts sharply with the popularity they enjoy among the general reading
public. By contrast, Japanese anthropologists have found their niche in the
academia, and their community has become increasingly professional. From
their viewpoint, folklore research is too amateurish to be taken seriously.
According to them, it is not unusual to hear presentations, at the annual meet-
ings of Nihon Minzoku Gakkai (Folklore Society of Japan), which hardly
deserve scholarly attention.
6. Japanese Anthropology and Folklore Studies Today

Recently, there have been faint signs of rapprochement between Japanese
anthropology and folklore studies. Among the younger generation, we see
more theoretically inspired and sophisticated folklorists than before. They
are, above all, interested in Western theories, as a recent issue of the journal
Nihon minzokugaku (Bulletin of the Folklore Society of Japan) shows. Edited
by Iwamoto Michiya, who teaches in the anthropology department at the
University of Tokyo, the entire volume examined the idea of »folklorism« as
proposed by German folklorists Hans Moser, Hermann Bausinger, and others
(Nihon Minzoku Gakkai 2003). Having been presented in the 1960s, folklor-
ism is certainly not a new idea, but it is epoch-making that Japanese folklor-
ists, known for their allergy to Roman letters, tackled a Western theory head-
on. Among younger anthropologists, too, a small, but growing, number of
people have chosen to study Japan as their major field. Many of them re-
ceived doctorates at Western universities, where they studied Japan as a for-
eign culture.
For a long time, Japanese folklorists have been ridiculed for their preoc-
cupation with things of the past. Indeed, young folklorists have occasionally
criticized their seniors for their indifference to contemporary issues. Today,
however, Yanagita’s belief that local people, no matter how amateurish,
should be integral parts of folklore research has taken on a new meaning in
light of the ongoing debate on civil society. In Japan, as elsewhere, the idea
of civil society has only ambiguously been defined, but, generally speaking,
it points to the increasing role of shimin (»citizens«), as opposed to shinmin
(»the Emperor’s subjects«) before the end of the Second World War and to
kokumin (»members of the Japanese state«) thereafter, in formulating policies
that will affect their daily life both nationally and locally. In civil society, a
major problem facing professional scholars is how to give the people who
have been studied value for their cooperation. Contribution to public welfare,
36
rather than to the small academic community, is called for today. It is truly
significant, then, that leading Japanese folklorists of the younger generation
took up the issue of civil society at the plenary session of the 2005 annual
meeting of the Folklore Society of Japan, in which the following statement
was made:
Even today, the Japanese community of folklorists includes as important
research members many people working outside the institutionalized
academia. In the past, many of these people were elementary or middle
school teachers who »practiced« the fruits of folklore research in the
classroom. Today, however, people like curators who are employed, af-
ter receiving higher education in folklore studies, at museums or at gov-
ernmental agencies dealing with cultural property occupy an important
segment of our research community. It is no exaggeration to say that
folklore studies are sustained by the activities of researchers who belong
to such public institutes outside the institutionalized academia. They are
»actors«, in the sociological sense of the word, who conduct research by
squarely facing the »citizens« in new areas of »practice«. Their number
exceeds that of professional scholars in the purely academic world. They
thus have the potential to create a new intellectual movement […] More
than anything else, the respect for amateurism has been the hallmark of
Japanese folklore studies, as well as their strength. With this in mind, we
should think about the future of our discipline by exploring both the pos-
sibilities and the problems, the merits and the demerits, involved in con-
tinuing to engage the »citizens« to participate in our research, as well as
those involved in forging partnerships with the »citizens« in contempo-
rary »civil« society. (Suga, Iwamoto, and Nakamura 2005:4–5, trans-
lated by the author)
Having developed as a science of »primitive« people without letters, an-
thropology lacks the tradition of engaging in dialogue with the people who
have been studied, let alone collaborating with them as research partners. In
the postcolonial world, however, the »natives« who used to be unilaterally
subjected to the gaze of researchers from the »civilized« world have emerged
as subjects (active agents) of research whose role is comparable to that of the
citizens mentioned above. In this regard, anthropologists have much to learn
from the Japanese folklorists’ conception of scholarship in civil society.
7. Concluding Remarks
The foregoing has been written from the viewpoint of an anthropologist.
As such, it may contain some unorthodox views of folklore studies. It would
be ideal if orthodox accounts of Japanese folklore studies were given by their
specialists, but, because of the nationalization of this discipline explained
earlier, such accounts seldom appear in foreign languages, particularly in
European ones. Even if they do, they are usually difficult to read because
nationalized scholars are unaccustomed to writing for an international reader-
37
Kuwayama Takami
ship. In order to avoid misunderstandings, however, it should be added before

closing this essay that I am one of the few Japanese anthropologists who are
genuinely interested in the Japanese tradition of folklore research. Moreover,
I am firmly convinced that, despite the many problems noted above, this
tradition is worth serious attention by both Japanese and non-Japanese schol-
ars. The importance emphasized by the younger Japanese folklorists of en-
gaging interested »citizens« to jointly conduct research is just one example of
the great potential their scholarship has, if, and only if, their message is
communicated and understood properly.
Regarding communication across national boundaries, Japanese anthro-
pology, too, has many problems to overcome. Among the most serious is the
question of how to increase its visibility internationally. It is truly unfortunate
that, outside East Asia, or, sometimes, even within this region, very little is
known about what is going on in the world’s second largest anthropological
community. The language barrier is obviously responsible, but there is more
to it than that – Japan’s peripheral status in the »academic world system«.
Because I have already written a book on this issue (Kuwayama 2004), it
would suffice to say here that the current inequality between scholars posi-
tioned at the »center« of the system and those on the »periphery« derives
from the imbalance of power involved in the academic world system. This
inequality is best illustrated in the fact that central scholars can ignore pe-
ripheral research without risk to their careers, whereas peripheral scholars
must carefully study central research in order to catch up. Thus, whatever the
intention of each individual may be, the former as a collectivity tends to dic-
tate what the latter should do, thereby wielding hegemony. This situation
should be corrected through the efforts by both parties. On the one hand,
scholars at the center – the United States, Great Britain, and France in the
case of anthropology – should recognize their hegemonic power and become
aware that they may have suppressed peripheral voices. They should then
help redress the inequality by studying, for example, intellectual traditions in
the rest of the world. Peripheral scholars, on the other hand, should first be-
come aware of their marginality and disadvantages, which, in the case of
Japan, are frequently overlooked because of the abundant opportunities to get
published in the local language. Based on this recognition, the Japanese, and
for that matter any other peripheral people, should make serious efforts to
make themselves understood in the language/logic other people will under-
stand.11 Hopefully, this short essay, which has been written for a volume in
11 Even when writing in one’s own language, the writing styles will be quite different
if foreigners who are unfamiliar with domestic affairs are posited as readers. Japa-
nese folklorists should firmly remember, when addressing themselves to an inter-
national audience, that their scholarship, including the name of Yanagita, is little
known outside Japan. I was appalled myself when I met at an international confer-
38
honor of Josef Kreiner, whose deep knowledge of Japanese scholarship has

earned him the admiration of his colleagues throughout the world, will
constitute a small part of such efforts.
References Cited
ASAD, Talal (ed.) (1973): Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. Atlantic High-
lands, New Jersey: Humanities Press.
FUKUTA, Ajio (1984): Nihon minzokugaku hōhō josetsu [A methodological introduc-
tion to Japanese folklore studies]. Tokyo: Kōbundō.
HYMES, Dell (ed.) (1972): Reinventing Anthropology. New York: Random House.
IWAMOTO, Michiya (2006): Futatsu no minzokugaku [Two minzokugaku-s]. In:
Tsuneo AYABE and Takami KUWAYAMA (eds.): Yoku wakaru bunka
jinruigaku [A primer in cultural anthropology]. Kyoto: Mineruva Shobō.
KUWAYAMA, Takami (2004): Native Anthropology: The Japanese Challenge to West-
ern Academic Hegemony. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press.
KUWAYAMA, Takami (2005): Native Discourse in the »Academic World System«:
Kunio Yanagita’s Project of Global Folkloristics Reconsidered. In: Jan VAN
BREMEN, Eyal BEN-ARI, and Syed Farid ALATAS (eds.): Asian Anthropology.
London and New York: Routledge, pp. 97–116.
KUWAYAMA, Takami (2007): Jōmin. In George RITZER (ed.): The Blackwell Encyclo-
pedia of Sociology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
LIXFELD, Hannjost (1994): Folklore and Fascism: The Reich Institute for German
Volkskunde. Edited and translated by James R. Dow. Bloomington and Indi-
anapolis: Indiana University Press.
MALINOWSKI, Bronislaw (1984) Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of
Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New
Guinea. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press. [Orig. 1922.]
MILLS, Margaret (1997): Folklore. In Thomas BARFIELD (ed.): The Dictionary of
Anthropology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
ence held in India a Taiwanese literary critic who knew something about Yanagita,
but who could not recognize him because the Taiwanese did not know the Japa-
nese pronunciation of Yanagita’s name: he had read in the Chinese way the two
characters (kanji) used for Yanagita’s name and remembered it in Chinese pronun-
ciation. After my presentation, in which some of Yanagita’s ideas were discussed,
he approached me asking if the Japanese scholar he knew, Yanagita, had anything
to do with the person I had discussed. It took us some time to notice that we were
actually talking about the same person. Another scholar I met at the same confer-
ence was a famous Japanese critic, who had received a prestigious award for his
book on Japan’s national/ethnic identity. After hearing my presentation, he re-
marked, »Is his name pronounced Yanagita? I thought it was Yanagida.« This
scholar had discussed in detail Yanagita’s ideas in his book. Japanese folklore
studies, then, are a mystery even within Japan.
39
Kuwayama Takami
MINAKATA, Kumagusu (2005): Minakata Kumagusu Eibun ronkō [English writings of

Kumagusu Minakata]. Translated by Ryūgo Matsui and others. Tokyo: Shūei-
sha.
MORGAN, Lewis Henry (1877): Ancient Society: Researches in the Lines of Human
Progress from Savagery, through Barbarism to Civilization. New York:
Henry Holt.
NAKANE, Chie (1967): Tateshakai no ningen kankei [Human relationships in vertical
society]. Tokyo: Kōdansha.
NAKANE, Chie (1970): Japanese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
NIHON MINZOKU GAKKAI (2003): Tokushū: Fōkurorizumu [Special issue: Folklorism].
Nihon minzokugaku (Bulletin of the Folklore Society of Japan), No. 236.
OKA, Masao (1979): Ijin sonota [Strangers and others]. Tokyo: Gensōsha.
SEKIMOTO, Teruo (1995): Nihon no jinruigaku to Nihon shigaku [Japanese anthropol-
ogy and historiography]. In: Naohiro ASAO et al. (eds.): Rekishi ishiki no gen-
zai [Present historical consciousness]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten (= Iwanami
kōza: Nihon tsūshi; supplementary volume 1), pp. 123–147.
SEKIMOTO, Teruo (2003): Selves and Others in Japanese Anthropology. In: Akitoshi
SHIMIZU and Jan VAN BREMEN (eds.): Wartime Japanese Anthropology in Asia
and the Pacific. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (= Senri Ethnological
Studies; 65), pp. 131–150.
SHIMIZU, Akitoshi (1999): Colonialism and the Development of Modern Anthropol-
ogy in Japan. In: Jan VAN BREMEN and Akitoshi SHIMIZU (eds.): Anthropology
and Colonialism in Asia and Oceania. London: Curzon, pp. 115–171.
SHIMIZU, Akitoshi and Jan VAN BREMEN (eds.): (2003): Wartime Japanese Anthropol-
ogy in Asia and the Pacific. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (= Senri
Ethnological Studies; 65).
SUGA, Yutaka, Michiya IWAMOTO, and Jun NAKAMURA (2005): No/ya no gakumon to
akademizumu [Folk/non-professional scholarship and academism]. Purogu-
ramu (Program), the 57th Annual Meeting of the Folklore Society of Japan.
UMESAO, Tadao (1957): Bunmei no seitaishikan josetsu [An introduction to the eco-
logical history of civilization). In: Chūō kōron 72, 2, pp. 32–49.
UMESAO, Tadao (1967): Bunmei no seitaishikan [An ecological history of civilization].
Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha.
UMESAO, Tadao (2003): An Ecological View of History: Japanese Civilization in the
World Context. Edited by Harumi Befu, translated by Beth Cary. Melbourne:
Trans Pacific Press.
VAN BREMEN, Jan, Eyal BEN-ARI, and Syed Farid ALATAS (eds.) (2005): Asian An-
thropology. London and New York: Routledge.
YAMASHITA, Shinji, Joseph BOSCO, and J. S. EADES (eds.) (2004): The Making of
Anthropology in East and Southeast Asia. New York and Oxford: Berghahn
Books.
40
YANAGITA, Kunio (1998a). Seinen to gakumon [Youth and scholarship]. In: Yanagita
Kunio zenshū [The complete works of Yanagita Kunio]. Vol. 4. Tokyo: Chikuma
Shobō. [Orig. 1928.]
YANAGITA, Kunio (1998b): Minkan denshōron [On popular tradition]. In: Yanagita
Kunio zenshū [The complete works of Kunio Yanagita]. Vol. 8. Tokyo: Chi-
kuma Shobō. [Orig. 1934.]
YOSHIDA, Teigo (1972): Nihon no tsukimono [Possession in Japan]. Tokyo: Chūō
Kōronsha.
YOSHIDA, Teigo (1998): Masei no bunkashi [Cultural accounts of the supernatural].
Tokyo: Misuzu Shobō. [Orig. 1976.]
41
Itō Abito
The Distinctiveness and Marginality of Japanese
Culture
In this paper I consider distinctive attributes of Japanese culture, but my

aim is not to emphasize the uniqueness of the Japanese people and culture.
Rather, it is to compare Japan with other societies of East Asia, especially
Korean society, and in that light examine the marginal position Japanese
society occupies in the East Asian context and the features of Japanese cul-
ture that have been shaped by that marginality.
Most studies of Japanese culture have focused on contrasting it with the
West, reflecting an interest primarily with Japan in its process of moderniza-
tion. Where this has not been the case, the bulk of scholarship has consisted
largely of subjective, emic descriptions lacking perspectives of comparison
with other cultures, as in Japanese folklore studies. Little inquiry has been
made specifically into Japan’s place within East Asia, and even scholars
interested in comparing Japan with Korea have gone no further than piece-
meal comparisons of folk culture.
In expanding my purview from an initial interest in Japan’s folk culture to
ethnology and then to cultural anthropology, I have consistently made plac-
ing Japanese society and culture within East Asia a central theme of my re-
search. The nature of the scholarly field in which folklore studies, ethnology,
and cultural anthropology of Japan overlap has been shaped in the climate of
Japan’s modernization, and in my view it is a scholarly tradition distinctive to
Japan and one that reflects the multitiered identity of the Japanese people.
In conducting research while living among Koreans, I noticed from the
outset their basic proclivity for logical and systematic thought. I found the
degree of interest in universal concepts and reason as the basis for argument
to be largely unrelated to educational background and conspicuous even
among people of rural communities. This is perhaps not surprising given that
in the past Koreans even in farming communities studied Confucian classics
at seodang (private village schools) as part of their general education and
regularly enjoyed engaging in intellectual debate. Japanese scholars, on the
other hand, though often taken aback by the Korean penchant for logic and
skillful argument, on the whole do not express much interest in Confucianism
or logical debates about human existence.
In addition to this logical, systematic intellectual tradition, Korean society
also has folk culture traditions specific to each region, but among intellectu-
43
Itō Abito
als it is Confucianism, with its logical analysis of universal humanity, that

has been regarded as the society’s orthodox intellectual tradition. Interest in
folklore studies became more prevalent among young Korean scholars with
the waning of Confucian education and advances of democratization and
ethnic consciousness in the 1980s. This contrasts with the concerns of Japa-
nese scholars in comparable fields, which have focused on Japan’s folk cul-
ture from the outset.
An Anthropocentric Worldview
In the backdrop of their logical, systematic intellectual tradition and con-
cern with Confucian and Buddhist views of humanity, Koreans often seek to
engage in intellectual discussion even with Japanese people they meet for the
first time. On the other hand, compared to their keen interest in abstract,
conceptual topics about humanity, Koreans show relatively little interest in
discussing things to do with the nonhuman world. In short, their intellectual
worldview can be said to be anthropocentric.
In their everyday lives, people are for the most part unconcerned with such
questions as humanity’s place in the universe or the nature of the relationship
between human beings and nonhuman things. Nonetheless, the attitudes peo-
ple take to such questions are fundamental to their lives and are among the
central concerns of all religions and basic worldviews.
In societies rooted in highly organized and systematized religions such as
Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, and Buddhism, the relationship between
human beings and the things of the nonhuman natural world, including plants
and animals, is defined and explained in terms of those religious systems. In
such cases, the basic world order is depicted as centered on human beings as
the main protagonists, with a clear distinction being made between human
beings and the things of the nonhuman natural world. Because the task of
defining this basic world order has been relegated to the religious domain,
most people do not bother to go back and reexplore for themselves such
questions as the divine creator’s will or the systematic worldview as taught
by the Buddha, Confucius, or other central religious figure.
When it comes to explanations of humanity’s place in the natural world,
on the other hand, biology and other natural sciences occupy the dominant
position. As a result, people’s interest has been directed at the »person«
within human society, with the emphasis on the social attributes and status
that govern the nature of the person. In this worldview, furthermore, nonhu-
man things have been relegated to a subordinate status vis-à-vis the person,
either as objects of consumption necessary for human life or as media of
interhuman relations.
In Japan, a systematic, structured worldview, as in the major religions, that
defines the relative status or order of human versus nonhuman existence has
44
The Distinctiveness and Marginality of Japanese Culture
never been fully accepted or firmly established. Some Western scholars seem
to include Japan among societies that have fully embraced Buddhism, but
very few could clarify just how systematically Japanese people have accepted
the Buddhist worldview or how they characterize human existence or life
experience within that system. That is, it is fair to say that the relationship
between human beings and the nonhuman world has not been systematically
prescribed in Japan, and that Japanese people do not particularly concern
themselves with that question in their daily lives. The characterization of
human-nonhuman relations not as clearly prescribed under a logical system
but rather as reciprocal and coextensive in the context of everyday life is
arguably one of the key distinguishing features of Japanese culture. In exam-
ining such features ethnographically, a useful approach is to consider key
examples of Japanese folk vocabulary and the folk beliefs underlying them.
Mono, Tama, and Nushi

The word mono, expressing a concept indigenous to Japan, can signify ei-
ther physical things or human beings, and is also used for abstract referents.
Different Chinese ideographs (kanji) are used for each of the first two cases,
and when signifying abstract referents that are neither physical nor human,
the word is written in the hiragana syllabic script. In classical Japanese, fur-
thermore, mono was also used to refer to divine or spiritual beings to be
feared and revered. The Japanese language thus includes a word whose range
of meaning extends from nonhuman material things to people and even to
spiritual beings, and which thus suggests that these different referents stand
in multitiered semantic relationship to one another.
In Japanese folk beliefs, even aspects of the nonhuman, natural world –
trees, rocks, animals, and so on – have been regarded as inhabited by spiritual
beings of some kind or other. Japanese have traditionally thought that a tama
(»soul«) or nushi (»abiding spirit«) could dwell even in such nonhuman
things, and that people should not recklessly defy the will of such spirits or
desecrate their domains. To harm a tree, for example, would be to violate the
spirit dwelling within the tree or within the mountain on which it grows.
Even today, spiritually minded people believe that before cutting down a tree
one should make an offering to the tree, or to the mountain nushi presiding
over it, to beg its permission, or recite an incantation to appease the tree’s
spirit. Similarly, it is thought that just before actually cutting the tree down,
one must plant a seedling beside it for the tree spirit to relocate to; and that
when using a saw one must draw it gently so that the tree will not suffer pain.
It was considered even more natural to suppose the presence of spiritual
beings in animals than in plants. Virtually all animals that in some way re-
lated to people’s lives or attracted their interest – not only livestock (cattle,
horses) and domesticated pets (dogs, cats) but also forest-dwelling animals
45
Itō Abito
(deer, bears, monkeys, snakes, foxes) and small creatures such as mice, birds,
and fish – were thought to be invested with some kind of abiding spiritual
entity. Even nonliving things (rocks, crags) and places (ponds, abysses,
caves, mountains, forests) were associated with nushi-type spiritual beings,
and such beings appear in various forms in folk tales and legends.
The relationship between humans and these spiritual entities associated
with aspects of nature was regarded as a relationship between beings of more
or less equal status that ought to live in mutually respectful coexistence. To
act without regard for spiritual beings – such as by recklessly ravaging their
domains, needlessly touching or moving trees or rocks, or fouling or throw-
ing things into ponds or deep pools – was regarded as violating or inflicting
harm upon those spirits, and as therefore liable to incur a curse in retribution.
When the causes of disease or other misfortunes were sought through divina-
tion, they would often be attributed to past transgressions of that kind. That
is, at times of sickness, accidents, disasters, and so on, people would think in
terms of this kind of spiritual relationship between human beings and the
nonhuman physical world, and in that context they would urge each other to
exercise self-restraint toward the natural world in their everyday behavior.
Yoru, Yadoru, and Kakaru

The verb yoru is used not only to signify the state of one material object
»leaning« against, »resting« on, »drawing close« to, or »drifting« toward
another, but also in reference to nonphysical, nonvisible spiritual beings. It
has traditionally been thought that spiritual entities can »attach« (yoru) to
such material things as flowers, tree branches, and even small stones. In the
traditional Japanese practice of matsumukae, people welcomed gods or spirits
into their lives by going into a mountain or forest and collecting pine sprigs
to bring back and use as New Year’s decorations. Similar items would be
collected in other seasons – azaleas, camellias, or other flowers in spring,
flowers from mountains or forests for the summer Bon festival (all souls’
festival) – to be used as physical media for gods or ancestral spirits to inhabit.
In Japan, plants have thus been regarded as more than merely decorative
objects.
A related verb is yadoru, which normally signifies a traveler’s »staying« or
»lodging« in some place on a journey, but which is also used for an invisible or
spirit-like being’s »abiding« or »dwelling« within something. The word kakaru
is likewise used in the same two different registers of meaning: it can indicate a
material thing’s »hanging« on (kakaru), »catching« on (hikkakaru), or »lean-
ing« against (yorikakaru) something else; and it is also widely used for non-
material intangible situations, such as a misfortune’s unexpectedly »befall-
ing« (furikakaru) a person, the psychological state of some matter’s »weigh-
46
ing« on one’s mind (ki ni kakaru), or the »possession« of something by a

spiritual being (kami-gakari).
Thus we find in the Japanese language a number of verbs all of which ap-
ply broadly not only to physical relationships but to spiritual ones as well,
though people do not normally pay any particular attention to this distinction
when using the words.
Harau, Shizumeru, and Kuyō

In traditional Japanese society, people attached special significance to
well-worn household utensils or long-used clothing or personal effects, often
treating them as if some form of spiritual being dwelled within them. Items
that tended to be viewed in this way included long-used brooms, cutlery,
sewing needles (hari), and writing brushes; things worn or used on the body,
such as clothing, combs, and footwear; and other personal effects such as
fans, walking sticks, and umbrellas. The older such an item became, the more
it would be treated as if it were invested with something spiritual, or as if
some part of its owner’s soul had seeped into it. It was therefore customary to
avoid unnecessary or reckless use of things previously used by strangers. For
the same reason, it was advised that if one found another person’s personal
item, such as a comb, lying on the ground, one should drive away the spirit of
the former user and establish possession of it by first treading upon it; and
conversely, that one should not thoughtlessly discard one’s own long-used
personal items. For the proper disposal of such things, people would conduct
special exorcising/purifying rites (harai) or votive/memorial services (kuyō)
at shrines and temples at appropriate times, as if to express their appreciation
to or appease (shizumeru) living beings associated with the items. The cus-
tom of hari-kuyō, whereby seamstresses set aside all their bent and broken
needles for a special memorial service to thank them for their service, is still
practiced today. The custom is now mostly confined to certain traditional
dressmaking schools and girls’ schools, but in former times even students at
ordinary elementary schools would observe the practice, placing defunct
needles from home economics lessons into a »broken needles container« and
holding a kuyō service to them once a certain amount had accumulated. Such
ceremonies are also held for writing brushes, knives, and fans, while other
items of long personal use – dolls, clocks and watches, and these days even
video game devices – are placed in shrines for similar purifying or memorial
services. During such kuyō ceremonies, people speak words of appreciation
to these inanimate objects as if speaking to other living or sentient beings.
Even when they do not go so far as to conduct kuyō, many Japanese nonethe-
less feel a kind of gratitude when parting with items they have used for a long
time, even ones that are far from special. An acquaintance of mine who has
lived in Korea for many years recounts an incident that illustrates this point:
47
Itō Abito
he had decided to dispose of an old chair from his room, but then was dis-
mayed to see the collection worker toss the chair roughly into the back of a
truck. He was sincerely regretful, saying he would have kept the chair if he
had known it would be »treated« that way.
In former times, it was a widespread custom among Japanese farms that
kept cattle, horses, and other livestock to erect special towers or tumuli at
which to hold kuyō to dead livestock. Similarly, hunting communities in moun-
tain areas would build kuyō towers to the wild boar, deer, and other game they
hunted; and fishing villages would erect stone towers for kuyō in honor of not
only large sea creatures, such as whales, dolphins, and sharks, but also the
small ones that they caught in large numbers, such as salmon, herring, and
sardine. Even today, kuyō in honor of the bounty of the sea are still conducted
under the auspices of fish markets around the country. In Shimonoseki (Yama-
guchi prefecture), the local fishing industry association holds kuyō to blowfish
(fugu) every year during the fugu fishing season. Yanagawa in Fukuoka prefec-
ture, Isahaya in Nagasaki prefecture, and Hamamatsu in Shizuoka prefecture
are among the places known for holding kuyō ceremonies to freshwater eels,
and in recent years kuyō towers have been built at some eel farms as well.
Some restaurants, such as those that serve tempura or other shrimp dishes,
also build tumuli or other special places at which to conduct kuyō services to
the shrimp from which they make their livelihood. This suggests that these
surviving examples of kuyō practice should be regarded as more than just
vestiges of the simple beliefs held by the farming and fishing communities of
the past, and that even a significant number of people in cities still consider
fish, shrimp, and other sea creatures to be more than mere commodities for
consumption. That Japanese people often erect graves for and hold kuyō to
their dead pets can also thus be attributed to more than just popular zoophilia
imported from the West.
Tsuku
The verb tsuku (and inflected forms including tsuite, tsuki, etc.) signifies a
physical state of one object’s attaching or adhering to another, but it can also
be used for comparable states of psychological dependence or support, as in
Watashi ni tsuite kureba daijobu (»Stick with me and you’ll be all right«) and
Watashi ga tsuite iru kara anshin shinasai (»Don’t worry, I’m with you«).
Tsuku is also used to express the presence of good fortune – Saikin sugoku
tsuite iru (»Luck has really been with me lately«) – as if one’s body were
possessed by or charged with some kind of spiritual force. Here again we see
a word’s semantic range encompassing not only physical but also psycho-
logical and even spiritual relationships.
Japanese folk tales and legends include many stories involving animals
that take human form and interact with people in various ways. There are also
48
tales about humans who transform into animals. These stories point to a
worldview according to which humans and animals exist in states that are
reciprocal and coextensive. Such a view differs even from the Buddhist no-
tion of the transmigration of souls, whereby humans and animals are thought
to be at different and discrete levels of existence.
Particularly prominent among such views of the spiritual interactivity be-
tween humans and animals is the belief in tsuki-mono, or spirits that possess
people. In such cases, the spirit of an animal possesses a person’s body,
which, though it remains a human body, takes on aspects of that animal. If
we understand this to mean that a human subject and an animal spirit become
one, each superimposed upon the other, then such a phenomenon would con-
stitute a major threat to the notion of humanity’s spiritual autonomy and
superiority over the natural world (»master of all creation«), and for that
reason the notion is completely unacceptable to Confucianists. The idea of
humanity’s spiritual autonomy from the natural world also exists in the an-
thropocentric worldview of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and has been fur-
ther emphasized by the scientific view of nature that has emerged along with
modernization. In that context, even unilateral or temporary possession of a
person by a spirit would be regarded as an extreme debasement of that per-
son’s character and social standing. Contrasting this is the view of nature and
humanity seen in traditional Japan, whereby even the status of human beings
was determined through their interactivity with the things around them, and
appropriate behavior was required accordingly. In that worldview, spiritual
possession is nothing more than one of the ways in which people and other
things relate to one another. The field of psychiatric anthropology, which
focuses on mental health in connection with cultural expressions of this kind,
has paid considerable attention to the potential for psychological healing
through forms of self-expression mediated by such perceived spiritual enti-
ties. In Japan, this is an approach that has long been widely practiced as part
of folk culture.
Katami
In Japan, the objects that a deceased person was especially fond of using,
or used especially long or often, are traditionally treated with great care, as if
that person’s soul had come to inhabit those things. More than mere memen-
tos to aid recollection, as katami such keepsakes were regarded as corporeal
substitutes for the deceased. In a custom called katami wake (»sharing of
keepsakes«), katami items would be distributed among the people who were
closest to the deceased. Nor are the dead the only people for whom katami
are used; when parting from a loved one for an extended period of time, one
might give them a katami of oneself in the form of something one has worn
or used with special preference or care. Such items are thought to protect the
49
Itō Abito
holder, and it is considered perfectly normal for the holder to occasionally

talk to such objects as if the person they represented were actually present. In
this way, the katami that people leave behind allow us to maintain a connec-
tion with them when they are no longer with us, and provide us with emo-
tional support in their absence.
One might think that preserving and cherishing the material belongings of
the dead occurs more or less in the same way in every society, but in fact this
is not the case. In Korea, for example, people still carefully observe rites of
patrilineal ancestor worship in keeping with Confucian principles and forms;
but according to Confucian teaching, the spirits of the dead dwell only in
family ancestral mortuary tablets, and to revere some other object as the
vehicle of a person’s spirit would be entirely out of the question. In this view,
the favorite clothes or belongings of a deceased person are considered irrele-
vant to the person’s soul; on the contrary, it is not uncommon for people to
avoid contact with the deceased’s clothes or to burn or discard them. In that
context, distributing such items as katami-type mementos would be simply
unthinkable.
In Japan, memorial museums or exhibits honoring eminent and widely re-
spected people generally display various items that the person wore or fre-
quently used. Such items are displayed as more than mere historical artifacts;
through them, visitors to the memorial are better able to recall or imagine the
character of the person and to feel a sense of intimacy with him or her. After
viewing a memorial to a famous literary figure in Japan, a Korean exchange
student remarked that, while he could accept the relevance of such artifacts as
the writer’s unpublished manuscripts and favorite fountain pen, he could not
understand why the exhibit included items ostensibly unrelated to the writer’s
literary achievements, such as clothes, hats, and footwear. In Korea, on the
other hand, I have heard that plans to build such memorials often get bogged
down when it is realized that too few display-worthy mementos of the person
in question have been kept to constitute an exhibit of sufficient content and
scope. Thus there appears to be a considerable difference between the two
countries in terms of the perceived relationship between human beings and
inanimate material things.
Komeru: »Investing« Gifts and Other Objects

Japanese ideas regarding physical objects are also clearly related to Japa-
nese gift-giving practices, an aspect of the culture that has attracted much
interest among researchers from other countries. The custom of giving mid-
year gifts (o-chūgen) and year-end gifts (o-seibo) is observed extensively in
Japan. Japanese also often send presents to people whom they wish to thank
for a recent kindness, and upon receiving such a gift the recipient will also
feel disposed toward making an appropriate gift in response. At weddings,
50
guests traditionally give money gifts to the bride and groom and receive to-
ken gifts in return. When paying a visit to someone, too, it is accepted prac-
tice to take some kind of present as a courtesy, and invariably the host will
respond by giving the visitor something to take home. In traditional Japanese
thinking, verbal expressions of gratitude, no matter how eloquent or profuse,
are considered insufficient on their own; the sentiment expressed by the
words is considered fully conveyed only when the words are accompanied by
some form of concrete embodiment of that sentiment. Furthermore, when one
receives a gift, even one’s gratitude for the gift is not thought to be properly
conveyed unless one gives some concrete thing in return. This contrasts
sharply with the situation in Korea, where it is considered more sincere to
express one’s feelings as far as possible in words alone, and attempting to do
so through material things is regarded as either insincere or indicative of
some special or ulterior motive. It seems clear from these various considera-
tions that in Japan material objects are often regarded as vessels or vehicles
»invested« with something else.
From that perspective, it is fair to say that in Japan concrete expression
and communication through material objects has been valued more than
communication through verbal expressions of concepts and logic. Someone
who values the conceptual dimension may regard communication through
physical objects as indirect; but from the reverse perspective, one could also
say that it is ideas and language, rather, that are empty and lacking in con-
creteness, and that conveying feelings by means of material things is the
more direct form of communication.
Artisans (including craftsmen, skilled tradesmen, and so on) see their tools
as extensions of their own limbs, and treat their most time-worn tools with
great care, almost as if such objects actually were part of themselves. The
proper care and storage of tools is considered part of such work, and for that
reason one can often glean the character of an artisan by observing the state
of his workshop and tools. The works created and even the tools used by an
artisan seem to be invested with the spirit of the person himself. Generally
speaking, artisans are taciturn by nature. They are expected to express them-
selves not by words but through skills and material things, and are evaluated
solely by the quality of their workmanship. Such special respect for and at-
tention to one’s relations to material things is found not only among artisans
but also in such traditional arts as tea ceremony and flower arranging as well
as in sports.
In Japan, even machine operators in modern factories have conventionally
regarded tools and machines as more than mere equipment. Such workers
often treat even state-of-the-art machines like valued colleagues, and take
scrupulous care in cleaning and inspecting them and checking that they are
running smoothly. Sometimes they give machines and robots nicknames and
observe their »birthdays« as they would for their fellow workers, and are
51
Itō Abito
even known to offer machines cups of tea. Although such practices may
appear to be done half in jest, they cannot be attributed entirely to playful-
ness. Factory workers often verbally praise and thank their machines for a job
well done, and may even feel a genuine sense of compunction after burden-
ing a machine with a particularly heavy work load. Thus we can infer that
people’s perceptions of their relations to material things are reflected in how
they care for and preserve their tools and how they clean, service, and main-
tain their machines.
Folk Knowledge
A sensitivity toward material things and a preference for thinking in terms
of the concrete seem to form an important part of the context of Japanese folk
knowledge. By »folk knowledge« I mean popular, indigenous knowledge the
nature of which contrasts sharply with that of modern scientific knowledge.
Not only modern scientism but logical, systematic worldviews in general are
peculiar to advanced civilizations. Such worldviews and systems of knowl-
edge are posited as universal frameworks beyond individual life experience,
and through their centralizing authority they have incorporated and integrated
the peripheral societies around them into their logically structured world.
Folk knowledge, on the other hand, is rooted in individual life experience and
consists of clusters of distinct knowledge traditions each shared among and
passed on by members of a specific local community. While folk knowledge
is thus an agglomerate of different types of knowledge, it cannot be said to
form a coherent system held together by logical connections. Folk knowledge
has a low level of abstractness; it is largely tied to concrete things, places,
and situations, to the body, and to specific, concrete activities. The standardi-
zation and transmission of such knowledge is made possible by nothing other
than people’s formalized life practices.
Even in folk knowledge, however, there is systematic knowledge derived
from the dominant great tradition that in fragmented form ties in with con-
crete life experience and takes root among the populace. This is evident in
East Asia, as elsewhere. In Korean society, for example, which was under the
powerful influence of China’s great tradition, Eastern medical knowledge and
forms of knowledge such as Chinese geomancy (feng shui) are deeply en-
trenched, albeit in less systematic form, among even farming people who
have no specialized knowledge about such matters. In that light, let us now
consider the nature of folk knowledge in Japan with reference, where rele-
vant, to forms of knowledge that have spread through the populace in this
way.
52
Names of things: folk vocabulary

One type of folk knowledge is knowledge of the names and attributes of
the things of the natural world around us. In Japan, high social value has long
been placed on having extensive knowledge of this kind. Regarding animals
and plants, many observers have noted the variety of names applied to them
in different regional dialects, and how those names relate to different seasons
or locations or to the forms and features of the animals and plants themselves.
An especially valued aspect of such knowledge and concern about the natural
world is knowing the names of things. With the help of handbooks and so on
for learning the names of natural things, even premodern Japanese society
had a high degree of collective knowledge in that area.
In Korea, by contrast, most people’s knowledge of natural flora and fauna
is surprisingly scanty, a trend seen not only in urban areas but in rural com-
munities as well, and one particularly evident among people who consider
themselves middle-class. That Koreans generally tend to show little interest
in things of the natural or material world can perhaps be attributed in part to
the fact that Confucianism, which emphasizes the moral and spiritual aspects
of people’s inner being, exerted a more far-reaching influence on people’s
lives in Korea than it did in Japan. Most Koreans are not normally aware of
the affects of that Confucian tradition on their everyday lives, but in compari-
son with Japan the difference is clear. In the traditional Confucian view of the
world and of human existence, not only has little value been placed on the
external world itself, but even folk knowledge of that world has been re-
garded as base. As expressed in the classic phrase that »toying with things
beggars the spirit«, it was thought that paying too much attention to things of
the external world led people to neglect their inner lives.
To many people in Japan, however, being well informed about practical
matters such as clothing, food, and housing is connected not only with life
skills but also with how one is evaluated as a person, and intellectuals are no
exception to this trend. Manufacturers and stores are well aware of the scru-
pulous attention Japanese consumers pay to food, clothing, and other items,
and of the need therefore to provide them with detailed information and ex-
planations about their products. There is no doubt that paying close attention
to the details of things and having meticulous knowledge about them is val-
ued highly in Japan.
This ethos of detailed knowledge is also reflected in the research methods
of Japanese folklore studies, where considerable effort has gone into collect-
ing and describing folk vocabularies, and classified glossaries of such have
been compiled for various specific fields and genres. Such formalized knowl-
edge characterizes the field of Japanese folklore. This emphasis on descrip-
tion of forms in folklore studies has been criticized, even by scholars in re-
lated fields, as making too much of vocabulary and as systematically and
53
Itō Abito
logically deficient. However, the field of Japanese folklore studies is itself

only a reflection of the nature of folk knowledge in Japanese society, and we
should bear in mind that it has always been a unique scholarly tradition
shaped by Japanese realities.
Concrete expression
In the realm of traditional Japanese arts such as tea ceremony and flower
arranging, again the emphasis is not on explaining the logic or mindset be-
hind the activity, but rather on learning the names of the utensils and master-
ing the required etiquette by copying a formalized routine. A similar attitude
is evident in Zen ascetic practice in Japan; rather than through explanations
couched in abstract, conceptual language, novices train by following rules of
action in relation to concrete objects and forms, such as tea, flowers, or gar-
dens. In other words, concrete expression independent of all forms of linguis-
tic expression, such as sermons or sutra texts, occupies a central place in the
process.
In this respect, too, we can see a clear difference from the norms in Korea,
where the focus is on conceptuality and abstract values rather than meticu-
lous knowledge or form. In direct contrast to the Japanese case, when Kore-
ans wish to communicate about states of religious enlightenment or deep
emotion, their first preference is to do so by linguistic expression. Recordings
of sermons and sutra recitations by distinguished priests and monks are sold
at temple kiosks, and their writings fill many shelves in the Buddhism sec-
tions of bookstores. In connection with not only religious but also other kinds
of instruction such as performing arts, I often encounter people in Korea who
are not particular about actual styles or forms but instead try to explain the
discipline logically. In the field of folk dance, for example, experts seek to
describe the basic structure of the art in terms of elemental principles of the
world (»heaven«, »earth«, »man«), yet pay relatively little attention to the
specific knowledge or visible forms of the art itself. Here again we find a
clear contrast with the Japanese cultural equivalent, that is, Japanese folk
dance.
Nonsystematic thinking
Folk knowledge is an aggregate of forms of knowledge lacking overall
logical consistency, and as such it cannot be understood as an integrated
system. Each constituent form of knowledge within folk knowledge is seen as
having its own validity under specific circumstances, and in that context
people typically avoid making assessments on conceptual grounds until they
have properly identified the nature of the particular situation at hand. They do
not assume any logical consistency that is out of actual context, and are not
especially concerned with its universality. For these reasons, ostensibly in-
54
consistent types of knowledge can coexist without being regarded as incon-

sistent. One could even say that the logical criteria for rooting out inconsis-
tency itself does not exist in folk knowledge. Similarly in Japan, little atten-
tion is given to logical worldviews or moral standards stressing consistency
(including that in manners and behavior), and this is an aspect of Japanese
culture many non-Japanese living in Japan soon become keenly aware. An
attitude prevails of what might be called pluralism – that is, accepting things
without trying to exclude or eliminate those that seem divergent – is consid-
ered a sensible, prudent way to live. Accordingly, Japanese people tend to
regard everything that already exists as existing for some reason and with
some validity or other, and therefore to accept it. Attention is focused, rather,
on situational or contextual understanding; the appropriateness of any par-
ticular type of knowledge is judged according to the particular situation at
hand, and the lack of overall systematic coherence is not viewed negatively
in any way. On the contrary, logical systems are sometimes explicitly re-
jected as falsehoods and fabrications – a view that can be found, for example,
in the criticisms of foreign thought by Edo-period scholars of kokugaku
(»National Learning«). These circumstances of knowledge in Japan must
seem insufferable to the intellectual elite of the broader civilization of East
Asia, who place great value on rational principles and ideas.
Situationalism
In Japanese society, people are expected to respond flexibly to meet the
specific conditions of each occasion or situation, and the ability to understand
the multidimensional nature of things and make adjustments accordingly is
highly valued. Given this type of intellectual tradition, however, when re-
quired to make a judgment in a complex situation, Japanese people have a
tendency to vacillate, mulling over various precedents and similar situations
to the point of failing to make a clear decision or conclusion from a logical
point of view. For this reason, Japanese are liable to be seen as irrational or
unprincipled, or to seem lacking in logical or moral faculties. Furthermore,
the tendency for Japanese not to form consistent, authoritative guiding prin-
ciples has created in Japan a climate that makes it difficult to achieve the kind
of leadership demanded in Western and other East Asian societies.
In the past, logically structured approaches to development policy, shaped
by leaders of industrially advanced nations, have in many cases ended in
failure due to circumstances that logical thinking could not have predicted. In
the indigenous-knowledge-based, practice-oriented approaches emphasized
in recent years, however, actual results are valued more than logical consis-
tency, and multidimensional, all-inclusive thinking is desirable. While identi-
fied with other advanced economies on the donor side of development, as a
folk culture Japan in fact has a rich tradition of such pragmatic thinking. This
55
Itō Abito
indigenous tradition has been overlooked by other industrially advanced

nations, and even among Japan’s own intellectual leaders it has not been
adequately recognized, and therefore not acknowledged in a positive light.
The Chinese Tradition and the Inhabitants of the Japanese Archipelago

What I hope to show is that, given its geographical conditions, Japan’s po-
sition within the East Asian cultural sphere was more marginal than Korea’s;
and that as a result Japan, though influenced by Chinese civilization, adopted
aspects of that civilization not systematically but only in fragmentary or su-
perficial ways. Regarding not only Confucianism but even Buddhism, it can-
not be said that such teachings or worldviews were systematically assimilated
by the Japanese populace. Regarding Buddhism, it is significant that those
sects with particular emphasis on harmony with nature, such as Zen, with
approaches based not on linguistically expressed logical systems but rather
on concrete expressions and forms – painting, sculpture, tea ceremony,
flower arranging, landscape gardening – made the religion more palatable to
the Japanese people and allowed it to be embraced in ways that were based
on feeling rather than on intellect.
In Japanese popular society, the view of the world or humanity as defined
by Chinese civilization was thus not assimilated in any systematic manner;
instead it was the folk ways of life, including indigenous belief, that provided
the crucial frames of reference, as noted earlier in this paper. Those folk
lifestyles were practiced through interaction with concrete things of the im-
mediate environment, and were rooted entirely in indigenous beliefs. That is,
the prevailing worldview was one according to which even humanity’s place
was understood in terms of its interactions with material things, and the
world was perceived as an all-inclusive, coextensive field in which people
and things shared the same space and interacted not only physically but in
psychological and spiritual ways as well. This society was characterized by
an emphasis on scrupulous sensitivity to and knowledge of material things,
and by a lifestyle attitude geared toward accumulating but at the same time
constantly improving and refining experience and knowledge, in accordance
with the actual circumstances of life.
Thus, in Japan, what people have traditionally considered important in life
is not logic or concepts but rather the immediate, concrete things and circum-
stances that directly shape daily living, and having a facility with such things
and circumstances is considered a basic life skill. Material things can also be
important media for inter-human relations and communication. In the evalua-
tion of personal worth, importance is placed on having detailed knowledge of
and keen sensitivity to material things – or in other words what in various
spheres of Japanese culture has been recognized as mono no aware, or a
profound, affective appreciation for the nature of things. Even psychological
56
or spiritual relations between people and things have at times been accepted
as a perfectly human aspect of life. Such belief in the spirituality of material
things was, however, extensive among marginal societies in East Asia.
In the Confucian worldview, however, which formed the cornerstone of
Chinese civilization on the Asian mainland, and especially in the teachings of
neo-Confucian scholar Chu Hsi (Zhu Xi; 1130–1200), the world was ex-
plained in terms of a logical, systematic order with humanity at the center. In
this thoroughly secular worldview, the notion of material things having spiri-
tuality was rejected as undermining the idea of human beings’ inner moral
nature and disrupting not only the spiritual but also the social order, and peo-
ple who lived by such a belief were regarded as unenlightened and in need of
civilizing. In that sense, Japanese people’s conspicuous sensitivity to physical
things and reality-oriented thinking created at the periphery of the Chinese
cultural sphere a society quite different from the »civilized« society of the
mainland.
Civilized and Uncivilized

The Japanese worldview may be regarded in that sense as »uncivilized« or
»underdeveloped«, but whatever its lack of logic and system, it is by the
same token immune to opposing logic. While focused on the immediate,
concrete, and empirical, the Japanese outlook is also pluralistic, harmony-
oriented, respectful of history and precedent while prioritizing present reali-
ties, practice-oriented, and refined through constant improvement. In certain
types of exclusive or close-knit societies, such as island societies, these fea-
tures are effective for maintaining a distinct, stable society.
Even today the logical brand of thinking imported from abroad is widely
regarded in Japan as too theoretical and disengaged from reality, and is even
actively rebuked and avoided as a source of misleading untruth. In Korea,
logical and linguistic skills have long been encouraged in children from an
early age, both at school and at home. In Japan, contrastingly, children with a
talent for logical verbal expression have tended to be admonished for »ra-
tionalizing« or being »argumentative«. Even the concept of filial duty to
one’s parents – a Confucian ideal imported from continental culture – has
been regarded in Japan as something learned not logically through abstract
language but rather empirically through concrete guidance focusing on actual
objects and behavior. By being tied to material things, Confucian thought
became less systematic and more fragmented in Japan. Zen Buddhism, which
was embraced in Japan despite being an imported religion, is another case in
point: instead of preaching its universal concepts and rationale through ab-
stract language, it was accepted by Japanese people and became firmly en-
trenched in their lives in sensory, emotional ways, such as through rapport
57
Itō Abito
with nature or physical representations or concrete practices following for-

malized styles.
Let us suppose that civilized life is that whereby human beings, having
been released from the »spell« of concrete things and situations and thus
given autonomy, are thought to live in a universalistic, logical world unaf-
fected by the vicissitudes of specific things and situations. Or rather, let us
define civilized thought as an approach that projects a vision of life whereby,
through logical exposition in linguistic forms (oral and written) of a univer-
salistic view of the world and of humanity, the realities of individual life are
understood as existing in the context of a universal system. On that basis,
Japanese, who see themselves as existing in distinct relation to their immedi-
ate surroundings and situations, can be regarded as indeed living in an »un-
derdeveloped« state whereby they cannot break free from those concrete
things and situations. This suggests further that, as Confucians and other
scholars from continental Asia have witnessed, Japanese society, while
clearly part of East Asia, existed in an »underdeveloped« state on the periph-
ery of or perhaps even external to Chinese civilization. If we take that civili-
zation as the standard, then the way in which Japanese people have identified
themselves in the context of their close relation to concrete things can be
called a condition undifferentiated from nature and one in which humanity
has not even established its autonomy. This view of Japan is still sometimes
evident among older-generation intellectuals in continental Asia. On the other
hand, the same suggestion draws a very different response from younger
Korean intellectuals with no experience of living in Japan; they seem to find
it difficult to imagine that such a thoroughly »underdeveloped« cultural tradi-
tion could possibly be deeply entrenched in the first Asian country that suc-
cessfully modernized. When I explain the Japanese approach to life, which
seems abhorrent to the Confucian’s way of thinking, such young intellectuals
make no secret of the difficulty they have in comprehending it. Fortunately,
however, to all those, young and old alike, who have even a little experience
of living in Japan, the idea seems to ring a familiar bell and to accord with
the ambiguous impressions of Japan that they have struggled for many years
to reconcile.
In Japan, the attitude of avoiding strictly logical thought is in fact com-
monly accepted not only among the general populace but even among the
elite in almost every sphere of society. Abstract debate far removed from
tangible things and circumstances is regarded as meaninglessly out of touch
with reality, and concrete situations and examples are considered much more
desirable than abstract explanations.
By virtue of universality that transcends actual situations and contexts, a
logical system provides a framework that ensures free and fluid activity un-
constrained by the details of particular situations. On the other hand, if
through accumulated experience one seeks to improve and refine one’s life
58
based on one’s continued connection to specific things and circumstances,

then maintaining that connection to one’s immediate surroundings, or in
other words not moving from the situation that forms the basis of one’s life,
takes precedence. This entails placing high value on the continuance of those
specific, local realities of life, and leads to the pursuit of a fixed lifestyle.
Modernization and Marginalization

Japan’s proactive assimilation of Western technology since the Meiji era
has been remarkable in many respects, but serious doubt remains as to how
logically and systematically Japanese have embraced Western civilization.
From the Meiji era on, the issues that had been raised by Edo-period koku-
gaku scholar Kada no Azumamaro (1669–1736) came to be obscured, and
therefore ignored, under the illusion that they had naturally been resolved in
the process of modernization and Westernization known as the Meiji Enlight-
enment (bunmei kaika). In fact, however, it is disturbingly apparent that those
issues have carried over unresolved into the present day. The concrete-
reality-oriented (sokubutsuteki) mode of thought and communication de-
scribed above is far from a thing of the past in Japan; fundamentally it applies
to the great majority of Japanese even today. One could even say that logical,
systematic thought, regarded as one of the prerequisites of civilized society,
has failed to take proper root in virtually any area or class of Japanese soci-
ety. This is true even of scholars, a group ostensibly engaged in work of an
explicitly logical kind. In their everyday lives, rather than adhering to strict
logical rationality, even specialists in theoretical economics and professors
who have themselves published textbooks on logic adopt the same situation-
ally appropriate behavior as is expected of all »decent« people in Japan.
Some Japanese who go abroad for study, particularly those who go to the
United States, sense this kind of discrepancy between their studies and the
realities of their personal lives, and I am sure many more have been troubled
by such a feeling without being able to pinpoint the cause. While accepting
that studying abroad entails enduring that predicament in order to complete a
logico-systematic dissertation and thereby obtain a degree, I suspect many
Japanese have felt reluctant to lead such a thoroughly logical life so incon-
gruous with their true nature. Even after learning how to write papers with
appropriately logical argument so as to satisfy their supervising professors’
expectations, it is doubtful whether such students have truly internalized that
logico-systematic mode of thought. On the other hand, those who really do
internalize such logical thinking may have difficulty readapting to Japanese
society upon their return.
Contemporary society has become increasingly globalized, particularly in
economic and technical areas, and the world increasingly systematized in
accordance with universal logic. In the world as a whole, people with talent
59
Itō Abito
for logical and systematic thought and expression have played leading roles
in those processes as the elite of our age. As explained in the foregoing dis-
cussion, however, this is not so true in Japan’s case. The modern style of
leadership can be described as one in which leaders demonstrate powers of
logical persuasion based on their capacity for logico-analytic thought and
their systematic outlook on the world. In Japan, however, people who try to
persuade others by displays of logic are not necessarily respected; on the
contrary, they are liable to be suspected of having some ulterior motive, or
else regarded as unseasoned in the realities of life. There are also some who
confuse taking aggressive or high-handed action with leadership ability. The
kinds of qualities expected of a leader in Japanese society, however, include a
broad capacity for making judgments appropriate to each situation and based
on a wealth of experience, and the ability to skillfully coordinate other peo-
ple’s varied opinions rather than persuade people by the cogency of one’s
own logic. The ideal leader is seen as having the skills necessary for respond-
ing flexibly to diverse circumstances, and as someone with a fundamentally
pluralistic outlook. The kind of leader who argues for reform in eloquent
logical language based his own unique point of view is more likely to be
regarded in Japan as a dangerous element that would plunge society into
turmoil. In short, in Japan, even among people in central or leading positions
in the society, the ability to make decisions in a multilateral, broadly inclu-
sive manner is prized over any capacity for logical consistency or systematic
thought.
Japan’s development in economy and technology in fact illustrates that
logical and systematic rationality is not necessarily a prerequisite for success
in those areas. Japan’s economic and technical development can be attributed
instead to the accumulation of experience with a diversity of concrete things
and situations, and to the refinement of practices through constant efforts to
improve, and as such it has demonstrated the effectiveness of a work ethic
that prizes the resourceful, bricolage approach typical of the artisan.
Japan’s »distinctiveness« is not simply a matter of its peculiarity as a na-
tional culture. Rather, it lies in the fact that Japanese society, while in a mar-
ginal, »underdeveloped« state, and despite the lack of awareness among
Japanese people themselves of that fact, has nonetheless managed to survive
as a distinctive traditional society without yet ever being excluded from the
»civilized« world.
Concluding Remarks: Japan’s »Distinctiveness«

This »uncivilized« or »underdeveloped« quality seen in Japanese society
is in fact widely shared by people at the peripheries of other spheres of civili-
zation around the world. It is even widely apparent among socially alienated
people in communities subsumed within »civilized« societies. Such people
60
have tended to be labeled »uncultured« or »underdeveloped«, and to be mar-

ginalized and made the targets of religious and cultural enlightenment pro-
grams. The features seen in Japan’s folk culture are the same as those seen
generally in such marginal societies. What makes Japan unique is that it is the
only such society to have remained part of the global system without its true
nature as a marginal society being really understood.
Christianity and Islam, both monolithic, systematic religions, have re-
markable records of propagation throughout the world, and socialism has
similarly sought universal acceptance by logical and systematic means. In
that context, Japanese society is exceptional in that efforts to convert people
to Christianity have gained virtually no ground despite more than a century of
missionary activity. Some people take the simple view that the preexisting
Buddhist system has denied Christianity the chance to spread in Japan, but I
disagree. As mentioned earlier, compared with Korean Buddhism, Buddhism
in Japan was accepted and indigenized in much more experiential and sen-
sory ways through various material representations and by largely discarding
logico-systematic elements expressed through language. The same is true of
Confucianism in Japan; its unique, systematic worldview, presented as a
discourse on the nature of humanity, has hardly been wholeheartedly em-
braced by Japanese. The type of thought that seeks to define things by means
of analytic concepts, and to logically reconfigure experience and place it
within such a system, does not find very fertile soil in Japan. That Christian-
ity was not widely embraced in Japan was not because some preexisting
system precluded the spread of the Christian system, but because Japanese
society is rooted in a folk-culture tradition that rejects the systematic. The
essence of that cultural tradition must be sought in Japan’s indigenous folk
knowledge and, as pointed out long ago by kokugaku scholars, in folk be-
liefs; in a word, it is the attitude known as mono no aware (lit., »the pathos of
things«).
My view of this »underdeveloped« quality of Japanese society is far from
negative. In fact, the nature of such indigenous knowledge is attracting re-
newed interest in today’s international community, particularly at the front
lines of development in developing countries.
It is often pointed out that development policies carried out unilaterally on
the basis of all-too Western logical systems have in many cases gone contrary
to theoretical predictions and achieved no significant results. In today’s inter-
national community, which has essentially been restructured along logico-
systematic lines by the elite of the developed world, people in developing
societies have been characterized as marginal or external to that logico-
systematic global system and labeled as »underdeveloped«. In regard to the
realities of such marginalized societies, any further attempts at development
based on the values of logical coherence and systematic order are likely to
repeat the same mistakes. Such marginal lifestyles closely adapted to con-
61
Itō Abito
crete things and situations in fact represent the most natural and inherently
universal form of human life.
These lived realities peripheral to or outside of the logico-systematic
world are grounded in folk or indigenous knowledge, a form of knowledge
that in recent years has come to attract keen attention at the ground level of
development efforts. Because of its marginality, Japanese society is not adept
at logical self-expression, and in the context of the developed or »civilized«
world it is therefore often regarded as having little presence, or even as some-
thing of a mysterious or enigmatic nature. However, to the extent that Japa-
nese society remains free of the influence of the systematic modes of thought
of Christianity, Confucianism, and Western science, its indigenous modes of
thought and sensibility survive, and in Japan’s example many people are
intuitively beginning to discern the universal issues inherent in marginality
on such a global scale. Aspects of the Japanese cultural tradition are appar-
ently being reflected in the activities of Japanese individuals directly in-
volved in international development efforts, but it is doubtful whether or not
even those Japanese are adequately aware of their own marginality.
Furthermore, Japan currently faces an additional problem in the form of its
inability to logically and systematically verbalize these features of its own
society and culture. For their own psychic well-being, it is imperative that
Japanese people develop proper awareness of their own cultural distinctive-
ness and its attendant problems. Only then will they be able to contribute to
the world in distinctively Japanese ways true to their essential nature.
Actually, this problem is not limited to Japanese society; it is a universal
problem bearing equally on all people at the margins of the global system. I
venture to suggest that Japan’s »uniqueness« lies precisely in this universal
issue.
From the Japanese by Center for Intercultural Communication, Tokyo
62
Fukuta Ajio
How the Task of Studying Yanagita Kunio Has
Developed
1. Two Relationships with Yanagita Kunio

Countless ardent readers have consumed the enormous amount of litera-
ture that was published by the pioneer of folklore in Japan, Yanagita Kunio.
Even after the Teihon Yanagita Kunio shū [Yanagita Kunio – standard edi-
tion] (Yanagita 1962ff., encompassing thirty-one volumes and five supplemen-
tal volumes) was published in the early 1960s, other collections of his works
continued to appear in print. Even paperback editions entitled Yanagita Kunio
zenshū [Complete works by Yanagita Kunio] (Yanagita 1989–1991) were
issued. Many of his works also appeared individually in various paperback
series, and now the definitive edition of his complete works is being prepared
for publication in thirty-six volumes. These repeated publications of Yanagita’s
collected works indicate that there are many people all over Japan who desire
to read and own his entire works. Quite a few possibly keep his works on hand
for their own erudition as readers, which means Yanagita has become an edu-
cational standard. But the publication numbers also indicate that there are large
numbers of researchers who refer to his works. This large body of scholars
concerned with Yanagita’s writings may be divided into two groups, according
to their perspective in reading his work. Namely, those interested in developing
theories on Yanagita himself – a perspective I shall call »Yanagitaism« – and
those focused on matters of folklore studies.
1.1 Yanagitaism
I shall define as »Yanagitaism« that kind of reading of, and reflection on,
Yanagita’s works that aims to examine his thought and insight. From this
position, he is understood mainly as a theorist, and his works are read in
order to understand his theory. The fact that Yanagita’s arguments were
based on folklore from places all across the Japanese Islands is acknowl-
edged as a proposition and also appreciated. Yet there is hardly any interest
in the relationship between the reality of folklore and Yanagita’s description
of it. These readers filter Yanagita’s theory from his statements and hypothe-
ses and subsequently evaluate it.
Whether or not Yanagita had correctly grasped the folklore phenomena
and processed it adequately before he based his own theories on them re-
63
Fukuta Ajio
mains outside the scope of analysis. Critique and discussions written from
this viewpoint hardly ever examine Yanagita’s articles in connection with the
actual folklore phenomena.
The content of Yanagita’s ethnographic descriptions is never doubted but un-
derstood as established fact, as a fixed reality of folklore. The Yanagitaist reading
does not concern itself with concrete folklore phenomena, takes Yanagita’s de-
scription of folklore at face value without further questioning, and understands
and evaluates the ideas expressed on this presupposed basis.
Yanagitaist readers highly appreciate Yanagita’s role in establishing folk-
lore studies. But this remains mere appreciation and they themselves do not
enter the world of folklore studies Yanagita had created. Yanagitaism thus
remains outside of folklore study. Although it holds Yanagita Kunio in high
esteem, it has a conspicuous tendency to downplay the meaning of actual
ethnographic research.
1.2 Folklore Studies

I shall define as a »folklorist reading« that kind of reading of, and reflec-
tion on, Yanagita’s works that strives to learn from them how to study folk-
lore. This position attempts to adopt from his works interpretations, explana-
tions and hypotheses concerning folklore phenomena. Again, as with the
Yanagitaist reading, there is a strong tendency to accept the phenomena he
described without question and to take his interpretations and hypotheses as
established facts.
The field of folklore studies has hardly ever generated researchers who
questioned Yanagita, critically examined his views as well as theories, and
come forth with alternative propositions. It was easily forgotten that the folk-
lore put forward by Yanagita was filtered through his selection and judge-
ment, his theories marked by his subjectiveness. No attention was paid to the
fact that even where Yanagita purportedly lets the source material speak for
itself, it is something produced by Yanagita based on his thoughts and exper-
tise. The fact that the latter was intimately tied up with the concrete content
of his folklore studies was ignored.
Consequently, in the folklorist reading of Yanagita’s works, the man him-
self was not discussed. It seems many researchers in folklore studies regard
Yanagitaism as an issue discussed outside their field, unrelated to the study
of folklore. There are very few folklorists who have examined their theories
and claims on folklore in conjunction with Yanagita’s thoughts and insights.
The title »Study on Yanagita Kunio« almost always meant a Yanagitaist
study and hardly ever the study of folklore.
64
How the Task of Studying Yanagita Kunio Has Developed
2. The Four Stages of Yanagitaism

The writings by Yanagita not only exist as reading material, but his re-
search results were very frequently the focus of examination, his thoughts
and findings vigorously discussed. The discussion of Yanagita was closely
linked to the state of society. At present, we have a continuous flow of publi-
cations on Yanagita. One can even speak of a constant boom. But as the
words or content may be strong and severe, this is merely a problem on the
level of academic evaluation; it is apparently not related to any enthusiasm
for social change. The study of Yanagita Kunio is cut off from practical con-
cerns.
However, it was due to people believing that by learning from Yanagita
Kunio they would be able to work out a plan to change Japan, which brought
him into the limelight and persuaded many researchers to study his works. At
the earliest, this tendency can be witnessed in the social changes of the 1930s
and has resurfaced once again in the 1960s. The Yanagita shiron [Historical
studies on Yanagita Kunio] by Ienaga Saburō (1973) obviously needs men-
tioning as a pioneer work, but it never led to a true Yanagita trend.
Risking simplification, I contend that Yanagitaism seems to have changed
its aspects roughly every decade since the 1960s to form a revival. Today,
there are possibly more than 150 publications entitled »Yanagita Kunio«,
paperback editions and special magazine issues dealing with Yanagitaism.
There has been no other Japanese who has been discussed so much.
2.1 The 1960s Campaign Regarding the Security Treaty and Yanagitaism
After the campaign centered in the big metropolitan to fight the security
treaty had failed and the treaty concluded, a »return to the home villages«
movement was propagated. People planned to return to the countryside and
build up a grassroots movement for social change from there. The corre-
sponding academic initiative was to read Yanagita and learn from him. Euro-
pean and American theories had failed to produce a successful plan for
changing Japan. It was necessary to grasp and understand Japanese society
from the inside. To achieve this, the call went out to learn from Yanagita
Kunio, who was able to understand the eye-level of ordinary people and
conceptualise Japanese society accordingly. This approach followed the same
logic as those of the prewar changes. The young generation began to read
Yanagita.
Typical for the Yanagitaism of this period is the work of Gotō Sōichirō.
He made his appearance with the article »Yanagita Kunio-ron: Yanagita-
gaku no shisō to gakumon« [Yanagita theory: Thought and scholarship in
Yanagita studies] in Shisō no kagaku, published in 1964, followed by a host
of Yanagitaist studies. Gotō was a specialist in the history of political
thought. After the struggle against the security treaty had failed, he strongly
65
Fukuta Ajio
felt the necessity to understand Japanese society from within and came to
study Yanagita. He owed his awareness of Yanagita to the influence of his
university teacher Bunzō Hashikawa. Hashikawa’s own view on Yanagita
had been published in Tenkō: Kyōdō kenkyū [Collaborative research: Conver-
sion] (Shisō no Kagaku Kenkyūkai 1962) and in the first volume of the series
20-seiki wo ugoka shita hitobito [People who influenced the 20th century]
(Kuno and Tsurumi 1964).
Other articles appeared by Masuda Katsumi, Hanada Kiyoteru and Sumiya
Kazuhiko. The publication of Teihon Yanagita Kunio shū [Yanagita Kunio –
standard edition] in 1962-1964 and the death of Yanagita in August 1962
were further important events of this period. Interest in Yanagita grew spon-
taneously. A sign of this tendency was that the 1961 January issue of the
journal Bungaku [Literature] by the publishing house Iwanami was printed as
a feature issue, bearing the title »Yanagita Kunio«.
2.2 The 1968/69 Student Revolt, the 1970 Security Treaty and
Yanagitaism
Student activism against the established system that at the time spread
globally developed in Japan as the so-called campus strife and, especially, the
student movement called zenkoto (All-University Strife Council). It over-
lapped with the fight against the renewal of the security treaty in 1970, which
rose in intensity before eventually being defeated, while the »campus strife«
was re-evaluated as a »campus dispute«. Once again, the study of Yanagita
was widely propagated in order to achieve an inside understanding of Japa-
nese society. The latter was deemed necessary to subdue the spell of the
Tennō-system, which had been absorbed into people’s bones. To do this, one
had to study Yanagita. Around 1970, reports and comments on Yanagita
appeared frequently in journals of the New Left, and even some special fea-
tures were published.
In the 1970s, researchers without any direct connections to the campus
strife started to discuss Yanagita with protagonists of the movement. For
example, young people gathered in terakoya (literally: »temple schools«),
which were born out of disillusionment with the universities. These terakoya
had been established by their own efforts after the model of Edo-period pri-
vate academies as a new forum for studying. Yanagita was one of the major
issues taken up in theses academies, and these discussions laid the foundation
for the further development of Yanagitaism. This is shown by the collabora-
tion of academic researchers such as Miyata Noboru or Noguchi Takenori
with Gotō Sōichirō in teaching in these schools. The Kikan Yanagita Kunio
Kenkyū [Quarterly Yanagita Kunio studies] (1973–1975) came out of this
same trend. Each issue took the form of a special feature, and so the journal
became a forum for studying Yanagita from various perspectives. Those
66
engaged in Yanagita studies at the terakoya later assumed even more inde-
pendence, forming the Yanagita Kunio Study Group and continuing their
research. Gotō Sōichirō was the leading personality in this group.
This was the time (1973) when the Yanagita Kunio kenkyū [Yanagita Kunio
studies] edited by Kamishima Jirō appeared. It was also the time when re-
searchers in folklore studies began to discuss Yanagita, exemplified by Makita
Shigeru’s Yanagita Kunio (1972) and Wakamori Tarō’s Yanagita Kunio to
rekishigaku [Yanagita Kunio and historiography] (1975). Noboru Miyata also
published articles touching on Yanagita.
Amidst the flurry of appreciation and praise lavished on Yanagita, Arii-
zumi Sadao’s Yanagita Kunio shō [Reflections on Yanagita Kunio] (1972)
was a sober exploration. Ariizumi argued that the subject of Japanese folklore
studies was formed by omitting the problem of discrimination. Scholars,
answering the wish for the ongoing succession of the family, had attempted
to make ancestor worship the basis of the Tennō-system, systematically dis-
regarding the fact that discrimination against minorities was an integral part
of ancestor worship. His article did not have an immediate impact, but raised
a point that continues to be of concern today.
2.3 Academic Yanagitaism of the 1980s

The flood of articles on Yanagita continued without interruption in the
1980s. Each and every one of these publications held his thought and exper-
tise in high esteem and posited something that one should learn from him.
But the practical missionary zeal of the 1970s, which had looked to Yanagita
for direction in a desire for change after the failure of various struggles, di-
minished quickly. He was now taken up more as a scholarly model. The
many pedagogical studies referring to Yanagita that were published at the
time can be characterised as paradigmatic in that respect. As the problems
and contradictions of modern public education became more and more visi-
ble, an undercurrent emerged that raised the esteem of the village group edu-
cation Yanagita had depicted so favourably.
Thus the Yanagitaism of the 1980s was supported by academic researchers.
Most exemplary is the economic historian Iwamoto Yoshiteru. Anecdote has it
that he began his study of Yanagita during a research stay in the United States by
borrowing the Teihon Yanagita Kunio shū [Kunio Yanagita – standard edition]
from the library and is a case in point. Since his 1976 monograph Yanagita Kunio
seigaku [Yanagita Kunio’s studies in agricultural policy], Iwamoto kept on
no no•seigaku
writing about Yanagita in the late 1970s and 1980s. Kawada Minoru, a historian
of political thought, published Yanagita Kunio no shiso•shiteki kenkyū [Yanagita
shiteki kenky
Kunio’s studies in the history of ideas] in 1985 and many other Yanagitaist
works.
67
Fukuta Ajio
On the other hand, from the failure of the social struggles of the 1970s and
the disenchantment with the zenkoto, there emerged, among those seeking
autonomy, ever more clearly a movement to read Yanagita privately as an
»alternative science«. The voluminous Yanagita Kunio den [Biography of
Yanagita Kunio] presented to the public by the Yanagita Kunio Kenkyu kai
(1988) headed by Gotō Sōichirō is representative of this trend.
Many of those discussing Yanagita stood outside the academy. Especially
Gotō’s activities brought many to the study of Yanagita who were not profes-
sional scholars. He strove to organize circles in every region that were called
»People’s Universities« and encouraged them to move on from passive learn-
ing to active research. Meanwhile and independently, Yanagita studies in the
academy also tended to grow, eventually leading to the foundation of a
scholarly organization for the study of Yanagita. It was established on the
occasion of a Yanagita symposium held during the conference of the History
of Social Thought Association in 1994. The call to organise a »Yanagita
Kunio Association« came from presenters at the symposium such as Fujii
Takashi, Kawada Minoru, and Fukuta Ajio, and the association was founded
in 1995. Its members are generally dedicated to the scholarly study of Ya-
nagita.
2.4 The 1990s: A Period of Criticism

The 1990s were a period in which Yanagita, who had hitherto been a
model from which to learn, became an object of criticism and the problematic
aspects of his work were pointed out. It is well known that Yanagita was a
member of the Meiji state bureaucracy. But his thinking and expertise were
discussed without giving sufficient thought to the relation between this fact
and his folklore research and views. In contrast, Funaki Hiroshi’s Yanagita
Kunio gaiden [Addenda to Yanagita Kunio] (1991), which explored Yanagita
as the administrator that he was and clarified his deep commitment to the
Meiji state policies in a factual manner, opened up a new phase of research
on Yanagita. According to Funaki’s insight, Yanagita in his folklore studies
strove to »rationalize the Tennō-system by the notion of the ›common
people‹«. This was followed in 1992 by Murai Osamu’s widely discussed
Nanto• ideorogi• no hassei [The origin of the Southern Islands ideology],
which posited that Yanagita’s folklore studies were policy studies for colo-
nial rule. A further discussion of Yanagita in the context of colonialism was
Kawamura Minato’s »Dai To•a a minzokugaku« no kyojitsu [Truth and lies in
Greater East Asian folklore studies] (1996).
Thus, discussing the problematic aspects of Yanagita became the funda-
mental trend of Yanagitaism in the 1990s. Especially Yanagita’s thesis of
ethnic unity of the nation came under fire, to the extent that criticism of this
uniformity theory became the mainstream of Yanagitaism. An exemplary
68
work is Koyasu Nobukuni’s Kindaichi no arukeorojī: kokka to senso• to

chishikijin [The archaeology of modern knowledge: The state, war, and the
intellectuals] (1996).
Not all Yanagitaist publications followed this trend. There were highly aca-
demic publications that explored various textual problems within Yanagita’s
writings. Numerous others followed the line of »turning to Yanagita in hard
times«, that is, whenever they came across a situation that was difficult to
explain in terms of Euro-American theories. Education was a typical field.
Early on, educationists had turned their eyes on Yanagita’s »group educa-
tion« or »village education«. When the contradictions in modern public edu-
cation became apparent, they increasingly took up Yanagita’s pedagogical
theories and tried to apply them as a model.
3. Research on Yanagita Kunio in Folklore Studies

As I have mentioned above, Yanagita was for a long time treated as the
absolute and final truth in folklore studies. His words had the status of estab-
lished and commonly accepted theories. They were almost never perceived as
hypotheses he had built on the material he himself had collected at the time.
Research in folklore studies often took up the task of supporting his theories
by seeking additional examples of things he had mentioned, or conversely, of
applying his analyses to new material. If folklorists wrote about Yanagita,
they rarely went beyond explaining his views. Nihon minzokugaku [Japanese
folklore studies], the journal of the Japanese Association of Folklore Studies,
does not contain one article that discusses Yanagita Kunio critically.
The first folklorist to really take issue with Yanagita was probably Miyata
Noboru. Miyata did not restrict folklore studies to a small world of its own,
but sought active collaboration with other disciplines, and in doing so ex-
changed views and collaborated with Yanagitaists. He joined hands with
Gotō Sōichirō in the terakoya activities of the 1970s and became one of the
editors of the Kikan Yanagita Kunio kenkyū [Quarterly Yanagita Kunio stud-
ies]. He joined the panel discussions on selected topics of Yanagita studies,
which headed each issue, and made his statements from the perspective of
folklore studies. Still, there is hardly any paper by Miyata that specifically
discusses Yanagitaism. His own research generally just continued in the
direction given by Yanagita’s theory. But he did not follow Yanagita in
sounding the warning bells for contemporary society that the master had
interwoven into his research. Miyata’s opus magnum Miroku shinkō no
kenkyū [Research into Miroku worship] (1970) developed the hypotheses
Yanagita (1971) had exposed in Kaijō no michi [Maritime roads]. However,
Miyata did not touch on the evaluation of Okinawa or relate his findings to
the history of migrations on the Japanese archipelago. He made no mention
of the feeling of urgency that had previously made Yanagita use the term
69
Fukuta Ajio
Nihon hondo (»Japanese mainland«) as a warning sign against forgetting

Okinawa. Instead, Miyata sought to liberate Yanagita’s thoughts from the
sense of crisis and the missionary zeal that accompanied them and to inte-
grate them into his own way of thinking. Furthermore, he attempted to come
to terms with the Tennō-system that in many aspects stuck in the throat of
Japanese society. While Miyata often served as a mediator in explaining
Yanagita to people outside folklore studies, in his own research he had liber-
ated himself from his spell and followed a broader agenda.
In the folklore studies of the 1970s, it became a mainstream trend to cast
doubt on Yanagita’s propositions that had hitherto been followed unchal-
lenged by his immediate disciples in their research and to explore the various
problems of the Yanagita approach. Yanagita’s method of exploring folklore
phenomena according to the theory of a »synchronicity of historical layers»
(jūshutsu risshōhō) – a term coined in his Minkan denshō-ron [Theory of
folklore tradition] (1934) – and his »centre vs. periphery thesis«, proposed as
a hypothesis in Kagyū-kō [Reflections on snails] (Yanagita 1930), were sub-
jected to critical analysis. These works did not discuss Yanagita’s thought in
toto. Still, they took issue with fundamental parts of his theory. The first to
question these seminal elements of Yanagita-style methodology was Katsun-
ori Sakurada, but it was Ajio Fukuda who made them the topic of a series of
articles collected in his Nihon minzokugaku hōhō josetsu [Prolegomena to a
methodology of Japanese folklore studies] (1984). Sakurai Tokutarō also
elucidated problems of the »synchronicity of historical layers« theory, and
tried to transform it into a method that could only be applied regionally. At
this time, Jūrō Ono’s propositions on the ethnic differences in Kagoshima
prefecture made a great impact. Ono had already inherently rejected Ya-
nagita’s national frame of reference in comparative studies in the 1960s.
This way, Yanagita was studied by folklorists mainly with respect to his
way of handling materials, with a special focus on his method of interpreting
folklore phenomena, without reference to his general ideas, his sense of crisis
and his missionary zeal. Although severe criticism of Yanagita appeared
among Yanagitaists in the 1990s, it was rarely taken up by folklore researchers.
If they became a topic of discussion, folklorists tended to defend Yanagita and
to consolidate their high evaluation of his work. This was shown by the sug-
gestion that the Japanese Association of Folklore Studies should issue a state-
ment to counter such criticism. Many articles of the 1990s extolled Yanagita’s
superb accomplishments and excoriated contemporary folklore studies and
folklorists for their low-level and meddlesome disputes.
The folklore researchers today tend to over-interpret Yanagita, dragging
his claims into the present and conceiving his writing as far more complex
than it was at the time of publication. Moreover, even sentences suggesting
the infallibility of Yanagita appear, approving Yanagita’s thoughts without
even examining the methodological problems he presented. In those cases,
70
the sense of crisis and the missionary zeal have been completely forgotten. It
is obvious that there is no raison d’être for this kind of academic research in
the present age. It will be necessary to construct a folklore study fit for the
21st century by extracting the theory of Kunio Yanagita (which had evolved
through the first half of the 20th century), apply his sense of crisis and mis-
sionary zeal in a manner suitable for the present age, as well as critically
examine his claims and hypothesis.
Recently, Yanagita Kunio’s request for development to be seen from a sin-
gle-nation folklore as well as a global folklore perspective, which he stated in
his work Minkan denshō ron [Theory of folklore tradition], is increasingly
gaining attention. Yanagita himself did not comment further on the context of
the term global folklore, but merely left the term as a legacy. It can be per-
ceived as the homework Yanagita has left for the next generation to do. Never-
theless, the generation that had inherited folklore studies after the Second
World War perceived single-nation folklore as the standard and completely
disregarded global folklore, for which Yanagita had left no guidelines as to
content. The time has come to examine the concept of global folklore as well as
to search for its concrete possibilities, whilst attempting to overcome the barri-
ers of single-nation folklore within the Japanese Islands. The multi-cultural
situation on the Japanese Islands is undoubtedly prompting this step.
4. The Task Ahead

The thoughts and insights of Yanagita Kunio are worth being reconsidered
and examined at all times, by reading his works. But, as to Yanagitaism, it
has to overcome the problem stated earlier in this text. Thus, it remains to be
examined whether or not Yanagita had correctly grasped the folklore phe-
nomena he had used as a foundation for his theories on the folklore phenom-
ena of the Japanese Islands, and whether he handled the source material ade-
quately. Yanagita’s claims are merely sandcastles if the folklore phenomena
that supposedly back up the hypotheses are not performing their task, even if
the claims or hypotheses are extraordinary. At this point, modest attention
needs to be paid to the results of the post-Yanagita folklore studies, and any
verification of the theories brought up by Yanagita goes on from there. On
the other hand, the folklore study should not glorify Yanagita Kunio as an
absolute, but understand him simply as one researcher. The task for the field
of folklore study should be to realise the sense of crisis and missionary zeal
that Kunio Yanagita had coherently expressed and simultaneously investigate
the methods and hypotheses of Yanagita, so as to re-conceptualise them as
tasks suitable for the modern age. Folklore researchers undoubtedly politicize
their field of study by ignoring Yanagita’s theory and sense of missionary
zeal, as well as by conceiving all his works as objective research results with
folklore study as its base, as well as speaking about them second hand. Fur-
71
Fukuta Ajio
thermore, Yanagita has to be understood as a child of his age. It has to be

fully understood that he was greatly bound by his background at the time of
publication. The truly intense sense of crisis and missionary zeal he bore in
mind are witness to his limitations, and even though his hypotheses were
constructed within the study of folklore, it cannot be simply characterised as
an objective point of view or as objective hypotheses.
Whether it be Yanagitaism or folklore, the content that can be extracted
from the works of Yanagita Kunio is immense and never-ending. Yet the
writings of Kunio Yanagita, who was a literary enthusiast in his youth and
educated in the Meiji period, do not evolve in a logical and explicit manner.
Neither can one be sure that Yanagita states his claims and hypothesis as
clear results. For the modern reader he is difficult to understand, and the
reader is frequently confused about whether he has at all grasped the meaning
and claims made by the writing. It leads to mistakes if the reader picks out
expressions that suit his own attitude and judgement, lines them up as his and
presents them as the viewpoint of Yanagita Kunio. With Yanagita’s writings,
we must continue our efforts to grasp the entire train of thought in the body
of the text as a hypothesis and to extract the claims hidden within it.
Because the writings of Yanagita Kunio are difficult to understand for
younger readers or foreigners, there have been very few translations into
English or other languages. Only a handful of publications by Yanagita have
been introduced overseas. Moreover, the keywords to understanding the
claims of Yanagita are typically Japanese terms, reflecting the characteristics
of single-nation folklore. They are very peculiar terms, which make the proc-
ess of finding the appropriate term in the target language a difficult one. But
future examinations of Yanagita Kunio must progress within an international
relationship, not merely inside Japan. To realise this aim, many writings by
Yanagita Kunio need to be properly translated into other languages and to be
read by many people. This would create an environment that makes appropri-
ate examination possible. I put great hopes in Japan researchers and their
undertakings across the world.
From the Japanese by Tomoe Steineck
References Cited
FUKUTA, Ajio (1984): Nihon minzokugaku hōhō josetsu: Yanagita Kunio to minzoku-
gaku [Prolegomena to a methodology of Japanese folklore studies: Yanagita
Kunio and folkore studies]. Tokyo: Kōbundō.
FUNAKI, Hiroshi (1991): Yanagita Kunio gaiden [Addenda to Yanagita Kunio]. To-
kyo: Nihon Editā Sukuru Shuppanbu.
GOTŌ, Sōichirō (1964): Yanagita Kunio-ron: Yanagita-gaku no shisō to gakumon
[Yanagita theory: Thought and scholarship in Yanagita studies]. 3 parts. In:
Shisō no Kagaku 22, 23, 25.
72
IENAGA, Saburō (1973): Yanagita shiron [Historical studies on Yanagita Kunio]. In:
Jirō KAMISHIMA (ed.): Yanagita Kunio kenkyū [Studies on Yanagita Kunio].
Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, pp. 228–243.
IWAMOTO, Yoshiteru (1976): Yanagita Kunio no no•seigaku
seigaku [Yanagita Kunio’s stud-
ies in agricultural policy]. Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobō.
KAMISHIMA, Jirō (1973): Yanagita Kunio kenkyū [Studies on Yanagita Kunio].Tokyo:
Chikuma Shobō.
KAWADA, Minoru (1985): Yanagita Kunio no shiso•shiteki kenky [Yanagita Kunio’s
shiteki kenkyū
studies in the history of ideas]. Tokyo: Miraisha.
KAWAMURA, Minato (1996): »Dai To•a a minzokugaku« no kyojitsu [Truth and lies in
Greater East Asian folklore studies]. Tokyo: Kōdansha.
KOYASU, Nobukuni (1996): Kindaichi no arukeorojī: kokka to senso• to chishikijin
[The archaeology of modern knowledge: The state, war, and the intellectuals].
Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
KUNO, Osamu and Shunsuke TSURUMI (ed.) (1964): Sekai no chishikijin [Intellectuals
of the world]. Tokyo: Kōdansha (= 20seiki wo ugoka shita hitobito [People
who influenced the 20th century]; 1).
MAKITA, Shigeru (1972): Yanagita Kunio. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha.
MIYATA, Noboru (1970): Miroku shinkō no kenkyū [Research into Miroku worship].
Tokyo: Miraisha.
MURAI, Osamu 81992): Nanto• ideorogi• no hassei [The origin of the Southern Is-
lands ideology]. Tokyo: Fukutake Shoten.
SHISŌ NO KAGAKU KENKYŪKAI (ed.) (1962): Tenkō: Kyōdō kenkyū [Collaborative
research: Conversion]. Vol. 3. Tokyo: Heibonsha.
WAKAMORI, Tarō (1975): Yanagita Kunio to rekishigaku [Kunio Yanagita and historiog-
raphy]. Tokyo: Nippon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai.
YANAGITA, Kunio (1930): Kagyū-kō [Reflections on snails]. Tokyo: Tōkō Shoin.
YANAGITA, Kunio (1934): Minkan denshō-ron [Theory of folklore tradition]. Tokyo:
Kyōryūsha.
YANAGITA, Kunio (1962ff.): Teihon Yanagita Kunio shū [Yanagita Kunio – standard
edition]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō.
YANAGITA, Kunio (1971): Kaijō no michi [Maritime roads]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō.
YANAGITA, Kunio (1989–1991): Yanagita Kunio zenshū [Complete works by Kunio
Yanagita]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō (= Chikuma Bunko).
YANAGITA KUNIO KENKYU KAI (ed.) (1988): Yanagita Kunio den [Biography of Yana-
gita Kunio].Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō.
73
Ishige Naomichi
Historical Survey of the Food Culture
Introduction
Gastronomy functions as the mirror of culture. Food materials in the
kitchen reflect the local environment and life style. Kitchen tools and cooking
recipes are the essence of the traditional technique of a people. Traditional
rules of human relationship and religious aspects become apparent through
table manners, and culinary occasions act as symbols of events such as rites
of passage, annual and other festivals. Throughout history, crops and live-
stock have been introduced by intercultural exchange. It is possible to under-
stand the culture of a region or of a people by examining the way food is
handled, which is the basis of human living.
It is apparent that food culture is an important field of cultural studies, yet
because it seems to have an overwhelmingly trivial nature, it has rarely been
taken up as a topic of studies in the humanities or social studies. Worldwide,
the study of culinary culture is a new field that was not begun till the 1970s,
except for a few pioneering achievements, and the situation is much the same
in Japan. The study of Japanese food culture, which has been conducted since
the first half of the 20th century, was mostly done within the frame of ethnol-
ogy or historical studies, apart from some fragmentary research.1
In the process of nation-building, the Meiji government tried to popularize
the stoic ethics of the bushi as a model for the entire population. As a result,
being particular about the subject of food was generally condemned as un-
manly. The Kansai area, which took pride in its chōnin culture (towns people,
mainly of the merchant class) that valued consumption and amusement, was
an exception to this rule. Intellectuals were not. Researchers did engage in the
practical aspects of the subject, such as the production of food in agriculture,
the analysis of the process of cooking (chōrigaku), or dietetics, which deals
with the nutritional situation of the nation. But matters concerning food cul-
ture were categorized as dilettantish pastime.
After the post-World War II period of enormous struggle to achieve eco-
nomical growth had ended, the 1970s introduced a lifestyle of enjoying the
fruits of one’s labour. The appearance of scholars engaged in genuine studies
of the gastronomic culture can be placed around this time. In the 1980s the
»gourmet boom« began and people started to view food as enjoyment. The
1 The history of research in Japanese food-culture up to 1990 is dwelt with in Ishige

1996.
75
Ishige Naomichi
knowledge of food and gastronomy came to be accepted as part of cultural

education, and the study of gastronomic culture developed hand in hand with
these trends in Japanese society.
Tendencies in Recent Research

Clustered around the researchers of the National Museum of Ethnology,
food culture began to be investigated from an ethnological viewpoint during the
1970s. From 1982 onwards, the »Food Culture Forum«, organized by the Aji-
nomoto Foundation for Dietary Culture, was held annually. Every year a spe-
cial topic on the cultural aspect of gastronomy was chosen, and researchers
from various fields dealing with gastronomy gathered three times a year to
promulgate and discuss their research. The results were then published in an
annual report. This forum took a comprehensive stance on the study of food
culture, taking foreign countries into account as well. Such reports on foreign
food culture proved useful for the study of the Japanese landscape, too, as the
forum consistently maintained a comparative approach. The researchers who
took part in this forum acted as the core group that supported the study of
gastronomic culture in its early stages. The altogether seven volumes of Kōza
shoku no bunka [Comprehensive edition: Food-culture] were published from
1998–1999, based on the essays published at this forum. This series is a
compilation of the study of gastronomic culture in Japan at that time (Ishige
1998–1999). The twelve volumes of Zenshū Nihon no shoku bunka [A
comprehensive collection on Japanese food culture] appeared within the
same period (Haga and Ishikawa 1996–1999). The editorial policy of the first
publication takes up Japanese food culture in an international context, whilst
the latter focuses on Japan and compiles important essays dealing with food
that were published in academic journals.
Along with its publication of the quarterly journal Vesta, which is the only
learned journal on food culture in Japan, the Ajinomoto Foundation for Die-
tary Culture produces and publishes the database Food Culture Bibliography.
If the pioneering researchers, who were centered on the »Food Culture Fo-
rum« and led the study of Japanese food culture, can be regarded as the first
generation, the dawn of the 1990s witnessed the appearance of the second
generation of academics. The first generation tried out methods of research-
ing food culture whilst simultaneously engaging in their various major sub-
jects. The young people who took up the study of food culture after it was
accepted as an academic subject in its own right constituted the second gen-
eration. This second generation includes many eager researchers who engage
in fieldwork overseas, and this young generation will successively contribute
their findings in due time.2
2 A series on the food-culture of the different regions of the world by Japanese

scholars is currently under publication; see Ishige (ed.) 2004–2007.
76
Periodization in the History of Food Culture

Compared to changes exhibited by the development of ideology, society,
or technology, which can sometimes be revolutionary, the history of food
culture in general evolves more gradually. For a new cuisine or change in
table manners to spread through the entire population, time is needed to pre-
pare and structure the manufacture and supply of this food. Tastes and food-
related values developed during childhood change slowly and are transmitted
gradually from generation to generation. Accordingly, the time periods of the
history of food culture must differ from that of standard history. The first
work dealing with a proper overview of Japanese food culture from prehis-
tory through to the modern age was published in 1934 (Adachi and Sakurai
1934). Since then, several historians published overviews on the eating habits
of the Japanese people. All of them follow the political-historical periodiza-
tion of Japanese history, such as the Nara-, Heian-, and Kamakura-periods
and deal with eating habits within this frame. They also share the focus on
the historical description of »traditional« food culture, and only very briefly
touch the post-Meiji periods. They do not investigate Japanese history from
the viewpoint of food culture research, but merely apply the tools of their
trade as historians to the topic of food culture. To liberate the historical con-
sideration of food culture from standard periodization by replacing it with
one’s own periodization means expressing the individual historical viewpoint
of a researcher. This process of creating an historical survey from the view-
point of food culture research began in the 21st century.3 In the following
chapters, I would like to briefly outline the history of food culture in Japan
according to my own periodization, as well as touching on some of the prob-
lems concerned here.
Prehistory
This period, during which food was obtained by hunting and gathering, is
subdivided into the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic. The latter also covers the
Jōmon Period. Numerous stones with traces of carbohydrate, proof of heat
treatment, have been excavated from Upper Palaeolithic sites, which leads to
the conclusion that an earth oven was used for cooking. As Japanese soil is
unsuitable for the preservation of organic compound, traces of flora and
fauna are rarely found, and the current situation faces the problem that there
is no tangible proof of the eating habits of the Palaeolithic people. Hope re-
mains for the discovery of new archaeological evidence in the future. In the
Jōmon period, earthenware was introduced and with it the new cooking
method of boiling, which widened the range of food sources immensely.
3 The following two volumes present a history according to the periodization of the
authors: Ishige 2001 and Harada 2005.
77
Ishige Naomichi
Other than animal products, nuts such as walnuts, chestnuts, and acorn have
been identified as the main nutritional source during the Jōmon period, and
the acorns include some types that can only be eaten when boiled. When
compared with the mainly nomadic cultures of hunters and gatherers, the
people of the Jōmon period were largely settlers. Furthermore, the Neolithic
is generally known by its agricultural revolution, but traditional research
understood the Jōmon society as a hunting and gathering culture. Neverthe-
less, since some archaeological sites revealed traces of cultigens, the theory
of the Jōmon period as an agricultural period has emerged. The foremost task
of food culture research concerning the Jōmon period is to unravel the agri-
cultural situation of this period based on archaeological evidence.
The Establishment of the Rice Agriculture Society

The greatest event in the history of Japanese food culture is the establish-
ment of a fundamentally agricultural society centred on wet rice cultivation
in the Yayoi period.
The founder of Japanese ethnology, Yanagita Kunio, accredited the forma-
tion of the Japanese people to the introduction and reception of rice cultiva-
tion. He argued that the evolution of the traditional social structure, as well as
culture, strongly depended on the life style based on rice as the main food
source. On the other hand, scholars such as Sasaki Kōmei and Tsuboi Yobun
presented the alternative hypothesis that an agriculture based on assorted
grains and various potatoes existed since the Jōmon period, and that it is this
genealogy of cultivation that can be traced as the undercurrent of Japanese
culture up to the present.4
Apart from its role in different genealogies of agriculture and cultural theo-
ries, rice is also at the center of two opposing views on its status as a staple
food in Japanese history. One firmly believes that ever since the Yayoi period,
the Japanese people have mainly lived on rice. The other argues that in old
times, many people could not afford to eat rice regularly. The staple diet hy-
pothesis was for a long time accepted as general knowledge on an a priori ba-
sis, without being subject to critical examination. Citing written admonitions by
Edo-period statesmen, who condemned rice consumption amongst farmers, and
the harsh conditions set by the annual tribute, its opponents argue that even the
farmers who produced the rice were unable to eat it on a regular basis. After the
Second World War, there was a tendency to emphasize the misery of farm life
in the past. The opinion spread amongst academics that assorted grains and
various potatoes, rather than rice, were the staple diet of the average farmer.
Concrete examples were mainly provided by ethnologists such as Miyamoto
Tsune’ichi, who held that the Japanese were a people who ate a mixed diet
4 The different hypotheses are summarized in Sasaki 1983.
78
based on various kinds of products (Miyamoto 1982; Miyamoto and Ushioda

1978).
Koyama Shūzō published a computer-based quantitative analysis of the
correlation between the Japanese population and its food resources from the
Jōmon to the contemporary age. This study states that in Meiji 10 (1877),
when the diet was basically still the same as in the Edo period, about 60% of
the nutritional energy and 50% of the protein that the Japanese absorbed from
their main produce derived from rice. In Meiji 2 (1869), 55% of the energy
gained from the overall produce of the Hida region derived from rice. Second
came Japanese millet (Echinochloa utilis) with 22%. These numbers reveal
that even in the mountainous region of Hida, which was supposed to be the
most unsuitable region for rice cultivation within Japan, rice was the staple
food. Meanwhile they disprove the general idea held by ethnologists that
assorted grains were the staple food in mountain villages (Koyama et al.
1981).
In the contemporary world, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos, Thai-
land, and Vietnam are the countries where more than 50% of overall nutri-
tional energy is gained from rice. Since they are all considered as rice cul-
tures, it would be appropriate to say that Japan too has been a rice culture
since the Yayoi period (Ishige 1986).
According to ancient written records, the cooking method since the Yayoi
period was steaming, the terminology being kowameshi, and the method of
boiling with water common today, called himeii, was not introduced until the
Heian period. However, archaeological excavations brought to light Yayoi
period pots with residues of burned rice, which confirmed that since the in-
troduction of rice cultivation in the Yayoi period, the boiling method was
commonly used (Sahara 1996). The late historian Shinoda Osamu pioneered
the study of Japanese food culture in the East Asian context, not as an histo-
rian's pastime, but from the viewpoint of food culture. In publications such as
Sushi no hon [The book of sushi] (1966) and Kome no bunkashi [The cultural
history of rice] (1970), he considered many rice-based foods like sushi, sake
(rice wine), and mochi (rice cake). I would like to briefly introduce post-
Shinoda studies dealing with these products.
The sushi that now enjoys global popularity is an offspring of the nigiri
sushi that came into existence in early 19th century. This sushi is a piece of
rice ball seasoned with vinegar and garnished with a piece of raw fish. The
sushi of the Edo period, called narezushi, was different; it was a piece of
salted fish concealed within rice, which grew sour through lactic fermenta-
tion whilst the fish inside was preserved. Shinoda believed that narezushi was
introduced to Japan, together with rice cultivation, from its origin in the
mountainous regions of the Indochinese peninsula (Shinoda 1966, 1970).
Based on fieldwork, Ishige and Ruddle presented the hypothesis that narezu-
shi is spread over a wide area of Southeast Asia, originating in the area
79
Ishige Naomichi
around the Mekong banks all the way to Yunnan in China. They argue that
narezushi originated in connection with the fishing of freshwater fish from
paddies and their irrigation canals and spread all over East Asia hand in hand
with rice cultivation (Ishige and Ruddle 1990).
There is also a hypothesis that claims the existence of alcohol via fruit
fermentation in the Jōmon period, but this is based on circumstantial evi-
dence and so is uncertain. Compiled in the early 8th century the Fudoki
records that people in southern Kyūshū chew rice grains and thus produced
kuchikami-sake (»alcohol chewed in the mouth«), utilizing enzymes in the
saliva. The standard theory accepts kuchikami-sake as the first form of brew-
ing in Japan, since the tradition existed on Okinawa and the Nansei (South-
west) Islands, whilst brewing with yeast was introduced to Japan later via the
Korean peninsula. Rice cultivation in Korea as well as In Japan most likely
had its origins in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China. By the
time rice had reached Japan, yeast brewing should have been well established
in China. Considering the development of chewing foxtail millet for brewing
amongst the aboriginal people of Taiwan, the rice-chewing brewery of Oki-
nawa and the Nansei Islands – where rice cultivation was introduced fairly
late – can be interpreted as a relict of the millet culture that had existed prior
to the introduction of rice (Ishige 1998).
Mochi, made of steamed glutinous rice using a millstone and pounder,
were believed to be peculiarly Japanese, yet they can be found on the Korean
and the Indochinese peninsulas, as well as amongst minority peoples in
southwest China.
In China and on the Korean peninsula, a rice cake similar to mochi is usu-
ally made by using rice flour. On the peripheries of Chinese culture, in which
food made of flour could not establish itself, pounded mochi nevertheless
remains.
In Japan, mochi was believed to be the abode of the spirit of rice, and as a
sacred food played an important role in rituals and festivities. In Southeast
Asia, pounded rice cakes occasionally function as ceremonial food, too. The
ancient form of rice cultivation that was once transmitted to Japan can still be
found in Southeast Asia today. Ethnographical research of rice products such
as mochi in Southeast Asia should be useful for reconstructing the situation
of early rice cultivation in Japan.
The Formative Period of a Japanese Food Culture

I believe that Japanese food culture was formed during a long period
spanning the ›ancient‹ to the ›late medieval‹ epochs, according to historical
terminology. This time span can be divided into two halves: the unification
stage of the Kofun period together with the Nara and Heian period are then
the first half, the Kamakura and Muromachi period the second half. The for-
80
mer period is characterised by an uninterrupted exchange with the continent,

and it was at this time that the food culture of East Asia was introduced to
Japan. Chopsticks, personal tables called zen, miso (fermented bean paste),
and noodles all came from the continent. Ceremonies or festivals of Chinese
origin and culinary practices associated with them were also transmitted. A
civilization is marked by several connecting cultures using the same type of
calendar, and by this definition China, Korea, and Japan together form the
cultural sphere of East Asian civilization, which shares a ceremonial cuisine
of the same origin. The court was pivotal in this process of building a civili-
zation; new culinary culture usually spread from the aristocracy to the popu-
lace. If the first half was the period of introduction, the second half, initiated
when the Japanese stopped sending tributary missions to the Tang court (ken-
tōshi), is the period of processing. It can be characterised as the period during
which food culture not merely followed the continental model, but built up
the basis of the classical, traditional Japanese food culture. The bushi (warri-
ors) and the clerics represented the main influence on food culture in this
period.
The most important event in the formation of traditional food culture was
the spread of a taboo concerning the consumption of meat from mammals.
Tenmu Tennō issued the first edict prohibiting meat consumption in AD 645,
but in the first period it proved difficult to change this habit. After awhile
during the 10th century, meat consumption came to be despised amongst the
clerics, the aristocrats and urban populations. Not till medieval times did this
attitude spread among the common people, but even then, eating meat was
not considered a taboo by all the Japanese. Still, in the latter half of the for-
mative period, the distinct Japanese cuisine evolved, founded on a base lim-
ited to seafood and vegetables that was globally unique.
Traditionally, the taboo of meat consumption was explained in conjunc-
tion with Buddhist ethics. However, the conjunction of this taboo with Shin-
toism, which abhors kegare (»defilement«) by blood, and not the victimiza-
tion of animals, must not be forgotten. We should also note Harada Nobuo,
who developed the theory that the administrative powers’ unilateral predilec-
tion for farming, related to the absolute preference they placed on rice pro-
duction, strongly contributed to the rejection of eating meat (Harada 2006).
The Age of Fluctuation

The time between the middle of the 15th century to the first half of the
17th century, corresponding to the historical periods of the Sengoku (Warring
States Period), the Azuchi-Momoyama and the early Edo period, was a time
of great social change when mediaeval order disintegrated and a rearrange-
ment of feudalism took place. It is also a revolutionary period in the history
of food culture.
81
Ishige Naomichi
In 1543, a ship manned by Portugese seamen went ashore on an island in

southern Kyūshū. This was the first Japanese encounter with Europe. After
that, Jesuits arrived in Japan from the Iberian Peninsula and began a spirited
missionary activity.
Since they were considered »barbarians« who had arrived from the south,
they were called nambanjin – the »southern barbarians«. Those in Japan who
converted to the Christian church were no longer bound by the taboo of meat
consumption and began eating meat unrestrictedly. The food introduced by
the southern barbarians was called »namban cuisine«, the cakes and candies
»namban sweets«. The tempura, representative of Japanese cuisine, is very
likely of this origin. Once Christian oppression began in the following period,
the taboo of meat consumption again intensified, and meat dishes of Western
origin disappeared. Nevertheless, some dishes metamorphosed into a Japa-
nese format with altered ingredients and have survived to the present day.
The nanban sweets without meat survived very well, casutera being the
foremost example, whose name derives from the Kingdom of Castile on the
Iberian Peninsula. Around the same time, sugar began to enter Japan and the
consumption of sweet dishes began.5
More important than cuisines or sweets was the arrival of new vegetables,
such as the sweet potato, pumpkin, and chili from the new world. In the re-
gions unsuitable for rice cultivations, such as Okinawa and the southwestern
islands of Japan, the population increased once sweet potato farming pro-
vided a supply of staple food. This period is marked by an active trade be-
tween China and the wealthy merchants of West Japan, and by the appear-
ance of Japanese town settlements all over Southeast Asian. Overseas trade
was at its highest in the early pre-modern age, and foreign food culture had a
great impact. There are various studies on the process of how elements of
foreign food culture spread across Japan. However the task still remains to
complete research on the original form this food culture took in its country of
origin at the time of its introduction to Japan and to reveal the acculturation
of foreign food culture in Japan by comparing the two.
The tea ceremony – cha no yu – developed during this period. The tea
ceremony greatly influenced table manners, and the cuisine accompanying
the tea ceremony – kaiseki – has played a major role in the aesthetics of
Japanese cuisine ever since.6
5 On the cuisine and the sweets, the (South) Europeans brought to Japan as well as
on the Western cuisine at the Dutch trading factory in Nagasaki during the Edo-
period, I recommend Etchū 1982.
6 On the cuisine of the tea-ceremony, Kumakura 2002 is a very detailed study.
82
The Period of the Completion of Traditional Food Culture

The time span from the sakoku (»closure of the country«) beginning in the
first half of the 17th century up to the Meiji restoration, covering most of the
Edo period, was an exceptionally peaceful period in world history, also
termed Pax Tokugawa. Under the sakoku policy, few foreign food influences
entered Japan, and time was spent on organising, systematising and refining
the elements that had been introduced so far. It is a time when the values,
cooking- and dining methods, which contemporary Japanese regard as tradi-
tional, was completed. Most of the Japanese cuisine consumed today evolved
in this period, and the soy sauce that flavours the greater part of present-day
Japanese cuisine, also grew popular during this time. All the traditional Japa-
nese cuisine was formed up to the Bunka and Bunsei eras in the first half of
the 19th century and has not developed much since then, until today. The
brewing of sake as it is drunk today as well as the spread of green tea
amongst the populace occurred in the Edo period. By the end of the 17th
century, the custom of having three meals a day was established compared to
the mediaeval tradition of two daily meals.
The Tokugawa government strengthened the feudal system of dividing the
country into han provinces, each under the control of a daimyo lord. A han
province was also an economic unit, and a country-wide distribution system
of goods was already established in this period. Yet the supply of basic food
in this system relied on the resource within the province, thus the culture of
provincial specialities that remain until today, which mirrors the different
climate and the resulting products, was also established at this period.7
As modern archaeology excavates Edo period sites as well as ancient sites,
a lot of evidence was came to light that could not be found in written sources
on the concrete dietary situation. At the moment most of these sites are lo-
cated in cities, yet great things are expected of archaeological methods for the
reconstruction of Edo period dietary habits.
The most important development of this period is the establishment of a
culture of eating out. Various kinds of food-serving shops appeared, ranging
from places offering snacks such as noodles or nigiri-zushi, to fine, expensive
restaurants. The latter helped to generate a refined dining culture, which also
influenced the daily meals of the general population; this trend was initiated
and carried out by the merchants in the cities, who frequented the fine restau-
rants, while the common diners and pubs catered to workers and craftsmen.
In the 18th century it became apparent that the Japanese economical engine
was not driven by the class of the bushi, who held the highest status, but by
7 Nihon no Shokuseikatsu Zenshū Henshū Iinkai (ed.) 1986–1996 is a series on

regional cuisine as it is handed down at present. The following two contributions
deal with the regionalization of food-culture in present time: Hori 1996 and Oku-
mura 1996.
83
Ishige Naomichi
the city merchants, who even extended loans to the daimyō lords. Thus,
craftsmen and merchants created the city culture. But although they consti-
tuted the lower strata in Edo period society with its top-down hierarchy of
bushi, farmers, craftsmen and merchants, the popular culture they symbolized
arose in the cities of Japan without a popular revolution. Restaurants and
diners appeared in the three cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo around the mid-
dle of the 18th century, and by the end of the 18th century Edo was probably
the city with the densest restaurant cluster in the world. Against this back-
ground, various restaurant guides tailored for the traveller began to be pub-
lished (Ishige 1990).
The familiar scheme in many countries is that refined food and clothing
cultures originate at court or in the aristocracy and gradually find their way
down the social ladder. However, in the Edo period, refined cuisine started
from the restaurant culture transmitted by urban society and travelled from
there to the upper class of the aristocracy and the bushi, as well as to the
larger rural farming population. There are studies on the restaurants in Edo,
but partly because of the limited written sources, the situation in the cities of
Kyoto and Osaka, where restaurants flourished even earlier than Edo, is not
well researched.
Changes in the Modern Age

The modernization period of food culture since the end of sakoku can be
divided in two phases. The first phase runs from the opening of the country
and the Meiji restoration that began the construction of a modern nation to
the food shortage following the end of the Second World War. The second
phase begins with the rapid economic growth in the 1960s and lasts until
today. The first phase was a time when information from overseas, Including
food and dietetics, was accumulated and subsequently took on a concrete
presence on the people’s plates, aided by the industrialization of Japanese
society.
The biggest event here was the lifting of the ban on meat consumption.
Upon Its establishment, the aims of the Meiji government were firstly the
adoption of Western modern industry to trigger the industrialization of Japan,
and secondly the organization of a modern army through general conscrip-
tion. For this purpose it was necessary to raise strong and healthy workers
and soldiers. The reason why the reality of the health of the Japanese people
was far from this was thought to be the lack of meat and dairy products in
their diet. As a result, the government encouraged the consumption of meat,
and eating meat or drinking milk was to become a requirement for a modern
citizen. Meals of Western origin containing meat were introduced into the
military canteen.
84
Many Western restaurants opened in the cities, too. These were the places
to eat the meat that was lacking in the art of traditional Japanese cuisine.
Chinese and Korean food cultures, which also included meat and gave it a
place in the cultural sphere of the chopstick, were introduced only later. The
common people became familiar with Chinese cuisine after 1910. Although a
Japanese colony, the Korean cuisine, which made ample use of chilli and
garlic, was claimed not to correspond to the Japanese taste and popularized
only after the Second World War. The reason behind this was the social ten-
dency of the Meiji period to adapt to the Western model, thereby holding
Western cuisine supreme as the food culture of the civilised world and ignor-
ing the »stagnant« food culture of East Asia.
Nevertheless, the people who frequented Western restaurants and served
Western food at home were just a small elite minority, whilst the common
man only rarely consumed traditional Japanese dishes that had adopted meat,
such as sukiyaki. According to the statistics of the year 1930, just 70 years
after the lifting of the meat taboo, the meat consumption rate of one Japanese
person lay at 6.1 g per day (in 2003 the rate rose to 77.1 g per day). This
proves that the common diet had not changed much at all since the Edo pe-
riod.
It was only in the 1960s, after Japan had recovered from the food short-
ages that were part of the aftermath of the 15-year long war, that rising eco-
nomic growth made a more enjoyable diet possible. Economic growth not
only brought a rise in quantities consumed, but also a change in quality.
Changes included the shift from a diet relying on vegetables and rice to a diet
rich in animal protein gained from fish and meat, a cuisine with plenty of
spice as well as fats and oils, the regular consumption of bread at breakfast,
and cooking at home food that had Its origins abroad. This process is fre-
quently called the westernization or the »no-nationality« nature of Japanese
food culture. But quite on the contrary, it is better understood as an adapta-
tion of food and cooking methods from abroad that enriches the repertoire of
Japanese cuisine, because those meals that became part of the diet prepared
daily at home became incorporated into a Japanese form.
Since 1962, the consumption of rice has continued to sink. Meal patterns
changed from the main meal type that consumed lots of rice full of carbohy-
drate and vegetable protein with a little side dish as appetizer to ease the rice
consumption and turned into a side dish of preferably many dishes that allow
various tastes in a single meal. This change that is still ongoing, is equal to
the change that occurred around the time of the Yayoi period when rice culti-
vation began. It indicates a shift from a food culture based on the traditional
life style of a farming society to the food culture of a highly advanced indus-
trial society based on globalization. Not only the content of the menu has
changed, but also its manner and presentation. Since ancient times, food was
served in single portions on small personal tables called zen while the con-
85
Ishige Naomichi
sumer was seated on the floor. The order of the zen tables reflected the tradi-
tional ranks within the family hierarchy, such as the difference between the
lord of the house and the rest of the family, man and woman, older and
younger. In the first half of the modern period, the low but larger chabudai
table that can be used by several people was introduced and spread so that it
could be found at almost every family home around the 1930s. Yet the meals
were still served in individual small bowls, preserving the pattern of single
portions embodied by the zen tables. Even within the family, one’s own indi-
vidual chopsticks and bowls were used to avoid contagion by kegare (»de-
filement«) when using chopsticks that might have been used by another fam-
ily member.
In the second phase of the modern period, the use of Western chairs and
dining tables became common. In this case, the rice and the soup are still
served in individual bowls, but the side menu is often served on a larger plat-
ter and family members help themselves using their own chopsticks. The
National Museum of Ethnology conducted a collaborative research into the
transformation of the variety of food, presentation mode and table manners
that comply with the change In the domestic dinner table, which inquired into
the transition of communication within a family that is reflected In the dining
situation (Ishige and Inoue 2005; Ishige 2005).
Ainu and Okinawa

Aside from the food culture described above, the Ainu at the northern end,
and Okinawa at the southern end of Japan had both maintained their own
characteristic food culture until the Meiji period. The Ainu people formed a
society that relied on fishing as well as hunting and gathering for their food
supply, without cultivating rice. Today, most of the characteristic Ainu food
culture has disappeared, as has the elder who transmitted past traditions.8
There are papers and studies about Ainu methods of obtaining food or cere-
monial cuisine, but extremely few researches about the cooking methods or
food culture. This is a large task being left to Japanese historical ethnology to
conduct a comprehensive research on the Hokkaidō Ainu, a task that presup-
poses the compilation of the fragmentary records and their comparison with
the ethnographical material of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.
It is generally believed that since the 3rd century, foxtail millet, taro
(Colocasia esculenta), or yam (Dioscorea) have been harvested in Okinawa
using the slash and burn method. Rice cultivation in a paddy was introduced
around the 11th century, but the environment of the coral island is ill suited
to this method. When cultivation of sweet potatoes started at the turn of the
8 Summarized interviews on the diet of the Ainu during the first half of the 20th
century are presented in Morinaka et al. 1992, which will presumably remain the
last record told by the Ainu themselves.
86
16th century, Okinawa’s population grew. Before the Meiji period, Buddhism
had not permeated these islands. There was therefore no taboo on meat con-
sumption, and people ate pork and goat.
The trading ships of the Kingdom of Ryūkyū, which came into existence
around the beginning of the 15h century, operated as intermediary vendors
connecting the Japanese mainland, Korea and the various countries of South-
east Asia. When placed under the authority of the Edo Bakufu at the turn of
the 17th century, it maintained its tributary trade relations with the Ming
court and formed a semi-autonomous state that was part of both the Chinese
and the Japanese political system. Under these circumstances, Okinawa de-
veloped its own particular food culture, incorporating elements from China –
especially from Fujian, on the other side of the ocean – the Japanese
mainland and Southeast Asia.
Research on Okinawan food so far has stopped at dietary studies analysing
eating habits of Okinawans as people who are particularly long-living, and at
recording details from popular magazines and characteristics of the various
regional cuisine. Further studies are thus greatly desired that would elucidate
the formation of Okinawan food culture in detail, while paying due attention
to its historical relations to China and South East Asia.
References Cited
ADACHI, Isamu and Shō SAKURAI (1934): Nihon shokumotsu-shi [History of Japanese
food]. Vol. I. Tokyo: Yūzankaku.
ETCHŪ, Tetsuya (1982): Nagasaki no seiyō ryōri – yōshoku no akebono [The Western
cuisine of Nagasaki – the dawn of Western food]. Tokyo: Dai’ichi Shobō.
HAGA, Noboru and Hiroko ISHIKAWA (eds.) (1996–1999): Zenshū Nihon no shoku
bunka [A comprehensive collection on Japanese food culture]. 12 vols. To-
kyo: Yūzankaku.
HARADA, Nobuo (2005): Washoku to Nihon-bunka – Nihon ryōri no shakai-shi [Japa-
nese cuisine and Japanese culture – a social history of Japanese cooking]. To-
kyo: Shōgakukan.
HARADA, Nobuo (2006): Rekishi no naka no kome to niku – shokumotsu to Tennō,
sabetsu [Rice and meat in history – food, the Tennō, and discrimination]. To-
kyo: Heibonsha.
HORI, Masaharu (1996): Nihonjin no shokuseikatsu to chiiki-sei [The food-life of the
Japanese and regional patterns]. In: Josef KREINER (ed.): Chiiki-sei kara mita
Nihon [Japan seen from its regional patterns]. Tokyo: Shinyōsha, pp. 146–
177.
ISHIGE, Naomichi (1986): Bei-shoku minzoku hikaku kara mita Nihonjin no sho-
kuseikatsu [The food life of the Japanese viewed from a comparison of rice-
87
Ishige Naomichi
eating people]. In: Masami CHŪBACHI (ed.): Seikatsugaku no hōhō [The

methodology of life-science]. Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan.
ISHIGE, Naomichi (1990): Development des restaurants japonais pendant la periode
edo. In: Alain HUETZ DE LEMPS and Jean-Robert PITTE (eds.): Les restaurants
dans le monde et travers les ages: [issu d’un colloque international tenu à
l’École Hotelière de Paris, du 9 au 12 octobre 1989, dans le cadre du Labora-
toire »Espace et Culture» (URA 1350) de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne]. Pa-
ris: Glenant, pp. 178–208.
ISHIGE, Naomichi (1996): Shokuji bunka [Food culture]. In: Josef KREINER (ed.):
Nihon minzokugaku no genzai – 1980-nendai kara 90-nendai e [Japanese eth-
nology now – from the 1980ies to the 1990ies]. Tokyo: Shinyōsha, pp. 128–
143.
ISHIGE, Naomichi (1998): Sake-zukuri to inshu no bunka [Sake-brewing and the
culture of sake-drinking]. In: Naomichi ISHIGE (ed.): Ronshū: Sake to inshu no
bunka [Collected papers on sake and the culture of sake-drinking]. Tokyo:
Heibonsha, pp. 25–95.
ISHIGE, Naomichi (2001): History and Culture of Japanese Food. London: Kegan
Paul.
ISHIGE, Naomichi (2005): Shokutaku bummei-ron – chabudai wa doko e kieta [A
discussion of the civilization of the dining-table – where has the kitchen-table
gone?]. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha.
ISHIGE, Naomichi and Kenneth RUDDLE (1990): Gyoshō to narezushi no kenkyū –
monsūn Ajia no shokuji bunka [Fish-yeast and fermented sushi – the food cul-
ture of Monsoon-Asia]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
ISHIGE, Naomichi (ed.) (1998–1999): Kōza shoku no bunka [Comprehensive edition:
Food-culture]. 8 vols. Tokyo: Ajinomoto Shoku no Bunka-Sentā, Nō-san-
gyoson Bunka Kyōkai.
ISHIGE, Naomichi (ed.) (2004–2007): Sekai no shokuji-bunka [The food culture of the
world]. 20 vols. Tokyo: Nō-san-gyoson Bunka Kyōkai.
ISHIGE, Naomichi and Tadashi INOUE (eds.) (1991): Gendai Nihon ni okeru katei to
shokutaku – meimei-zen kara chabudai e [Family and dining-table in modern
Japan – from personal trays to the kitchen-table]. Osaka: National Museum of
Ethnology (= Kokuritsu Minzokugaku Hakubutsukan kenkyū hōkokusho;
Special no. 16).
KOYAMA, Shūzō, Tomoya AKIMICHI, Toshiko FUJINO, and Shigeharu SUGITA (1981):
Hida Go Fudoki ni yoru shokuryō shigen no keiryōteki kenkyū [Measure-
ment-studies in the supply of food-stuffs according to the Hida Go-Fudoki].
In: Kokuritsu Minzokugaku Hakubutsukan kenkyū hōkoku 6, 3, pp. 365–596.
KUMAKURA, Isao (2002): Nihon ryōri bunkashi. Kaiseki wo chūshin ni [The cultural
history of Japanese cooking – with emphasis on the kaiseki-cuisine]. Tokyo:
Jimbun Shoin.
MIYAMOTO, Tsune’ichi (1982): Nihon-jin no shushoku [The main dish of the Japa-
nese]. In: Naomichi ISHIGE (ed.): Shoku no bunka shimpojiumu 1981: Higashi
88
Ajia no shoku to bunka [Symposium on food-culture 1981: The food culture

of East Asia]. Tokyo: Heibonsha, pp. 93–117.
MIYAMOTO, Tsune’ichi and Tetsuo USHIODA (1978): Shoku seikatsu no kōzō [The
structure of food-life]. Tokyo: Shibata Shoten.
MORINAKA, Mie, Asako HATAI, Hisazaku FUJIMURA, Toshihiro FURUHARA, and Mi-
yuki MURAMOTO (1992): Kiki-kaki, Ainu no shokuji [A record of Ainu diet].
Tokyo: Nō-san-gyoson Bunka Kyōkai (= Nihon no shoku-seikatsu; 48).
NIHON NO SHOKUSEIKATSU ZENSHŪ HENSHŪ IINKAI (ed.) (1986–1996): Nihon no
shoku seikatsu zenshū [Collected works on Japanese food-life]. 48 vols. To-
kyo: Nō-san-gyoson Bunka Kyōkai.
OKUMURA, Aoya (1996): Gendai ni okeru kyōdoshoku ryōri [Regional cuisine at
present]. In: Josef KREINER (ed.): Chiiki-sei kara mita Nihon [Japan seen from
its regional patterns]. Tokyo: Shinyōsha, p. 178–208.
SAHARA, Makoto (1996): Shoku no kōkogaku [The archaeology of food]. Tokyo:
Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai.
SASAKI, Kōmei (1983): Nihon nōkō bunka-ron no shiten [The focal point of the dis-
cussion on Japanese agricultural culture]. In: Kōmei SASAKI (ed.): Nihon nōkō
bunka no genryō [The origins of Japanese agricultural culture]. Tokyo: Nip-
pon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai, pp. 1-15.
SHINODA, Osamu (1966): Sushi no hon [The book of sushi]. Tokyo: Shibata Shoten.
SHINODA, Osamu (1970): Kome no bunkashi [The cultural history of rice]. Tokyo:
Shakai Shisōsha.
89
Hans Dieter Ölschleger
The Cultural Turn in German Japanese Studies
1. Introduction
In 2001, two German Japanologists edited the reader Grundriß der Japa-
nologie [Outline of Japanology] based on a series of lectures that introduced
the main topics and subdisciplines of Japanology (Kracht and Rüttermann
2001). A compilation of contributions by the leading representatives of this
field, this volume rightfully claims to be a comprehensive overview of the
academic field of Japanology in Germany. Concerning the epistemological
character of Japanology, one can find a consensus in all the articles of this
book that Japanology is »Kulturwissenschaft« and the subject matter of Japa-
nology is »culture«.1 But on closer inspection, this consensus proves to be
superficial. Different authors advocate different definitions of »culture« and
consequently different approaches to Japanese culture and society. This al-
lows for the formation of different kinds of »Kulturwissenschaften« (note the
plural) as well as of »Kulturwissenschaft« (note the singular) which may be
or may be not the same as »cultural studies« in the English-speaking world
where »cultural studies« themselves are not a uniform approach. Therefore,
the question remains unanswered if there ever was a cultural turn (German:
kulturalistische Wende).
The topic of my short presentation is the contemporary state and the future
development of Japanese studies in German-speaking academia, a present
and a future where the German term Kulturwissenschaft (or sometimes Kul-
turwissenschaften) is said to play a decisive – if not the decisive – role in the
scientific consideration of all things Japanese. The relative scarcity of time
does not allow any comprehensive survey of cultural studies in Germany –
therefore I will restrict myself to an overview of the problematics and to a
few examples from Japanese studies that, nevertheless, will be sufficient to
make my main points clear.
2. Terminological Remarks: Cultural Studies, Kulturwissenschaft and

Kulturwissenschaften in German Academic Thought
Let me return to a short consideration of the terminology. We need to talk
about »Kulturwissenschaft« and »Kulturwissenschaften« as well as cultural
1 Compare for this Rüttermann 2001: 9–14, Antoni 2001: 117–118, and Kinski
2001: 604–609.
91
studies as possible sources of influence on German Japanology and Japanese

studies.
– Kulturwissenschaft (or, to return to the original German orthogra-
phy, Culturwissenschaft) is nothing new in the German intellectual
landscape. As early as 1851, Gustav Klemm (1802–1867) coined the
term Culturwissenschaft to draw a clear dividing line to the field of
Culturgeschichte (cultural history). The subject matter of Culturwis-
senschaft was to be the culture of the human race as a means of con-
fronting nature and other human beings. This approach evolved over
the decades until its importance reached a climax in the 1920s. To-
day, this term is used for an individual discipline still under con-
struction.
– Kulturwissenschaften (plural) is used to replace the older term of
Geisteswissenschaften, emphasizing a process of modernization or to
designate the disciplines of the philosophical faculty in their entirety.
The subject matter of this category of approaches is also culture, a
term which is – as you may know – impossible to define accurately.
In a very wide sense culture means »the whole of the products of
human work and creativity as well as human life forms, including
natural scientific discoveries« (Frühwald et al. 1991: 10), which
makes »the world in its cultural form« the subject matter of
Kulturwissenschaften.
– The renewed interest in Kulturwissenschaft also drew its impetus
from developments in the English-speaking academic world. In
1964, the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies was founded at
the University of Birmingham. The main proponents of these cul-
tural studies did not intend to create a new academic discipline; their
main interest was a »shift of interest« in all historical disciplines,
since they wanted to reduce the distance between the university and
the popular English culture of the postwar period. Stephen Green-
blatt’s New Historicism in the 1980s, which soon found its advocates
in a variety of disciplines, initiated the so-called cultural turn, a
thorough re-orientation of the humanities. Based on Foucault’s dis-
course analysis, Greenblatt attacked the work-immanent close read-
ing of literary texts and propagated the opening of textual interpreta-
tion. Greenblatt’s main concern was to restore the cultural context of
the literary product. And last but not least the French histoire de
mentalité (history of mentalities) needs to be named here, the history
of mentality as the research into the development and function of the
collective mental, ethical and affective characteristics of human be-
ings in the process of history.2
2 Cf. for this short overview Kramer 1997 and Hansen 2003.
92
This is, in a nutshell and maybe all too briefly, the background for the de-
velopment of Japanology and Japanese studies in Germany. Now let us fi-
nally turn to the study of Japanese culture and/or society.
3. Japanology, Japanese Studies, and the Cultural Studies of Japan

The most important method of approach to the study of Japanese culture
and society advocated by German »Japanology« (Japanologie), seen in the
strict sense of the word, has been – and still is – of the philological kind, that
means, textual analysis. But this changed during the 1960s, and possibly the
reason for this change can be found in 1964, during the Olympic Games in
Tōkyō, when Japan successfully represented itself as an economic power-
house in East once again. The first signs could be seen of a scientific ap-
proach (independent of philology) to the study of Japan as a modern society
that, with its most interesting phenomena such as democratization, economic
development, and social change exemplified by falling birth rates etc., eluded
the attempts at explanation of traditional philology. New approaches to the
study of Japan were inspired by economics and the social sciencesand ques-
tioned philological Japanology. For the first time in the institutional frame-
work of German Japanology, approaches to Japanese culture and society
were created which were comparable to Japanese Studies in the US-
American and British sense of the term. Japanology suddenly had to face new
tasks. In the field of academics, economic »success« needed to be explained
as well as social change at a breakneck speed hitherto unknown in moderniz-
ing societies. And a public existed that suddenly demanded simple, even
simplified, explanations of the so-called Japanese miracle. Japanology and
Japanese studies had to diversify and Japanologists had to think over their
own theories and methods. And in the decades that followed, culture as a
possible subject matter entered the field and with it cultural anthropology or
ethnology (as it is called in the German-speaking countries) as an example of
the afore-mentioned Kulturwissenschaften.
3.1 Japanese Studies as Ethnology: An Example of the Kulturwissenschaften

Ethnology had not hitherto played a significant role in German Japanology
at all, and especially so, if there is an unwillingness to label the study of for-
eign cultures as »cultural anthropology« per se. But beginning in the 1960s,
with its origins at the University of Vienna exemplified by names such as
Slawik, Kreiner, and today Getreuer-Kargl etc., ethnologists devoted their
work to the description and explanation of things Japanese, as well as Japa-
nologists who tried to make ethnological/ethnographic methods and theories
fruitful in the study of Japan. And their numbers are slowly, but gradually,
increasing. Here we see the facet of German Japanology as a Kulturwissen-
schaft – not as an example of cultural studies, but in the long tradition of the
93
German use of that term. Another example of this turn to ethnology and
therefore culture is represented by Klaus Antoni, now at the University of
Tübingen. His main interests lie in religion in its various interrelations with
other cultural subsystems. His definition of »culture« as given in the afore-
mentioned Outline of Japanology is a strictly cultural, anthropological one.
Behind the great diversity in the definitions of culture, he sees consensus in
the notions that culture is 1) changeable, and that means not genetically pre-
determined, and 2) it has to be learned by human beings, and that means
socially transmitted (Antoni 2001: 117). Of course, we see here the influence
of Tylor’s classical definition of culture as
Culture, or civilization, taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is that
complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, cus-
tom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member
of society. (Tylor 1871: 1)
In the decades following the 1960s, the academic community observed a
rapid diversitication of the theory and method in the humanities – as if they
were reacting to the increasing degree in the societal division of labor, plu-
ralization, and individualization. A multitude of methods and theories devel-
oped where formerly there had been unity and consensus. As soon as this
diversification found its way into Japanese Studies, a path opened for ethnol-
ogy to enter the Japanological stage. And here we can find a development
that closely resembles the noted cultural turn, the gaining of influence of
cultural studies in the United States, Great Britain and France. Rüttermann
(2001), for instance, defines the subject matter of Japanology as a set of signs
peculiar to Japan – things, not only words, used by human beings in commu-
nication that have to be interpreted by their users, i.e., symbols. And the
study of these symbols forms the main task of Japanology. Here, we see a
parallel to cultural anthropology; compare, for instance, this quote from Les-
lie A. White (1949: 22) from as early as 1949:
All human behaviour consists of, or is dependent upon, the use of sym-
bols. Human behaviour is symbolic behaviour, symbolic behaviour is
human behaviour. The symbol is the university of humanity.
To repeat: As far as culture – seen as 1. a system of symbols shared by a
collective of human beings, 2. historically and socially contingent, and 3.
socially transmitted – is the subject matter of Japanology we find parallels to
the cultural turn, insofar as the historicity of culture (which in many ways
might be regarded as a text) is addressed. New currents develop thoughts on
the textuality of cultures, leaning on the approach of »writing culture« and
»thick description« (cf. Geertz 1973). But we also see strong connections to
an earlier form of German Kulturwissenschaften and to German cultural
philosophy with their stress on the operation of understanding as opposed to
explaining.
94
And finally at least two developments should be introduced that are based
on the understanding of Japanology or Japanese studies as »cultural studies«:
1. The study of intercultural understanding and communication, and 2. the
use of ethnographic methods.
3.2 Intercultural Understanding and Communication

The founding of »intercultural communication« as a new and interdisciplinary
field of research can be dated back to the 1950s when Edward T. Hall published
his book, The Silent Language (1959). Hall was a student of Ralph Linton and
advocated, as his teacher did, the position of the Culture and Personality-school
of cultural anthropology with its strong influences from (neo-)Freudian psycho-
analysis. Nevertheless, intercultural communication is a relativela late-comer
to German universities, and here it owes much to psychological anthropol-
ogy. This fact becomes clear when the definition of ›culture‹ and the concept
of the communication process are considered (see Moosmüller 2000: 16–20).
The following »Policy Statement« of the Journal of Intercultural Commu-
nication makes the basic understanding of »intercultural communication«
clear:
The world today is characterized by an ever-growing number of con-
tacts, resulting in communication between people with different linguis-
tic and cultural backgrounds. This communication takes place because of
contacts within the areas of business, military cooperation, science, edu-
cation, mass media, entertainment, tourism but also because of immigra-
tion brought about by labor shortages or political conflicts.
In all these contacts, there is communication that needs to be as con-
structive as possible, without misunderstandings and breakdowns. It is our
belief that research on the nature of linguistic and cultural similarities and
differences here can play a positive and constructive role.
(http://www.immi.se/intercultural/policy.htm; downloaded Oct. 13, 2004)
One proponent of this approach to Japanese studies is Alois Moosmüller,
an ethnologist who spent some time in Japan and now teaches »Intercultural
Communication« at the University of Munich. His focus of research is the
influence that the social framework of contact exerts on the form of commu-
nication between members of two different cultures. One such framework is
the multinational enterprise, and Moosmüller (1998, 2003) is able to show
that the different cultural backgrounds of the interacting employees not only
profoundly influence their behavior, but also their mutual understanding and,
thereby, the process of national stereotyping. The construction of national
identity, equally in a comparative perspective, is another of Moosmüller’s
topics (1999).
Klaus-Peter Köpping, an ethnologist at the University of Heidelberg, is the
proponent of a second approach to intercultural communication and under-
standing. Köpping majored ethnology in the 1960s, but he studied Japanol-
95
ogy, too, and, consequently, when conducting his comparative research he

found important examples in Japanese culture and society. He started his
academic career showing a profound interest in Japanese religion, exempli-
fied by his doctoral dissertation which deals with the relation between the
development of new religions and rapid social change in the process of mod-
ernization (Köpping 1974). In the decades to follow, he broadened his field
of research. He went to Japan several times to look into the problems of cul-
tural change in general, of management structures in the sōgō shōsha (general
trading firms), and feasts and rituals at New Year. The comparative perspec-
tive in his way of dealing with feasts (matsuri) in Japan offers the best illus-
tration of his approach and his understanding of anthropology as a cultural
science. In his own words: he plays » the role of a mediator between different
lifeworlds«, a researcher who is »actually impelled to transgress constantly«
(Köpping 2002: blurb). He considers the anthropologist a wanderer between
different worlds, and this fact makes intercultural understanding possible. On
the other hand, is not the anthropologists alone who is transgressing, trans-
gression is a »mode of life extant in all cultures in one form or other«. There-
fore transgression becomes an important topic of research for Köpping. A
project on »Ritual and Theatre at Shintō Festivals« shows the revival of his
original interest in Japanese religion. Köpping’s focus on comparative as-
pects is seen in his cooperation with Bernhard Schnepel, who did research on
»Staging of Power, Authority, and Territorial Sovereignty in Orissa, India«
(see Köpping 2002; Köpping and Schnepel 2000).
3.3 Ethnographic Methods in the Study of Japanese Society

A last development to be mentioned here lies in the methodological field,
namely, the use of ethnographic methods of data collecting data in social
scientific research on Japan, e.g., in sociology and pedagogics. The steadily
increasing number of scholars who make use of ethnographic methods proves
that this tendency in unbroken, and quite impressive results have been pub-
lished. To cite only one example: the first German scholar to use qualitative
methods in empirical research of Japanese adolescents is Susanne Kreitz-
Sandberg (Kreitz-Sandberg 1994).
The theoretical discussion of ethnographic methods and their contribution
to the understanding of Japanese culture and society is another strong current
in German-speaking Japanology. The results of a joint research project on
fieldwork in East Asian Studies were presented by scholars from the the
University of Vienna in 1996 (see Methoden … 1996). And in 1999, at the
Eleventh Conference of German-speaking Japanologists, methodological
problems were the topic of a panel with several speakers (see, e.g., Getreuer-
Kargl 2001; Heise 2001). And last but not least, Kreitz-Sandberg’s important
96
contribution (2000) to the ongoing discussion of the relative importance of

qualitative vs. quantitative methods in Japanese studies has to be named.
4. Conclusion
To summarize my main points:
– Some time ago, German Japanese studies encountered a necessity to
reflect upon the conditions and foundation of studying Japan, its cul-
ture and society. From this followed a renewed interest in »culture«
as the subject matter of Japanology.
– The representatives of German Japanology acknowledge the fact
that Japanese Studies – like all area studies – have to be cultural
studies in the sense of an example of Kulturwissenschaften. (This,
incidentally, does not prevent the overwhelming majority from pur-
suing the old, ›traditional‹ philological approach to Japanese cul-
ture.)
– The renewed interest in culture as the subject matter of Japanese
studies is owed to the strong influence of cultural anthropology, but
also of older forms of German approaches to the study of culture and
cultures.
– Although there are parallels to culture studies in the United States
and Great Britain, I think the influence of these scientific approaches
on the development in Japanology can be ignored.
– In other words, German Japanology had its culturalist turn, too.
References Cited
ANTONI, Klaus (2001): Shintō. In: Klaus Kracht und Markus Rüttermann (eds.):
Grundriß der Japanologie. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (= Izumi. Quellen, Stu-
dien und Materialien zur Kultur Japans; 7), pp. 115–147.
FRÜHWALD, Wolfgang, Hans Robert JAUSS, Reinhart KOSELLECK, Jürgen MIT-
TELSTRASS, and Burkhart STEINWACHS (1991): Geisteswissenschaften heute:
Eine Denkschrift. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp (= Suhrkamp taschenbuch Wissen-
schaft; 973).
GEERTZ, Clifford (1973): Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Cul-
ture. In: Cliffort GEERTZ: The Interpretation of Culture: Selected Essays. New
York: Basic Books, pp. 3–30.
GETREUER-KARGL, Ingrid (2001): Feldforschung spielen? Spielend erforschen?
Stichworte zur ethnographischen Praxis in der Japanologie. In Hilaria GÖSS-
MANN and Andreas MRUGALLA (eds.): 11. Deutschsprachiger Japanologentag
in Trier 1999. Vol. 1: Geschichte, Geistesgeschichte/Religionen, Gesellschaft,
Politik, Recht, Wirtschaft. Hamburg: Lit (= Ostasien – Pazifik. Trierer Studien
zu Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, Kultur; 13), pp. 607–619.
HALL, Edward T. (1959): The Silent Language. New York: Doubleday.
97
HANSEN, Klaus P. (2003): Kultur und Kulturwissenschaften. 3rd edition. Tübingen

and Basel: Francke (= UTB; 1846).
HEISE, Jens (2001): Japan, ethnographisch – Fragen einer interkulturellen Hermeneu-
tik. In Hilaria Gössmann and Andreas Mrugalla (eds.): 11. Deutschsprachiger
Japanologentag in Trier 1999. Vol. 1: Geschichte, Geistesgeschich-
te/Religionen, Gesellschaft, Politik, Recht, Wirtschaft. Hamburg: Lit (= Ost-
asien – Pazifik. Trierer Studien zu Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, Kultur;
13), pp. 621–625.
KINSKI, Michael (2001): Perspektiven der Japanologie. In: Klaus KRACHT und Markus
RÜTTERMANN (eds.): Grundriß der Japanologie. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (=
Izumi. Quellen, Studien und Materialien zur Kultur Japans; 7), pp. 603–628.
KLEMM, Gustav Friedrich (1851): Grundideen zu einer allgemeinen Cultur-
Wissenschaft. Wien: Braumüller in Komm. (= Akademie der Wissenschaften
»Wien«. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse: Sitzungsberichte; 7,7).
KÖPPING, Klaus-Peter (1974): Religiöse Bewegungen im modernen Japan als Problem
des Kulturwandels. Köln: Wienand.
KÖPPING, Klaus-Peter (2002a): Shattering Frames: Transgressions and Transforma-
tions in Anthropological Discourse in Practice. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
KÖPPING, Klaus-Peter (2002b): Japanese Festivals: Theatre and Ritual. In Klaus-Peter
KÖPPING: Shattering Frames: Transgressions and Transformations in Anthro-
pological Discourse in Practice. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, pp. 139–160.
KÖPPING, Klaus-Peter and Burkhard SCHNEPEL (2000): Die Umkehrung des Blicks.
Zur Akkomodierung von »Inauthentischem« in festlichen Inszenierungen in
Japan und Indien. In Erika FISCHER-LICHTE and Isabel PFLUG (eds.): Inszenie-
rung von Authentizität. Tübingen: Francke, pp. 275–297.
KRACHT, Klaus and Markus RÜTTERMANN (eds.) (2001): Grundriß der Japanologie.
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (= Izumi. Quellen, Studien und Materialien zur
Kultur Japans; 7).
KRAMER, Jürgen (1997): British Cultural Studies. München: Fink (= UTB für Wissen-
schaft: Große Reihe).
KREITZ-SANDBERG, Susanne (1994): Jugend in Japan. Eine empirische Untersuchung
zur Adoleszenz in einer »anderen Moderne«. Rheinfelden: Schäuble.
KREITZ-SANDBERG, Susanne (2000): Qualitative Methoden in der sozialwissenschaft-
lichen Japanforschung: Neubelebung im Trend sogenannter »ethnographischer
Studien«. In Barbara MANTHEY, Peter KLEINEN, Günther DISTELRATH, Robert
HORRES, Ralph LÜTZELER, and Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER (eds.): JapanWelten.
Aspekte der deutschsprachigen Japanforschung. Festschrift für Josef Kreiner
zu seinem sechzigsten Geburtstag von seinen Schülern und Mitarbeitern.
Bonn: Bier’sche Verlagsanstalt (=JapanArchiv: 3), pp. 45–63.
Methoden der Feldforschung in den Ostasienwissenschaften: sozialwissenschaftliche
Grundlagen und regionalwissenschaftliche Besonderheiten: Endbericht zum
Forschungsprojekt. Wien: University, 1996.
98
MOOSMÜLLER, Alois (1998): Der Umgang mit kultureller Andersheit: deutsch-

japanische und amerikanisch-japanische Interaktion in multinationalen Unter-
nehmen. In Christian GIORDANO, Roberta Colombo DOUGOUD, and Elke-
Nicole KAPPUS (eds): Interkulturelle Kommunikation im Nationalstaat. Müns-
ter: Waxmann; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz, pp. 89–100.
MOOSMÜLLER, Alois (1999): Ethnische und nationale Identität: Die Konstruktion
kultureller Gemeinsamkeit in Indonesien und Japan in vergleichender Per-
spektive. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 124, pp. 33–50.
MOOSMÜLLER, Alois (2003): Expatriates in Japan: Die interkulturelle Herausforde-
rung. In Wolfgang DOROW and Horst GROENEWALD (eds): Personalwirt-
schaftlicher Wandel in Japan. Gesellschaftlicher Wertewandel und Folgen für
die Unternehmungskultur und Mitarbeiterführung. Wiesbaden: Gabler, pp.
201–221.
MOOSMÜLLER, Alois (2000): Die Schwierigkeit mit dem Kulturbegriff in der interkul-
turellen Kommunikation. In: Rainer ALSHEIMER, Alois MOOSMÜLLER, and
Klaus ROTH (eds.): Lokale Kulturen in einer globalisierten Welt. Münster:
Waxmann, pp. 15–31.
RÜTTERMANN, Markus (2001): Japanologie – Genese und Struktur. In: Klaus KRACHT
und Markus RÜTTERMANN (eds.): Grundriß der Japanologie. Wiesbaden: Har-
rassowitz (= Izumi. Quellen, Studien und Materialien zur Kultur Japans; 7),
pp. 1–35.
TYLOR, Edward Burnett (1871): Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development
of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom. London:
Murray.
WHITE, Leslie A. (1949): The Science of Culture: A Study of Man and Civilization.
New York: Grove Press.
WITTKAMP, Robert F. (2005): Japanologie als Kulturwissenschaft – eine Verortung
über den Kulturbegriff. In: Die Deutsche Literatur 49, S. 161–196.
99
Klaus Antoni
The Divine Country: On State and Religion in Modern
Japan
1. Preface
Japan’s present-day image is that of a Far Eastern economic powerhouse.
Yet in the face of high tech and economic achievements, one tends to over-
look the fact that this hypermodern success story rests on extremely tradi-
tional, even archaic, underpinnings. Today, Japan is the most ancient monar-
chy in existence, with the imperial family claiming a historic legacy that
dates back well into prehistoric times. This ancient core of the Japanese state
remains hidden to most observers, especially in Tokyo, a city that has be-
come synonymous with the furious and hectic pace of modernization. None-
theless, it is in Tokyo, of all places, where we can have a good look at the
other Japan that lurks beneath the westernized surface. In the middle of To-
kyo’s banking district, right in the city center, is a vast area inaccessible to
the public. It includes large stretches of woodland and even some rice fields
which add to the rural flair in the midst of the teeming metropolis. Yet this
almost surreal idyll is not a landscaped garden or an urban greenery like
Central Park in New York, but rather a »void in the center« of Japan, as an
observer once aptly termed it. It houses Japan’s official and also its alleged
spiritual center – the imperial palace. Carefully shielded from both the public
and court bureaucracy, it is here that the imperial family, led by its 125th
Tennō (as official chronology has it), resides in the middle of their own world
in the capital city of Tokyo. Even though the late Shōwa Tennō, the father of
the current emperor, was asked to renounce his status of »living deity«, Japa-
nese emperors in reality still draw on this source for both their moral and
spiritual authority, as was evident from the great, religiously orchestrated
funeral and later accession ceremonies in 1989 and 1990. Surveys constantly
yield high approval rates for the institution of Tennō and empire. However,
almost no Japanese citizen will think of religious motifs when answering the
questions of an interviewer. Rather, they perceive the Tennō as what the
constitution explicitly names him to be: the »symbol of Japan«. As long as
the Tennō resides in mysterious seclusion as on an island in the middle of
Tōkyō and holds his daily rites there, Japan is assured of inner unity. Thus
there is a sense of continuity in Japanese matters which, considering its total
breakdown in 1945, seems quite surprising. Especially the ritual events trig-
gered by the death and succession of Shōwa Tennō have highlighted the need
101
Klaus Antoni
to penetrate beyond the current image of Japan. Influenced by the largely

non-historic education of the immediate postwar era, foreign observers and
analysts have all too willingly subscribed to the view of the historical junc-
ture as a »zero hour«. »1945« – the myth of a supposedly clear-slated begin-
ning – was thought to hold true for Japan as well, serving as the premise for a
»modern«, functionalist approach to history. Yet experience has taught us
that history will overcome us exactly at that moment when we think we have
successfully repressed it. In my opinion, this holds true for Japan as well. The
task of critical historic research is to throw light on the transitional phases
and periods of great change since they set the stage for the times ahead. Only
time will tell if the role of the current Tennō represents a re-interpretation of
the relation between Shintō and imperial family, and between state and relig-
ion. Current debates on Shintō and politics, e.g. in respect to the Yasukuni
shrine, clearly show the importance of such questions for the present-day
position of Japan in a globalized world.
The view of history plays a decisive role in this matter. Even today, the
constructs of ideology obscure our knowledge of the religious history of
modern Japan, especially of the dynamics of prewar and wartime State
Shintō. Here lies the key to separating historical facts from ideological fic-
tions. Such a critical view on modern Japanese Shintō history has its own
history which begins with the work of one of the most prominent japanolo-
gists of the late 19th century: Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850-1935). And with
him we will start our tour through the world of inventions, traditions, histori-
cal facts, and fictions.
2. Inventions
2.1 Basil Hall Chamberlain
Throughout the Taishō and early Shōwa reigns, State Shintō and its koku-
tai dogma continued to evolve into a »fundamentalist«, Tennō-based state
ideology. Criticism in those years seems to have been rare, with most Japa-
nese intellectuals either making their peace with the dominant Zeitgeist or
actually endorsing it. A striking example is Inoue Tetsujirō, who during the
1930s and 1940s thoroughly transformed himself to become a fanatic Shintō
nationalist.1
When the political climate became more repressive, threatening to ideolo-
gize both the intellectual and religious spheres, critical voices at home grew
scarcer, although foreign observers in Japan voiced their dissent every now
and then. While these observers were sometimes intimately acquainted with
Japanese affairs they were not obliged to conform as rigorously as their Japa-
nese counterparts.
1 Cf. Antoni 1990 and Nawrocki 1998.
102
The Divine Country: On State and Religion in Modern Japan
A few artists and scholars in Japan and abroad confronted and criticized
these subtle ideological constructions, among them Karl Florenz, who had
done research on the written aspects of Shintō history during the last decades
of the nineteenth century. Karl Florenz’s studies on Shintō were on a strictly
scientific and comparative basis.2 However, the most important work on this
topic that we should consider is that of another foreign scholar in Japan, one
who dealt with the subject in a surprisingly pointed, and even polemical fash-
ion – and that is none other than the nestor of philological Japanese studies,
Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935).
Unparalleled as a linguist and translator of historic sources (especially the
Kojiki (1883, repr. 1981), which is of paramount importance in this context),
Chamberlain possessed an intimate knowledge of authentic cultural tradition
and ancient texts. He enjoyed more wide-spread fame as author of an insight-
ful collection of miscellanies, Things Japanese, which impressed readers
with its array of informative and amusing facts about Japan (Chamberlain
1890). Few people know, however, that he included a postscript in the fifth
edition of this book (Chamberlain 1927) that hardly conforms to the image of
a serene and easy-going scholar but instead shakes up readers even today
with its frankly uttered disaffection and verbal daring. This essay first ap-
peared in 1912 as a publication under the auspices of an organization with the
tell-tale name »Rationalist Press Association«.3 In it, Chamberlain strongly
censures contemporary Japanese intellectual trends using the most outspoken
and undiplomatic terms. The title of this essay, The Invention of a New Relig-
ion, neatly sums up what Chamberlain intends to criticize. Incidentally, he
introduces the term »invention« in this essay which only recently had figured
as a central concept (»invented tradition«) in Hobsbawm’s research.
At the very start of his essay, Chamberlain makes the sarcastic remark that
contemporary Japan provides a good model for anyone trying to figure out
how to put together a religion for worldly ends. Even though this presupposes
a number of existing conditions, such as a feeling of reverence for the Tennō,
he claims (CHAMBERLAIN 1927: 561) that state bureaucrats were busying
themselves transforming archaic images into new theories to suit their needs
(and, in a broader sense, to those of the Japanese people). »Shintō, a primi-
tive nature cult, which had fallen into discredit, was taken out of its cupboard
and dusted,« in order to displace Buddhism as the people’s religion. Thus
describes Chamberlain the current religious situation at the time. It is solely
2 For studies on Shintō published by Karl Florenz, see Antoni 1998: 302–303.
3 In his obituary for Basil Hall Chamberlain, Harold Parlett: mentions: »His last
contribution in the field of Japanese knowledge was a small pamphlet entitled The
Invention of a New Religion, an arresting essay but unpalatable to many Japanese«
(in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London 8, 1, pp. 284–
285).
103
Klaus Antoni
the Japanese government, he maintains, that keeps insisting on the myth of

the direct solar lineage of the Tennō. Even the right to conduct funerals and,
later on, marriages, which used to be none of the Shintō priests’ business,
was assigned to them then.
Thus, Shintō was made to widen its influence to encompass more and
more aspects of daily life, so that political and military progress would be
attributed to the wonderful influence of the Tennō and his divine ancestors in
the end. Chamberlain reprovingly adds that at all the important Shintō
shrines, guns looted from the Russians and the Chinese were on display so
that Shintō, nationalism, and imperialism became inseparable in the public
mind. He goes on to claim that schools, the army, and the navy were re-
aligned according to imperialist designs (Chamberlain 1927: 563).
Criticism of state mythology was not permissible if it contradicted the so-
called »historical facts« such as the monarchy’s purported founding date of
660 BC. Japanese scholars at the time were well aware that concrete records
of Japanese history were no older than the fifth century AD. Still, they de-
manded uncritical acceptance of all elements of national historic legends, and
woe to him who dared depart from this path!
Thenceforth was everything based on these »absurd dates« (Chamberlain
1927: 563), irrespective of the fact that the sources that bore mythological
information also contained early historical records. This also ignored the fact
that early Japanese tales and customs were infused with Chinese themes
which made it an impossible task to properly assess what was »indigenous«
about them at all. Similarly, moral ideals, especially loyalty and filial piety
toward the emperor’s descendants, had once been taken over from the Chi-
nese.
»The new Japanese religion of loyalty and patriotism has emerged into the
light of day« – yet as simple as it may have been, Chamberlain claims that
ideal was enabling the Japanese to do great deeds. The new Japanese religion
was based on veneration of the Tennō, and his divine ancestors and also on
the belief that the Japanese nation was superior to every other nation since
the Tennō through his divinity, was superior to all other emperors. Early
history textbooks stated that Japan was created before all other countries.
Thus, the fact that Japan condescended to deal with foreign nations in order
to accept insignificant mechanical devices should be perceived as an act of
pure grace.
Chamberlain (1927: 565) goes on to say that in reality especially simple
folk like farmers hardly identified with the new doctrines, instead clinging to
the Buddhist faith passed on from their ancestors (p. 567). The new religion
suffered from the lack of any kind of scripture. This gap was filled by the
proclamation of imperial rescripts and their respective commentaries with
such lofty diction that many people could not understand them. Here Cham-
berlain makes an insightful point. He notes that although there is good reason
104
to assume that Japan may have some difficulty in convincing foreign nations
of the truth of these dogmas, the reverse seemed to be true. As a matter of
fact, Western nations had shown great interest in Japan’s purportedly legen-
dary past and its fabulous virtues. Japanese officials were only too eager to
expound them.
Japan thus availed itself of the foreigners’ credulity (Chamberlain 1927:
568) who had to rely on whatever they were told and could not find out if it
was true by consulting the original sources. Furthermore, learning the lan-
guage was in itself a formidable task for any foreigner. As a result, the Japa-
nese knew everything about Europe, while Europeans only learned those
facts about Japan that were deemed beneficial to Japanese interests. This was
also why neo-Japanese myths found their way into English textbooks, news-
papers, and encyclopedias.
It was true, Chamberlain grants, that some Europeans in Japan were in fact
denouncing the bureaucrats’ actions in respect to the new cult that did not
permit of any kind of criticism or scientific research (that, incidentally, being
the reason for the persecution of Japanese liberals that came to be labeled as
»traitors«). Nevertheless, as Chamberlain concludes his controversial essay,
the government considered it of the utmost importance that its substitute
religion was being generally adopted, although they knew all along it was
false.
So much for Basil Chamberlain. Decades before Hobsbawm (Hobsbawn
and Ranger 1983) published his epoch-making inquiries into »invented tradi-
tions«, Chamberlain came up with this polemic pamphlet on State Shintō as
an »invented religion«. His voice does not belong to one who, judging from a
safe distance historically and geographically, intends to criticize. Rather, he
knows what he is writing about and has an impeccable reputation for compe-
tence, basing his judgments on firsthand experience while chafing at the
brazen distortion of historical facts.
No one even came close to rivaling Chamberlain for his intimate knowl-
edge of Japanese (religious) history and philology. He was well-acquainted
with the historical sources, and it was this knowledge that lent significance to
his critique. Instead of pandering to the dominant Zeitgeist, Chamberlain put
forward his opinion in the contemporary debate based on his intimate knowl-
edge of historical sources. The voice of the enlightened scholar and cultural
anthropologist, who managed to decipher the patterns of ideological reason-
ing, seldom rang out with such clarity.
Chamberlain shows us beyond a doubt that knowledge of the actual his-
torical sources is indispensable when trying to the »inventions« that have
been artfully crafted in the course of cultural history.
105
Klaus Antoni
2.2 Eric J. Hobsbawm

Hardly any other academic »discovery« has had such a revolutionary
influence in this respect as that of the above-mentioned »invented traditions«.
Its most basic insight is that the antagonism of »tradition« and »modernity«,
which – not just in the case of Japan – appear so concise and stringent, are
not sufficient to describe complex historical processes, but require at least
one additional category: that of the »invented« traditions. Supposedly reliable
traditions, which convey a certain cultural identity, often appear in the light
of critical and historical examination not only questionable and unreliable,
but also as »inventions« of the modern age.
The Austro-British scholar Eric J. Hobsbawm and his colleagues are to be
thanked for their pioneering studies in this area which have shed light on the
worldwide genesis of such artificial traditions.4 It is not difficult to recognize
the pattern of development in Japan as well, especially since the Meiji period.
The examples of reinterpretation, manipulation, and utilization of existing
cultural elements in the sense of »invented traditions« in modern and
contemporary Japan are many.
Hobsbawm’s observations have also shaped the view within Japanese
Studies that the process of the manipulation or even the invention of
traditions is by no means limited to Japan. Japan is not an exception in which
»tradition« and »modernity« have entered a »unique« relationship. On the
contrary, the case of Japan proves to be an especially incisive example of a
process of global proportions, which can be understood within the context of
the formation of nation states. The exploitation of traditions is a standard
course of action in this process in which the construction of religiously
justified, national, and nationalistic ideologies play central roles.
At this point, another author, Dietmar Rothermund, in my view,
undertakes the critical methodological step forward toward clarification.
Rothermund, a historian who studies modern India and especially the
ideology of Hindu nationalism, focuses on the term »traditionalism« in his
research.5 This is an incredibly useful tool for the analytical separation of
4 In the collection of essays compiled by Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983), The Inven-
tion of Tradition, the national systems of tradition in various Western nation states
are examined in a series of articles for their true historical validity. The studies all
come to the conclusion that an immensely large number of those traditions pur-
ported to be ancient or often archaic are in reality products of the modern age, spe-
cifically, from the end of the 19th century.
5 In a short but programmatic article published in 1989, in which the major theoreti-
cal ideas underlying this kind of historical criticism of ideology are summarized,
the author establishes that tradition is »lived tradition with all its contradictions
and inconsistencies; [politically motivated] traditionalism on the other hand is an
106
traditions. Rothermund defines »traditionalism« as: »the deliberately selec-

tive interpretation of traditions […], which aims to establish solidarity, and
thus either simply denies those elements which are not reconcilable with this
aim or apologetically tries to reinterpret them« (Rothermund 1989: 144–145;
translation by K.A.)6.
Using this basic concept, Rothermund critically analyzes the issues
involved in »artificial« and »genuine« tradition, in regional special cases and
universal structure, in symbol and idea.
2.3 Dietmar Rothermund

With the concept of »traditionalism«, the author provides a very expedient
category for the analysis of genuine and »invented« tradition. In his work
from 1970, Rothermund refers to the universal character of traditionalistic
constructions that support modern national ideologies:
Traditionalism is a phenomenon that can be observed in many nations in
a transitional phase of cultural and political development. Tradition is a
many splendoured thing, it encompasses a variety of social structures
and ideas which are frequently contradictory. Traditionalism, however,
is a conscious attempt at streamlining tradition so as to fit a particular
need for a useful past. This need arises when a people wants to aquire a
national identity and looks for some common denominator. This
common denominator is usually found in a reconstructed tradition of
social, cultural and religious solidarity. (Rothermund 1970: 35).
In a more recent publication on this topic, the author refers to the fact »that
modern traditionalism is of universal meaning and therefore it is not possible to
conceive/describe ›universalism‹ and ›traditionalism‹ as inconsistent contrasts«
(Rothermund 1997: 188). Traditionalism plays the crucial role in expressing
national identity. Traditionalists select, systematize, and create ideological
systems, in which heterogeneous cultural traditions are used to create a
homogeneous national ideology. The purpose of this finding of identity is
national solidarity, which seeks to reduce social and religious differences. It
becomes clear, as Rothermund writes, »that the finding of identity for the
purpose of solidarity is the goal of ›traditionalists‹« (Rothermund 1989: 147).
Traditionalism in some regard resembles nativism of cultural anthropology –
e.g., in the »attempt to re-establish a ›pure‹ tradition« (Rothermund 1989: 145) –
but it is per se an instrument of political ideology that strives for national
ideology, a mental construction – and therefore often conflicts with lived tradi-
tion« (Rothermund 1989: 144; translation by K.A.).
6 Original text: »die bewusst selektive Traditions-Interpretation […] die Solidaritätsstif-
tung zum Ziel hat und deshalb solche Elemente der Tradition, die mit diesem Ziel
nicht vereinbar sind, entweder schlicht verleugnet oder aber apologetisch umzu-
deuten versucht.«
107
Klaus Antoni
consensus. In the search for a concrete example of a »traditionalistic« linkage

between the shaping of identity and the creation of solidarity the author takes on
the ideas of the Indian national revolutionist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (see
Rothermund 1997: 174 – 181).
Savarkar’s nationalism centers in the conception of »Punyabhumi«, a Sanskrit
neologism, which literally is translated as »the country (bhumi), in which one
gains religious merit (punya)« (Rothermund 1989: 146). This expression
implicates »that this opportunity is only given to this particular country, India.«
Rothermund continues as follows:
This way, Savarkar succeeded in finding some common grounds for the
characteristics of the modern territorial nation state, which corresponded
to the Indian tradition. Here the linkage between identity shaping and
solidarity creation becomes particularly clear. With a clear and simple
definition of the ›Hindu’s‹ identity a comprehensive solidarity is
constituted. But at the same time an obvious (social) exclusion results
from this: The Indian Muslim, who naturally cannot regard India as his
›Punyabhumi‹, is excluded from this solidarity. (Rothermund 1989:
146)7
At the very least, this description of a »religiously justified traditionalism
of solidarity« will catch a Japanologist’s attention, because the structures of
modern Japanese religious nationalism can be found here: the Japanese
shinkoku (»land of the gods«) and the Hinduist Punyabhumi seem to be
almost interchangeable. Rothermund (1997: 185) also remarks – with
reference to the research in Japanese studies – that one can characterize the
theories of Atsutane Hirata as »best-quality traditionalism of solidarity«.
3. Milestones
As becomes clear from the works of Chamberlain, Hobsbawm, and
Rothermund, it is not possible to deal with religion and especially with
modern State Shintō without clear reference to history as a dynamic process.
Thus, some factors relevant to japanese cultural history will be discussed now
to provide a solid basis for a more detailed look at the matter.
7 Original text: »Es gelang Savarkar auf diese Weise, die Charakteristika des moder-
nen territorialen Nationalstaats auf einen Nenner zu bringen, der der indischen
Tradition entsprach. Die Verbindung von Identitätsfindung und Solidaritätsstiftung
wird hier besonders deutlich. Mit einer klaren und einfachen Definiton der Iden-
tität des ›Hindus‹ wird eine umfassende Solidarität begründet. Dabei ergibt sich
aber auch eine ebenso klare Ausgrenzung: Der indische Muslim, der selbstver-
ständlich Indien nicht als sein ›Punyabhumi‹ betrachten kann, ist von dieser Soli-
darität ausgeschlossen.«
108
3.1 A Brief Outline of Ancient Japanese History (Until 1868)

State Shintōist dogma explaining the foundation of the Japanese empire,
which is ascribed to the mythical first emperor Jimmu Tennō, who is said to
have established his reign in 660 BC, was viewed as fact in modern Japan
until the end of the Pacific War. Declarations of this kind can still be heard in
and outside of Japan today, and the day of the »National Foundation«
(February 11) has been elevated to a national holiday once more.
Despite this fact, it has been archeologically and historically proven that
this national foundation by a »Jimmu Tennō« is only a legend, which has
nothing to do with historical facts. Historical research shows that the
Japanese state developed only gradually, as did the Japanese language. Only
approximately 1000 years after the fictitious founding year of 660 BC can we
talk of a state developing out of several small principalities in Japan. This
state developed its basic form in the 5th century, through its contact with
China.
Through this contact, the Japanese rulers obtained – besides Buddhism –
also Confucianism, and with it the methods of ruling a central state. From
then on, the Japanese rulers called themselves »divine ruler« (Tennō), thereby
following the Chinese model, and claimed sovereign rule sustained by a host
of civil servants. Yet, in contrast to China, where the power of the son of
heaven was rested on a mandate from heaven (which theoretically could also
be withdrawn), the Tennō and his family based their reign solemnly on their
alleged heavenly descent: they regarded themselves part of the direct lineal
succession of the mythical deities of heaven, especially of the sun goddess
Amaterasu Ōmikami. This legitimization is basically still valid today.
Although the emperor renounced his own divinity on January 1, 1946
(declaration of ningen sengen), yielding to the pressure of the victorious
powers, the current Tennō Akihito is officially regarded as the »125th Tennō«
in this direct lineal succession, which goes back to the sun goddess. The
religious-genealogic ideology can be seen here in its most obvious form.
3.2 The Modern Age

The history of modern Japan began with a paradox. At the start, which is
axiomatically set to the year 1868, was an event, which seems anything but
»modern«: the Meiji restoration. For in that year, the political and social
order that marked Japan during the Tokugawa period, came to an end, and
the Meiji restoration of 1868 – based on the idea of the reinstallment of an
alleged archaic divine emperorship – thus began.
If the foundations of modern Japan and its concept of the state are to be
discussed, this – apparent – contradiction cannot be ignored. Through the
forced opening of the country by the West, the Meiji restoration resulted in
the retrospective ideology of »reconstructing« earlier patterns of power.
109
Klaus Antoni
During the Meiji period, this traditionalistic idea (see discussion above) was
transformed into a comprehensive, religiously and politically founded state
ideology, which revolved around the formation of a specific Japanese
»national polity« (kokutai). Until Japan’s defeat in 1945, the official concept
of the Japanese state was bound to this »shintōistically« based kokutai
ideology which held the Tennō at its very center.
Since the onset of the Meiji restoration, the more »modern« Japan became
in regard to technology, science, and economics, the more entrenched the
Shintō-based state ideology became in regard to its national self-image. The
veneration of the emperor was elevated to a state cult, mandatory for the
entire nation, and the emperor became the metaphysical and mystic-mythical
nucleus of the nation seen as one big family.
3.3 Legitimation of the Imperial House

Two aspects were crucial in this context: the legitimation of imperial
power and the formulation, or fabrication, of a truly Japanese antiquity based
on the kokugaku nativism of Edo times, especially the way Motoori Norinaga
and Hirata Atsutane had imagined the past
Let us go back as far as sources will allow us to go. Here, the oldest
written documents of Japan are of key importance. One is the Kojiki,
»Records of Ancient Matters«, from 712 AD, and another is the Nihongi, the
»Annals of Japan«, from 720 AD. These works are drafted as historical
documents and describe the official version of history from its mythical early
beginnings nearly to the time of their recording. At the same time, they are
regarded, to a certain extent, to be the »holy books« of Shintō by the
traditional circles of Shintō since Motoori Norinaga; this applies especially to
the Kojiki.
The opening chapters of these books are of particular importance as they
set down the mythical traditions of the country and therefore the – even today
– religiously binding basis of »official« Shintō. Here, we find reports on the
creation of the world, the gods and their deeds, the origin of the imperial
house, and the consolidation of its power.
Thus, a basic feature of Japanese mythology can already be perceived: it
serves to legitimize the power of the imperial house. This is closely linked to
events that occured during Japanese antiquity, specifically during the 6th,
7th, and 8th centuries. Until that time, the Japanese islands were politically
dismembered into a number of local territories, which were each under the
jurisdiction of the most powerful family and/or clan (uji) of that region. The
chiefs of these families did not only have a ruling function, but also presided
over their clan territory in religious matters. The genealogies of these families
have been handed down through the myths, and of course a spiritually
110
emphasized position was attributed to the politically most powerful family

among them.
Yet the situation drastically changed by the 6th century at the latest. The
clans combined to form larger and larger territories – whether voluntarily or
by force still remains to be seen – until one clan, the so-called »Sun Dynasty«
reached hegemony over Yamato, the Japanese central area in the present-day
region of Nara.
The question of state administration for this newly created and yet very
instable political entity and for control over this vast territory naturally arose
as an existential problem. The solution to this problem was found on
mainland China, »the Central Kingdom«, with its dominant culture and art of
state. Thereupon, everything that promised to guarantee a consolidation of
the polity was systematically introduced to Japan. Bureaucratic structures
were installed according to the Chinese role model, a development which
even appears quite practicable and reasonable in the modern sense. The state
was completely sinisized, that is, set up according to the principles of
Chinese culture. And Chinese culture in this context means, for the most part,
the doctrines of Confucius and his successors.
At the center of this concept was the ideal state led by an equally ideal
ruler, the »son of heaven«. Only a truly virtuous ruler could secure the
prosperity of the state, because ruler and state are deeply intertwined in a
mystical respect. If the emperor lost his individual virtue or turned away from
the right path, then he could not only be dethroned, but the people even had
the moral obligation to dethrone this ruler who was now dangerous to the
polity. These ideas were clearly expressed by Confucian philosopher
Mencius and came to Japan as a result of Japan’s pervasion with Chinese
ideas.
Significantly, it was this one point – the possible dethronement of an
emperor – where Japan did not follow the Chinese model. The inertia of the
old way of clan-thinking of the »Sun Dynasty«, which now ruled the whole
country, was too strong to accept the idea of this loss of power, even if
legally sanctioned. The Japanese rulers, called Tennō or, »divine ruler« by
that time, regarded themselves as being on the same level as the Chinese
emperor, and in fact even superior, and the imperial court systematically
devised its own form of legitimation of imperial power, which deliberately
disassociated itself from Confucianism.
This legitimation was created in the myths that were handed down by the
ruling family, which reported the divine origin of the primogenitor of the
imperial house and in which the living emperor is manifested as a direct
descendant of the sun goddess. According to these legends, the sun goddess
commanded the first human emperor and his descendants to rule over the
land of Japan for all time and with only the members of a single dynasty
111
Klaus Antoni
(shinchoku). A change in dynasty, as was common in China, was never to

take place, and never were they allowed to renounce their claim to power.
This is the »political purpose« to which Ōbayashi Taryō (1982: 135), for
example, refers to in his definition of Shintō, which basically defines the
Japanese concept of a ruler that was developed by the philosophers at the
Japanese imperial court in the 7th century in opposition to the superior
Chinese cultural influence. The more the state became formally sinisized, that
is, pervaded by Chinese elements, the clearer the image of a particular
Japanese emperor in the sense of a descendant of divine nature became. Thus,
everything was derived and received its meaning from him and/or from his
divine ancestors. This deification of the emperor and eventually of the whole
country is the essence of what is described by the word Shintō, the »way of
the gods of Japan«. »The meaning of the term Shintō can clearly be […]
comprehended«, ascertains Nelly Naumann (1970: 13, translation by K.A.),
»in the ideal concept of the Japanese divine emperorship, which comprises
the divineness of the reigning emperors and their ruling mandate, which was
bestowed upon them by the sun goddess.«8
This system, usually referred to as the »great tradition« of Shintō (a large
part of folk belief is left out here), was born of the cultural confrontation
between Japan and a vastly more advanced foreign culture, which was also
considered to be superior by the Japanese. Nevertheless, Japan tried to adopt
Chinese ways. An acculturation of these foreign cultural assets was possible
without risk as long as the one thing of central importance, in this case the
ruling interest of the imperial court, remained untouched. The rulers, who
stimulated this process, were all devout Buddhists. However, Shintō supplied
them with the political and metaphysical justification of their power, which
laid beyond the bounds of Chinese state thinking.
Thus, in regard to the nature of Shintō, a basic political and legitimizing
function is apparent from the very beginning.
However, it was not until the Japanese medieval period that an
independent theology of Shintō developed. Although the emperor lost his
direct ruling power to the warrior aristocracy and the bakufu, which
nominally ruled on the behalf of the imperial house and was able to maintain
this rule to a large extent until 1869, the increasingly distinctive belief of
Japan as a country under the special protection of the gods, the shinkoku
(»land of the gods«), spread within circles of Shintō theology. Through the
origin myths, radical proponents of this concept eventually believed in not
only a divine descendence of the imperial house, but even in the divinity of
8 Original text: »Die Bedeutung des Wortes Shintō kann […] konkret erfaßt werden
in der Idealvorstellung des japanischen Gott-Kaisertums, welche die Göttlichkeit
der regierenden Kaiser und ihren von der Sonnengöttin verliehenen Herrschafts-
auftrag umfaßt.«
112
the entire Japanese nation. For them, Japan was innately different from all
other nations, being endowed with a unique, indigenous spirit – Yamato
damashii, the »spirit of Yamato«. Thus, the Shintō based – or rather with
Shintō identified – religious nationalism and traditionalism of modern Japan
was born.
With this basis, Shintō theology turned its influence again toward politics
at the start of the 18th century at the latest, when it began to shape the initial
confrontations of Japan with the major European powers and, especially, with
America.
4. Modern Mythological Research

From the second half of the Meiji period to the end of the Pacific War,
Japanese mythology represented the spiritual basis of the modern Japanese
state, its specific polity (kokutai), and State Shintō in general. The modern
Japanese ideology of an incomparable »uniqueness« of its polity (kokutai),
developed mainly by the Mito school of the Tokugawa period, was based
solely on the legitimation offered by court mythology, which had been
handed down in the records since the 8th century. An objective scientific
study of these myths, especially from the perspective of critical cultural-
historical comparison, inevitably had to clash with this sacrosanct state self-
image, as can be illustrated by any number of cases. Any evidence of connec-
tions between the indigenous mythology and the traditions of the continental
mainland or the southern archipelago would have shaken up the doctrine of
an independent Japanese »divine country«.
Therefore, the importance of a serious comparative study of mythology
during the post-war period cannot be overestimated. Instead of dogmatic
recapitulations of the origin of the Japanese people and its ruling family, the
realization of an extraordinarily complex and historically widely differenti-
ated ethnogenesis and early nation building now became possible.
In light of these comparative analyses, the existence of formerly unrelated
mythical groups within the total mythological narrative could be documented,
which indicated, in the end, the originally heterogeneous structure of Japa-
nese religions. This branch of analytical and comparative mythological re-
search has only been truly possible since the end of World War II. One of its
founders, scholar Tsuda Sōkichi, still had to endure retaliatory measures
before and during the war, because contrary to the binding doctrine of that
time, he did not regard the myths as historically correct records that legiti-
mized the eternal power of the imperial court, as the kokugaku and later na-
tionalists postulated. Instead, he disputed the foundation of the empire by
»Jimmu Tennō« in the year 660 BC, a topic which is still widely accepted as a
historical fact today, and explained the purely legendary character of these
records.
113
Klaus Antoni
Thus, since the end of the war, research on Japanese mythology and
Shintō in general received an enormous impetus, and the way to an ideologi-
cally unbiased analysis finally opened. The discernment of the original het-
erogeneity of the mythical totality, very well organized in the literary records
of the old sources, can be regarded as the most important result of compara-
tive mythological research. It was realized that the Japanese myths were
unique and without parallels in regions outside of Japan in only a few rare
cases. And it also turned out that individual mythical episodes, e.g. the re-
cords of the origin of death, were also essentially part of the mythologies of
neighboring cultures, such as China, Korea, and the Malay-Polynesian re-
gion. This resulted in the complete scientific deconstruction of State Shintō
and its fundamental ideological basis.
The enlightening effect of this scientific research cannot be overestimated.
Without the critical, cultural-historical, and comparative analyses of Japanese
mythology, 9 the dogmatic doctrines of the prewar political Shintō would
have remained unchallenged today. These studies recognized the extremely
complex and historically graded genesis of the Japanese culture and religions,
whose origins were liberated from any artificially constructed and ideologi-
cally motivated ethno-centric isolation, and were put into a general frame-
work, not only of East Asian history but of the whole history of mankind.
The notion of the »homogeneity« of Japan, which was ideologically rather
than religiously founded and was rooted in the traditionalistic (see above)
constructions of premodern times, can therefore no longer be sustained. Japan
can be considered an »island country« (shimaguni) geographically, but cer-
tainly not culturally!
Science has been able to document that certain mythical themes, which
were interwoven into the systemized court mythology during historical times,
originated from different ethnic groups that settled on the Japanese islands
from the Asian mainland, Southeast Asia, and the South Seas during prehis-
torical times, thereby illustrating to the initial heterogeneity of the Japanese
culture(s) and religion(s).
It goes without saying that the discovery of »foreign« – that is, Korean,
southern Chinese, or Indonesian – elements within the Japanese mythology is
not just of academic interest, but affects the very essence of the ideological
self-image of Shintō as an explicit ethnocentric religious system and is there-
fore highly political in its implication.
Within this context, the mythological narratives themselves give perfect
hints to understanding the original state of »religion and power« as well as
the cultural heterogeneity in early Japan.
9 See, for example, Matsumura 1954–1958 ; Naumann 1971 and 1988; Ōbayashi
1973 and 1988.
114
A very good example is the »Izumo myth cycle« as viewed in the context
of Japanese mythology. The Izumo myths open the door for a fascinating
aspect of the whole problem of continuity vs. discontinuity in Shintō as well
as of the cultural, regional, and political heterogeneity during Japanese his-
tory.
4.1 Izumo Mythology10
The Kojiki contains a myth cycle about the deity Susanoo and her descen-
dant Ōkuninushi, the »ruler of the great land«, in which Amaterasu, the an-
cestress of the imperial house, does not play any role. This complex narra-
tive, woven into the strand of mythological chronology, takes place in the
landscape of Izumo. In this description of the otherwise wild and heady god
Susanoo, the bad and violent aspects of his character are downplayed, and he
appears in a considerably friendlier light. His status as the divine ruler of
Izumo is eventually taken over by Ōkuninushi.
The deities of the Izumo line appear in the sources as so-called »terrestrial
deities«, whereas those of the Amaterasu line pertain to the »heavenly dei-
ties«. The assembly of the heavenly gods decided to send a representative
down to earth in order to demand heavenly rule on earth, a mythic episode
called the »transfer of the land», kuniyuzuri, which is frequently interpreted
in historical terms as a clash between the independent region of Izumo and
the new central state of Yamato. Several divine messengers are sent, but
Ōkuninushi is able to defy them all. Finally, the subjugation succeeds:
Ōkuninushi resigns and retreats to his palace in Kizuki. The Kizuki Shrine –
today’s Great Shrine of Izumo – is considered a historical relic of this divine
palace.
After the subjugation of Ōkuninushi, the crucial episode in the imperial
legitimation occurs. Amaterasu (Takamimusubi) gives her grandchild Ninigi
no mikoto the duty of to descending to earth and taking over the rule. No
lineage other than that of the sun goddess was to hold sovereignty thereafter.
The gods of the Izumo line were thus cast off and put into a subordinated
position for the rest of all time.
4.2 Hirata Atsutane

It was Hirata Atsutane (1776–1843), probably the most important and also
the most radical ideologist of Restoration Shintō, who played a major ideo-
logical role in associating the topics of »Izumo«, »legitimation of power«,
10 Much research on the mythology of Izumo has already been carried out; cf. int. al.
Ishizuka (ed.) 1986; Itō 1973; Matsumae 1976; Matsumura1958; Mishina 1971;
Mizuno 1994 and 1972; Piggott 1989; Satō 1974; Senge (1968); Shintō Gakkai
(ed.) 1968 and 1977; Torigoe 1966; Watanabe 1974.
115
Klaus Antoni
and »the Other World« with the political and religious struggles in modern
Japan (Antoni 1998: 147–148). This fanatic propagandist of »pure Shintō«
had astonishingly also picked up aspects of Christian thinking and integrated
these into his concept of Shintō (Odronic 1967: 34), seeing an analog to
Izanagi and Izanami in Adam and Eve; his reading of Christian texts possibly
also influenced his vision of a life after death.11 In Hirata’s theology, the
counterpart to the visible world, which according to kokugaku theology was
ruled by Amaterasu herself, was to be found in the realm of the invisible,
hidden world, in which no one other than the main deity of Izumo,
Ōkuninushi, was regarded as ruler by him and other kokugaku theologians.12
According to Hirata, Shintō ranked higher than all other religions and the
divinity Musubi no kami (i.e. Takamimusubi) was the creator of all things;
for him, the main divinities of other religions were therefore nothing but local
manifestations of this Japanese deity of creation (Odronic 1967: 35). In his
work Yūgenben, for example, Hirata remarks on the relationship between the
divinities (Takami) Musubi and Ōkuninushi:
When one grows old and dies, one’s body will return to dust, but one’s
spirit (tamashii) will not disappear. Returning to the Hidden Realm (kaku-
riyo), it will be subject to the reign of Ōkuninushi no Ōkami, accept his
commands, and from Heaven it will protect not only its descendants but
all those related to it. These are the ›hidden matters‹ (kakurigoto) of
man, and this is the Way established by Musubi no Kami and governed
by Ōkuninushi no Kami. It is for this reason that the [Nihon Shoki]
states: ›The hidden matters constitute Shinto‹.13
The problem of Ōkuninushi being the god of the underworld played a sur-
prisingly major role in one of the most complicated matters of religious and
political struggles of the Meiji period, the so called »Pantheon Dispute«, an
incident that marked a milestone in the development of State Shintō in mod-
ern Japan.14
Besides these questions concerning political theology and the develop-
ment of State Shintō, there is another major problem in this respect that de-
11 For this topic cf. also Harold Bolitho’s observations (2004).

12 Cf. espescially the work of Hara Takeshi (1996: 36–66), in which he deals with
Hirata’s contribution to the development of the »ideology of Izumo« in detail.
13 Quoted from Kamata 2000: 305.
14 Since 1875, the Shintō clergy was split among themselves by the so called pan-
theon dispute (saijin-ronsō, cf. Hardacre 1989: 48ff.). The head priest of Great
Shrine Izumo, Senge Takatomi (1845–1918) attacked the predominant role of Ise-
jingū, and he demanded that the main deity of Izumo Shrine, i.e. Ōkuninushi no
mikoto, should be included into the state-official pantheon as the lord of the un-
derworld. His colleague at Ise-jingū, Tanaka Yoritsune (1836‫ج‬1897) declined such
a request. This cumulated into a dispute which eventually split the Shintō circle
into two camps.
116
mands further research: why was Atsutane Hirata, like the kokugaku scholars
Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) and Hattori Nakatsune (1757–1824) before
him, convinced that the god Ōkuninushi of Izumo should be the god of the
Underworld? A thorough analysis of this question still remains a desidera-
tum, although in recent times, a few works on this problem have been pub-
lished, e.g. Mark McNally’s dissertation (1998) on Hirata Atsutane and the
so-called »Sandaikō debate«. But it should be noted here that Hattori Naka-
tsune’s major work Sandaikō has been a topic of Western research on Shintō
for a long period of time, as the publications of Ernest Satow (1882) and of
Harry Harootunian one century later (1988) show. In a recent article, Endō
Jun (2002), a scholar of Shintō history, gave a comprehensive account of the
underlying cosmological strata. In his contribution entitled »The Cosmology
of Shintō and National Identity in Modern Japan«, Endō states that there was
an urgent need for Shintō to present a theology concerning the Other World
(takai) in the Meiji era, because Buddhism – the most popular religion at that
time – offered salvation after death. As a matter of fact, Endō continues, this
kind of Shintō theology had already started to be formulated in the first half
of the 19th century, before the Meiji Restoration. The purpose of Endō’s
research was, therefore, to review the development of these theologies and to
examine their variations in the Meiji era. That these problems are not limited
to theological thought in the modern or Edo period is shown by the works of
Bernhard Scheid (2001 and 2002) on Urabe/Yoshida Shintō, which reveal the
deep historical roots of the theological and intellectual dichotomy of the
divinities Amaterasu vs. Ōkuninushi in terms of the visible vs. hidden worlds.
Thus, this case shows in a perfect matter that the questions of continuity vs.
discontinuity in Shintō theological and political thought are not confined to
modernity or even to the Edo period, but extend back to the days of antiquity. I
hope to present in the near future a review article on the theological, ideologi-
cal, and political aspects of Ōkuninushi as the god of the Underworld.
5. Résumé
The »modern age« in Japan did not start suddenly in 1868. The country
did not slumber peacefully in the darkness of late-medieval feudalism before
the Meiji restoration, waiting for enlightenment by the West. The intellectual
framework of the Japanese modernism were already set up in principle by
intellectual circles during the Edo period, and it was during the Meiji period
when they were put into practice, blended together with the concepts of
modernity imported from the West. Without the knowledge of premodern
developments, the formation of the modern Japanese empire should be
considered a miracle.
As mentioned earlier, Basil Hall Chamberlain published his controversial
article on Shintō as an »invented religion« in 1912, long before Hobsbawm’s
117
Klaus Antoni
epoch-making research on »invented traditions«. Current research with a

historically differentiated approach centers on the question if Shintō can indeed
be said to be the metatemporal, immutable, and ethnically defined religion some
believe it to be. In his programmatic essay on the historic development of Shintō,
Kuroda Toshio (1993: 26) notes that this concept of Shintō developed
simultaneously with the rise of modern nationalism, starting with kokugaku to the
onset of Meiji era state Shintō and the separation of gods and Buddhas
(shinbutsu-bunri). In the face of the ahistoric, holistic, and static view of
»Shintō« 15 prevalent today, such a historically founded approach, which is
guided by scientific principles, hardly ever manages to affect public opinion in
Japan nor abroad. In particular, the problem of how ideological constructions
since Meiji times have (often subconsciously) helped to form this view of Shintō
still needs to be addressed.
Nonetheless, it is hardly surprising that Chamberlain’s elucidating contri-
bution was printed in only one edition of his popular book Things Japanese.
Demythologizing and deconstructing ideological concoctions is an unpopular
pastime whereas myth-friendly generalizations and allegedly holistic expertise
tend to find many more followers. Any analysis of the role of Shintō in regard to
modernity should indeed start with the contributions made by the Hirata school,
then shift to the various Edo period schools of Shintō orthodoxy in historic
retrogression. Lastly, it should focus on the attempts at putting into practice the
different schemes devised since the Meiji era. Yet such a philologically and
historically conscious approach is difficult to pursue. As Chamberlain
polemically protests, the only solution is to thoroughly scrutinize the body of
current, authentic traditions. In order to be able to detect and recognize
modernity’s constructions at all, we need to take a good look at the »unedited«
version of history, that is, at what has been passed down in the shape of literary
and documentary texts from classical and ancient Japan. Only then will we get a
good idea of the extent to which history has been edited and revised since Edo
and Meiji times, making pre-modern Japan vanish behind a screen of dust. As
has been recognized in regard to the Chinese history of ideas, there is a need to
purge the texts of Chinese classics of the manipulations of the Han epoch. In
my view, the significance of the Meiji era as an epoch of intense »re-editing«
and distortion of pre-modern Japanese history has not yet been sufficiently
appreciated, as illustrated, for example, by the events surrounding the shinbutsu
bunri edicts of 1868. In the present situation, with Japan falling victim to the
reverberations of its own self-image while being encouraged to assume a position
of further isolation by the demands of a culturalist debate, Chamberlain’s words
of warning take on special significance. Regarding this question, all exponents of
15 The concept of Shintō as an ahistoric Japanese national religion has also been
endorsed by researchers of Japanese folklore, prominent among them Yanagita
Kunio (koyu shinko); cf. Kawada 1992 and Göbel 1991: 40, 44 et seq.
118
Japanese studies with a historically critical approach are called upon to make
their contribution to improving our knowledge.
References Cited
ANTONI, Klaus (1990): Inoue Tetsujirō (1855–194) und die Entwicklung der Staats-
ideologie in der zweiten Hälfte der Meiji-Zeit. In: Oriens Extremus 33, 1, pp.
99–116.
ANTONI, Klaus (1998): Shintō und die Konzeption des japanischen Nationalwesens
(kokutai). Der religiöse Traditionalismus in Neuzeit und Moderne Japans.
Leiden: Brill (= Handbuch der Orientalistik, Fünfte Abteilung: Japan; 8).
BOLITHO, Harold (2004): Tidings from the Twilight Zone. In: Susanne FORMANEK and
William R. LAFLEUR (eds.): Practicing the Afterlife: Perspectives from Japan.
Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (= Sitzungsbe-
richte/Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische
Klasse; 713. Bd.; Beiträge zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens ; 42), pp.
262–282.
CHAMBERLAIN, Basil Hall (1890): Things Japanese: Being Notes on Various Subjects
Connected with Japan. London: Kegan Paul.
CHAMBERLAIN, Basil Hall (1912): The Invention of a New Religion. London: Ration-
alist Press Association.
CHAMBERLAIN, Basil Hall (1927): Things Japanese: Being Notes on Various Subjects
Connected with Japan. 5th ed. to which two appendices have been added.
London: Kegan Paul
CHAMBERLAIN, Basil Hall (Transl.) (1981): The Kojiki. Records of Ancient Matters.
Tokyo: Tuttle.
ENDŌ, Jun (2002): The Cosmology of Shintō and National Identity in Modern Japan.
In: Klaus ANTONI (ed.): Religion and National Identity in the Japanese Con-
text. Münster: Lit (= Bunka; 5), pp. 249–262.
GÖBEL, Martin (1991): Japanische Volkskunde und ›Neue nationale Schule‹ – Die
Shinkokugaku des Yanagita Kunio. Universität Hamburg, unveröffentlichte
M.A.-Arbeit.
HARA, Takeshi (1996): Izumo to iu shisō. Kindai Nihon no massatsu sareta, kamigami.
Tōkyō: Kōjinsha.
HARDACRE, Helen (1989): Shintō and the State, 1898–1988. Princeton: Princeton
University Press (= Studies in Church and State; 2).
HAROOTUNIAN, Harry D. (1988): Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse and Ideology in
Tokugawa Nativism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
HOBSBAWM, Eric J. and Terence RANGER (eds.) (1983): The Invention of Tradition.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISHIZUKA, Takatoshi (ed.) (1986): Izumo shinkō. Tōkyō: Yūzankaku Shuppan (=
Minshū shūkyōshi sōsho; 15).
119
Klaus Antoni
ITŌ, Seiji (ed.) (1973): Izumo shinwa. Tōkyō: Gakuseisha (= Shimpojiumu Nihon no
shinwa; 3).
KAMATA, Tōji (2000): The Disfiguring of Nativism: Hirata Atsutane and Orikuchi
Shinobu. In: John BREEN and Mark TEEUWEN (eds.): Shintō in History: Ways
of the Kami. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, pp. 295–317.
KAWADA, Minoru (1992): The Theory of »Native Faith« Set Forth by Yanagita Ku-
nio. In: Bulletin of the European Association for Japanese Studies 38, pp. 23–
44.
KURODA, Toshio (1993): Shintō in the History of Japanese Religion. In: Mark R.
MULLINS, Susumu SHIMAZONO, and Paul Loren SWANSON (eds.): Religion and
Society in Modern Japan. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press (= Nanzan
Studies in Asian Religions), pp. 7–30.
MCNALLY, Mark Thomas (1998): Phantom History: Hirata Atsutane and Tokugawa
Nativism. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California.
MATSUMAE, Takeshi (1976): Izumo shinwa. Tōkyō: Kōdansha (= Kōdansha gendai
shinsho; 444).
MATSUMURA, Takeo (1954–1958): Nihon shinwa no kenkyū. Tokyo: Baifukan.
MATSUMURA, Takeo (1958): Tenson minzoku to Izumo minzokukei shinwa. In: Kojiki-
taisei, vol. 5: 31–69. Tōkyō: Heibonsha.
MISHINA, Akihide (Shōei) (1971): Izumo shinwa idenkō. Tōkyō: Heibonsha (=
Mishina Akihide ronbunshō; 2).
MIZUNO, Yū (1972): Kodai no Izumo. Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan (= Nihon rekishi
sōsho; 29).
MIZUNO, Yū (1994): Kodai no Izumo to Yamato. Tōkyō: Daiwa Shobō.
NAUMANN, Nelly (1970): Einige Bemerkungen zum sogenannten Ur-Shintō. In:
Nachrichten der Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens 107/108,
pp. 5–13.
NAUMANN, Nelly (1971): Das Umwandeln des Himmelspfeilers. Ein japanischer
Mythos und seine kulturhistorische Einordnung. Tokyo: Society for Asian
Folklore (= Asian Folklore Studies, Monographs; 5).
NAUMANN, Nelly (1988): Die einheimische Religion Japans. Teil 1: Bis zum Ende der
Heian-Zeit. Leiden: Brill (= Handbuch der Orientalistik, Abt. 5: Japan; 4, Re-
ligionen, Teil 1).
NAWROCKI, Johann (1998): Inoue Tesujirō, 1855–1944, und die Ideologie des Götter-
landes. Eine vergleichende Studie zur politischen Theologie des modernen
Japan. Hamburg: LIT (= Ostasien – Pazifik. Trierer Studien zu Politik, Wirt-
schaft, Gesellschaft, Kultur; 10).
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1973): Nihon shinwa no kigen. Tokyo: Kadokawa.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1982): Ise und Izumo. Die Schreine des Schintoismus. Freiburg:
Herder (= Die Welt der Religionen).
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1988): Shinwa no keifu. Nihon shinwa no genryū wo saguru. To-
kyo: Seidosha.
120
ODRONIC, Walter J. (1967): Kodoo Taii (An Outline of the Ancient Way). An
Annotated Translation with an Introduction to the Shintō Revival Movement
and a Sketch. Ph.D. disseration, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
PIGGOTT, Joan R. (1989): Sacral Kingship and Confederacy in Early Izumo. In:
Monumenta Nipponica 44, pp. 45–74.
ROTHERMUND, Dietmar (1970): Traditionalism and Socialism in Vivekanda’s
Thought. In: Dietmar ROTHERMUND: The Phases of Indian Nationalism and
Other Essays. Bombay: Nachiketa, pp. 57–64.
ROTHERMUND, Dietmar (1989): Der Traditionalismus als Forschungsgegenstand für
Historiker und Orientalisten. In: Saeculum: Jahrbuch für Universalgeschichte
40, 2, pp. 142–148.
ROTHERMUND, Dietmar (1997): Konstruktionen nationaler Solidarität in Asien. Uni-
versalismus und Traditionalismus. In: Manfred BROCKER and Heino Heinrich
NAU (eds.): Ethnozentrismus. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des interkulturellen
Dialogs. Darmstadt: Primus-Verlag, pp. 170–190.
SATŌ, Shinobu (1974): Izumo-kuni fudoki no shinwa. Tōkyō: Kasama Shoin.
SATOW, E[rnest] M[ason] (1882): The Revival of Pure Shiñ-tau. Yokohama:
Meiklejohn (= Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan; 3, Appendix).
SCHEID, Bernhard (2001): Der Eine und Einzige Weg der Götter. Yoshida Kanetomo und
die Erfindung des Shintō. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (=
Sitzungsberichte/Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-
Historische Klasse; 687; Beiträge zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens; 38).
SCHEID, Bernhard (2002): Land of the Kami and Way of the Kami in Yoshida Shintō.
In: Klaus ANTONI (ed.): Religion and National Identity in the Japanese Con-
text. Münster: Lit (Bunka; 5), pp. 193–216.
SENGE, Takamune (1968): Izumo taisha. Tōkyō: Gakuseisha (= Nihon no jinja; 3).
SHINTŌ GAKKAI (ed.) (1968): Izumo shintō no kenkyū. Tōkyō: Shintō Gakkai.
SHINTŌ GAKKAI (ed.) (1977): Izumogaku ronkō. Ōyashiro-shi: Izumo Ōyashiro.
TORIGOE, Kensaburō (1977): Izumo shinwa no seiritsu. Ōsaka: Sōgensha.
WATANABE, Yasutada (1974): Shintō Art: Ise and Izumo Shrines. Transl. by Robert
Ricketts. Tōkyō: Heibonsha (= The Heibonsha Survey of Japanese Art; 3).
121
Sepp Linhart
The Study of Japanese Values
Introduction
By strict definition, one might go as far to say that the study of Japanese
values by Westerners started as early as in the 16th century, when the first
Portuguese came to Japan and reported on what they saw. But the observa-
tions of these early Westerners in Japan could, of course, by no means be
called systematic academic studies performed according to a method gener-
ally approved by social scientists of the academic world. Even so, many of
the observations of the Jesuits, or of the German medical doctors in Dutch
service, Engelbert Kaempfer and Philipp Franz von Siebold, refer to Japanese
values, at least indirectly, since values together with a set of norms form the
core of every culture and society. However one sees this, there was a long
way to go until the year 1994, when the great study on Japanese values and
value change undertaken by the German Institute for Japanese Studies, To-
kyo, under the direction of Josef Kreiner was published. This study forms the
focus of my remarks today.
I will start this paper with a short discussion of the definition of values,
continue with a brief review of the history of research on Japanese values,
both in Japan and in the West, and then will try to put the contributions made
by Josef Kreiner into perspective within this research history. In conclusion, I
will offer a few research desiderata for the future.
The Definition of Values

One of the most difficult tasks in the study of values is to arrive at a good
definition of what values are. Almost every essay on values starts by stating
this difficulty: Everybody talks about values and changing values, or Werte-
wandel in German, but the concept that social scientists use must be more
precise than that what we mean in everyday life. It is interesting to note that
the classical definition of value is both rather old and rather simple, and is
even tautological. It goes back to anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn, who col-
laborated with Talcott Parsons in developing the famous »theory of action«.
To Kluckhohn et al. (1951: 395)
[a] value is a conception, explicit or implicit, distinctive of an individual
or characteristic of a group, of the desirable which influences the selec-
tion from available modes, means and ends of actions.
123
Sepp Linhart
When dealing with this concept we have to keep in mind that conceptions
other than values, too, might influence our behavior and our actions. What, of
course, comes to mind immediately are social norms. Interestingly, Parsons’
famous book does not deal with norms, which are mentioned only once on
page 481 in the 500 page-strong volume (Parsons and Shils 1951:481; for a
more thorough discussion of values and value change, see Hillmann 1986).
Why am I mentioning this? If we agree that norms and values guide our
conscious behavior and actions, we can also say that social norms can be of
greater importance than social values, or the other way around. But usually
the conflict is not between social values and social norms, because social
norms are usually said to be the result of generally agreed-upon social values,
but rather between social norms on the one hand and individual values on the
other. To put it more clearly, we can construct the following table:
Table 1. Individual and social norms and values
Norms Values
Social Social norms Social values
Individual Individual norms Individual values
Take, for example, the value of cleanliness, which is said to be very im-
portant in Japan. Generally speaking, cleanliness is regarded so highly that a
number of customs have developed to guarantee cleanliness in certain situa-
tions. Religious institutions provide visitors with water at the entrance of
shrines and temples to wash their hands and clean their mouths, people take
off their shoes when entering a private apartment, even when their shoes are
not dirty at all, and they change their slippers to special slippers provided for
the toilet when entering a toilet, and probably every one of us remembers the
shameful situation when, on our first stay in Japan, we returned to the living
room after going to the toilet with the »dirty« toilet slippers on. Stepping on
to a tatami floor with shoes on is an activity that will be sanctioned, since it
means violating social norms that go back to the social value of preserving
cleanliness. Of course, there are Japanese for whom cleanliness is not a
value, who do not wash themselves frequently nor use a bathtub daily as
many Japanese do. They thus behave according to their own individual val-
ues, in which cleanliness has no high priority. They may have set their own
individual norms like taking a bath to once a week or even once a month. It is
likely that a person with such individual values will come into conflict with
124
the prevailing social norms and values, but it is also possible to act according
to social norms in the public and according to one’s own values in private.
For the researcher, the hypothetical contradiction in a given society be-
tween social norms and individual values can even lead to research questions
and programs. If we take, for example, the title of a book published in 1967,
Robert O. Blood’s Love Match and Arranged Marriage, we see a contrast
between »old-fashioned social norms« and »modern individual values«, and
if we look at the subtitle »A Tokyo-Detroit Comparison«, we readily assume
that the researcher in his 1958–1959 study probably worked with the hy-
pothesis that Detroit marriages were overwhelmingly »modern« love
matches, while in Tokyo a good number of marriages were supposed to be
»traditional« arranged marriages.
If social norms and social values are no longer congruent, this might lead
to social change. Traditional social norms without meaning because they are
no longer based on generally approved values must be replaced by other ones
if they contradict the new values.
Returning to Parsons’ book, I think it is remarkable that norms are not
dealt with as a motivation of individual action. Many dictionaries of sociol-
ogy speak of »norms and values« and not of »norms« and »values« sepa-
rately. Somehow one gets the impression from Parsons that social and indi-
vidual values provide the only guidelines for our behavior, that values are
everywhere, but that norms are not at all important. Of course, Parsons
speaks of social control, too, but less frequently than about values.
I personally therefore prefer the definition put forth by George Homans
(1960) who divides human relations into five layers: 1) activities, 2) social
interactions, 3) affections, 4) norms, and 5) values. Values, according to him,
are certain notions that are specific to a certain society, on the conscious or
unconscious level, and that direct our behavior to a certain extent. Even if
one does not adhere to them, one asserts their validity. They are something
akin to cultural implicitness, kulturelle Selbstverständlichkeiten (König 1958:
42).
The term »value« in the sociological sense seems to be foreign to Japan.
There are, of course, the translated concepts kachi 価値 for »value«, kachi
ishiki 価値意識 or kachi shikō 価値思考 for »value orientation«, kachikan
価値観 for »view of value«, which sounds a bit ugly and is not generally
used in English but is often used in Japan, even on the popular level, kachi
kijun 価値基準 for »value standard«, kachi taikei 価値体系 for »value sys-
tem«, to list only a few entries that can be found in sociological dictionaries
(Mita et al. 1988: 144–150).
Interestingly, social norms are often mentioned in regard to Japanese soci-
ety. From Lafcadio Hearn’s Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (1904) on-
wards, many introductory books on Japan mention the importance of con-
formable behavior in Japan, which means nothing more than that norms regu-
125
Sepp Linhart
lating social behavior are of overwhelming importance in Japanese society,

or put into other words, that conformity is a major value in Japan. Almost
every popular introductory book on Japan contains the proverb Deru kui
(kugi) ha utareru 出る杭（釘）は打たれる, »the protruding nail is driven
in«, to give proof of the existence of an enormous pressure to achieve confor-
mity in Japanese society. When speaking about Japanese society, the impor-
tance of seken 世間, »society«, or of seken no me 世間の目, »the eyes of soci-
ety«, have been often stressed, for example, in books by sociologist Inoue Ta-
dashi (1977) or more recently by social historian Abe Kinya (1995, 1999).
Seken, meaning something like »the others around us who know us and
watch us« is usually mentioned in a negative way, as though putting con-
straints on the individual, but there are also people who have a high opinion
of the institution of seken, such as Satō Naoki (2004), who founded a Nihon
Seken Gakkai 日本世間学会, the Association for the Study of Seken, and
recently published a book to defend it.
Research History
The study of Japanese values is always in danger of becoming stigmatized
as performing Nihon bunkaron 日本文化論, meaning »theorizing about
Japanese culture« which, especially with foreign researchers of Japanese
culture, carries the negative connotation of a non-academic activity without
any value (see, e.g., Dale 1986; Yoshino 1992). This is no wonder, because
when we say that a certain set of values is specific for a certain society, this
sounds similar to saying that a certain cultural characteristic is specific to
Japanese society. And we have to admit, that studies of kokuminsei 国民性,
the national characteristics of the Japanese, for example, are surely to be
placed in the proximity of the study of values.
One of the first scholars in modern Japan, who attempted to explain Japa-
nese characteristics, though in a simple descriptive way, was Haga Ya’ichi, a
professor of Japanese literature, in his 1907 book Kokuminsei jūron 国民性
十論 (Gundert 1934). Haga Ya’ichi was said to be one of the last kokugaku-
sha 国学者 in modern Japan. As can be expected from a scholar of Japanese
literature, Haga gave proof of certain Japanese characteristics by taking all
his examples from Japanese literature. Haga’s book led to a stream of similar
publications, out of which Yoshio Noda’s Nihon kokuminsei no kenkyū 日本
国民性の研究 (1914) deserves special mention. Noda was a scholar of edu-
cation, and as such he stressed that examples of Japanese characteristics are
not to be limited to examples from literature, but had to be taken from every
field of Japanese culture and society. Perhaps Noda can be said to be the first
Japanese social scientist who was interested in the study of values, and there-
fore I would like to enumerate his list of characteristic traits of the Japanese.
Compared to others, who only listed positive characteristics of the Japanese,
126
Noda made lists of both positive and negative characteristics. Positive for
him are: 1) loyalty (chūsei 忠誠), 2) immaculateness (keppaku 潔白), 3)
bravery (buyū 武勇), 4) a sense of honor (meiyoshin 名誉心), 5) realism
(genjitsusei 現実性), 6) liveliness (kaikatsu 快活) and frankness (tampaku 淡
白), 7) subtlety (eibin 鋭敏), 8) elegance (yūbi 優美), 9) assimilation (dōka
同化), and 10) courtesy (ingin 慇懃). Perhaps I should draw your attention to
the fact that Noda does not speak of collectivism or groupism, which was to
become later one of the major characteristics attributed to the Japanese. After
the enumeration of the positive traits, Noda tried to show that each of these
characteristics can turn into an undesirable trait: too strong a loyalty might
lead to narrow-minded patriotism and ethnocentric thinking, the overstressing
of immaculateness might result in discriminating against people who do not
value cleanliness as much as the Japanese do, and so on. In this way, one
cannot fail but to rate Noda’s contribution very highly, because he seems to
be one of the first thinkers who tried to give a balanced view of the Japanese
national characteristics. He can even be said to be a forerunner of famous
thinkers such as Tsuda Sōkichi (1873–1961) who, between 1916 and 1921,
published his Bungaku ni arawaretaru waga kokumin shisō no kenkyū 文学
に現はれたる我が国民思想の研は究 [Studies on the thought of our people
as expressed in literature] or Watsuji Tetsurō (1889–1960), whose book
Fūdo. Ningengakuteki kōsatsu 風土。人間学的考察 [The climate. Humanis-
tic reflections] (1935) became one of the most influential studies of this kind
(Minami 1994: 70–74). And it should be mentioned that the 1923 school
textbook for the sixth grade, Jinjō shōgakkō tokuhon, kan 12, 尋常小学校読
本巻十二, contained an enumeration of the good and bad sides of the na-
tional character of the Japanese, so that the young Japanese could develop
their good characteristics (chōsho 長所) even further and keep their not so
desirable characteristics (tansho 短所) under control (Minami 1994: 77–78).
Thus, the preoccupation with the national character at that time was given a
practical meaning.
Fifty years later, Ronald Dore drew our attention in Japanese Studies to
the fact that the same traits can be perceived quite differently, depending on
whom they refer to or by whom they are made. He compiled a list of Japa-
nese characteristics as compared to British characteristics, which he defined
in both a negative and a positive way. The result is really fascinating.
127
Sepp Linhart
Table 2. Japanese characteristics in comparison with British characteristics

according to R. P. Dore (1970: 300–301)
Compared to the British, the Japanese …
Positive view Negative view
are less self-confident and more

have a keener sense of personal
neurotically preoccupied with
honour and are less complacently
retaining the good opinion of
self-righteous
others
have a more realistic willingness to
are more imitative
learn from others
have a keener desire for self-
are more ambitious
improvement
are more slavishly diligent are less afraid of hard work
have a more realistic appreciation
are more submissive to superiors
of the need to co-operate in society
are less willing to stand up for
are less selfish
their individual rights
are more dishonest and indirect in are more sensitive to, and less will-
speech ing to offend, the feelings of others
are more willing to forego the
are less men of principle pleasures of self-assertion in the
interest of social harmony
have less sense of social responsi- are less busybody, with a more
bility to remove abuse in their tolerant willingness to live and to
own society let live
have more good-humoured cheer-
are more childishly naïve
fulness
are more shy about imposing their
are more introverted
views and feelings on strangers
show greater affectionate warmth
are more sentimental and quicker emotional resonses in
intimate relations
128
The difference between studies of the national characteristics that make up

the national character and the study of values might be summed up in that
studies of national characteristics are looking for cultural traits in the Japa-
nese that make them distinguishable from other peoples and that have been in
existence throughout Japan’s history and are thus »unique« and »unchang-
ing«. This has been often criticized, even to such an extent that such studies
are rarely undertaken today, because they are regarded as non-scientific or
unscholarly. The problem with such studies is comparison: authors of such
studies usually only compare of Japan with the West – with the West often
meaning the United States, which is a society with many subgroups exhibit-
ing very different characteristics.
Research on national character, which was a great theme in American cul-
tural anthropology under the heading of »Culture and Personality Studies«
until the 1950s, is also similar to the pattern of culture studies by Ruth Bene-
dict. After publishing a book with this title on three North American Indian
communities, Benedict was entrusted with undertaking a study on U.S. en-
emy No. 1 during the Second World War – Japan – by the Office of War
Information. The outcome was her famous book called The Chrysanthemum
and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (1946), which in my opinion
goes beyond national character studies and is perhaps the first systematic
attempt to look at Japanese social values. Although this book is now 60 years
old, research on it still continues in the West as well as in Japan. Benedict
made use of a very modern methodological approach: since she could not
personally travel to Japan, she collected all materials on Japan that she could
get a hold of in order to analyze Japanese society: books, films, reports on
Japan, Japanese literature, and interviews with Japanese immigrants in U.S.
relocation camps. It is often said that Benedict is responsible for naming
Japanese culture a »culture of shame« as compared to the Western »cultures
of guilt«, but when reading Benedict, one wonders whether this labeling was
not caused by her interpreters rather than by Benedict herself. Although
Benedict categorizes Japanese culture as one in which shame has primacy
(Benedict 1946: 224), shame is mentioned in her book only very briefly, and
she does not elaborate much on this theme. In Japan the expression haji no
bunka 恥の文化 or »culture of shame« became widely known only some
years after the war. By the way, if one takes a look into the internet, many
people note that prewar society may have been a society of shame, but that
today’s world is a society in which shame is no longer known (haji shirazu
shakai 恥知らず社会) or that the culture of shame developed into a culture
of annoyance (meiwaku no bunka 迷惑の文化), thus indicating that consid-
erable changes have taken place in Japanese society and culture.
Even though Benedict’s study made use of many materials, it is by and
large a qualitative descriptive study, but when we think of studies of values,
we usually link such studies to quantitative methods, polls, or surveys that
129
Sepp Linhart
make use of questionnaires. This method is based on the basic assumption

that people can be asked about their values or that they can be asked ques-
tions from which their values can be deduced. The opinion poll or social
survey method is a rather new phenomenon and was only developed in
Europe by researchers such as Paul Lazarsfeld, Hans Zeisel, and Maria Ja-
hoda in the late 1920s of the last century in Vienna. After Lazarsfeld’s emi-
gration from Austria to the United States, the social survey method developed
quickly there, and after 1945 it became the most highly esteemed method in
sociological research and is sometimes called the »silver bullet« (Königsweg)
of social science research. After 1945, empirical social research found its
way from the United States back to Europe where it originated, and then
spread to all other parts of the world, Japan included.
The first important studies on Japanese values and value change did not
use the survey method, but were the qualitative-interpretative type. They
primarily dealt with the forced change in Japanese society after Japan’s de-
feat in World War II, the introduction of democracy and of democratic and
liberal values as a replament for the authoritarian Tennō-system which of-
fered only a minimum of freedom for the individual. The names of the post-
war Japanese intellectuals in the social sciences who took part in the analysis
of this tremendous value change are well known and can be dealt with
quickly: Ōtsuka Hisao (1907–1996), a scholar of Western economic history
and a follower of both Max Weber and Karl Marx, was mainly concerned
with the relations between the individual and society, as well as with the
question of whether there was a human base for democratization in Japan.
One of the few studies of Ōtsuka published in a Western language was, by
the way, put out by the DIJ under Kreiner’s directorship (Arnold-Kanamori
1992; see also Arnold-Kanamori 1998, and Ōtsuka 1970, 1982). Kawashima
Takeyoshi (1909–1992), a sociologist of law, became famous for his studies
of the Japanese family and for his critical remarks about the ie 家-family
system (Kawashima 1985). Best known of all these intellectuals in the West
is probably Maruyama Masao (1914–1996), a political scientist, from whom
several books were translated into English (Maruyama 1963, 1974, 1988,
1996). His greatest issue was the antidemocratic character of the prewar em-
peror system or Japanese fascism. Social psychologist Minami Hiroshi
(1914–2001), who had spent the war period in the United States, published
the study Nihonjin no shinri 日本人の心理 in 1953, which was later trans-
lated into English, and stressed that the personality structure of the Japanese
lacked subjectivity (shutai 主体) (Minami 1971). All these books and many
similar ones were widely read by the Japanese public and helped the people
understand their situation and develop new values.
One of the first sociologists to use the survey method to compare old and
new attitudes and values was my own teacher, Fukutake Tadashi (1917–
1989), who worked for the democratization of the Japanese villages. Fuku-
130
take, like many other rural sociologists, starting with Aruga Kizaemon
(1897–1979), was of the opinion that there were two different types of rural
communities in Japan: the dōzoku ketsugō 同族結合 type in northeastern
Japan and the kōgumi ketsugō 講組結合 type in southwestern Japan. The first
type is a very authoritarian assembly of families revolving around one main
family. The branch families may consist of relatives or not, but they are de-
pendent on the main family. In the southwestern villages, the households
have more horizontal relations, and the relations between the village mem-
bers are more based on equality (Fukutake 1949, 1962, 1967). Josef Kreiner
was the first one to make these theories known in German in his dissertation
(Kreiner 1965) and habilitation thesis (Kreiner 1969). Fukutake also was of
the opinion that the northeastern type was older and gradually developed into
the southwestern type. So by interviewing peasants in Akita as representa-
tives of the northeastern type and in Okayama as representatives of the
southwestern type, he attempted to compare the value change in these com-
munities.
I studied under Fukutake in 1968/69 and had the opportunity to accom-
pany him on two field trips to Akita. At that time, though, the land reform
was already 20 years old; many of the old structures had disappeared, and
with them the old values. The survey was simple: a random sample was not
necessary since all household heads were interviewed. The interviewers were
students, so many that the whole survey could be done within two or three
days. Students received a small payment for their work as interviewers, but I
remember that they were dissatisfied with the amount they got. This was at
the height of the students’ struggle in Japan, and soon thereafter it was no
longer possible to use lowly paid students for this kind of work. They had to
be paid properly like other interviewers or would no longer work for their
professors. I mention this because from the 1970s onwards, social surveys
were by and large no longer undertaken by the universities but by special
research institutes, the central or local governments, and by the media (news-
papers and TV-stations). This meant that many interesting research questions
that were once done out of sheer academic interest could no longer be clari-
fied by the social survey method, because empirical research had become too
expensive and was thus now primarily oriented toward pragmatic questions.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, though, many surveys were undertaken us-
ing cheap student labor, not only by Fukutake, but also by many others, such
as Fukutake’s colleague Odaka Kunio (1908–1993), who did research on
workers’ attitudes towards their employer early in the 1950s (Odaka 1975).
But the social surveys that could be used to gain a comprehensive view of
values in Japanese postwar society did not come from the universities, but
rather from research institutes, among which the Institute for Statistical
Mathematics (Tōkei Sūri Kenkyūjo 統計数理研究所) deserves special men-
tion. Founded as early as 1944, it became especially well known for its sur-
131
Sepp Linhart
veys on the Japanese national character. Between 1953 and 2003, 11 nation-
wide surveys were undertaken, using a similar questionnaire, which made it
possible to grasp changes over a relatively long period of time (Hayashi 2001;
Hayashi and Suzuki 1990; Hayashi and Kuroda 1997; Sasaki and Suzuki
2002).
Besides this institute, various government agencies and private research
institutes have conducted surveys on Japanese values or attitude surveys,
from which we can make assumptions about underlying Japanese values. It is
interesting to note that more and more of these surveys try to make interna-
tional comparisons, so that the results obtained in Japan can be put into per-
spective. To name just one simple example: The Dentsū Communication
Institute has conducted a »Survey on the Value View of the World» (Sekai
kachikan chōsa) every five years since 1990, and it has conducted an »Inter-
national Comparative Survey on Value Views« (Kachikan kokusai hikaku
chōsa) annually from 1996 onwards. This latter survey is undertaken at the
same time in the cities of Tokyo, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Beijing,
Seoul, Bangkok, Singapore, and Bombay among people within the age range
of 18 to 69 and with a sample of 700 people each. Although we claim that the
inhabitants of Tokyo cannot represent the whole of Japan, the results can be
surprising. It has been told time and again that the Japanese value economic
equality, based on simple statistical facts. Whereas in U.S. companies top
managers earn 30 times the average salary of an employee, in Japan the dif-
ference is only 10 times as high, and the general income distribution in Japan
is much more evenly spread than in the United States. The results of many
surveys telling us that 90% of the Japanese think of their own life style as
middle class are only too well known. All this might lead to the assumption
that socio-economic equality is a supreme Japanese value. But according to
Dentsū’s survey in 2001, when it was asked in which direction the society
should develop, the viewpoint that Japan should head for »a society in which
the difference between rich and poor is small« got the least number of posi-
tive replies in Japan (15.9%, compared to China 20.0%, US 23.4%, Singa-
pore 33.0%, UK 34.1%, France 34.3%, Germany 35.2%, Korea 40.4%, Thai-
land 47.3%, and India 66.4%), while the great majority (57.2%) supported
the contrary view that »distribution should be made according to one’s merit«
(Takahashi 2003: 5–9). I do not know how to interpret these data, but they
surely show that the study of values is a very complicated and tricky matter.
Since Ulrich Möhwald (2004) has covered most Japanese research on this
topic in his chapter on »Values and Social Mentality« in the volume Modern
Japanese Society, which was published under the direction of Josef Kreiner,
it is not necessary for me to discuss the history of value research in Japan any
more, so I will turn to Josef Kreiner’s personal achievements in this field.
132
The Value of Josef Kreiner’s Contribution

I did not do research on Josef Kreiner’s life and I did not interview him
while preparing this paper, and therefore I can only make a few assumptions
in regard to his interest in Japanese society based on what I have heard in the
course of our relationship over the past 42 years. As a student in Vienna in
1959, he came into contact with Sumiya Kazuhiko, a student of the afore-
mentioned Ōtsuka Hisao. Sumiya, then in his thirties, was interested in so-
cilology, ethnology, and in social and economic history (see Sumiya 1963).
Another Japanese researcher in Vienna at that time was Anzai Shin, a soci-
ologist of religion, who studied the religious values of the Japanese (see
Basabe 1967 and 1968). Anzai was in close contact with one of Austria early
sociologists after World War II, Erich Bodzenta, who was also an acquaint-
ance of Josef Kreiner’s (see Bodzenta 1972). Although Josef went to Japan in
1961 to do field work as an ethnologist on Japanese and Okinawan villages,
he met there with many social anthropologists and sociologists who must
have furthered his interest in Japanese society as a whole, which has never
been purely academic, but was clearly much influenced by the discourse on
Japan’s post-1945 democratization.
Proof of this interest is Kreiner’s contribution »On the Problem of Democ-
racy and Democratization of the Japanese Village« to a Fukuoka UNESCO
conference in 1977on »33 Years of Postwar Japan«. In this essay he tried to
link the present Japanese villages to their history in the Edo and Meiji peri-
ods, and to review the process of democratization from a longer perspective
than just from 1946 onwards. Six years later he edited a volume detailing
Japan’s change from an agrarian to an industrial society (Kreiner, Mathias-
Pauer, and Pauer 1983), in which modernization of the rural areas in south-
west Japan was the major question. It should perhaps be added that Kreiner’s
famous study of the miyaza (Kreiner 1969) was undertaken in the Wakasa
region of Fukui Prefecture, and much of his firsthand knowledge of the Japa-
nese village goes back to this experience and to his research in the Aso region
in Kumamoto prefecture in 1968/69. A short essay on »Japanese Thought« at
the same time (Kreiner 1985) does not deal with famous Japanese philoso-
phers, but stresses once again the egalitarian nature of the Japanese villages.
When Kreiner was appointed the first director of the German Institute of
Japanese Studies in Tokyo in 1988, a position that he held for eight years
until 1996, he was faced with the important, but difficult task of finding a
great new research topic under which he could combine and concentrate the
institute’s research resources, in order to establish its status as a major re-
search institution in the world of Japanese studies. At the same time, the new
research topic had to be something with a certain social relevance, something
that would enable the researchers to leave the new ivory tower set up at Ku-
dan-Minami in the Chiyoda ward. From what I have already discussed, it is
133
Sepp Linhart
not surprising that Kreiner and his colleagues choose the theme »value
change from 1945 to the present time» with the intent of demonstrating that
Japanese society is not an unchangeable unity, and that models of interpreting
Japanese society, such as those proposed by Kurt Singer, Ruth Benedict,
Lilly Abegg, and Nakane Chie are obsolete today (Kreiner 1994: 13). As
Kreiner (1994: 20) mentions in his preface to the research report (Ölschleger
et al. 1994), in the beginning he and his project collaborators were thinking
of carrying out some sort of community study, perhaps one investigating the
various kinds of communities on a railway line leading out of Tokyo. This
would have been in accordance with Kreiner’s research experiences, but in
the end, the researchers decided to make an opinion poll of a national sample
on Japanese values the core of the research and to supplement this with
smaller projects. Since a survey of all social values would have certainly
been too large and unwieldy, the survey was restricted to the acceptance of
the values of individualism and egalitarianism, which could be measured
against the recurring argument of Japanese society as basically a hierarchic
group society. Perhaps Josef’s friendship with Harumi Befu, who never be-
came tired of arguing against the group model of Japanese society, at least
from 1982 onwards when the two met at the Taniguchi symposia at the
Osaka Minpaku (National Museum of Ethnology) each year, was an influen-
tial factor in this decision (see Befu 1987; 2001, Manabe and Befu 1993). On
the other hand, this wisely chosen topic can be viewed as a natural outgrowth
of Kreiner’s work on village society. Another point of consideration: since
undertaking a national opinion poll on values has become increasingly ex-
pensive, it was certainly a tempting idea to do something then that could not
be done by one individual scholar.
I think it is not necessary to repeat the technical details of the survey here,
which was carried out by a private opinion poll institute. More interesting are
the various supplemental studies: a content analysis of school books, a study
on the equal treatment of the sexes in Japanese family law and in the world of
work, as well as equality and individuality in income distribution and deter-
mination. Through these subprojects, the studies conducted by researchers in
various disciplines were integrated into the main project, and it goes without
saying that the final outcome is a great addition to the social science literature
on Japan. The interdisciplinary approach of this project is reminiscent of
those undertaken by the Kyūgakkai Rengō, the Association of Nine Aca-
demic Associations in Japan, which was introduced to the West early on by
Kreiner’s teacher Alexander Slawik (1961). The work of this association was
closely and critically watched by Kreiner throughout its existence (Kreiner
1990). The outcome of Kreiner’s project is no surprise: the researchers ar-
rived at the conclusion that individualism and egalitarianism are much higher
valued today, and that a plurality of attitudes, values, and life styles are char-
acteristic for contemporary Japan. If forced to voice minor criticism of the
134
project, it would be that the main report, to my knowledge, was neither pub-
lished in English nor in Japanese; thus, the reception of this outstanding pro-
ject in the Japanese and international academic world was not as embracing
as it should have been.
Given such a large research project, it is no wonder that many other re-
lated activities took place at the DIJ at that time. The DIJ Yearbook No.
4/1992 (1993) was devoted to the proceedings of a 1991 symposium on the
»Aspects of Value Change in Germany and Japan« at the DIJ (Möhwald and
Ölschleger 1993). In 1995 another symposium took place on the »Value
Change in Industrial Nations: A Comparison of Germany, Japan and Eastern
Europe« the proceedings of which were published one year later in the insti-
tute’s monograph series, albeit again, unfortunately only in German (Janssen,
Möhwald, and Ölschleger 1996).
One important sociological project that was published in English was ini-
tiated by Josef Kreiner, which transcended the study of Japanese values – the
aforementioned Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section V: Japan. Volume IX:
Modern Japanese Society (Kreiner, Möhwald, and Ölschleger 2004). This
was part of an enormous project started by the late Professor of Japanology,
Horst Hammitzsch, immediately after his Japan-Handbuch was published in
1981. Although the volume on modern Japanese society was consigned to
another author, it did not appear, until its publication was entrusted to Josef
Kreiner around the year 2000. Using his team from his time at the DIJ,
Kreiner put out a 570-pages, edited volume. After an introductory chapter by
Kreiner himself, there are 16 specialized chapters authored by Kreiner’s
former students and collaborators, such as Ulrich Möhwald, Hans Dieter
Ölschleger, Ralph Lützeler, Christian Oberländer, and Daniel Dirks. With the
exception of one Israeli and one Japanese contributor, all the 17 authors are
German, which means that the only comprehensive book on Japanese society
in English is by and large a German endeavor. One of the chapters by Ulrich
Möhwald focuses on »Values and Social Mentality«, and if I may offer an-
other critical remark, I was disappointed that Möhwald hardly mentioned the
great DIJ study.
Concluding Remarks on Research Desiderata for the Future

I hope that I have done justice to Josef Kreiner’s achievements in the field
of sociological studies on Japan. For me, first and foremost is that he has
fulfilled the role of an important instigator and promoter of sociological re-
search on Japan. Believe me, this is no small thing. I even dare say that socio-
logical research on Japan is rather underdeveloped within the realm of Japa-
nese studies. This is partly due to the fact that many Western sociologists
have a short-term interest in Japan, and often carry out only small research
projects in conjunction with Japanese colleagues. This has created the im-
135
Sepp Linhart
pression that a Japanese language background and a deeper knowledge of

Japanese culture for sociological research on Japan are not necessary. On the
other hand, some Japanese sociologists have tried to break into the interna-
tional scene and have published quite a lot in English, thus creating another
argument against Western sociologists specializing on Japan: If Japanese
society is explained by our Japanese colleagues, this is much better, because
it is more authentic than if Westerners do so. Thirdly, sociological research
today is less highly valued internationally than it was 30 years ago. On the
other hand, anthropology has become a kind of super science, stretching to
include historical anthropology, musical anthropology, and other such sub-
disciplines within its bounds. The Japan Anthropological Workshop (JAWS)
is a conglomeration of researchers from many differing disciplines, not only
from ethnology and cultural anthropology, but they all feel that they do an-
thropology, somehow. Most anthropologists prefer a so-called qualitative
approach and despise the work of sociologists based on quantitative data. At
the triannual European Association of Japanese Studies (EAJS) conferences,
e.g., JAWS has taken over the Anthropology and Sociology Section and tries
to prevent sociological papers from being read there.
By choosing the theme of value change as a major research topic, Josef
Kreiner did much for a greater awareness of the sociological dimension in
Japan research. In the years under his successor, from 1996 to 2004, socio-
logical research was completely absent at the DIJ, and no major project com-
parable to that of value change was carried out. Fortunately, like Kreiner, the
present director seems to be interested in great societal issues and has defined
»The Demographic Change in Japan« as the central project for the coming
years. Since the DIJ regularly employs a dozen researchers or so, the research
direction of this institution is of great importance for the whole orientation of
Japan research in Germany, since a large number of former DIJ employees
are always on the Japanese studies’ academic job market, and many academic
positions are filled according to supply and not demand.
A thorough study of the demographic change in Japan compared to that in
Germany is certainly a project of great interest to sociologists and Japanolo-
gists as well as to the general public. Of similar interest would be thorough
studies on social stratification in Japanese society and on about the effects of
the so-called »liberalization of the economy« and of »globalization« on Japa-
nese class structure, although a lot of Japanese research already exists on this
topic. However, since this is a very sensitive issue – think of the ongoing
dispute of Japan as a middle-class society, an egalitarian society, or a hierar-
chical society – a study from the outside comparing Japanese conditions with
German conditions, for example, could be of great importance and also leave
an impact on this kind of research in Japan. Related to this and of equal topi-
cal importance would be a study of the different life styles in Japanese soci-
ety which, like Kreiner’s value study, would help to demolish the myth of the
136
uniform society of Japan. Although a small study was already done by Gün-
ther Schönbauer (1997), something comparable to Bourdieu’s study on dis-
tinction (Bourdieu 1984) on a national scale would be needed, but this clearly
goes beyond that what a single researcher can do. To close, I can think of
many possible studies on social values. Of greatest importance would be
studies on the openness of Japanese society or on its international or national
orientation as viewed from the grass roots level and not as it is expressed in
the speeches of politicians. Josef Kreiner has given us a good example: let’s
hope that many researchers will follow in his footsteps as enthusiastically as
he always was and still is.
References Cited
ABE, Kin’ya (1995): »Seken« to wa nani ka. Tokyo: Kōdansha (= Kōdansha gendai
shinsho; 262).
ABE, Kin’ya (1999): Nihon shakai de ikiru to iu koto. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha.
ARNOLD-KANAMORI, Horst (1992): Der Menschentyp als Produktivkraft. Zu einem
Aspekt der Max-Weber-Interpretation des japanischen Wirtschaftshistorikers
Ōtsuka Hisao. Bonn und Tokyo: Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien (= Mis-
cellanea; 5).
ARNOLD-KANAMORI, Horst (1998): Der Menschentyp als Produktivkraft. Max-Weber-
Studien des japanischen Wirtschaftshistorikers Ōtsuka Hisao (1907–1996).
Hamburg: Kovac (= Socialia 25).
BASABE, M. in collaboration with Shin ANZAI and Alphonso M. NEBREDA (1967):
Japanese Youth Confronts Religion: A Sociological Survey. Tokyo: Sophia
University.
BASABE, M, in collaboration with Shin ANZAI and Federico LANZACO (1968): Reli-
gious Attitudes of Japanese Men: A Sociological Survey. Tokyo: Sophia Uni-
versity.
BEFU, Harumi (1987): Ideorogii to shite no Nihon bunkaron. Tokyo: Shisō no Kaga-
kusha.
BEFU, Harumi (2001): Hegemony or Homogenity: An Anthropological Analysis of
Nihonjinron. Melbourne: Transpacific Press (= Japanese Society Series).
BENEDICT, Ruth (1946): The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese
Culture. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin.
BLOOD, Robert O. (1967): Love Match and Arranged Marriage: A Tokyo-Detroit
Comparison. New York: The Free Press 1967
BODZENTA, Erich (ed.): Die österreichische Gesellschaft. Entwicklung, Struktur, Pro-
bleme. Wien: Springer.
BOURDIEU, Pierre (1984): Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
DALE, Peter N.(1986): The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness. London: Croom Helm (=
Croom Helm Japanese Studies Series).
137
Sepp Linhart
DORE, Ronald P. (1970): Interests, Purposes and Payoffs. In: Edward NORBECK and
Susan PARMAN (eds.): The Study of Japan in the Behavioral Sciences. Hous-
ton: Rice University (= Rice University Studies; 56/4), pp. 297–304.
FUKUTAKE, Tadashi (1949): Nihon nōson no shakaiteki seikaku. Tokyo: Tōkyō Dai-
gaku Kyōdō Kumiai Shuppanbu.
FUKUTAKE, Tadashi (1962): Man and Society in Japan. Tokyo: University of Tokyo
Press.
FUKUTAKE, Tadashi (1967): Japanese Rural Society. Translated by R.P. Dore. Tokyo:
Oxford University Press.
GUNDERT, W. (1934): Der japanische Nationalcharakter (im Anschluss an das Buch
von Prof. Y. Haga: Kokuminsei Jū-ron). Tokyo: Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens (= Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesell-
schaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens; 36, Teil E).
HAYASHI, Chikio (2001): Nihonjin no kokuminsei kenkyū. Tokyo: Nansōsha.
HAYASHI, Chikio and Tatsuzō SUZUKI (eds.) (1990): Beyond Japanese Values: Trend
and Cross-National Perspectives. Tokyo: Institute of Statistical Mathematics.
HAYASHI, Chikio and Yasumasa KURODA (1997): Japanese Culture in Comparative
Perspective. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
HEARN, Lafcadio (1904): Japan. An Attempt at Interpretation. New York: Macmillan.
HILLMANN, Karl-Heinz (1986): Wertwandel. Zur Frage soziokultureller Vorausset-
zungen alternativer Lebensformen. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesell-
schaft.
HOMANS, George A. (1960): Theorie der sozialen Gruppe. Opladen: Westdeutscher
Verlag.
INOUE, Tadashi (1977): »Sekentei« no kōzō. Shakaishinri-shi e no kokoromi. Tokyo:
Nippon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai (= NHK bukkusu; 280).
JANSSEN, Edzard, Ulrich MÖHWALD, and Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER (eds.) (1996):
Gesellschaften im Umbruch? Aspekte des Wertewandels in Deutschland, Ja-
pan und Osteuropa. München: Iudicium (= Monographien aus dem Deutschen
Institut für Japanstudien der Philipp-Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung; 15).
KAWASHIMA, Takeyoshi (1985): Die japanische Gesellschaft: Familismus als Organi-
sationsprinzip. Translated by Kunihiro Kamiya and Gerd Reinhold. München:
Minerva.
KLUCKHOHN, Clyde et al. (1951): Values and Value-Orientations in the Theory of
Action: An Exploration in Definition and Classification. In: Talcott PARSONS
and Edward A. SHILS (eds.): Toward a General Theory of Action. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 388–433.
KÖNIG, René (1958): Beziehung. In: René KÖNIG (ed.): Das Fischer Lexikon: Sozio-
logie. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Bücherei, pp. 35–42.
KREINER, Josef (1965): Beiträge zur Erforschung von Religion und Gesellschaft auf
den nördlichen Ryukyu: Der Noro-Kult von Amami-Oshima. Wien: Institut für
Japanologie (= Beiträge zur Japanologie; 2).
138
KREINER, Josef (1969): Die Kultorganisation des japanischen Dorfes. Wien: Brau-
müller (= Veröffentlichungen zum Archiv für Völkerkunde; 7).
KREINER, Josef (1978): On the Problem of Democracy and Democratization of the
Japanese Village. In: FUKUOKA UNESCO KYŌKAI (ed.): The Fourth Kyushu
International Cultural Conference 1977. Report. Fukuoka: Fukuoka
UNESCO Kyōkai, pp. 27–34.
KREINER, Josef (1985): Japanisches Denken. Die geschichtliche und weltanschauliche
Basis des heutigen Japan. In: Hans-Georg WEHLING (ed.): Japan. Stuttgart:
Kohlhammer (= Bürger im Staat).
KREINER, Josef (1990): Anfang und Ende eines Versuches zum interdisziplinären
Arbeiten in Japan – Gedanken zur Auflösung der Kyūgakkai-rengō. In: Ja-
panstudien. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien der Philipp-
Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung 1/1989, pp. 385–397.
KREINER, Josef (2004): Vorwort. In: Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER, Helmut DEMES, Hein-
rich MENKHAUS, Ulrich MÖHWALD, Annelie ORTMANNS, und Bettina POST-
KOBAYASHI (1994): Individualität und Egalität im gegenwärtigen Japan. Un-
tersuchungen zu Wertemustern in bezug auf Familie und Arbeitswelt. Mün-
chen: Iudicium (= Monographien aus dem Deutschen Institut für Japanstudien
der Philipp-Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung; 7), pp. 11–22.
KREINER, Josef, Regine MATHIAS-PAUER, Erich PAUER (1983): Japans Wandel von
der Agrar- zur Industriegesellschaft. Fallstudien regionaler Entwicklung.
Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
KREINER, Josef, Ulrich MÖHWALD, and Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER (eds.) (2004): Mod-
ern Japanese Society. Leiden and Boston: Brill (= Handbook of Oriental Stud-
ies Section Five: Japan; 9).
MANABE, Kazufumi and Harumi BEFU (1993): Japanese Cultural Identity: An Empiri-
cal Investigation of Nihonjinron. In: Japanstudien. Jahrbuch des Deutschen
Instituts für Japanstudien der Philipp-Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung 4/1992, pp.
89–102.
MARUYAMA, Masao (1963): Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics. Ed.
by Ivan Morris. London and New York: Oxford University Press.
MARUYAMA, Masao (1974): Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan.
Translated by Mikiso Hane. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
MARUYAMA, Masao (1988): Denken in Japan. Edited and translated by Wolfgang
Schamoni and Wolfgang Seifert. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch
Verlag(= Edition Suhrkamp; 1398).
MARUYAMA, Masao (1996): Loyalität und Rebellion. Edited and translated by Wolf-
gang Schamoni and Wolfgang Seifert. München: Iudicium.
MINAMI, Hiroshi (1971): Psychology of the Japanese People. Translated by Albert R.
Ikoma. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
MINAMI, Hiroshi (1994): Nihonjinron. Meiji kara konnichi made. Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten.
MITA, Munesuke et al. (eds.) (1988): Shakaigaku jiten. Tokyo: Kōbundō.
139
Sepp Linhart
MÖHWALD, Ulrich (2004): Values and Social Mentality. In: Josef KREINER, Ulrich
MÖHWALD, and Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER (eds.): Modern Japanese Society.
Leiden and Boston: Brill (= Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section Five: Ja-
pan; 9), pp. 387–415.
MÖHWALD, Ulrich and Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER (eds.) (1993): Japanstudien. Jahr-
buch des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien der Philipp-Franz-von-Siebold-
Stiftung. Band 4/1992. München: Iudicium.
ODAKA, Kunio (1975): Toward Industrial Democracy: Management and Workers in
Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
ÖLSCHLEGER, Hans Dieter, Helmut DEMES, Heinrich MENKHAUS, Ulrich MÖHWALD,
Annelie ORTMANNS, und Bettina POST-KOBAYASHI (1994): Individualität und
Egalität im gegenwärtigen Japan. Untersuchungen zu Wertemustern in bezug
auf Familie und Arbeitswelt. München: Iudicium (= Monographien aus dem
Deutschen Institut für Japanstudien der Philipp-Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung;
7).
ŌTSUKA, Hisao (1970): The Formation of Modern Man: The Popular Base for
Democratization. In: The Japan Interpreter 6, 1, pp. 1–7.
ŌTSUKA, Hisao (1982): The Spirit of Capitalism: The Max Weber Thesis in an Eco-
nomic Historical Perspective. Translated by Masaomi Kondo. Tokyo: Iwa-
nami Shoten.
PARSONS, Talcott and Edward A. SHILS (eds.) (1951): Toward a General Theory of
Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1951
SASAKI, Masamichi and Tatsuzo SUZUKI (2002): Social Attitudes in Japan: Trends
and Cross-National Perspectives. Leiden, Boston, and Köln: Brill.
SATŌ, Naoki (2004): Seken no me. Naze wataru seken wa »oni bakari« na no ka.
Tokyo: Kōbunsha
SCHÖNBAUER, Günther unter Mitarbeit von Katsuhiko YOSHIME (1997): »Kapital« –
Besitz und Lebensstil in Japan: empirisch-theoretische Experimente zu Bour-
dieus Klassensoziologie aus japanischem Blickwinkel. Berlin: Argument-
Verlag (= Edition Philosophie und Sozialwissenschaften; 39).
SLAWIK, Alexander (1959): Theorie und Praxis der Zusammenarbeit zwischen den
anthropologischen Wissenschaften von Ostasien aus gesehen. In: Emil BREI-
TINGER, Josef HAEKEL, and Richard PITTIONI (eds.): Theorie und Praxis der
Zusammenarbeit zwischen den anthropologischen Disziplinen – Symposium
1959. Horn und Wien: Berger, pp. 241–259.
SUMIYA, Kazuhiko (1963): Kyōdotai no shiteki kōzōron: Hikaku keizai shakaigakuteki
shiron. Tokyo: Yūhikaku.
TAKAHASHI, Tōru (2003): Nihonjin no kachikan. Sekai rankingu. Tokyo: Chūō Kō-
ronsha (= Chūkō shinsho rakure; 81).
YOSHINO, Kosaku (1992): Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan. A
Sociological Enquiry. London and New York: Routledge.
140
Axel Klein
Studies on the Japanese Political System
1. Introduction
The study of the political system plays a definitive and important role in
both the fields of Japanese studies and political science. Having said that, how-
ever, I do admit that the study of the political system in Europe is different, as
Japan plays only a minor role in this field. Lacking both the geographic close-
ness and the intense and recent common history which binds Japan and North
America together, the majority of European political scientists is busy concen-
trating on their own exciting continent and the USA. Add to this the fact that
only works written in English have a chance to be noticed on the international
scene, many studies on Japan published in German, French, Italian, or other
European languages are trapped within lingual boundaries, limitations that
British studies fortunately do not have.
It is thus no wonder that it is U.S. American and, to a lesser degree, British
work on the political system of Japan that is being noticed and absorbed into
political science studies in Japan. It is the dominance of the USA that has
contributed to the narrowed view of the subjects at hand, a view that is held
by many scientists on either side of the Pacific, as these studies implicitly or
explicitly compared the Japanese system to only that in the U.S., thus produc-
ing a long list of dissimilarities, whereas a closer look at many European
political systems would have yielded many more similarities. Also, the im-
plied conclusion that Japan is very different from the rest of the industrialized
world – at least as far as the many structural aspects of the political system
are concerned – could only be born of such a U.S.-Japan centered compari-
son, as a Japan-Europe perspective would have at best qualified the U.S. as
vastly different.
Keeping this in mind, the following pages will briefly describe what sub-
jects and studies have dominated the agenda in the last decades, although I
will not go as far back as Maruyama Masao and his ideas on the two major
driving forces behind Japan’s political and social development before and
during the Fifteen Year-War, and for the foundation of seemingly stable
democracies in the West (Maruyama 1964). There will also be no revisiting
of the strong influences of Marxism on social science in general and political
science in particular. Instead, I will try to point out here what kinds of com-
parative political studies of Japan one could embark on in the future to avoid
141
Axel Klein
exaggerated U.S.-Japan comparisons or other approaches that could keep the

level of scholarly analysis from reaching international standards.
I will outline some major directions for future research, always keeping in
mind that there is no aspect of Japanese politics that has not drawn the atten-
tion of at least a small number of observers. Thus, it is not intended to give a
complete overview of recent or major publications in the field here, since this
information is readily available elsewhere.
2. The Past
During the 1970s, basic questions on the stability and meaning of the new
Japanese democracy, which had been dominant in Japanese political science
until then, were clearly losing their luster. Democracy – including the consti-
tution and its prominent Article 9 – had been accepted by almost all of the
Japanese, and the political struggle between the Socialists and the Liberal
Democrats had started to turn into mere rituals. Enormous economic growth
in the 1950s and 1960s had convinced most Japanese that the road their coun-
try’s government was taking was the right one, even though environmental
pollution had reached levels rarely seen outside the Communist Bloc (Hayes
2005: 133).
At that time, more and more scholars started to look closer at certain play-
ers on the political stage and structures within the political system. One of the
major elements of interest was, of course, the long ruling Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP, jiyū minshu tō). Factions, for example, were regarded as being of
immense significance. Many Japanese and foreign researchers tried to gain a
complete understanding of how these inner-party groups worked, especially
since THAYER published his critically acclaimed study in 1969. Contributing
to the huge amount of attention focused on the factions was the feeling that
they were something uniquely Japanese. Lacking a political program that
would give them a raison d’être to hold their members together, factions
were portrayed as mere interest groups, exchanging loyalty for money and
career opportunities.
Closely associated to factions and their way of functioning was another
broad field of academic research: elections (cf. Klein 1998). Here it was the
individually managed and financed local support groups of LDP politicians,
the so-called kōenkai, that received an enormous amount of attention. Again,
this feature of Japanese politics seemed to be unique to the country and well
suited to explaining how the system worked. No study on Japanese politics
could do without it and especially Gerald Curtis (1971) succeeded in furnish-
ing proof why this was perfectly justified.
The electoral system, a single non-transferable voting system in, to use the
Japanese expression, »medium-sized districts« (chū senkyoku sei, meaning
»multimember districts«), was a third allegedly unique Japanese component
142
of the system, forcing mainly LDP candidates to compete for votes against
one another. As party programs are hardly any help in a situation like this
other ways of campaigning had to be relied upon, ways that would mean for
the most part personal and apolitical services for individual voters. This in-
cluded appeals on the ground of common regional origin, having visited the
same school or university, etc., or costly presents whenever an anniversary,
wedding, or funeral came up.
All of this made it extremely expensive for politicians to maintain their
electoral district and defend it from competitors, a fact that was very often
cited as the main reason for structural corruption. As Steven Reed (1996)
once put it, the level of corruption made Japan appear as though only Italy
was worse off in the industrialized world. This seemed especially true since
Japanese politicians would turn to industry and companies for financing in
exchange for what was generally termed »pork barrel politics« (cf. Woodall
1996). While both sides profited from arrangements of this kind, the general
public was paying the bill in regard to trade barriers, protective policies and
cartel structures which kept prices for many goods and products high. Many
clearly unnecessary public work projects were executed simply for the sake
of maintaining the system, thus wasting tax money and accelerating the debt
spiral that had reached heights unknown in any other industrialized country.
It was Yanaga (1968) who introduced a broader non-Japanese audience to
a third party in this give-and-take arrangement. In his book Big Business and
Japanese Politics, he coined the term »iron triangle«, and analyzed the role
that Japanese bureaucracy was playing in bringing about decisions and poli-
cies in the political system. Others have taken this model further, altering it
slightly each time (cf. Pempel and Tsunekawa 1979, Muramatsu and Krauss
1987), but all showed that the public servants working in the central minis-
tries regarded themselves and were also regarded by the general public as the
true leading elite of Japan. While politicians seemed to be busy with securing
the financing of their election campaigns, offering personal services to voters,
and taking care of factional politics, bureaucrats appeared to be wise, knowl-
edgeable, and willing to serve not their own interests but that of the country
as a whole. It was ironic in a way that some of these bureaucrats helped to
destroy their own reputation at the beginning of the 1990s by »scandals«,
which were mostly about using tax money for their own entertainment.
The third leg of the iron triangle consisted of the so-called »tribe politi-
cians«, a translation of the Japanese expression zoku giin which is not abso-
lutely convincing. One of the most compelling studies on this subject was
presented by Inoguchi and Iwai (1987) who explained in detail how LDP
lawmakers would work as middlemen between a ministry and one of the
industries under their jurisdiction, helping all three sides to profit from the
negotiated agreements and the resulting rewards. Subsequently, no study on
143
Axel Klein
the workings of the policy-making process could be undertaken without ref-

erences to the tribe politicians.
The triangle model in all its variations was one of several used to explain
the single-party rule that had characterized Japanese politics from 1955 until
1993. Again, it almost seemed uniquely Japanese to have one party dominate
and rule uninterrupted and without virtually any coalition partners for almost
40 years. While lasting economic success, which reached a dubious climax in
the bubble economy of the late 1980s, seemed to justify superficially the way
the system had been working, and many foreign observers, especially
journalists, were led to believe that Japan was equipped with a superior form
of governance and democracy, the 1990s destroyed this picture completely
and gave way to studies that have become much more critical, not only about
the democratic essence of the system, but also about its achievements. Here
we can find promising areas for research in the present and the future.
3. The Future
Research in Japanese politics had to deal with a huge challenge in the mid-
1990s. For the first time in almost 40 years, the dominant LDP did not rule
the country, but had to take its place on the hard opposition benches along-
side its political arch enemy, the Japanese Communist Party (JCP, kyōsantō).
Seven other political parties, almost none of which is still in existence these
days, struggled hard to cooperate in a shaky coalition government that did not
last very long but still produced one of the most remarkable set of reform
legislation on the basic framework of political campaigning ever to see the
light of day in Japan. A decade later, political scientists and japanologists –
ideally, the same persons or working together – are now scrambling to get a
grasp of what has really changed since then, which old research topics have
become obsolete, and which new fields need to be pursued.
At the moment, factions as a research topic seem outdated. When Koizumi
Jun’ichirō took the helm of the LDP in 2001, one of the goals he declared
was to strip these groups and especially their leaders of their power. Al-
though he himself admitted that there would always be factions within his
party, they have since lost a lot of their influence. The new electoral system,
public financing of parties, the prolonged recession, and Koizumi’s efforts all
contributed to this development, which was explicitly demonstrated in the
course of the 2005 General Election.
The iron triangle has also lost a lot of its explanatory power. Although
reasons for mutual dependencies between the three sides still exist, they have
lost considerable strength and importance. The industry has become highly
diversified, confronting the LDP and Ministries with sometimes conflicting
requests. Companies have reduced their financial contributions to the parties,
which in turn are now becoming increasingly dependent on the monies they
144
receive from the state (cf. Mori 1994). In addition, government politicians are
trying harder and harder to control policy making, thus setting themselves in
direct competition with the bureaucracy. Furthermore, amakudari (»descend-
ing from heaven«) – or the change in employment of thousands of public
servants in the last third of their ministry career who find jobs with the indus-
tries they used to control – also does not work as well as it used to. The num-
ber of such public servants has drastically declined as the industry cannot and
/ or does not want to supply positions in sufficient numbers for them (cf.
Nakamura 2001).
A decade ago, Nakano (1997) designed a complex model that was sup-
posed to explain which players on the political stage influenced which areas
in the policy-making process under the changing conditions of the times, but
events since then have already rendered some of his work outdated. Studies
such as that by Bowen (2003) claim with some justification that there is still a
huge number of »mini triangles« around, but that in itself is not a contradic-
tion to the conclusion mentioned above that the triangle in its previously
described form no longer exists.
The search for a key to the understanding of the present way of decision
and policy making is difficult because, first of all, things are changing con-
stantly and at a considerable speed. Many a book has lost a considerable part
of its relevance before it hits the market because parties have dissolved, ma-
jor events taken place like the 2005 General Election, or a new prime minis-
ter has evoked a new style of leadership. I myself have tried to cope with this
challenge by setting up a website that would keep the readers of my 2006
study on the political system up to date, but I realize that this is a daunting
and time-consuming.1
Secondly, the number of players on the political stage who are trying to
influence the decision-making processes is growing constantly, and the rela-
tive homogeneity of parties and other institutions and organizations appears
more often than not shaky. This development is due in part because the LDP
has been dependent on a coalition partner since the late 1990s. Although it
held on to 296 seats in the 480-seat Lower House after the 2005 election, the
party still needs the support of the New Kōmeitō to get bills through the Up-
per House. When the seven-party coalition came into being in 1993, journal-
ists and political scientists alike speculated on how the country would fare
under something other than a one-party rule. Ōtake (2000) was one of a
growing number of Japanese scholars publishing their thoughts on the new
and – measured against international standards – seemingly unusual constel-
lation at that time and started the hitherto unknown field of »coalition re-
search.«
1 Cf. www.uni-bonn.de/japanologie/politik.
145
Axel Klein
Even though the LDP has regained some of its strength, the era of one-
party dominance seems to be over for now, especially if you subscribe to the
view that had it not been for popular Prime Minister Koizumi, the LDP
would already be sitting on the opposition benches. The advent of a two-
party system has thus been one of the new and very interesting subjects under
study by scholars of Japanese politics. The Democratic Party (minshutō)
believed itself to be very close to victory when Koizumi managed to confront
them with a huge setback. But research so far (cf. Reed 2003; Katō 2005) has
shown that, for example, the make-up of the electorate does allow for a two-
party system, and the new electoral system seems to support this trend to
some extent (cf. Hirano and Kōno 2003).
Election campaigning has changed along with the new electoral system.
Besides the fact that no party can allow to set up two candidates in a single-
seat district, thus effectively eradicating the old form of inner-party competi-
tion, the growth of the Democratic Party has partly shifted the focus of cam-
paigning away from personal services towards party programs. The election
campaigns since 2003 have paid more attention to these programs (manife-
suto) or at least to a very well-defined political issue (e.g., postal privatiza-
tion). This development has subsequently been described by scholars and
other observers as progress for Japanese democracy, and I believe that it is
also responsible for the much cleaner election campaigns. Money is now
more often being spent between campaigns for the purpose of taking care of
one’s electoral district.
The so-called renzasei (»system of co-liability«) has had considerable im-
pact on the way politicians conduct their campaigning. As part of the huge
reform bill of 1994, this particular piece of legislation went somewhat unno-
ticed by much of the public and even foreign observers, and its effect has
been rather underestimated so far. Japanese politicians, on the other hand,
have taken very much notice of this new law (cf. Yasuoka 1996, FBSKK
1996, Iwao 1999) which makes them liable for every misdeed that any of
their staff may commit. My impression is that this law has helped to reduce
the danger of corruption in Japanese politics more than anything else,
although thorough research must still be done.
With corruption on the downswing,2 another approach needs to be taken.
In the past, and in accordance with the huge majority of studies on Japanese
politics, lawmakers and politicians were generally described as the bad guys.
In reality, however, voters are the ones who allow their elected representa-
tives to get away with unsavory behavior, especially since the number of re-
elected wrong doers has been considerable. Moreover, about 40% of all eli-
gible voters did not cast their vote in the general elections in 1996, 2000, and
2003. The question of responsibility of the people as the sovereign of the
2 For a good review of Japan’s history of political corruption, see Mitchell 1996.
146
state is clearly more than just an educational challenge for the Ministry of
Education, and future research would be well advised to look deeper into this
matter.3
Closely linked to this topic is the development of civil society in Japan.
Kingston (2004) has just recently published a study entitled Japan’s Quiet
Transformation: Social Changes and Civil Society in the Twenty-First Cen-
tury, and others have done intense research on individual aspects of political
participation in Japan (Smith 2000, Vosse 2000, Schwartz and Pharr 2003,
Hook 2005, Horiuchi 2005), but there still is a lot of work to be done here.
Although difficult in its methodological approach, comparative work may be
especially rewarding in this area.
This kind of research would possibly also help in another field that has not
received much attention until now: political psychology. Looking at the
mind-set of voters, politicians, and other political players is a different ap-
proach to understanding the political system, but it looks at the basic element
in the system: the human being. Studies that have tried to explain political
leadership in Japan have hardly ever taken this point of view into considera-
tion (cf. Shinoda 2000). Instead, cultural components were regularly overem-
phasized, followed by analyses of inner-party power structures. It could be
argued that psychological approaches within political science are uncharted
and treacherous territory but that should not stop scholars from having a go at
it (cf. Feldman 1998 and 2000).
Not as difficult but still not adequately integrated into research on the po-
litical system are studies on the jurisdiction and the »rule of law.« Many
debates and confrontations in the system regularly appear and just as regu-
larly vanish unresolved. The Yasukuni issue, unequal representation of elec-
toral districts in both Houses of the National Parliament, or the usage of the
SDF are just three of many examples that have been turned into ritual topics
of discussion, with the same arguments being repeated over and over again.
The courts, above all the Supreme Court, should handle these matters and
decide upon them conclusively, but judges have consistently refused to hear
them. They call these problems »political« and thus do not feel any responsi-
bility. This situation contributes significantly to the malfunctioning of the
»rule of law« in Japan, something a democracy cannot afford and an issue
that scholars should get much deeper into (cf. Miyazawa 2001).
4. Conclusion
In many ways, political science has come very close to using the same
methods and approaches as are applied in cultural studies. Unfortunately,
some of the results of this research have overstated simplified cultural find-
ings and have thus formed an image of Japanese politics of being more un-
3 Like Flanagan et al. did in 1991.
147
Axel Klein
usual and particular to Japan than it really is. Groupism, the urge for har-
mony, or concepts like »tatemae« and »hone« were accorded much more
attention than they deserved, considering all the other aspects that were avail-
able for research. Concentrating on seemingly different and somewhat exotic
behavior of all kinds contributed to an unbalanced perception of Japanese
politics, one that was in urgent need of revision.
Since the start of the 1990s, these revisions have largely been made. Many
new publications on Japanese politics are well-founded and researched, and
show a complete picture of what is happening. Political scientists in Japan
have successfully set up new academic journals that work well as outlets for
substantial and well researched studies on the political system, which are
written by both Japanese and non-Japanese authors. Leviathan, first pub-
lished in 1987 by four outstanding Japanese scholars (Michio Muramatsu,
Ichirō Miyake, Takashi Inoguchi, and Ikuo Kabashima), is one example,
another one is the Japanese Journal of Political Science, published in English
by Cambridge University Press since 1999, which often takes a comparative
perspective in its articles. Senkyo kenkyū (»Electoral Studies«), the journal of
the Japanese Electoral Studies Association (Nihon senkyo gakkai), should
also be mentioned here as it publishes a huge number of well-done empirical
studies on elections, most of them by Japanese scholars.
Even though some of these and other recent studies are based on the con-
cept of rational choice (e.g. Ramseyer and Rosenbluth 1993), the majority of
experts – broadly speaking – still apply cultural approaches to their work.
However, these studies have not picked up much of what is called the »cul-
tural turn« in anthropology and ethnology, which has pushed research into
new directions in these fields. Studies on political aspects of Japan should be
encouraged to follow this road. There is an interesting set of methods to be
discovered and applied, methods that will not allow research to drift back
into stagnant culturalistic water. I believe that it would be rewarding to try
applying these interdisciplinary methods, especially in regard to my last sug-
gestion for future research in Japanese politics, which follows below.
By definition, politics deal with the creation and implementation of rules
(laws) that are binding for a society. Under the new conditions described
above, future studies should also pay more attention to how laws come into
existence (cf. Ryūen 1999). I do not encourage research on the formalistic
legislative process prescribed in the constitution but instead on all those po-
litical players that try to exert influence over agenda setting, interest aggrega-
tion, the actual process of »policy making«, as well as the always important
but very often neglected act of implementation. There are more questions of
major importance than ever before, to wit: How precise and detailed are laws
passed by the Diet? What is left out and why? How much does a clear politi-
cal vision lose on its tortuous path way through the committees, informal
meetings, and the Diet? And very important with regard to urgent problems
148
like demographic change are questions such as: How and to what degree is
the Japanese state able and willing to react? Political measures in the field of
pension system or health insurance give the impression that Japan – like other
industrialized countries – is speeding towards a brick wall. Many serious
problems are well-known and their consequences can be accurately forecast,
but lawmakers do not seem to react appropriately. The question to be an-
swered here is straightforward but intriguing, and the most relevant one of
all: Why?
References Cited
BOWEN, Roger W. (2003): Japan’s Dysfunctional Democracy: The Liberal Democ-
ratic Party and Structural Corruption. Armonk, London: M.E. Sharpe.
CURTIS, Gerald (1971): Election Campaigning Japanese Style. New York: Columbia
University Press.
FBSKK [FUHAI BŌSHI SHISUTEMU KENKYŪ KAI] (Ed.) (1996): Shin renza sei han-
dobukku Q&A [Handbook on the new system of co-liability: Q&A]. Tōkyō:
Shuppanken.
FELDMAN, Ofer (2000): The Japanese Political Personality: Analyzing the Motiva-
tions and Culture of Freshman Diet Members. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
FELDMAN, Ofer (ed.) (1998): Political Psychology in Japan: Behind the Nails That
Sometimes Stick Out (and Get Hammered Down). New York: Nova Science
Publishers.
FLANAGAN, Scott C. (ed.) (1991): The Japanese Voter. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
HAYES, Louis D. (2005): Introduction to Japanese Politics. 4th rev. edition. New York:
M.E. Sharpe.
HIRANO, Hiroshi und Masaru KŌNO (eds.) (2003): Akusesu nihon seiji ron [Access-
theory on Japanese politics]. Tōkyō: Nihon Keizai Hyōronsha.
HOOK, Glen D. (ed.) (2005): Contested Governance in Japan: Sites and Issues. Lon-
don and New York: Routledge Curzon.
HORIUCHI, Yusaku (2005): Institutions, Incentives and Electoral Participation in
Japan: Cross-Level and Cross-National Perspectives. London and New York:
Routledge Curzon.
INOGUCHI, Takashi and Tomoaki IWAI (1987): Zoku giin – jimintō seiken o gyūjiru
shuyakutachi [Tribe politicians: Studies on the leading Actors who Control
the LDP-Administrations]. Tōkyō: Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha.
IWAI, Tomoaki (1990): Seiji shikin no kenkyū [Research on political money]. Tōkyō:
Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha.
IWAO, Yutaka (ed.) (1999): Jitsumu to kenshū no tame no wakariyasui seiji shikin
kiseihō [For practice and studies: The law for regulating political money]. 2nd
rev. edition. Tōkyō: Gyōsei.
149
Axel Klein
KATŌ, Shūjirō (2005): Nihon seiji no zahyōjiku [Coordinate axis of Japanese politics].
Tōkyō: IL.
KINGSTON, Jeff (2004): Japan’s Quiet Transformation: Social Change and Civil
Society in the Twenty-First Century. London and New York: Routledge Cur-
zon.
KLEIN, Axel (1998): Das Wahlsystem als Reformobjekt [The electoral system as an
object of reform]. Bonn: Bier’sche Verlagsanstalt (= Bonner Japanforschungen;
18).
KLEIN, Axel (2006): Das politische System Japans [The political system of Japan].
Bonn: Bier’sche Verlagsanstalt (= JapanArchiv; 7).
MARUYAMA, Masao (1964): Gendai seiji no shisō to kōdō [Ideas and movements of
contemporary politics]. Tōkyō: Misuzu Shobō.
MITCHELL, Richard H. (1996): Political Bribery in Japan. Honolulu: Hawaii Univer-
sity Press.
MIYAZAWA, Setsuo (2001). The Politics of Judicial Reform in Japan: The Rule of Law
at Last? In: Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal 2, pp. 89–121.
MORI, Hideki (ed.) (1994): Seitō kokko hojo no hikaku kenpōteki sōgōteki kenkyū [A
constitutional comparative and comprehensive study on the introduction of
public party financing]. Tōkyō: Kashiwa Shobō.
MURAMATSU, Michio und Ellis S. KRAUSS (1987): The Conservative Policy Line and
the Development of Patterned Pluralism. In: Kozo YAMAMURA und Yasukichi
YASUBA (eds.): The Political Economy of Japan. Vol. 1: The Domestic Trans-
formation. Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press, pp. 516–554.
NAKAMURA, Akira (ed.) (2001): Kanryō sei to Nihon no seiji – kaikaku to teikō no
hazama de [Bureaucracy and politics in Japan: Between reforms and resis-
tance]. 2nd rev. edition. Tōkyō: Kitagi Shuppan.
NAKANO, Minoru (1997): The Policy-Making Process in Contemporary Japan.
Houndmills and New York: Palgrave.
ŌTAKE, Hideo (Ed.) (2000): Power Shuffles and Policy Processes: Coalition Govern-
ment in Japan in the 1990s. Tokyo and New York: Japan Center for Interna-
tional Exchange.
PEMPEL, T.J. and Keiichi TSUNEKAWA (1979): Corporatism without Labor? The Japa-
nese Anomaly. In: Phillippe C. SCHMITTER and Gerhard LEHMBRUCH (eds.):
Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications,
pp. 231–270.
RAMSEYER, J. Mark and Frances MCCALL ROSENBLUTH (eds.) (1993): Japan’s
Political Marketplace. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University
Press.
REED, Steven (1996): Political Corruption in Japan. In: International Social Science
Journal 9/1996, pp. 395–405.
REED, Steven R. (ed.) (2003): Japanese Electoral Politics: Creating a New Party
System. London and New York: Routledge Curzon (= Nissan Institute /
Routledge Curzon Japanese Studies Series).
150
RICHARDSON, Bradley M. (1997): Japanese Democracy: Power, Coordination, and

Performance. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
RYŪEN, Ekiji (1999): Nihon seiji katei ron [Theories on political processes in Japan].
Tōkyō: Kitagi Shuppan.
SCHWARTZ, Frank J. (1998): Advice and Consent: The Politics of Consultation in
Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
SCHWARTZ, Frank J. and Susan PHARR (eds.) (2003): The State of Civil Society in
Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
SHINODA, Tomohito (2000): Leading Japan: The Role of the Prime Minister.
Westport: Praeger.
SMITH, Sheila A. (ed.) (2000): Local Voices, National Issues: The Impact of Local
Initiative in Japanese Policy-Making. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese
Studies, University of Michigan.
THAYER, Nathaniel (1969): How the Conservatives Rule Japan. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
VOSSE, Wilhelm (2000): The Environmental Movement in Contemporary Japan.
Structure, Activities, Problems, and Its Significance for the Broadening of Po-
litical Participation. Hannover: Electronic publishing (http://www.tib.uni-
hannover.de/en/special_collections/ dissertations/diss_ev_00.pdf.).
WOODALL, Brian (1996): Japan under Construction: Corruption, Politics, and Public
Works. Berkeley: University of California Press.
YANAGA, Chitoshi (1968): Big Business and Japanese Politics. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
YASUOKA, Okiharu (1996): Shin renza sei handobukku – sensei no seijika seimei ga
abunai [Handbook on the new system of co-liability: The political life of
lawmakers is in danger]. Tōkyō: Shuppanken.
151
Ralph Lützeler
German Geographical Research on Japan
Some Remarks on Its Current State and Future
Prospects
In the broadest and most traditional sense of the term, »geographical re-
search« would include any study devoted to the physical and/or human features
of a specific country. Thus, an account of German geographical research on
Japan could start with an appraisal of the works written by Engelbert Kaempfer
(1651–1716) or by Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866). Both were medical
doctors at the Dutch trading post of Deshima in Nagasaki who used their stay
to collect various firsthand information on Japan. This article, however, will
concentrate on modern geographical research on Japan that has been conducted
since the 1960s when geography became truly scientific at last by destroying
»the idea that locations could never be anything but unique« (Bird 1993: 11).
Furthermore, while putting special emphasis on studies conducted during the
last fifteen years, my idea is that this period of modern research can be split up
into at least two phases which were each dominated by different paradigms.
Finally, in the last section, some remarks on future trends are made which point
to the possible advent of a third phase. Readers interested in a more compre-
hensive summary and bibliography of older research and studies published up
to the late 1990s should turn to Flüchter (2000a).
1. The First Phase: Analyzing Spatial Features of a Highly Dynamic

Country (1962–1990)
In Germany, modern geographical research on Japan was kick-started and
long-dominated by Peter Schöller (1923–1988), Professor of Geography at
the University of Bochum and one of the leading figures of postwar German
geography in general. A specialist in urban geography, he first visited Japan
in 1959 and started publishing on it in 1962 (Schöller 1962a, 1962b, 1962c).
Schöller was particularly fascinated by the high dynamism of urban change
as a result of high speed economic growth at the time. His research em-
braced, among other topics, studies on overall urban development (Schöller
1962b, 1969), internal migration and urbanization (1968, 1970, 1973), cen-
trality (1962c, 1980), problems of regional development (1976, 1984a), and
cities dominated by religious functions (1984b, 1986). He is also the author
of a problem-oriented regional geography on Japan (Schöller 1978) that is, of
course, outdated by now but can still be regarded as the best and most current
153
Ralph Lützeler
attempt published in the German language that covers the various aspects of
Japanese geography in an integrated way. Furthermore, in 1969, Schöller,
together with his Japanese colleague Taiji Yazawa, established the Japanese-
German Geographical Conference series (Nichi-Doku Chiri Gakkai), which
since then has been held alternatively in Japan or Germany at intervals of two
to six years.
In the mid-1970s, Winfried Flüchter (*1943), one of Schöller’s many stu-
dents who subsequently became a university professor – in this case, Flüchter
still holds a Chair in Geography at the University of Duisburg-Essen – joined
his teacher in geographical research on Japan. Like Schöller, Flüchter’s re-
search interests up to the late 1980s focused on phenomena that symbolized
the dynamic and sometimes even overheated character of spatial change
during the phase of high economic growth. Examples include intensive land
reclamation along the Japanese coast to provide space for heavy industries or
urban infrastructure (Flüchter 1975, 1976, 1984a, 1985, 1989), or problems
in regional development and regional planning due to an overconcentration of
people and administrative as well as industrial functions on the Tokyo Capi-
tal Region (1979, 1990a, 1990b).
At the University of Bonn, Gerhard Aymans (1931–1996) continued the
tradition of geographical research on Japan in Bonn initiated by Johannes
Justus Rein (1835–1919). His major contributions were to coastal marine
geography (Aymans 1965, 1976, 1980a) and population geography (1969,
1980b). Unfortunately, since Aymans always viewed Japan as only one re-
search field among many others – he also published on the regional geogra-
phy of the Lower Rhine area and Great Britain, agricultural geography, mod-
ern applied geography, and historical geography – the sum of his work on
Japan is rather limited.
Martin Schwind (1906–1991), since 1967 an honorary professor at the
University of Bochum, represented a geographical research tradition that was
rather typical for the 1940s and 1950s, but since his major publications came
out after the start of the 1960s, it is appropriate to mention him here.
Schwind’s most commendable contribution is a lengthy volume on the physi-
cal geography of Japan (Schwind 1967) that is still unmatched today. His
volume on the Japanese cultural landscape (Schwind 1981), however, reveals
a rather old-fashioned, essentialist approach insofar as he interpreted spatial
structures and processes as objectifications of an unchanging Japanese spirit
(kokutai) (see also the critical review by Flüchter 1984b).
2. The Second Phase: Japan in an International Context (1990–2005)

When a new generation of German geographers interested in Japan started
their research activities in the 1990s, they encountered a country that was
different in many ways from the country Schöller, Flüchter, or Aymans first
154
encountered. Instead of still »lagging behind« or »catching up« with the

West, the societal and economic level of Japan was now completely on equal
footing with other industrialized nations. Moreover, during the 1990s, Japan
even entered a lengthy phase of relative economic stagnation which was
reminiscent of the situation that many European countries have had to face
since the 1970s. On one hand, this meant that there was more time now to
direct attention toward less spectacular geographical features which had to be
neglected during the stormy period of high economic growth. On the other
hand, geographical findings in Japan could now be more easily placed into an
international context which opened the door for more comparative research.
For instance, as late as the end of the 1980s, there were virtually no studies,
not even from Japanese geographers, on the socio-spatial disparities in Japa-
nese cities. Massive in-migration during the high-speed economic era that
overran all attempts at well-ordered city planning as well as astronomical
land prices that culminated in the so-called bubble economy period (1986–
1991) made it impossible for most new city dwellers to freely select their
place of residence. This resulted in socially homogeneous urban spaces. It
was only during the 1990s, after land prices had plummeted that unemploy-
ment rose and foreign immigrants entered the country in larger numbers that
the level of social segregation in Japanese metropolises gradually began to
resemble – and thus became comparable to – the level found in European
cities.
These changes in perspective notwithstanding, the focus of attention dur-
ing this second phase remained trained on urban problems, population geog-
raphy, and problems in regional planning and regional development. Papers
and books on urban geography were especially numerous. Here the studies by
Uta Hohn (*1960), one of Peter Schöller’s last students and since 2004 a
Professor of Geography at the University of Bochum, stand out in particular.
Starting with two papers on town conservation (Hohn 1997, 1998), her mas-
terpiece to date is a voluminous book on urban planning in Japan (2000)
which not only contains a thorough description of almost all current measures
of urban planning and a number of well-researched and vividly described
case studies of urban renewal projects but can also serve as a comprehensive
monograph on the structure of Japanese cities. One of the intentions of her
study is to point out the strengths and weaknesses of Japanese urban planning
in comparison with European and American planning cultures. She concludes
that, while on one hand town planning in Japan might have some serious
flaws, such as too liberal an attitude toward the interests of the private sector
or too hierarchical and confusing a structure, and on the other hand, Japanese
town planners were highly creative and at least partly successful in coping
with new challenges such as the impending social fragmentation of urban
space. In her more recent publications, Hohn has shifted her research focus
155
Ralph Lützeler
slightly toward the analysis of economic and structural change in Tokyo

(Hohn 2002a, 2002b, 2004).
In contrast to the comprehensive approach pursued by Hohn, Silke VOGT
(*1966), in her monograph on new approaches in Japanese town planning
(2001), concentrates on a description and evaluation of so-called machi-
zukuri, i.e. bottom-up town planning projects often initiated by local citizen
groups. Like Hohn in her magnum opus, she makes great effort to show
strengths and weaknesses by comparing her findings with planning participa-
tion realities in Germany. Most of her results were obtained by direct obser-
vation, giving parts of her study an ethnographical rather than geographical
flavor. Ralph Lützeler (*1961), a student of Aymans and currently a senior
researcher at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo, analyzed
the evolution of socio-spatial segregation in Tokyo from the framework of
the global city theory put forward by Sassen (1991) and others. In his Habili-
tation thesis (Lützeler 2005), he concludes that by the start of the new cen-
tury, the extent of social polarization and segregation in the Japanese capital
– exemplified by the settlement pattern of foreign immigrants, upper middle
class gentrifiers, and the unemployed – had not yet reached the proportions
that can be observed in European metropolises, let alone American cities, but
that several indications point to an approximation of the European level by
2010 or so.
In his earlier studies, Lützeler had turned his attention to population geog-
raphy, thus continuing in one of Aymans’ fields of interest. In his dissertation
thesis (Lützeler 1994a), he analyzed macro-regional differences in Japanese
mortality rates, including those of specific causes-of-death, in order to use
them as indicators of regional levels in the quality of life. Other papers in-
clude a study of the regional structure of social problems in Japan (Lützeler
1994b, 1995a), investigations in the geography of specific population seg-
ments such as foreign immigrants (1995b, 2002a), household types (1996),
and the elderly (1997, 2002b), and aspects of Japanese fertility decline in
international perspective (2002c). He is also the author of a summary chapter
on Japanese demography in the Handbook of Oriental Studies, Modern Japa-
nese Society (Lützeler 2004).
Many other recent studies are concerned with the topic of regional plan-
ning and development. Flüchter has published several articles that show his
continued interest in the unequal development of Japanese regions and the
problem of overagglomeration on Tokyo in particular (Flüchter 1994, 1995,
1997, 2000b, 2002a, 2003). One of his main arguments is that the one-point
concentration of almost all national functions on the Japanese capital could
strike a fatal blow to the functioning of the whole country should a major
earthquake occur. Roman Ditzer (*1965) and Volker Elis (*1969), the latter
currently a research associate at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in
Tokyo, both analyzed the relation between industrial promotion and regional
156
planning policy in a specific prefecture (Ditzer 1998 on Okinawa Prefecture;

Elis 2005 on Shizuoka Prefecture). Carolin Funck (*1961), Associate Profes-
sor of Geography at Hiroshima University, investigated the potential of tour-
ism as a tool in the development of the peripheral rural regions of Japan
(1999). Traffic infrastructure as an important determinant of national and
regional development is a main topic in the studies undertaken by Thomas
Feldhoff (*1970), a student of Flüchter and currently a research assistant at
the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen (1998,
2000, 2002a, 2002b, 2003a, 2003b). His latest publication is a comprehensive
analysis of the regional consequences of construction lobbyism in Japan
(Feldhoff 2005). Feldhoff argues that the nontransparent interest balancing
between economic actors, the state bureaucracy, and politicians forming the
so-called »iron triangle« leads inter alia to the realization of bizarre construc-
tion projects which might benefit the triangle members but run totally counter
to the principles of reasonable regional planning. Another study on
infrastructural politics in Japan which is similar in intent but slightly less
pointed in its conclusions has been produced by Birgit Poniatowski (2001).
Aspects of economic geography (unless related to regional development)
have received less attention during this second phase. The declining impor-
tance of Japanese agriculture and manufacturing might at least explain in part
this relative lack of studies although it should be noted that »pure« economic
geography has never been a dominant topic in German geographical research
on Japan. Exceptions are papers by Flüchter on rice cultivation and the rice
market (2002b), on changes in the locational network of the automobile in-
dustry (Flüchter and Yamamoto 2002), or on the locational behavior of Japa-
nese corporations in Germany (Flüchter 2005a). Similarly, Rolf Schlunze
(*1960), currently an Associate Professor on the Faculty of Business Ad-
ministration at Ritsumeikan University (Shiga Prefecture), analyzed Japanese
investments in Germany from a regional point of view (Schlunze 1996). A
more recent study of his was carried out on political efforts to attract foreign
corporations into the Kansai area (Schlunze 2005). Jochen Legewie (*1965),
an economist who was a research associate at the German Institute for Japa-
nese Studies from 1996 to 2000, wrote his dissertation thesis on the geogra-
phy of freight transportation in Japan (1996) and subsequently turned his
attention to Japanese investments in foreign countries, in particular East and
South East Asia (1998, 1999). In the mid-1990s, Rolf Sternberg (*1959),
currently Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Hannover
and not a true specialist of Japan, published on Japanese high-tech regions in
an international context (1995a, 1995b, 1997).
157
Ralph Lützeler
3. Future Prospects: Japan as a Shrinking Country (2005 Onwards?)

In his account of German geographical research on Japan, Flüchter
(2000a: 13–14) listed five areas in which research should concentrate in the
future. Studies should pay more attention to: 1) the human ecology paradigm
including research on natural disasters and risk management; 2) the analysis
of spatially relevant decisions of policy makers and institutions, such as those
involved in the »iron triangle«; 3) the challenges of globalization to national,
regional, and local decision makers in the fields of agriculture, manufactur-
ing, or urban structure; 4) the service sector with a special emphasis on hier-
archization and regional differentiation; and 5) more theory-based research
that puts Japan into an international context.
Although only about seven years have gone by since Flüchter wrote up
this list, it can be said by reviewing the entirety of recent studies cited in the
previous section that areas 2), 3), and 5) have already been covered by a
considerable number of papers and books. On the other hand, we are still in
need of more research in the areas of service sector geography and disaster
prevention.
However, not unlike the situation found in Germany and other European
countries, the new decade has brought new challenges for Japan. With more
than 20 percent of its population aged 65 years or older now, demographic
aging, long since discussed in Japan, has finally come to show its effects on
the economy and society. Furthermore, due to the persistence of extremely
low birth rates, in 2005 Japan recorded a net population loss for the first time
ever since modern population records were introduced in 1872. These demo-
graphic changes as well as the continuing challenges from economic global-
ization make it highly probable that Japan will experience demographic and
economic shrinking phenomena in the near future, not only in the countryside
but also in many cities including the larger metropolises.
German geographical research on Japan, with its traditional focuses on ur-
ban and population geography as well as regional development, seems par-
ticularly well suited to paying more attention to the topic of aging and shrink-
ing cities. Winfried Flüchter, in collaboration with Thomas Feldhoff, has
already started on a new comparative research project on shrinking cities in
de-industrializing regions of Japan and Germany (cf. Flüchter 2005b). In
addition to further studies on urban waterfront development and governance,
Uta Hohn, too, will concentrate her future research on the topics of shrinking
cities and urban regeneration policy in Japan and Germany (pers. comm. on
August 4, 2006). Ralph Lützeler plans to conduct a study on the effects of
demographic change on aspects of local politics (such as housing, infrastruc-
ture, or welfare politics) in a Japanese municipality. Thus, it can be assumed
that German geographers will continue to make relevant contributions to
modern Japanese Studies.
158
References Cited
AYMANS, Gerhard (1965): Strukturwandlungen und Standortverlagerungen in der
japanischen Perlzucht. In: Erdkunde 19, 2, pp. 112–132.
AYMANS, Gerhard (1969): Die meiji-zeitlichen Familienregister als Quelle bevölke-
rungsgeographischer Studien. In: Wilhelm Lauer (ed.): Beiträge zur geogra-
phischen Japanforschung. Bonn: Dümmlers (= Colloquium Geographicum;
10), pp. 58–80.
AYMANS, Gerhard (1976): Die japanische Küstenfischerei. Bemerkungen über ihre
äußere und innere Ordnung. In: Werner Leupold and Werner Rutz (eds.): Der
Staat und sein Territorium. Beiträge zur raumwirksamen Tätigkeit des Staates.
Wiesbaden: Steiner, pp. 189–207.
AYMANS, Gerhard (1980a): Geographische Aspekte des Algenbaus in Japan. In: Erd-
kunde 34, 2, pp. 109–120.
AYMANS, Gerhard (1980b): The Unanimous Society. Remarks on the Generative
Behavior of the Japanese Society in an Extraordinary Year. In: GeoJournal 4,
3, pp. 215–230.
BIRD, James (1993): The Changing Worlds of Geography: A Critical Guide to Con-
cepts and Methods. 2nd edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
DITZER, Roman (1998): Der Instrumenteneinsatz in der japanischen Regionalpolitik
mit einer Fallstudie zur Präfektur Okinawa. Marburg: Tectum Verlag (=
Wirtschaftspolitische Forschungsarbeiten der Universität zu Köln; 27).
ELIS, Volker (2005): Regionale Wirtschaftsförderung in Japan: der Wirtschaftsraum
der Präfektur Shizuoka. Bonn: Bier’sche Verlagsanstalt (= Bonner Japanfor-
schungen; 25).
FELDHOFF, Thomas (1998): Pendelverkehr und Massenschnellverkehrsmittel im Bal-
lungsraum Tōkyō. Raumstrukturen, Akteure, Probleme, Strategien. Baden-
Baden: Nomos (= Schriftenreihe zur Ostasienforschung; 8).
FELDHOFF, Thomas (2000): Luftverkehr, Flughafenstandorte und Flughafenwettbewerb
in Japan. Dortmund: Dortmunder Vertrieb für Bau- und Planungsliteratur (=
Duisburger Geographische Arbeiten; 21).
FELDHOFF, Thomas (2002a): Flughäfen in Ost- und Südostasien. Infrastrukturpoliti-
sche Strategien und Perspektiven Japans im transnationalen Standortwettbe-
werb. In: Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie 46, 3/4, pp. 146–162.
FELDHOFF, Thomas (2002b): Japan’s Regional Airports: Conflicting National, Re-
gional and Local Interests. In: Journal of Transport Geography 10, 3,
pp. 165–175.
FELDHOFF, Thomas (2003a): Japan’s Capital Tōkyō and Its Airports: Problems and
Prospects from the Subnational and Supranational Perspectives. In: Journal of
Air Transport Management 9, 4, pp. 241–254.
FELDHOFF, Thomas (2003b): Straßenbau in Japan: Infrastrukturpolitische Notwendig-
keit oder verteilungspolitisch motivierter Irrweg? In: Internationales Ver-
kehrswesen 55, 4, pp. 137–142.
159
Ralph Lützeler
FELDHOFF, Thomas (2005): Bau-Lobbyismus in Japan. Institutionelle Grundlagen –

Akteursnetzwerke – Raumwirksamkeit. Dortmund: Dortmunder Vertrieb für
Bau- und Planungsliteratur.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1975): Neulandgewinnung und Industrieansiedlung vor den
japanischen Küsten. Funktionen, Strukturen und Auswirkungen der Aufschüt-
tungsgebiete (umetate-chi). Paderborn: Schöningh (= Bochumer Geographi-
sche Arbeiten; 21).
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1976): Begriff und räumliche Struktur von Industriekombinaten
in Japan. In: Erdkunde 30, 1, pp. 52–58.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1979): Regional- und Landesplanung in Japan. In: Klaus
KRACHT (ed.): Japan nach 1945. Beiträge zur Kultur und Gesellschaft. Wies-
baden: Harrassowitz, pp. 8–27.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1984a): Japan: Moderner Hafen-, Industrie- und Infrastruktur-
ausbau durch Neulandgewinnung an der Küste. Eine geographisch-politische
Analyse des Struktur- und Landschaftswandels, der Umwelt- und Raumord-
nungsprobleme und der Prozeßregler. In: Erdkunde 38, 2, pp. 125–136.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1984b): [Review] Martin Schwind: Das Japanische Inselreich.
Eine Landeskunde nach Studien und Reisen. Bd. 2: Kulturlandschaft. Wirt-
schaftsgroßmacht auf engem Raum. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter 1981. XL,
658 Seiten. In: Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung 7, pp. 427–436.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1985): Die Bucht von Tōkyō: Neulandausbau, Strukturwandel,
Raumordnungsprobleme. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (= Schriften des Instituts
für Asienkunde Hamburg; 46).
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1989): Neulandgewinnung durch Aufschüttung und Aufspü-
lung: Ursachen, Funktionen und Probleme moderner Küsten-Landerwei-
terungen im internationalen Vergleich. In: Rolf HEYER and Manfred HOMMEL
(eds.): Stadt und Kulturraum. Peter Schöller zum Gedenken. Paderborn: Schö-
ningh (= Bochumer Geographische Arbeiten; 50), pp. 142–154.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1990a): Hochschulstandorte und Bildungsverhalten unter As-
pekten der Raumordnung in Japan. Paderborn: Schöningh (= Bochumer Geo-
graphische Arbeiten; 52).
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1990b): Japan: Die Landesentwicklung im Spannungsfeld zwischen
Zentralisierung und Dezentralisierung. In: Geographische Rundschau 42, 4,
pp. 182–194.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1994): Der planende Staat: Raumordnungspolitik und ungleiche
Entwicklung. In: Gesine FOLJANTY-JOST and Anna Maria THRÄNHARDT
(eds.): Der schlanke japanische Staat. Opladen: Leske & Budrich, pp. 88–
105.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1995): Japan. Raum- und Ressourcen-Probleme unter Aspekten von
Geopolitik, Anpassungsmaßnahmen und Landesentwicklung. In: Japanstudien.
Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien der Philipp-Franz-von-
Siebold-Stiftung 6 (1994), pp. 17–45.
160
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (1997): Tōkyō quo vadis? Chancen und Grenzen (?) metropolitanen
Wachstums. Duisburg: Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften der Universität
Duisburg (= Duisburger Arbeitspapiere Ostasienwissenschaften; 15).
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (2000a): German Geographical Research on Japan. Duisburg:
Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften der Universität Duisburg (= Duisburger
Arbeitspapiere Ostasienwissenschaften; 33).
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (2000b): Tōkyō vor dem nächsten Erdbeben: Ballungsrisiken
und Stadtplanung im Zeichen des Katastrophenschutzes. In: Geographische
Rundschau 52, 7/8, pp. 54–61.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (2002a): Eine neue Hauptstadt für Japan? Bauwirtschaft und
Geographie der Macht. In: Geographische Rundschau 54, 6, pp. 36–43.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (2002b): Reisanbau und Reismarkt in Japan im Spannungsfeld
zwischen Globalisierung, Ideologie und Nachhaltigkeit. In: Zeitschrift für
Wirtschaftsgeographie 46, 3/4, pp. 181–198.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (2003): Tokyo Before the Next Earthquake. Agglomeration-
related Risks, Town Planning and Disaster Prevention. In: Town Planning Re-
view 74, 2, pp. 213–238.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (2005a): The Locational Behaviour of Japanese Corporations in
Germany, with Particular Reference to Düsseldorf. In: Thomas FELDHOFF,
Winfried FLÜCHTER, and Uta HOHN (eds): Shaping the Future of Metropolitan
Regions in Japan and Germany. Governance, Institutions and Place in New
Context. Duisburg: University of Duisburg-Essen (= Proceedings of the Japa-
nese-German Geographical Conference; 1), pp. 103–116.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried (2005b): Shrinking Cities Between Megalopolises and Rural
Peripheries. In: Philipp OSWALT (ed.): Shrinking Cities. Volume 1: Interna-
tional Research. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, pp. 83–92.
FLÜCHTER, Winfried and Kenji YAMAMOTO (2002): Die Automobilindustrie in Japan:
Räumliche Nähe und Wertschöpfungsketten unter Anpassungsdruck. In: Geo-
graphische Rundschau 54, 6, pp. 18–26.
FUNCK, Carolin (1999): Tourismus und Peripherie in Japan. Über das Potential
touristischer Entwicklung zum Ausgleich regionaler Disparitäten. Bonn: Die-
ter Born.
HOHN, Uta (1997): Townscape Preservation in Japanese Urban Planning. In: Town
Planning Review 68, pp. 213–255.
HOHN, Uta (1998): Important Preservation Districts for Groups of Historic Buildings.
In: Siegfried ENDERS and Niels GUTSCHOW (eds.): Hozon – Architectural and
Urban Conservation in Japan. Stuttgart and London: Axel Menges, pp. 150–
159.
HOHN, Uta (2000): Stadtplanung in Japan. Geschichte – Recht – Praxis – Theorie.
Dortmund: Dortmunder Vertrieb für Bau- und Planungsliteratur.
HOHN, Uta (2002a): Renaissance innerstädtischen Wohnens in Tōkyō. Trend zur
Reurbanisierung. In: Geographische Rundschau 54, 6, pp. 4–11.
161
Ralph Lützeler
HOHN, Uta (2002b): Ökonomischer und stadtstruktureller Wandel in der Global City
Tōkyō. In: Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie 46, 3/4, pp. 228–245.
HOHN, Uta (2004): Wachstum, Reurbanisierung und selektives Schrumpfen in Tōkyō.
In: Uwe ALTROCK and Dirk SCHUBERT (eds.): Wachsende Stadt. Leitbild, U-
topie, Vision? Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 165–184.
LEGEWIE, Jochen (1996): Industrie und Gütertransport in Japan – Veränderungen der
Unternehmungslogistik seit Mitte der siebziger Jahre. Köln: Selbstverlag im
Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeographischen Institut der Universität zu Köln (=
Kölner Forschungen zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeographie; 46).
LEGEWIE, Jochen (1998): Wirtschaftliche Integration der ASEAN: Zur Rolle japani-
scher Unternehmen bei Entstehung und Umsetzung industrieller Kooperati-
onskonzepte. In: Japanstudien. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts für Japan-
studien der Philipp-Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung 10, pp. 215–247.
LEGEWIE, Jochen (1999): Beschäftigungswirkungen von Auslandsinvestitionen: das
Beispiel Japan. In: Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik 48, 1, pp. 27–44.
LÜTZELER, Ralph (1994a): Räumliche Unterschiede der Sterblichkeit in Japan –
Sterblichkeit als Indikator regionaler Lebensbedingungen. Bonn: Dümmlers
(= Bonner Geographische Abhandlungen; 89).
LÜTZELER, Ralph (1994b): Zur regionalen Dimension sozialer Probleme in Japan. In:
Japanstudien. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien der Philipp-
Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung 5 (1993), pp. 229–280.
LÜTZELER, Ralph (1995a): The Regional Structure of Social Problems. In: Geo-
graphical Review of Japan 68, Ser. B, 1, pp. 46–62.
LÜTZELER, Ralph (1995b): Die räumliche Verteilung der Ausländerbevölkerung in
Japan. Strukturen und Erklärungsansätze. In: Japanstudien. Jahrbuch des
Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien der Philipp-Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung
6 (1994), pp. 119–163.
LÜTZELER, Ralph (1996): Die japanische Familie der Gegenwart – Wandel und Beharrung
aus demographischer Sicht. Duisburg: Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften der U-
niversität Duisburg (= Duisburger Arbeitspapiere Ostasienwissenschaften; 7).
LÜTZELER, Ralph (1997): Alte Menschen und ihre familiäre Situation in Japan. De-
mographische Entwicklung, ihre Ursachen und Implikationen für eine be-
darfsgerechte Pflegepolitik. In: Christian OBERLÄNDER (ed.): Altern und Pfle-
gepolitik in Japan. Berlin and Tokyo: Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien (=
Miscellanea; 15), pp. 15–53.
LÜTZELER; Ralph (2002a): Ausländische Zuwanderer in Japan. Multikultur in einer
»homogenen« Gesellschaft. In: Geographische Rundschau 54, 6, pp. 12–17.
LÜTZELER, Ralph (2002b): Demographic and Regional Aspects of Aging and Long-
Term Care in Japan. In: Harald CONRAD and Ralph LÜTZELER (eds.): Aging
and Social Policy. A German-Japanese Comparison. Munich: Iudicium (=
Monographien aus dem Deutschen Institut für Japanstudien; 26), pp. 275–297.
LÜTZELER; Ralph (2002c): The »Second Fertility Transition« in Comparative Perspec-
tive: The Impact of Female Employment, Care Services, and Familism. In: Axel
162
KLEIN, Ralph LÜTZELER, and Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER (eds.): Modernization in

Progress. Demographic Development and Value Change in Contemporary
Europe and East Asia. Bonn: Bier’sche Verlagsanstalt (= JapanArchiv; 4),
pp. 47–80.
LÜTZELER, Ralph (2004): Demography. In: Josef KREINER, Ulrich MÖHWALD, and
Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER (eds.): Modern Japanese Society. Leiden and Bos-
ton: Brill (= Handbook of Oriental Studies/Handbuch der Orientalistik; Secti-
on 5, Japan, vol. 9), pp. 15–61.
LÜTZELER, Ralph (2005): Städtische Segregation in Japan. Aktuelle sozialräumliche
Tendenzen in der global city Tōkyō im Lichte der neuen Debatte über eine zu-
nehmende Polarisierung städtischer Gesellschaften. Bonn: Philosophische
Fakultät der Universität Bonn. Unpublished Habilitation thesis.
PONIATOWSKI, Birgit (2001): Infrastrukturpolitik in Japan – Politische Entschei-
dungsfindung zwischen regionalen, sektoralen und gesamtstaatlichen Interes-
sen. Munich: Iudicium (= Monographien aus dem Deutschen Institut für Ja-
panstudien; 31).
SASSEN, Saskia (1991): The Global City – New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton and
Oxford: Princeton University Press. [A second, revised edition was published
in 2001.]
SCHLUNZE, Rolf D. (1996): Japanese Investment in Germany: A Spatial Perspective.
Münster: Lit-Verlag (= Wirtschaftsgeographie; 11).
SCHLUNZE, Rolf D. (2005): Spurring the Kansai Economy: Embedding Foreign Cor-
porations. In: Thomas FELDHOFF, Winfried FLÜCHTER, and Uta HOHN (eds):
Shaping the Future of Metropolitan Regions in Japan and Germany. Govern-
ance, Institutions and Place in New Context. Duisburg: University of Duis-
burg-Essen (= Proceedings of the Japanese-German Geographical Conference;
1), pp. 87–102.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1962a): Wandlungen der Industriestruktur Japans. In: Wolfgang
HARTKE and Friedrich WILHELM (eds.): Tagungsberichte und wissenschaftli-
che Abhandlungen des Deutschen Geographentages Köln 1961. Wiesbaden:
Steiner, pp. 238–254.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1962b): Wachstum und Wandlung japanischer Stadtregionen. In:
Die Erde 93, pp. 202–234.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1962c): Centre-Shifting and Centre-Mobility in Japanese Cities. In:
Knut NORBORG (ed.): Proceedings of the IGU Symposium in Urban Geogra-
phy, Lund 1960. Lund: Gleerup (= Lund Studies in Geography; Ser. B. Hu-
man Geography 24), pp. 201–224.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1968): Binnenwanderung und Städtewachstum in Japan. In: Erd-
kunde 22, 1, pp. 14–20.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1969): Ein Jahrhundert Stadtentwicklung in Japan. In: Wilhelm
LAUER (ed.): Beiträge zur geographischen Japanforschung. Vorträge aus An-
laß des 50. Todestages von Johannes Justus Rein (1835–1918). Bonn: Dümm-
lers (= Colloquium Geographicum; 10), pp. 13–57.
163
Ralph Lützeler
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1970): Japanische Regionalzentren im Prozeß der Binnenwande-

rung. In: Erdkunde 24, 2, pp. 106–112.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1973): Wanderungszentralität und Wanderungsfolgen in Japan. In:
Erdkunde 27, 4, pp. 290–298.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1976): Tokyo: Entwicklung und Probleme wachsender Hauptstadt-
Konzentration. In: Werner LEUPOLD and Werner RUTZ (eds.): Der Staat und
sein Territorium. Beiträge zur raumwirksamen Tätigkeit des Staates. Wiesba-
den: Steiner, pp. 86–105.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1978): Japan. In: Peter SCHÖLLER, Heiner DÜRR, and Eckart DEGE
(eds.): Ostasien. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer (= Fischer Länderkunde; 1), pp. 325–
440.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1980): Centrality and Urban Life in Japan. In: GeoJournal 4, 3,
pp. 199–204.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1984a): Technopolis. Ein Zukunftskonzept japanischer Stadt- und
Wirtschaftsplanung. In: Geographische Rundschau 36, pp. 94–98.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1984b): Die Zentren der Neuen Religionen Japans. In: Erdkunde 38,
4, pp. 288–302.
SCHÖLLER, Peter (1986): Tempelorte und Tempelzentren in Japan. In: Manfred BÜTT-
NER, Karl HOHEISEL, Ulrich KÖPF, Gisbert RINSCHEDE, and Angelika SIEVERS
(eds.): Religion und Siedlungsraum. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer (= Geographia
Religionum; 2), pp. 127–178.
SCHWIND, Martin (1967): Das Japanische Inselreich. Eine Landeskunde nach Studien
und Reisen in 3 Bänden. Band 1: Die Naturlandschaft. Berlin: de Gruyter.
SCHWIND, Martin (1981): Das Japanische Inselreich. Eine Landeskunde nach Studien
und Reisen in 3 Bänden. Band 2: Kulturlandschaft. Wirtschaftsgroßmacht auf
engem Raum. Berlin: de Gruyter.
STERNBERG, Rolf (1995a): Technologiepolitik und High-Tech Regionen – ein internationaler
Vergleich. Münster: Lit-Verlag (= Wirtschaftsgeographie; 7).
STERNBERG, Rolf (1995b): Kyūshū: »Silicon Island« oder »Silicon Colony«? In:
Geographische Rundschau 47, pp. 178–184.
STERNBERG, Rolf (1997): New Industrial Spaces and National Technology Policies –
The Case of Kyūshū and the Japanese »Technopolis«-Strategy. In: James
SIMMIE (ed.): Innovation, Networks and Learning Regions? London: Jessica
Kingsley (= Regional Policy and Development; 18), pp. 159–177.
VOGT, Silke (2001): Neue Wege der Stadtplanung in Japan. Partizipationsansätze auf
der Mikroebene, dargestellt anhand ausgewählter machizukuri-Projekte in
Tōkyō. Munich: Iudicium (= Monographien aus dem Deutschen Institut für
Japanstudien; 30).
164
Part II: Ethnogenesis, Ryūkyū and
Ainu Studies
Sasaki Kōmei
The Origins of Japanese Ethnic Culture –
Looking Back and Forward
In the first essay in his 1996 book entitled Nihon minzokugaku no genzai:
1980-nendai kara 90-nendai e [Japanese ethnology today: From the 1980s to
the 1990s], Josef Kreiner writes, »Japanese ethnology and cultural anthropol-
ogy have exhibited a strong tendency since the Meiji era to converge on an
inquiry into the origins of the Japanese people«, and »The issue pertaining to
the Japanese people and Japanese ethnic identity has always been present as a
basso continuo [in Japanese ethnological studies]« (original in Japanese).
These two points, he argues, are among the marked features of ethnology and
cultural anthropology in Japan. »In contrast to the tendency among ethnolo-
gists in Europe and the United States to show greater interest in the ethnic
origins of other peoples, Japanese ethnologists have been far more interested
in the question of their own people’s roots, which I believe is a trait peculiar
to Japanese ethnology alone« (Kreiner 1996: 3; original in Japanese).
These remarks by Kreiner, a scholar with a profound knowledge of the
field of ethnology in Japan, correctly identify the preeminent feature of Japa-
nese ethnological studies over the decades.
With Japan’s defeat in World War II in 1945, the prewar view of a state
centered around an emperor broke down, leaving the field of ethnology with-
out a sense of direction. The publication of a new theory on the origins of the
Japanese people proved a strong stimulus to the field. While differing in
structure from the previous theories, it marked a fresh start for postwar Japa-
nese ethnology.
1. Oka Masao and Yanagita Kunio

The new ideas were presented by Prof. Oka Masao, who had studied in
Vienna and written a major article, »Kodai Nihon no bunka-sō« [Layers of
culture in ancient Japan].1 In May 1948 a landmark symposium led by Oka
was held on »The Origins of Japanese Ethnic Culture and Formation of the
Japanese State«. Moderated by Ishida Eiichirō, the participants included Egami
1 In his memoir, Nijūgo-nen no nochi [Twenty-five years later], Oka (1958) said he
had finished the essay in 1933. The contents of the essay is included in Ijin sonota
[Immigrants and other] (Oka 1979), a collection of Oka’s major essays. For the es-
say’s content and other details, see Sumiya 1979.
167
Sasaki Kōmei
Namio and Yawata Ichirō. The following year, the proceedings of the Sympo-
sium were published in vol. 13, issue no. 3 of Minzokugaku kenkyū, the Journal
of the Japan Society of Ethnology (Ishida, Oka, Egami, and Yawata 1949). The
Symposium consisted of two parts: part one on »The Formation of the Japanese
State and the Ethnic and Cultural Lineage of the Imperial Household« and part
two, »Origins of the Japanese People«. Lively discussion unfolded around
Oka’s theory, which was augmented by the views presented by Egami and
Yawata, both authorities on history and archaeology.2
This symposium was to have a tremendous impact on postwar Japanese
scholarship, not just in ethnology but folklore, history, archaeology, and other
fields – so recently freed from the constraints of an emperor-centered histori-
ography. Egami’s well-known »horse-rider theory« (that a powerful group of
horse-riding warriors from the continent conquered ancient Japan; Egami
1967), for example, which grew out of the discussion, was seminal to subse-
quent theories regarding the formation of the ancient Japanese state.
For his part, Oka refined his origin theory after the symposium and in
1956 published Nihon minzoku bunka no keisei [The formation of Japanese
ethnic culture] in 1956 (Oka 1979). Nihon bunka no kiso kōzō [The basic
structure of Japanese culture], published in 1958 (Oka 1958b) after further
revision of his thesis, became his definitive work. Oka showed, through
analysis using the methodologies of folklore/ethnology and prehistory, that
the ethnic culture of ancient Japanese was a complex of five different cultural
layers: 1) matrilineal, secret-societal, taro-cultivating, hunter culture; 2) mat-
rilineal, dry-field rice-cultivating, hunter culture; 3) patrilineal, »hara«-clan
type, dry-field farming, hunter and livestock raising culture; 4) masculine,
age-based hierarchical, wet-rice cultivating, fisherman culture; and 5) patriar-
chal, »uji«-clan type, ruler culture.
For detailed commentaries and critiques of the Oka theory, see works by
Ōbayashi Taryō and other scholars (Ōbayashi 1979, pp. 415–431, 1994, pp.
267–277; Gamo et al. 1970, pp. 375–434). Partly because Oka studied in
Vienna in the 1930s, Oka’s theory was rather schematic, incorporating vari-
ous »cultural sphere« notions, and some of the sources he used to support his
hypotheses would be considered problematic from our vantage point today,
so Oka’s theory is unlikely ever to be accepted as is. Nevertheless, his idea of
organizing a number of interrelated cultural and social traits in cultural clus-
ters and making comprehensive use of previous achievements in folklore,
archaeology, linguistics and other fields in order to support such categories
made an important contribution to the subsequent development of debates on
the origins of Japanese ethnic culture. In that sense, it may be said that the
2 The proceedings of this symposium were published in book form entitled Nihon
minzoku no kigen [The origin of the Japanese people] (Ishida, Egami, Oka, and
Yawata 1958) with detailed notes.
168
The Origins of Japanese Ethnic Culture – Looking Back and Forward
emergence of the Oka theory marked the starting point of postwar Japanese
ethnology.3
In his last book, Kaijō no michi [Paths by the sea], the pioneer of Japanese
folklore studies Yanagita Kunio (1961) presented his hypothesis that rice
cultivation, which was to form the basis of Japanese culture, was transmitted
to Japan via the southern islands (Ryūkyū archipelago, etc.). For details of
the sea routes theory and criticisms on it, see my recent work (Sasaki 2003,
vol. 1). Two main factors seem to have prompted Yanagita to hasten publica-
tion of his theory of rice-cultivating culture as the core of Japanese culture.
One factor was that Yanagita, who upon receiving the Order of Cultural
Merit in 1951 had become a leading figure in Japan’s academic circles, was
strongly concerned with the state of mind of the Japanese people, that is, the
question of national identity, following the defeat in World War II. In order
to restore awareness of their identity, he considered it urgent to elucidate the
origins of the Japanese people and resolve questions pertaining to the intro-
duction of rice cultivation, which Yanagita thought inseparable from the
ethnic roots of the Japanese. The other factor was Yanagita’s opposition to
the views expressed at the aforementioned symposium, especially Egami’s
horse-rider theory. With the intuition of a poet and the zeal of a true believer,
Yanagita asserted that the Japanese people’s remote forebears came not from
the north but from the south, bringing rice with them.
The sea route theory, however, met with severe criticism from archaeolo-
gists, linguists, historians and other specialists, for its lack of empirical evi-
dence. The great scholar’s theory failed to gain adequate support in academic
circles. Yanagita’s equating of Japanese culture with rice-cultivating culture,
nonetheless, subsequently took widespread root among Japanese scholars as
well as in the press, and became the dominant trend of thought.
2. Approaches to the Culture Formation Discourse

Between the late 1950s and 1970s, the discourse on the origins of Japa-
nese ethnic culture, kicked off by Oka and Yanagita, took major strides for-
ward. This progress coincided with the start of fieldwork by Japanese re-
searchers in southeastern Asia and the Indian Himalayas. A survey team of
young scholars for research on southeastern Asian rice-cultivating peoples
and cultures was sent to southeastern Asia and India-Nepal in 1957 under the
sponsorship of the Japan Society of Ethnology (the society sent two other
3 Besides Oka Masao, other researchers who made major contributions in the field
of ethnology on the theories of the origin of Japanese ethnic culture before, during,
and after World War II were Mishina Akihide (Shōei), who specialized mainly in
the Korean peninsula (Mishina 1970–1974), and Matsumoto Nobuhiro, specialist
on Southeastern Asian ethnography and myths (Matsumoto 1971, 1978–1979),
among others.
169
Sasaki Kōmei
such teams between then and 1964) and, along with a Southeastern Asian
research team from Osaka City University, were among the first instances of
scholarly overseas studies of that type.4
Iwata Keiji, a member of the first Japan Society of Ethnology survey
team, produced a book entitled Nihon bunka no furusato [Birthplace of Japa-
nese culture] in 1966 based on data from surveys conducted in Thailand,
Laos, Cambodia, and elsewhere. He argued that among the characteristics of
housing, food, clothing, and other aspects of the material culture of south-
eastern Asian peoples as well as their rice cultivating techniques and rites and
their annual events and religious rituals, there were many that closely resem-
bled those of Japanese culture. He concluded that »fundamental parts of
Japanese culture closely resemble those of southern cultures«.
Whereas Iwata’s discussion was based mainly on his fieldwork, Ōbayashi
Taryō drew chiefly on his extensive documentary research for ideas that have
led debates pertaining to the origins of Japanese ethnic culture since the
1970s. Ōbayashi's achievements were voluminous. Among his many publica-
tions were comparative-ethnological explorations into the origins and geneal-
ogy of Japanese myths, including Nihon shinwa no kigen [The origins of
Japanese mythology] (1961), Inasaku no shinwa [The mythology of rice
farming] (1973), Higashi Ajia no ōken shinwa [East Asian myths of the king-
ship] (1984), and Shinwa no keifu [The geneaology of myths] (1986a). His
publications also extend to rites and folkways and comparative studies of
material culture, including Yamatai-koku [The Yamatai state] (1977), Higashi
to nishi, yama to umi [East and West; the mountains and the sea] (1990),
Hoppo no minzoku to bunka [Northern peoples and cultures] (1991b), and
Shōgatsu no kita michi [The roots of New Year’s customs] (1992).
Through these and many other works Ōbayashi sought to reconstruct the
cultural history of Eastern Asia – covering the northeastern and southeastern
regions of Asia – in elaborate detail, incorporating his theory of the origin of
Japanese ethnic culture into that framework. His article, »The Ethnological
Study of Japan’s Ethnic Culture: A Historical Survey« (1991a), which ap-
peared in Acta Asiatica, the English-language bulletin of the Institute of East-
ern Culture, introducing and critiquing Oka’s theory from a comparison with
other Asian cultures, argues that wet-rice cultivation centering around native
Japanese people (wajin) was first to come into being as it was built upon
preexisting slash-and-burn culture, and that the formation of a ruling culture
4 With the postwar growth of the Japanese economy and with improvements in the
foreign currency situation, the education ministry incorporated »scholarly research
overseas« into the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research program in 1963. Among
the seven survey teams that obtained the overseas survey funds that year was the
third survey team for research on southeastern Asian rice-cultivating peoples and
cultures, led by Kawakita Jirō. As I recall, the rate of support was less than 50 per-
cent.
170
came after that. The article, in which he also referred to the traits of northern
cultures, presented the outlines of his theory on the origins of Japanese ethnic
culture.
Emori Itsuo, drawing on Oka Masao’s theory, conducted comparative eth-
nological research on marriage and social structure in ancient Japan. He
pointed out that what were considered Japanese characteristics such as »tem-
porary wife-visiting marriage« and bilateral society accompanied by age-
based hierarchy, neyado (lodgings for young men or women), yobai (late
night trysting), and utagaki gathering were cultural features of southern peo-
ples linked to the ethnic cultures of Jiangnan (south part of Yangtze) and
South China. He also held that many folkways and magic rituals that accom-
panied patrilocal marriage, as well as the kamado-wake custom of setting up
a branch family and family practices of various sorts – all found in ancient
Japan – closely resembled those found among peoples in the northeastern
region of China. He thereby insisted that, as an element of northern culture,
patrilineal kinship organization also existed as part of Japanese cultural layers
(Emori 1986, 1990, etc.)
In the field of folklore studies, Tsuboi Hirofumi wrote Imo to Nihonjin
[Taro and the Japanese people] (1979), in which he analyzed New Year’s
rituals, especially the background of the New Year celebrated without mochi
rice cakes and emphasized that, besides the cultural pattern based on wet-
field rice farming, another cultural pattern based on dry-field farming repre-
sented by taro, existed in Japanese society. Tsuboi’s assertions, which op-
posed Yanagita’s idea that Japanese culture was a homogeneous, rice farming
culture, had a significant impact on academic circles over the question of
how to understand the characteristics of Japanese ethnic culture.
Archaeologist Kobuku Naoichi, whose interest focused on ethnological
and folklore research, published many books, including Nihon minzoku
bunka no kenkyū [A study of Japanese ethnic culture] (1970), Kan-Shina-kai
minzoku bunka kō [Pan-China-Sea ethnic cultures] (1976), and Nihon bunka
no kosō [Ancient layers of Japanese culture] (1992), in which he attempted to
understand the formation of Japanese cultural layers in the context of the
dynamics of Pan-China Sea culture.
In addition to the several approaches mentioned above, Ōbayashi Taryō
noted that »the theory of Nakao Sasuke, the scholar of agriculture, on the
broad-leaved evergreen forest culture gave a great impetus to and facilitated
new developments in« the discourse on the formation of Japanese culture, and
»aroused the interest of not only scholars but readers in general« (Ōbayashi
1986: 2). The Nakao theory holds that cultures in the continuous belt of ever-
green broad-leaf forests extending from the mid-slopes of the Himalayas to
the Yunnan highlands and the mountains south of the Yangtze River and as
far as the southwestern part of Japan have various common elements. Nakao
named the cultural cluster of these shared elements the »shiny leaf forest
171
Sasaki Kōmei
(shōyō jurin) culture« and analyzed Eastern Asian cultural history from that
perspective.5 He believed that the shōyō jurin culture of Jiangnan (region
south of the Yangtze) and South China played no small part in the formation
of Japanese cultural layers as well.
After Nakao advanced the theory of the shōyō jurin culture in 1966 (Nakao
1966), he, along with myself and Ueyama Shumpei, pursued joint research on
the theory, co-authoring Zoku shōyō jurin bunka [Shōyō jurin culture, Part II]
(Ueyama, Sasaki, and Nakao 1976). In that work, he elaborated on the »shiny
leaf forest culture«. Sasaki also published Inasaku izen [Before the introduc-
tion of rice cultivation] (1971), in which he employed the shōyō-jurin culture
theory framework, arguing that farming mainly by the slash-and-burn method
and its accompanying culture existed on the Japanese archipelago before the
introduction of wet-field rice farming. His arguments on the formation of
Japanese culture based on the shōyō-jurin culture theory has much in com-
mon with those of Obayashi, Emori, and Tsuboi.
3. Comparative Studies on the Origins of Japanese Ethnic Culture:

Interdisciplinary Research Centering around the Minpaku
The movement to establish a museum of ethnology with a view to promot-
ing ethnological research in Japan dates back to 1935. After the war, the
Japan Society of Ethnology led a campaign to set up a national research mu-
seum of ethnology, resulting in the creation in June 1974 of the National
Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) on the former site of the 1970 World’s Fair
held in Osaka.
Minpaku has a »museum« in its name, but its establishment was based not
on Museum Law or the Cultural Properties Protection Law but on the Estab-
lishment of National Schools, the basic law for setting up educational institu-
tions like the national universities. Thus it was organized as an inter-university
research institute and, as it comes under the direct jurisdiction of the education
ministry, has the same research functions as a university. Minpaku, where
researchers have the status of professor or associate professor, is intended to
serve as a major ethnology research and information center for the entire na-
tion. One of its duties, therefore, is to conduct joint programs with outside
researchers.
The Minpaku buildings under construction and preparations for regular
exhibitions underway since its foundation were completed in November
1977. On this occasion in 1978 the museum launched a »special research«
project by which research themes of importance in the academic world were
selected and studied in a comprehensive and systematic manner over a long
5 Regarding the theory of the shiny leaf forest culture, volume 6 (published in Feb-
ruary 2006) of Nakao Sasuke chosakushū [Collected works by Sasuke Nakao] con-
tains all Nakao’s works on the shōyō jurin culture, with annotations by Sasaki.
172
period of time. One of these themes was a ten-year project called »Compara-
tive Research on the Origins of Japanese Ethnic Culture« (headed by Kōmei
Sasaki).
During the first year, we worked on the overall concept and plan of the
project, and it was decided that every year from the second year on a research
topic and a leader would be chosen, a joint research team organized of spe-
cialists from Japan and overseas, a four-day symposium held at the end of the
fiscal year, and the research achievements compiled by the leader and pub-
lished in a book form. The research topics and publications in fiscal years
1978 to 1987 are listed in Figure 1.
Figure 1. National Museum of Ethnology Project for Comparative Research

on the Origins of Japanese Ethnic Culture
FY Research topic Leader and publication*
1978 Research methods and plans Museum memorandum
1979 Farming culture Sasaki (ed.) 1983
1980 Shamanism Katō (ed.) 1984
1981 Music and performing arts Fujii (ed.) 1985
1982 Housing Sugimoto (ed.) 1984
1983 Social organization (ie, mura,

Takemura (ed.) 1986
uji)
1984 Folklore Kimijima (ed.) 1989
1985 Hunting and fishing Koyama (ed.) 1992
1986 The formation of the Japanese

Sakiyama (ed.) 1990
language
1987 Sasaki and Ōbayashi (eds.)
Conclusions (supplement)
1991
There is not space here to introduce each of these publications in detail,

but the joint study on »farming culture« (fiscal year 1979) produced detailed
reports from specialists in crop science and genetics regarding tuber crops,
cereals, crops of northern origin, rice farming, livestock, etc., followed by an
ethnologist’s report on rice-cultivating culture, population, diet culture, and
173
Sasaki Kōmei
myths. Joined also by scholars from archaeology, folklore, and other fields, a
comprehensive discussion ensued over the origins of Japanese farming cul-
ture. This kind of interdisciplinary endeavor, involving various fields includ-
ing the natural sciences, was a major feature of the entire project.
The study on »shamanism« focused on the lineages of northern and south-
ern cultures and that on »music and performing arts« dealt principally with
relations between the characteristics found in the cultural layers of music,
such as the »ritsu»-scale, the »min’yo«-scale, and polyphony, on the one
hand, and cultural clusters as reconstructed in ethnography (e.g., »shiny leaf
forest« culture), on the other. The joint project on »housing«, which drew on
an extensive accumulation of data on minka (folk dwellings), produced
widely acclaimed achievements through collaboration with geographers,
archaeologists, and especially, architecture scholars. The »social organiza-
tion« study consisted of three parts: part l elucidated traits of Japanese folk-
lore and society through a social anthropological comparison with other Hast
Asian societies; part 2 discussed »from uji to ie« from the standpoint of his-
torical science; and part 3 sought to reconstruct images of the pre-historical
society of Japan, mainly drawing on archaeological findings. Uniting the
three parts was a common thread of inquiry into ie-based characteristics of
Japanese folklore and society.
The »folklore« study looked at myths, folktales, and legends, comparing
them within a broad area from northern to southeastern Asia and exploring
the linkages between them. The »hunting and fishing« study tried to capture
what Jōmon society was like and uncover its roots, utilizing data from
ecology, ethnology, folklore, and archaeology. The study on »the formation
of the Japanese language« involved ethnologists, specialists in languages
surrounding Japan, as well as Japanese-language scholars. It was agreed
among them that multiple languages coexisted for a long time on the
Japanese archipelago in the Jōmon period and that contact among these
languages resulted in the formation of Japanese as a mixed language. That
was one of the valuable conclusions arrived at in the 1978–1987 project.
At the last symposium held in January 1988, in addition to »conclusions«,
a supplementary discussion was held concerning the formation of the Japa-
nese people as well as multi-ethnicity in Japan. In the summary debate,
moreover, it was argued that the formative process of Japanese ethnic culture
had three epochal phases – the early and middle parts of the Jōmon period,
the early part of the Yayoi period, and the Kofun period (when the ruling
culture formed) – and their significance discussed.
Overall, the Minpaku research project exploring the origins of Japanese
ethnic culture was distinguished by its interdisciplinary endeavors centering
around ethnology but involving many other fields such as folklore, archae-
ology, history, linguistics, and music, as well as the field of the natural sci-
ences including ecology, (natural) anthropology, crop science, and genetics.
174
On the axis of time, the Jōmon period was understood as the starting point of
the origin theories, but together with the above-mentioned three epochal
phases, the perspective of discussion extended, depending on themes, to
medieval and early modern times. In terms of geographical reach, the project
made the Eastern Asia region – covering northeastern and southeastern Asia
– the major target of comparative research, and a consensus may safely be
said to have been achieved on the fact that the multiple cultures that reached
the Japanese archipelago via both the northern and southern routes formed a
mix of cultural layers that make up Japanese ethnic culture.
The project had great effect on the formation of debates on the origins of
Japanese ethnic culture in the 1980s and 1990s. I headed the project, and
published Nihon-shi tanjō [The birth of Japanese history] (Sasaki 1991),
which outlines the formative process of Japanese cultural layers during the
period from the Old Stone Age to the introduction of rice cultivation, and
Nihon-bunka no tajū-kōzō [The multi-layered structure of Japanese culture]
(Sasaki 1997), which invokes the concept of cultural types – »shiny leaf
forest« culture, »oak [beech?] forest« culture,6 and rice-producing culture –
and argues emphatically, mainly from the ethnological viewpoint, for the
pluralist and multi-layered structure of Japanese culture.
4. Research on Origins of the Japanese People and Culture:

Anthropology-led Project
In 1987, the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichi-
bunken) was founded in Kyoto as an inter-university research institute like
Minpaku. Its establishment was aimed at »interdisciplinary and comprehen-
sive research on Japanese culture and research collaboration with Japanese
studies researchers from around the world«. Since its opening, therefore, the
Center has sought to carry out interdisciplinary and comprehensive research
on Japanese culture with the participation of researchers not only in the hu-
manities and social sciences but natural sciences as well.
One of the leading figures in this endeavor was anthropologist Kazurō
Hanihara. He initiated a joint research project called »The Basic Structure of
Japanese Culture and Its Natural Background«, and results of the study were
compiled in a report entitled, Nihonjin to Nihon bunka no keisei [The formation
of the Japanese people and culture] (Hanihara 1993). Natural anthropology
played the leading role in this project, along with history, Japanese literature,
linguistics, archaeology, ethnology, folklore, genetics, ethnology, and so forth,
Against the backdrop of this research trend, the »Interdisciplinary Research on
the Origins of the Japanese People and Culture« project was carried out under
6 Nakao Sasuke proposed the »oak [beech?] forest culture« theory (advocating the
existence of a culture cluster peculiar to the oak [beech] forest zone of mainly
Mongolian oak, in northeastern Asia.
175
Sasaki Kōmei
the leadership of anthropologist Omoto Keiichi with a »grant-in-aid for scien-

tific research on priority areas« from the education ministry. Starting in 1997,
the project lasted for four years until fiscal 2000. In the Summary Team re-
port, I outlined the project, as briefly summarized below (Sasaki 2001: 8).
Four teams were organized to focus on »natural environment«, »anthro-
pology«, »archaeology«, and »Japanese culture« (see Figure 2). Each team
engaged in research activities separately, and occasional meetings and sym-
posiums were also held to bring the teams together and facilitate an interdis-
ciplinary research exchange. The natural environment team sought to recon-
struct the paleo-environment through oxygen isotope analysis of marine
sediments and foraminiferans collected from the Sea of Japan. By means of
the carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis of human bones excavated by ar-
chaeologists and the DNA analysis of potted plants, the team also provided
various new sources for studying the eating habits and means of plant cultiva-
tion and animal domestication of people in ancient times, including how such
practices started and through which routes they were introduced to Japan.
The anthropology team, based on Hanihara Kazurō’s »double structure«
model, analyzed the Jōmon and Yayoi people through both configuration and
elements and concluded that the ancient Japanese archipelago did have a
double structure of population consisting of natives and immigrants from the
outside but that much remains unknown about the origins of the indigenous
people.
Figure 2. Interdisciplinary research teams to explore the origins of the Japa-

nese people and culture
Name of team (leader) Research topic
Natural environment Natural and cultural environments in the prehistory

(Koizumi Itaru) of Japan
Anthropology The formation and origins of the Japanese people

(Baba Hisao) studied through configuration and elements
Archaeology
Life and culture in prehistoric times
(Harunari Hideji)
Japanese culture The formation and origins of Japanese culture stud-

(Senda Minoru) ied in comparison with other Asian regions
Summary Coordination of research plans and activities and

(Omoto Keiichi) assessment of achievements
176
To elucidate the life and culture of each of the major transitional phases of
prehistory, from the Old Stone Age to the Jōmon period, from the Jōmon to
the Yayoi period, and from the Yayoi to the Kofun period, the archaeology
team selected 13 historic sites around the country, conducted excavations and
research, and published 29 collections of documents and a collection of es-
says (Senshijidai no seikatsu to bunka [Prehistoric life and culture]). Empiri-
cal data based on systematic research were accumulated and new perspec-
tives concerning the formation of Japanese culture provided. Under a com-
mon theme (see Figure 2), the Japanese culture team conducted research to
compare Japan with the folk culture of China’s southwestern region and
Yangtze valley, the northeastern Asian and Ainu cultures, and the traditional
cultures of the Southwestern Islands. Analyzing foreign cultures and the
identity of Japanese culture, the study examined the multilayered aspects of
Japanese culture from diverse perspectives.
Overall, in a significant step forward compared with the Minpaku 1978–
1987 project, the natural scientists participating in this project – using the
latest scientific methods, such as DNA analysis – made the results available
to researchers in the humanities. In the area of archaeology, various findings
of recent excavations and research were reported and carefully examined. In
Japanese culture research, reports on comparing it with China and Korea in
the Eastern Asian region drew much attention, giving the strong impression
that research on the Japanese people and culture through an Asian perspec-
tive has finally begun to get into full swing.
The project was not without problems, however. The four-team project,
despite much careful consideration and determination to be interdisciplinary,
international, and comprehensive in scope, did not necessarily produce con-
clusions from an interdisciplinary and overall viewpoint as regards the ori-
gins of the Japanese people and Japanese culture. It is unfortunate, too, that
no comprehensive report of the project has yet to be published.
Behind this lay a peculiar factor. Immediately after the end of this Nichi-
bunken project, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) aired a five-
installment NHK special series Nihonjin no harukana tabi [The long journey
of the Japanese people], which enjoyed quite a high viewer rating. A five-
volume series, one volume for each aired installment, was subsequently pub-
lished in 2001–2003 under the same title, Nihonjin no harukana tabi (vol. 1,
Manmosu hanta Shiberia kam no tabidachi [Hunters of mammoths set on a
journey from Siberia]; vol. 2, Kyodaifunka ni kieta Kuroshio no tami [Giant
volcanic eruptions wiped out the people of current Japan]; vol. 3, Umi ga
sodateta mori no ōkoku [A forest kingdom nurtured by the sea]; vol. 4, Ine
shirarezaru ichiman-nen no tabi [A ten-thousand-year journey of rice]; and
vol. 5, Soshite ›Nihonjin‹ ga umareta [And the ›Japanese people‹ were
born]). Many of the major members of the Nichibunken project participated
in the production of the NHK television program and the publication of the
177
Sasaki Kōmei
five-volume series. The five volumes effectively served to make the findings
of the academic project available to the public in easy-to-understand form.
That experience shows that questions about the origins of the Japanese
people and culture are no longer confined to the world of academics but have
become a subject of wider interest that attracts the attention of the general
public and is therefore frequently taken up by the media. Including this new
development, I will discuss in the following section research issues relevant
today regarding the origins of Japanese ethnic culture as well as some future
prospects, which may be summed up in four points in the following.
5. Challenges and Prospects of the Discourse on Japan’s Ethnic Culture

The above account outlines the major events regarding research into the
origins of Japanese ethnic culture, from Oka Masao’s proposition of his the-
ory immediately after the Second World War to the recent Nichibunken pro-
ject. A number of features and issues can be observed here.
(1) The recognition that early Japanese culture had a plural and multi-
layered structure came to be widely shared through postwar research.
From the standpoint of country-centered folklore research, Kunio Ya-
nagita defined Japanese culture as a single, homogeneous rice-
cultivation culture. By contrast, the ethnology-led discourse on the ori-
gins of Japanese ethnic culture, beginning with the Oka theory (based on
an increasing body of comparative research on various parts of Asia),
asserted that a number of cultures flowed into the Japanese archipelago
through different routes from the north and south and were superim-
posed on one another to make up Japanese culture. Their research into
the formation of Japanese cultural layers generally extended as far as the
Jōmon period. The Japanese language also came to be viewed as a
mixed language and its formation examined from that point of view.
This, too, was a new development in research that was coincident with
the pluralist theory of Japanese culture.
(2) The development of the ethnology-led origin theories on Japan’s cultural
pluralism has been sustained by advances in neighboring disciplines
such as cultural anthropology and archaeology. These advances have
been made possible by the enormous progress in genetics, ecology,
geochemistry, molecular biology, and other fields of natural science, as
well as by application of the achievements of such advanced sciences to
cultural origin theories. Most notably, the development of research
based on DNA analysis has contributed significantly to investigation
into the evolution and proliferation of human beings and the origins and
spread of crops and livestock. The greater the advances in natural
science, the greater the specialization of research, however, and this
discourages the dialogue between natural scientists and researchers in
the humanities and social sciences. It is expected that it will become
178
and social sciences. It is expected that it will become more, not less, dif-
ficult to discuss the origin of Japanese culture in an interdisciplinary and
comprehensive manner.
(3) At the beginning of this paper, I referred to Josef Kreiner’s assertion that
»the issue pertaining to the Japanese people and Japanese ethnic identity
has always been present as a basso continuo« in Japanese ethnological
studies. This same issue has apparently turned into the »main theme«
rather than the »basso continuo«. This is clearly demonstrated by the
fact that, as mentioned earlier, the findings of the Nichibunken project
led by Keiichi Ōmoto provided the basis for NHK’s hours-long televi-
sion series and that the five-volume Nihonjin no harukana tabi based on
the television series was virtually a report of the academic project. What
lies behind this trend is the considerable spread of interest in the origin
of the Japanese people and the identity of Japanese culture owing to the
growth of the informed masses and the progress of globalization, with
the media adding its enthusiastic support. This phenomenon is structur-
ally similar to the »ancient-history boom« that has continued for dec-
ades, especially the dispute over the location of Yamataikoku and the
identity of its female ruler Himiko.
(4) Another factor to consider is that, as numerous findings begin appearing
from new studies of various kinds as the result of progress in the fields
of natural science, quite sophisticated techniques are needed to explain
them comprehensively and organize them in an easy-to-understand way.
The task of presenting the origins of the Japanese people and culture in
an interdisciplinary, international, and comprehensive manner requires
the competence of a producer-type person, of the kind who creates films
or documentaries, to deal with the complex media and issues involved.
Systems that provide practical ways of facilitating such research are
in critical need. Today is no longer a time when individual researchers
can formulate theories on the origin of Japanese culture solo, as did To-
rii Ryūzō and Oka Masao in the prewar period. Especially in recent
years, as discussed in sections 3 and 4, detailed findings have begun to
be brought together from various fields of the humanities and the social
and natural sciences and integrated into a theory on the origin of Japa-
nese culture. In order to further the development of the origin theories,
therefore, a solid system for research collaboration is needed. Capable
leaders are necessary first, and they should be backed up by a strong re-
search system.
Under the current conditions in Japan, I believe the National Institutes for
the Humanities (NIHU), a giant inter-university research consortium estab-
lished in 2004 that consists of five research Institutes – the National Museum
of Japanese History, National Institute of Japanese Literature, International
179
Sasaki Kōmei
Research Center for Japanese Studies, Research Institute for Humanity and
Nature, and National Museum of Ethnology – should take the lead in further-
ing research on the origins of Japanese ethnic culture as a large-scale project
across the various fields of science.
In this case, a major problem is the sluggishness of research on this sub-
ject among young ethnologists, as Ōbayashi Taryō lamented: »The inactivity
of research on the formation of Japanese ethnic culture on the part of eth-
nologists of a young generation who would take over from this third phase
(of research by the postwar first generation such as Ōbayashi, Emori, Sasaki,
and others) poses great difficulty today« (Ōbayashi 1996: 165). The number
of young anthropologists and archaeologists interested in the origins of the
Japanese people and culture is not necessarily small, but this regrettable
situation in ethnology is indeed a serious problem. What is responsible for
the inactivity of ethnological research into the origin of the Japanese people
and their culture is not only a decline in interest in historical ethnology but
also the general state of affairs of Japanese ethnology (cultural anthropol-
ogy), which Kreiner described as a shift of »the object of focus in ethnology
[...] from ethnos (people) to culture, a more general and universal concept«
(Kreiner 1996: 8, original in Japanese). How can this problem be solved?
That is the big challenge that confronts the world of Japanese ethnology in
relation to the origin and formation of Japanese ethnic culture.
References Cited
EGAMI, Namio (1967): Kiba minzoku kokka – Nihon kodai e no apurōchi [The state of
the horse-riders – an approach towards Japan’s antiquity]. Tokyo: Chūō
Kōronsha.
EMORI, Itsuo (1986) Nihon no kon’in – sono rekishi to minzoku [Japanese marriage –
its history and folklore]. Tokyo: Kōbundō.
EMORI, Itsuo (1990): Kazoku no rekishi-minzokugaku – Higashi Ajia to Nihon [The
historical ethnology of the family – East Asia and Japan]. Tokyo: Kōbundō.
FUJII, Kazuaki (ed.) (1985): Nihon-ongaku to geinō no genryū – Nihon-bunka no
genzō wo motomete [The beginnings of Japanese music and dramatic art – in
search of the original image of Japanese culture]. Tokyo: Nippon Hōsō Shup-
pan Kyōkai.
GAMO, Masao et al. (1970): Shimpojiumu Oka-gakusetsu to Nihon minzoku bunka no
genryū no keitō kigenron no gendankai [Symposium: Oka’s theory and the
present state of the hypothesis about the origin and early beginnings of the
Japanese people and culture]. In: ROMBUN-SHU KANKŌ LINKAI (ed.): Minzoku-
gaku kara mita Nihon. Oka Masao-kyōjū koki-kinen-rombunshū [Japan
viewed from ethnological studies. Festschrift on the occasion of the 70th
birthday of Professor Oka Masao]. Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, pp. 373–
434.
180
HANIHARA, Kazurō (ed.) (1993): Nihon-jin to Nihon-bunka no keisei [Formation of

the Japanese and Japanese culture]. Tokyo: Asakura Shoten.
ISHIDA, Eiichirō, Masao OKA, Namio EGAMI, and Ichirō YAHATA (1949): Nihon min-
zoku bunka no genryū to Nihon kokka no keisei [Early beginnings of the
Japanese people and culture and the origin of the Japanese state]. In: Nihon
minzokugaku kenkyū (Journal of Japanese Ethnology) 13, 3, pp. 11–81.
ISHIDA, Eiichirō, Masao OKA, Namio EGAMI, and Ichirō YAHATA (1958): Nihon min-
zoku no kigen – taidan to tōron [The origins of the Japanese people – sympo-
sium and discussion]. Tokyo: Heibonsha.
IWATA, Keiji (1966): Nihon-bunka nofurusato – Tōnan Ajia no inasaku minzoku wo
tazunete [The roots of Japanese culture – visiting the rice-growing peoples of
Southeast Asia]. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten. [Also included in: Iwata Keiji
chosakushū [Collected writings of Keiji Iwata]. Vol. I, Tokyo: Kōdansha,
1995.]
KATO, Kyūsaku (ed.) (1984): Nihon no shamanizumu to sono shuhen – Nihon-bunka
no genzō wo motomete [Japanese shamanism and its environs – in search of
the original image of Japanese culture]. Tokyo: Nippon Hōsō Shuppan Kyō-
kai.
KIMIJIMA, Hisako (ed.) (1989): Nihon minkan-denshō no genryū – Nihon kiso-bunka
no tankyū [The beginnings of Japanese folk-traditions. In search of Japan’s
basic culture]. Tokyo: Shogakukan.
KOKUBU, Naoichi (1970): Nihon minzoku bunka no kenkyū [The study of Japanese
folk-culture]. Tokyo: Keiyūsha.
KOKUBU, Naoichi (1976): Kan-Shina-kai minzoku bunkakō [Considerations on the
folk-culture around the China Sea]. Tokyo: Keiyūsha.
KOKUBU, Naoichi (1992): Nihon bunka no kosō – rettō no chiri-teki isō to minzoku-
bunka [Old strata of the Japanese culture – the geographic topology and folk-
culture of the island chain]. Tokyo: Dai’ichi Shobō.
KOYAMA, Shūzō (ed.) (1992): Shuryō to gyorō – Nihon-bunka no genryū wo saguru
[Hunting and fishing – searching for the origins of Japanese culture]. Tokyo:
Yūsankaku.
KREINER, Josef (1996): Nihon minzokugaku, bunka-jinruigaku no rekishi [The history
of Japanese ethnology and cultural anthropology]. In: Josef Kreiner (ed.): Ni-
hon minzokugaku no genzai – 1980 nendai kara 90 nendai e [The present state
of Japanese ethnology – from the 1980s to the 1990s]. Tokyo: Shinyō-sha, pp.
3–8.
MATSUMOTO, Nobuhiro (1971): Nihon-shinwa no kenkyū [Studies of Japanese my-
thology]. Tokyo: Heibonsha (= Tōyō bunko; 180).
MATSUMOTO, Nobuhiro (1978): Nihon minzoku bunka no kigen [The origin of Japa-
nese folk-culture]. 3 vols. Tokyo: Kōdansha.
MISHINA, Shōei (1970–1974): Mishina Shōei rombunshū [Collected writings of
Mishina Shōei]. 6 vols. Tokyo: Heibonsha.
181
Sasaki Kōmei
NAKAO, Sasuke (1966): Saibai-shokubutsu to nōkō no kigen [Cultivated plants and the
origins of agriculture]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. [Also included in: Nakao
Sasuke chosaku-shü [Collected writings of Nakao Sasuke]. Vol. l. Sapporo:
Hokkaidō Daigaku Tōsho Kankōkai, 2005).
NHK-SPECIAL ›NIHONJIN‹ PROJECT (ed.) (2001-2002): Nihonjin no harukana tabi
[The long journey of the Japanese]. 5 vols. Tokyo: Nippon Hōsō Shuppan-
Kyōkai.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1961): Nihon shinwa no kigen [The origins of Japanese mythol-
ogy]. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1973): Inasaku no shinwa [The mythology of rice-farming], To-
kyo: Kōbundō.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1977): Yamatai-koku – irezumi to poncho to Himiko [The state of
Yamatai – tattooing, the poncho, and queen Himiko]. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1979): Nihon minzoku kigenron to Oka Masao-gakusetsu [The
hypothesis of the origins of the Japanese people and Oka Masao’s theory]. In:
Oka Masao: Ijin sono ta [Aliens and others]. Tokyo: Gensōsha, pp. 415–431.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1984): Higashi Ajia no ōken shinwa [The mythology of kingship in
East Asia]. Tokyo: Kōbundo.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1986a): Nihon-shinwa no keifu – Nihon-shinwa no genryū wo
meguru [The genealogy of Japanese mythology – about the origins of Japa-
nese mythology]. Tokyo: Seidosha.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1986b): Rekishi-minzokugaku (bunka-shi) [Historical ethnology
(cultural history)]. In: NIHON MINZOKU GAKKAI (ed.): Nihon no minzokugaku,
1964–1983 [Japanese ethnology, 1964–1983]. Tokyo: Kōbundo, pp. 1–7.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1990): Higashi to nishi, umi to yama – Nihon no bunka ryōiki [East
and west, the sea and the mountains – cultural regions of Japan]. Tokyo:
Shōgakukan.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1991a): The Ethnological Study of Japan’s Ethnic Culture: A
Historical Survey. In: Acta Asiatica 61, pp. 1–23.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1991b): Hoppō no minzoku to bunka [Peoples and cultures of the
North]. Tokyo: Yamagawa Shuppansha.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1992): Shōgatsu no kita michi – Nihon to Chugoku no shinshun-
gyōji [The way the New year-festival came to Japan – rituals of early spring in
Japan and China]. Tokyo: Shōgakukan.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (1996): Nihon-minzoku no kigen [The origins of the Japanese
people]. In: Josef KREINER (ed.): Nihon no minzokugaku no genzai – 1980
nendai kara 90 nendai e [The present state of Japanese ethnology – from the
1980s to the 1990s]. Tokyo: Shinyōsha, pp. 161–167.
ŌBAYASHI, Taryō (ed.) (1994): Ijin sono ta. Oka Masao rombun-shū [Aliens and
others. Collected writings by Oka Masao]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten (= Iwa-
nami bunko).
OKA, Masao (1956): Nihon-minzoku-bunka no keisei [The formation of the Japanese
people and culture]. In: Yukita KODAMA (ed.): Zusetsu Nihon-bunkashi taikei:
182
[Illustrated outline of Japanese cultural history]. Vol. l. Tokyo: Shōgakukan,

pp. 106–116. [Also included in: Masao OKA: Ijin sono ta [Aliens and others].
Tokyo, Gensōsha, 1979, pp. 3–17.]
OKA, Masao (1957): Nihon bunka no kiso-kōzō [The basic structure of Japanese
culture]. In: Tokuzō ŌMACHI et al. (ed.): Nihon-minzokugaku taikei [Outline
of Japanese folklore studies]. Vol. 2. Tokyo: Heibonsha, pp. 5–21. [Also in-
cluded in: Masao OKA: Ijin sono ta [Aliens and others]. Tokyo: Gensōsha,
1979, pp. 18–36.]
OKA, Masao (1958a): Nijūgo-nen no ato [25 years after]. In: Eiichirō ISHIDA, Namio
EGAMI, Masao OKA, and Ichirō YAHATA: Nihon-minzoku no kigen – taidan to
töron [The origins of the Japanese people – symposium and discussion]. To-
kyo: Heibon-sha, pp. 301–332. [Also included in: OKA, Masao: Ijin sono ta
[Aliens and others]. Tokyo: Gensōsha, 1979, pp. 295–315.]
OKA, Masao (1979): Ijin sono ta – Nihon-minzoku-bunka no genryū to Nihon-kokka
no keisei [Aliens and others – early beginnings of the Japanese people and
culture and the formation of the Japanese state]. Tokyo: Gensōsha.
SAKIYAMA, Osamu (ed.) (1990): Nihongo no keisei [The formation of the Japanese
language]. Tokyo: Sanseidō.
SASAKI, Kōmei (1971): Inasaku izen [Before rice-growing]. Tokyo: Nippon Hōsō-
Shuppan Kyōkai.
SASAKI, Kōmei (1982): Shōyō jurin bunka no michi – Butan Unnan kara Nihon e [The
way of the culture of the ›Shining-leaf Forest‹ – from Bhutan and Yunnan to
Japan].Tokyo: Nippon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai.
SASAKI, Kōmei (1991): Nihon-shi tanjō [The birth of Japanese history]. Tokyo: Shūei-
sha (= Nihon no rekishi; l).
SASAKI, Kōmei (1997): Nihon bunka no tajū kōzō – Ajia-teki shiya kara Nihon bunka
wo saikō suru [The multi-layered structure of Japanese culture – re-
constructing Japanese culture from an Asian point-of-view]. Tokyo: Shōgaku-
kan.
SASAKI, Kōmei (2001): Nihon bunka no kigen wo meguru kenkyū – sengo no nagare
no naka de [Studies about the origin of the Japanese culture – amidst the de-
velopments after World War II]. In: Nihonjin to Nihon bunka (ed. by Nihonjin
oyobi Nihon-Bunka no Kigen ni Kansuru Kenkyū Jimukyo) 1964.
SASAKI, Kōmei (2003): Minami kara no Nihon-bunka, jō – Shin-Kaijō no michi
[Japanese culture from the South, I: A new »Kaijō no michi«]. Tokyo: Nippon
Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai.
SASAKI, Kōmei (ed.) (1982): Nihon nōkō-bunka no genryū – Nihon bunka no genzō
wo motomete [The origins of Japanese agricultural culture – in search of the
original image of the Japanese culture]. Tokyo: Nippon Hōsō Shuppan Kyō-
kai.
SASAKI, Kōmei and Taryō ŌBAYASHI (eds.) (1991): Nihon bunka no genryū – Kita
kara no michi, minami kara no michi [The origins of Japanese culture – the
way from the north, the way from the south]. Tokyo: Shōgakukan.
183
Sasaki Kōmei
SUGIMOTO, Hisatsugu (ed.) (1984): Nihon no sumai no genryū – Nihon kiso bunka no
tankyū [The origins of the Japanese house – in search of the Japanese basic-
culture]. Tokyo: Bunka Shuppankyoku.
SUMIYA, Kazuhiko (1979): Oka Masao ›Ko-Nihon no bunka-sō‹ – aru sobyō [Oka
Masao’s Kulturschichten in Altjapan – a rough scetch]. In: Masao Oka: Ijin
sono ta [Aliens and others]. Tokyo: Gensōsha, pp. 432–452.
TAKEMURA, Takuji (ed.) (1986): Nihon minzoku shakai no keisei to hatten – ie, mura,
uji no genryū wo saguru [Formation and development of the Japanese folk-
society – searching the origins of house, village, and clan]. Tokyo: Yamakawa
Shuppansha.
TSUBOI, Hirofumi [Yōbun] (1979): Imo to Nihonjin – minzoku-bunka-ron no kadai
[Taro and the Japanese – a theme for the theories of folk-culture]. Tokyo:
Miraisha.
UEYAMA, Shumpei, Kōmei SASAKI, and Sasuke NAKAO (1976): Zoku shōyō jurin-
bunka – Higashi-Ajia no genryū [The culture of the ›Shining-leaf Forest‹ – the
origins of East Asia]. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha. [Included in: Nakao Sasuke
chosaku-shū [Collected writings of Nakao Sasuke], vol. 6. Sapporo: Hokkaidō
Daigaku Shuppan Kyōkai, 2006.]
YANAGITA, Kunio (1961): Kaijō no michi [The way over the sea]. Tokyo: Chikuma
Shobō. [Also Teihon Yanagita Kunio-shū l, Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1963.]
184
Patrick Heinrich
Casting Light on the Past: Lessons on the Origin and
Formation of Japanese-Ryūkyūan
1. Introduction
Japan before the 7th century is linguistically uncharted territory. In view
of the first written sources that appeared soon afterwards, one cannot help but
be struck by the linguistic homogeneity in the Japanese archipelago. The lack
of autochthonous languages in Japan is also startling. Despite its size and its
long-standing relative isolation from its immediate geographic neighbors,
there are only ten autochthonous languages in the Japanese archipelago, nine
of which are found at the very periphery of what constitute the borders of the
Japanese nation today. From north to south, these languages are Sakhalin
Ainu, Kurile Ainu, Hokkaidō Ainu, and Ogasawara-Creole-English in the
southeast, and in the south the Ryūkyūan language family consisting of the
languages of Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, Yaeyama, and Yonaguni. Japanese
and Ryūkyūan are genealogically related, having spilt at some point after 300
BC and no later than AD 700 (Hattori 1959; Uemura 2003). Japanese-
Ryūkyūan is usually regarded as an isolated language family, as is the Ainu
language family (Grimes 2000). The Ryūkyūan languages are often sub-
sumed under the umbrella term »national language« (kokugo), which is rep-
resented by, if not even equated to, Standard Japanese (Mashiko 1997).
Along the lines of national language ideology, the Ryūkyūan languages are
often designated as Japanese dialects by scholars of »national linguistics«
(kokugogaku). This view was rationalized by early dialectologists, for exam-
ple, Tōjō (1927, 1938), who were concerned with forming a national Japa-
nese identity based on linguistic grounds (Yasuda 1999 and 2000). Glossaries
of world languages, however, refer to these language varieties as languages
in their own right (e.g., Klose 1987; Ruhlen 1987; Herbermann 1997; Voege-
lin 1997; Grimes 2000).
Despite more than 150 years of research, the genealogy of Japanese-
Ryūkyūan remains unresolved. This is probably even more surprising in light of
the fact that Japan is known to have experienced considerable immigration from
continental Asia from 300 BC onwards, bringing about the Yayoi period (300 BC
– AD 300) which followed directly on the heels of the Jōmon period (10,000 –
300 BC). Regarding the Yayoi migration to Japan, two basic explanations for the
genealogy of Japanese-Ryūkyūan come to mind: (1) the languages of this lan-
guage family are linked to those of the Yayoi immigrants, or else (2) they are
185
Patrick Heinrich
linked to those spoken by the original Jōmon inhabitants. It is commonly

assumed that the Jōmon language must have been related to languages spo-
ken in Southeast Asia whereas the Yayoi languages originated from continen-
tal Asia, although attempts to link Japanese-Ryūkyūan to the Austronesian or
Altai languages have not yet been successful.
Nevertheless, several lessons can be learned from these attempts, and new
directions of research can be identified. To start with, let us consider, how-
ever briefly, the major hypotheses on the genealogy of Japanese-Ryūkyūan as
well as their constraints. After a summary of the divergent views regarding
the origin of the Japanese language, I will turn to a closer analysis of the
Yayoi period (300 BC – AD 300) and, more specifically, to the immigration
movements to Japan at that time. On the basis of these insights, I will then
proceed to define other research directions necessary for unraveling the ori-
gin of Japanese-Ryūkyūan.
2. Studies on Japanese-Ryūkyūan Genealogy

In the following brief summary, several marginal hypotheses on the geneal-
ogy of Japanese-Ryūkyūan will not be mentioned since they have failed to
convince other scholars working in the field. These proposed hypotheses in-
clude genealogical relations with the Indo-European language family, Basque,
Persian, Greek, or Sumerian.
The Altai-Hypothesis
The longest standing hypothesis on the origin of Japanese-Ryūkyūan con-
nects it to the Altai language family. It was first formulated in 1857 by
Boller, who based his research on a Japanese grammar that had been pub-
lished in St. Petersburg in 1738 with the help of shipwrecked Japanese fish-
ermen. In Japan, Fujioka (1985) promoted and developed the attempts to link
Japanese-Ryūkyūan to the Altai language family by publishing a seminal list
of 14 linguistic features which, he claimed, were shared by all Altai lan-
guages, including Old Japanese (Shibatani 1990: 96, Heinrich 2002: 48–52).
In 1910, that is to say, in the year of the Korean annexation by Japan, Kana-
zawa (1910) linked Japanese to Korean and argued that Korean was a lost
Japanese dialect. Due to a shift in Japanese linguistics from genealogy studies
to phonology, dialectology, and early language life studies (gengo seikatsu)
from the Shōwa period (1926–1989) onwards, concentrated efforts to link
Japanese-Ryūkyūan to the Altaic languages and/or to Korean, another language
isolate, only restarted after WW II (Heinrich 2002). Due to strained relation-
ships, in particular with Korea, and due to the fact that prewar work such as
that by Kanazawa had been politically motivated, this research was, in the
beginning, largely launched by Western specialists. Important proponents of a
shared Japanese-Ryūkyūan/Altai and/or Japanese-Ryūkyūan/Korean genealogy
186
Casting Light on the Past
were Martin (1966), Miller (1971), Whitman (1990), and from Japan most
notably Murayama (1966) in his early post-war work. Murayama later shifted
his position (see below). In a recent publication, Robbeets (2005) has
conducted a comprehensive review of publications on the Altai Hypothesis, in
which she sifted all existing 2055 proposed lexical similarities between Japa-
nese-Ryūkyūan and Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic. With 635 ety-
mologies withstanding her rigorous tests, she concluded that there is suffi-
cient evidence to link Japanese-Ryūkyūan to these Altai languages. Nonethe-
less, Robbeets’ work will not end the debate on the genealogy of Japanese-
Ryūkyūan for reasons given further below.
Japanese-Ryūkyūan has also been linked to the now extinct language of
Koguryǒ that originated from the most northern of three Korean kingdoms
which coexisted between 37 BC and AD 668. Scholars such as Murayama
(1962), Lewin (1973), and, most recently, Beckwith (2004) have studied
some 130 words that constitute the only Koguryǒ material to have survived
from this otherwise extinct language. They point out the great similarities to
Old Japanese lexemes, its phonemic system, and morphology. Beckwith
(2004) claims, essentially, that Koguryǒ-speaking migrants from northeast
China, or more precisely the area around modern Tientsin, emigrated from
300 BC onwards to both Korea and the Japanese archipelago. In Korea the
Koguryǒ language was displaced, leaving some traces due to borrowing,
while the language was spread throughout the Japanese archipelago. Accord-
ing to Beckwith, the differences in development of the Koguryǒ language in
Korea and on the Japanese archipelago can be accounted for by Korea’s ad-
vanced technical development. This rendered the Koguryǒ immigrants and
their languages less prestigious there and, consequently, language shift set in.
As a result, Japanese-Ryūkyūan is viewed as the sole surviving branch of the
Japanese-Ryūkyūan-Koguryǒ language family since, according to Beckwith,
Koguryǒ is not related to Korean.
Austronesian
In contrast to the Altaic Hypothesis, the idea of a possible link between
Japanese-Ryūkyūan and the Austronesian language family (also called Ma-
layo-Polynesian) started rather late. The first scholar to look seriously into a
possible connection was Shinmura (1971). Horioka (1927) picked up on the
work of Shinmura and developed correspondences between Japanese-
Ryūkyūan and the Austronesian languages similar to those that Fujioka
(1985) had pointed out with regard to the Altai languages.
Due to the strong influence of the Altai Hypothesis, the »Southern Theory«
(nanpōsetsu) became increasingly more often regarded as only having had
some influence on the formation of Japanese-Ryūkyūan. Furthermore, Aus-
tronesian came to be linked with the Jōmon people. As a matter of fact, only
187
Patrick Heinrich
Benedict (1990) has linked the Austronesian languages to the Yayoi mi-
grants. Consequently, he claimed that what developed into Japanese-
Ryūkyūan arrived from the south. In other words, Benedict proposed that
proto-Japanese-Ryūkyūan spread from the Ryūkyūs into Kyūshū and then
further northeast into the central regions of Honshū. Benedict’s work has met
with criticism from Vovin (1994), and there are also strong archaeological
and bio-anthropological arguments against Benedict’s thesis (see Hudson
1999).
Japanese as a Hybrid Language

More often than not, the Southern Theory on the formation of Japanese is
associated with the idea of Japanese as some kind of mixed language. The first
linguist to have developed this idea was Polivanov, who investigated Japanese-
Ryūkyūan in a series of publications (Polivanov 1974). Polivanov’s hypothesis
that Japanese was a hybrid language challenged the influential principle put
forth by Meillet (1925) that such languages could not exist. (Refuting Meillet’s
claim are, of course, the several cases of hybrid languages known today; see
below). In essence, Polivanov argued that Japanese was an amalgam of Aus-
tronesian and Altaic elements, and his idea of Japanese as a hybrid language
gained credibility due to glottochronological research conducted by Hattori
(1951, 1954, 1959). In brief, glottochronology claims that languages lose on the
average 19% of their basic vocabulary during the course of 1,000 years. This
method thus provides a tool to measure the separation time between genetically
related languages. In view of the difficulties in revealing the genealogical af-
filiation of Japanese-Ryūkyūan, Hattori used this method to assess which lan-
guages Japanese-Ryūkyūan could possibly be genealogically related to by
looking at the highest number of possible cognates. In doing so, he explicitly
paid attention to the possibility that Japanese had emerged from more than
one source. His research into the basic vocabulary of Japanese, Korean, Man-
chu, Mongolian, Tatar, Ainu, Gilyak, Chinese, Tibetan, Tai, Vietnamese,
Khmer, Malay, Tagalog, the Formosan languages, Motu, Carolinian, Sa-
moan, and Bongu revealed that each of these languages shared five to ten
possible cognates which, he concluded, could have also entered Japanese-
Ryūkyūan as a result of language contact or could simply be coincidental
(Hattori 1959: 206–226). Further support for Polivanov’s view came from the
work of Murayama (1978), who shifted from an Altai position to a hybrid
position in the second half of his academic career.
Ōno (1957, 1974, 1980) is the great popularizer of the hybrid language
hypothesis. He has refined his views on the origin of Japanese-Ryūkyūan
over the course of several decades. Ōno (1957) first developed the idea that
an Austronesian language found entry into the Japanese archipelago during
the Jōmon period (10,000 – 300 BC). These languages formed the substratum
188
of what later became Japanese-Ryūkyūan during the immigration of Altai

speakers in the Yayoi period (300 BC – AD 300). According to Ōno’s model,
the Yayoi languages formed the superstratum of Japanese-Ryūkyūan. He
argued in favor of a hybrid language because of the relatively small number
of Yayoi immigrants who, he believed, could not have succeeded in entirely
replacing the languages of the native Jōmon population. Japanese-Ryūkyūan,
he claimed, was thus both Altaic (Yayoi), which was manifested primarily in
the grammar, and Austronesian (Jōmon), which was mainly manifested in the
lexicon. Ōno’s work is extremely important because it provides an explana-
tion on how Japanese-Ryūkyūan could be (partly) Altaic despite the scarcity
of cognates shared with Altai languages. In a spectacular publication, Ōno
(1980) expanded his hybrid hypothesis to include a third language family,
Dravidian. He now claimed that the first languages to have shaped what later
became Japanese-Ryūkyūan were the Austronesian languages in the early
Jōmon period. In the middle Jōmon period, that is around 3,500 BC, Dravid-
ian speakers migrated to Japan and mixed their languages with the Austrone-
sian languages spoken there. In the Yayoi period, finally, Altai-speaking
immigrants from Korea reached Japan which led to further hybridization of
the Jōmon-Dravidian hybrid language which had emerged in the Japanese
archipelago by that time. This new contact situation led to the development
of Japanese-Ryūkyūan. Ōno’s work proved to be influential in the way that
most linguists today consider Austronesian to merely constitute the substra-
tum of Japanese-Ryūkyūan (Shibatani 1990: 103).
The most recent theory on the formation of Japanese posits Japanese as a
creole language. Pidgin and creole languages are the result of language con-
tact. Pidgins arise in sustained contact situations as a lingua franca. A pidgin
language covers only limited registers and is nobody’s native language. It
represents a mixture of the languages in contact. Creole languages, on the
other hand, are former pidgins that have been acquired by following genera-
tions as a native language and serve as their language of identity. The first
generation of creole speakers are thus children of pidgin-speaking parents.
Through continued usage in a growing number of contexts, creole languages
are expanded grammatically and lexically. Creoles are thus fully developed
languages and can cover all fields relevant to the communicative needs of
their speakers.
Inspired by and based on the work of linguistics such as the above men-
tioned Polivanov (1974) and Murayama (1978) as well as Chew (1976,
1989), and Maher came forth with the idea of Japanese as a creole, stating
that:
Japan’s linguistic history cannot be characterized by a linear progression
nor by a single event but by successive episodes of language mixing.
The view proposed here is that the Japanese language developed as a
lingua franca in a multilingual environment. Thus, there is no indexable
189
Patrick Heinrich
substrate language for Japanese since there was no single substrate; in-
stead, Japanese developed from several speech communities possessing
more than one language variety. In recasting Japanese as the product of
heterogeneous sociolinguistic pressures, I suggest that the most suitable
characterization of Japanese is that of a pidgin-creole. (Maher 1996: 31)
Maher thus questioned the prevalent, although rarely openly articulated
view, that Japan had been linguistically homogenous in the Yayoi period
(300 BC – AD 300). In the absence of a centralized state, Maher argued, multi-
lingualism was the more likely scenario.
It is important to note here that the views of Japanese as a hybrid language
or as a creole language are usually not clearly differentiated from one an-
other. There are, however, vast differences between and implications arising
from these two different positions. Hybrid languages and pidgin languages
both require a bilingual or multilingual context in order to come into exis-
tence. The major difference between the two is that pidgins do not serve as an
identity marker whereas hybrid languages do. More concretely, pidgin lan-
guages emerge as a lingua franca when communication between two different
language communities becomes necessary, although the native language
continues to serve as the marker of identity. It is only when children acquire
this lingua franca as their native language (i.e., as a creole) does this language
start to serve as an identity marker. Hybrid languages, on the other hand,
arise when two languages are in contact and there is a high percentage of
fluent bilingual speakers who, for the sake of forming an identity independent
of the other two speech communities involved, chose to create a third, hybrid
language (Kaye and Tosco 2003: 22). In hybrid languages, the vocabulary
might come from one language, such as from Spanish as in the case of Me-
dina Lengua, and the grammar to a large part from another language, in this
case, Quechua. The lexicon or grammar of hybrid languages could also come,
however, from two languages at the same time, such as in the case of Medny
Aleut where the lexicon is composed of both Medny and Aleut (Kaye and
Tosco 2003: 99). As mentioned earlier, several hybrid languages are known
today. They combine lexicon and grammar to varying degrees in order to
create a new language. In short, hybrid languages are not formed for the sake
of communication but to set their speakers apart from other speech communi-
ties. Other mixed languages include Cappadocian Greek (Greek and Turk-
ish), Jopará (Guarani and Spanish), Mbugu (Cushitic and Bantu), and Yen-
iche (German and Romani). Needless to say, it seems unlikely that a constel-
lation of bilingual speakers in the Yayoi period would have chosen to de-
velop a mixed language for reasons of identity formation.
Before investigating the constraints of the different views on the origin of
Japanese-Ryūkyūan in more detail, let us briefly review the research on Ainu
genealogy.
190
Ainu Genealogy
Ainu is typologically an incorporating language and not an agglutinative
one such as the Altai language family, the Austronesian language family,
Korean, Japanese, or the Ryūkyūan languages. Thus, a shared genealogy
between Ainu and one of these languages or language families is rather
unlikely. One of the working hypotheses of historical linguistics is that typo-
logically different languages cannot share a parent language.
Ainu is often, albeit loosely, connected to its neighboring languages,
Gilyak and Yukagir, and is somehow associated with the Paleo-Siberian
languages (Shibatani 1990: 5), in spite of the fact that such a genealogical
relationship awaits to be established (Patrie 1982: 6). The myth that the Ainu
languages are part of the Indo-European language family is a long-standing
and widespread one. There is, nonetheless, no evidence supporting such a
view. Vovin (1993) has hypothesized on an Austronesian connection with
Ainu, but no satisfactory evidence supporting this view has ever been estab-
lished (Robbeets 2005: 24). Hattori (1951) speculated on a possible genetic
affiliation of Ainu with Japanese-Ryūkyūan, which, if it existed, must have
been at a very early stage. According to Hattori, Japanese-Ryūkyūan might
be related to Korean, and Japanese-Ryūkyūan/Korean might then related to
the Altaic languages. However, if there is any relation at all between Ainu
and Japanese-Ryūkyūan, then the connection should be sought beyond this
distant point.
On the basis of a sound correspondence with 140 Ainu lexical elements,
Patrie (1982) hypothesized on the possibility of an Ainu-Altai linkage, argu-
ing that the initial split occurred between Korean-Ainu and Japanese-
Ryūkyūan. In other words, he claimed that Korean and Ainu are more closely
related than Korean and Japanese-Ryūkyūan or Ainu and Japanese-Ryūkyūan
(Patrie 1982: 121). Therefore, the Altaic elements he proposed to have found
in Ainu must have entered directly via Korean and not via Japanese-
Ryūkyūan. This presupposes that the Korean-Ainu language split must have
occurred on the continent, that is, before Ainu migration to Sakhalin, the
Kuriles, and Hokkaidō. While his work is of enormous interest, it has failed
to convince other scholars working in the field. As a result, Ainu continues to
be regarded as an isolated language family.
Constraints on the Altai and Austronesian Hypotheses

While most of the studies touched upon in the brief review above are in
themselves quite convincing, particularly to outsiders of the field, the very
existence of several theories calls for a closer inspection of their constraints.
Specifically, the likelihood of whether (1) a Japanese-Ryūkyūan genealogy
can be established by linking it to either the Altai or Austronesian language
families, or (2) whether one must account for the formation of Japanese-
191
Patrick Heinrich
Ryūkyūan by reconstructing influences from several languages and language

families deserves attention.
Attempting to solve the genealogy of Japanese by linking it to one specific
language family is the more orthodox approach of the two. Thus, let us con-
sider this case first. A major dilemma involving two arguments thereby
emerges. Firstly, there are too few cognates to render a language spilt in the
Yayoi period (300 BC – AD 300) a likely scenario and, secondly, the linguistic
situation we find in 7th century Japan is too homogenous for a language split
to have occurred more recently. If Japanese-Ryūkyūan had split from its
sister languages at a period farther back in time than the Yayoi period, we
should find many more languages in the Japan archipelago as an effect of
language diversification. The conclusion thereof is this: if Japanese were
related to one language or language family only, we would have either a
much more linguistically diverse situation in Japan or more sets of cognates.
Since neither is the case, affiliation to one language family appears unlikely.
The only way to support this view is to relate Japanese-Ryūkyūan to an oth-
erwise extinct language or family of languages.
The constraints pointed out above are, as a rule, ignored by scholars work-
ing in the field. Hence, unlikely hypotheses abound. One example will serve
as an illustration here. Shibatani (1990: 117, with my emphasis in italics)
writes: »[T]he likelihood of an enormous time depth lying between the time
of Old Japanese and the time when it was in close affinity with other lan-
guages is perhaps the major reason why the comparative method has not been
as effective as in other situations involving languages of recent splits.« On
the contrary, nothing in the linguistic situation in Japan in the 7th century
hints at a recent split. Rather, the linguistic homogeneity on the Japanese
archipelago points out the fact that Japanese-Ryūkyūan is of relatively recent
origin. It could have developed no earlier than in the Yayoi period (Hattori
1959, Hudson 1999, Uemura 2003, Beckwith 2004). On the basis of glotto-
chronological research, Hattori (1959) pointed out that a Japanese-Ryūkyūan-
Korean language spilt could not have occurred in the Yayoi, but must have
been as distant as 4,700 years back in time. It is beyond this point in time that
a possible proto-Japanese-Ryūkyūan-Korean – Altai language divergence
may have occured. In other words, based on the analysis of shared cognates,
any possible linkage of Japanese-Ryūkyūan to the Altai language family must
be fairly distant. As a consequence, Japan should have several hundreds lan-
guages resulting from this long period of language diversification.
The possibility of a shared Japanese-Ryūkyūan – Austronesian genealogy
appears, at first glance, to be slightly more convincing, since the Austrone-
sian languages are linked to the Jōmon culture (10,000 – 300 BC). This would
explain the paucity of cognates. If Japanese originated from the Jōmon lan-
guages, however, we should still expect to find several hundred languages in
the Japan archipelago. The linguistic situation that we do find is, however,
192
too homogenous to render credibility to this hypothesis. In view of this prob-

lem, it is therefore of little surprise that most scholars today acknowledge that
the origin of Japanese-Ryūkyūan must be accounted for by more than one
source (Heinrich 2002: 108). Nonetheless, in concrete terms, only few schol-
ars such as Ōno (1980) attempt to link Japanese to two or more sources. Most
scholars continue to work on one single source, acknowledging only in pass-
ing, the possibility of influences from other language families due to lan-
guage contact (see e.g. Miller 1971).
To decide whether a hybrid language or a mixed language scenario would
have been more likely for the formation of Japanese-Ryūkyūan, we need to
know much more about the period in which these languages were shaped. For
the reasons given above, this could have taken place only in the Yayoi period
(300 BC – AD 300).
3. Migration and Communication in the Yayoi Period

No one studying the Jōmon period (10,000 BC – 300 BC) doubts today that
the Japanese archipelago was multilingual at the time (e.g., Kidder 1993,
Barnes 1999, Uemura 2003).
The Japanese archipelago was populated then by hunting and gathering
communities with no or very limited contacts to the outside world. Hunter
and gatherers have distinctive communicative needs that shape the linguistic
situation of such communities. Retracing the language history of the world,
(Ostler 2005: 9–10) wrote that
[…] before the discovery and expansion of agriculture, human commu-
nities were small bands, just as the remaining groupings of hunter-
gatherers are to this day. These groups all have languages […]. The den-
sity of the human population, wherever people are living, would have
been far less than it is today. It is a commonplace of historical linguistics
that related languages diverge when contact ceases between groups, so
we can also presume that in this early period each self-sufficient com-
munity, of up to a few thousand people, would by and large have had its
own language.
Language historians assume that the number of languages once spoken
must have been as much as one hundred times greater than today and that
language diversity started to shrink dramatically to the 6,000 spoken lan-
guages of the present day when humans became sedentary farmers.
Linguistic uniformity in the Yayoi period is often taken for granted. As a
rule, no explanation behind this assumption is given. The linguistically
homogenous situation on the Japanese mainland in the 7th century, when the
first written traces of Japanese show up, has apparently led scholars to as-
sume that the islands have been strictly monolingual since the end of the
Jōmon period. There are, however, others who doubt this view. Maher (1996:
40), for instance, wrote that there is »no reason to believe that there was a
193
Patrick Heinrich
single Yayoi language«, and pointed out that there was almost a millennium
of migration to the archipelago.
Migration movements from the late Jōmon period to the 8th century are
attested to by genetic, historiographical, philological, and archaeological
evidence. Hanihara (1991, 1992) has convincingly argued in favor of a dual-
structure hypothesis underlying the formation of the Japanese. Analyzing the
distribution of blood groups, serum proteins, viruses, and mitochondrial
DNA, Hanihara showed that the Jōmon, Ainu, and Ryūkyū populations dis-
play genetic differences when compared to the Yayoi immigrants and to
modern mainland Japanese. Furthermore, Jōmon, Ainu, and Ryūkyūans clus-
ter genetically with Southeast Asians, while the Yayoi and mainland Japa-
nese cluster with northeast Asians. Japan’s oldest extant chronicle, the Kojiki
(712), and the oldest official history, the Nihon shoki (720), both include
legends reflecting military invasions from Kyūshū, the center of the Yayoi
immigration, to the central Kinai region on Honshū. In these works we also
find accounts depicting ongoing emigration from the Asian continent, in
particular the immigration of two powerful clans of Chinese origin, the Aya
and the Hata, who settled in the northeastern end of Honshū (Lewin 1962).
Migration movements at that time were responsible for driving the Ainu
continually northwards. Studies in biological anthropology and archaeology
also support large-scale migration to Japan during the Yayoi period (Hudson
1999). The incoming immigrants then spread from Kyūshū to the central
parts of Honshū. Barnes (1999: 176) observes that a new kind of pottery and
an agricultural society
[…] expanded explosively throughout the western insular lowlands. This
diffusive process is usually understood by archaeologists in terms of ac-
tual migration of Yayoi people out of Kyushu – a reasonable hypothesis
since the new agricultural technology surely triggered a population boom
on the circumscribed plains of north Kyushu. Nevertheless, how these
Yayoi people interacted with the Jomon people already ensconced in the
western Islands in the 3rd and 2nd century BC is as yet a little-explored
topic.
Insights into the interactions between the Jōmon people and the Yayoi
immigrants are of utmost importance when studying the formation of Japa-
nese-Ryūkyūan, as it was the very advance of the Yayoi that had unifying
effects on the linguistic situation (Takeuchi 1999: 4). Hokkaidō (Barnes
1999) and the Ryūkyū Islands (Uemura 2003), in particular Miyako and Yae-
yama, were less strongly influenced by Yayoi culture. Wet rice farming and
social stratification emerged there much later. Although the view that the
transition from the Jōmon to the Yayoi period was caused by continental
migration is undisputed nowadays, quantifying the extent of migration at that
time is extremely difficult (Barnes 1999: 171). So far, Hanihara (1987) is the
only one to have proposed a migration model for the Yayoi period.
194
According to Hanihara, the most plausible scenario appears to be an aver-

age influx of 1,300 Yayoi migrants per year between 300 BC and AD 700. He
thus calculated a total number of 1.3 million Yayoi immigrants to Japan in
the course of one millennium, taking into account an annual population
growth of 0.2% of those already residing in the archipelago. Within 1,000
years, the population rose from 160,000 to 5.4 million inhabitants. Accord-
ingly, the Jōmon-Yayoi population ratio would have risen from 100% Jōmon
in 300 BC to 1:4.7 Jōmon to Yayoi in ad 700. It is in this specific context of
Jōmon and Yayoi contact that we have to discuss the formation of Japanese-
Ryūkyūan.
4. The Yayoi Period: Language Shift or Creolization?

The hypotheses of an Altai or an Austronesian genealogy of Japanese
were initially formulated before anything about the Yayoi migration to Japan
was known or before the implications of the Yayoi artifacts for the prehistory
of Japan were fully understood. Up to now, most approaches to solving the
genealogy of Japanese-Ryūkyūan pay little, if any, attention to the communi-
cative problems that arose due to Yayoi immigration. All those trying to
elucidate the formation of Japanese via its genealogy, to either the Altai or to
the Austronesian languages, implicitly assumes that language shift took place
in the Yayoi period (300 BC – AD 300). The fact that the Japanese language
emerged over the course of a millennium of immigration to Japan makes it
essential to consider the linguistic situation at that time more thoroughly.
Specifically, the issue is whether Japanese is the result of a shift from the
Jōmon to Yayoi languages or if it was formed by a creolization process. As
mentioned above, the linguistic situation in the Yayoi period makes it ex-
tremely unlikely that it came into being as a hybrid language. Therefore, a
closer look at how pidgin and creole languages emerge is necessary here.
Pidgin and creole languages are not unknown in the Japanese context.
Several such varieties exist today, for example, Hualien-Pidgin-Japanese in
Taiwan or the Hawai’i-Creole-English once spoken by Japanese immigrants
in Hawai’i. Furthermore, pidgins are also known to have formed in Japan
itself, as is evidenced by the Japanese-Pidgin-Englishes in Yokohama and
Nagasaki. In the case of the Ogasawara Islands, an English creole developed
there and is still spoken by the old generation. There can be no doubt that in
the Yayoi period countless pidgins must have also formed as an effect of
language contact resulting from the Yayoi immigrants’ advance from north-
ern Kyūshū into the central parts of Japan. The crucial questions are these:
What happened to these pidgins? Did they evolve into creole languages? Or
were they replaced by a Yayoi language in the following generations?
The very fact that migration continued over the course of one thousand
years suggests that the communication problems ensuing from Yayoi migra-
195
Patrick Heinrich
tion could not have been settled quickly but that communicative solutions
needed to be created throughout this entire period of time. Since a few set-
tlers in the Japanese archipelago might already have had some knowledge of
the Yayoi languages due to former contacts, different pidgins and creoles
must have sprung up over the centuries (Maher 1996: 34). In view of this
millennium of migration, Koizumi (1998) was skeptical of whether the lan-
guages of the Yayoi could have replaced the Jōmon languages rapidly and
argued that the idea of a possible connection between Japanese-Ryūkyūan
and the Jōmon languages should not be dismissed too quickly.
As mentioned before, pidgins are nobody’s first language. They are jointly
fabricated in »non-intimate social contexts between groups of unequal
power« (Holm 2000: 68). Note that the power of a group and not its number
of speakers is crucial here. The contact situations between the Jōmon popula-
tions and the Yayoi immigrants are constellations in which the Yayoi had
more power due to their cultural superiority, although they were outnum-
bered for many centuries by the Jōmon population. In the case of the Yayoi
period, numerous Jōmon-Pidgin-Yayoi languages must have formed, many of
which did not allow for mutual intelligibility because different solutions to
communication problems emerged.
How should we imagine communication in the Yayoi period? Certainly,
the pidgin languages that arose due to Jōmon-Yayoi contact were not full
fledged languages but covered only those registers in which Jōmon-Yayoi
communication was necessary. Consequently, these varieties enjoyed little
prestige in either the Jōmon and Yayoi speech communities where the native
languages continued to serve as the language of identity. The genetic make-
up of modern Japanese shows that at some point the Jōmon and Yayoi popu-
lations started to mix. The descendants of Jōmon-Yayoi parents must have
spoken their parents’ pidgin as their first language in many cases. In other
words, they became speakers of creole, developing these languages with
regard to language system, lexicon, and its range of registers. Such creole
languages served as the language of identity and were passed on to the fol-
lowing generations. These languages became, as a result, more complex
during the course of time. Migration movements within Japan must have lead
to numerous creole-creole contact situations. Furthermore, due to the con-
tinuous arrival of new immigrants, these languages must have been subject to
the constant process of relexification, that is, the replacement of existing
words with new words. Quite contrary to the ideas of Hudson (1999: 84) who
believes that Japanese must either be an Altaic or an Austronesian language
despite the Jōmon-Yayoi language contact, creole languages are known to
have »overlapping memberships« (Doppelzugehörigkeit) (Stein 1984: 102).
In other words, they have an affiliation to their lexical and grammatical
source language(s) as well as to their own language family, i.e. Jōmon-
Creole-Yayoi. Such constellations have never been considered in historical
196
comparative linguistics, for in the tradition of historical comparative linguis-

tics, kinship among languages are established on the premise that the core of
a language’s grammar and vocabulary is derived from one single source.
Creole languages, thus, do not have parent languages from the standpoint of
historical comparative linguistics. Moreover, through the processes of simpli-
fication and contact, pidgin and creole languages eradicate a large number of
the linguistic features that would otherwise reveal their linkage to the lan-
guages involved in the contact situation. It is possible that exactly this hap-
pened on the Japanese archipelago in the Yayoi period (300 BC – AD 300).
The processes responsible for the formation of pidgin and creole lan-
guages are hotly debated in contact linguistics. There are two general posi-
tions. One faction, most prominently represented by Bickerton (1981), argues
in favor of a universalist or bio-program hypothesis. In other words, it is
thought that innate and abstract universal grammar rules form the basic
framework of the pidgin and creole language structures. Pidgin and creole
languages thus make use of the abstract rules underlying all natural languages
while using the lexicon of one, two, or more languages involved in the given
contact situation. The ideas of Bickerton and his followers are challenged by
supporters of the substratum language hypothesis, that is, those who believe
that one of the languages involved serves as the grammatical matrix from
which the new language is developed (see Muysken and Smith 1986). In this
case, the emerging creole is seen as being the direct result of the confronta-
tion of three (or more) language systems in question (language A, language
B, A-Creole-B). Usually the native language, in our case the Jōmon lan-
guages, leaves strong traces in the emerging creole grammar, while the newly
arrived language (here, a Yayoi language) provides the major part of the
lexicon (Kaye and Tosco 2003: 58).
If the supporters of the bio-program hypothesis are right, it should be pos-
sible, in principle, to draw up an inventory of structural features that all
pidgin and creole languages share. This has, however, never been achieved.
In other words, it is not possible to tell from the structure of the Japanese-
Ryūkyūan languages whether they are creole languages or not. Holm (2000:
240) considered a compromise between the universalist and the substratum
hypothesis, stating that creoles appear to »function like any other languages
in developing a systematicity and complexity of their own which is, in the
final analysis, something quite distinct from that of either their superstrate or
their substrate«. In any case, research into the creole languages of the Atlan-
tic and the Pacific have proven that these languages cannot simply be related
to the European colonial languages (Muysken and Smith 1986). If the Japa-
nese-Ryūkyūan languages are themselves the result of creolization processes,
the question of their genealogy is an invalid one. It needs to be replaced by
investigations on the formation of Japanese-Ryūkyūan.
197
Patrick Heinrich
5. Lessons from Japanese-Ryūkyūan Genealogy Studies

So far, undisputed sound correspondences along the lines of historical
comparative linguistics have not been established, this being the only existing
means of linking Japanese-Ryūkyūan to any other language or language fam-
ily. Therefore Japanese-Ryūkyūan continues to be regarded as an otherwise
isolated language family. The present paper argues that more attention needs
to be directed to speakers and their communicative needs in prehistoric Ja-
pan. The formation of the Japanese language should not been seen as a spe-
cific event but as a process that took an entire millennium to complete. To
further elucidate the formation of Japanese-Ryūkyūan, the following ques-
tions need to be clarified. Untul now, these issues have not been put on the
research agenda of historical linguistics in the Japanese context.
– More needs to be known about the Jōmon-Yayoi contact situations, for
example, the number of immigrants, and their distribution over time and
space, from disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology, and philology.
Deeper insights into these issues would make it possible to conclude more
firmly whether a language shift took place, or whether it was due to a
creolization process. Such information is also important in understanding
which languages would have served as the grammatical sources, and
which ones as the lexical.
– It needs to be determined how far southward the Ainu languages ever
extended on the Japanese archipelago. It has been speculated that Ainu
was once spoken all to the way down to the Ryūkyū Islands and that
toponyms such as Sonai on Yonaguni and Pinai on Ishigaki may have
Ainu origins (Uemura 2003: 177).
– Dialectology and the formation of the varieties of Japanese-Ryūkyūan can
provide important insights as well. The major question is in which ways
the differences between regional languages and language varieties found
on the Japanese archipelago today can be accounted for by the languages
that were spoken there in prehistoric times.
– More detailed information on the formation and development of the Ryū-
kyūan languages would provide us important insights into the formation of
the Japanese-Ryūkyūan language family. Questions such as when and
where the Ryūkyūan languages first emerged remain largely unresolved
(Uemura 2003: 171). This is partly due to the fact that the Ryūkyūan lan-
guages continue to be treated as dialects rather than languages in their own
right in much of Japanese linguistics. In particular, the huge differences
between the languages spoken in the Miyako and Yaeyama island groups
on one hand and those spoken in the Amami and Okinawa island groups
on the other represent an interesting issue with regard to the formation of
Japanese-Ryūkyūan.
198
– Models from the field of creole linguistic, which would predict when a
language shift or creolization took place, would be appreciated.
Chaudenson (1995), for instance, draws attention to the fact that Spanish-
based creoles are largely absent despite the long history of Spanish coloni-
alism. Thus, while a French-based creole emerged in the French part of
Haiti, no creole has emerged in the Spanish part of the islands, i.e., today’s
Dominican Republic. The existence of a policy to spread the Spanish lan-
guage in the colonies of Spain appears to have been essential for trigger-
ing language shifts in its colonies, while the absence of such a language
policy led to creolization in the French part. Needless to say, language
policies did not exist in prehistoric times, and prehistoric creolization, as a
consequence, must have occurred more often than is commonly assumed.
– Finally, it should be realized and accepted that many genealogy studies
have been highly influenced by nation-imagining ideology that has
claimed linguistic unity in Japan (Oguma 2002). Much of the historical
linguistic research today continues to spout this view despite the fact that
Japan is multilingual and has always been (Maher 1995). This monolin-
gual bias can be ascertained in statements such as Takeuchi’s (1999: 6, my
emphasis added) comment on the possibility of more than one language
being used in the Yayoi period: » […] linguistic diversity – the exact na-
ture of which is unknown […]«.On the contrary, it appears more and more
probable that linguistic unity in that period was highly unlikely.
With respect to the 150 years of research into the genealogy of Japanese-
Ryūkyūan, the results that we have today are rather disillusioning. It seems
that the question of Japanese-Ryūkyūan genealogy cannot be solved by the
existing methodologies of historical comparative linguistics. Moreover, it
appears that the very question of the genealogy of Japanese-Ryūkyūan might
be an invalid one. This was pointed out as early as the 1930s when Tokieda
(1932: 211) criticized large parts of modern Japanese linguistics for naively
applying Western research questions to a Japanese context. He argued that it
needs to be considered whether research questions such as genealogy, which
had arisen in a Western context, are applicable to the Japanese context. To-
kieda had a point there.
Creole languages are inappropriate objects of research in genealogy stud-
ies within the framework of historical-comparative linguistics. On the forma-
tion of pidgin and creole languages on one hand and the method of historical-
comparative linguistics on the other, Rickford (1992: 224) wrote that the
[…] usual focus in historical/comparative linguistics is on very old lan-
guages, assumed to have descended genetically from a smaller number
of proto-languages by gradual linguistic divergence; by contrast, extant
pidgins and creoles are relatively young languages […] in which change
has been rapid and primarily convergent, particularly in their formative
periods. Pidgins and creole languages challenge some of the basic as-
199
Patrick Heinrich
sumptions of historical/comparative linguistics – e.g., that all languages

can be genetically classified, or that language mixture is limited and rare.
Kaye and Tosco (2003: 100–102) also pointed out that creolization proc-
esses prior to colonization have not yet been sufficiently studied and that this
constitutes a new and challenging field to historical linguistics; this includes
evidence that can only be discerned from accounts of the socio-historical
situations which gave rise to pre-colonial pidgins and creoles.
It will always be impossible to prove irrefutably that creolization proc-
esses underlie the prehistoric formation of a given languages. (Note, how-
ever, that in the Japanese context, the same applies to proving that it was
instead a language shift in prehistory). All that can be done is to summarize
all evidence on the formation of a specific language and to weigh the argu-
ments to decide whether a prehistoric creolization process or a pre-historic
language shift took place. The present paper comes to the conclusion that it is
highly likely that Japanese developed and emerged as a Jōmon-Creole-Yayoi
during the course of the millennium of Yayoi immigration and must be con-
sidered more seriously by scholars in the field than it has been done so far.
Furthermore, the idea of Japanese being a hybrid language, such as for in-
stance Medina Lengua or Medny Aleut, is untenable. This must be refuted. If
Japanese-Ryūkyūan are mixed languages, then the languages became mixed
to overcome communicative problems (creolization) and not to overcome
identity problems (hybridization).
Scholars in the field of historical-comparative linguistics must account for
why they consider Japanese-Ryūkyūan to have developed from one single
source. Since the Jōmon languages cannot be regarded as the ancestor lan-
guages from which Japanese-Ryūkyūan derived, the split from Japanese-
Ryūkyūan from the other languages of their language family must have oc-
curred in the Yayoi period (300 BC – AD 300). For, if Japanese-Ryūkyūan
were related to a single source, there would be sufficient cognates. The fact
that these do not exist point to two conclusions: (1) Either Japanese-
Ryūkyūan is not related to a single language family, i.e. it is a creole, or (2)
Japanese-Ryūkyūan is the sole surviving language of an otherwise extinct
language family. Future studies on the origin or the formation of Japanese-
Ryūkyūan n must concentrate on these two possibilities. While the question
of the origin of Japanese-Ryūkyūan remains unresolved, it continues to rep-
resent a relevant and challenging issue in the field of Japanese Studies, for
what the Japanese once were and what they spoke can be put to good use in
the redefinition of the Japanese identity in this age of globalization and inter-
nationalization.
200
References Cited
BARNES, Gina L. (1999): The Rise of Civilization in East Asia: The Archaeology of
China, Korea and Japan. London: Thames and Hudson.
BECKWITH, Christopher I. (2004): Koguryo. The Language of Japan’s Continental
Relatives. Leiden: Brill.
BENEDICT, Paul K. (1990): Japanese/Austro-Tai. Ann Arbor: Karoma.
BICKERTON, Derek (1981): Roots of Language. Ann Arbor: Karoma.
CHAUDENSON, Robert (1995): Les Créoles. Paris. Presses Universitaires de France.
CHEW, John J. (1976): The Pre-History of the Japanese Language in the Light of
Evidence from the Structures of Japanese and Korean. In: Asian Perspectives
19, pp. 190–200.
CHEW, John J. (1989): The Significance of Geography in Understanding the Relation-
ship of Japanese to Other Languages. In: Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasien-
forschung 12, 1, pp. 13–49.
FUJIOKA, Katsuji (1985): Nihongo no ichi [The position of Japanese]. In: Shoin Izumi
(ed.): Nihongo no keitō [The genealogy of the Japanese language]. Osaka:
Izumi Shoin, pp. 60–81. [Orig. published in 1908.]
GRIMES, Barbara F. (2000): Ethnologue. Dallas: International Academic Bookstore.
HANIHARA, Kazuro (1987): Estimation of the Number of Migrants to Japan: A Simu-
lative Study. In: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Nippon 95, 3,
pp. 391–407.
HANIHARA, Kazuo (1991): Dual Structure Model for the Population History of the
Japanese. In: Japan Review 1, pp. 35–48.
HANIHARA, Kazuo (1992): Dual Structure Model for the Population History of the
Japanese. In: Japan Review 2, pp. 1–33.
HATTORI, Shirō (1951): Onseigaku [Phonology]. Tokyo: Iwanami.
HATTORI, Shirō (1954): »Gengo nendai-gaku« sunawachi »goi tōkeigaku« no hōhō ni
tsuite – Nihon sogo no nendai [Concerning glottochronology that is the meth-
odology of lexical statistics – the age of Japan’s parent languages]. In: Gengo
kenkyū 26/27, pp. 29–77.
HATTORI, Shirō (1959): Nihongo no keitō [The genealogy of the Japanese language].
Tokyo: Iwanami.
HEINRICH, Patrick (2002): Die Rezeption der westlichen Linguistik im modernen
Japan bis zum Ende der Shōwa-Zeit. München: Iudicium.
HERBERMANN, Clemens-Peter (1997): Sprache und Sprachen. Wiesbaden: Harras-
sowitz.
HOLM, John (2000): An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
HORIOKA, Bunkichi (1927): Nihon oyobi han-taiheiyō minzoku no kenkyū [Studies on
Japan and the peoples of the Pan-Pacific region]. Tokyo: Fusanbō.
201
Patrick Heinrich
HUDSON, Mark (1999). Ruins of Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands.

Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
INOUE, Fumio (1992): Hōgen no taiyōsei to Nihon bunka no nagare [Dialect diversity
and the course of Japanese culture]. In: Nihongogaku 11, pp. 57–67.
KANAZAWA, Shōzaburū (1910): Nikkan ryōkokugo dōkei-ron [Theory on the common
origin of Japanese and Korean]. Tokyo: Sanseidō.
KAYE, Alan S. and Mauro TOSCO (2003): Pidgin and Creole Languages. München:
Lincom.
KIDDER, Edward J. Jr. (1993): The Earliest Societies in Japan. In: John Whitney HALL
et al. (eds.): The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 48–107.
KLOSE, Albrecht (1987): Sprachen der Welt. München: Saur.
KOIZUMI, Tamotsu (1998): Jōmongo no hakken [The discovery of the Jōmon
language]. Tokyo: Seidosha.
LEWIN, Bruno (1962): Aya und Hata. Bevölkerungsgruppen Altjapans kontinentaler
Herkunft. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (= Studien zur Japanologie; 3).
LEWIN, Bruno (1973): Japanese and the Language of Koguryǒ. In: Papers of the C.I.C
Far Eastern Language Institute 4, pp. 19–33.
MAHER, John C. and Kyoko YASHIRO (eds.) (1995): Multilingual Japan. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
MAHER, John C. (1996): North Kyushu Creole: A Language Contact Model for the
Origins of Japanese. In: Donald DENOON, Mark HUDSON, Gavan MCCOR-
MACK, and Tessa MORRIS-SUZUKI (eds.): Multicultural Japan: Palaeolithic to
Postmodern. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 31–45.
MARTIN, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korea. In: Lan-
guage 42, pp. 185–251.
MASHIKO, Hidenori (1997): Ideorogii to shite no »Nihon«: »Kokugo« »Nihonshi« no
chishiki shakaigaku [»Japan« as ideology: The sociology of knowledge of the
»national language« and »Japanese history«]. Tokyo: Sangensha.
MEILLET, Antoine (1925): La méthode comparative en linguistique historique. Oslo:
Aschehoug.
MILLER, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
MURAYAMA, Shichirō (1962): Kōkurigo shiryō oyobi jakkan no Nihongo kōkurigo
on’in taiō [Koguryǒ material and some Japanese-Koguryǒ phonological corre-
spondences]. In: Gengo kenkyū 42, pp. 66–72.
MURAYAMA, Shichirō (1966): Gengogaku-teki ni mita nihon bunka no kigen [The
origin of Japanese as seen from the perspective of linguistics]. In: Minzokuga-
ku kenkyū 30, 4, pp. 301–310.
MURAYAMA, Shichirō (1978): Nihongo keitō no kenkyū [Studies in Japanese geneal-
ogy]. Tokyo: Taishūkan.
202
MUYSKEN, Pieter and Norval SMITH (1986): Problems in the Identification of Substra-
tum Features. In: Pieter MUYSKEN and Norval SMITH (eds.): Substrata Versus
Universals in Creole Genesis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 1–13.
OGUMA, Eiji (2002): A Genealogy of ‘Japanese’ Self-Images. Melbourne: Trans Pa-
cific Press.
ŌNO, Susumu (1957): Nihongo no kigen [The origin of Japanese]. Tokyo: Iwanami.
ŌNO, Susumu (1974): Nihongo wo sakanoburu [Retracing the past of Japanese].
Tokyo: Iwanami.
ŌNO, Susumu (1980): Nihongo no seiritsu [The formation of Japanese]. Tokyo: Chūō
Kōronsha.
OSTLER, Nicholas (2005): Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World.
New York: HarperCollins.
PATRIE, James (1982): The Genetic Relationship of the Ainu Language. Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press.
POLIVANOV, Evgenij D. (1974): One of the Japanese-Malayan Parallels. In: Evgenij
POLIVANOV: Selected Works. The Hague: Mouton; pp. 139–140. [Orig, pub-
lished in 1918.]
RICKFORD, John R. (1992): Pidgin and Creoles. In: William BRIGHT (ed.): Interna-
tional Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Vol. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 224–232.
ROBBEETS, Martine Irma (2005): Is Japanese Related to Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic
and Turkic? Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
RUHLEN, Merrit (1987): A Guide to the World’s Languages. Stanford: Stanford Uni-
versity Press.
SHIBATANI, Masayoshi (1990): The Language of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
SHINMURA, Izuru (1971): Kokugo keitō no mondai. In: Izuru SHINMURA: Shinmura
Izuru zenshū [Collected papers of Shimura Izuru]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō,
pp. 124–132. [Orig. published in 1911.]
STEIN, Peter (1984): Kreolisch und Französisch. Niemeyer: Tübingen.
TAKEUCHI, Lone (1999): The Structure and History of Japanese. London: Longman.
THOMASON, Sarah G. and Terrence KAUFMAN (1988): Language Contact, Creolization,
and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
TŌJŌ, Misao (1927): Dai-Nihon hōgen chizu [Dialect map of Greater Japan]. Tokyo:
Ikuei Shoin.
TŌJŌ, Misao (1938): Hōgen to hōgengaku [Dialect and dialectology]. Tokyo:
Shun’yōdō Shoten.
TOKIEDA, Motoki (1932): Kokugo gakushi [History of national linguistics]. Tokyo:
Iwanami.
UEMURA, Yukio (2003): The Ryukyuan Language. Kyoto: ELPR (= Endangered
Languages of the Pacific Rim: A 4-018).
203
Patrick Heinrich
VOEGELIN, Charles F. (1977): Classification and Index of the World’s Languages.

New York: Elsevier.
VOVIN, Alexander (1993): A Reconstruction of Proto-Ainu. Leiden: Brill.
VOVIN, Alexander (1994): Is Japanese Related to Austronesian? In: Oceanic Linguis-
tics 33, 2, pp. 369–390.
WHITMAN, John (1990): A Rule of Medial *-r-loss in Pre-Old Japanese. In: Philip
BALDI (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 511–545.
YASUDA, Toshiaki (1999). Kokugo to hōgen no aida [Between ›the national language‹
and ›dialect‹]. Tokyo: Jinbun Shoin.
YASUDA, Toshiaki (2000). Kindai Nihon gengoshi saikō [Reconsidering the history of
modern Japanese]. Tokyo: Sangensha.
204
Takara Kurayoshi
Mainstream and Future Tasks of Studies in Ryūkyūan
History
1. The Five Stages of Okinawan Studies

The study of Ryūkyūan history already looks back on one hundred and
twenty years of accumulated achievements and shows a number of character-
istic stages in its evolution.
The first stage was strongly related to the political incidents in 1879, i.e.,
the abolishment of the Kingdom of Ryūkyū and the establishment of the
Okinawa Prefecture by the modern state of Japan. On that occasion there was
a clear necessity to illuminate the history and culture of the islands of Ryū-
kyū, which were about to be integrated into the Japanese territory. In the
wake of the establishment of the Okinawa Prefecture, the historical back-
ground of Ryūkyū needed to be elucidated for the purpose of assessing, re-
forming and adapting the traditional system of the Ryūkyūan kingdom to the
Japanese system. As a result, investigation as well as research were mainly
entrusted to Japanese government officials and marked by their political and
administrative intentions.
The publications Okinawa-shi (»The History of Okinawa«, published in
1877) by Ijichi Sadaka, a native of Kagoshima who took part in the estab-
lishment of the Okinawa Prefecture, and Okinawa-ken kyūkan sozei seido
(»Traditional systems of taxation in Okinawa Prefecture«) by various prefec-
tural officials (Shuku 1882), who had come to Okinawa from the main is-
lands of Japan, are representative of this stage. Ijichi’s work introduces the
history, culture and geography of Ryūkyū, which was to be included in the
Japanese state. The report prepared by the Okinawa Prefectural Administra-
tion consisted of investigations into the old systems of taxation from the time
of the Kingdom of Ryūkyū that treated them as objects of reformation.
A collection of essays by Iha Fuyū, published in 1911 under the title Ko-
Ryūkyū (»Old Ryūkyū«), represents the second stage. It was an age of active
research conducted by indigenous academics, aiming to assure their own
identity. While accepting that Okinawa was part of the Japanese state, these
authors claimed that the region of Okinawa was highly unique, one that could
not be satisfied by the given role as one of many Japanese prefectures. They
emphasized the dual nature of Okinawa seen from the historical and cultural
point of view and the fact that Okinawa existed »within Japan« as well as
»outside Japan«.
205
Takara Kurayoshi
Iha Fuyū and his contemporaries started their work at a time when the old
systems of Ryūkyū had been completely abolished and Okinawa Prefecture
had been fully integrated into the framework of modern Japan. As Okinawa
had become one of Japan’s prefectures, its inhabitants had acquired a sense
of being »Japanese«, while at the same time keeping a stronger sense of their
regional identity than in any other part of the country. They lived with a dou-
ble identity. Research into Okinawa’s history and culture was a way of prac-
tically engaging with this issue. Apart from Iha, other scholars representative
of this period were Majikina Ankō and Higashionna Kanjun.
The third stage began with the publication of Yanagita Kunio’s work
Kainan shōki (»Short description from south of the sea«) in 1925, marking
the beginning of Okinawa’s recognition as an important entity in the research
of the kosō (»ancient strata«) of Japanese culture. While it was still accepted
that Okinawan studies should help to shore up the identity of Okinawans,
these studies were now also valued as an indispensable part of research into
ancient Japan. The discipline was now evaluated from a »Pan-Japanese«
perspective.
Yanagita Kunioa organized a study group of Okinawan studies in Tokyo
and emphasized the importance of Okinawan cultural studies in its journals
and in his books. Due to his influence as the leading figure in contemporary
folklore studies, Okinawa began to draw the attention of mainly Japanese
anthropologists. Many research reports and papers were written on the sub-
ject, which share the general view on Okinawan culture, not as a distinct
entity of its own, but as a resource for investigating the »ancient strata« of
Japanese culture.
The fourth stage consists of a research trend that emerged from Okinawa’s
peculiar situation after the Second World War. As a result of Japan’s defeat,
Okinawa was separated from the area of Japanese administration and placed
under direct U.S. military rule. This condition prevailed for 27 years, from
1945 until 1972, but the Okinawan people themselves led an active political
movement that protested against US rule and in favor of a return to Japan.
The Okinawan Studies of this period characteristically focused on elucidating
»why we [i.e. the people of Okinawa] desire a return to Japan«. Concerning
history and culture, they heatedly argued that Japan was the mother country
of Okinawa and therefore the islands were an inseparable part of Japan.
The policy of »de-Japanization«, which was one of the fundamental ele-
ments of the American administration of Okinawa, formed the background of
this trend. The Americans had decided that Okinawa and Japan were cultur-
ally different entities, and that separating the former from the latter and plac-
ing it under their own direct administrative rule would not infringe upon the
identity of the Okinawan people. Institutions set up by the U.S. Government
like the »Government of Ryukyu«, the »Bank of Ryukyu«, or »Ryukyu Uni-
versity« all bore the name of Ryūkyū, while the term »Okinawa« was no
206
Mainstream and Future Tasks of Studies in Ryūkyūan History
longer used. In contrast, the powers opposing US administration and demand-

ing a return to Japan without exception used the name »Okinawa«, styling
themselves as »Okinawan Teacher’s Union« or »Council for the Return of
Okinawa Prefecture to the Motherland«, and the like. It is ironic that under
U.S. administration, »Ryūkyū« and »Okinawa« politically opposed each
other. Okinawan Studies in this period was part of the antithesis towards
American intentions.
The return of Okinawa to Japan in 1972 marked the beginning of the fifth
stage, which continues until today. This period saw a rapid progress in re-
search, with accumulating results, which shall be analyzed in closer detail
below.
2. Major Changes in the Studies of Pre-Modern History

Studies in Ryūkyūan history conducted around 1972 had two special fea-
tures. One was the appearance of young researchers of the post-war genera-
tion, who contributed to the rapid progress of the study of modern history.
The main themes of the research were the abolishment of the Kingdom of
Ryūkyū and the establishment of the Okinawan prefecture, as well as the
process of »Japanization«. In the spring of 1879, the Kingdom of Ryūkyū,
which had existed for about 500 years, was forcibly integrated into Japan and
the Prefecture of Okinawa was born. The archipelago that had become Oki-
nawa Prefecture and its inhabitants were required to adjust themselves; struc-
tures and mentalities had to become »Japanese«. Step by step, the process of
»Japanization« evolved. This problem was examined by young Okinawan
researchers who had studied history in Japan, and subsequently began to
present many remarkable theses. The journal Kindai Okinawa no rekishi to
minshū [History and the people in modern Okinawa] published by members
of the Research Society of Okinawan History (1970), is a work representative
of this period. Exemplary scholars are Kinjō Seitoku, Gabe Masao, Hiyane
Teruo, or Nishizato Kikō, who started to publish prolifically from the end of
the 1960s. As university students, Kinjō and Nishizato had studied Chinese
history, Gabe and Hiyane modern Japanese history. They very profoundly
analyzed Okinawan history from that basis.
Modern historians did not so much see the inclusion of Ryūkyū into Japan
in 1879 as a justified »integration of a people«, but took issue with its ele-
ments of violence and state authoritarianism. They began to portray the reali-
ties of the modern history of Okinawa and its contradictions, based on the
verification of several problems that had emerged during the process of »Ja-
panization« following the establishment of the Okinawa Prefecture. The
argument that Japan was Okinawa’s motherland quickly lost credibility.
Another characteristic of the study of Ryūkyūan history around 1972 was
that the field of pre-modern history fell far behind the study of modern his-
207
Takara Kurayoshi
tory. Classic publications dating from before the Second World War, repre-
sented by the works of Iha Fuyū, were still widely accepted as established
works and hardly any new studies appeared. By and large, the study of mod-
ern history had reached a high standard, yet the subject of pre-modern history
remained stagnant with few creative approaches. The works Shin Okinawa-
shi ron [A new theory of Okinawan history] by Araki Moriaki, and Ryūkyū
no jidai [The epoch of Ryūkyū] by Takara Kurayoshi, both published in
1980, marked a genuine attempt to break this dominant pattern. Araki and
Takara summarized the hitherto known research and submitted the following
insights concerning pre-modern history:
Japan and Okinawa may share common »ancient strata« of their culture.
But what was more important was the emergence of a completely different
state form compared to the mediaeval Japanese state, namely the Kingdom of
Ryūkyū, encompassing the islands of Okinawa, from the 12th to the 16th
century. The Kingdom of Ryūkyū had its own ruling system and created its
own regional principles, whilst maintaining cultural exchange with China and
other Asian countries. Araki and Takara consciously differentiated this period
of the appearance of the Ryūkyū Kingdom on the Asian stage by calling it
»Old Ryūkyū« (ko-Ryūkyū), in comparison to the term chūsei (»mediaeval«),
commonly applied to the same period in Japanese history. In the spring of
1609, Okinawa was attacked and defeated by the Satsuma army. Araki and
Takara apply the term »Early Modern Ryūkyū« to the subsequent 270 years
up to 1879, explaining that Ryūkyū managed to maintain its system of king-
ship during this period, whilst being a dependency vis-à-vis the two states of
China and Japan, each on a different level. The establishment of the Okinawa
Prefecture in the spring of 1879 was a measure to complete the incorporation
process of the islands, hitherto called Ryūkyū, into Japan. It replaced the
Ryūkyūan kingship with leadership under the modern Japanese state, as well
as instigated the resulting break in the diplomatic relations with China. Araki
and Takara positioned the incorporation into Japan of the independent king-
dom of Ryūkyū, which was established in the »Old Ryūkyū« period, as a
process that took place in two separate steps: the first the period of Early
Modern Ryūkyū, the second the events of 1879. Owing to their vision of
history, the study of early modern history, which had hitherto been conducted
on a low level, was finally able to connect to the standard upheld by the re-
search of modern history.
3. New Tendencies in Research

After the problem had been stated by Araki and Takara, the study of Early
Modern Okinawan History experienced great changes, and its development
even exceeded that of the study of modern history. One trend was the emer-
gence of an even younger generation of researchers than those involved in the
208
study of modern history. They initiated full-fledged research into the real
aspects of the Kingdom of Ryūkyū at various levels. Clarification of the
domestic situation of the Kingdom of Ryūkyū and research into the history of
its exchange with Asian countries such as China and Japan made rapid pro-
gress. Uehara Kenzen, Dana Masayuki, Tomiyama Kazuyuki, Maehira Fusa-
aki, and Asato Susumu were representative of the researchers at the time.
Uehara investigated the relations between Ryūkyū and Satsuma, Dana the
domestic system, Tomiyama and Maehira Ryūkyū’s relations with Japan and
China, and Asato the establishment of the Kingdom of Ryūkyū.
While it is true that researchers hailing from Okinawa played a major part
in the study of Ryūkyūan early modern history, the participation of research-
ers from mainland Japan and foreign countries in this subject deserves to be
mentioned as the second trend, which led to many excellent results. For 15
years now, researchers from Taiwan, China, and Korea have vigorously pub-
lished works on the history of the exchange between the Ryūkyū and other
Asian countries. The study of Ryūkyūan history has by now become an
»open stage«, on which researchers from various backgrounds participate.
The third trend was the exhaustive collection of data material that is indis-
pensable in assessing early modern history, much of which was later pub-
lished. There is no doubt that it brought great improvement to the conven-
ience of research studies. This movement has been apparent since the 1980s,
and by now there are so many existing publications that it is increasingly
difficult to digest all of them. Examples are the Ryūkyū ōkoku hyōjōsho-
monjo, a collection of administrative documents from the Kingdom of Ryū-
kyū (Ryūkyū Ōkoku Hyōjōsho Monjo Henshū Inkai 1988–2003), the Rekidai
hōan, a collection of diplomatic documents (Okinawa Kenritsu Toshokan
1992–2006), or various collections of family chronicles.
The fourth trend was the efforts of local self-governing bodies all over the
inner territories of Okinawa to compile their own history, which has become
popular since the 1980s. Through this work, which was conducted on all
levels from the prefectural government down to cities, townships, and vil-
lages, various kinds of pre-modern historical sources that had lain forgotten
in each region were dug up and many of which subsequently published. This
last step broadened the landscape of historical information immensely. But
the fruits of this history compilation did not stop at broadening the basis of
available source materials. A new way of looking at the whole of Ryūkyūan
history from a local viewpoint was established through the consideration of
local history. Thus it became possible to examine the anatomy of Ryūkyūan
history from within. Together with three younger researchers, I have con-
ducted an investigation of this movement. In our report Okinawa-ken ni
okeru chiiki rekishisho hankō jigyō no seika to sono igi [Results of the efforts
to publish local historical materials in Okinawa Prefecture and their meaning]
209
Takara Kurayoshi
(2003), we clarified its major points and compiled a database of relevant

materials.
The fifth trend is the increasing number of symposia and conferences,
which has led to an active exchange of information and opinions. This might
seem only natural in the academic world, but indeed was quite a rare occur-
rence in the field of Ryūkyūan History in the 1970s. To cite one example,
there has been an annual international conference held since 1986 that was
targeted by Okinawan, Taiwanese, and Chinese researchers. This conference
has been held in such locations as Naha, Taipei, Fujian, and Beijing, offering
a venue for an exchange of the latest research on the history of the Chinese-
Ryūkyūan relationship. International conferences such as this were nowhere
to be seen in the study of Ryūkyūan history prior to the 1970s. It is a new
movement symbolic of the trend of the fifth stage.
4. Intentions of the ›Old Ryūkyū‹ Theory

The characteristic achievement of the fifth stage in the study of Ryūkyūan
history was that it revealed the rich and manifold nature of early modern
Ryūkyūan history through careful reassessment of Okinawa’s actual condi-
tion before its incorporation into Japan in 1879, whilst introducing the Asian
viewpoint. In other words, it pursued the actual nature of Okinawa prior to
the Japanese annexation on the one hand, whilst determining the historical
significance of the Ryūkyūan Kingdom that vanished with the 1879 incident,
on the other. Here I would like to focus on my own steps within this current
research. After returning to Okinawa from studying on the Japanese mainland
in 1973, I traveled extensively within the regions and islands of Okinawa,
beginning my research by bringing to light and investigating buried materi-
als. The material I gathered was not a huge amount, yet all richly transmitted
the realities of farm life or the regional government systems during the era of
the Ryukyuan Kingdom. I also traveled to the islands of Amami (contempo-
rary Kagoshima Prefecture, Amami Island region), which belonged to the
territory of the Ryukyuan Kingdom until ceded to Satsuma as a penalty for
the defeat of Ryukyu, to find precious material dating from the Ryūkyūan
rule. In addition to that, I actively participated in the local-history-
compilation campaign headed by the Okinawa Prefecture and its cities,
towns, and villages. My effort not only resulted in publishing the various,
newly confirmed, assembled material, but my experience gave me the oppor-
tunity to gain a comprehensive view of Ryūkyū Islands history, based upon
the knowledge of concrete circumstances in various regions. I also spared no
effort in attempting to introduce the Asian viewpoint into the study of Ryū-
kyūan history. In 1974, I conducted research on Southeast Asia for the first
time (to be more precise, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.), tracing the
history of Southeast Asian relations with Ryūkyū. Upon my first visit to
210
China in 1981, I conducted field research in areas and sites that had strong
ties to Ryūkyū. Since then, I have been given many opportunities to conduct
research in Southeast Asia and China. Yet the task I pursued most energeti-
cally was to set up a network with Chinese researchers. The organization of
various projects and symposia, or international academic congresses, was
based on my efforts to establish a standpoint that enabled the assessment of
the history of Ryūkyūan-Chinese relations that considered the viewpoints and
interests of both parties involved. Throughout these ongoing activities I pur-
sued the issue of how the Kingdom of Ryūkyū was shaped as an individual
state during the ‘Old Ryūkyū’ period, with its background of networks with
other Asian nations. In my work Ryūkyū no jidai [The epoch of Ryūkyū] I
emphasized the history of Ryūkyū during the »Old Ryūkyū« period as a pe-
riod generally excluded from Japanese history, a history »foreign« to the
»standard history of Japan«. This was done with the critical purpose of clari-
fying the issue of the ›image of Japan‹, one recognized by the greater part of
the Japanese people. It was a critique of an attitude that merely extracts and
evaluates the component of the »old Japanese strata« within Okinawa and
that takes an uninterrupted genealogy of Japanese state tradition since antiq-
uity for granted. The essence of this attitude is that it devalues the history and
culture of Okinawa in its entirety as something »local« and »peculiar«, except
for and despite the part of »ancient strata« that it valued highly in a general
Japanese context. I strongly sensed a danger of Okinawan values being sealed
in the super-historical category called »ancient strata«, whilst the entirety of
Okinawa would be undermined if this type of attitude was allowed to prevail.
Even if there were a framework of Japanese state tradition unbroken since
antiquity, it would belong to the past. Japan, after the incorporation of Okinawa
in 1879, should at least be seen as an entity that comprises a region, Okinawa,
which possesses a distinctly individual character. I have consistently argued
that, after the events of 1879, we have to think of Japan as including the indi-
vidual entity of Okinawa with the addition of various other elements and, ever
since, being in a state of constant evolution. It has been necessary to firmly
elevate the image of the epoch of the Kingdom of Ryūkyū, and introduce the
new category of ‘Old Ryūkyū’ as a replacement for the older notion of »ancient
strata«.
5. Future Tasks
The study of Ryūkyūan history is conducted in a more refined manner
these days and its results maintain a high level. Foreign and native research-
ers commonly accept the significance of this kind of research. It has devel-
oped into a flourishing academic field in a way unimaginable thirty years
ago. Needless to say, there are a multitude of future tasks left to be done. As
to the fields of early modern history, the history of shipbuilding, naval tech-
211
Takara Kurayoshi
nology, industry, and science, there have been almost no studies within these
fields at all. It will also be necessary to position Ryūkyū within the network
of Asian sea areas and to examine the real existence of Ryūkyū from the open
viewpoint of pan-Asian history, and not persist on a rigid position for Ryū-
kyūan history. Confirming the existence of these researches in individual
fields, as well as the problem of the paradigm, I would still like to focus on
the existence of two other tasks.
First of all the task of compiling a volume of comprehensive Ryūkyūan his-
tory of a certain prestige and competence based on the latest academic results and
suitable for a broad audience. Moreover, this volume of Ryūkyūan history
should not only be published in English, but also translated into Chinese and
Korean at the very least, to provide information to foreign researchers. There
are many publications on the history of Ryūkyū, but unfortunately no volume
fulfilling these conditions has yet been published. In 2004, six authors includ-
ing myself have contributed to the history volume Okinawa-ken no rekishi
[The history of the Prefecture Okinawa]. This work nevertheless still contains
many problems in its contents and structure, and the task of a less flawed
history remains, and so does the realization of any translation into foreign
languages.
The second task is the necessity to consider the fundamental problem of
the significance of Ryūkyūan history studies for present-day Okinawa. It is
true that the study of Ryūkyūan history continues to develop as an academic
subject through its fifth stage and has become an »open arena« for all re-
searchers, foreign and native alike. This development has been pure delight
to a researcher dedicated to Ryūkyūan history such as myself. The task I
would like to indicate is the necessity to provide answers to the question of
why the study of Ryūkyūan history is important to Okinawa, not only based
on the process of all four stages that this subject has hitherto experienced, but
also as a problem of the fifth stage. Why is Okinawa part of Japan? How
should Japan and Asia conceive a future Okinawa? Researchers of Ryūkyūan
history should have their own opinions concerning these important questions.
But another important problem remains: how can the significance of discuss-
ing Okinawa as an historical entity assure the contemporary as well as the
future state of Okinawa? Native historians from Okinawa, at least, should be
aware of this problem. Contributions towards this task cannot be measured in
the numbers of papers or the evaluation within academic society. The histo-
rian is also challenged to deliver responsible actions as a member of present
society, as a person belonging to the contemporary age.
212
References Cited and Further References

ARAKI, Moriaki (1980): Shin-Okinawa-shi ron [History of Okinawa: a new para-
digm]. Naha: Okinawa Taimusu-sha.
ASATO, Susumu, Kurayoshi TAKARA et al. (2004): Okinawa-ken no rekishi [History
of Okinawa Prefecture]. Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha.
IHA, Fuyū (1911): Ko-Ryūkyū [Old Ryūkyū]. Naha: Okinawa Kōronsha.
IJICHI, Sadaka (1877): Okinawa-shi [The history of Okinawa]. Tokyo: Published by
the author.
OKINAWA KENRITSU TOSHOKAN (ed.) (1992–2006): Rekidai hōan [Precious docu-
ments of successive generations]. Naha: Okinawa-ken Kyōiku Iinkai.
RYŪKYŪ ŌKOKU HYŌJŌSHO MONJO HENSHŪ INKAI (ed.) (1988–2003): Ryūkyū ōkoku
hyōjōsho monjo [Administrative documents of the Kingdom of Ryūkyū]. Na-
ha: Hirugisha.
SHUKU, Tatsumi (ed.) (1882): Okinawa-ken kyūkan sozei seido [Traditional systems
of taxation in Okinawa Prefecture]. n.p.: no publisher.
TAKARA, Kurayoshi (1980): Ryūkyū no jidai [The epoch of Ryūkyū]. Tokyo: Chi-
kuma Shobō.
TAKARA, Kurayoshi (1980): Okinawa rekishiron josetsu [Prolegomena to a theory of
Okinawan history]. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō.
TAKARA, Kurayoshi et al. (2003): Okinawa-ken ni okeru chiiki rekishisho hankō jigyō
no seika to sono igi [Results of the efforts to publish local historical materials
in the Prefecture Okinawa and their meaning]. Naha: Nansei Chiiki Sangyō
Kasseika Sentā.
TOMIYAMA, Kazuyuki (2003): Ryūkyū/Okinawa-shi no sekai [The world of Ryū-
kyūan/Okinawan history]. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan.
TAKARA, Kurayoshi (2006): Ryūkyūshi kenkyū o meguru 40 nen. In: Okinawa bunka
100.
YANAGITA, Kunio (1925): Kainan shōki [Short description from south of the sea].
Tokyo: Ōokayama Shoten.
213
Gregory Smits
Recent Trends in Scholarship on the History of
Ryūkyū’s Relations with China and Japan
The concrete details of Ryūkyū’s foreign relations – its interactions with

Ming and Qing China on the one hand and Satsuma and the bakufu on the
other – are the key to understanding royal authority between 1609 and 1879.
The changing nature of royal authority is also the key to comprehending the
logic behind the major changes that took place in Ryūkyūan society and do-
mestic politics during this time. Ryūkyū’s foreign relations serve as a lens
through which we can view the limits of Satsuma’s power and the extent of
Ryūkyūan autonomy. Zooming out and looking at the broader context of East
Asia, the lens of Ryūkyūan foreign relations can provide insights into the
nature of the kingdom’s larger neighbors. Tomiyama Kazuyuki (2004: 302–
303), for example, concludes Ryūkyū ōkoku no gaikō to ōken in part by char-
acterizing Japan’s bakuhan state as a »small empire«, one that included for-
eign countries and peoples from Hokkaidō through the Ryūkyū Islands.
Tomiyama’s main task, however, is not to use Ryūkyū to shed light on Japan
or China, but to examine Ryūkyūan autonomy and royal authority through
the details of foreign relations, broadly defined. Early-modern (kinsei) Ryū-
kyū existed as a quasi-autonomous country because of its active engagement
with a far-flung network of foreign relations. The major trend in recent stud-
ies of Ryūkyūan history has been to re-evaluate the nature of the Ryūkyūan
state through its interactions with China, Satsuma, and the bakufu. With an
emphasis on Tomiyama’s recent masterful synthesis of research in this area,
this paper discusses some of the recent trends in scholarship on Ryūkyūan
history. I begin first by briefly placing these trends in their own historical
context, starting with the period of postwar United States occupation of Oki-
nawa.1
Historical Scholarship in the Service of Reversion

Between the end of the Pacific War and Okinawa’s reversion to Japan in
1972, a foreign army occupied and controlled Okinawa. Particularly in light
of mainland Japanese economic prosperity, Okinawans pressed with increas-
1 My summary of the history of historical writing about the Ryūkyū Kingdom in the
following sections loosely follows a similar analysis presented by Tomiyama
(2004: 2–13), but with some modification and additions.
215
Gregory Smits
ing vigor for a political reunification with Japan. Historical scholarship of this
period often reflected the realities and pressing issues of the day. In the broad-
est sense, historians tended more often to examine Okinawa’s post 1879 history
than to deal with the Ryūkyū Kingdom, whose very existence suggested at least
some degree of separation from Japan. Historical writing about the early-
modern kingdom tended to minimize the cultural, diplomatic, and political
significance of Ryūkyū’s relations with China, often echoing Higashionna
Kanjun’s tendency to dismiss the Chinese investiture of Ryūkyūan kings as
mere pro forma ritual in the service of trade.2 Similarly, there was a strong
tendency to regard the early-modern Ryūkyūan state as a puppet of Satsuma.3
In the realm of culture, the emphasis was on Japanese influences on Ryū-
kyū. The earlier views of Higashionna, and to some extent Iha Fuyū, regard-
ing the development of Ryūkyūan culture continued to influence interpreta-
tions during the immediate postwar decades. Higashionna explained the cul-
tural differences between Okinawa and the Japanese mainland as unnatural
artifacts from Satsuma’s selfish policy of using Ryūkyū in the manner of a
cormorant to extract wealth from China. Iha, relying on notions of »racial«
similitude, also regarded Ryūkyūan culture as having a natural affinity with
that of the Japanese mainland.4 The basic message of the pre-reversion period
was similar: Okinawans should properly be part of Japan. Historical scholar-
ship tended to emphasize this point.
A good example of this point is the treatment of Ryūkyū’s 18th century.
This century was a time of strong Chinese and Confucian influence on a wide
range of material and non-material culture, including royal symbolism and
ritual, the ideological basis of royal authority, the writing of official histories,
tombs, the introduction of fungshui (Jp. fūsui), and even the design of ships
(the Ryūkyūan maaran-sen of the late 18th century). Consider the description
of this era in a well-known general history published in 1972. Shinzato Keiji,
Taminato Tomoasa, and Kinjō Seitaku devote an entire chapter to »the flour-
ishing of culture« (Bun’un no ryūsei), mainly during the eighteenth century,
in Okinawa-ken no rekishi. The discussion begins with:
Following Shimazu’s invasion, Okinawa took in Japanese mainland (Nihon
hondo) culture anew, digested it, and gave birth to its own distinctive
culture. While there were aspects of Ryukyuan subjectivity (shutaisei)
that withered away before the wall of Shimazu’s vast power, owing to
regular contact with Shimazu, mainland culture came into Ryukyu,
2 See, for example, Chapter 9 (»Chōkō kankei«) of Higashionna 1978b: 33 or sec-

tion 4 (»Sakuhō shinkō wa keizaijō no giman kōdō nari«) in Higashionna 1978a:
205–7; see also Tomiyama 2004: 7–8.
3 A good example of this approach is Higuchi 1975; although published in 1975,
much of the research for the volume predated reversion; see also Tomiyama 2004:
2.
4 See, for example, Smits 1999: 151–152 and Higashionna 1978c: 224–235.
216
The History of Ryūkyū’s Relations with China and Japan
which stimulated a cultural revival. (Shinzato, Taminato, and Kinjō

1972: 119)
What about China? It seems almost conspicuous by its absence in this pas-
sage. Although there were some Japanese elements in Ryūkyū’s cultural
revival, the main influence was overwhelmingly Chinese. The chapter in
Okinawa-ken no rekishi ends with a discussion of the kanshō system of send-
ing Ryūkyūan students to China, but otherwise it minimizes any mention of
Chinese influences. Notice also the awkwardness of the quoted passage in
dealing with Ryūkyūan subjectivity and in the repeated use of the word
»mainland« (hondo), implying, of course, that kinsei Ryūkyū was Japan.
Although this usage (and, in other works form this period, terms like waga
hondo, »our mainland«, or sokoku, »the motherland«) was common in the
1960s and early 1970s, it is rare in works from the 1980s and later. Finally,
notice that it was »Shimazu« that invaded Ryūkyū and caused its subjectivity
to wither, not »Satsuma«, a term that might suggest a foreign geographical
entity.
By contrast, recent histories of Ryūkyū typically devote extensive cover-
age to the influx of Chinese culture during the eighteenth century. Akamine
Mamoru is typical in this regard. Ryūkyū ōkoku: Higashi Ajia no kōnaasutōn
includes a chapter called »The Sinificiation of Ryūkyū« (»›Chūgokuka‹ shite
yuku Ryūkyū«). It begins with the complex dynamics of Ryūkyū diplomacy
vis-à-vis Japan and China and then discusses such topics as the introduction
of Chinese ritual forms, fungshui, the diffusion of Confucian morality, Chi-
nese-style official histories, the spread of popular Daoism, and Chinese mari-
time culture, including maaran ships (Akamine 2004: 114–131). Later chap-
ters discuss Ryūkyū’s tribute trade with China in detail. Viewed from the
vantage point of 2004, kinsei Ryūkyū looked much more Chinese than it did
in 1972. A major reason for this difference was changes in political concerns
following reversion. By 1980, a new generation of historians was beginning
to make its presence known.
Paradigm Shift: 1980 Through the Early 1990s

In 1976, Taminato Tomoaki adumbrated a vision of early-modern Ryūkyū
as a foreign country within the territory of Satsuma. In 1980, Araki Moriaki
refined Taminato’s basic idea, and, later in the decade, Takara Kurayoshi
proposed the influential formula of Ryūkyū as a foreign country within the
bakuhan system (bakuhan taisei no naka no ikoku). Not only with respect to
this point, but in many other ways, the work of Araki and Takara during the
1980s was so influential that Tomiyama speaks of an Araki-Takara schema
causing a paradigm shift in the study of Okinawan history. Among other
contributions, Takara’s close study of the documents used to appoint royal
officials (jireisho) led to a more nuanced understanding of the similarities
217
Gregory Smits
and differences between »Old-Ryūkyū« (ko-Ryūkyū, i.e., Ryūkyū prior to

1609) and early-modern Ryūkyū. Takara stressed the historical significance
of Old-Ryūkyū in shaping the nature of early-modern Ryūkyū.5 During the
1980s, Dana Masayuki investigated kafu of Ryūkyū’s aristocratic households,
a type of source largely overlooked by other historians. His major work,
Okinawa kinseishi no shosō was published in 1992. It went a long way to-
ward clarifying the nature of Ryūkyūan status distinctions (mibunsei), the
working of local government, and offered a sophisticated analysis of Ryū-
kyū’s official histories.6
In contrast with previous decades, during the 1980s there was increased
interest in Ryūkyū’s connections with China. Miyata Toshihiko, for example,
examined trade between Ryūkyū and Qing China through the Rekidai hōan
and published his results in 1984 (Miyata 1984). Because Miyata did not
consider Satsuma or any other aspect of the broader context of Ryūkyū’s
trade relations, his study is of limited value. More important is Uehara Ken-
zen’s Sakoku to han bōeki: Satsuma-han no Ryūkyū mitsubōeki (1981). Al-
though Uehara focuses mainly on interactions between Ryūkyū and Satsuma,
his study also had much to say about Ryukyu’s interactions with China. Per-
haps the most sophisticated work on Ryūkyū-China interactions during the
1980s was Itokazu Kaneharu’s research on the spread and influence Neo-
Confucian in Ryūkyū. Itokazu performed a philosophical analysis on the
major writings of Sai On, analyzing them in terms of the thought of Cheng Yi
and Zhu Xi. Furthermore, he contextualized Sai On’s Cheng-Zhu Neo-
Confucian thought in the local circumstances of Ryūkyūan history.7 Other
important research during the 1980s on aspects of Ryūkyū’s interactions with
China was conducted by Shimajiri Katsutarō, Kubo Noritada, Harada Nobuo,
Tsuzuki Akiko, Xu Gongsheng, Maehira Fusaaki, and others.
The 1980s was also a time of advances in our understanding of the intrica-
cies Ryūkyū’s connections with Satsuma and the bakufu. In addition to the
work of Uehara mentioned above, Kamiya Nobuyuki’s 1990 monograph
Bakuhansei kokka no Ryūkyū shihai was a major contribution, which took
into account the broader East Asian context. He examined the nature of Ryū-
kyū-Satsuma relations in the context of the Ming-Qing transition as well as
bakufu objectives (Kamiya 1990 and Tomiyama 2004: 4–5). Kamiya’s re-
search was instrumental in laying the foundation for the view of early-
5 Tomiyama 2004: 2–3, 10; Araki 1980; among Takara Kurayoshi’s many books, a
good example of his use of jiresisho and his argument that pre-1609 Ryūkyū con-
tributed much to the nature of kinsei Ryūkyū is Ryūkyū ōkoku no kōzō (Takara
1987). For an explanation of his characterization of early-modern Ryūkyū as a for-
eign country within the bakuhan system, see Takara, Ryūkyū ōkokushi no kadai
(Takara 1989: 392).
6 See also Tomiyama 2004: 3–4.
7 Representative examples of Itokazu’s essays are 1986 and 1989.
218
modern Ryūkyū as existing within a geo-political »space« created in part by

the lack of formal diplomatic relations between the Chinese court and the
bakufu.8 Other important research in Ryūkyū-Satsuma/bakufu relations dur-
ing the 1980s was conducted by Miyagi Eishō, Kishaba Kazutaka, Umeki
Tetsuto, Nakachi Tetsuo, Maehira Fusaaki, and others.
Broadening Trends
One of the characteristics of the boom in scholarship on Ryūkyū during
the 1980s and beyond was the exploitation of new sources and the re-
interpretation of old ones. Another contributing factor to the sophistication of
this work was greater appreciation for and knowledge of the complexities of
the bakuhan state and its foreign relations, as well as similar depth with re-
spect to China. In 1980, for example, it was still common to employ the term
sakoku as an important characteristic of the Tokugawa state. A decade later,
however, the notion that foreign relations were an insignificant component of
the bakuhan state was no longer tenable. Today, the sub-field of Tokugawa-
period foreign relations is a vigorous area of academic inquiry that has pro-
duced a large literature. Not only is it now common to regard Ryūkyū as fully
part of a network that extended throughout East Asia, but it is also common
practice to view Japan’s bakuhan state in the same manner. 9 Ryūkyū, of
course, figures prominently in this literature on Tokugawa foreign relations.
Itokazu’s research in intellectual history mentioned above is another ex-
ample of scholars of Ryūkyū broadening their range of expertise beyond
local matters. In this case, Itokazu familiarized himself with the major schol-
arly works in Chinese Neo-Confucianism, which made possible his sophisti-
cated analysis of Sai On’s essays. Prior to Itokazu’s research, scholars of
Ryūkyū often noted the influence of Confucianism on figures like Junsoku
Tei or On Sai, but only Maeda Giken made any serious attempt to analyze
Ryūkyūan Confucianism. Maeda’s lack of depth in Neo-Confucianism and
Chinese intellectual history, however, tended to limit his analysis to formal
aspects of academic life such as lineages of scholars.
8 This view can be found in Smits 1999 and in Tomiyama 2004.

9 The first monograph to challenge conventional understandings of sakoku was Ronald
Toby 1984; a Japanese translation appeared in 1990 as Kinsei Nihon no kokka keisei
to gaikō. Nishijima Sadao’s important Nihon rekishi no kokusai kankyō (1985) cov-
ers the Tokugawa period was well as earlier eras. The work of Nagazumi Yōko has
been especially important in establishing the sub-filed of Tokugawa-period foreign
relations; see, for example, Nagazumi 1990. Another important early study was
Yamamoto 1989. Among scholars specializing in Ryūkyūan history, Maehira
Fusaaki has been especially active in contributing to the literature on Tokugawa-
period foreign relations; see, for example, Maehira 1997.
219
Gregory Smits
Benefiting greatly from the 1980s boom in historical scholarship, I began

researching early-modern Ryūkyūan history, first from the perspective of
intellectual history and Confucianism and later with respect to questions of
Ryūkyūan identity and royal authority.10 Among other things, I argue that Sai
On’s Confucianism and his political agenda was based on the concept of
quan (Jp. ken, »situational weighing«). Furthermore, despite his stance as a
vigorous opponent of Buddhism, Sai On admired Shakyamuni (or his pecu-
liar image of Shakyamuni), and, indeed, seemed to have regarded himself as
Ryūkyū’s Shakyamuni. With respect to royal authority, I argue for a strong
influence of Shingon Buddhism in Old-Ryūkyū conceptions of solar power
and its relations to royal authority (i.e. tedako shisō). During the early-
modern period, I stressed the Sinificaiton and Confucianization of Ryūkyūan
elite society as Sai On’s vision of Ryūkyū became dominant. Furthermore,
looking at the larger picture, I argue for »a substantial degree of Ryūkyūan
autonomy and agency within a political and diplomatic matrix commonly
described as ›dual attachment to Japan and China‹ (Nitchū ryōzoku)« (Smits
1999: 155).
It is precisely this point – that Nitchū ryōzoku and similar slogans are in-
sufficient because they overlook the key element of Ryūkyūan autonomy –
which Tomiyama emphasizes in Ryūkyū ōkoku no gaikō to ōken. His notes,
however, list only Japanese-language sources. Tomiyama’s earlier work was
a major contribution to my conclusions in Visions of Ryukyu, and clearly the
similitude of the two books is a case of researchers of similar orientations
coming to the same conclusions. Tomiyama is typical in his reliance only on
Japanese-language sources. There is some truth to the claim that Ryū-
kyū/Okinawan studies has become »international«. After all, there is a small
but growing body of scholarship in Chinese, English, Italian, and other lan-
guages.11 While all of this scholarship naturally draws heavily on Japanese
sources, the various languages of the final products present genuine barriers
to a full exchange of ideas. Translation is probably the only practical solution
to overcoming these barriers.
Ryūkyū ōkoku gaikō to ōken

For the remainder of the paper I will examine select aspects of Tomi-
yama’s Ryūkyū ōkoku gaikō to ōken (2004), a book that constitutes a major
advance in the conceptualization of Ryūkyūan history. The overall goal of the
10 An example in the realm of intellectual history is Smits 1996; for a study of royal
authority that includes both Old-Ryūkyū and early-modern Ryūkyū, see Smits
2000; Smits 1999 combines both of these topics to examine competing concep-
tions of Ryūkyū as a state and a society, mainly during the eighteenth century.
11 Rosa Caroli (1999), for example, has written a comprehensive history of Okinawa
in Italian.
220
book is to move beyond the view of Ryūkyū as a country with dual attach-
ment or subordination to Japan and China (Nitchū-ryōzoku) or as a foreign
country within the bakuhan state by assessing royal authority and the extent
of Ryūkūan autonomy in a variety of areas. One key methodological point is
that such an assessment requires a close look at concrete details to see the
precise boundaries of the king’s authority. Although occasionally Tomiyama
engages in entirely new research, in many instances he draws on the work of
other scholars for the needed details. In this way, Ryūkyū ōkoku gaikō to ōken
serves as a synthesis of major research to date. It is much more than a compi-
lation or summary of past research, however, because at all times Tomiyama
brings the research of other scholars to bear on the problem of royal authority
and Ryūkyūan autonomy. Additionally, Tomiyama frequently points out
areas in need of further research.
The general organization of Ryūkyū ōkoku gaikō to ōken is to examine
Ryūkyū’s relations with a focus on China and then to do the same with a
focus in Satsuma and the bakufu. A final section combines both approaches
to create a Shuri-centered composite image of royal authority and its limits.
The result is that instead of seeing Ryūkyū as a puppet or subordinate state to
either China or Japan, it emerges as a vigorous actor in its own right, using its
role as a link between China and Japan to maximum advantage. Within this
general organizational scheme, Tomiyama discusses a remarkable array of
specific topics, including royal clothing and accouterments, the influence of
the Ming court on the government structure of Old-Ryūkyū, judicial affairs,
maritime disputes, repatriation of shipwrecked sailors, diplomatic crises, post
1609 Ryūkyūan resistance to and cooperation with Satsuma, taxation, fi-
nances, changes in the form of royal rites, ceremonies, and official oaths,
expansion of royal authority within Ryūkyū, and much more.
Owing to limited space, I will discuss only three of the many topics in
Ryūkyū ōkoku gaikō to ōken, each of which serves as a good example of
Tomiyama’s approach and contributions. The topics are: 1) Shō Nei’s resis-
tance to Satsuma after his return to Okinawa in 1611; 2) Shō Hō’s under-
standing of the new East Asian order in which Ryūkyū found itself and his
attempt to create a »space« for Ryūkyū between China and Japan; and 3)
networks of authority as revealed by oath swearing.
On the twenty-eighth day of the 10th month, 1611, less than ten days after
he had returned to Shuri from Kagoshima, a letter from the Shimazu daimyō
arrived for King Shō Nei. After making reference to Satsuma’s recent inva-
sion of Ryūkyū and explaining its cause as improper conduct on Ryūkyū’s
part, the letter went on to say that Ryūkyū should devote itself wholeheart-
edly to establishing trade between the Ming China and Japan out of gratitude
for Shimazu having allowed Shō Nei to return to his throne. It explained that
during the time Shō Nei was in Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu was thinking about
dispatching soldiers from Kyūshū to China. Thanks, however, to Shimazu’s
221
Gregory Smits
intervention, telling Ieyasu about Ryūkyū’s potential for restoring trade with
China, he suspended these plans. The letter went on to lay out three possible
courses of action for this restoration of trade, which Ryūkyū was supposed to
discuss with Chinese officials. The letter ended on an ominous note, saying
that failure of diplomacy would mean war and bloodshed, and that Ming
must choose between commerce or invasion. Two years later, Satsuma’s
advisor on foreign affairs, Bunshi Nanpo, composed another letter to Shō
Nei. Commonly known as the »Gunmonsho«, it was nearly identical in con-
tent to the previous one from Shimazu. The Gunmonsho, too, stated that a
failure in diplomacy would result in the shōgun assembling a large force in
Kyūshū and invading China (Tomiyama 2004: 147–149).
Did Shō Nei’s government bow to this pressure and cooperate in the man-
ner specified by Satsuma? Different historians have offered different an-
swers, but Tomiyama argues that Shō Nei did not convey the Gunmonsho to
the Ming court. Instead, his officials worked vigorously to restore Ryūkyū’s
tribute trade, then following a once in ten year schedule, to its normal sched-
ule of once in two years. Moreover, a 1614 letter from Shō Nei to the Board
of Rites stated that Ryūkyū had severed all ties with Japan. No Chinese or
Japanese documents indicate that Ryūkyū pursued the approach specified in
the »Gunmonsho« and one clearly states that Ryūkyū rejected it. By 1615,
Satsuma seems to have resigned itself to failure in restoring direct Ming-
Japanese trade, and settled for a restoration of the normal tribute trade as the
next best option. Not only did Shō Nei refuse to facilitate Ming-Japanese
trade, he actively worked against it. Indeed, Shō Nei discovered a plan by
Nagasaki daikan Murayama Tōan to invade Taiwan and use it as a base for
trading with Ming China, and the Ryūkyūan king sent a letter or warning to
Ming officials. Murayama’s attack proved ineffective (only one of his 13
ships reached Taiwan owing to unfavorable winds, and local resistance drove
it away), but Ming officials praised Ryūkyū’s loyalty, likening it to an earlier
warning about Hideyoshi’s invasion. In short, even while ostensibly under
Shimazu control, Shō Nei continued to pursue the same policy as he did be-
fore 1609, providing intelligence about Japanese actions to Ming China
(Tomiyama 2004: 147–157).
Here we see a remarkable degree of defiance of Satsuma, but there was lit-
tle direct action Satsuma could take in this situation without jeopardizing
Ryukyu’s link with China altogether. Shimazu hoped for a more compliant
king to succeed Shō Nei and worked behind the scenes to expand the role of
Prince Zashiki, the likely crown prince, in the royal government. Prince
Zashiki eventually took the throne as Shō Hō (r. 1621–1640) and proved
much more willing to work with Satsuma. It is important to note, however,
that the royal family and top Ryūkyūan officials had de facto veto power over
any attempts by Satsuma to impose its choice of king. The reason was that
the king would not be able to receive investiture from China unless the royal
222
family and leading officials endorsed his taking the throne via a document
called a ketsujō. Satsuma could and did try to influence the process of royal
succession and the appointment of leading officials but the final decision was
mainly a function of internal Ryūkyūan politics. Indeed, it proved difficult to
convince the Ming court to invest Shō Hō owing to suspicions of Japanese
interference. Ultimately Ming authorities required the submission of three
separate ketsujō before they became sufficiently convinced of Shō Hō’s le-
gitimacy to order his investiture (Tomiyama 2004: 67–69, 159–162).
Shō Hō’s reign took place at approximately the same time that bakufu-
imposed restrictions on trade in Japan made Ryūkyū’s link to China all the
more valuable. It was also at this time that Satsuma sought to alleviate its
growing financial crisis, in part by expanding trade with China. Shō Hō
seems to have been the first prominent Ryūkyūan who fully understood the
kingdom’s new international circumstances. Specifically, he realized that
Ryūkyū’s continued existence as a quasi-autonomous entity – something
other than just a territory in Satsuma’s domains – was a function of investi-
ture of Ryūkyūan kings by the Chinese emperor and service to Satsuma.
Service to Satsuma mainly meant serving as a conduit for trade. Although
obvious in hindsight, the link between investiture and Satsuma’s control was
not obvious to many Ryūkyūan officials in the 1620s and 30s.
Recognizing the importance of Ryūkyū’s economic service to Satsuma
was one thing, but putting it into practice proved much more difficult. One
problem was that many of the kingdom’s officials, especially those who han-
dled the China trade, consistently sought to undermine Shimazu’s interests by
focusing on their own personal trade while in China and buying inferior
goods for Satsuma. Indeed, as a result of these actions, Satsuma’s initial
attempts to profit from the China trade were unsuccessful. Shimazu laid the
blame for this situation on Ryūkyū (Tomiyama 2004: 68–69).
Shō Hō attempted to repair this rift with Satsuma in various ways. In the
eleventh month of 1632, the king announced in a series of memos that, as a
group, the Ryūkyūan officials in charge of the China trade are hostile to Sat-
suma and that henceforth any dereliction of duty would be punished. A series
of specific punishments – often confiscation of property or banishment but
sometimes the death penalty – for a variety of officials followed almost im-
mediately (Tomiyama 2004: 176–177). Shō Hō took these measures in an-
ticipation of arrival of investiture envoys in 1633. This crackdown on anti-
Satsuma trade officials was part of a larger plan orchestrated by the king, his
top officials, and Satsuma for taking maximum advantage of investiture to
engage in trade. The bakufu itself endorsed such efforts, having told Shimazu
that trade with China via Ryūkyū could be an effective way to alleviate the
shortage of certain Chinese goods in Japanese markets (Tomiyama 2004: 70–
71).
223
Gregory Smits
Shō Hō’s move against obstructionist trade officials was only one aspect
of the preparations for arrival of the investiture envoys. At the end of the
eighth month, 1662, a directive from Satsuma arrived in Shuri. Addressed to
the Sessei and Sanshikan, it specified in great detail a wide range of financial
and shipping logistics in the context of aggressive strategies for maximizing
the tribute trade with China. In one example, Ryūkyū was to propose that it
send a congratulatory envoy to China at the start of each year and on the
emperor’s birthday. Tomiyama points out that historians have often cited this
directive as evidence that Ryūkyū was a puppet of Satsuma. Such a reading,
however, is at odds with the language of the document, which clearly makes
reference to past discussions between Ryūkyūan and Satsuma officials and
acknowledges Ryūkyūan input. The document summarized what was in ef-
fect a joint economic venture, with Satsuma providing most of the capital and
Ryūkyū providing expertise and the ability to execute the plan. Incidentally,
Ryūkyū was able, for the most part, to follow the plan laid out in the docu-
ment, and it managed to send four ships to China in the space of one and a
half years between 1633 and 1635. Ultimately, however, the Ryūkyū-
Satsuma plan aggressively to pursue trade in China caused a backlash of
restrictions by Chinese authorities. For example, when Ming officials discov-
ered that Ryūkyūans had exceeded the limit on raw silk purchases by 600%,
they confiscated the silk. The matter then led to a ban on Ryūkyūan pur-
chases of raw silk that was not lifted until 1645 – just in time for trade to stop
owing to the fall of the Ming dynasty (Tomiyama 2004: 274–280). Satsuma
struggled throughout much of the seventeenth century to realize a profit from
the Ryūkyū-China trade.
Shō Hō understood that Satsuma’s capital was essential for funding Ryū-
kyū’s tribute trade and that investiture and the tribute trade were essential for
the continued viability of Ryūkyū as a distinct country. Although the plans
that he and his officials made with Satsuma failed to produce the intended
results in the short term, they helped forge the basic logic of the early-modern
kingdom. In a letter to a Ryūkyūan envoy on his way to China in 1640 to
petition for an end to the ban on the purchase of raw silk, Shō Hō explained
that he had personally visited a variety of religious sites and prayed for the
success of the petition. He next explained the shortage of Chinese goods in
Japan in the wake of the bakufu’s 1639 prohibition of Portuguese vessels has
created a potentially profitable opportunity for Ryūkyū. Realizing that profit,
however, depended on cooperation with Shimazu (Tomiyama 2004: 70–71).
Shō Nei demonstrated one variety of Ryūkyūan autonomy via his refusal to
cooperate with Satsuma. Whatever his personal feelings for Shimazu may
have been, Shō Hō knew that Ryūkyū’s future as a kingdom depended on
acting judiciously to create and occupy the geo-political space between the
bakuhan state and the Chinese empire.
224
Tomiyama examines the contours of Ryūkyūan royal authority from a va-

riety of angles. One of them is oaths (seiyaku). The custom of swearing oaths
of fealty almost certainly predates the Satsuma invasion of 1609, but the
details are unclear. According to the Ryūkyūkoku yuraiki, we can conclude
that early Ryūkyūan oath swearing, like similar practices in medieval Japan,
often consisted of drinking »sacred water« (jinzui) into which the ashes of the
burnt text of the oath had been placed. The range of officials swearing oaths
circa the turn of the seventeenth century was limited to the royal government
in Shuri and did not extend beyond the capital. During the early-modern
period, the practice of swearing oaths of fealty to the king expanded to the
whole of Ryūkyū, and often took on coercive overtones when officials dis-
patched from the capital required local leaders to swear loyalty to the king.
Oath-administering officials (jinzui kensha) were apparently dispatched to
each magiri and to the major islands. For example, we know that in 1632 (11
years after Shō Hō ascended the throne), Ueekata Tomigusuku of the Sanshikan
was dispatched to Yaeyama as a »royal oath envoy«. Then, in 1645 (Shō Shitsu
took the throne in 1641), »sacred water« envoys were dispatched to Yaeyama
and Miyako. When Shō Tei took the throne in 1669, »sacred water« envoys were
dispatched to Kunigami, Iejima, and Iheya Island, and they also inspected those
regions to report on the extent to which their conditions had deteriorated. Shō Eki
took the throne in 1710, and three years later loyalty oath ceremonies were en-
acted at Yaeyama at Tōrinji. Similar oaths would have been carried out in Naha
and in each magiri soon after a new king ascended the throne.
Significantly, Satsuma promoted these loyalty oaths. For example, in con-
junction with formal approval for Shō Shitsu to become king in 1648, it de-
creed that »sacred water« rites be performed throughout Ryūkyū following
past examples. We see here an interesting link to the practice of the Ryū-
kyūan king submitting a document to Satsuma swearing loyalty to Shimazu.
In other words, officials from throughout Ryūkyū would swear loyalty to the
king, who would in turn swear loyalty to the rulers of Satsuma, who, of
course, swore loyalty to the bakufu. Loyalty oaths within Ryūkyū reflect the
expanding power of the Ryūkyūan king within his domains. This expansion
of power, however, was in large part the result of Ryūkyū’s ties to Satsuma.
We see a similar pattern in many other realms such as Satsuma’s financial
support for Ryūkyū’s tribute trade (Tomiyama 2004: 286–288).
Ryūkyū’s relationship with China and Japan’s bakuhan state was complex,
evolving and multifaceted. It is difficult to describe accurately in sweeping
generalizations. In Ryūkyū ōkoku no gaikō to ōken Tomiyama advances our
knowledge of early modern Ryūkyū by painstakingly mapping out the contours
and boundaries of royal authority in many different realms, relying on the
wealth of empirical research that historians have produced in recent decades. In
the process he gives full weight to the reality of Ryūkyūan autonomy without
denying or marginalizing Satsuma’s power and interests or those of any other
225
Gregory Smits
entity in the web of diplomatic and economic relations that extended from
Beijing through Fujian, across to Ryūkyū, and up to Satsuma and then to Edo.
In addition to rejecting simple formulae such as »Nitchū-ryōzoku«, Tomi-
yama’s mapping process identifies numerous areas where more research is
needed. Indeed he ends his book with a call for more research on trans-oceanic
relations between China, Ryūkyū, and Japan below the level of official trade. One
topic he mentions is drifters and shipwrecked sailors (Tomiyama 2004: 303). The
recent work of Miki Watanabe on this topic is a good example of research that
will expand, and possibly modify, the contours Tomiyama has laid out. For ex-
ample, Watanabe’s investigation of Ryūkyūan repatriation of shipwrecked Chi-
nese and Koreans led her to conclude that Ryūkyū used the necessity of conceal-
ing its connection with Satsuma from foreign eyes in part to shield itself from
interference by Satsuma, thus creating a zone for autonomous action (Watanabe
2005: 28–29). With respect to Ryūkyū’s 1694 decision to change the way it repa-
triated Chinese and Korean castaways (implemented from 1697 onward), sending
them directly to China instead of through Nagasaki, Watanabe and Tomiyama
come to somewhat different conclusions. Tomiyama stresses Ryūkyū’s making
the decision on its own, without consulting Satsuma (much to Satsuma’s irrita-
tion), and reads it as an example of Ryūkyūan autonomy (Tomiyama 2004: 81–
84). Watanabe interprets the change in terms of a clash of two different interna-
tional orders, Japanese (Nihon-gata ka-i kannen) and Chinese (Chūgoku-gata
sekai chitsujo). Given the circumstances, there really was no choice but to change
to direct repatriation. Therefore, the matter was not really a case of Ryūkyū exer-
cising its autonomy (Watanabe 2006: 24–25).
Obviously debate over difficult and contentious issues such as early mod-
ern royal authority and the extent of Ryūkyūan autonomy will continue. It is
likely that, at least in the near future, Tomiyama’s Ryūkyū ōkoku no gaikō to
ōken will play a major role in framing the terms of this debate.
References Cited
AKAMINE, Mamoru (2004): Ryūkyū ōkoku: Higashi Ajia no kōnaasutōn. Tokyo: Kō-
dansha.
CAROLI, Rosa (1999): Il mito dell’omogeneità Giapponese: storia di Okinawa. Milan:
FrancoAngeli.
DANA, Masayuki (1992): Okinawa kinseishi no shosō. Naha: Hirugisha.
HIGASHIONNA, Kanjun (1978a): Okinawa shōgai shi. In: RYŪKYŪ SHINPŌSHA (comp.):
Higashionna Kanjun zenshū, vol. 1. Tokyo: Dai’ichi Shobō. [Orig. 1951.]
HIGASHIONNA, Kanjun (1978b): Ryūkyū no rekishi. In: RYŪKYŪ SHINPŌSHA (comp.):
Higashionna Kanjun zenshū. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Dai’ichi Shobō. [Orig. 1957.]
HIGASHIONNA, Kanjun (1978c): Satsuma no Ryūkyū ni taisuru ni seisaku. In: RYŪKYŪ
SHINPŌSHA (comp.): Higashionna Kanjun zenshū. Vol. 4. Tokyo: Dai’ichi
Shobō, pp. 224–235.
226
HIGUCHI, Masakiyo (1975): Kinsei no Ryūkyū. Tokyo: Hōsei Daigaku Shuppankyoku.

ITOKAZU, Kaneharu (1986): Sai On to shushigaku: kinsei Ryūkyū ni okeru sono shisōshijō
no ichizuke. In: Katsutarō SHIMAJIRI (ed.): Kyūyō ronsō. Naha: Hirugisha,
pp. 263–292.
ITOKAZU, Kaneharu (1989): Sai On no shisō to sono jidai. In: Shin Ryūkyūshi, kinsei
hen. vol. 2. Naha: Ryūkyū Shinpōsha, pp. 183–208.
KAMIYA, Nobuyuki (1990): Bakuhansei kokka no Ryūkyū shihai. Tokyo: Azekura
Shobō.
MAEHIRA, Fusaaki (1997): Ryūkyū no kaigai jōhō to Higashi Ajia: jūkyū seiki no
Chūgoku jōsei o megutte. In: Tetsunori IWASHITA and Fusaaki MAEHIRA
(eds.): Kinsei Nihon no kaigai jōhō. Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, pp. 95–109.
MIYATA, Toshihiko (1984): Ryūkyū, Shinkoku no kōekishi: nishū Rekidai hōan no
kenkyū. Tokyo: Dai’ichi Shobō.
NAGAZUMI, Yōko (1990): Kinsei shoki no gaikō. Tokyo: Sōbunsha.
NISHIJIMA, Sadao (1985): Nihon rekishi no kokusai kankyō. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku
Shuppankai.
SHINZATO, Keiji, Tomoasa TAMINATO, and Seitoku KINJŌ (1972): Okinawa-ken no
rekishi. Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha.
SMITS, Gregory (1996): The Intersection of Politics and Thought in Ryukyuan Confu-
cianism: Sai On’s Uses of Quan. In: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 56, 2
(December 1996), pp. 443–477.
SMITS, Gregory (1999): Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern
Thought and Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press.
SMITS, Gregory (2000): Ambiguous Boundaries: Royal Authority in the Kingdom of
Ryukyu. In: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 60, 1 (June 2000), pp. 89–
123.
TAKARA, Kurayoshi (1987): Ryūkyū ōkoku no kōzō. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan.
TAKARA, Kurayoshi (1989): Ryūkyū ōkokushi no kadai. Naha: Hirugisha.
TOBY, Ronald (1984): State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the De-
velopment of the Tokugawa Bakufu. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
TOMIYAMA, Kazuyuki (2004): Ryūkyū ōkoku no gaikō to ōken. Tokyo: Yoshikawa
Kōbunkan.
UEHARA, Kenzen (1981): Sakoku to han bōeki: Satsuma-han no Ryūkyū mitsubōeki.
Tokyo: Yaetake Shobō.
WATANABE, Miki (2005): Shin ni taisuru Ryū-Nichi kankei no inpei to hyōchaku
mondai. In: Shigaku zasshi 114, 11 (Nov. 2005), pp. 1–35.
WATANABE, Miki (2006): Nitchū no shihai ronri to kinsei Ryūkyū. In: Rekishigaku
kenkyū 810 (January 2006), pp. 12–28.
YAMAMOTO, Hirofuni (1989): Kanei jidai. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan.
227
Rosa Caroli
Recent Trends in Historiography on Modern Okinawa
The development of historical inquiry is always connected to both the pos-

sibility of collecting new sources and to the political, economic, social, or
cultural changes intervening in the context where the historian works. It thus
implies a continuous re-visiting, re-reading, and re-interpreting of historical
facts in light of current reality and conditions. It happens especially when
drastic changes occur, affecting the preexisting order and involving people’s
daily life in a direct way both in material and emotional or ideal terms.
Hence, the relevance of historiographic activity is not limited to scholarship,
since it also has a dialectical interaction with the world outside of the aca-
demic and intellectual realm.
When we look at the history of Okinawa in the last century and a half, it
seems quite evident that the path it took is marked by continual changes and
fractures: the dismantling of the Kingdom of Ryūkyū and the establishment
of Okinawa Prefecture in 1879; the reform of political, economic, and social
institutions carried out by the new administration; the economic crisis that
affected this region in the 1920s; the war experience which ended with a
battle decimating the local population; the 27 years of American military rule
during which large areas of the islands were transformed into military bases;
the reunification with Japan in 1972 and the post-Cold War realignment.
Such changes deeply affected the political, economic, social, and cultural life
of this region, and imply a continual redefinition of Okinawa’s position
within altered contexts.1 The complexity characterizing the history of Oki-
nawa in roughly the last century and a half is reflected in the subject matter,
the methods and, often, also in the attitude adopted by historical inquiries on
Okinawa that have been produced during this entire period of time. Hence, it
is in light of these drastic changes and the challenges they presented to Oki-
nawa and to the subjectivity of the Okinawans that it is possible to consider
the development of historiography on modern Okinawa and its trends in
recent times.
1 The way in which Okinawan subjectivity has been repeatedly induced to answer
the needs of both national policy and strategic priorities of the United States has
been analyzed by Glenn D. Hook and Richard Siddle (2003).
229
Rosa Caroli
Time and Space of Okinawa kindaishi

However, before considering recent trends in the historical research on
modern Okinawa, it seems useful to delineate the temporal frame of Oki-
nawa’s modern history. There is quite a general propensity to recognize the
end of the war experience in 1945 as the conclusive phase of Okinawa kin-
daishi, since it coincided with the dissolution of administrative, economic,
social, and cultural institutions that were created in Okinawa after 1879. With
regard to the start of kindai, it should be remembered that the view that still
prevailed in the postwar years was that of establishing a connection with the
so-called Ryūkyū shobun, i.e. the measures adopted by the Meiji government
in order to affirm Japan’s sovereignty on Ryūkyū (Nishizato 1981: 3–13).
Such a perspective also dominated the debate that scholars of Okinawan
history opened when the reversion of Okinawa to Japan became a priority on
Tokyo’s political agenda after the formation of the Satō Eisaku Cabinet in
1964. It was correlated to the problem of elucidating the meaning of Ryūkyū
shobun, which Shinzato Keiji regarded as a process of a series of reforms
carried out from 1872 to 1897, marking the starting point of kindai. On the
other hand, Kinjō Seitoku compared it with the measure adopted by the Meiji
government between the establishment of the Ryūkyū han in 1872 and the
Sino-Japanese negotiations for dividing the Ryūkyū Islands in 1880.2 The
political context surrounding this debate generally induced scholars to focus
their attention mainly on the meaning of Ryūkyū shobun in relation to Japan’s
policy.3 At the same time, however, various scholars also started to call for a
reconsideration of Okinawa not only as a »counter-culture of the hondo«, but
also as an integral part of the East Asian culture. In this regard, the proposal
presented by the Society of Historical Research on Okinawa (Okinawa Reki-
shi Kenkyūkai) at the symposium promoted by the Historical Science Society
of Japan (Rekishigaku Kenkyūkai) in December 1971 is worthy of mention,
as it recommended that East Asian regional history be considered part of
world history and underlined its importance for the investigation of Okina-
wan history.4
The idea of analyzing the history of Ryūkyū and Okinawa within a
broader geographic and historical context had relevant effects on the research
of both premodern and modern history. In fact, if it implied a reconsideration
of the history of the Ryūkyūan Kingdom not merely as an appendage of Ja-
pan’s historical process but as a part of the cultural, political, and economic
2 See Shinzato 1970 and Kinjō 1978; for the different meanings assigned by various
scholars to the Ryūkyū shobun, see Shinzato (ed.) 1972.
3 For the political conditions affecting historical inquiry on Okinawa before and
after the reunification with Japan, compare Gabe 1992 and Okinawa Rekishi Ken-
kyūkai 1975.
4 Cited in Ōsato 1995: 66; in this regard, compare also Nishizato 1984.
230
network among Asian countries (Takara 1980b and Araki 1980), it also in-
duced some scholars of Okinawan modern history to look at both the dissolu-
tion of the kingdom and the incorporation of this region into the Meiji state as
a part of a longer process, which had first started with the Western pressure
upon the kingdom in the 1840s.5 In this way, the Ryūkyū shobun could also
be considered as a reflection of the more general process that caused the
disintegration of the China-centered system founded upon the tributary rela-
tionship. The adoption of such a perspective implied both the backdating of
the start of Okinawan modern history and the vision of it as a part of East
Asian and world history (Nishizato 1995). Indeed, the demise of the East
Asian world system itself was a consequence of a broader process which
spread from Europe and North America by assuming the shape of a world
system where peripheries and the center came to be linked by an unequal and
interdependent relationship.6 Since the effects produced by such a process
affected East Asian societies with different forms and modalities, the new
perspectives that place Okinawa within the framework of East Asian history
and world history do not represent a challenge to the subjectivity of Okina-
wan modern history. Indeed, as Takara Kurayoshi noted, it is necessary to
adopt at the same time both a macro point of view (makuro no shiten) to
understand the overall meaning of Ryūkyūan and Okinawan history, and a
micro point of view (mikuro no shiten) to perceive the complexity and the
variety of what happened throughout the Ryūkyū Islands.7 These methodo-
logical developments of historiography are clearly reflected in the subject
matter of much research on the modern history of Okinawa published in the
last few years, in which a macro point of view is adopted, for example, to
reconsider the entire history of Ryūkyū and Okinawa, or to reexamine the
meaning of Ryūkyū shobun from the perspectives of political history, diplo-
matic history, and international law.8
Japan in Okinawa kindaishi

Nevertheless, the adoption of a broad context while looking at the modern
history of Okinawa does not correspond to a rejection of the perspective
within which the Okinawa hondo dialectic takes place. In this regard, it does
not seem superfluous to say that Japan continues to be the major interlocutor
of both Okinawa and Okinawans, in addition to the scholars who put Oki-
5 Compare for this, Nishizato 1994 and Ikuta 1992.

6 For a different view of the factors causing the end of the China-centered tributary
relationship, see Hamashita 1997: 8–9.
7 Takara 1983: 216, cited in Ōsato 1995: 67.
8 See, for example, Tomiyama (ed.) 2003; Nishizato 2005; Akamine 2004. For a
review of Ryūkyū shobun from the perspective of international law, see Uemura
2003.
231
Rosa Caroli
nawa at the center of their research. It happens not only because it is a reality
in a political or an administrative sense, but also because research on Okina-
wan subjectivity during the modern period began to develop within the dia-
lectic with the hondo. It does not seem possible to overlook such an aspect
when one makes inquiries about the modern history of Okinawa or about the
contradictions that were produced by it, since research on the modern history
of Okinawa started within such a dialectic too. In other terms, from the very
beginning, research on modern Okinawa was conditioned by the need to
answer basic questions such as »Who are we?« and »Who are you?« Such
questions were formulated by both the Japanese and the Okinawans who,
when starting their inquiries on Okinawa, also affected the relationship be-
tween the Japanese and Okinawans, as well as the definition of their own
identity.9 Actually, even though it is rather difficult to separate research on
the history of Okinawa from the more general studies on Okinawa carried out
during the first decades of the Meiji period, it is possible to say that the re-
flection of such questions is perceptible in the literature on Okinawa written
throughout the modern period.10
Indeed, the first inquiries regarding Okinawa’s history, customs, laws, and
so on, were carried out by Japanese bureaucrats and scholars and were often
commissioned by the central or prefectural government; in any case, they
were aimed at serving their own interests (Shinzato 1972: 5–7; Takara 1980a:
191–192). One could mention, for example, the Ryūkyū shinshi [New record
of Ryūkyū] (1872) of the Japanese linguist and historian Ōtsuki Fumihiko
(1847–1928), the Ryūkyū shobun [Disposal of Ryūkyū] (1879) by Matsuda
Michiyuki, the Nantō kiji gaihen [Supplement to the Account of the Southern
Islands] (1886) by Nishimura Suzetō, or the Nantō tanken [Exploration of the
Southern Islands] (1894) by Sasamori Gisuke.11 Their interest towards Oki-
nawa had specific goals, such as legitimizing the new administration; collect-
ing data to carry out reforms; supplying information useful in governing a
9 In this regards, it seems useful to keep in mind not only the research by Japanese
anthropologists (such as Tsuboi Shōgorō or Torii Ryūzō Torii) or Okinawan
scholars (mainly Iha Fuyū), but also a work of the Okinawan poet Yamanoguchi
Baku (1903–1963) entitled Kaiwa (»The Conversation«) which efficaciously de-
scribes the inability of an Okinawan who migrated to Japan mainland to reveal his
origins. The poem is quoted by Tomiyama Ichirō twice (1997: 23, 1998: 175–176).
10 For a review and a chronological periodization of the research on modern Oki-
nawa, see Takara 1980a: 189–222. Here he distinguishes three stages: the first
characterized by the dominance of investigation by Japanese bureaucrats and aca-
demics, the second at the beginning of 20th century with the birth of Okinawa
gaku, and the third starting with the development of historical research on Oki-
nawa as a specific discipline in the 1920s.
11 For an English account of what Takara Kurayoshi (1980a) defines as »government
and municipal enquiries«, see Sakamaki 1963: 105–146.
232
region which in many ways was still unknown. The methods and the object
of these inquiries, which examined not only the legal, social, and economic
conditions of Okinawa but also the racial characteristics and the anthropo-
logical features of the people residing in this new territory, seem to forerun
the »regional research« which accompanied and supported Japan’s colonial
policy in East Asia (Ōsato 1995: 59). In other words, even when research on
Okinawa started to assume an academic approach (for example with the
works of Tashiro Antei and Torii Ryūzō)12 or when historical investigations
with a more rigorous methodology began to appear (as in the case of Shi-
dehara Taira), 13 they were far from either recognizing the subjectivity of
Okinawa or looking at it in light of the different meaning that Okinawa had
for the hondo. These tendencies and approaches were also reflected in the
way in which Japan projected onto Okinawa the self-image it was forging.
Thus, for example, the stage of development, civilization, and progress of
Okinawan society was determined by individualizing characteristics that
were defined through their affinity with or their contrast to Japan.
The birth and development of the so-called Okinawa gaku (research on
Okinawa carried out by Okinawans) are closely linked to this context. This
research appeared to be a reaction towards the tendency to collocate Okinawa
as an object on to which both Japan’s administration and investigations pro-
12 Tashiro Antei (1857–1928), a botanist native to Kagoshima, first went to Okinawa

in 1882, when the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce instructed him to test the
planting of the cinchona tree. In 1885 he started his own research on the local re-
ligion, customs, and language which were published in the monthly Jinruigaku
zasshi; his Okinawa ketsujō kō [On the Okinawan knotted cords] was published
posthumously in 1944. The long career of anthropologist Torii Ryūzō (1870–
1953), who conducted ethnological research on Sakhalin, the Kuriles, Korea,
Manchuria, China, Mongolia, Taiwan, and Okinawa, followed the arc of Japanese
imperial expansion. His survey of Okinawa (where he traveled in 1896 and 1904)
was conducted in conjunction with his survey on Taiwan, and it had a significant
impact on Iha Fuyū’s Ko Ryūkyū [The old Ryūkyū] (1911); see Okinawa-ken
Kyōiku Iinkai 1977: 355, 409–410; Tomiyama 1998b: 169–172.
13 Shidehara Taira (Hiroshi) (1870–1953), the eldest brother of Shidehara Kijūrō, is
considered the first scholar to investigate Okinawan history with an academic ap-
proach. He wrote several works on Okinawa, the most important one entitled
Nantō enkaku shiron [Treatise on the history of the Southern Islands] (1899)
which was reprinted several times. He also collected historical material during his
travels in Okinawa in 1894–1895. Nonetheless, the need to legitimize Japan’s sov-
ereignty on Okinawa and his vision of Okinawa as a »land belonging to […] our
hondo» led him to undervalue historical events testifying to the cultural and politi-
cal autonomy of the Ryūkyūs. Shidehara Taira also wrote several books on Man-
churia and Korea, and was the first president of the Taihoku (Taipei) Imperial
University; compare Takara 1980: 195–197; Okinawa-ken Kyōiku Iinkai 1977:
434; Kokushi daijiten, vol. 6: 901.
233
Rosa Caroli
jected their own interests, expectations, and anxiety. In this sense, it can be read
as the will to affirm Okinawan subjectivity as well as the recognition of a »new
position« of Ryūkyūan-Okinawan history, especially in the wake of the unsuc-
cessful attempts to achieve it by political means, as happened in the case of the
minken undō and Kōdōkai, both of which were silenced by the Japanese au-
thorities.14 Thus, the research which Iha Fuyū (1876–1947), Majikina Ankō
(1875–1933), and Higaonna (Higashionna) Kanjun (1882–1963) initiated at
the beginning of the 20th century seemed to share the common aim of alter-
ing the position of Okinawa as an object of Japan’s investigations and politi-
cal aims. They tried to transform Okinawa into a historical subject capable of
expressing its own interests, expectations, and anxiety within a national and
imperial context and subject to rapid evolution. This produced continuous
challenges to the political, economic, social, and cultural life in Okinawa as
well as to their own individual lives.
Rethinking Okinawa gaku

In light of what has been said above, it is not difficult to understand why
such research (or that on linguistics, folklore, or literature) is relevant to his-
torical investigations on modern Okinawa. It also helps to explain why many
of the studies on the modern history of Okinawa which still continue to be
done concentrate on the literature produced by Okinawans during the modern
period. On the other hand, the heritage of Okinawa gaku heavily influenced
the development, the tendencies, and the methods of historiography on Ryū-
kyū and Okinawa until at least the 1950s. 15 At the same time, popular
opposition to the U.S. military rule refused to accept »the >Ryukyuization<
campaign« carried out by the American administration to legitimize its
control on the region.16 Still, from the 1960s onward, the new generation
raised and educated in the postwar period started testing new approaches and
methodologies in the investigation of the history of Okinawa and the
elucidation of its relation with Japan’s history.17 As mentioned above, the
political topicality of Okinawa’s reunification to Japan made the Ryūkyū
shobun a central theme of research conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. During
this period, scholars started to question the theory that the extension of
14 For the effects of the failure of these political experiments on the birth and the
development of Okinawa gaku, see Shinzato 1972: 15–16. The start of Okinawa
gaku is generally considered as a watershed between the first and the second phase
of research on Okinawan modern history; see Takara 1980a: 200.
15 This is perceptible, for example, in some general works on Ryūkyūan and Okinawan
history which were written in this period by Okinawans scholars residing in Tokyo
such as Nakahara 1952–1953; Higashionna 1957; Higa 1959; Ōsato 1995: 61–62;
Sakamaki 1963: 158–160.
16 This expression is used by Rabson 1999: 146.
17 Kinjō and Nishizato 1972; Okinawa Rekishi Kenkyūkai 1970.
234
scholars started to question the theory that the extension of Japan’s sover-
eignty on Ryūkyū had to be seen as ethnic unification, a concept that had
previously dominated both historical research and Okinawan political activ-
ism fighting for the return. By reexamining various features of the historical
relations between Japan’s national state and this peripheral prefecture, they
emphasized the elements of violence characterizing both the establishment of
the Okinawa Prefecture and the following policy of Japanization. While such
research was influenced by the political dimension of the »Okinawa prob-
lem«, the terms of the reversion to Japan, which caused anxiety and discon-
tent among the local people, induced scholars to focus on other elements that
characterize the historical process of kindai.18 It also implied a reconsidera-
tion of the traditional meaning of Okinawa gaku, one that took into regard the
search for identity and emancipation of Okinawa and Okinawans. This was
made evident by various essays contained in the book Okinawa gaku no
reimei [The dawn of Okinawa gaku] edited in 1976 by the Iha Fuyū Seitan
Hyakunen Kinenkai and in particular by the contribution of Ōta Masahide to
this book (Ōta 1976).
The growing interest in the literature on Okinawa gaku is also documented by
the publication of collections of works written by Okinawans during the modern
period, such as the Iha Fuyū zenshū (Iha 1974–1976) and the Higashionna Kan-
jun zenshū (Higashionna 1978–1982). Historical inquiry into Okinawan
modern thought produced interesting results from a methodological point of
view as well. In this regard, the book by Hiyane Teruo entitled Kindai Nihon
to Iha Fuyū [Modern Japan and Iha Fuyū] which was published in 1981 is
worth mentioning.19 Indeed, by arranging material in a chronological order
and following Iha’s intellectual path in the context of the time in which he
lived, the Okinawan scholar offers a comprehensive look at the thoughts of
Iha, whom he considered to be an intellectual reflecting the distinctiveness of
this peripheral region and a thinker of »Taishō democracy«.
In the following decade, other selected or complete works of modern Oki-
nawan intellectual and political figures appeared. These were often only due
to a meticulous activity in collecting and organizing material. The selected
works of Ōta Chōfu (1865–1938) edited by Hiyane Teruo and Isa Shin’ichi
(Hiyana and Isa 1993–1996), for instance, was a three-volume collection of
Ōta’s writing on politics and self-government, economy and society, and
society and culture, respectively. Here, the profile of the journalist and politi-
18 Compare Kano 1993: vi–vii.

19 This work also contains detailed lists of both Iha’s works and the literature on him.
An interesting account of the research on Iha and other Okinawans of the modern
period is Yakabi 2000.
235
Rosa Caroli
cal leader who was chiefly known for his kushameron or »sneeze theory«20 is
analyzed from a fresh perspective which sheds new light on all of his politi-
cal and social activism. For example, his support of both the policy of assimi-
lation (dōka) and the imperialization of the Okinawa subject (kōminka) is
evaluated by taking into account the role he undertook in improving the con-
dition of Okinawan society within the political, economic, and social context
of his time.21
Another piece of work by Isa Shin’ichi, published in 1998, brought to-
gether important materials regarding Jahana Noboru (1865–1908) by utilizing
new documentary sources. In this book, Isa reconsiders the political and
personal life of Jahana, whose image as the father of the Okinawan civil
rights movement and as a »righteous person« fighting against governor Nara-
hara Shigeru’s policy and collusion with the former local elite was first
drawn in a biography by Ōsato Kōei in 1935. This image of Jahana had sur-
vived for many decades.22
Okinawa kindaishi As Seen From the »Outside«

A valuable contribution to the study of Okinawan modern thought also
comes from scholars of the hondo.23 In 1993, Kano Masanao, who had al-
ready broadened his research to include Okinawan history in some of his
previous work (Kano 1983, 1987, 1988, 1989), reexamines Iha in a book
aptly called Okinawa no fuchi. Iha Fuyū to sono jidai [The abysses of Oki-
nawa. Iha Fuyū and his epoch] (Kano 1993). As Kano himself declares, his
work owes much to the previous research on Iha (1993: vii, xi). Nevertheless,
by adopting an innovative approach to Iha’s writing, Kano is able to explore
his thought in a new way, considering it more of »a work to be read« than as
20 In 1900, Ōta wrote that »if one wonders what the pressing needs for today’s Oki-
nawa are, then they are completely the same as for the other prefectures. In ex-
treme terms, they are just like those of the other prefectures even in what they
sneeze« (cited in Hiyane and Isa 1993–1996, vol. 2: 58).
21 Such an aspect is also emphasized by Ishida Masaharu (1997: 62–75) who, by
remarking on the link existing between the modernization of Okinawan society
and its assimilation to Japan, puts Ōta’s support of dōka policy in relation with his
longing for a modernization of Okinawa.
22 Jahana’s political activity and behavior was reexamined by Akira Arakawa in 1971
and in 1981, vol. 2: 3–76; for a reconsideration of Jahana in light of the results of
Isa’s work in Western languages, see Smits 2002 and Caroli 2005.
23 In this regard, it would be useful to remember that the topic of Okinawa’s return to
Japan gave not only a strong impulse to the research on the modern history of Oki-
nawa in regard to subject matters and approaches, but also stimulated a deep inter-
est in Okinawa mondai among scholars from the mainland to such a degree that
the following years were defined as a »period of popularization« of Okinawan
studies; see Nakamata 1992: 7, cit. in Ōsato 1995: 66.
236
»a source to be used«.24 This method is particularly successful in its applica-

tion to the work of Iha, who used to revise and sometimes rewrite his work.
Kano, in fact, interprets Iha’s thought not only by considering the message of
Iha’s final texts, but also in light of Iha’s revisions of his own writing.
While utilizing different approaches and methods, the works mentioned
above share the common aim of analyzing Okinawan modern thought by
considering both the general context in which it was formulated and the dif-
ferent paths that Okinawan intellectual and political leaders have followed in
their research for Okinawa subjectivity. These works also allow us to go
beyond the immediate meaning of the ideas, theories, and opinions expressed
by the leading figures of modern Okinawa, in order to grasp the ambitions
and aspirations as well as the anxieties and contradictions that characterized
each of their public and private lives.
In this regard, the works on Iha Fuyū produced by Tomiyama Ichirō in the
last decade are the result of a positive exchange of theories and methods of
analysis developed outside Japan, especially in the field of cultural studies
and post colonialism.25 Tomiyama’s analysis is of particular interest because
he focuses his attention more on »how Iha speaks« than on »what Iha speaks
about« (Yakabi 2000: 10). In other words, he is more interested in the subject
than in the object of the narration, and this allows him to listen to other forms
of language, such as the interior language, the language of consciousness, and
the language of memory. This approach is especially fruitful when Tomi-
yama compares the works that Iha wrote before and those he wrote after he
arrived at his »intellectual turning point« in the wake of the economic crisis
of the 1920s, which produced a »massive proletarianization of Okinawa«
(Tomiyama 1977: 17, 25, 1998b: 172, 178). It is well known that Iha’s »turn-
ing point« was the cessation of his search for the uniqueness of the Ryū-
kyūans and the adoption of a new perspective of them as a branch of the
Japanese ethnic tree, »southern islanders« characterized by exoticism and
primitiveness. Tomiyama explores the reasons for this change by considering
the problem of »a premonition of doing violence« or the »presentiments of
violence« manifest in »the psychological relations between the colonizer and
the colonized«. 26 Tomiyama’s research not only highlights new elements
within Iha’s intellectual and personal dilemma, but is also a valuable contri-
bution to the history of thought and social history, as well as to the fields of
cultural studies and research on the national state. Actually, the ambiguities
and the contradictions characterizing the construction of Japan as a national
state (in which Tokyo while constructing a kokka shintō founded on the as-
24 This is noted by Yakabi 2000: 18; see also Gabe 1993: 342.
25 See for example Tomiyama 1998a and 1999.
26 Tomiyama 1998b: 165; this problem is analysed in Tomiyama 1997: 5–10, and in
even greater detail in Tomiyama 2002: 3–42.
237
Rosa Caroli
sertion of racial exclusiveness of Japanese people, also created a multiethnic

empire by assembling new territories and populations) were mirrored in Iha’s
trouble. For Iha, as well as for his mainland colleagues, the never-ending
search for a theoretical formulation capable of defining the idea of self can be
regarded as an attempt at chasing after the development of Japan’s colonial
policy and fortune.
Reflection on these themes also comes from non-Japanese scholars, such
as Alan Christy (1993) who, like Tomiyama, recognizes ethnicity as a his-
torically contingent category. He emphasizes the ambiguity of Okinawa’s
position which, although clearly located within Japan’s territorial and admin-
istrative boundaries, was considered in ethnic terms as outside of Japan’s
limits, and thus not any different from Taiwan and Korea. In this regard,
Christy mentions the »House of People« representing Japan’s Empire at the
1903 Fifth Industrial Exhibition in Osaka, where a Japanese man with a whip
presided over Koreans, Ainu, Taiwanese, and two Okinawan women, under-
lining the Okinawans’ »uncomfortable proximity to colonized ethnic groups
in the Japanese social imaginary« (Christy 1993: 607–608).27 Christy’s view
that Okinawa should be included in studies on Japanese colonialism is shared
by Gregory Smits who, in examining the »national« and international dimen-
sion of the Ryūkyū shobun, defines it as »the first step on Japan’s way to
becoming a colonial power« (Smits 2001: 281). Smits also states that Japan’s
annexation of Ryūkyū and its subsequent administration of the islands reveal
»many of the tensions and contradictions inherent in the modern state’s effort
to forge the people of the Japanese islands into a national project« that he
calls »making Japanese« (Smits 2001: 281). The complex set of relations
between Okinawa and Japan is also considered by Julia Yonetani (2000),
who investigates the historical conditions under which assertions of Okina-
wans came to the fore, i.e. the transformation of Japan into a modern state. In
stressing the ambivalence of the concept of »sameness« on which the assimi-
lation policy, the assertion of common ancestry and the Okinawans’ search
for an Okinawan identity were founded, she states that such ambivalence
»reinforced unequal power relations both in assimilationist rhetoric and an-
thropological studies« and, at the same time, »could be used as a tool to rec-
oncile contradictory assertions or inconsistencies within a tenet of ›same-
ness‹« (Yonetani 2000: 17).28 The way in which the assimilation policy in-
teracted with Okinawans during Meiji period, as well as how such a policy
27 Christy also mentions the reaction of Okinawan newspapers against the inclusion
of Okinawans in such a display, which considered it to be a denial of them as »real
Japanese«; in this regard also compare Smits 1999: 150. As well as this, Christy
asserts that »representing the colonized (territory or people) as feminine is yet an-
other standard trope of colonialist representation« (1993: 621).
28 Yonetani also argues that »the obscuring of difference and attempted neutralizing
of opposition were also an essential part of Japanese discourse on Okinawa«.
238
and the response from local people were reinterpreted and reconstructed in
the following years, are examined by Steve Rabson (1999: 140), who, while
recognizing the elements of coercion characterizing Meiji assimilation pol-
icy, also points out the voluntary, and often vigorous, efforts by Okinawans
to identify with Japan, especially in the wake of the successful war against
Qing China.
The intellectual and political dimension of the complex question of iden-
tity is investigated by Gregory Smits who, although focusing on the prena-
tional modalities of identity construction in early-modern Ryūkyū, also offers
interesting suggestions in elucidating the process of constructing Okinawan
identities in the modern period (Smits 1999: 3–9, 143–162). Identity in mod-
ern Okinawa is also examined by Richard Siddle (1998) by considering the
»contrasting paradigms« of colonialism and modernization. Actually, he
agrees with Tomiyama Ichirō’s idea that »a clear conceptualization of [inter-
nal colonialism] is usually lacking«, and wonders whether »modernization
(albeit delayed) as a region of Japan [could not be] a more suitable paradigm
than colonialism« for analyzing the Okinawan case (Siddle 1998: 120–121).
Siddle, who is also the author of a book on the assimilation of the Ainu (Sid-
dle 1996),29 notes that although Hokkaidō and Okinawa enjoyed different
forms of administration and occupied different positions in the »evolutionary
ladder of becoming ›Japanese‹«, both the northern Ainu and the southern
Okinawans represented »peripheral Others« in opposition to which Japanese
scholars tried to define the origins and the identity of the »Japanese race«
(Siddle 1998: 124–125). The tendency to relate the Okinawan case to the
assimilation of Ainu is evidenced by the growing number of works published
in the last few years,30 as well as by the presence of a book section dedicated
to both Okinawan and Ainu studies in many Japanese bookshops. Some
works focus on the political construction of the boundaries of both Japan and
the Japanese that have resulted from the inclusion of regions and people that
were formerly considered outside Japan and the Japanese in several aspects.
The problematic position of both the Okinawan and the Ainu was caused by
the dynamic of »inclusion/exclusion« which characterized the process of
territorial extension of Japan, as well as by the construction of the concept of
being Japanese through a simultaneous process of inclusion/exclusion.31
29 Here (p. 51) he defines the incorporation of Hokkaidō into the Japanese state as »a
long-term colonial project«.
30 See for example Hirota 1990; Sawada 1996; Tanaka, Kuwabara, and Gabe (eds.)
2001.
31 Compare Nishizato 1992, who reconsiders the ethnic and racial dimension of the
Ryūkyū shobun in relation to the construction of Japan’s frontiers. In this regard,
other well-known works should be remembered, such as Morris-Suzuki 1998 and
Oguma 1998, 2003.
239
Rosa Caroli
The Crisis of National Histories

In general terms, the development of new methodology and approaches of
historiography on modern Okinawa is also one result of a more general re-
consideration of the relationships among regional history, national history,
and world history. It is also the reflection of several processes that began
around 1980, such as the affirmation of the subjectivity of difference which,
in the academic field, is translated into cultural studies and gender studies, as
well as the relativization and the deconstruction of national histories.32 Un-
doubtedly, the process of constructing a national state is still central to a
historical inquiry that does not cease to investigate the problems of the gene-
sis and development of a national state, modern nationalism, or the construc-
tion and preservation of identity, and that considers the centrality these
themes continue to occupy in the political agenda. The new orientations that
historiography has adopted, in regard to Japan as well, allow one to look at
such a process in light of the different meanings it has assumed in different
geographical, social, or cultural contexts. Indeed, despite the reiterated and
clumsy attempts to adopt a Yamatocentric vision to depict the history of the
Japanese as a linear and coherent process, it becomes more and more difficult
to look at the history of Japan without focusing on the regional, social, and
cultural polycentrism throughout the region known today as Japan.
The contribution of historical inquiry on Ryūkyū and Okinawa to the his-
toriography on Japan in the last decades and, more broadly speaking, the
relevance of research on Ryūkyū and Okinawa to studies on Japanese culture
are significant. By claiming a new role for Okinawan history in Japanese
history, for example, as a center from which to observe the historical devel-
opment of Japan, historiography on Okinawa has represented a challenge that
also involves scholars on Japan. Indeed, looking at the history of Okinawa
and, above all, at how Okinawans wrote their own history means listening to
a narration that contains many and significant divergent points from the
official history told by the center. In short, Okinawa is able to tell one of the
other histories generated by the building of Japan’s national state and colo-
nial empire or, alternatively, by the modernization and the industrialization in
Japan.
The vitality of historiography on Okinawa also derives from the dialectical
and fruitful relations it maintains with historians who are not specialists on
32 In Japan, the major contribution in this regard came from the eminent historian
Yoshihiko Amino; in English, see his Deconstructing »Japan« (Amino 1992).
Worthy of mention is Oguma 1995 which was translated into English with the title
A Genealogy of »Japanese« Self-images (2002). The approach aiming at decon-
structing the image of Japan as a monoethnic and homogeneous nation is also
adopted in many English works such as Dale 1986; Weiner (ed.) 1997; Maher and
Macdonald (eds.) 1995; Lie 2001.
240
Okinawa. This collaboration has produced interesting works on the history of

Japan and Asia which recognize the historical subjectivity of Okinawa by
adopting a polycentric approach.33 At the same time, historiography on Ryū-
kyū and Okinawa also shows that it can maintain its own autonomy, which is
also demonstrated by the relevance that it accords to certain events in order to
distinguish the different periods within the historical process. With regard to
the modern period, for instance, the land and fiscal reforms applied between
1899 and 1903, which produced the definitive dismantling of the system that
had survived up to the kingdom’s dissolution, are viewed as an event mark-
ing the passage from the first modern period (kindai zenki) to the second
modern period (kōki kindai), in which Okinawa was fully incorporated into
Japan’s imperial system (Nishizato 1995: 57). Hence, such a change is con-
sidered to be significant not simply because it testifies to the delay of the
Japanese administration in carrying out economic reforms in this prefecture,
but because of the consequences it generated in the social and economic life
of the Okinawans.
In conclusion, by utilizing fresh methodologies and approaches, historical
inquiry on Okinawa has made considerable progress in both reexamining
issues and in investigating new topics. Nevertheless, many questions are still
to be considered, and further progress in historical discipline is needed. In the
field of the history of thought, for example, Yakabi Osamu has drawn schol-
ars’ attention to the problem of the conceptual rules, by underlining the ten-
dency to make a quite generalized use of some concepts, such as those of
kōminka or dōka, which instead require a more specific social and temporal
contextualization (Yakabi 2000: 14–15). He also notes that research on the
members of Okinawa gaku mainly focuses on those who resided in the
hondo, but overlooks the activity of those living in their native country,
whose literary productions are mostly unpublished and whose thoughts have
still to be explored (Yakabi 2000: 12–14). Indeed, there are still many gaps in
the historical research on modern Okinawa, including those caused by the
objective difficulty of collecting materials. This problem particularly affects a
region where the tragic experience of war has dispersed and often obliterated
many traces of its past. Hence, in Okinawa the problem of collecting, pre-
serving, and utilizing historical sources is of crucial importance in the preser-
vation of its history, its past memory and its cultural heritage. In this regard,
one should remember the vivid activity with which many local institutions
and organizations in Okinawa continue to collect material by putting together
documentary fragments or by transcribing oral narratives. In some cases, this
33 In this regard, it should be remembered, for instance, the series entitled Umi to
rettō bunka, in eleven volumes edited by Amino et al. between 1990 and 1993, and
Ajia no naka no Nihonshi, edited by Arano et al. in six volumes 1992–1993.
241
Rosa Caroli
activity resembles a homemade history, and indeed it is exactly in this where

its great value lies.
Okinawa kindaishi Between Historical Subjectivity and De-Historicization

What has been said above does not aim to give an exhaustive review of
the historical studies on modern Okinawa, which are larger in scope than
described here. Much could still be said on recent research on the social and
economic life of Okinawans during the so-called period of preserving old
customs (kyūkan onzon) or after the revision of the land and fiscal assets
between 1899 and 1903, on the migration of Okinawans and the conditions
they confronted far from their native soil or, also, on the tragic experience of
war. Still, as Takara Kurayoshi notes in his contribution to this volume, the
progress achieved by historiography in the last few decades has affected
research on modern Okinawa to a lesser degree than those on early-modern
Ryūkyū. He also notes that, although this progress benefited from the rele-
vant role of researchers from mainland Japan and foreign countries, a major
part was played by Okinawan scholars. Actually, while the number of schol-
ars from both mainland Japan and abroad who are engaged in Okinawan
modern history has grown considerably in the last years, such a trend is not
perceptible in the generation of young Okinawans.
In this regard, one must ask oneself why the progress achieved by histori-
ography during the last decades does not correspond to an increase of atten-
tion among Okinawans toward such a past. Surely, the motivations that
stimulate the interest toward Okinawan modern history today are quite differ-
ent from those initiating studies during the 1960s and 1970s, as is perceptible
in the topics and methods prevailing in current research. Actually, after the
reversion, historical investigation on modern Okinawa has been purged of
much past political and ideological conditioning, and it seems as though it is
hard for young Okinawans to find new motivation to investigate the past of
their region. Still, even if political, economic, social, and cultural contexts
have changed in the last three decades, the Okinawa mondai continues to
have some consequence in the islands’ life, although the media discourse
tends to de-politicize and de-historicize Okinawa’s past and present.
Such a trend is apparent in the »Okinawa boom« that started in the 1990s,
when Japan’s mass media began to pay more attention to Okinawa and Oki-
nawan culture (music, cuisine, art, and so on). The discourses prevailing in
this phenomenon suggest an image of Okinawa as an »exotic paradise«
characterized by a slow life style, a tropical nature, and a gentle people,
which has not only provbed advantageous to the islands’ tourist industry, but
has also created a kind of furusato where Japanese from mainland can »go
back« and find their original and uncontaminated identity. It is exemplified
by the representation offered by the serial Chura san broadcast by NHK in
2001 where the female protagonist is presented as a quasi-unreal, innocent
242
where the female protagonist is presented as a quasi-unreal, innocent person

coming from a place where true genuineness can still be found. As has been
noted, even if the peripheral position and culture difference of the »gentle
southern islanders« living on »comfort islands« are firmly established, Oki-
nawa and Okinawans are not represented as »the other without« but as »the
other within« (Tanaka 2003). Also, the life of the protagonist, who was born
the day of Okinawa’s return to Japan, seems to reflect an image of the history
of post-reversion Okinawa where neither the past of wartime and U.S. mili-
tary rule nor the presence of military bases undermine the Okinawan para-
dise. Such a stereotype image, which is also recurrent in many recent maga-
zines and books on the »Okinawa culture« clearly omits various serious is-
sues, for instance, the heavy concentration of U.S. military bases, the conse-
quences it generates on the daily life of people living in near them and the
political tensions it causes both inside and outside Okinawa.
It is difficult to determine to what degree the de-politicization and de-
historicization prevailing in such a representation of Okinawa and Okinawans
have affected their vision of the surrounding world, their perception of them-
selves, and their attitude toward their present and past. Still, since the media
play a powerful role in every mass society, it is quite hard to believe that the
stereotype image of Okinawa proposed by the media could be inefficacious
in obliterating or reconciling the problematical and conflicting relationship
that has existed between Okinawa and the hondo since the time of Ryūkyū
shobun. Hence, the future of historical research on modern Okinawa depends
not only on the progress achieved by academic activity in recognizing Oki-
nawa as historical entity, but also on scholars’ capacity to maintain a dialectic
relationship with the rest of society by both providing fresh stimuli and illu-
minating the many other sides of this »exotic paradise«.
References Cited
AKAMINE, Mamoru (2004): Ryūkyū ōkoku. Higashi Ajia no kōnāsutōn. Tokyo: Kō-
dansha.
AMINO, Yoshihiko (1992): Deconstructing »Japan«. In: East Asian History 3 (July
1992), pp. 121–142.
AMINO, Yoshihiko et al. (1990–1993): Umi to rettō bunka. 11 vols. Tokyo: Shōgaku-
kan.
ARAKAWA; Akira (1971): Hankokka no kyōku. Okinawa jiritsu e no shiten. Tokyo:
Gendai Hyōronsha.
ARAKAWA, Akira (1981): Ryūkyū shobun igo. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha.
ARAKI, Moriaki (1980): Shin-Okinawa shiron. Naha: Okinawa Taimususha.
ARANO, Yasunori, Masatoshi ISHII, and Shōsuke MURAI (1992–1993): Ajia no naka
no Nihonshi. 6 vols. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai.
243
Rosa Caroli
CAROLI, Rosa (2005): I buchi neri dell’identità: il caso di Jahana Noboru (1865–
1908). In: Maurizio SCARPARI and Tiziana LIPPIELLO (eds.): Caro maestro…
Scritti in onore di Lionello Lanciotti per l’ottantesimo compleanno. Venezia:
Cafoscarina, pp. 251–263.
CHRISTY, Alan S. (1993): The Making of Imperial Subjects in Okinawa. In: Positions:
East Asia Cultures Critiques 1, 3, pp. 607–639.
DALE, Peter N. (1986): The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness. London: Croom Helm (=
The Nissan Institute / Croom Helm Japanese Studies Series).
GABE, Masao (1992): Okinawa kenkyū no nagare. Kiyō o chūshin ni. In: Hosei
Daigaku Okinawa kenkyūsho shohō 39 (October 1992), pp. 8–9.
GABE, Masao (1993): Konpeki no kagami. In: Okinawa bunka kenkyū 20, p. 337–343.
HAMASHITA, Takeshi (1997): Chōkō sisutemu to kindai Ajia, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
HIGA, Shunchō (1959): Okinawa no rekishi. Naha: Okinawa Taimususha.
HIGASHIONNA, Kanjun (1957): Ryūkyū no rekishi. Tokyo: Shibundō.
HIGASHIONNA, Kanjun (1978–1982): Higashionna Kanjun zenshū. 10 vols. Tokyo:
Dai’ichi Shobō.
HIROTA, Masaki (1990): Sabetsu no shosō Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
HIYANE, Teruo (1981): Kindai Nihon to Iha Fuyū. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō.
HIYANE, Teruo and Shin’ichi ISA (eds.) (1993–1996): Ōta Chōfu senshū. 3 vols. To-
kyo: Dai’ichi Shobō.
HOOK, Glenn D. and Richard SIDDLE (2003), Japan and Okinawa: Structure and
Subjectivity. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon.
IHA, Fuyū (1974–1976): Iha Fuyū zenshū. 11 vols. Tokyo: Heibonsha.
IHA FUYŪ SEITAN HYAKUNEN KINENKAI (ed.) (1976): Okinawa gaku no reimei. To-
kyo: Okinawa Bunka Kyōkai.
IKUTA, Sumie (1992): Bakumatsu ni okeru Furansu kantai no Ryūkyū raikō to
Satsuryū kankei. In: Okinawa bunka kenkyū 19, pp. 1–93.
ISA, Shin’ichi (ed.) (1998): Jahana Noboru shū. Tokyo: Misuzu Shobō.
ISHIDA, Masaharu (1997): Okinawa ni okeru kindaika no kikyū. Ōta Chōfu no
ronsetsu o chūshin toshite. In: Hōsei kenkyū 64, 1 (July 1997), pp. 21–100.
KANO, Masanao (1983): Kindai Nihon no minkangaku. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
KANO, Masanao (1987): Sengo Okinawa no shisōzō. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha.
KANO, Masanao (1988): ›Torishima‹ wa haitte iru ka. Rekishi ishiki no genzai to
rekishigaku. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
KANO, Masanao (1989): Fujin-josei-onna. Joseishi no toi. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
KANO, Masanao (1993): Okinawa no fuchi. Iha Fuyū to sono jidai. Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten.
KINJŌ, Seitoku (1978): Ryūkyū shobunron. Naha: Okinawa Taimususha.
244
KINJŌ, Seitoku and Kikō NISHIZATO (1972): ›Okinawa rekishi‹ kenkyū no genjō to
mondaiten. In: Keiji SHINZATO (ed.): Okinawa bunka ronsō. Vol. 1. Tokyo:
Heibonsha, pp. 81–105.
Kokushi daijiten. 15 vols. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1979–1997.
LIE, John (2001): Multiethnic Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
MAHER, John C. and Gaynor MACDONALD (eds.): Diversity in Japanese Culture and
Language London: Kegan Paul International.
MORRIS-SUZUKI, Tessa (1998): Re-inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation. Armonk:
M.E. Sharpe.
NAKAHARA, Zenchū (1952–1953): Ryūkyū no rekishi. 2 vols. Naha: Ryūkyū Bunkyō
Tosho.
NAKAMATA, Hiroshi (1992): Okibunken nijūshūnen. Sono ashiato to kongo.
Minzokugaku chirigaku no bun’ya kara. In: Hōsei daigaku Okinawa bunka
kenkyūsho shohō 39 (October 1992), pp. 7–8.
NISHIZATO, Kikō (1981): Ronshū. Okinawa kindaishi. Okinawa sabetsu to wa nani ka.
Naha: Okinawa Jiji Shuppan.
NISHIZATO, Kikō (1984): Higashi Ajia sekaishi kenkyū no shiten, hōhō, ronten.
Shosetsu no kentō. In: Ryūkyū daigaku kyōiku gakubu kiyō 27, 1, pp. 95–123.
NISHIZATO, Kikō (1992): Ryūkyū shobun to Karafuto. Chishima kōkan jōyaku. In:
Yasunori ARANO, Masatoshi ISHII, and Shōsuke MURAI (eds.): Chiiki to
minzoku (etonosu). Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai (= Ajia no naka no
Nihonshi; 4).
NISHIZATO, Kikō (1994): Sappō taiseiki no shomondai. Ryūkyū mondai o chūshin ni.
In: FUKKI NIJŪSHŪNEN KINEN OKINAWA KENKYŪ KOKUSAI SHINPOJIUMU
JIKKŌIN INKAI (ed.): Okinawa bunka no genryū o sagaru. Kantaiheiyō chiiki
no naka no Okinawa, Fukki nijūshūnen kinen Okinawa kenkyū shinpojiumu.
Naha, pp. 192–225.
NISHIZATO, Kikō (1995): Chihōshi kenkyū no genjō. Okinawa-ken – kindai-gendai.
In: Nihon rekishi 570 (November 1995), pp. 55–56.
NISHIZATO, Kikō (2005): Shinmatsu Chū-Ryū-Nichi kankeishi no kenkyū. Kyoto:
Kyoto Daigaku Gakujutsu Shuppankai.
OGUMA, Eiji (1995): Tan’itsu minzoku shinwa no kigen. »Nihonjin« no jigazō no
keifu. Tokyo: Shinyōsha.
OGUMA, Eiji (1998): Nihonjin no kyōkai. Okinawa, Ainu, Taiwan, Chōsen
shokuminchi shihai kara fukki undō made. Tokyo: Shinyōsha.
OGUMA, Eiji (2002): A Genealogy of »Japanese« Self-images. Melbourne: Trans
Pacific Press (= Japanese Society Series).
OGUMA, Eiji (2003): Les Frontières du japon moderne. In: Ebisu 30, pp. 155–177.
OKINAWA-KEN KYOIKU IINKAI (ed.) (1977): Okinawa kenshi. Bekkan. Naha: Oki-
nawa-ken Kyōiku Iinkai.
OKINAWA REKISHI KENKYŪKAI (ed.) (1970): Kindai Okinawa no rekishi to minshū.
Bessatsu Naha: Okinawa Rekishi Kenkyūkai.
245
Rosa Caroli
OKINAWA REKISHI KENKYŪKAI (ed.) (1975): Okinawashi kenkyū no kadai to hōhō. In:
Rekishi hyōron 300 (April 1975), pp. 6–25.
ŌSATO, Kōei (1935): Gijin Jahana Noboru den. Okinawa jiyū minken undō no kiroku.
Tokyo: Shinkōsha.
ŌSATO, Tomoko (1995): Okinawa gaku / Okinawa kenkyū no dōkō. Okinawa kankei
gaku wo kangaeru tame ni. In: Okinawa kankei gaku kenkyūkai ronshū. To-
kyo: Okinawa Kankei Gaku Kenkyūkai.
ŌTA, Masahide (1976): Iha Fuyū no gakumon to shisō. In: IHA FUYŪ SEITAN HYAKU-
NEN KINENKAI (ed.) (1976): Okinawa gaku no reimei. Tokyo: Okinawa Bunka
Kyōkai, pp. 99–141.
RABSON, Steve (1999): Assimilation Policy in Okinawa: Promotion, Resistance, and
»Reconstruction«. In: Chalmers JOHNSON (eds.): Okinawa: Cold War Island.
Albuquerque: Japan Policy Research Institute, pp. 133–148.
SAKAMAKI, Shunzo (1963): Ryukyu: A Bibliographical Guide to Okinawan Studies,
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
SAWADA, Yōtarō (1996): Okinawa to Ainu. Nihon no minzoku mondai. Tokyo: Shin-
sensha.
SHINZATO, Keiji (1970): Okinawashi wo kangaeru. Tokyo: Keisō Shobō.
SHINZATO, Keiji (1972): Kaisetsu. In: Keiji SHINZATO (ed.): Okinawa bunka ronsō.
Vol. 1. Tokyo: Heibonsha.
SHINZATO, Keiji (ed.) (1972): Okinawa bunka ronsō. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Heibonsha.
SIDDLE, Richard (1996): Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan. London: Routledge.
SIDDLE, Richard (1998): Colonialism and Identity in Okinawa before 1945. In: Japa-
nese Studies 18, 2, pp. 117–133.
SMITS, Gregory (1999): Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern
Thought and Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
SMITS, Gregory (2001): The Ryūkyū Shobun in East Asian and World History. In:
Josef KREINER (ed.): Ryūkyū in World History. Bonn: Bier’sche Verlagsanstalt
(= JapanArchiv; 2), pp. 279–304.
SMITS, Gregory (2002): Jahana Noboru. Okinawan Activist and Scholar. In: Anne
WALTHALL (ed.): The Human Tradition in Modern Japan. Wilmington: SR
Books, pp. 99–113.
TANAKA, Yasuhiro (2003): The Media Representation of >Okinawa< and US/Japan
Hegemony, In: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 4, 3, pp. 419–432.
TAKARA, Kurayoshi (1980a): Okinawa rekishiron shosetsu. Tokyo: San’ichi Shōbo,
TAKARA, Kurayoshi (1980b): Ryūkyū no jidai. Ōinaru rekishizō o motomete. Tokyo:
Chikuma Shobō.
TAKARA, Kurayoshi (1983): Okinawa rekishi no yōten. In: Gengo 12, 4.
TANAKA, Akira, Masato KUWABARA, and Masao GABE (eds.) (2001): Ezochi to
Ryūkyū. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan (= Bakumatsu ishin ronshū; 9).
246
TOMIYAMA, Ichirō (1997): ›Ryūkyūjin‹ to iu shutai. Iha Fuyū ni okeru bōryoku no

yokan. In: Shisō 878 (August 1997), pp. 5–33.
TOMIYAMA, Ichirō (1998a): Akai daichi to yume no konseki. In: FUKUSŪ BUNKA
KENKYŪKAI (ed.): ›Fukusū bunka‹ no tame ni. Tokyo: Jimbun Shoin, pp. 118–
135.
TOMIYAMA, Ichirō (1998b): The Critical Limits of the National Community: The
Ryukyuan Subject. In: Social Science Japan Journal 1, 2, pp. 165–179.
TOMIYAMA, Ichirō (1999): Hi-rekishi toshite no Okinawajin. In: Tatsurō HANADA et
al. (eds.): Karuchuraru-sutadīzu to taiwa. Tokyo: Shinyōsha.
TOMIYAMA, Ichirō (2002): Bōryoku no yokan. Iha Fuyū ni okeru kiki no mondai.
Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
TOMIYAMA, Kazuyuki (ed.) (2003): Ryūkyū-Okinawashi no sekai. Tokyo: Yoshikawa
Kōbunkan.
UEMURA, Hideaki (2003): The Colonial Annexation of Okinawa and the Logic of
International Law: The Formation of an »Indigenous People« in East Asia. In:
Japanese Studies 23, 2, pp. 107–124.
WEINER, Michael (ed.) (1997): Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity.
London: Routledge (= Sheffield Centre for Japanese Studies / Routledge Se-
ries).
YAKABI, Osamu (2000): Kiso shiryō seibi to hōhōteki mosaku. Kindai Okinawa shi-
sōshi kenkyū no genjō to kadai. In Shiryō henshūshitsu kiyō 25 (March 2000),
pp. 1–20.
YONETANI, Julia (2000): Ambiguous Traces and the Politics of Sameness: Placing
Okinawa in Meiji Japan. In: Japanese Studies 20, 1, pp. 15–31.
247
Part III: Images of Japan, the Role of
Museums and Collections, and
Japanese-European Contacts
Ulrike Schaede
Japan’s Business Practices in the 21st Century
What We Thought We »Knew« That Is No Longer So*
1. Introduction
This paper argues that between 1998 and 2006, Japan’s political economy
has undergone a »strategic inflection«. It introduces this argument by taking
the perspective of the manager of a large Japanese company. In short, the
competitive setting – laws, rules, regulation, markets, competitors – in Japan
has been fundamentally altered such that corporate strategies of the postwar
period (1945–1990s) have been replaced by new strategic thinking. Whereas
previously, Japanese corporate executives were successful if they maximized
market share and sales revenues, in the 21st century strategies are directed at
profitability and nimble strategic positioning.1
By early 2007, Japan had experienced its longest »boom period« since re-
cord-keeping began: with over 60 consecutive quarters of GDP growth, this
was longer even than the fabled »Izanagi Boom« of the late 1960s that pro-
pelled Japan from a developing to a developed industrialized economy. Dur-
ing the 2000s boom, news from Japan began to change in dramatic fashion.
For example, in 2005 we were suddenly confronted with stories of an internet
startup company named »Livedoor« launching a spectacular hostile takeover
bid for an old, established broadcasting station. Just a few months later, the
media could not get enough of another takeover attempt, when Oji Paper
tried to gobble up its second largest competitor. What was so spectacular
about these events was that they combined many things hitherto unheard of in
Japan: hostile takeovers (at least fought out in the open, in a nation so con-
* It is my great pleasure to have been invited to Professor Kreiner’s 2006 Bonn

conference, and to contribute to this Festschrift. My years as a student at Bonn U-
niversity in the 1980s were truly formative, and I am indebted to Professor Kreiner
for his insistence that every discipline, including economics, can benefit from the
research tools of the minzokugaku-sha. Upon his arrival in Bonn, Professor
Kreiner challenged the existing definition of »Japanese Studies« in Germany and,
together with his team of hard-charging assistants, invited students to explore wha-
tever area of Japan they were most interested in. These trailblazing moves and the
re-definition of Japanese Studies they brought about have shaped my career.
1 This chapter represents a summary of my forthcoming book, Japan’s Corporate
Renewal: New Business Strategies in the 21st Century.
251
Ulrike Schaede
cerned about »saving face«), startup companies striking it rich, and old stuffy
paper-industry giants engaging in a sumō-bash of sorts. What had happened?
Since the late 1990s, Japan has undergone a transformation in financial
markets, business organization, and regulation that has required successful
Japanese firms to adapt their strategies towards market mechanisms. During
this period, of Japan’s roughly 1,700 laws more than 1,200 were rewritten
and revised.2 While a large portion of these changes were simply due to gov-
ernment reorganization and renaming of ministries, which required just re-
wording of the preamble, the Commercial Code in particular was substan-
tially amended annually between 1997 and 2006, and in 2006 was replaced
by the new »Corporation Law« (kaisha-hō). In addition to other new laws,
such as regarding bankruptcy, financial instruments and labor relations, Ja-
pan’s legal and regulatory environment has been drastically altered. Perhaps
most important is a shift in the underlying logic of legal doctrine: whereas
previously, everything that was not explicitly allowed in the law was there-
fore automatically prohibited, in 21st century Japan everything is allowed,
with disputes to be settled in the courts. For a corporate manager, this opens
up great possibilities: everything goes – unless, of course, it is illegal in a
criminal sense in which case there will be prosecution.3 Thus, in 2005 merg-
ers, acquisitions, hostile takeovers, spin-offs, and other possibilities of reor-
ganization and become possible, accessible, and viable.
A comparison with Germany is interesting in this regard: Germany, too,
has undergone great regulatory revision and has significantly revised its rules
on banking, corporate governance, financial markets, labor, and many more.
Most of these changes were triggered by harmonization pressures from the
European Union. Yet, while new and encompassing, in comparison with
Japan most of the revisions remained incremental in nature, in that they built
on the existing cornerstones of Civil Law. In contrast, Japan’s legal changes
in the early 21st century were disruptive, as they mark a move away from
Civil Law thinking, and towards a more case-based, market-oriented way of
legal interpretation.
What this means for the Japan observer is that our previous ways of inter-
preting Japanese business have to be adjusted if we want to understand what
drives Japan’s political economy.
2 Interview, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2007.

3 Whereas very few Japanese business executives were jailed in the postwar period,
the early 21st century has already seen a number of cases where executives were
unceremoniously sent to prison, including Mr. Horie, the CEO of Livedoor, the
startup which raided Nippon Broadcasting System.
252
2. What We Thought We »Knew«

Japan business research reached a high point in the late 1980s and early
1990s, when Japan’s economic success resulted in growing trade imbalances
that triggered trade negotiations, often vitriolic, with the United States and to
a lesser extent Europe. Research abounded on specific Japanese business
features, and many scholars to this day rely on that research.
One dominant feature of Japanese business in the postwar period was the
horizontal keiretsu (business groups). These were »inter-market« groups,
meaning that they combined companies operating in different markets which
cross-owned shares and engaged in preferential trade and mutual corporate
governance (e.g., Gerlach 1992, Lincoln and Gerlach 2004). Consisting of
independent firms, these were not conglomerates, but they formed tight-knit
networks difficult to penetrate. The main strategic purpose of these groups
was to provide insurance against business fluctuations in a rapidly growing
economy: by locking in shareholders and trading partners, companies could
ascertain a minimum degree of stability in share prices and sales revenues.
The foregone return on investment in cross-held shares was the insurance
premium.4
Moreover, at the core of each of the six dominant business groups was a
main bank in charge of providing loans to group members. Loans were the
primary vehicle for financing due to interest rate regulation that made loans
cheaper and easier than bond or stock issues. Given very lenient disclosure
and accounting rules, the main bank had an information monopoly on the
inner workings of the company, and assumed the role of »corporate govern-
ance« agent: when a company fell into distress, an informal financial workout
was structured, and the main bank stepped in to manage a turnaround.
The third »fact« we know of Japanese business is »lifetime employment«.
Interestingly, even what we »knew« may, from hindsight, not have been
entirely correct, because it was difficult to gauge just how many employees
enjoyed such »lifetime« contracts. This is because there was no contract or
legal stipulation of »lifetime«, rather, this developed as a business norm,
reinforced by court decisions that made it prohibitively expensive to lay peo-
ple off.5 One number that was widely mentioned was that roughly 25% of the
workforce were in such employment relations, but Araki (2002) estimates
that perhaps as many as 80% of workers could have had a claim in court –
had they gone to court (which was expensive and difficult). Whatever the
proportion, for the manager of a large Japanese firm, lifetime employment
4 See Nakatani 1986 for the development of the »insurance« argument, as well as
Hoshi and Kashyap 2001 and Aoki and Patrick 1994.
5 See Schaede 2007 for details; also Araki 2002; see Abegglen and Stalk 1985, who
originally coined the phrase »lifetime employment«, for a representative analysis
of postwar business strategy.
253
Ulrike Schaede
translated into high fixed costs of labor which could not easily be adjusted to
business cycles, making insurance and stability even more relevant for suc-
cessful management.
Another aspect we »know« about postwar Japan is its production system,
which rested on a particular system of subcontracting (shitauke). Large
manufacturers supported distinct networks of suppliers which were managed
in a way to minimize the typical challenges associated with outsourcing
(hold-up problems, asymmetric information, moral hazard). By cooperating
closely with suppliers, and even owning stakes in the first-tier suppliers,
manufacturers created a group of loyal, often exclusive, part manufacturers.6
And finally, a well-studied aspect of postwar Japan was »industrial pol-
icy« and administrative guidance (e.g. Johnson 1982, Schaede 2000). Indus-
trial policy aimed to affect resource allocation by supporting selected indus-
tries and companies to optimize the growth effort towards exports. Extensive
entry regulation limited the number of competing firms. Their ongoing ef-
forts were regulated on an informal basis, through repeated interaction and
information sharing with the regulator. As one government official explained
it, prior to making a large-scale investment, companies would »hedge« by
informing the regulating ministry; once they received official blessing, they
could count on the government to come to their rescue should the project
falter.7 In return, companies would support government efforts towards fast
growth, including the expansion of lifetime employment.
Overall, this system was geared towards limiting the risk of exogenous
shocks on the individual company by tying firms up in networks. Mutual sup-
port and bailouts assured the longevity of firms in a rapidly growing and chang-
ing market environment. In addition to working closely with the government,
banks, and group member firms, companies also aimed to stabilize through
diversification: by operating in multiple separate businesses, they could ensure
to remain in business even if one sector of their operations were to be replaced
by new technologies. Textile companies diversifying into pharmaceuticals,
electronic firms entering new product markets, or construction companies add-
ing areas of expertise are examples of such diversification.8
6 See, e.g., Williamson 1985 and McMillan 1990; this aspect of Japanese business
organization will not be further explored in this article. See Schaede (2007) or
Schaede (forthcoming) for an analysis of how »hollowing out« and globalization,
as well as the shift to modulization in outsourcing has affected Japanese subcon-
tracting.
7 Interview, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2007.
8 Diversification was further fueled by the high dependence on bank loans: given
their high exposure to banks, companies had to ascertain that they could pay inte-
rest. This was accomplished through constantly growing revenues. This resulted in
two dominant corporate strategies: (1) a focus on increasing sales, and (2) constant
growth through diversification into new business segments.
254
To this, the economic bubble of 1987–1991 added an element of com-

pletely unrelated diversification. Based more on hubris than on business
rationale, large companies aggressively branched out into new business areas.
Steel companies investing in golf courses, electronic firms buying U.S.
movie studios, or train companies entering retailing and department store
operations were celebrated at the time, but proved to be unwise business
decisions when the real estate and financial markets collapsed. In the early
1993, almost all Japanese companies found themselves dragged down by
non-profitable non-core businesses, and the entire banking system was mired
in bad debt: since most of the »bubble diversification« had been financed
based on inflated values of real estate, when the bubble popped, interest rates
on these loans could no longer be paid but the underlying value of the collat-
eral had also evaporated.
3. Strategic Inflection: From Diversification to »Choose and Focus«

The severe recession of the 1990s and the banking crisis of 1998 necessi-
tated a fundamental reorientation of Japan’s business organization and with it
the processes of regulation and oversight. This shift marked a strategic inflec-
tion point in that the previous ways and processes of doing things were no
longer a means to success; to compete, companies and banks had to com-
pletely reorient their business strategies (Burgelman and Grove 1996).
During the postwar period, banks addressed nonperforming loans by struc-
turing informal turnarounds, in which loans were left on the books and cov-
ered annually by loss reserves taken from bank profits. The idea was to save
the company by structuring a turnaround and recouping the debt in the long
run. In the 1990s, informal debt refinancing put such tremendous stress on
banks’ profits that it caused a banking crisis in 1998 in which Japan came
perilously close to a financial meltdown.9 This necessitated a switch to direct
bad-loan disposal methods, in which the bank suffers a one-time »extraordi-
nary« loss by writing off the loan, and initiates bankruptcy procedures and
9 The bankruptcies of a city bank and a leading investment bank in November 1997
revealed that most large banks were unable to reach the capital adequacy ratio of
8% required for banks operating internationally. The government injected a total
of ¥9.3 trillion (roughly $90 billion) into the countries’ leading banks. Fierce poli-
tical debate translated into stringent rules for recipient banks to improve their bu-
siness, including an aggressive cleanup of bad loans. A 1998 legal revision
allowed holding companies and enabled the 13 leading banks to merge into four
large financial groups (Mizuho, MUFG, Sumitomo-Mitsui, and Resona). Two
long-term credit banks under government receivership were revived by two U.S.
investment funds into Shinsei and Aozora. All this exacerbated an already ongoing
recession, increasing pressure on the government to execute legal reforms. Amyx
2004 analyses the political background to this crisis.
255
Ulrike Schaede
»restructuring« (closing down or selling off the least profitable business

units). These sell-offs provided a market for mergers and acquisitions, as
business units were for sale at low prices, with an opportunity to put these
businesses under new management and turn them around.
For large companies, the new strategy of the early 21st century was corpo-
rate reorganization under the labeled of »choose and focus« (sentaku to shū-
chū). Referring to unbundling, this was a call for companies to identify their
core businesses and concentrate all their resources (human, capital, and
managerial) on winning in these core businesses. This strategy involved
shedding non-core business units and downsizing through outsourcing all
processes not directly contributive to core profits.
Thus, banks and corporations were suddenly in the business of active re-
organization, pursuing direct loan disposal methods and a reorientation of
corporate strategy. Both were enabled and facilitated by new rules and regu-
lations pertaining to corporate reorganization and spin-offs, mergers and
acquisitions, and bankruptcies. Understanding that the existing system sty-
mied restructuring, the government had begun successive revisions of the
Commercial Code in 1998. These culminated in a new »Corporation Law« of
2006, which replaced the Commercial Code as the main set of rules on corpo-
rate behavior. As mentioned, this law was based on a complete reversal in
regulatory philosophy, by shifting from the previous logic of »ex ante regula-
tion« (i.e., everything that is not explicitly allowed is therefore prohibited)
towards »post-remedy« rules (everything that is not specifically prohibited is
therefore allowed, with courts ruling on problematic issues as they occur).10
Whereas in the postwar period, corporate management had limited flexibility
but could not easily be held responsible, in the 21st century, management is
free to design new business strategies and manage the company as it sees fit,
but the law has greatly empowered the rights of shareholders, the need for
disclosure, and the accountability of management for its actions. The 2006
Corporation Law is the clearest sign of the strategic inflection in Japanese
business organization.
Legal Reforms
The first set of changes concerned regulation, transparency and oversight,
which began with the »Big Bang« financial reforms of 1998. The Big Bang,
importantly, also included the 1998 revision of the Foreign Exchange Law,
which removed last vestiges of cross-border financial controls, thus greatly
10 Fujita 2006 describes the shift as one from »preemptive rules, with informal bu-
reaucratic discretion in ambiguous areas« to »freedom in principle, with ongoing
formal oversight«. This shift had formed the basis of Commercial Code revisions
since 2000; see Ministry of Justice, »Japanese Corporate Law: Drastic Changes in
2000–2001 and the Future«, www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/information/jcld-01.html.
256
facilitating financial operations by foreigners in Japan. In terms of domestic

markets, Big Bang reforms (and their subsequent continuations) covered
almost all financial areas, and had in common a big push towards stricter
disclosure, in particular, a shift to accounting at current market values as
opposed to historical book values, as well as consolidated balance sheets.
New transparency was paired with reforms in financial regulation, as the
previous reliance on informal process regulation through administrative guid-
ance and behind-closed-doors workouts was replaced with by-the-book in-
spections and meaningful sanctions of violators. In particular, with the estab-
lishment of the Financial Services Agency in 1998, and the fast rise to true
authority by that agency, even laggard banks had to face the reality of their
non-performing loan quandary. Beginning with the first quarter of fiscal year
2003, the Tokyo Stock Exchange introduced a requirement of quarterly earn-
ing statements for all listed companies (this rule was turned into law in 2007).
A second change came with new bankruptcy legislation. In the postwar
period, failing firms had little choice but to submit to an informal workout by
the main banks, because existing laws were too cumbersome for »Chapter
11« type reorganizations. The 2000 »Civil Rehabilitation Law« facilitated
such reorganization, and together with the 2003 revision of the »Corporate
Reorganization Law« introduced new processes for efficiently structured
turnarounds. The courts of Tokyo and Osaka established special divisions to
handle such procedures efficiently. A 2001 guideline for »out-of-court work-
outs« clarified the structure of bank-led turnarounds. Finally, the 2004 revi-
sion of the Liquidation Law established clear-cut rules for a shutdown of
debtors and a fair distribution of assets. All this triggered a wave of shut-
downs and reorganizations, and helped greatly in cleaning up non-performing
loans.
The third area of reform pertained to corporate restructuring and reorgani-
zation. At the end of this process, Japanese companies now have a variety of
options for reorganization through acquisitions or spin-offs. Stock market
rules were reconfigured to allow for the exchange of ownership stakes,
friendly or hostile; for example, in 1998 stock buybacks were allowed to
enable companies to repurchase the equity overhang created during the bub-
ble years. It became possible to swap stocks to accomplish a merger, and by
allowing a variety of different types of stock, companies could give different
rights to different types of owners (e.g., for a takeover defense). Labor laws
were also revised, in particular with the 2003 revision of the Labor Standards
Law, to clarify the conditions under which dismissals are justified, thus af-
fording companies more freedom in reorganization.
A final set of revisions concerned corporate governance. For corporate
strategy, the shift towards ex-post dispute settlement means greatly increased
managerial flexibility but heightening responsibility. The 2006 Corporation
Law is explicit about shift, and introduces new means of oversight, by grant-
257
Ulrike Schaede
ing shareholders significant monitoring powers. Japanese annual sharehold-

ers’ meetings in the past were known for record-breaking brevity (lest any
trouble occur). This has been replaced by newly defined and much increased
shareholder rights that facilitate, and structure the processes of, challenging
management decisions.
4. Changes in the Competitive Environment

The Unwinding of Cross-Shareholdings
These changes occurred before the backdrop of a larger, underlying shift
in corporate finance and corporate governance (Hoshi and Kashyap 2001).
Beginning in the mid-1980s, financial deregulation allowed large firms to
diversify their sources of funding, and many began to issue bonds and stocks
more aggressively. By 2005, this had lowered the debt-equity ratio by more
than half for all large firms, and even more dramatically in certain industries.
Over time, bond and equity issues have risen such that, in 1998, for the first
time since WWII Japanese large firms relied on more external financing in
the form of stocks and bonds, than on bank loans. The banks’ role has further
declined since, whereas market financing (through stock and bond issues)
continues to rise.
Related to the decline in the role of the main bank was the loosening of
business group (keiretsu) ties. With the possible exception of the Mitsubishi
Group, all horizontal groups have greatly reduced their cohesion, including in
terms of preferential trade. One means of cohesion – both between banks and
their clients, and among keiretsu members – had long been mutual sharehold-
ings based on a tacit agreement that these would not be traded, in particular in
times of crisis. These stable shareholdings had limited the number of shares
actually traded, making the Japanese stock market very thin (i.e., illiquid). Thin
markets constitute a problem for investors because positions cannot easily be
altered in reaction to new information. Many Japanese stocks were easily
subjected to price manipulations because few shares could be bought or sold,
leading to an amplified effect of any shifts in supply and demand.
This, too, began to change when cross-shareholdings unraveled through-
out the 1990s. Figure 1 shows a marked decline in cross-shareholdings, espe-
cially after 1998, from 45% of all shares outstanding in the 1980s, to 38% in
1999 and 24% in 2003 (NLI 2004, DRI 2005). Moreover, a subgroup of sta-
ble shareholding, the strictly reciprocal »mutual shareholdings« (mochiai)
have also greatly declined, from 17% of all shares outstanding, to 7% in
2003. The phenomenon had become so small that on April 7, 2005 NLI an-
nounced the termination this portion of its survey on its website (Suzuki
2005).
258
Figure 1. Stable shareholdings and reciprocal shareholdings, 1987–2003
% %
100.0 50.0
44.9%
Stable Shareholdings
(right-hand scale)
95.0 40.0
90.0 30.0
Reciprocal Shareholdings 24.3%

(right-hand scale)
85.0 17.6 % 20.0
80.0 95.3 95.5 95.4 95.2 7.6% 10.0

94.9 95.0 95.0 95.0
93.1 93.8 94.5 93.3
92.4
90.9
87.8
86.0
Percent of Firms Engaged in Cross-Shareholdings (left-hand scale) 83.2
75.0 -
1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Source: Adapted from NLI 2003.
Companies were eager to reduce their stable shareholdings, because these

had caused great losses in the 1990s, just when profitability was becoming a
critical measure. The new accounting rules, effective 2001, of mark-to-
market of cross-held shares added pressure to dissolve holdings that deterio-
rated performance data. The weakening of intra-group trade relations made
»friendship shares« strategically less relevant. Adding to this were the bank
mergers: companies that held stable shares in several banks to assure contin-
ued borrowing from these banks, could now reduce their holdings to just one
(Kuroki 2003, Schaede 2006).
The unraveling of cross-shareholdings introduced new liquidity into the
market which made stock prices meaningful. In addition, Japan suddenly
became attractive to foreign investors. The write-off of non-performing loans
and the aggressive »choose and focus« strategies made assets (firms, real
estate, and shares) available for purchase. The government’s zero-interest
rate policy meant that financing these purchases was cheap. Moreover, in
comparison to the US, Japanese assets were inexpensive. With legal proc-
esses clarified and the market offering a tremendous business opportunity,
institutional investors and investment funds arrived in Japan.
The Rise of New Shareholders: Institutional Investors

The changes in corporate finance and stable cross-shareholdings resulted
in a dramatic shift in Japan’s shareholder structure. At the height of the post-
259
Ulrike Schaede
war system in the mid-1980s, corporations and banks together owned more
than 70% of shares, while foreigners held less than 5%. The unraveling of
cross-shareholdings has given rise, in their stead, to two new groups of own-
ers: institutional investors and foreigners. Figure 2 illustrates this shift: as of
March 2006, foreigners represented the largest groups of investors at the TSE
with 26.7% (in comparison, the share of foreign investors at the New York
Stock Exchange was roughly 7% at the time). Industries in which foreign
investors held more than 30% in 2005 included pharmaceuticals (37%), in-
surance (35%), precision machinery (34%), electronics (33%), non-bank
financial services (32.5%), and automobiles and real estate (both at 31%)
(TSE 2006: 8).
Figure 2. Ownership percentages, by type of investor (in % of total mar-

ket capitalization, as of March of each year)
Large Banks Trust Banks Insurance/Inv. Banks Corporations Foreigners Individuals
1987 14.9 7.3 19.3 30.1 5.3 20.1
1989 15.7 9.8 18.7 29.0 4.3 19.9
1991 15.7 9.8 17.5 30.1 4.7 20.4
1993 15.6 9.9 17.4 28.5 6.3 20.7
1995 15.4 10.6 16.8 27.7 8.1 19.9
1997 15.1 11.2 15.6 25.6 11.9 19.4
1999 13.7 13.5 13.9 25.2 14.1 18.9
2001 10.1 17.4 11.6 21.8 18.8 19.4
2003 7.7 21.4 10.0 21.5 17.7 20.6
2005 5.3 18.8 8.6 21.9 23.7 20.3

4.7 18.4 8.4 21.1 26.7 19.1
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Source: TSE 2006.
A second factor contributing to changes in corporate governance is the

emergence of Japanese institutional investors in the form of trust banks. As
we can see from Figure 2, all financial institutions (large commercial banks,
trust banks, insurance companies, and others) reduced their holdings from a
total 41.5% in 1986, to 31.5% in 2005. Within that group, the shrinkage in
bank and insurance company holdings was counterbalanced by a substantial
increase in the role of trust banks, from less than 10% in the 1980s, to 18.4%
in 2005.
260
Even though trust banks act as mere custodians for pooled investments,
their fast rise to prominence has begun to affect corporate management. Cus-
todians vote on proxy, i.e., as determined by the retail institution that offers
the fund to investors, such as an investment bank or a trust bank. However,
most principals follow the proxy proposals suggested by the trust bank or an
intermediary fund manager. Fund managers compete against each other
measured by the returns earned on investment, and therefore value profitabil-
ity much more than long-term stability. The difference to Japan’s previous
major shareholders (banks and business group members) could not be more
pronounced: the interests are exactly opposite. Recall that banks pushed their
clients towards diversification to increase loans yet reduce risk. Trusts, in
contrast, diversify their portfolio through their own investments. They de-
mand transparency and simplicity: ideally, they want a company to be in only
one business, easily comparable to its competitors. Trusts pick the most prof-
itable firms, and invest across a large number of industries. This shift in in-
terest of dominant providers of finance has further reinforced the strategic
shift away from high diversification to »choose and focus« strategies.
Mergers and Acquisitions: The Buyout Wave

These developments have invited unprecedented activity in the market for
mergers and acquisitions. Figures 3 and 4 highlight the recent quantitative
explosion and qualitative change of M&A in Japan. Figure 3 shows the steep
increase in the overall number of deals, in particular after 1998. The chart
displays three types of deals, »out-in« (foreign money purchasing Japanese
assets), »out-out« (foreign money purchasing foreign assets in Japan), and
»in-in« (domestic deals). Although we see an expansion of »out-in« M&A
beginning in 2000, the main reason for the increase in activity is clearly the
tripling in domestic deals, from 600 per year in the mid-1990s, to 1,800 in
2005.11
11 In terms of value of these mergers and acquisitions, data are available for public
deals only, which amount to 20–40% of total transactions. These data exhibit a si-
milarly dramatic rise: the annual value of domestic M&A rose from less than ¥2
trillion in 1997 to over ¥10 trillion level in 1999, and ¥15 trillion (roughly $13 bil-
lion) in 2005 (Nomura 2006). The upward trend continued in the first half of 2006,
when both the number of deals (1,409 in six months) and their value (¥7.3 trillion)
hit record highs (Nikkei, July 1, 2006).
261
Ulrike Schaede
Figure 3. Mergers and acquisitions, by number of deals, 1986–2005
2500 2374 2308

In-In In-Out 2110 2135
Out-In 1880 1909
2000
1366
1500
992
1000 809
800
Total 643 624 634 618 602 674
590
500 438
298
219
0
'86 '87 '88 '89 '90 '91 '92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05
Source: Nomura 2005, 2006.
Figure 4. Domestic M&A deals, in number, by objective
2500
Enter into New Business

1993 1874
"Choose and Focus"
2000 Raise Equity Stake in Affiliates 1754
1799
Intra-Group Restructuring
1545
1436
1500
1057
1000
Total
703
486 567
421 381 433
500
0
'93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05
Source: Nomura 2005, 2006.
262
Figure 4 explains the objectives underlying these mergers and acquisi-

tions. Almost two thirds of deals in the early 21st century were made with an
eye towards »choose and focus« (the striped bar), that is, to strengthen exist-
ing businesses by purchasing either assets or entire organizations of competi-
tors in order to assume a more dominant market position. »Intra-group re-
structuring« refers to the reorganization of business units, including spin-offs
or mergers among subsidiaries. Figure 4 therefore tells a story of increased
M&A activity, initially to reorganize existing business, then to acquire com-
petitors in the same business. In contrast, entering a new business, which
accounted for a quarter of all domestic deals as recently as the early 1990s,
has become negligible.
Hostile Takeovers
In 2005, one third of all M&A (or 690 deals) was takeovers. These come
in two flavors: friendly and hostile. In a friendly majority acquisition, the
target agrees with the deal, a price is mutually agreed upon, and executive
management of the target may remain involved in running the business. In
contrast, hostile takeovers often involve fierce battles which typically end in
executive replacement, shareholder disputes, price run-ups, and even law-
suits. Traditionally, Japan has recorded very few hostile takeovers. One rea-
son may be an element of »saving face«, by no means singular to Japan but
possibly more pronounced there, which entices parties to label an acquisition
»friendly« even when it is not. More importantly, the extensive amount of
cross-shareholdings in Japan until the 1990s thwarted the purchase of a com-
pany against its wishes. Adding to this, until 1999 Japan did not have a rule
of compulsory acquisition of minor stakes once a raider had managed to buy
up the majority of shares, which made it difficult to acquire 100% of stock.
And finally, capital gain taxes applied to the sale of shares even in a hostile
takeover bid, making many minority owners even less willing to surrender
their shares to a hostile raider (Higashino 2004).
Figure 5 shows that the 1999 revision of these bottlenecks has opened the
door for hostile takeovers in Japan. The increase in highly touted successful
and failed bids suggests that »saving face« is no longer as important as cor-
porate reorganization. Figure 5 shows the increase in uninvited yet successful
takeover bids. While the absolute number is still small, the steep slope of the
trend line is surprising, and by 2005, there was on average one successful bid
per week. This trend continued into 2006, which recorded the first intra-
industry hostile takeovers. The August 2006 bid by Oji Paper to acquire Ho-
kuetsu Paper for its advanced production facility was Japan’s first true
»choose and focus« bid, in that Oji attempted to acquire a direct competitor
to establish dominance of the domestic paper market. In the same month,
menswear retailer Aoki launched a hostile bid for Futata, a competitor with a
presence in Kyūshū that Aoki lacked. Both bids, while ultimately unsuccess-
263
Ulrike Schaede
ful, resulted in a reshuffling of the respective industries, as the targets then

tied up with another competitor to strengthen their market positions. The high
profile of the two concurrent intra-industry battles caught the public’s atten-
tion. The fact that both battles plaid out in mature industries, with very tradi-
tional companies involved, characterized that hostile takeovers had reached
»old« Japan, and that slimming margins and a fierce fight for competitive
positioning were likely to trigger a bigger hostile takeover wave yet to come
(Sankei Shimbun, August 9, 2006).
Figure 5. Hostile takeover bids, in number of successful deals, 1995–2005
#
60
Others 53
50 Investment Funds
34 39
40
28 28
30 45
19 18 23
20 35
14 23
10 26
Total 6
10 19 17
1 14 11
6 10 8
5 2 4
- 1 1
'95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 04 05
Source: Fujioka 2006, based on Recof data.
The 2006 Corporation Law contains rules on takeovers that aim to ensure
equal treatment of all bidders and expand defense options. These rules vali-
dated a »poison pill« (a mechanism that makes a hostile bid prohibitively
expensive) in the form of new warrant issues that dilute the raider’s stake.12
At the same time, the new law gave shareholders a clearer role in the process.
Whereas some observers predicted Japanese firms to use the new Takeover
Guideline to introduce a plethora of defense mechanisms, at least as of 2006
this was not the case. However, between May 2005 and May 2006, less than
91 very large Japanese companies introduced defense mechanisms. Similar to
the recent experience in Europe, the main concern expressed by shareholders
on these various tools to thwart attempted takeovers was a lack of transpar-
ency and a potential override of shareholders’ rights and interests by self-
serving incumbent management (Miyazaki 2006).
12 Milhaupt (2005) offers a detailed analysis how the 2005 Takeover Guideline
represents an adaptation of Delaware takeover rules to the Japanese setting; see
MOJ/METI (2005) for the »Guidelines for Corporate Value Protection« (Takeover
Guidelines), and CVSG (Corporate Value Study Group, 2006) for the 2006 report
on takeover activities and policies.
264
Perhaps most importantly, the objective with a hostile takeover is typically

to purchase an underperforming company, replace its management and busi-
ness model, and improve performance of the company. The best defense
against such a takeover is for management to undertake these reforms by
itself, to ensure that its stock price is not underperforming. Therefore,
whether or not a hostile bid is launched or eventually successful is not as
relevant as the potential threat of a hostile takeover in introducing managerial
discipline in terms of cost efficiency and profitability. The arrival of hostile
takeovers in Japan has brought this discipline.
Changes in Labor Relations

As large Japanese firms become more strategic about their resources with
an eye toward profitability and efficiency, their human resource practices are
changing as well, especially in the areas of lifetime employment, and pay and
promotion.
Figure 6. Shifts in non-regular work, 1985–2005
40
35
In % of Employed Workforce
30 Total Non-Regular
Workers
25
Part-Timers
20
15
10
Contract Workers
5 Dispatched Workers
Others
0
'85 '86 '87 '88 '89 '90 '91 '92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05
Source: Saito 2006, based on Sōmushō Tōkeikyoku, Rōdōryoku chōsa.
An increasing proportion of the workforce finds itself in non-regular posi-

tions. As shown in Figure 6, roughly one third of the workforce is now on
contracts with a term limit (after legal revisions, stipulated at three years).
Moreover, these non-regular workers are no longer just »part-timers«, usually
stereotyped as (a) women re-entering the workforce in their 40s to conduct
non-core work, or (b) previous »lifetimers« rehired after the stipulated re-
tirement age that used to be set at 60 (raised to 65 in the early 21st century).
Figure 6 shows that a fast-growing portion of non-regular workers are so-
265
Ulrike Schaede
called »contract workers«, who are outsourced professionals. These are

skilled individuals in areas such as IT, software, or engineering. In line with
the fast increase of outsourced professional services, employment agencies
are growing rapidly, and regulations on employment agencies have been
revised to give these agencies more administrative powers.
Thus we observe a trend away from granting »lifetime employment« to all
office workers, and towards increased reliance on short-term, outside work.
This means that the role of »lifetimers« in the company is also changing, as
these core employees are facing increasing demands towards specialization.
In the postwar system, companies would recruit employees immediately after
graduation, and train them into generalists through »rotation-on-the-job«.
Skill formation was company-specific, i.e. not easily transferable to other
positions. There was only a very limited market for mid-career job changers,
and certainly not for white-collar workers. In the 21st century, companies can
no longer afford to lack in-house specialization, and rotation-on-the-job is
more focused to result in skill formation around a certain area of expertise.
This, in turn, makes employees marketable, and Japan is seeing the onset of a
»war for talent«.
To incentivize and retain employees, large companies are switching to
performance pay and promotion. Human resource metrics that used to rely
mostly on intangibles (loyalty, teamwork, dedication; sometimes measured in
sick leave taken or unpaid overtime offered) have switched to clear-cut met-
rics tied to performance. A 2004 survey by the NLI Research Institute reveals
that only one quarter of Japanese firms intended to uphold existing employ-
ment practices; one third had already switched to performance pay and one
third was in the process of doing so (Fujimura 2003). In firms that have
switched, bonus payments are almost exclusively tied to business unit per-
formance (measured in profits); pay is based on a combination of achieve-
ment and skill accumulation; and promotion on a combination of ability and
competence (see, e.g., Beaulieu and Zimmerman 2005, Schaede forthcom-
ing).
This has resulted in increased wage differentials within companies. The
Annual Survey of Corporate Behavior FY 2004 reported that in companies
with performance-based wages, wage differentials increased by an average of
0.2 percentage points over the previous decade, roughly from 1.65 to 1.85.13
This means that, on average, within one company some employees earn 1.85
times as much as other employees in the same age and work category.
Offering performance pay and promotion has become necessary due to the
development of an external labor market for all job categories. In the 1990s,
this was due to globalization: as more foreign firms hired Japanese talent at
higher wages with clear and fast promotion opportunities, Japanese firms had
13 www.esri.cao.go.jp/jp/stat/h16ank/main.html.
266
to change their systems in order to compete for best talent. The shift was
further pushed by the banking crisis, which led a series of bank mergers, such
as that between the Industrial Bank of Japan, Fuji Bank, and Dai-Ichi Kangyō
Bank into Mizuho. For many young IBJ bankers, this merger muddled career
opportunities, and led some to join foreign banks, consulting firms, or ven-
ture capital firms. The Japanese head-hunting industry, long underdeveloped,
showed high growth rates in the early 2000s, including for mid-career jobs.
The mid-career job market can be expected to eventually also change wage
determination, away from the corporate level (the larger the company, the
higher the wage) and towards market wages for job categories.
For large Japanese companies, talent retention is best accomplished
through individual performance measures. »Lifetime employees« are turning
into a core asset of companies, with all non-core work outsourced to skilled
contract workers. While many Japanese firms cling to old practices of hiring,
talent is attracted to those places that de-emphasize seniority and push indi-
vidual careers. The looming labor shortage will only reinforce this move-
ment: as talent gets scarcer, lifetime employment may pick up again (as com-
pared to Figure 6), but contract stipulations will be much different, and em-
ployees may change jobs if they are not satisfied.
5. Conclusions
The shift towards »refocusing« began in 2000 with legal changes that
greatly facilitated divestitures, liquidations, and other reorganization. As a
result, the composition of shareholders in Japan has greatly changed, with
enormous implications for business strategies and corporate management.
During the postwar period, management of large firms aimed to increase
sales, almost at any cost, to please the main banks as well as other members
of their business groups and stable shareholders. The typical process for recti-
fying mismanagement was for the business group to consult quietly, and for
the main bank to organize informal debt restructuring. Banks had an informa-
tion monopoly over corporate information, and details of restructurings were
not made public. In this setting, the president of a large firm was mostly in-
terested in stability and certainty: if there were no large swings in corporate
performance, there would be no interference with management. Risk-taking
was rarely rewarded, but steady growth and diversification were.
All of this has become a thing of the past. Companies are now concerned
with the cost of financing: unlike the postwar period, when interest rates on
bank loans were regulated at a low level and were the same for companies of
similar size, capital market financing is based on the price mechanism. The
better the corporate performance, the cheaper it is to raise money from the
markets. The new dominant shareholders, institutional investors, are driven
by a profitability goal in competition with each other for investors. The new
267
Ulrike Schaede
shareholders will also sell off underperforming companies, which will de-
press the stock price and therefore invite hostile takeover bids. The new own-
ers have also reinforced pressure on Japanese firms to reorient their corporate
strategies, as their interests – transparent business models with clear-cut per-
formance data, in a limited set of businesses so as to allow direct comparison
with competitors – differ fundamentally from those of Japanese banks in the
postwar period. Overall, Japanese management practices have been oriented
towards the market.
This change towards the markets is anchored in a large number of laws
and the rapid emergence of supporting industries, such as financial lawyers,
litigation lawyers, securities analysts and other information providers, and the
courts. Underperforming management now can, and is, being sued by share-
holders. Violations of rules are prosecuted strictly, as the Livedoor account-
ing scandal and the Murakami insider trading case have highlighted. Gone
are the days when corporate executives caught at wrongdoing were simply
promoted to chairman; in the 21st century, they might be serving a prison
term. While recent accounting and other scandals suggest that there is still
room for regulatory improvement, the direction of change is clearly towards
the market. It is inconceivable that all of these reforms can be unraveled; the
new market orientation of Japanese firms as they compete for investors is
here to stay. To fully understand the Japan of the 21st century, we have to
revise our existing knowledge of Japan and account for the fundamental
changes the country’s political economy has undergone since 1998.
References Cited
ABEGGLEN, James C. and George STALK (1985): Kaisha, the Japanese Corporation:
How Marketing, Money, and Manpower Strategy, Not Management Style,
Make the Japanese World Pace-Setters. New York: Basic Books.
AMYX, Jennifer (2004): Japan’s Financial Crisis: Institutional Rigidity and Reluctant
Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
AOKI, Masahiko and Hugh T. PATRICK (eds.) (1994): The Japanese Main Bank Sys-
tem: Its Relevance for Developing and Transforming Economies. New York:
Oxford University Press.
ARAKI, Takashi (2002): Labor and Employment Law in Japan. Tokyo: Japanese
Institute of Labor.
BEAULIEU, Nancy Dean and Aaron M.G. ZIMMERMAN (2005): Orix KK: Incentives in
Japan. Harvard Business School, case # 9-905-013.
BURGELMAN, Robert A. and Andrew S. GROVE (1996): Strategic Dissonance. In:
California Management Review 38, 2, pp. 8–28.
CVSG (Corporate Value Study Group) (2006): Corporate Value Report 2006. Tokyo:
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. www.meti.go.jp/policy/economic_
organization/pdf/houkoku06_eng.pdf.
268
DIR (Daiwa Institute of Research) (ed.) (2004): »Mochiai« jidai no shūen [The end of
the Mochiai era]. Tokyo: Daiwa Sōken.
DIR (Daiwa Institute of Research) (eds.) (2005): Mochiai kaishō tsuzuku ga, hanten no
kizashi mo [Cross-shareholdings keep unraveling; some signs of reversal]. Tokyo:
Daiwa sōken. www.dir.co.jp/research/report/viewpoint/05121401viewpoint.pdf.
ESRI (Economic and Society Research Institute) (eds.) (2004): Wagakuni kigyō no
M&A katsudō no enkatsu na tenkai ni mukete [Towards a smooth develop-
ment of corporate M&A in Japan]. Tokyo: Cabinet Office.
FUJIMURA, Hiroyuki (2003): Changes in the Spring Wage Offensive and the Future of
the Wage Determination System in Japanese Firms. In: Japan Labor Bulletin
42, 5, pp. 6–12.
FUJIOKA, B. (2006): Wagakuni kig no M&A katsu: chiiki kasseika ni mukete [M&A
activities by Japanese firms: Towards regional revitalization].Tokyo: ESRI
(Naikakufu Keizaishakai Sōgō Kenkyūjo). www.esri.go.jp/jp/forum1/060124/-
kicho-fujioka3.pdf.
FUJITA, T. (2006): Shin-Kaisha-hō shikkō de kabunushi sōkai wa issō jūyō ni [The
new company law is implemented: Towards a stronger general shareholders’
meeting]. In: Ekonomisuto 2006.6.6, pp. 78–80.
GERLACH, Michael L. (1992): Alliance Capitalism: The Social Organization of Japa-
nese Business. Berkeley: University of California Press.
HIGASHINO, Dai (2004): Corporate Reorganization Picks up Steam (Part 2): New
Currents and Prospects. In: Japan Economic Monthly Dec. 2004, pp. 1–9.
HOSHI, Takeo and Anil K. KASHYAP (2001): Corporate Financing and Corporate
Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future. Boston: MIT Press.
JOHNSON, Chalmers (1982). MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Indus-
trial Policy, 1925–1975. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
KUROKI, B. (2003). Mochiai kaishō no miru kigyō to ginkō no kankei – 2002 nendo
kabushiki mochiai jōkyō chōsa [The relationship between banks and corpora-
tions from the viewpoint of mochiai dissolution]. Nissei kisōken REPORT,
Oct 2003.
LINCOLN, James R. and Michael L. GERLACH (2004): Japan’s Network Economy:
Structure, Persistence, and Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MCMILLAN, John (1990): Managing Suppliers: Incentive Systems in Japanese and
United States Industry. In: California Management Review 32, 4, pp. 38–55.
MILHAUPT, Curtis J. (2005): In the Shadow of Delaware? The Rise of Hostile Take-
overs in Japan. In: Columbia Law Review 105, 7, pp. 2171–2216.
MIYAZAKI, T. (2006): Shin-Kaisha-hō de kawaru itsutsu no pointo [The five main
changes with the new corporation law]. In: Ekonomisuto 2006.4.11, pp. 99–
101.
MOJ/METI (Ministry of Justice/Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) (eds.)
(2005): Kigyō kachi kabunishi kyōdō no rieki no kakuho mata wa kōjō no
tame no baishū bōeisaku ni kan suru shishin [Guidelines for corporate value
269
Ulrike Schaede
protection]. Tokyo: Ministry of Justice/Ministry of Economy, Trade and In-

dustry.
NAKATANI, I. (1984): The Economic Role of Financial Corporate Groupings. In:
Masahiko AOKI (ed.): The Economic Analysis of the Japanese Firm. Amster-
dam: North-Holland, pp. 7–258.
NLI (Nihon Life Institute) (ed.) (2004): Kabushiki mochiai jōkyō chōsa 2003 nenpan
[Survey on the state of cross-shareholdings, 2003].Tokyo: Nissei Kisō Ken-
kyūsho.
NOMURA (2005): Trends in Japanese Company Related M&As in 2004. Tokyo: No-
mura Securities Co., Ltd., Investment Banking Research Dept.
NOMURA (2006): Trends in Japanese Company Related M&As in 2005. Tokyo: No-
mura Securities Co., Ltd., Investment Banking Research Dept.
SAITŌ, Tarō (2006): Hi-seiki koyō no kakudai ga imi suru mono [Making sense of the
expansion in non-regular work[Making sense of the expansion in non-regular
work]. In: Nissei kisōken REPORT 2006/5, pp. 1–6.
SCHAEDE, Ulrike (2000): Cooperative Capitalism: Self-Regulation, Trade Associa-
tions, and the Antimonopoly Law in Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
SCHAEDE, Ulrike (2006): The Strategic Logic of Japanese Keiretsu, Main Banks and
Cross-Shareholdings, Revisited. New York: Columbia Business School, Center on
Japanese Economy and Business (= Working Paper; 247). www.gsb.columbia.
edu/cjeb.
SCHAEDE, Ulrike (2007, forthcoming): Globalization and the Japanese Subcontractor
System. In: David BAILEY, Dan COFFEY, and Phil TOMLINSON (eds.): Crisis or
Recovery in Japan: State and Industrial Economy. London: Edward Elgar.
SCHAEDE, Ulrike (forthcoming): Japan’s Corporate Renewal: Business Strategies in
the 21st Century.
SUZUKI, K. (2005): Kabushiki sōgō mochiai no »kaishō« ni tsuite [On the »dissolu-
tion« of reciprocal shareholdings]. In: Ōsaka keidai ronshū 55, 5, pp. 7–23.
TSE (Tokyo Stock Exchange) (ed.) (2006): Heisei 17nendo kabushiki bunpu jōkyō no
chōsa kekka ni tsuite [Results of the 2004 survey on shareholdings]. Tokyo:
Tokyo Stock Exchange.
WILLIAMSON, Oliver E. (1985): The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms,
Markets, and Relational Contracting. New York: Free Press.
270
Karl August Neuhausen
Ultima Orientis Thule Reconsidered
Japan in the Amoenitates exoticae (1712) as
the Major Work of the Excellent Neo-Latin Author
Engelbert Kaempfer
1. Introduction: Kaempfer’s Heutiges Japan and Other Recently Edited

Posthumous Works
Even in Japan today, the German physician and scientist Engelbert
Kaempfer, who was born the son of a Lutheran pastor in the Westphalian
town of Lemgo in 1651, is among the most famous European scholars and is
generally regarded as the »Humboldt« of the 17th century.1 Kaempfer’s ex-
traordinary and long-lasting reputation in Asia as a whole, and especially in
the Japanese world of letters, is based mainly on his various and innumerable
descriptions of his pioneering voyages through Asia from Persia to Japan
(1684–1692), and above all his fundamental monograph on contemporary
Japan.
Curiously, however, this work was not initially published in its original
German form before Kaempfer died near his native town in 1716, but ap-
peared posthumously 11 years later as an English translation by the Swiss
Johann Caspar Scheuchzer. It was printed in London in 1727 with the impre-
cise title History of Japan.2 Translations into other languages have followed,
but it took until 2001 before Kaempfer’s original text bearing the title
Heutiges Japan was edited, in this case by Wolfgang Michel and Barend J.
Terwiel. These two volumes mark the start of publication of Kaempfer’s
posthumous works by Detlef Haberland, Wolfgang Michel, and Elisabeth
Gössmann; the other five volumes of this series were edited and printed
within the triennium 2001–2003 and comprise Kaempfer’s letters and paint-
ings of Japanese plants and of his stay in Siam, his Notitiae Malabaricae, and
his Russian diary.3
1 For the biography of Kaempfer, see now Bonn 2002: passim.

2 The complete title is presented in Detlef Haberland 1990: 92.
3 All volumes of the critical edition of Kaempfer’s recently published posthumous
works are cited in the Appendix.
271
2. Japan in Kaempfer’s Amoenitates exoticae

2.1 The Forgotten Latin Author Engelbertus Kaempfer
2.1.1 Kaempfer’s Three Latin Writings as the Only Works Published by
Himself
On this occasion I do not intend to discuss the critical edition of Kaempfer’s
writings that was just mentioned, for everyone has long appreciated this out-
standing and unique collection of Kaempfer’s posthumous works as a desid-
eratum of scholarship which has formed a solid basis for all future studies on
Kaempfer.
On the contrary, I am drawing your attention now to works that were pub-
lished by Kaempfer himself. Indeed, the amazing status quo of the numerous
modern studies concerning Kaempfer’s life and writings cannot be too
strongly emphasized. Almost all of them ignore or at least are not enough
aware of the essential fact that none of the three works that Kaempfer has
printed were written in German, English, or any other modern language, but
were of course always composed in Latin.
The first treatise of Kaempfer’s to appear in print was his Exercitatio Poli-
tica de Majestatis Divisione in Realem et Personalem in 1673 which the
young author age 22 proposed in Danzig in order to demonstrate that he was
able to take up an academic career. 4 The second work published by
Kaempfer was his doctoral thesis printed in Leiden (Lugduni Batavorum)
entitled Disputatio Medica Inauguralis Exhibens Decadum Observationum
Exoticarum, which came out 21 years later (1694).5 In this medical disserta-
tion, Kaempfer offered, for the first time, some observations from his 10
years of traveling through Asia. Furthermore, these Observationes Exoticae
were the starting point of Kaempfer’s third and last work, which he published
himself in Lemgo four years before his death (1712): the Amoenitates Exoti-
cae.
2.1.2 The Amoenitatum exoticarum fasciculi V as Kaempfer’s Most

Important Book
Kaempfer’s last work, which he published 18 years after obtaining his
doctorate, was not only much more extensive than his earlier Latin treatises,
but also the richest in substance as evidenced by its title: Amoenitatum exoti-
carum politico-physico-medicarum fasciculi V [Five fascicles of exotic
pleasures regarding politics, physics and medicine]. Its subtitle more pre-
cisely indicates the contents of the five parts of the volume, the Latin words
being so plain and simple that an English translation seems to be unnecessary
4 Further reference to it is made by Neuhausen 2004 and 2007.

5 For more details see again the preceding footnote.
272
or even superfluous, as the congruences between the Latin and English ex-
pressions are evident: Quibus continentur variae relationes, observationes et
descriptiones rerum Persicarum et ulterioris Asiae, multa attentione, in
peregrinationibus per universum Orientem, collectae, ab auctore Engelberto
Kaempfero, D. (»which contain various relations, observations and descrip-
tions of Persian matters and regions beyond in Asia, collected during expedi-
tions through the entire Orient by the author, the doctor Engelbert
Kaempfer«).
This monumental and extremely valuable book, amounting to nearly 1.000
pages (including introduction, preface, illustrations, and Index rerum ac ver-
borum), must be considered the most important of all Kaempfer’s works.
Nevertheless, it was never edited after the editio princeps of 1712, so that it
now – shortly before its third centenary – urgently requires revision and
preparation for publication, but is still awaiting critical editing similar to the
posthumous works put out a few years ago.
The first attempt to prepare such a badly-needed new edition of Kaempfer’s
Amoenitates exoticae is the article that I published three years ago and have
now put at your disposal. The title of this essay is programmatic: »Engelbert
Kaempfer als lateinischer Prosaautor – Zum Sprachstil und literarischen Rang
der Amoenitates exoticae« [Latin prose-author Engelbertus Kaempfer – On the
style and literary rank of the Amoenitates exoticae]. Moreover, the printed
version of a supplementary lecture on Kaempfer’s Amoenitates exoticae that I
gave last year is forth-coming, its title being equally significant: »Engelbert
Kaempfer als späthumanistischer Reiseschriftsteller im Spiegel seiner Amoeni-
tates exoticae« [Engelbert Kaempfer’s accounts of his expeditions in the
Amoenitates exoticae as a work of the late humanism era].
Accordingly, I express Prof. Kreiner my sincere thanks for giving me the
opportunity to summarize here my two recent studies on Engelbertus
Kaempfer Latinissimus. Hence, in accordance with the theme of this Interna-
tional Symposium in honor of Josef Kreiner, I would like to outline briefly
the current developments and future tasks in establishing a modern edition of
Kaempfer’s Amoenitates exoticae, particularly those passages dealing with
Japan and various Japanese issues. In this context, I also owe Dr. Lothar
Weiß a great debt of gratitude for providing me with a lot of very valuable
yet unstudied material stored in the archives of Lemgo and Detmold.
2.1.3 Kaempfer’s Position as an Excellent Neo-Latin Author Within the

Entire History of Latin Language and Literature
Regarding Kaempfer’s œuvre as a whole, we must begin by recognizing
that the author, when he died in 1716, was justly considered by his contem-
poraries as a typical Latin writer. For during his whole lifetime, he not only
published all his works in Latin, but also used Cicero’s language when he
273
composed most of his letters and many other texts, which were edited post-
humously. Consequently, Engelbertus Kaempfer should be viewed as a
prominent author of prose in the long tradition of Latin language and litera-
ture.
Indeed, it be must be generally stated at the outset that the Latinitas
(Latinity) that we have inherited has existed for more than two millennia –
since the third century B.C., to be exact – and consists of three major periods
lasting about 800 years each. The first epoch extends from the beginning of
Roman literature to its end (in the 6th century), while the second era com-
prises the entirety of Medieval Latin literature until the rise of Renaissance
Humanism. That is why philologists commonly agree nowadays that the third
and hitherto last period – the so-called Neo-Latin age – begins with the Latin
writings of Petrarch, the »Father of the Humanists«, and continues uninter-
rupted until the present day.6
Therefore, the main focus here is on the third major epoch of the Latin
language and literature, as Kaempfer’s Latin writings took place during the
strongly flourishing age of Neo-Latin. Nobody is surprised today that Latin-
ity was the spiritual bond of all Central Europe from the beginning of the
Western Empire throughout the era of Charlemagne until the end of the Mid-
dle Ages. Yet among the general public, there is little or no awareness of the
substantial fact that since Petrarch, the Latin language and literature have
continued to develop to a high level in all areas of both prose and poetry, so
that the Neo-Latin as a whole has not by any means been surpassed by the
ancient and medieval Latinitas, neither in quantity nor quality. 7 Besides,
everybody ought to remember that until the 19th century, not English, but
Latin was used as the global lingua franca of science and letters; in several
disciplines it still serves this purpose today. In any case, until Kaempfer’s day
in Europe, more works had been printed in Latin than in all other national
European languages together.
However, Kaempfer’s Amoenitates exoticae, published in 1712, marks a
turning point in the general use of Latin within the realms of the res publica
litterarum (republic of letters). From Kaempfer’s own preface to his Amoeni-
tates exoticae, we can also gather that the priority of languages at that very
time – the first half of the 18th century – was gradually changing. This matter
is worth inquiring into, as Kaempfer associates here the changes in the pref-
erence for languages with his first mention of Japan.
6 See generally Klopsch, Neuhausen, and Laureys (2001): 925–946.

7 Cf. also my previous basically programmatic Latin essay (with an English sum-
mary) entitled Latinitas Europae fundamentum spiritale ab antiquis aetatibus
atque Caroli Magni saeculo ad praesentia pertinens tempora (Neuhausen 1997).
274
2.2 Kaempfer’s Comments on Japan in the Amoenitates exoticae

2.2.1 Japan in Kaempfer’s Preface
2.2.1.1 Japonia nostri temporis [Japan of Our Time]
After explaining the purpose of his Amoenitates exoticae Kaempfer, prom-
ises to offer his publishers three new works as soon as possible:
[…] offeram bibliopolis: 1. Japoniam nostri temporis, in quarto, ut
vocant, edendam Teutonice, cum imaginibus plus minus quadraginta; 2.
Herbarii Trans-Getici specimen in folio, Latine cum Iconibus circiter
quingentis; [...] Hodoeporicum tripertitum in folio, cum figuris totidem,
quot editoris sumptus tulerint; optionem ei daturus, an illud Latine, an
Germanico, an vero Belgico idiomate edi debeat.
This passage is very remarkable for several reasons:
(a) The first work announced here by Kaempfer is his monograph on Japan,
Japonia(m) nostri temporis [...] edenda(m) Teutonice which means »Japan
of out time [...] to be edited in German«.
(b)Thus, Kaempfer, for the first time in the Latin language, refers to his
forthcoming work to be written in German and entitled Heutiges Japan,
which however did not appear while he was still alive, and was not to be
edited for another three centuries (in 2001).
(c) The same Heutiges Japan was both the first and last work Kaempfer com-
posed in his vernacular language. Consequently, in regard to linguistic as
well as historical aspects, this German-language volume dedicated to con-
temporary Japan earns an exceptional place within Kaempfer’s literary
oeuvre.
(d)In contrast, when Kaempfer was planning to publish the second work that
he announces here – the Herbarii Trans-Getici specimen – he, typically
and without any doubt, intended to write it again Latine, i.e. in Latin, the
traditional language of science as well as his own favorite idiom. There-
fore also the third and last work offered here by Kaempfer – entitled
Hodoeporicum tripertitum – at least from his point of view had to be writ-
ten in Latin, although he left the publisher the option of choosing the most
appropriate language, either Latin or German or Dutch: »[...] optionem ei
daturus, an illud Latino, an Germanico, an vero Belgico idiomate edi de-
beat«. So Kaempfer himself was convinced that Latin, being superior to
all other comparable languages, must continue to be preferred by scholars,
though his ranking list of idioms includes German and Dutch, too (but not
English or any other then modern language).
275
2.2.1.2 Japan as Ultima Orientis Thule [Thule the Extreme Easternmost Part
of the Orient]
The Hodoeporicum tripertitum [Tripartite report of our journeys] indi-
cated here by Kaempfer as his third opus to come forth, is also of overriding
importance for his treatment of Japan in the Amoenitates exoticae and other
itineraries he promises in the preface to communicate to the public soon after.
At first, imitating the classical opening sentence of Caesar’s Bellum Galli-
cum (»Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae,
aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellan-
tur«), Kaempfer presents a tripartite division of all his journeys he had made
from Russia to East Asia, distinguishing the following three main parts of
that Hodoeporicum:
Continebit hoc ipsum partes tres: quarum prima exponet res Russo-
Tartaricas; altera, Asiae citra Gangem; tertia, Asiae ultra Gangem.
(»This itself will contain three parts: The first of them will expose Rus-
sian-Tartar issues; the second one matters of Asia on this side of the
Ganges, the third part those of Asia beyond the Ganges.«)
Consequently, addressing himself to all those who may read Hodoe-
poricum tripertitum in the future, Kaempfer offers a brief chronological sur-
vey of his entire itinerary (1683–1693), emphasizing the most important
stations and regions using italics; this account starts, therefore, with
Kaempfer’s departure from Stockholm as secretary of the Swedish legation:
Legationi a Serenissimo Suecorum Rege, Anno 1683. Instructae a
Secretis, discessi Holmia per Finniam, Livoniam, Russiam ad Aulam
Moscoviticam. Expeditis in illa negotiis, per Tartariae Casanensis et
Nagaicae tractum, transmission mari Caspi, feror in Mediam: in cuius
metropoli Sjamachia dum Comitatus trimestri otio se reficit, ego privatis
peregrinationibus excurro ad loca alia. Ad Aulam Persicam evocati per
Hyrcaniam Parthiamque ducimur ad Regiam Isfahanensem; intra cuius
pomoeria biennium degimus, dum interea privatis excursionibus subinde
vaco. Tandem a dimissa Legatione me expediens, cogito in Aegyptum,
vocor in Georgiam archiater, et variis conditionum oblationibus lacessor:
Sed praevaluit suasu Reverendi senis, Patris du Mans, Capucini ac Regii
interpretis, invitatio architalassi [sic!] Batavorum, qui classe sua Ormu-
siensem Sinum infestabat.
The first and shorter part of his itinerary, covering only three years (1683–
1685), does not need any commentary here. But the second and more inter-
estingpart of Kaempfer’s concise account of his voyages – the expedition
through South and East Asia (1686–1692) – requires now careful attention:
Depositis armis in Arabiam, inde in terras magni Mogolis, Malabarica,
Ceylanam, et regionem Sinus Gangetici concedo. Deinde secundum
littora Sumatrae in Javam deportatus, et ex ejus metropoli in ulteriores
Provincias atque Insulas progressus, tandem Siamensem Aulam visito.
276
Inde Cambodia, Sina australi et adjacentibus regionibus per transennam

inspectis, Japoniam assequor, ultimam Orientis Thulen. Integro ei
biennio nequaquam otiose, Asiae vero decennio immoratus, facto reditus
compendio, per oceanum revertor in Belgium, exacto in mari uno anno,
exceptis paucis hebdomadibus, quibus Africani promontorii solitudines
permigravi. Hos inquam Orbis tractus Itinerario persequor.
According to this summary, Kaempfer finally reaches Japonia (Japan), the
easternmost part of Asia and the high point of his expeditions, because he
sets off on his return journey (via the African promontory, i.e. South Africa,
to Belgium, i.e. the Netherlands) from Japan. His stay in Japan, which lasts
for two years (»integro ei biennio« covers the biennial period 1690–1692), is
evidently the culmination of his entire iter Asiaticum of 10 years, for the
general expression »Asiae vero decennio immoratus« spans the decade of
Kaempfer’s travels in Asia between 1683 and 1693.
The extraordinary position, which Japan (Japonia) occupied in Kaempfer’s
travels and, consequently, also in his planned Itinerarium tripertitum, is em-
phasized and highlighted, too, by its unique opposition ultima Orientis Thule.
The adjective and superlative ultima in conjunction with the place name of
Thule pertains to the traditional literary terms of the classical world, occur-
ring in such texts of ancient Latin poetry as Vergil’s Georgica (1, 30: »[...]
tibi serviat ultima Thule«) and Seneca’s drama Medea (v. 379: »ultima
Thule«). All sources of Greek and Roman antiquity concerning both the name
and the place or idea of the legendary Thule8 refers to the historical voyage of
the Greek seafarer, geographer, and astronomer Pytheas (second half of the
4th century B.C.)9 who believed Thule to be situated in the north of Europe.
Since Pytheas, ancient authors have therefore identified Thule as one of the
Orkney or Shetland Islands in the north of Britannia10 or even as Iceland or
Scandinavia. In any case, Thule, in ancient times, was regarded the north-
ernmost point of Europe.
Hence, assuming that this fact was commonly known, Kaempfer as well as
all other Humanists had the literary background necessary for effectively
using the notion of Thule in a metaphorical sense. Before Kampfer’s time,
however, since early Renaissance Humanism, Latin writers did not normally
apply the idea of Thule to islands or country districts in the north of Europe,
as ancient authors had done, but rather to those westernmost areas where the
8 For references, see »Thule« in Der neue Pauly, vol. 12, 1 (2002), p. 512.
9 Cf. both the article »Pytheas« in Der neue Pauly, vol. 10 (2001), pp. 660–662),
and the monograph on Pytheas by CUNLIFFE (2001).
10 The classical ancient witness for his interpretation is Tacitus (Agricola 10, 4):
»Hanc oram novissimi maris tunc primum Romana classis circumvecta insulam
esse Britanniam affirmavit, ac simul incognitas ad id tempus insulas, quas Orca-
das vocant, invenit domuitque. Dispecta est et Thule, quia hactenus iussum, et
hiems appetebat.«
277
unknown novus orbis, the New World, was thought to be found; therefore,
quoting primarily the prophecy of the chorus in Seneca’s tragedy Medea
which has already been cited here,11 historians as well as poets in the 16th
and 17th centuries often used Thule in conjunction with all voyagers and
explorers who, searching for this mysterious place, had in reality discovered
America.12
In regard to two essential points, then, Kaempfer’s view of Thule appar-
ently differs from both of its other traditional conceptions. While in earlier
times people had supposed Thule to be located in either specific regions in
the north or west of Europe, although they could not get a lead on its utopic
location, Kaempfer moved Thule to the extreme opposite end of Europe,
Oriens (Orient) and Asia (Asia), and declared it to be not a fictitious, but an
actual island. He thus called Japan, which was then for almost all Europeans
quite an unknown country, »the easternmost part of the Orient« (ultima Ori-
entis Thule). The context of this passage in Kaempfer’s preface to Amoeni-
tates exoticae indicates that Oriens (Orient) used here means the same as the
continent of Asia as a whole.13
On the other hand, it does not matter whether Kaempfer was the first one
to denote Japan as Thule or if any other – hitherto anonymous – author had
already made a similar comparison. Kaempfer’s surprising presentation of
Japonia/Japan as combined with and even equated with Thule – unexpected,
but immediately understood by his contemporary, well educated, Humanist
readers – was effective and of utmost importance for his further treatment of
Japan, both in the Amoenitates exoticae and the posthumous Heutiges Japan.
The sentence following the designation of Japan as ultima Orientis Thule
is equally worth mentioning here: »Integro ei biennio nequaquam otiose [...]
immoratus« (»For fully two years I stayed there [ei refers to Japonia as ul-
tima Orientis Thule] not at all idly«). Using the litotes haudquaquam otiose
(»by no means in a leisured manner«) Kaempfer modestly as well as effec-
tively confirms and underlines the fact that during the entire two-year period
11 The song of the chorus, which begins with verse 301, is finished by the following
prediction (v. 374–379): »Venient annis / saecula seris, quibus Oceanus / vincula
rerum laxet et ingens / pateat tellus Tethysque novos / detegat orbes nec sit terris /
ultima Thule«.
12 This subject is discussed in Neuhausen 1996. Consequently, the motto of the In-
ternational Congress of Neo-Latin Studies held in Avila (Spain) in 1997 was: »El
neolatin en el umbral de nuevos mundos: desde Iberia hasta ultima Thule«; cf.
Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Abulensis – Proceedings of the Tenth International
Congress of Neo-Latin Studies […], Tempe, Arizona, 2000 (= Medieval and Ren-
aissance Texts and Studies; 207).
13 In the subtitle of the Amoenitates exoticae, the expression per universum Orientem
exactly corresponds to per Asiam universam in the letter of dedication Kaempfer
addressed to Count Frederick Adolph.
278
he spent in Japan, he always kept on inquiring and doing research in various

fields of science. The first results of his indefatigable studies and scientific
investigations are communicated by Kaempfer in two chapters of the second
fascicle, in three chapters of the third fascicle, and in the entire fifth fascicle
of the Amoenitates exoticae.
2.2.2 Japan in the Second Fascicle of the Amoenitates exoticae

Whereas the other four fascicles of the Amoenitates exoticae have already
been translated into a few other modern languages (unfortunately, less suc-
cessfully than desired), 14 such a comprehensive translation of the second
fascicle still remains a desideratum of the present studies on Kaempfer. The
lack of philological commentaries on the second fascicle is all the more so
regrettable as the last two main chapters, the Relationes XIII/XIV, concern
Japan generally as well as Japanese specialities.
2.2.2.1 Relatio XIII. Chartopoeia Japonica [Japanese Paper-Producing]

The thirteenth Relatio (relation) covers 13 pages (pp. 466–478) and con-
sists of three minor chapters (§§ I–III), the central topic being the production
of paper, especially in Japan (§§ II–III). But it is typical of Kaempfer as a
Humanist that he, before describing the Japanese art of making paper, re-
minds us of the older classical tradition by surveying the ancient methods of
paper-production in the Occident as well as in the entire Orient and Asia
outside of Japan:15
Scribendi modos apud veteres Occidentis nostri, ejusque finitimos,
Aegyptios, Syros, Hebraeos ceterasque gentes, uti multiplices, ita omnes
laboriosos, impeditos ac quotidiana hominum patientia majores fuisse,
nemo ignorat. Instrumentum non levidensis pluma erat, sed stylus
ferreus, vel artificiose constructum penicillum. Subjectum, non vulgata
humano usui charta, sed tabula pellitae, membraneae, corticatae,
foliaceae, aeneae, plumbeae, ceratae, omnes laboriose fabricatae.Inter
has scribendi difficultates, historiae hostes, eruditionis remoras, chartae
ex vetustis linteis conficiendae artificium Divino beneficio adinventum
est: ajunt aetate Alexandri M.; verum, sic delituisse supra fidem diu in
rudimentis oportet, antequam satis excultum ad usus mortalium
divulgaretur, quo tandem facto, cetera omnia scribendi subsidia,
praeterquam Pergamemun, extra Heliconis pomoeria proscripta sunt.
Citerioris Orientis, Turciae, Arabiae, Persiae, Tartariae minoris et
Mogolis populi, inventam quoque Chartopoeiam grato animo amplexi
sunt, veteribus saltem linteis gossipina non incommode substituentes.
Qui hos ad austrum excipiunt nigritae, majorum morem secuti,
14 For reference, see Neuhausen 2006.

15 See »Papyrus« in Der neue Pauly, vol. 9 (2000), pp. 298–303.
279
Palmarum diversae speciei folia pro scriptionis subjecto retinent: his

stylo ferreo elegantissime inscribunt, descriptaque, transmissis, quibus
cohaereant, ligulis, in volumina redigunt. Extimus tandem et doctior
Oriens (Sinam cum Japonia intelligo) chartae in literis exarandis usum,
elaborandaeque modum jam ab antiquissimis temporibus novit ac
familiarem sibi habuit. De Sinensium Chartopoeia nihil hic dicturus sum,
ne rem obviam tot in regno versantibus R R. Patribus Europaeis
praeripiam: Japonum potius, gentis reconditae, perspicua brevitate
expositurus artem: ut si quis ex corticibus nostratium arborum paria
tentare cupiat, ad idem exemplum operationem possit instruere.
Thus, last but not least, we should delve here into what Kaempfer means
by categorically believing the »Extreme Orient» (extimus [...] Oriens) – i.e.
China and Japan, together (Sinam cum Japonia intelligo) – to be »more eru-
dite« (doctior). It is Kaempfer’s firm conviction and characteristic aof his
standing as both a Humanist and a modern scientist Japan and China – com-
pared in general to the many other nations of Asia, the Orient, and of Europe
– is superior to all because of its more profound learning and experience.
Indeed, we find ourselves now eager to know in what way and to what extent
the Japanese, owing to their excellent technical abilities, have surpassed the
Europeans in their particular way of producing paper up to the end of the
18th century.
2.2.2.2 Relatio XIV. Regnum Japoniae optima ratione, ab egressu civium et

exterarum gentium ingressu et communione, clausum
The fourteenth and last Relatio of the second fascicle of the Amoenitatis
exoticae, which consists of five chapters (pp. 478–502), is usually esteemed
as an instructive and concise collection of almost all important Japanese
topics. Indeed, it is rightly regarded as a preliminary draft of the forthcoming
monograph Heutiges Japan, which was not yet completed in 1712 but pub-
lished after Kaempfer’s death. This Latin summary was translated and
printed for the first time as an appendix of Scheuchzer’s first posthumous
translation in English of Heutiges Japan, edited in London in 1727. Transla-
tions into several other languages (French, Dutch, German, and Japanese)
soon followed; the development and relationship of all these different transla-
tions, each having its own history, deserve further inquiry.16
In any case, the numerous translations of Kaempfer’s exceptional discus-
sion in Latin of Japanese issues, as well as many other parts of Kaempfer’s
great Amoenitates exoticae hitherto promulgated by representatives of ver-
nacular languages, are teeming with various kinds of grammatical errors and
other grave mistakes, which distort the meaning of the passages concerned.
That is why I suggest that in future studies of the Latin writings of Kaempfer,
16 Such investigations are being prepared by Lothar Weiß, Lemgo.
280
there is hardly anything more necessary and desirable than both exact transla-
tions and subtle philological commentaries of the original Amoenitates exoti-
cae, the elaborate Latin masterpiece of Engelbertus Kaempfer.
2.3 Japan in the Third Fascicle of the Amoenitates exoticae

This fascicle surpasses the preceding second fascicle insofar as it contains
not two relationes, but three observationes, one after the other, regarding the
Japanese people (a and b below) and Japanese topics (c):
a) Observatio XI (pp. 582–589): Curatio Colicae per Acupuncturam,
Japonibus usitata [Acupuncture: A cure for the colic employed by
the Japanese].
b) Observatio XII (pp. 589–605): Moxa, praestantissima Cauteriorum
materia, Sinensibus Japonibusque multum usitata [Moxa; An excel-
lent cautery much employed by the Chinese and Japanese].
c) Observatio XIII (pp. 605–631): Theae Japonensis historia [The his-
tory of Japanese tea].
Since Robert W. Carrubba published an excellent translation (with an in-
troduction and commentary) of the entire third fascicle 11 years ago, it is
superfluous to repeat details here (Kaempfer 1996). Especially worth men-
tioning, however, is the fact that Kaempfer as a typical Humanist even after
he had finished his History of Japanese Tea did not neglect to remember a
classical text when he quoted an epigram of Ausonius, the eminent poet of
the late antiquity: »Historiam Poeta Ausonius Gallus (sit venia transgres-
sioni!) eleganti exposuit epigrammate: […].« Thus ends chapter 10 of
Kaempfer’s Theae Japonensis historia with six Latin disticha (= twelve
verses).17
2.4 Japan in the Fifth Fascicle of the Amoenitates Exoticae, the So-Called
»Flora Japonica«
Whereas it was necessary to reconsider the concept of Japan as ultima
Orientis Thule here, the entire fifth fascicle of the Amoenitates exoticae,
traditionally called »Flora Japonica«18, does not require any recommendation
at all, because this volume, though the last of the five fascicles, is not the
least, but the most famous of all. It bears a long and detailed title, which
indicates that it contains nothing else but the author’s original descriptions of
Japanese plants that Kaempfer, as the first European scientist in Japan, had
17 For reference, see Carrubba’s commentary in Kaempfer 1996: 169.

18 The title of the monograph published by Wolfgang Muntschik (Kaempfer 1983),
Flora Japonica: (1712) / Engelbert Kaempfer. Reprint des Originals und Kom-
mentar, is significant.
281
thoroughly examined during his two-year stay in Japan: Continens PLAN-

TARUM JAPONICARUM, quas Regnum peragranti solum natale conspici-
endas objecit, NOMINA & CHARACTERES SINICOS; intermixtis, pro
specimine, quarundam plenis descriptionibus, una cum Iconibus.
3. Conclusion
When considering the Latin text of Kaempfer’s botanical research on the
Japanese flora or of the Amoenitates exoticae as a whole, it is evident that
successful research in various disciplines is not possible without close coop-
eration between Neolatinists and experts on Japanese culture like eminens ille
Bonnensis Josephus ipse Kreiner omnium capax Japonicarum idemque peri-
tissimus rerum. As a model for such cooperation may serve, therefore, espe-
cially the International Congress of Neo-Latin Studies held at the University
of Bonn in 2003, the motto being »Latin as the International Language of
Scholarship from the Renaissance to the Present«.19 The next congress to be
organized by the International Organization for Neo-Latin Studies will take
place at Uppsala (Sweden),20 where the young Kaempfer had studies (since
August 1681) before he started his great iter Asiaticum to lead him finally (in
1690) for the first time to Japan.
References Cited
CUNLIFFE, Barry (2001): The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek. London:
Allan Lane.
HABERLAND, Detlef (1990): Von Lemgo nach Japan. Das ungewöhnliche Leben des
Engelbert Kaempfer 1651 bis 1716. Bielefeld: Westfalen-Verlag.
KAEMPFER, Engelbert (1983): Flora Japonica: (1712) / Engelbert Kaempfer. Reprint
des Originals und Kommentar von Wolfgang Muntschik. Wiesbaden: Steiner.
KAEMPFER, Engelbert (1996): Exotic Pleasures: Fascicle III, Curious Scientific and
Medical Observations. Translated and with an introduction and commentary.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press (= Library of Renaissance
Humanism).
KLOPSCH, P., K.A. NEUHAUSEN, and M. LAUREYS (2001): Neulatein. In: Der neue
Pauly. Vol. 15. Stuttgart: Metzler, pp. 925–946.
NEUHAUSEN, Karl August (1996): Pindar und die Neue Welt. Die Entdeckung Ameri-
kas aus der Sicht eines deutschen Humanisten: Zur vergessenen lateinischen
Rede des Gräzisten Erasmus Schmidt De America (Wittenberg 1602). In:
19 Cf. Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Bonnensis – Proceedings of the Twelfth Interna-

tional Congress of Neo-Latin Studies, Bonn 3–9 August 2003, Tempe, Arizona,
2006 (= Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies; 315).
20 University of Uppsala, August 2–8, 2009.
282
Klaus LEY, Ludwig SCHRADER und Winfried WEHLE (eds.): Text und Traditi-
on. Gedenkschrift für Eberhard Leube. Frankfurt/M.: Lang, pp. 341–370.
NEUHAUSEN, Karl August (1997): Latinitas Europae fundamentum spiritale ab anti-
quis aetatibus atque Caroli Magni saeculo ad praesentia pertinens tempora. In:
P. BUTZER, M. KERNER, and W. OBERSCHELP (eds.): Karl der Große und sein
Nachwirken – 1200 Jahre Kultur und Wissenschaft in Europa / Charlemagne
and His Heritage: 1200 Years and Civilisation and Science in Europe. Band I
/ Vol. I: Wissen und Weltbild / Scholarship, Worldview and Understanding.
Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 523–548.
NEUHAUSEN, Karl August (2004): Engelbertus Kaempfer als lateinischer Prosaautor
– Zum Sprachstil und literarischen Rang der Amoenitates Exoticae (1712). In:
Detlef HABERLAND (ed.) (2004): Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716): Ein Ge-
lehrtenleben zwischen Tradition und Innovation. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (=
Wolfenbütteler Forschungen; 104), pp. 23–76.
NEUHAUSEN, Karl August (2007): Engelbert Kaempfer als späthumanistischer Reise-
schriftsteller im Spiegel seiner »Amoenitates exoticae« (1712). In: Gerlinde
HUBER-REBENICH und Walther LUDWIG (eds.): Frühneuzeitliche Bildungsrei-
sen im Spiegel lateinischer Texte. Weimar: Hain (= Acta Academiae Scientia-
rum 7; Humanismusstudien; 2), pp. 183–212.
Appendices
A. Fundamental editions of Engelbert Kaempfer’s works
1. Three Latin writings of Engelbertus Kaempfer as the only works published
by himself:
KAEMPFER, Engelbert (1673): Exercitatio Politica de Majestatis Divisione in Realem
et Personalem. Quam Praeside Excellentissimo iuxta ac Clarissimo Viro, DN.
M. GEORGIO Neufeld [...], In Celeberr. Gedanensium Athenaei Auditorio
Maximo Valedictionis loco Publice ventilandam proponit ENGELBERTUS
Kaempffer Lemgovia Westphalus. A.C.M.DC. LXXIII, d. 8. Junii h. mat. Dan-
tisci. Imprimebat David Fridericus Rhetius.
KAEMPFER, Engelbert (1694): Disputatio Medica Inauguralis Exhibens Decadem
Observationum Exoticarum Favente Divina Gratia, Ex Auctoritate Magnifici
D. Rectoris D. CAROLI DRELINCURTII, [...], Nec non Amplissimi Senatus
Academici Consensu, et Almae Facultatis MEDICAE Decreto, PRO GRADU
DOCTORATUS, Summisque in MEDICINA Honoribus et Privilegiis, rite ac
legitime consequendis, Publico examini subjicit ENGELBERT KEMPFER, L.
L. Westph., Ad diem 22. Aprilis, hora locoque solitis. Lugduni Batavorum,
Apud ABRAHAMUM ELZEVIER, Academiae Typographum, MDCXCIV.
KAEMPFER, Engelbert (1712): Amoenitatum Exoticarum Politico-Physico-Medicarum
Fasciculi V, Quibus continentur Variae Relationes, Observationes et Descrip-
tiones Rerum Persicarum et Ulterioris Asiae, multa attentione, in peregri-
nationibus per universum Orientem, collectae, ab Auctore ENGELBERTO
283
KAEMPFERO, D. [...]. Lemgoviae, Typis et Impensis Henrici Wilhelmi Meyeri,

Aulae Lippicae Typographi.
2. Critical edition of Kaempfer’s recently published posthumous works:

HABERLAND, Detlef, Wolfgang MICHEL and Elisabeth GÖSSMANN (eds.) (2001–2003):
Engelbert Kaempfer – Werke. Kritische Ausgabe in Einzelbänden. München:
Iudicium.
Vol. 1/1 und 1/2: Heuriges Japan. Ed. by Wolfgang MICHEL und Barend
Jan TERWIEL, 2001.
Vol. 2: Briefe 1683–1715. Ed. by Detlef HABERLAND, 2001.
Vol. 3: Zeichnungen japanischer Pflanzen. Ed. by Brigitte HOPPE, 2003.
Vol. 4: Engelbert Kaempfer in Siam. Ed. by Barend Jan TERWIEL, 2003.
Vol. 5: Notitiae Malabaricae. Ed. by Albertine Gaur, 2003.
Vol. 6: Rußlandtagebuch 1683. Ed. by Michael SCHIPPAN, 2003.
B. Recent monographs and articles on Kaempfer (2002–2006)

BONN, Gerhard (2003): Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716). Der Reisende und sein
Einfluß auf die europäische Bewußtseinsbildung über Asien. Frankfurt/M.:
Lang.
HABERLAND, Detlef (ed.) (2004): Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716): Ein Gelehrtenle-
ben zwischen Tradition und Innovation. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (= Wolfen-
bütteler Forschungen; 104).
KLOCKE-DAFFA, Sabine, Jürgen SCHEFFLER, and Gisela WILBERTZ (eds.) (2003):
Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716) und die kulturelle Begegnung zwischen Eu-
ropa und Asien. Lemgo: Institut für Lippische Landeskunde (= Lippische Stu-
dien; 18).
NEUHAUSEN, Karl August (2004): Engelbertus Kaempfer als lateinischer Prosaautor
– Zum Sprachstil und literarischen Rang der Amoenitates Exoticae (1712). In:
Detlef HABERLAND (ed.) (2004): Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716): Ein Ge-
lehrtenleben zwischen Tradition und Innovation. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (=
Wolfenbütteler Forschungen; 104), pp. 23–76.
NEUHAUSEN, Karl August (2007): Engelbert Kaempfer als späthumanistischer Reise-
schriftsteller im Spiegel seiner Amoenitates exoticae (1712). In: Gerlinde HU-
BER-REBENICH und Walther LUDWIG (eds.): Frühneuzeitliche Bildungsreisen
im Spiegel lateinischer Texte. Weimar: Hain (= Acta Academiae Scientiarum
7; Humanismusstudien; 2), pp. 183–212.
284
Wolfgang Michel
Medicine and Allied Sciences in the Cultural Exchange
Between Japan and Europe in the 17th Century
Blind Spots
Until now, the introduction of Western science and technology into Japan
in the Edo era has been closely linked to the emergence of »Dutch Learning«
(蘭学 rangaku) in the early 18th century.1 This development is generally
attributed to certain political measures taken by the shogun Tokugawa Yoshi-
mune (1684–1751). Arai Hakuseki (1657–1727), one of the leading intellec-
tuals during the reign of Ienobu (1662–1712), proposed concepts to promote
the wealth of the country. These were endorsed and enforced by Ienobu’s
successor, Yoshimune, who lifted import restrictions on Western books and
promoted the domestic production of herbs and drugs while importing and
investigating foreign medicinal materials delivered by the Dutch East India
Company and Chinese merchants.2
In contrast, there has been little interest in the scientific interchange between
Japan and the West during the 17th century. One source for this blind spot is
Sugita Gempaku (1733–1817), the most prominent 18th century medical pio-
neer and author of Rangaku koto hajime [The beginning of Dutch learning].
These memoirs show that Sugita was well aware of the early transmissions of
Western surgery to Japan. However, he considered these to be rudimentary
when compared with the dramatic achievements of his era (Sugita 1969, 1982).
Moreover, by focusing on the activities in the Edo and Kansai areas, he
drew much attention away from the groundbreaking contributions by the
interpreters in Nagasaki. Sugita’s writings became highly influential in later
discussions on the development of Dutch Learning, and even now his views
are shared at least implicitly by quite a number of scholars.
Furthermore, Japanese source material relating to the transmission of
Western science in the 17th century is scarce and often corrupted by later
copyists. Without collecting and comparing a great number of manuscripts
and the use of Dutch trade records, it is almost impossible to sort things out.
Later periods look much more promising.
1 See, for example, Itazawa 1933; Numata et al. 1972–1976; Goodman 1986; their
position is repeated by many other authors.
2 For Yoshimune’s imports, see Endō 2003: 27–74; for an English outline of Yoshi-
mune’s policies, see Kasaya 2001.
285
Wolfgang Michel
Last but not least, after the expulsion of the last Southern Barbarians (南
蛮人 nambanjin) in 1639, Japan seemed to have entered a phase of reduced
interaction with the outside world. The term »seclusion of the country« (鎖国
sakoku), coined by Shizuki Tadao (1760–1806) in 1801 in his translation of
Engelbert Kaempfer’s famous treatise on 17th century Japan, encouraged the
general idea that the country was focused on repulsion and restriction rather
than on expanding its exchange with foreigners.3 Although the majority of
historians was always well aware that Japan was not hermetically sealed, this
concept of seclusion had dominated historical writing from the Meiji era until
the latter half of the 20th century.4
Then, stimulated by political and economic changes during the 1980s,
Japanese and foreign historians began to reevaluate Tokugawa Japan’s posi-
tion within the framework of international relations, its boundaries, the influx
of goods and information, and its contribution to early modern global trade.
Furthermore, what is called the »Needham Question«, that is, why the scien-
tific revolution did not occur in China, also bothers researchers dealing with
the history of Japan’s modernization. One of the main aims of the priority
area project Edo no monozukuri (2002–2005) was to determine the part that
the Japanese played in the interactions with foreign influences that led to the
development of science and technology in Japan during the Edo period.
Without a doubt, the time is now ripe to include medicine, pharmacy, and
botany in these discussions.
At least in the 17th century, the policy pursued in Edo was aimed at the
control of foreign trade and the flow of information rather than the closure of
the country. Those at the top of the Tokugawa regime were well aware of
Japan’s dependence on foreign supplies. Before banishing the Portuguese and
Spanish, high-ranking officials such as imperial councilor Sakai Tadakatsu
Sanuki-no-kami (1587–1662) ensured in negotiations with the head of the
Dutch trading post, François Caron, that the East India Company was able
and willing to supply raw silk, silk textiles, and herbal drugs and medica-
ments (droogen ende medecijnen) in sufficient quantities. 5 Furthermore,
imperial commissioner Inoue Masashige Chikugo-no-kami (1585–1661),
many governors of Nagasaki (Nagasaki bugyō), and even imperial councilors
such as Inaba Masanori Minō-no-kami (1623–1696) made great efforts to use
foreign knowledge and goods to stabilize the country. Useful Western
knowledge was never rebutted. Moreover, shortly after the establishment of
the Dutch trading post in Nagasaki in 1641, there was an increase in interest
3 For more on this matter, see Oshima 2006.

4 For an outline of the related research history, see Kimura 2002: 2–14.
5 This is described in detail in the trading post diary (dagregister) kept by the Dutch
Nationaal Archief (NA), Archief van de Nederlandse Factorij in Japan (NFJ): no.
55, 20.7.1639, 22.7.1639, and 27.7.1639.
286
on the part of the Japanese in European astronomy, land survey, medicine,

herbs, and other practical knowledge (Michel 1999).
Faint Traces of »Southern-Barbarian-Style Surgery«

From the beginning of medical history (医史学 ishigaku) as a scientific
discipline, numerous authors have referred to »southern-barbarian-style sur-
gery« (南蛮流外科 namban-ryū geka) as the first response to Western medi-
cine in 16th century Japan. There are undoubtedly good reasons to make such
an assumption. Communication between Japanese and Westerners then was
much easier than in the following two centuries, and the social and intellec-
tual conditions were quite favorable for the reception of new knowledge and
thought. Many scholars had parted with Buddhism. Furthermore, the efforts
of regional rulers to bolster their domains through overseas trade led to the
adoption of a number of foreign innovations, many of which stemmed from
China. These included improvements in smelting and forging, papermaking,
silk weaving, book printing, as well as in ship building and navigation. Most
of this knowledge was not disseminated by Buddhist monks or scholars, as it
was in the past, but by merchants and artisans; hence it was predominantly of
a practical nature. 6 Medical know-how obtained from the Portuguese and
Spaniards should have taken firm root in Japan, but there is no source mate-
rial to prove that it did – with the exception of some remarks in Jesuit letters
on a promising but short-lived mission hospital in Funai (1557–1587). 7
Given the tiny number of Western surgeons in Japan, the mounting persecu-
tion of Christians after the 1680s, and the resistance to such bloody activities
as surgery within the Society of Jesus (ecclesia abhorret a sanguine), there
was no stable basis for an effective and lasting interchange. Thus, in early
17th century Japan we find little of any Portuguese medical knowledge that
could be passed on or handed down to succeeding generations (Michel 1997–
2001). The Mangai shūyō [Anthology of everything for the outside] by Ya-
mamoto Gensen, which dates from 1619, is considered the oldest book on
southern-barbarian-style medicine. However, the book’s mention of five
plasters, washing wounds with spirits, and a few instruments like scissors and
scalpel goes to show that, even after seven decades of interchange, a writer
such as Yamamoto Gensen knew nearly nothing about Western surgery.
The Rise of »Read-Head-Style Surgery«

The Dutch, dubbed »redheads« (komōjin) by the locals reached Japan at
the beginning of the 17th century. In 1609, they established a trading post on
6 Sugimoto and Swain call this the »Chinese Wave II«; see Sugimoto and Swain
1989: 148–156.
7 For more on these activities, see Schilling 1931 and 1937.
287
Wolfgang Michel
the western island of Hirado, but in 1641 were forced to move to the small
man-made island of Dejima (Deshima) in the Bay of Nagasaki. Because they
displayed tactical acumen and did not proselytize, they were the only Euro-
peans allowed continued access to Japan. It is not by mere chance that the
introduction of their medicine began during the 1640s, shortly after the East
India Company (VOC) established a permanent position for a surgeon at its
trading post at Nagasaki. This action laid the groundwork for continuous
medical interchange between Japanese and Europeans.
At this time, Caspar Schamberger (1623-1706), a surgeon trained in the
battlefields of the Thirty Years War, accompanied a Dutch legation to Edo.
While special envoy Andries Frisius conducted his complicated negotiations
in the spring of 1650, imperial commissioner Inoue and other officials who
were suffering from diseases of old age sought out the foreign surgeon, lend-
ing credibility to the professional skills of the Dutch. After three months,
Schamberger was asked to remain in Edo for another six months following
the departure of the Dutch legation. The impression he made on leading gov-
ernment figures led to the rise of »redhead-style surgery« (紅毛流外科
kōmō-ryū geka) as a new medical paradigm, although this did not go beyond
low-level surgery (chirurgica minora). There are no references to cataract
operations, extraction of bladder stones, bone surgery, or amputations – op-
erations that were routine for any ambitious surgeon in the West. Cauteriza-
tion and phlebotomy were abhorred by the Japanese. In addition, there is not
a word about anatomy, which was considered very important not only at
European universities but also in the training of apprentices by the guilds.
Indeed, the early manuscripts contain only a few names of bones and a cou-
ple of minor remarks on arteries and veins on a »thin skin around the brain«,
and the »skin between the chest and abdomen«. Due to the language barrier,
the theoretical bases of Western medicine remained inaccessible. But knowl-
edge of treatments of fractures, wounds, and various »swellings« (腫物 shu-
motsu, haremono) spread throughout the country, and high-ranking officials
and feudal lords began to send their physicians to be instructed by the Dutch
trading-post surgeons.8 The social acceptance of this new art of healing is
demonstrated by the licenses Western barber-surgeons and issued between
1658 and 1685 at the request of their Japanese apprentices.9
Growing Needs for New Medicines

It is almost impossible to transplant entities from one complex context to
another in an isolated manner. Even if they ignored the etiological back-
ground of the Western treatment methods, Japanese physicians inevitably had
to use herbs, medicines and instruments that were not readily available. Thus,
8 For more on this matter, see Sōda 1989; Michel 1996 a, 1996b, and 1999.
9 For more on these certificates, see Michel and Sugitatsu 2003.
288
Dutch trade papers after 1651 show numerous orders for drugs, herbs, phar-
maceutical oils, books, lancets, and other medical equipment. But their prob-
lems were not solved by these Dutch deliveries.
At his request, imperial commissioner Inoue Masashige 10 received two
volumes of Rembert Dodoens’s famous herbal book Cruijdeboek as early as
1652 and 1655, respectively.11 But no one at the trading post was able to
translate such a specialized text into Portuguese, still the lingua franca in
Dutch-Japanese negotiations.12 In the old days of Ibero-Japanese intercourse,
the missionaries spoke Japanese and many Japanese were versatile in Portu-
guese, some even in Latin. Now, however, the Dutch East India Company
was not allowed to train its own European interpreters, and the abilities of
Japanese interpreters (阿蘭陀通事（通詞） oranda tsūji) in respect to
Western sciences were insufficient. Lacking the necessary medico-
pharmaceutical knowledge, the interpreters used katakana characters to trans-
literate the new terms. But who among the readers of their notes was able to
understand such language monstrosities as unguentodearuteiya (Unguentum
de Altheae) or kurokusuorientarisu (Crocus Orientalis)? Thus, it is not coin-
cidental that the rise of »redhead-style surgery« was accompanied by the
advent of private glossaries.13 There is no doubt that instructions by Western
specialists and Western herbal books were needed to sort out the new nomen-
clature. Nonetheless, considering the language problems, this must have been
a daunting task. The crude woodcut illustrations in Western books soon also
turned out to be a source of annoyance. When a volume of Rembert Do-
doens’s herbal was presented to the imperial councilor Inaba in 1659, he
rejected it, asking for a print with larger illustrations.14
10 For more on Inoue, see Hasegawa 1979; Nagazumi 1975; Michel 1999: 113–116.
11 NA, NFJ 776, Faktuur, Casteel Batavia, 11.7.1652; NFJ 779, Faktuur, Casteel
Batavia, 7.7.1655.
12 NA, NFJ 66, dagregister Dejima 17.1.1653: »tzickingodo liet vragen off de niet
ijmand onder onsen ware, die dodoneus cruijtbouck hem in’t Portugees conde ver-
talen, neen hebbende op g’antwoort, en dat sulcken geheelen werck met geen clei-
jne kennisse inde tale, als gemeenelick onder ons is, te verrichten sij«.
13 One of the first glossaries was compiled by Schamberger’s adherent Kawaguchi
Ryōan in 1660; see Kawashima 1992.
14 NA, NFJ 72, dagregister Dejima, 24.4.1659: »wat aengaet ’t voorschreven g’eijste
boeck ’t selve was wel maer de kruijden daerin afgebeelt waren te kleijn, en niet
wel geschildert, souden sien off hem in ’t aenstaende een grooter boeck, daerinne
oock grooter figuren stonden, konden beschicken, och arme menschen! hoe wei-
jnigh weetje vande voortreffelijckheijt van sulcke of diergelijcke wercken te oor-
deelen, want meenen dat sulcke boecken van allerleij soort (gelijck in een schoen-
makers winckel de schoen) te becomen zijn«.
289
Wolfgang Michel
Figure 1. Plaster (Emplastrum Mucilaginibus) taught by Hans Jurian

Hancke at Dejima in 1657
Source: Oranda geka ihō. 17th century manuscript by Mukai Genshō,

copied by Kawaguchi Ryōan. Collection of the author.
An Official Request
Only once a year did a fleet of about half a dozen Dutch ships sail from
Batavia to Nagasaki. As the East India Company was still struggling to or-
ganize its own medical supply system in southeast Asia, deliveries to Japan
were irregular and highly prized (Kraft 1985: 36–44). This must have caused
some irritation among Japanese officials. As we can see from the following
events, government circles began thinking about the local production of
pharmaceutical oils while surveying the indigenous flora and introducing
new useful plants with the help of the Dutch. In November 1667, the Com-
pany received a request from the Nagasaki governor, Kawano Gon’emon
Michisada, who was leaving for Edo, and his co-governor Matsudaira Jinza-
burō Takami, who was preparing to take over the office in Nagasaki.15 Dur-
ing their audience with Daniel Six, the departing head of the trading post, and
his successor, Constantin Ranst, they conveyed a message from Edo, care-
fully recorded in the trading post’s diary:
15 Kawano Gon’emon Michisada (河野権右衛門通定) and Matsudaira Jinzaburō

Takami (松平甚三郎隆見); both governors were newly appointed in April 1666.
In 1671, Matsudaira Jinzaburō asked to be dismissed and Ushigome Chūzaemon
Shigenori (牛込忠左衛門重恭) was appointed in his place. Kawano Gon’emon
was replaced in 1672 by Okano Magokurō Sadaaki (岡野孫九郎貞明). Usually
one governor resided in Edo and the other in Nagasaki. Each year in autumn they
exchanged residences.
290
[...] an order was given to send to Japan a mature person, well-versed

and experienced in the extraction of oils and waters from various fresh
medicinal herbs, together with the necessary instruments and a variety of
young plants [...] This request for a distiller and herbalist, by order of the
emperor and his senior councilors, has already been discussed at length
in Edo and has been once again brought explicitly to our attention by the
governors. Therefore, we are considering it very seriously and report it
to the Governor General at Batavia. (Translated from NA, NFJ 81, da-
gregister, 6.11.1667)
Figure 2. Report on Haeck’s investigation of Japanese plants
Source: Rampō sōki nōdoku-shū. Manuscript, Edo era, Michel Collection.

There can be no doubt about the nature of this request, which was reiter-
ated several times in the following years. Obviously, it aimed at technology
transfer and the establishment of a full-fledged production cycle of pharma-
ceutical plants and oils while reassessing local resources with the help of
291
Wolfgang Michel
Dutch specialists. Goodwill in such matters considerably facilitated trade

negotiations. Therefore, as a first response, the Dutch shipped medicinal
herbs to Nagasaki in the summer of 1668, with a promise of more in the fu-
ture.16
Godefried Haeck, First Western Pharmacist in Japan

In July 1669, a young pharmacist, Godefried (Gottfried) Haeck, arrived at
Dejima. While he was not the mature specialist that the Japanese authorities
had in mind,17 on several occasions between August 1669 and June 1671, he
was ordered to search for useful plants in the vicinity of Nagasaki. His inter-
preters (Kafuku Kichizaemon 加福吉左衛門, Nakajima Seizaemon 中嶋清
左衛門, Tominaga Ichirōbei 富永市郎兵衛, and Narabayashi Shin’emon18)
noted the Western and Japanese names as well as the medicinal properties of
the herbs he was able to identify.
The results of his first two excursions are preserved in the manuscript
»Medicinal Herbs and Their Japanese Descriptions« (Yakusō no na narabi ni
wabun no hikae).19 Dates and contents are consistent with the diary kept at
the Dutch trading post. Later manuscripts, such as »Medicinal Effects of
Herbs and Trees in the Dutch Tradition« (Rampō sōki nōdoku shū, Fig. 2),
include further herbs from other field trips. These descriptions of local Japa-
nese plants seen through European eyes eventually found their way into the
influential Oranda geka shinan [Compass of Dutch surgery], printed in
1696.20
Much to the irritation of the Japanese authorities, the Dutch never deliv-
ered the spice plants they wanted. Although the trading-post heads did not
explain explicitly the reasons for this refusal, the Japanese interpreters were
well aware of the obstacles. Once, after conveying another request, they
made a proposal to save face on both sides:
[...] it would not matter if the ordered young trees of clove, nutmeg, and
cinnamon did not survive the trip. At least it would show that the Dutch
respect the emperor’s orders. (NA, NFJ 82, dagregister, 29.8.1670; letter
by de Haas, 19.10.1670)
16 NA, NFJ 299 (register van ingekomen brieven), letter from the Governor General
at Batavia, dated 29.6.1668.
17 His abilities were strongly doubted, even among the Dutch. NA, NFJ 300 (register van
ingekomen brieven), letter from the Governor General at Batavia, dated 20.5.1669.
18 Narabayashi Shin’emon alias Narabayashi Chinzan (楢林新右衛門・鎮山, 1648–
1711) was the first to try to render parts of Ambroise Paré’s Chirurgie into Japanese.
19 Yakusō no na narabi ni wabun no hikae (薬草ノ名並和文扣). Manuscript, Edo
era, Kyoto University Library, Fujikawa Collection.
20 Oranda geka shinan. Kyoto: Uemura Hirazaemon, 1696. Book 4: Yakusō kuketsu.
292
Obviously they knew very well that the East India Company protected its
dominance in the global spice trade. Only a few years earlier, in 1667, the
Dutch had finally captured the clove monopoly by destroying the trees on
various islands of the Moluccas and concentrating the crop on Ambon.
Figure 3. The »oil extraction house« (abura tori ie21) on Dejima
Source: From a map by Motogi Shōdayu, 17c., Motoki Collection, Nagasaki

Municipal Museum.
Franz Braun’s Distillation at Dejima

In the summer of 1671, Frans (Franz) Braun, an experienced German
pharmacist, arrived with distillation instruments, various seeds, and living
21 The term abura tori-ie (油取家) is found on a map of Dejima drawn by Motoki
Shōdayu (本木庄太夫), one of the interpreters who assembled the report on Braun’s
activities in 1672. The map is part of the Motoki Collection in the Nagasaki
Municipal Museum. It was printed in Nagasaki-shi Dejima shiseki seibi junbi shingi-
kai (ed.) 1990: 94f.
293
Wolfgang Michel
plants.22 He, too, had to look for useful herbs in the vicinity of Nagasaki and
to give advice on the cultivation and qualities of medicinal plants. At least
parts of these efforts are preserved in an illustrated scroll (»Pictorial Mirror
of Dutch Plants«). 23 There were even plans to translate the most famous
herbal book of its time, Hortus Eystettensis [Garden of Eichstaedt], which
contained details of over a thousand plants.24
Braun had taken along a European distillation unit and various vessels. At
the shogun’s expense, a hut was built in a corner of the trading post, and in
April 1672 he demonstrated the production of pharmaceutical oils in the
presence of Japanese officials. A few days later, samples were taken to the
court in Edo by the trading-post head. During the following weeks, Braun
produced oil from fennel, aniseed, clove, rosemary, camphor, and juniper
berry. These oils were also presented to the imperial councilors and to the
shogun himself.
Six Japanese interpreters translated the instructions given by Braun, whom
they call an abuteikiru (apothecary). They also sketched the oven, the vessels,
the cooling pipes, and barrel etc. and even took measurements (Fig. 4). After
a month of instructions, Japanese physicians were able to produce clove oil
and turpentine oil without any help:
Place seven to eight shō [1 shō (升) = 1.8 litres] of water in a copper
vessel, then add six kin [1 kin (斤) = 600 grams] of turpentine fat and
one gō [1 gō (合) = 0.180 liters] of salt. Cover the vessel with a lid, add
wheat flour to the water, put this on cotton, and wrap it twice around the
juncture of the vessel and lid. When boiling over a charcoal fire, oil and
water become steam, which rises up to the lid, enters into the pipe and
comes down into the flask. Its mouth is wrapped with cotton to avoid
evaporation. When the flask is full, it is replaced with another one and
left for awhile. The oil comes up and the water goes down. A small bot-
tle is attached to it, and one end of a cotton wick is inserted into the bot-
tle and the other into the flask containing the oil. Then the oil moves into
the small bottle.25
The transfer of technical knowledge went smoothly. For about a decade,
heads of the trading post left notes on the distillation performed at Dejima,
most of which was of clove oil. When, in 1668, Arashiyama Hoan received
22 NFJ 865, journal held by the bookkeeper of the Dutch East India Company at the
Dejima trading post, 1670–1671.
23 Oranda sōka kyōzu. Pictorial scroll, Edo Era, Siebold Museum, Nagasaki.
24 NFJ 85, dagregister, 11.9.1672. Basilius Besler: Hortus Eystettensis. 1613.
Following an order of the imperial councilor Inaba Masanori, the Dutch brought a
copy to Japan in 1669, probably the second edition of 1640.
25 Translated from the manuscript Seiyu kōnō zuki [Illustrated notes on the produc-
tion and properties of oils] in: Katsuragawa Hochiku: Zenseishitsu iwa, vol. 3, fol.
2, Kyoto University Library, Fujikawa Collection.
294
one of the rare licences issued by the trading-post surgeon, he had learned
about distillation only from illustrations (MICHEL and SUGITATSU 2003: 462).
However, physicians who were sent to Nagasaki now had the chance to ac-
quire practical skills in the »oil extracting house« (Fig. 3).26
Figure 4. Distillation apparatus used on Dejima in 1672
Source: Oranda yudōgu sumpō no zu narabini zempō sho. Kyūshū Univer-

sity Medical Library.
Fading Interest at the Court in Edo

During the 1670s some oils produced at Dejima were sent to Edo as part
of the annual gifts to the shogun. The famous diplomatic records of Toku-
gawa Shogunate (Tsūkō-ichiran) state the names of things considered to be of
26 Cf. NA, NFJ 87, dagregister, 26.11.1673, 17.12.1673.
295
Wolfgang Michel
some importance. Clove oil (丁子油 chōjiyu) appeared sometime in 1677

and in 1679, and from 1680 to 1689 it is registered annually (HAYASHI 1967).
However, in 1682 the head of the Dutch trading post was told by the Japa-
nese authorities that henceforth clove oil for the emperor and his councilors
should be sent in bottles from Batavia, packed in cases made especially for
this purpose.27
The fading interest of government officials in the activities at Dejima may
have been related to a change in attitude brought about by Tokugawa Tsuna-
yoshi (1646–1709). Unfortunately, there is no Japanese source material di-
rectly related to this question. Problems with cultivating the imported seeds
and plants also played a role. When the Dutch gardener inspected the em-
peror’s garden (’s keizers tuin) in the spring of 1672, the seeds had not ger-
minated and all but three or four plants brought to Japan on the ship Tulpen-
burgh had withered. 28 Other seeds were delivered later, but again almost
none survived. Furthermore, as spice plants and spice seeds were never
brought to Japan, the dependence on Dutch deliveries of cinnamon oil, fennel
oil, clove oil, etc. continued.
Growing Dutch Interest in Japanese Plants

It had always been the Japanese who took the initiative in this affair, but
the Dutch East India Company soon began to pursue its own interests. Since
1667 Andreas Cleyer (1634–1697/98), 29 a German physician who ran the
two pharmacies and the herb garden in Batavia, had been responsible for the
Company’s internal supply of drugs and medicines. He turned to the East
Asian Materia Medica to find suitable substitutes for the expensive and
sometimes damaged goods delivered from the Netherlands (Kraft 1985: 42,
200–201). Cleyer took care of the Japanese orders for seeds and herbs, for the
distillation equipment, and for the dispatch of pharmacists to Nagasaki. Thus,
the investigations of Japanese plants by his employees Haeck and Braun
27 »Voortaan [zoude] geen nagelolij meer door Comps chirurgijn tot Nangasacky
mogen gedistileert werden, gelijck nu eenigen tijt herwaards geschiet en aan den
Keyser en rijxraden verschoncken was, op voorgeven dat voorsz. olij, aldaar
toegemaackt zijnde, de agting van zijn waardye omtrent de schenckagie ver-
minderde, zulx deselve voortaan weder jaarlijx in flessjes en een daartoe net ge-
maackt cassje van Batavia souden moeten gesonden werden.« Generale Missive
deel IV: 1675–1685, Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën, Grote Serie 134:
19.3.1683, p. 547.
28 NA, NFJ 85, dagregister, May 1672 (entry by Cornelis van Heyningen on events
between February and May, during the absence of the head factor, Joannes Cam-
phuys).
29 For more on Cleyer, see Kraft 1985.
296
provided useful information for his own research. But the governor of
Nagasaki rejected all Dutch requests for the export of Japanese plants.
Figure 5. Japanese camphor tree (kusu-no-ki) and a distillation apparatus to
produce camphor depicted in Andreas Cleyer’s Observatio De
Arbore Camphorifera Japonensium Kusnoky dicta«.30
Nevertheless, botanical studies on both sides continued. During the 1680s

Cleyer applied to be head of the trading post in Nagasaki for two terms. Dur-
ing his stays in Japan in 1682–1683 and 1684–1685, he and his ambitious
gardener Georg Meister (1653–1713) collected numerous specimens of the
local flora as well as Japanese plant drawings (MICHEL 1991). In 1689 physi-
cian and traveler Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1713) arrived in Batavia after
many years of extensive botanical research in Persia. Cleyer and others in
30 Andreas Cleyer: Observatio de Arbore Camphorifera Japonensium Kusnoky dicta.

Miscellanea curiosa medico-physica Academiae naturae curiosorum, Decuria II,
Annus X (1692), pp. 79 (collection of the author).
297
Wolfgang Michel
Batavia drew his attention to the scientific harvest he could gain by conduct-
ing comprehensive research into Japanese plants (MICHEL 2001).
When Kaempfer left Batavia for Japan in the summer of 1689, he was
well prepared for this task. As they had told him in Batavia, the Japanese did
not like foreign research on their country – with one exception. Since the
1670s, plant collection was one of the few activities in which foreigners
could participate with the consent of local officials.
I had for my own private use a very large Javan box, which I had
brought with me from Batavia. In this box I privately kept a large mari-
ner’s compass, in order to measure the directions of the roads, moun-
tains, and coasts, but openly, and exposed to every body’s view, was an
inkhorn, and I usually fill’d it with plants, flowers, and branches of trees
which I figur’d and described, (nay under this pretext, whatever occur’d
to me remarkable:) Doing this, as I did it free and unhindred, to every
bodies knowledge, I should be wrongly accus’d to have done any thing
which might have proved disadvantageous to the company’s trade in this
country, or to have thereby thrown any ill suspicion upon our conduct
from so jealous and circumspect a nation. Nay, far from it, I must own,
that from the very first day of our setting out, till our return to Nagasaki,
all the Japanese companions of our voyage, and particularly the Bugjo,
or commander in chief, were extreamly forward to communicate to me,
what uncommon plants they met with, together with their true names,
characters and uses which they diligently enquired into among the na-
tives. The Japanese a very reasonable and sensible People, and them-
selves great lovers of plants, look upon Botany, as a study both useful
and innocent, which pursuant to the very dictates of reason and the law
of nature, ought to be encourag’d by every body. Thus much I know by
my own experience, that of all the nations I saw and convers’d with in
my long and tedious travels, those the least favour'd botanical learning,
who ought to have encourag’d it most. Upon my return to Nagasaki,
Tonnemon,[31] secretary and chief counsellor to the Governors, being
once at Desima, sent for me, and made me by the chief Interpreter Sin-
kobe,[32] the following compliment: That he had heard with great pleas-
ure from Asagina Sindaanosin,[33] our late Bugio, how agreeably I had
spent my time, and what diversion I had taken upon our Journey in that
excellent and most commendable study of Botany, whereof he, Ton-
nemon, himself, was a great lover and encourager. (Kaempfer 1727:
399–400)
31 Miyagi Tonomo Masazumi (宮城主殿和燈), the governor of Nagasaki from 1687

until 1696. Kaempfer’s usage of the term »Bugio« is misleading.
32 Narabayashi Shingobē alias Chinzan (楢林新五兵衛、鎮山). This was one of the
interpreters who assembled the reports on Haeck’s and Braun’s activities.
33 Asahina Sadanoshin (朝比奈定之進), an employee of governor Miyagi.
298
Some Implications
The import of a distillation apparatus in 1671 and the introduction of dis-
tillation techniques in the following years is a remarkable example of the
early transfer of Western technological knowledge. It did not happen by
chance or as the result of individual ambitions by someone with the right
connections. It was an initiative of the Tokugawa government that aimed at
an independent domestic production cycle. Nagasaki governors and other
officials frequently referred to the shōgun as the source of their request and
stressed its importance. All sources related to the events during the late 1660s
and early 1670s show that a variety of seed plants were imported by Japan in
order to procure the raw material for the distillation of pharmaceutical oils.
At the same time, Westerners were asked to investigate the flora in the vi-
cinity of Nagasaki. This is a remarkable request, revealing that the authority
of traditional Chinese botany in Japan (本草学 honzōgaku) had already be-
gun to crumble. Clearly some Japanese were aware of the abundance of
plants inside and outside Japan and the limits of the once almighty Chinese
herbal book Bencao Gangmu (『本草綱目』 Honzōkōmoku). This occurred
about four decades before Kaibara Ekiken (1630–1714) published his Yamato
Honzō (Japanese Plants), a herbal that led to him being named the »father of
Japanese botany« (Kaibara 1709).
The introduction of Western-style surgical treatment methods provides an
interesting example of the numerous consequences that occur during intercul-
tural transfer, even when it is confined to knowledge of a more practical
nature. These activities and events took place many decades before Yoshi-
mune’s policy of promoting the domestic production of herbs while import-
ing and investigating foreign medicinal materials. Our findings suggest
strongly that Western science and technology in 17th century Japan as well as
the history and concept of Dutch Learning (rangaku) deserve a thorough
review.
References Cited
ENDŌ, Shōji (2003): Honzōgaku to Yōgaku – Ono Ranzan gakutō no kenkyū. Kyoto:
Shibunkaku Shuppan.
GOODMAN, Grant K. (1986): Japan: The Dutch Experience. London: Athlone Press.
[Revised version published as Japan and the Dutch, 1600–1853. Richmond:
Curzon, 2000.]
HASEGAWA, Kazuo (1979): Ōmetsuke Inoue Chikugo-no-kami Masashige no seiyō
igaku e no kanshin. In: Sei’ichi IWAO (ed.): Kinsei no yōgaku to kaigai kōshō.
Tokyo: Gannandō Shoten, pp. 196–238.
HAYASHI, Fukusai (ed.) (1967): Tsūkō-ichiran. Osaka: Seibundō. [Originally pub-
lished in 1913.]
ITAZAWA, Takeo (1933): Rangaku no hattatsu. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
299
Wolfgang Michel
KAEMPFER, Engelbert (1727): The History of Japan. London: Woodward.

KAIBARA, Ekiken (1709): Yamato honzō. Kyoto: Nagata Chōbei.
KASAYA, Kazuhiko (2001): The Tokugawa Bakufu’s Policies for the National Produc-
tion of Medicines and Dodonaeus’ Cruijdboek. In: W.F. VANDE WALLE (ed.):
Dodonaeus in Japan. Leuven: Leuven University Press; Kyoto: International
Research Center for Japanese Studies.
KAWASHIMA, Junji (1992): Kawaguchi Ryōan-cho Orandago-chō kara. In: Koga-shi
ishikaihō 24, pp. 1–9.
KIMURA, Naoya (2002): Sōsetsu – kaikin to sakoku. In: Nobuyuki Kamiya and Naoya
KIMURA (eds.): Kaikin to sakoku. Tokyo: Tokyo Shuppan, pp. 2–14.
KRAFT, Eva (1985): Andreas Cleyer. Tagebuch des Kontors zu Nagasaki auf der Insel
Deshima 20. Oktober 1682–5. November 1683. Bonn: Förderverein »Bonner
Zeitschrift für Japanologie« (= Bonner Zeitschrift für Japanologie; 6), pp. 36–
44.
MICHEL, Wolfgang (1991): Ein »Ostindianisches Sendschreiben«. Andreas Cleyers
Brief an Sebastian Scheffer vom 20. Dezember 1683. In: Dokufutsu bungaku
kenkyū 41, pp. 15–98.
MICHEL, Wolfgang (1996a): Kasuparu Shamberugeru to Kasuparu-ryū geka I. In:
Nihon ishigaku zasshi 42, 3, pp. 41–65.
MICHEL, Wolfgang (1996b): Kasuparu Shamberugeru to Kasuparu-ryū geka II. In:
Nihon ishigaku zasshi 42, 4, pp. 23–48.
MICHEL, Wolfgang (1997–2001): Kōmōryū geka no tanjō ni tsuite. In: Keiji YAMADA
and Shigehisa KURIYAMA (eds.): Rekishi no naka no yamai to igaku. Kyoto:
Shibunkaku Shuppan, pp. 231–164.
MICHEL, Wolfgang (1999): Von Leipzig nach Japan. Der Chirurg und Handelsmann
Caspar Schamberger (1623–1706). München: Iudicium.
MICHEL, Wolfgang (2001): Europäische Fernostreisende im Um- und Vorfeld
Kaempfers. In: Wolfgang MICHEL und Barend J. TERWIEL (eds.): Engelbert
Kaempfer. Heutiges Japan. Vol. 1, part 2. München: Iudicium, pp. 90–142.
MICHEL, Wolfgang and SUGITATSU Yoshikazu (2003): Ōtaguro Gentan no Oranda-
geka menkyojō to sono haikei ni tsuite. In: Nihon ishigaku zasshi 49, 3,
pp. 455–477.
NAGASAKI-SHI DEJIMA SHISEKI SEIBI JUNBI SHINGI-KAI (ed.) (1990): Dejima-zu – sono
keikan to hensen. Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Bijutsu Shuppan.
NAGAZUMI, Yōko (1975): Orandajin no hogosha toshite no Inoue Chikugo-no-kami
Masashige. In: Nihon rekishi 327, pp. 1–17.
NUMATA, Jirō et al. (1972–1976): Yōgaku. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
OSHIMA, Akihide (2006): Kinsei-kōki Nihon ni okeru Shizuki Tadao yaku Sakoku-ron
no juyō. In: Yōgaku 14.
SCHILLING, Dorotheus (1931): Das Schulwesen der Jesuiten in Japan (1551–1614).
Münster: Regensberg.
300
SCHILLING, Dorotheus (1937): Os Portugueses e a introducão da medicina no Japão.

In: Boletim do Instituto Alemão da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de
Coimbra 6–7, pp. 172–208.
SŌDA, Hajime (1989): Nihon iryō bunkashi. Kyoto: Shibunkaku Shuppan.
SUGIMOTO, Masayoshi and David L. SWAIN (1989): Science and Culture in Tradi-
tional Japan. Tokyo: Tuttle.
SUGITA, Genpaku (1969): Dawn of Western Science in Japan. Translated by Ryozo
Matsumoto, Eiichi Kiyooka. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press.
SUGITA, Genpaku (1982): Rangaku goto hajime. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
301
Christian Oberländer
Japan’s Deutschlandpolitik in the Postwar Period
The Case of Travel Restrictions between East Germany
and Japan
Relations between Germany and Japan are said by many to be nearly fric-
tionless. However, a fresh look at the important years of the immediate post-
war period, when the relations had to be restored after a seven-year hiatus,
reveals that there were several areas of conflicting interests which had to be
resolved before bilateral relations took on their current, »stable« shape. In the
area of foreign policy, the East-West conflict was a natural starting point for
closer relations between the two countries after their joint defeat, because
both Germany and Japan found themselves in the front-line position against
the communist bloc. Besides common interests such as exchanging informa-
tion on Soviet policies,1 it was of utmost political importance for the Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG) to secure Japan’s support in overcoming the
division of Germany. The degree to which the Japanese government re-
sponded to the political agenda of »West Germany« – especially the non-
recognition of the communist German Democratic Republic or »East Ger-
many« – can be regarded as an important indicator of the quality of German-
Japanese relations in the political field. In the following, I will discuss a
small facet of Japan’s policy on Germany, focusing on the example of Japa-
nese responsiveness to the Federal Republic’s call for travel restrictions to
Japan for citizens of East Germany.2
1. Japan’s Acceptance of the Hallstein Doctrine

Immediately after its founding, the Federal Republic of Germany was con-
fronted with the challenge of having to defend, again and again, its claim of
being the sole legitimate voice of all of Germany. It therefore aimed to pre-
vent, to the best of its ability, any attempt of the German Democratic Repub-
lic (GDR) to gain political recognition abroad. It was an important prerequi-
site for successfully conducted diplomacy and for gaining international rec-
ognition to send official representatives to foreign countries for the so-called
»Soviet-occupied Zone« (SBZ) – as West German representatives frequently
1 See for example Oberländer 2006.

2 For this paper, the documents, files, and records of the Japanese Diet and the
German Federal Foreign Office were obtained and analyzed.
303
called the GDR. Thus, the embassies of the Federal Republic of Germany
tried to persuade the governments of their host countries to block the entry of
official East German visitors. This was also the case in Japan where govern-
ment officials were sympathetic to the West German claim of exclusive rep-
resentation of the entirety of Germany. Nonetheless, a broad spectrum of
political and economic interest groups in Japan regularly called for closer
personal contacts with the GDR.
On March 25, 1954, the Soviet Union announced that it had granted »sov-
ereignty« to East Germany. Only two weeks later, on April 7, the Foreign
Ministry in Bonn started its first diplomatic offensive against the GDR gov-
ernment (Gray 2003: 25). On that day, the State Secretary for Foreign Af-
fairs, Walter Hallstein, ordered the German diplomatic representatives in
foreign countries to inform their host governments that
the federal government [of Germany] will not under any circumstance
recognize the so-called »GDR«. It attaches great importance to be sup-
ported in this by the foreign government through a clear statement.
Only a few days later, the Japanese government declared »clearly and
categorically that it will not recognize the so-called GDR«. In return, Bonn
ordered its embassy in Tokyo to transmit the »special thanks of the Federal
Government of Germany to the [Japanese] government« for making this
declaration. 3 Japan was thus inaugurated into the system of the Hallstein
doctrine, in which friendly states pledged to abstain from any step that might
be interpreted as recognition of the GDR government, such as receiving offi-
cials or allowing the establishment of diplomatic representations. The Federal
Republic could interpret violation of this promise as an »unfriendly act« and
– under extreme circumstances – respond by breaking off diplomatic rela-
tions. Since passports issued by non-recognized countries were considered
invalid according to international custom, the Federal Republic could render
international travel of East German citizens very difficult in this way.
After the Federal Republic had established diplomatic relations with the
Soviet Union in the autumn of 1955, despite the maintenance of a diplomatic
representation in Moscow by the GDR, West Germany had to fight even
harder for the adherence of the Hallstein doctrine by Japan, especially since
Japan was also conducting negotiations with the Soviets regarding the nor-
malization of relations. The GDR immediately saw an opening to establish at
least a minimal presence in Japan. Since official contacts to the Japanese
government were blocked by the Hallstein doctrine, GDR organizations tried
to contact selected groups in Japanese society that we might consider today
non-governmental organizations. The East Germans cleverly chose the
»World Congress against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs« which – as part of
the anti-nuclear movement of the time – was organized by a Japanese peace
3 Northe to Auswärtiges Amt (15.4.1954), in: AV Neues Amt 6842.
304
group and offered the East Germans a convenient opportunity to present

themselves as the peace-loving, anti-militaristic side of Germany.
When the above-mentioned »World Congress« was held in 1955, only two
East German citizens were sent to Japan, however, one of them was the vice
president of the communist union organization, the so-called Freie Deutsche
Gewerkschaftsbund (FDGB). The following year, the GDR attempted to
expand its delegation to the »Second World Congress« to a group of four
participants led by Karl Lohmann, vice president of the East German Acad-
emy of Science. But now, the isolation policy of the Federal Republic of
Germany took effect: German ambassador Hans Kroll, who had been sent to
Japan only the year before, requested the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Af-
fairs to deny the East Germans permits to enter Japan.4 While the Minister of
Justice had been willing at first to grant the East Germans entry to Japan, his
position was overturned at the state secretaries’ interministerial meeting. As a
result, the East German representatives could not participate in the »Second
World Congress« and were thus ostracized like the delegates from North
Korea, North Vietnam, and Outer Mongolia, because Japan did not recognize
these four communist areas as states.5
According to figures that Tokyo made available to the Federal Republic of
Germany, travel between the GDR and Japan in these years was limited to
few cultural and trade contacts. In 1956, an East German trade delegation
visited Japan, but was not allowed to establish a permanent representation or
to conclude any larger contracts.6 In 1957, only eight people from the GDR
entered Japan: three businessmen, two physicians and their wives, and one
writer. The volume of travel from Japan to the GDR was by no means any
larger. Nonetheless, the German embassy gloomily believed that it registered
»a gradual increase of Soviet zone activity« in Japan.7 This did not turn out
entirely wrong, because the GDR soon developed the strategy of winning
invitations to Japan by reciprocity – by inviting members of the Socialist
Party of Japan and the Federation of Workers Unions, Sōhyō, to East Berlin
and treating them like state guests. The resolutions that were published at the
occasion of these visits often contained a demand for the recognition of the
East German regime by the Japanese government as well as attacks against
the Federal Republic. The German embassy in Tokyo conversely interpreted
these public statements as propaganda hostile to the Federal Republic, thus
4 Vermerk (17.8.1956), in: B 12 1503.

5 Botschafter Kroll to Auswärtiges Amt (31.7.1956), in: B 12 1529. See also the
statement of Matsumoto Shichirō in the Diet’s Special Committee on the Japan-
Soviet Joint Declaration (20.11.1956).
6 Van Briessen to Auswärtiges Amt (20.4.1959), in: AV Neues Amt 6842.
7 Vermerk: »Sowjetzonenaktivität in Japan« (25.2.1958), in: AV Neues Amt 6842
305
lending further support to the demand that GDR officials not be admitted to
Japan.8
2. The Warnke Visit as a Major Test of Japan’s Cold War Deutschlandpolitik

The cleverness of the GDR maneuver in challenging the non-entry policy
towards GDR officials by using union representatives became apparent when
Ambassador Wilhelm Haas reported to Bonn on May 1, 1960: »As notified
by the Foreign Ministry, the president of the board of directors of the FDGB
of the zone, Herbert Warnke, has been invited to Japan by the Japanese left-
wing union federation Sōhyō.« This invitation was extended at the seemingly
harmless occasion of the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the founding
of Japanese unions. However, Herbert Warnke was not only the president of
the board of directors of the FDGB, but also a member of the East German
parliament as well as of the politburo of the central committee of the East
German Communist Party (SED). Ambassador Haas pointed out the »danger
[…] that [Warnke] will use the visit only for communist subversion and to
disturb German-Japanese relations« and announced immediate intervention
by the embassy.
Ambassador Haas probably perceived Warnke’s visit as a singularly acute
»danger« because it came at a critical time. On January 9, 1960, the revised
security treaty between the United States and Japan had been signed in Wash-
ington and was now scheduled for ratification. In particular, the Japanese
political left staged fierce protests against the new treaty claiming that the
agreement might draw Japan into conflicts between the United States and
third parties. The countries of the communist camp supported these protests
(Hara 1995: 212). East Germany used the occasion of the visit of German
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to Japan in March 1960 to step up its propa-
ganda activities against Japan and to demonstrate its support of the protest
movement.
On June 7, Dr. van Briessen of the embassy visited Kanayama and Ki-
moto, the resort and section heads in charge at Japan’s Foreign Ministry, the
Gaimushō, in order to draw their attention to the purely political nature of
Warnke’s Japan visit and to remind them of the communiqué published at the
time of Adenauer’s visit in which it was not only acknowledged that the
government of the Federal Republic of Germany was the government of all
of Germany, but also that Japanese support had been promised on matters
concerning German reunification. The Japanese officials simply replied that
there were no legal means to refuse Warnke’s entry into Japan. They feared
that if they had rejected his application, there would have been a storm of
protest which would be inopportune from a domestic point of view, since this
8 Auswärtiges Amt to Deutsche Botschaft Tokyo (20.11.1959), in: AV Neues Amt

6841.
306
was a time of massive tensions regarding the renewal of the U.S.-Japan secu-
rity treaty.
After the unsatisfactory result of this first interaction regarding the
Warnke case, in the following days, the embassy also intervened at the level
of department head, then vice minister and finally even – in the form of Am-
bassador Haas himself – directly addressed Foreign Minister Fujiyama. 9
During the top-level discussion with the head of Japanese diplomacy, the
ambassador got the impression that »the Japanese government has committed
itself to Sōhyō«. Kimoto declared a few days later that the granting of
Warnke’s visa was final and added the thinly veiled threat that too much
pressure on the Japanese government would have a negative effect on the
Japanese policy of non-recognition of the GDR.10 Indeed on June 20, 1960,
in Rangoon, Warnke picked up a visa that was valid for entry into Japan for a
period of three months. However, he could not travel immediately to Japan
because the West German government had meanwhile – with the help of the
British authorities – successfully thwarted his passage through Hong Kong.11
In the meantime, the German embassy continued its efforts to prevent
Warnke’s still imminent entry by trying to persuade Gaimushō to rescind his
entry permit, but this failed. As a last resort, the embassy requested Bonn to
ask all those countries for help that had airports which Warnke could possibly
pass through on his way to Tokyo.12 However, on July 26, the Gaimushō
suddenly notified the embassy that not Warnke, but probably Rolf Deubner,
the head of the FDGB Department for International Cooperation,13 would
travel to Japan to take part in the Sōhyō and the anti-nuclear conferences.14
Indeed, Deubner arrived in Tokyo only a few days later.15 In a radio inter-
view that he gave immediately upon landing, he proposed »a brotherly coop-
eration of East German and Japanese workers in the struggle against milita-
rism to […] prevent a new edition of the old fascistic axis between Bonn and
Tokyo.« After Deubner renewed his attacks against the Federal Republic
before the national congress of Sōhyō, Bonn strongly insisted that the Japa-
nese government take measures. The German ambassador even recom-
mended that Bonn should risk the deterioration of German-Japanese relations
since the consequences of allowing a precedent – if Deubner’s inflammatory
9 Van Briessen to Auswärtiges Amt (23.6.1960), in: AV Neues Amt 6841. See also
Memorandum, Botschafter Haas to Außenminister Fujiyama (9.6.1960), in: AV
Neues Amt 6841.
13 Von Randow (Deutsche Botschaft in Rangun) to Auswärtiges Amt (29.6.1960), in:
AV Neues Amt 6841.
14 Vermerk: »Einreise Warnke« (26.7.1960), in: AV Neues Amt 6841.
307
speeches were accepted without protest – would be much more damaging.

While the Japanese government issued only a warning to Sōhyō because of
Deubner’s speech, the real test to German-Japanese relations followed after
Deubner had left Japan.
During a consultation at Gaimushō regarding Deubner’s statements, the
German side demonstrated its disappointment regarding the inactivity of the
Japanese government, and this sparked a heated debate.16 The Japanese offi-
cials claimed that the numerous remonstrations of the German embassy had
left a bad impression at the Japanese Foreign Ministry and even announced
that in the future, visitors from East Germany would come more often and
that one or the other important official from the GDR might come to Japan
sometime.17 As a result of this discussion, the embassy began to fear that
Tokyo would review its policy on the entry of East German citizens alto-
gether because the Japanese were apparently thinking that the disadvantages
of straining relations with the Federal Republic were smaller than the advan-
tages to be had from the stronger – economic, cultural, and political – ties
with East Germany. 18 However, tension eased somewhat when, after the
expiration of the entry permit for Warnke, the Japanese government declared
that no more FDGB representatives would be allowed to enter the country.
3. From Subversion to Economic Pressure and Then to Recognition

After the Warnke case was resolved, the German embassy believed that it
noticed a perceptible willingness on the part of the Japanese which began in
December 1960 when the former Japanese ambassador to Germany, Takeuchi,
was appointed to the office of Administrative Vice Foreign Minister.19 Be-
cause of the energetic representations of the Federal Government in the
Warnke case, the Japanese Foreign Ministry apparently agreed temporarily to
consultations with the German embassy in regard to applications for entry
permits by inhabitants of East Germany. While the embassy had to accept
that two East German delegates participated in the »World Congress against
Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs« in 1961, neither of the visitors were FDGB
members. Besides, according to an assessment of the German embassy, the
»World Congress« had already lost most of its former momentum, not least
because of the repeated nuclear test explosions staged by the Soviet Union.20
All entry permits of FDGB representatives wanting to travel to Japan in re-
sponse to invitations by Sōhyō were now consistently denied.
16 Aufzeichnung: »Gespräch mit Herrn Kanayama« (13.8.1960), in: AV Neues Amt

6841.
17 »Einreise FDGB Delegation« (29.8.1960), in: AV Neues Amt 6841.
19 Botschafter Haas to Auswärtiges Amt (20.2.1961), in: B 12 1486.
20 Botschafter Haas to Auswärtiges Amt (9.8.1962), in: B 12 1534.
308
However, Japanese vigilance soon became lax again, and the GDR con-
tinued its efforts in establishing official contacts with Japan. For example, in
1964, the East Germans did not shrink from sending Hans Bentzien, Minister
of Culture, and Erich Markowitsch, Minister of Industry, to Japan, both of
whom were camouflaged as »guests of honor« of the GDR’s National Olym-
pic Committee at the occasion of the Tokyo Olympics. The German embassy
in Tokyo noticed these activities only after Markowitsch had given the Mai-
nichi Shimbun an interview21 and Bentzien had appeared at several recep-
tions given by prefectural and local governments in western Japan. The em-
bassy immediately raised protests with the Japanese Foreign Ministry, and in
several incidents East German flags – the so-called »division banners« (Spal-
ter-Flaggen) – were lowered and Japanese ministries and lower-ranking
agencies were prohibited from receiving the East German officials. 22 Be-
cause of this »Olympics experience«, the embassy suggested that the Japa-
nese government return to the earlier, short-term consultations that were
introduced after the Warnke case. Alternatively, Japan was urged – just as
other NATO countries – to issue entry permits only on the basis of so-called
»temporary travel documents« processed by the Allied Travel Office in Ber-
lin. However, Tokyo refused to do this as it was too time-consuming and
decided to process harmless entry applications for culture, sports and trade
purposes independently. Only the suspicion that East Germans could be visit-
ing Japan for political purposes would lead to inquiry at the Allied Travel
Office.
Meanwhile, left-wing representatives kept up their pressure on the Japa-
nese government to lift travel restrictions. For example, in 1966, Masao Yagi,
a career diplomat who was then head of the Immigration Bureau of Japan,
had to answer questions by Seiichi Inaba, a member of the Socialist Party of
Japan, on what grounds the Japanese government denied entry to delegates to
the »World Congress against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs« from certain
communist countries. Yagi explained that because East Germany was a place
very far away, letting its delegates attend the congress would not be much of
a problem. However, because the Federal Republic of Germany had repeat-
edly stated its opposition to the visits of East German officials, and because
there was no reason to ignore the opinion of a friendly government, Tokyo
decided not to grant entry to the East Germans.23
From the mid-1960s onwards, the East German regime began to combine
clumsy strategies of subversion – sending representatives for political or
propaganda purposes under varying pretexts to Japan – with more effective
pressure tactics using Japanese companies’ growing interest in trade with
21 Botschafter Dittmann to Auswärtiges Amt (9.10.1964 und 17.10.1964), in: B 37 2.

22 Botschafter Dittmann to Auswärtiges Amt (22.10.1964), in: B 37 2.
23 Statement of Masao Yagi in the Diet’s Judicial Affairs Committee (28.7.1966).
309
Eastern Europe as leverage in the quest for official contacts with Japan.
When, for example, in 1966 a renewed application for an entry permit for
Herbert Warnke which Sōhyō had submitted in response to pressure from the
GDR was refused, East Germany terminated negotiations on the construction
of a synthetic fiber plant that were being conducted with the trading company
Mitsubishi Shōji and instead gave the order to a French competitor.24 That
same year, the GDR sent a larger trade delegation to Japan, employing a
tactic similar to that with the Olympics. In early October, the German em-
bassy in Tokyo learned of the arrival of the ten-member delegation from the
newspapers.25 Upon inquiry, the Gaimushō was caught by surprise, and it
was subsequently discovered that the GDR representatives had applied for
entry permits individually so that the arrival of an entire delegation would not
be noticed by Japanese authorities.26
When trade relations between Japan and the GDR increased during the
following years, even the German embassy could no longer prevent the in-
creasing willingness of the Japanese government to grant entry permits to
East Germans. In the spring of 1970, the Gaimushō informed the embassy in
an »apparently intentionally casual« way that three FDGB officials were
staying in Japan, at least two of whom occupied top positions in the commu-
nist union. Only two years later, in November 1972, members of the govern-
ment of the GDR won formal access to Japanese officials for the first time
when State Secretary Beil was received by Vice Prime Minister Miki Takeo
as part of trade talks. On May 15, 1973, Japan and the GDR finally estab-
lished diplomatic relations and, one year later, ambassadors were exchanged
(Neuß 1989: 278–280).
4. Conclusion
The attitude of Japan towards the West German campaign for non-
recognition of the GDR at the time of the Hallstein doctrine was an important
indicator of the quality of political relations between Japan and the Federal
Republic of Germany. While Japan accepted the Hallstein doctrine in prince-
ple without hesitation and maintained this position until the early 1970s, the
degree to which Tokyo was willing and able to abide by the doctrine de-
pended in part on perceived domestic political stability. At the time of the
large-scale protests against the security treaty in 1960 when Tokyo even tried
to call in the Self-Defense Forces to pacify the situation in the capital, the
Japanese government felt that it was not in a position to refuse the entry of a
high-ranking communist official from East Germany. Even protests at the
highest levels by West German diplomats could change this. From the second
24 Boss to Auswärtiges Amt (25.3.1966), in: B 37 260.

25 Botschafter Krapf to Auswärtiges Amt (5.10.1966), in: B 37 260.
26 Botschafter Krapf to Auswärtiges Amt (6.10.1966), in: B 37 260.
310
half of the 1960s onwards, the GDR succeeded – not least because of Japa-
nese economic interests, but also because of the new Ostpolitik of the Federal
Republic – in permanently loosening restrictions of personal travel in favor
of a more pragmatic approach. When the Federal Republic itself began ap-
proaching the GDR in small steps, Japan could not have been expected to be
more Catholic than the Pope!
References Cited
GRAY, William G. (2003): Germany’s Cold War: The Global Campaign to Isolate
East Germany, 1949–1969. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
HARA, Yoshihisa (1995): Kishi Nobusuke. Tokyo: Iwanami (= Iwanami shinsho; 368).
OBERLÄNDER, Christian (2006): Die »Adenauer-Formel« in den japanisch-sow-
jetischen Friedensverhandlungen 1955/56 und die deutsch-japanischen Bezie-
hungen. In: Helmut ALTRICHTER (ed.): Adenauers Moskaubesuch 1955. Eine
Reise im internationalen Kontext. Bonn: Bouvier, pp. 57–76.
NEUSS, Beate (1989): Die Beziehungen zwischen der DDR und Japan. In: Hans-
Joachim VEEN AND Peter R. WEILEMANN (eds.): Die Westpolitik der DDR.
Melle: Ernst Knoth, pp. 265–316.
311
Claudius C. Müller
Museums of Ethnology and Japanese Studies
In the summer of 1889 Max Buchner, director of the Royal Bavarian Mu-
seum of Ethnology in Munich, spent three months in Japan within the
framework of a larger trip in order to acquire collection items for the museum
rooms. The outcome with, all in all, over 2,500 single objects can be deemed
successful, even though, from today’s vantage point, Buchner may seem
anything but predestined for this commission. As were many ethnologists at
the time who worked in museums, he was originally something else, a physi-
cian, and spent several years as »assistant« to the African explorer Gustav
Nachtigal in the service of the German colonial administration in Cameroon
(Buchner 1914). A large collection of ethnological objects that he assembled
had unfortunately been lost during its transportation per ship to Europe. The
specific prerequisites for a collecting journey to Japan may have been lack-
ing, yet thanks to him we have a stock that, in quantity and quality, is today
one of the outstanding documentations of non-European cultures.1
Buchner had an eye for the seemingly irrelevant and the easily overlooked
quotidian article. In the Munich Museum’s book of arrivals under the num-
bers B.2274 and 2275 the following is noted: »Two pairs of chopsticks for
the common folk such as provided by the movable eatery stands at the road-
side. The first pair had not yet been broken apart«. A casual remark that is
still valuable as an early record of Japan’s production efficiency.
The legacy of early German collecting heroes such as Philipp Franz von
Siebold and his sons Alexander and Heinrich, Buchner, Baelz and others was
also further expanded in the 20th century by the ethnological museums, al-
though the professional care of specially trained curators with a well-
grounded knowledge of the language and the country was rare enough.2 In
this same period, the study of Japan was established at the universities as a
hugely professional and successful academic subject. Contacts between the
university and the museum were rather superficial, and collaboration happen-
stance. Ethnological questions concerning Japan – in so far as they were not
seen as part of literature or the history of art or religion – were at the univer-
sities reserved for individual interests or for the few Japanologists who re-
1 This »oriental journey« also led Buchner to Australia, New Guinea, the Phillipi-
nes, Southeast Asia, and China, where he likewise purchased items for the mu-
seum; see Buchner 1919.
2 On this question, see Müller2005.
313
Claudius C. Müller
garded ethnology as the focus of their research, above all, the cultural-
historical influenced Viennese Japanology of Alexander Slawik and his dis-
ciples.
This drifting apart of the two institutions (museum and university) is un-
deniable, which can chiefly be charged to the museums and partly their own
responsibility. With a given, very modest staffing, they delighted in appoint-
ing sinologically trained curators for East Asian collections, which were
often enough supposed to include not only China, Korea, and Japan but also
Siberia, Tibet, even all of South and Southeast Asia. Honi soit qui mal y
pense – something like: Japanese culture is an offspring of the Chinese.
Remedying this distortion is in the interest of the museums, whose inventory
of Japanese culture is not in corresponding use, if not even lying completely
fallow. But it seems to me there are also direct advantages offered to Japa-
nology at the universities, concrete suggestions of which will be presented in
the following.
It is helpful here to refer back to Buchner who, without any Sinological or
Japanological training, fulfilled the objectives of the ethnological museum
very successfully, that of interesting the public in foreign cultures and provid-
ing knowledge – here of Japan – with the aid of objects and ensembles. In his
memoirs, Buchner describes very graphically his lucky find, such as the
noted chopsticks, actually a triviality, yet of striking significance and cru-
cially informative of the Japanese tradition of preparing and eating food in
contrast to European gastronomy. He also, however, reports on his deliberate
search for desired objects. Antiquity shops in big cities at the time offered
extremely good deals on treasures from temples and shrines that, because of
the poverty caused by secularization, were forced to sell them. Whereby
Buchner acted on the advice of experienced connoisseurs of Japan, such as
Dr. Erwin Baelz or the »excellent Mr. Winkler«, who not only led him to a
»peculiarly rich warehouse« in Kobe, but also generously advanced the pur-
chasing price, for which an application to the Bavarian Finance Ministry still
needed to be written!3
Along with everyday articles, Buchner very consciously collected such
things that seemed not to satisfy any general aesthetic requirement. Thus he
found »once hardly arrived in Tokyo […] at a junkshop two gloriously ugly
red Nio« warriors that Dr. Baelz was inclined to buy for Stuttgart, but then
hesitated because he doubted they would be liked there. As Buchner wrote
sarcastically, trying to thwart the admiration of all things Japanese en vogue
in Europe at that time by stressing the fact that there is ugliness (›shadow‹) as
well in Japanese culture: »This was very welcome to me to be able to deline-
3 After his return to Germany in 1901, Buchner engaged Hara Shinkichi, a well-
known expert in Japanese culture from the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe,
Hamburg, to record and assess the Siebold collection in Munich.
314
ate Japanese worship with such powerful strokes«. Whereby he in no way

neglected the quality of Japanese art and succeeded in buying for a song a
series of large (up to three meters high) Buddha and guardian figures from
the Tokugawa era: »In no museum in Europe […] have I seen any more
beautiful« (Buchner 1919: 12). »They are here now«, he remarked proudly,
and today we can say that they still represent to visitors an imposing and
impressive ensemble that have, since their purchase, taken on the character of
an icon of the Munich house. It also characterizes Buchner’s occupation with
Japanese culture that he acquired decorative, expressive and striking objects
for exhibitions that awaken the spontaneous interest of viewers and entice
them to want to learn more about this still unknown culture.
Ethnological museums have another status today than they did at the end
of the 19th century. The gloss of the early years has faded and the quite posi-
tive and original curiosity about the foreign, the unknown and the exotic has
been diverted by an excess supply of various types of news and information
from around the world, which one individual can hardly manage to digest.
Japanese culture – from hi-tech to sushi – has become common knowledge.
A rich and varied range of high-grade art exhibitions in the East Asian art
museums and large exhibition halls of Berlin, Bonn, Munich, and other cities
celebrate successes that can hardly be rated high enough over here for their
understanding of Japanese aesthetics and tradition. The tours of ritual drum-
ming ensembles, of Kabuki and Buto companies, Zen meditation, ikebana,
and calligraphy courses, for instance, cover numerous facets of Japanese
culture. Japanese presentations in ethnological museums, in comparison,
seem to be sidelined, if not even completely overlooked. For a smaller, but
interested and grateful public, these other exhibits are very welcome: exhibi-
tions on Japanese handicrafts, pottery production, papermaking, sword forg-
ing, bamboo objects, the lifeworld of today’s Zen monks or relations between
the culture of Japan and the Ainu. That the issue hereby is of complementary
fields that are advantageous and profitable for both sides is obvious and un-
derlines the necessity to foster Japanese culture also in ethnological muse-
ums. However how can we succeed in making the contribution of cultural
anthropology more professional, more visitor-oriented and more successful
without diminishing the traditional forte of its collections and research?
In a collaboration between museums and universities there are obvious
and much too little-used resources. The traditional range of functions of cul-
tural history-type museums are keynoted as collecting, preserving, research-
ing and exhibiting. It is at these four points that the possibilities of collabora-
tion between ethnological museums with Japanese collections and the univer-
sity study of Japanese culture are manifest.
315
Claudius C. Müller
Collecting
At first sight and in any case as seen from outside, the compiling of collec-
tions and the acquisition of interesting objects could be called the most fasci-
nating and, together with their exhibition, the most important task of a cura-
tor. In the meantime, however, since the time of the great Japanese collectors
of the 19th century, some things have changed. For understandable reasons,
comprehensive thematic documentations of Japan – such as Philipp Franz
von Siebold was able to assemble for Leiden and Munich (general culture),
Hans Spörry for Zurich (bamboo objects), or Josef Kreiner as late as the
1960s for Vienna (traditional agriculture) and even Max Buchner for Munich
(large sacred objects) – are hardly possible anymore. Some ethnologically
relevant themes have run their course; financial backing by museums or
sponsors have each time become sparser. Thus any new acquisitions in the
thematic collections of most ethnological museums are thanks to the initiative
of private collectors, who have, in part, for decades purchased objects from
folk religions (ema) and toys (Berlin) or modern Japanese prints (Walter
Schmidt Collection, Munich) and generously donated them to museums.
These donations, to which the museums in the next years will almost exclu-
sively have to fall back on, are in line with the tradition of the noted old col-
lectors who, with their objects, have documented a specific cultural status at a
defined point in time. It is striking that at the time of their acquisition a large
number of the objects were rather outside of the general interest and seem
marginal in the widest sense of the term. Such as everyday objects that are at
any time easy to replace. They first gain their current and extraordinary value
in the eyes of later generations when they are recognized as the historical
documents and examples of a specific period or fashion. It is very inspira-
tional today to compare ourselves to these earlier collectors, even if the
judgment of future generations regarding the success of our present efforts
will remain unknown to us.
Today ethnological museums are no longer capable of sending someone
out into the world to invest an appropriate sum of money in comprehensive
collections of specific fields. However, this could possibly be more the case
of a good idea than a full purse. The opportunities for young students to study
Japanese in the country itself are very much easier to come by and more
usual than they used to be, and these students could very well be motivated
by being commissioned to do research so as to discover their own collection
themes. Lecturers should suggest themes, curators offer inspiring tours of
their depots with the perspective that this could end in the exploration of
different study focuses and the chance of financial support. For the field –
and Tokyo, Osaka, or Nikko are nothing but – institutes and museums in
Japan should put together a kind of up-to-date manual for present-day collec-
tors, similar to what was the usual practice in the 19th century. One example
316
is imaginable under the title »selling fish in the market«, namely document-
ing this activity with photographs, interviews, and several essential tools like
knives, scales, packing material, and advertising. The result could be a small
presentation in a museum and a long-term historical documentation for future
generations (when only farm-bred salmon will exist), compiled by someone
who has researched the material.
A good eye and the right idea at the right time are, so to speak, important
for students, curators, and private collectors. The experience of the past years
shows that there is no lack of just this, as several examples prove: thus in the
1960s the Mongolia specialists Walther Heissig and his wife, during a lecture
trip through Japan, collected over 100 towels (tenugui) from different hotels
and donated them to the Berlin Ethnological Museum. These towels all had
different embellishments, in many cases indicating the hotel and its insignia
(mon), but also Ainu motifs, that, e.g., could be incorporated into an Ainu
exhibition. This applies likewise to the collection of Saskia Ishikawa-Franke,
who as professor for German studies has been active for decades in Japan and
has continually collected lacquer objects or toys, but also prompted children
to illustrate German and Japanese fairytales. In the 1990s, Josef Kreiner and
his colleagues at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo have
collected from restaurants hundreds of the paper chopstick wrappers and
donated them to the Berlin Ethnological Museum. Since the Berlin collection
also possesses chopstick wrappers from the end of the 19th century that are
printed in the technique of the traditional colored woodcut, an historical
comparison of the countless varieties of décor is possible. The fashion for
Tamagotchi toys vanished even faster than it had spread. Happy the museum
that ten years before had been able to acquire examples of them for a song. A
large heap of matchboxes with varying motifs, approx. 500 in number, were
compiled by two private collectors who had received them from restaurants
or cafés; they were a fitting and astounding complement to an exhibition on
Japanese firemen’s jackets. Such souvenirs, incidentally, have these past
years been ever less often on display and in ever more modest numbers.
Paper, paper products, plastic bags, Christmas and New Year’s cards –
which were sent to institutions and private people in large quantities – after
10 years already show the change in taste; or tourists’ private photo albums
of the 1960s and 1970s, the series would be easy to extend.4 One or two
generations later and you can laugh at such things, or wonder about how
4 The author of this article had, at the end of the 1990s – under the influence of
jetlag and late at night – »robbed« several telephone booths near his hotel of the
contents of their walls that bristled with personal ads pasted in several overlapping
layers with callgirls’ names; these announcements then found their way into the
lore of Berlin’s Ethnological Museum. Buchner himself had once added – without
any sign of regret – on the documentation cited at the beginning on the origin of
the chopsticks: »found in the Japanese hotel in Kamakura lying in a drawer«.
317
Claudius C. Müller
distant this era already is and how fast taste and fashion change. Thus these
things are evidence of the culture. Collecting – also without any expert pre-
requisites – seems to be simple, but is in most cases not haphazard, subject,
even with private collectors, to certain systematization and penchants. How-
ever, the interpretation, the research and the consideration of the objects’
place in the presentations calls for specialists, that is, museal as well as Japa-
nologist expertise.
Preservation
Information on the way museum stocks are kept in depots seldom reaches
the outside – for understandable reasons. This contributes to the widespread
suspicion that ethnological museums show far too little of their treasures to
the public.5 And indeed, preserving the collections in the broadest meaning
of the term is one of the important duties of the depot administrators, restor-
ers and curators and – for reasons of security – are subject to strict inner-
museal regulations. And yet it is part of an introduction to museum practice –
which lasts around two months – that students also work in depots, so as to
learn how to maintain inventories of, say, Japanese material culture. More-
over, it has been increasingly shown these past years that there is also no less
need for restorers specialized in Japanese collections – and not just of East
Asian art. It is a profession that not only requires training in restoration at a
polytechnic school, but also well-founded knowledge in Japanology. It is
quite evident that museum and university offer the best complementary pre-
requisites for such an education.
A relationship between Japanese studies at the university and the proper
storage and conservation of museum collections may seem far-fetched. Yet in
this important field of collaboration, there is at the simplest level the possibil-
ity of generally unpaid traineeships in which students are introduced to Japa-
nese material culture and the inventory of objects. What also needs promot-
ing is the link between Japanese studies and an education in the profession of
restoring. This opens up a professional field that has a promising future for
museal activities in a wider sense.
5 In general in the large cultural-historical museums worldwide, to which ones on

ethnology belong, only three to six percent of the entire inventory is exhibited. Not
everything is capable of being displayed, for reasons of quality or conservation.
And many objects are kept for research or as comparative examples. As a kind of
experiment, several years ago in Hamburg’s museum of Ethnology, all available
Japanese objects were presented in a special exhibit: the value of the insight pro-
vided and the impression on the visitors – once past the aha effect – was rather
limited in my opinion. Colleagues with their own Japanese collections may, on the
other hand, be very delighted to have been able to view the articles without re-
straint and in better order than in the depot.
318
Research
If collecting cultural products is chiefly a museal activity, research on the
subject, per definition, finds its home in the museum. Which doesn’t mean
that the staff at ethnological museums may not also publish academic articles,
when normal work at the museum allows. A visible sign are the catalogues
that accompany exhibitions and the many scholarly journals edited by muse-
ums in German-speaking countries. Nevertheless it seems virtually inevitable
that one of the most ambitious projects in recent years – the registering of
ethnological Japanese inventories in German and European collections – has
been owed to the initiative of the Japanology Seminar of Bonn University: its
director Josef Kreiner, along with Hans-Dieter Ölschleger as hands-on organ-
izer, have built up a comprehensive, well-documented and illustrated data-
bank. It is an indispensable foundation for all further comparative studies of
Japanese collections in Europe and for individual research on objects and
groups of objects. Japanese colleagues have carried out a comparable fol-
lowup project for North American collections. Universities and museums are
called on to undertake further steps, on the one hand, to continue to care for
the data collection and, on the other, to set up other concrete project collabo-
rations between different institutions and thus create a kind of research acad-
emy for Japanese material culture.
A desired and realizable goal would be establishing a research priority for
material culture in which different disciplines at a university could join up
with one of the large German ethnological museums. The discussion about
so-called »orchid subjects« (which only the rich can afford to study) and the
well-underway establishment of the BA and MA degrees make a collabora-
tion between Japanology, Sinology, studies of Islam, Mongolia, India and
Tibet, traditional European, and non-European ethnology, as well as intercul-
tural communication, an obvious solution. Museums and universities would
profit from a common fund of knowledge and interdisciplinary themes, in-
cluding teaching staff, supervision of the students and an augmentation of the
curriculum, as well as expert care of the collection items, thanks to the addi-
tional personnel. In this way a sensible center of supra-regional effectivity
could be created for such a research priority.
Ethnologically oriented centers of this kind have been successful since the
1970s in the National Museum of Ethnology, Suita, Osaka and in the newly
founded Musée du quai Branly in Paris. Such considerations presuppose that
the noted university disciplines understand that a knowledge of material cul-
ture is an important part of education and that, on the part of the museums,
these studies are made possible and institutionalized.
319
Claudius C. Müller
Exhibiting
Museums, including the ethnological ones, make themselves known to the
public chiefly through exhibitions. Much fuss and hype are made about large
museum events such as »MoMa«, »Guggenheim«, »Picasso«, »Beuys«, »Di-
nos«, »Tut«. In comparison, the activities of ethnological museums and their
Japanese departments – because of their modest public resonance: the man-
ageable amount of visitors, »dull« presentations – make the impression of
being the stepchildren of the cultural scene, despite their collections’ high
international standards. Many even speak of an out-and-out crisis in the area
of ethnological museums, even if it is misleading to take as yardstick the big
exhibition halls that have no permanent inventories to administer and have
other financial possibilities. Theories abound to explain this unfortunate
situation. On the surface it is certainly the cult of visitor numbers, the defini-
tion of culture as a marketplace commodity that has to sell itself profitably.
But also the necessity of financial support from businesses that regard exhibi-
tions as a product of their company policy, which subjects museums to the
danger of having their guidelines and interests influenced. What weighs
heavily on ethnological exhibitions is that the visitors often have little previ-
ous knowledge and must first be introduced to the quite complex thematics,
relationships and background. An effort that cannot be avoided.
Presumably the general situation of ethnological museums and the public
response to them will change very little these next years. Yet the mission of
this institution will remain as it always was: to show and explain the unity of
human culture in all its worldwide various manifestations. The issue is how.
Naturally we have to deal with the visitors’ interest in changing current top-
ics. We have to offer themes and accompanying programs that make the
exhibitions livelier and more attractive. That is, films, discussion forums,
workshops, music and theater events and, above all, guided tours by one’s
own experts (complemented by audioguides) that clarify the background and
respond to questions. Most of Germany’s ethnological museums have suc-
cessfully taken these steps. The significance of Japan in this context cannot
be underestimated, for it is evident that there are a large number of people
interested in Japanese culture. It is this audience that, thanks to increased
collaboration with university colleagues, can now be addressed more profes-
sionally and more diversely.
Examples from recent years, according to my own experience, concern the
themes of exhibitions such as »The Ainu – Portrait of a Culture in Japan’s
North« (2003), which focused on the image of the Ainu in Japanese paintings
and prints, as well as in early western photographs. Or »Arts and Crafts of
Gifu« (2004) that presented the techniques of fabrication and the products of
local handiwork and the applied arts. And finally »Bamboo in Old Japan«
(2006/2007), an exhibition that introduced over 500 items made of bamboo
320
or objects decorated with bamboo motifs. In all cases we were able to offer a
rich and diverse accompanying program, which made possible a both more
lighthearted and profound understanding of the topics. Since the events and
the workshops – above all those that included children – attracted the visi-
tors’ special interest, and since there are many groups in Germany that are
occupied with Japanese music, dance, theater, literature, flower decoration,
meditation, calligraphy, tea ceremonies and the so-called martial arts, it has
been simple enough to find committed and professional instructors.
Conclusion
The presentation of ethnological Japanese themes in museums must be
based on consolidated insight into Japanese culture and practical museum
experience. That Japanese studies and the activities of ethnological museums
significantly overlap is quite obvious. It is also irrefutable that the affinity of
both institutions in the furthering of insight into Japanese culture can open
additional and fruitful perspectives.
From the German by Jeanne Haunschild
References Cited
BUCHNER, Max (1914): Aurora colonialis. Bruchstücke eines Tagebuchs aus dem
ersten Beginn unserer Kolonialpolitik 1884/85. München: Piloty und Loehle.
BUCHNER, Max (1919): Eine Orientalische Reise. In: Max BUCHNER: Eine Orientali-
sche Reise und ein Königliches Museum. Rücksichtslose Erinnerungen. ün-
chen: Piloty und Loehle, pp. 5–16.
MÜLLER, Claudius (2005): Japanese Holdings in Ethnological Museums in Gemany –
Some General Remarks. In: Josef KREINER (ed.): Japanese Collections in
European Museums. Vol. 1: General Prospects. Bonn: Bier’sche Verlagsan-
stalt (= JapanArchiv; 5, 1), pp. 79–84.
321
Timon Screech
An Iconography of Nihon-bashi
In 1603, the new Tokugawa shogunate was declared. It was 30 years since
the last one had collapsed, and nearly a century since the Ashikaga had lost
effective control. This memorable event had to be commemorated.
Of course, the Toyotomi were still flourishing in Kansai. They were fa-
mous for their grandiose architectural creations, and the Tokugawa decided
to make something that would equal Toyotomi monuments in style and to
panache. They also intended their monument to make a claim to the centrality
of they own city, Edo, and to dispel the notion that it was little more than a
small garrison town in desolate and distant Azuma.
In 1603, Edo was still swampy and spatially and ill-defined. Drainage
work had been carried out in places, and some waterfronts strengthened;
housing had been zoned and, of course, the castle rebuilt. But still, a major
architectural statement would be immediately visible and would offer a
strong statement of intent, within the generally unimpressive built environ-
ment. The monument would indicate how the Tokugawa saw themselves, and
how they intended to develop.
Bridge Building
The Tokugawa decided that their monument would be a bridge. This was
perhaps odd. They named it Nihon-bashi. Edo had the Great River (Sumida)
to the east, marking the end of the city, but the new bridge was not built
there, linking Edo to the world beyond, but rather, it spanned a central wa-
terway east of the castle. The waterway had no name, so people began to call
it Nihon-bashi-gawa.
It was Edo’s very first fixed bridge, and at just under 50m long, was
impressive and beautiful. But more than length or attractiveness was the
width, which allowed a great volume of traffic to cross at once, and may be
in admiration for this feature that the name of Nihon-bashi was given. The
facts are not sure, but it is possible that the bridge was first »two-track
bridge» (二本橋) and later became Nihon Bridge, or, significantly, Bridge of
Japan (日本橋).1 The latter name clearly configures Edo as the focal point of
the realm. The kanji indicating »Bridge of Japan« became fixed only after the
1 This is the same as occurred at Nihon-tsutsumi, the embankment beyond Asakusa

that led to the Yoshiwara. It was originally »two track embankment« but meta-
morphosed into Embankment of Japan.
323
Timon Screech
structure was remodelled in 1659, after the great fire of 1657 (Nishiyama
1994: 28). The shogunate declared Nihon-bashi the centre of the city, and the
point to which and from which all distances were measured, as it still is to-
day.
The idea of celebrating the creation of the shogunate in this way needs some
explanation. Of course, there are examples official, planned centres in many
cities. All across Europe, cities have central squares, with, say, palace, church,
embassies and government ministries ranged about; these squares often have
symbolic names, expressive or virtue or order, or celebrating moments in the
nation’s life – Place de la Concorde in Paris, or Trafalgar Square in London.
There was some knowledge of early 17c. European cities in Japan thanks to
import of Willem Blaeu’s famous world map of 1606-7, which became the
source for the famous early-Edo 28 Cities Screen.2 People in Japan would have
known that some European cities had magnificent bridges, and, according to
Blaeu’s rendition, most notable were Frankfurt and London; London Bridge,
indeed, was regarded as one of the wonders of the mediaeval world, and was
prominently included in the 28 Cities Screen (Frankfurt was not). We know
that highly accurate pictures of London Bridge, far more so that Blaeu, were in
Edo by 1615, although probably not in 1603 (Screech 2005: 64).
It may have seemed useful to the new shogunate to innovate, and create an
iconic focus for their city that was unlike anything that had before been seen,
offering a new idea of type of monument for their new city, inspired from far
away.
Bridges and Culture: Poetry

There may be international influences behind Nihon-bashi. But it also fit-
ted well with East Asian, and particularly Japanese notions. The mountains of
Japan, with snow that melted making spring torrents, meant there were rather
few bridges. Yet some existed, and some had played important roles in his-
tory and in the cultural life of the nation. Perhaps two of the best known were
Sano-no-watari and Uji-bashi.
Sano figured in poems and was a »poetic pillow« (utamakura), or estab-
lished poetic theme. Most celebrated was Fujiwara Teika’s verse on Sano,
included in the Shin-Kokin waka-shū, which he edited in 1306:
Koma tomete sode uchiharau kage mo nashi
Sano no watari no yuki no yūgure3
There is no shelter to
Stop my horse
And brush off my sleeve
2 For a convenient reproduction, see Nihon byōbu-e shūsei (Tokyo: Kōdansha,

1979), vol 15, fig 1.
3 Shin kokinshū number 671.
324
Sano no Watari
A snowing nightfall
Sano was a pontoon bridge (funabashi), and an engineering feat, since it
was not easy to secure the boats and prevent their being washed away. But in
visual terms the bridge was low-lying and not much to look at. For users too,
it wobbled and felt dangerous. Like many poetic pillows, Sano was often
depicted, but most do not show the bridge at all, preferring to show Teika’s
poet in the snow.
Second was Uji Bridge, also poetic pillow, and even more famous. It con-
trolled access to Kyō and had been repeatedly fought over. Famously, during
the Genpei Wars, the Genji had removed its planks to prevent the Heike
crossing – an event known from Heike monogatari and Genpei seisui ki. Like
many poetic pillows, Uji was associated not only with event, but also with
feeling, in this case, with sadness for, in Heian times, nobles had possessed
summer houses at Uji, and writings of the period invoke melancholy ladies
left behind at Uji, while their male lovers were in the capital. One of the best-
known verses on Uji is again by Teika:
Samushiro ya matsu yo no aki no kaze fukete
Tsuki wo katashiku uji no hashi hime4
Coldness
Autumn wind blows on through
The night on which she waits
She spreads out half the moon
The Bridge Princess of Uji
This invokes an earlier anonymous verse from the Kokinshū of 905, using
the »variation of a theme« (honka-dori) technique:
Samushiro ni koromo katashiki
Koyoi mo ya ware wo matsuran uji no hashigimi5
In the coldness
She spreads out half the bedding.
Tonight, too, shall I wait?
The Bridge Princess of Uji
Between these two waka, Murasaki written the Tale of Genji, and set the
tragic story of Ukifune at Uji. Uji was often depicted, and pictures tend to
show a waterwheel, perhaps suggesting the turning of karma, with willows
resembling a distraught woman’s tousled hair, and sometimes also half a
moon, indicating that the lady will sleep alone; often also included are the
4 Ibid., number 420.

5 Kokinshū, number 689.
325
Timon Screech
charcoal boats that really did ply there, and the horses bred in the Uji region.
Being sad, the place was associated with autumn and often depicted in that
season, which also allowed for a bright moon.
Sano and Uji show the power of bridges to be loci of history and culture.
Bridges and Culture: Buddhism

Bridges also had another meaning, not specific to certain sites, but generic.
The building of bridges was an act of merit in Buddhist thought. In ancient
China, monks had built bridges as acts of devotion (Kieschnick 2003). This
was emulated in Japan, and indeed Uji Bridge had first been built by a monk,
Yamashiro no bō Dōto, in 646, whose act of merit was inscribed on a large
stone stele at the bridge-end (Umehara 1997: 220).
Perhaps the most bridged city in Japan was Nagasaki, although this was a
relatively recent phenomenon, after the great Ming monk Ingen, arrived in
1654, and built a bridge there; many others followed. Ingen had fled the col-
lapse of the Ming dynasty, and, as a foreigner, had to ingratiate himself with
the Nagasaki people and with the shogunate (Nagasaki was governed directly
from Edo) (Baroni 2000). Building bridges was a useful act and a sign of
caring for the local people, but Ingen was also assuming knowledge of the
symbolism of bridges.
The symbolic value of bridges came from the Buddhist expression of
»reaching the opposite bank« (tohigan), a metaphor for Enlightenment. To
convey people to the opposite side, as a bridge does, safely and without mis-
direction, was an act emblematic of piety. In leading to the »opposite bank«
bridges led through death to rebirth.
Nihon-bashi, as constructed by the Tokugawa, did exactly this. The Tō-
kaidō came up to it from the Kansai side, and once over the bridge, the road
continued under a new name, Nikkō Dōchū, The name pivoted at the apex of
the bridge, from one that referred to the old centre of Japanese culture, in
Kyoto, to once that referred, after interment of Ieyasu in Nikkō in 1617, to
Japan’s most sacred site of death.
The Nikkō dōchū led out to Asakusa and Ueno, which houses most of the
city’s temples, and were therefore associated with the mortuary cults of the
great families. The highway had 23 stations, and the first, beyond the city
limit, was Senjū, site of Edo’s main execution ground, Kotsu-ga-Hara, a
place of miscreant death. The last station was Hachiishi, and beyond it was
the Holy Bridge (goshin-kyō), that conveyed one into Nikkō’s sacred sites.
Like the Nikkō Dōchū, Tōkaidō, leading to (or properly, from) the bridge
the other way, had bridges at both ends. It ended in Kyoto at Great Fifth
Avenue Bridge, Gojō ōhashi, crossing the city limit of the River Kamo. Thus,
the Bridge of Japan, in central Edo, was a nodal point that held in place two
326
ribbon-like highways that joined history and culture with death and Enlight-
enment, all constructed in bridges.
More can be said. The Tōkaidō, as everyone knows, it had 53 stations.
This was a special number, for it represented the number of places visited by
the divine boy Sudharna (J: Zensai dōji) on his quest for Enlightenment, as
recounted in the ‘Entry into the Realm of Reality’ (J: Nyūhō kaihin), the last
and longest book of the Garland Sutra (Avatamsaka sutra; J: Kegon-kyō) one
of the most widely studied books in East Asian Buddhism.6 The text has it
that Sudharna prayed to the bodhisattva of wisdom, Manjushri (J: Monju
botatsu), who sent him out to study under various teachers. Sudhana worked
with 50 teachers without achieving Enlightenment. In ecstatic state, he went
on to a 51st master, who was Maitreya (J: Miroku bosatsu), the Buddha of the
Future. Maitreya sent him back to Manjushri, to complete his Enlightenment,
and so the bodhisattva of wisdom became his 52nd master, introducing him
to Samantabhadra (J: Fugen bosatsu), bodhisattva of Universal Good, who, at
this 53th stage, revealed to Sudhana a cosmic city of many mansions and
infinite beauty. 53 masters for the travelling holy boy, and 53 stations from
Edo to Kyoto. Edo was a new city. It was where a person began the search
after understanding. If we match the Tōkaidō to the sutra, then the Edo
traveller wanders as far as Mizuguchi, station 50, meets Maitreya at Ishibe,
Manjushri at Kusatsu, and Samanthabadra at Otsu, which was indeed an
important religious centre outside Kyoto; he then enters Kyō, as the cosmic
city, after skirting its range of mountains. Edo concedes the excellence of the
history and culture represented by Kyoto.
The Sites
Nihon-bashi was constructed with an arched shape, rising in the centre, so
its middle was the highest point in the area. This gave stunning views. Be-
cause Edo had grown in a rather haphazard way, lacking the grid pattern of
formally-planned East Asian cities, there were few long urban vistas. Edo
was a typical castle town with streets that were straight, but short, meeting
others at odd angles in a kind of mini-grid patchwork. This was intentional as
it prevented would-be attackers from finding their way. The view from Ni-
hon-bashi was a vista, and therefore highly exceptional. It was carefully con-
ceived so as to offer visions of Tokugawa power and order. Standing on the
bridge, one would look due Westward, directly towards the main entrance of
the castle (the Ote-mon), although, since this was down a waterway not an
avenue, the castle could not be approached (Fig. 1).
6 For a useful commentary of this scripture, see Li 1989.
327
Timon Screech
Figure 1. Katsushika Hokusai, »Nihon-bashi«. From Thirty-six Views of Mt

Fuji, c. 1836
Later, Ichikoku-bashi was built across the Nihon-bashi-gawa at the point

where in entered the castle moat (o-hori), but under the original plan, the
view was uninterrupted until it fell on the ultimate centre of power (Nishi-
yama et al. 1994: 32). Or rather, in 1603, Edo Castle was a contested centre.
Only after eradication of the Toyotomi, in 1615, was Edo Castle clearly the
core of authority.
Along both sides of the river leading to the castle were its supply store-
houses. These containing produce brought from throughout the archipelago,
indeed, from throughout the world for shogunal use, suggesting provision and
plenty. After a century of war, when supply lines had been cut and goods not
available, with attendant privation and starvation, this was a wonderful sight.
From the bridge, people saw an excess of goods, and realized it was thanks to
the security of the castle that Edo was so bounteous. Though generally re-
ferred to Edo Castle, note that the proper name was Chiyoda Castle: the To-
kugawa stability would last 1000 generations (chiyo), and would offer the
people the ability to farm in peace (da).
People on the bridge could also turn the other way, and look away from
this vista of power, Eastwards. All along the right-hand side on the river was
Edo’s splendid fish market, the Uogashi (Fig. 2). Fish was not the staple food
of everyone, and in many parts of Japan seafood was eaten rarely. Fish was
not much seen in Kyoto. But Edo was full of it. The waterfront off Shina-
gawa was shallow, but flat-bottomed boats came into the shore bringing co-
328
pious cargoes; even today, sushi – the prime fish dish, is best if it is Edo-mae
(caught in front to Edo). The city’s moats allowed swift transport from the
sea to market, to retailers and to people’s homes. Looking East, one saw
another bridge, Edo-bashi, and, as people pointed out, the plentiful market
(which reputedly grossed more than 1000 ryō per day) led from Edo to Ni-
hon.7 Since this market was for mercantile commoners (unlike the official
suppliers in the other direction), it was proper that it formed the rear vista
from the bridge, not viewable together with the sites of power and authority.
Figure 2. Katsushika Hokusai, »Edo-bashi from Nihon-bashi«. From Edo
meisō ichiran, 1800
Turning back to the formal, westward vista, we may observe one other
element. Mt Fuji rises to the left. The towers of the castle were the highest
buildings in the city, but one thing rose above them. Mt Fuji had long been
the symbol of Japan, the mountain that was ›unequalled‹ (fu ji) and also ›un-
dying‹ (fu shi). But it was not visible from Kyoto: it validated the Eastern
regions, which otherwise were short on cultural or poetic sites. The view
from the Nihon-bashi was composed to offer a counterpoint of political and
natural awe proper to the Edo region, but then radiating out, throughout Japan,
just was goods had congregated inwards.
7 This is probably intended hyperbolically, but appears in the senryū, »Hitohako no

hoka ni yū kawagishi uritarazu«, quoted in Hamada 1973: 49.
329
Timon Screech
Many people lingered on Nihon-bashi to enjoy the magnificent and im-

pressive view. Even those who crossed without stopping, would rise in their
saddles (if on horseback), or have their palanquin raised (if being carried), or
stand on tip-toe and crane their necks (if walking). Matsukura Ranran, in his
widely read Prose Poem on Fuji (Fuji on Fu) of 1706, put this vista first
among Edo’s four key ‘Fuji viewing (fujimi) spots,
Fuji is Japan’s Penglai […] At Nihon and Ryōgoku Bridges those of
horseback crane their necks, at Asakusa and Surugadai those in palan-
8
quins raise their windows.
The person on the bridge saw the storehouses (plenty), then the castle
(peace), and then Fuji (immortality), in which they could even participate,
since ‘seing Fuji’ was homophonous with ‘undying body’ (fujimi). Beyond
Fuji was Kyoto (culture and antiquity), and even further along a westward
trajectory was the Pure Land (jōdo) of bliss.
More Sites
There were more sites that gave meaning to Nihon-bashi. Though not
visible from the bridge, several important constituents of Tokugawa rule
were gathered here, all, noteworthily, on the right as one looked towards the
castle, and therefore on the Nikkō (Tokugawa) side on the bridge, after none
had fully entered the city, or conversely, before one had begun to leave it.
Three buildings may be mentioned.
First was the mint, or Kinza. This vast and well-protected area was the
shogunate’s central bank (the Bank of Japan still occupies the spot). It pre-
dated the bridge, having been built in 1601, although its presence became
most noticeable in 1612, after the other Kinza, at Ieyasu’s retirement castle of
Sunpu, was moved here (Nishiyama et al. 1994: 284). The block to its left
(i.e. the side nearer to Nihon-bashi) was Main Money-Changing Street (Hon-
ryōgae-chō). At the Kinza, value was formulated and matched for use
throughout a now-unified land. However, as with most buildings of political
importance, no pictures of the Kinza were ever made. One of the main
bridges across the moat and into the castle (not visible from Nihon-bashi), the
significantly named Great Bridge (Ohashi), crossed here.9
The second site could not be seen either, but it could be heard. Beside
Honryōgae-cho was Hongoku-chō. Not long after Nihon-bashi was built, the
second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada, donated to the city its most prominent
time bell, which was set up here (Tsunoyma 1984: 78–79). The city had pre-
viously lacked a unified time structure, and as few people owned their own
8 Matsukura Ranran, »Fuji no fu«: in Morikawa Kyoroku (ed.) (1706): Fūzoku

monzen; see Fujii 1936: 50.
9 It was later renamed Tokiwa-bashi, which survives as a Tokyo placename.
330
chronometers, regulation was difficult. A standard was needed, so the shogun

gave one, removing the bell that had previously hung in Edo Castle. By do-
nating this to the city, he transferred that the order that in early times had
regulated the castle but not rippled much beyond it, to the whole city.
The placename Hongoku-chō, literally Main Koku District, refers to a dry-
weight measure (»bushel«), but there is a homophone, koku meaning »time«,
the bell was positioned beside Nihon-bashi at a site that the ear could hear as
»Main Time District«. This was always the central bell of Edo, even after a
system of eight bells was set up: the other bells picked up the sound, in relay,
from Hongaku-chō.10
The Honkoku-chō bell lost to fire several times (1657, 1666, 1679, and
1711); the last replacement still exits today, though hanging in a slightly
different place and in an unsightly concrete tower.11 The size of the early bell
houses are unknown, but the last one, completed in 1712 after the final fire,
which endured until modern times, had a frontage of over 20m, and was 35m
deep. As often, a hereditary official was placed in charge, using a hereditary
name, and this was Tsuji Genshichi. The bell was the shogun’s gift to the city,
and whenever a new one was required, or major repairs became necessary, it
was the shogunate that paid. Daily up-keep was paid for by a tax of 1 mon,
per month, levied on the 410 most proximate residences.
Interestingly, after the death of Hidetada, his son and successor, Iemitsu,
made a trip to Kansai (important because it was the last by a shogun), in 1634,
as part of the rituals of his succession (miyokawari). He celebrated this event
in Osaka – a larger city than Kyoto – by donating a time bell. It was as if
when he left Edo, he took true time with him, and when he returned home, he
left it behind him as a gift. The Osaka bell was known as the ‘hanging bell’
(tsurigane), and although now lost, survives in an eponymous place name in
Osaka’s Higashi-ku (Tsunoyama 1984: 79).
A few houses away from the bell was our third site, the Nagasaki-ya. It
was also under the hereditary charge of an official, Nagasaki-ya Gen’emon.
This building was the hostel used by Europeans visiting Edo on the court trip
(hofreis/sanpu) of the Dutch East India Company. They missed a few years,
but generally came annually from 1609 to 1790, after which the ritual was cut
it to once every five years, meaning they came in 1794, 1798. In 1799 as the
Dutch East India Company went bankrupt, though occasional court trips
continued until 1850. The Europeans generally stayed about three weeks, and
their arrival and stay were major events in the political calendar and the life
of the city.
10 The other bells were at Ueno, Asakusa, Honjō, Shiba, Ichigaya, Akasaka, and
Yotsuya.
11 The bell can be seen in Jūshi Park, Kodenma-chō, some ten minute’s walk from
Nihon-bashi.
331
Timon Screech
The Europeans made many complaints about the quality of the Nagasaki-
ya. In 1640, for example, the Company Chief called it »dilapidated and de-
pressing«; over a century later, in 1776, the Company physician called it
»tolerably neat, though not such as I expected for an embassy from so distant
a part of the world« (Thunberg 2005: 149). But the Europeans never fully
appreciated the importance of the location, at Nihon-bashi. The shogunate
wanted to show the citizenry how it was able to summon visitors from the
furthest ends of the world, and to position them as part of their iconic ar-
rangement. The Europeans did notice how many people flocked to see them,
and the same physician quoted above recorded that »the street outside was
seldom free of boys who constantly called out and made an uproar as soon as
they caught the least glimpse of us, and even went to far as to climb up the
walls of the opposite houses in order to see us«; the location was good for
gawping, but also for serious encounter, and the doctor added, »at first we
were visited by the learned and great of the country; afterwards even mer-
chants and other people were among our guests« (Thunberg 2005: 152). The
site was also perfect for secret visits by daimyo or shogunal emissaries, and
many a European wrote of receiving night time incognito visits from figures
of state.
Figure 3. Katsushika Hokusai, »Nagasaki-ya«. from Ehon azuma asobi
(2nd ed.), 1802
332
Again, as a government building, the Nagasaki-ya was only very rarely

depicted. The most often reproduced is Hokusai, from his Leisure Time in the
East (Azuma asobi) first published in 1799, which was the year after one of
the then-rare court trips. Something suspicious occurred that year since the
Factory chief, Gijsbert Hemmij died on the way back from Edo, probably
from poison, although this was hushed up and not know to the public. Any-
way, the Nagasaki-ya was topical (Fig. 3). Hokusai does not give much indi-
cation of the architecture, but he does show many people outside, staring. Of
all the illustrations in the book (which is a guide to Edo’s famous places)
only this one is unlabelled by Hokusai, as if to prevent the charge of inso-
lence to the regime, which did not like to be depicted by commoners.
The court trip group left Nagasaki, where their trading station was, in De-
cember and arrived in Edo in February, where the Chief would have an audi-
ence with the shogun. But the dreadful fire of 1657 happened just two days
after the audience, and there was also a severe fire the actual day before the
audience in 1658, destroying the Nagasaki-ya, and also in 1659. This was
highly embarrassing for the shogunate, and since fires were most common in
winter (when people used open braziers), from 1660, the ritual was moved
some weeks later, so that the Europeans arrived in Edo in March. Despite this,
in 1660 there was a major fire, which again destroyed the Nagasaki-ya, and
so the arrival date was allowed to shift back somewhat, meaning the group
arrived in April. This was cherry-blossom time, and so now the arrival of the
Europeans at Nihon-bashi became part of the seasonal celebrations of the
retrun of warm weather. There is a well-known verse by Bashō on this:
Kapitan mo tsukabawasekeri kimi ga haru12
The Chief also
Makes his bow.
Springtime for our ruler
In spring it was easy to be out on the streets, so this was a public event.
The Europeans brought valuable and rare presents, loaded on horses, and
these were seen, hence another verse by Bashō:
Oranda mo hana ni kinkeri uma no kura13
The Dutchmen too
Have come to see the blossoms.
Horses’ saddles
Pictures of the three-week trip from Nagasaki to Edo, or going back, could
not easily be made, as it was a political event, although there are some. The
only picture that shows Europeans at Edo Castle is by Shiba Kōkan, a notable
12 Quoted in Katsuhara 1994: 93.

13 Ibid., loc. cit.
333
Timon Screech
enthusiast for European matters, and it may well depict, like Hokusai’s print,
the court trip 1798 (Fig. 4).
Figure 4. Shiba Kōkan, Dutchmen at Edo Castle, c. 1790. Powers Collec
tion, USA
The Nagasaki-ya and the bell of Kokuchō were side by side, and people
thought of them as a pair. The shogunate governed, via them, both time and
space. There are many references to this, and one is contained in a verse used
in another guidebook to Edo:
334
Kore ni nomi tsūji ha irazu wakaruran

Kapitan no kiku kokuchō no kane14
There is the one thing
He can undstand
Without interpreter:
The Factory Chief hears
The bell of [Hon]goku-chō
This verse is in the senryū genre, but there are many hokku, too, such as
the anonymous,
Kokuchō no kane
Oranda made kikoe
The bell at [Hon]goku-chō
Even in Holland
It can be heard
(The verse works better in Japanese were »Holland« and »Hollander« is
the same word.)
Oddly, there are no references to hearing the bell in the writings of Euro-
pean visitors, though they must indeed have heard it. There are only two
reference to the bell tower, one is from the first later-date court trip of 1660,
when the group fled the Nagasaki-ya and returned the morning to find the
building gone, »the whole area around it, as far as the eye can see, reduced to
ruins and ashes«, and, »on the spot where the large hour clock hangs – our or
five houses from our lodging – just there alone 12 people have been burned
to death« (Viallé and Blussé (eds.) 2005, vol. 12: 409).15 The second refer-
ence is some twenty years later by Engelbert Kaempfer who stated their hos-
tel was, »situated on the left at the head of the street, near a wooden clock
tower where the time was rung«.
Conclusion
Nihon-bashi, though the centre of Edo, and now the centre of Tokyo, has
never been studied from a visual-cultural point of view. Yet it is a rich site,
and the more so as the Tokugawa shogunal was highly reticent about its ico-
nography did not relish being represented or exposed, and so planned hardly
any vistas nor arrayed its institutions in optically impressive ways. A recent
scholar has written that at Nihon-bashi »no attempt was made to express
political authority in spatial design« (Bodart-Bailey 2000: 115). But this is
clearly wrong.
14 Inscribed on an image by Utagawa Hiroshige in Tenmei 1960–1961; for a conven-

ient reproduction, see Screech 2000: 20
15 The Chief was Johannes Boucheljon.
335
Timon Screech
References Cited
BARONI, Helen J. (2000): Obaku Zen: The Emergence of the Third Second of Zen in
Tokugawa Japan. Honololu: Hawai’i University Press.
BODART-BAILEY, Beatrice (2000): Urbanisation and the Nature of Tokugawa Hegem-
ony. In: Paul WALEY and Nicolas FIÉVÉ (eds.): Japanese Capital in Historical
Perspective: Place, Power and Memory in Kyoto, Edo and Tokyo. London:
Curzon, pp. 100–128.
FUJII, Seiei (ed.) (1936): Kōchū »Fūzoku monzen« tsūyaku. Tokyo: Ichōbō.
HAMADA, Giichirō et al. (eds.) (1973): Edo bungaku chimei jiten. Tokyo: Tokyodō.
KATSUHARA, Hariki (1994): Hakkai no jūhasseiki: kindai Edo-ki Tōkyō-ki no »naibu«
kūkan. In: Takahito MOMOKAWA (ed.): Edo bunka no hen’yō: jūhasseiki Ni-
hon no keiken. Tokyo: Heibonsha.
KIESCHNICK, John (2003): The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
LI, Tongxuan (1989): Entry into the Realm of Reality: The Guide. Translated by
Thomas Cleary. Boston: Shambhala Publications.
NISHIYAMA, Matsunosuke et al. (eds.) (1994): Edogaku jiten. Tokyo: Kōbundō.
SCREECH, Timon (2000): The Lens Within the Heart: The Western Scientific Gaze and
Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan. 2nd edition. London: Curzon.
SCREECH, Timon (2005): »Pictures (The Most Part Bawdy)«: The Anglo-Japanese
Painting Trade in the Early 1600s. In: Art Bulletin 87, pp. 50–72.
TENMEI, Rōjin (ed.) (1960–1961): Kyōka edo meisho zue. Tokyo: Kinsei Fūzoku
Kenkyūkai.
THUNBERG, Carl Peter (2005): Japan Extolled and Decried: Carl Peter Thunberg and
the Shogun’s Realm, 1775-1796. Annotated and introduced by Timon
Screech. London: Routledge.
TSUNOYAMA, Sakae (1984): Tokei no shakaishi. Tokyo: Chūō Shinsha.
UMEHARA, Takeshi (1997): Kyoto kakken: chirei chinkon. Tokyo: Shinkōsha.
VIALLÉ, Cynthia and Leonard BLUSSÉ (eds.) (2005): The Deshima Dagregisters. Vol.
12. Leiden: Institute for the History of European Expansion (= Interconti-
nenta; 25).
336
Justin Stagl
Japan As the Other – A Personal Account
I.
Striking personalities attract anecdotes. Here is the story of how Josef
Kreiner becoming a Japanologist. A nice boy in a Viennese high school had
dreamt for many years of mysterious, faraway India. After graduation he
went to the university to inquire about Indology.1 By chance or by an act of
providence, he met Professor Alexander Slawik. Timidly he explained his
purpose to the professor. Slawik was enthusiastic: »Of course you will have
to start with Chinese!« The boy was flabbergasted. He had entertained some
notion that you start Indian studies with Sanskrit.2 But how was he to contra-
dict a professor? Moreover, Slawik was hard of hearing and if, he chose so,
rather deaf. So Josef Kreiner started with Chinese and became a Japanologist.
Two years later, a not quite as nice boy came to Vienna from Carinthia.
For many years I had dreamt to become an orientalist, preferably a Japanolo-
gist. I thus called upon Professor Slawik. He was a trifle less enthusiastic
with me than he had been with Joe Kreiner: »I have one specially gifted stu-
dent, called Kreiner, now in Japan, who will become my assistant and later
on my successor. There is another quite gifted student, Jettmar,3 who will
then become Kreiner’s assistant. You could only become their research assis-
tant.« Since we three were all in the same age group, this perspective did not
tempt me. I did not turn into a Japanologist.
It gives me pleasure to say here a few more words about Slawik. He was a
gentleman. Being this, he had been fair with me. I still remember the scene
when a girl had dropped a handkerchief and Slawik picked it up as an elderly
gentleman would do for a young lady. The girl was incredulous and touched.
1 The true story is somewhat more complicated. Kreiner’s first academic mentor
was René Nebesky-Wojkowicz, who, however, soon departed for Sikkim and died
immediately after his return. I do not know why Kreiner did not turn to the eth-
nologist Karl Jettmar, who worked in approximately the same field, or to the San-
skrit-centered Viennese indologists.
2 Kreiner had actually had three years of Sanskrit (as a voluntary subject) at his
Viennese high school. Those were the days when at least some of the teachers at
the high schools were true scholars, instead of the interchangeable type of peda-
gogue that is encouraged there today.
3 Called Jettmar-kun and not identical with, though related to, ethnologist Karl
Jettmar mentioned in note 1.
337
Justin Stagl
A professor was an unapproachable figure in those days and something like

this had never happened to her. Another feature of Slawik was an otherworld-
liness curiously interfering with his deafness. Completely dedicated to Japa-
nology, he had few personal needs besides. Neither ambitious nor pushy, he
had supported himself and his studies in the meager postwar years for some
time as a street sweeper. He told me this fact at my first interview, and it had
an additional discouraging effect on me. Slawik had, moreover, no sense of
time. He could spend an hour explaining one Chinese character. When
Kreiner had his first interview with him, the time flew by until it was till
midnight and Joe, who missed the last tram, had to walk back home. Through
the combination of all these features, Slawik drew his promising student
irrevocably into his own encompassing interest in Japanese rural society and
folk culture. There has been some talk about a »Viennese school« in Japanese
studies, a school emphasizing the periphery over against the center. If there is
indeed such a thing, Slawik is at the very core of it.
I do not want to give here the impression that Slawik rejected me. He was
second examiner at my doctoral exam in ethnology. I had thoroughly pre-
pared my topic, Ainu culture and society, knowing well that the »sacred visi-
tor« was one of Slawik’s favourite themes. Yet he disappointed me again: »I
have known you now for years and am sure that you understand your subject.
Examining you for an hour would be preposterous.« Since we were both pipe
smokers, he invited me to light a pipe. Then we discussed clay pipes, pipe
cleaners, tobacco wrappers, different brands of tobacco, and a variety of other
subjects. Then he awarded me the best possible grade. I fear that such a thing
is no longer possible in the school-like modern university.
II.
There is a saying that »a scholar can be no gentleman«.4 A gentleman
does not make fools of people, or point out their shortcomings or inconsis-
tencies to them, if it is not necessary. He respects their prejudices. He thus
behaves as an insider, not as an outsider. A true scholar can not do this.
Whenever anything really matters to him, he has to defend the truth against
the feeling of his fellow men. His reference group is primarily not his own
society, but the supra-societal »scientific community«. Thus he can become
estranged from his own environment. Scholarly behavior is frequently rated
as pedantic, tactless or even offensive.
Scholars who deal with other cultures and societies, such as orientalists or
ethnologists, strive to enter their objects of study and to become insiders to a
certain extent. Whatever hecklers like Edward Said (1978) may say against
them, they generally love their objects of study. Slawik, who visited Japan
for the first time at the age of 60, had loved Japan from afar all his life. Ori-
4 I do not know who coined this saying. I first heard it from W.E. Mühlmann.
338
entalists to a certain degree accept other cultures on their own terms, recon-
structing them from the inside, and expounding on them to the scientific
community. Saidian criticism pretends that there is no truth and that the sci-
entific community is an illusion. It pretends that orientalists study and inter-
pret other cultures only in their interest and thus are little better than spies,
whatever they say (or even believe themselves) to the contrary.5 How this
verdict applies to scholars like Slawik and Kreiner, working against all odds
in impoverished postwar Austria, has still to be shown.6 What Said called
»Orientalism« no doubt lends itself to be used by secret services and other
interested parties, and some orientalists no doubt have offered their services
to these organizations themselves. Yet as far as I know, for the community of
orientalists (and ethnologists), this is a side issue and not the main point.
Rather than to be denounced as glorified espionage, oriental studies can be
seen as a form of »secondary socialization«, in which another culture as-
sumes the role of the »significant others« of primary socialization and is
accepted as model of behavior and standard of evaluation.7 The wish to be-
come part of »the other« implies what Willard van Orman Quine has called
the »principle of charity«, the basic assumption that what the other does or
says makes sense.8 To me, »charity« sounds an understatement and even a bit
condescending. In the cases of at least some orientalists, »love« would be a
more appropriate expression. Vis-à-vis their object of study, they behave as
gentlemen in the sense described above. Hermeneutic love of the other has,
however, a flaw: it detracts to a certain extent from self-love. Orientalists and
ethnologists tend to compare the contexts of their primary and secondary
socializations, and thus to relativize and to devaluate the former. At home,
lovers of otherness sometime appear as strangers, as eccentrics and outsiders
even more so than scholars generally do.9 Thus one can be a gentleman and a
street sweeper at the same time. It is one of the advantages of modern civili-
zation, that the more intellectually refined lovers of otherness can find living
space in the so-called extraterritorial sphere of academia (Stagl 1981: 65–96).
5 See for this Stagl 2002 und 2005.

6 Slawik told us that as the son of a k. u. k. (Austrian-Hungarian) army officer, he
had no fatherland besides the multinational empire and did not identify strongly
with any particular nation; see e.g. Goebl 1999: 33–58, especially 46–48. This case
is of course easily covered by Said’s general suspicion against Western oriental-
ism: was this attitude not an instance of Habsburg imperialism? A general suspi-
cion, however, saves one the trouble of differentiating. Said apparently reads no
German and does not enter into German orientalism other than including it into his
sweeping generalizations.
7 The term »significant others« is taken from Mead 1934. For primary and secon-
dary socialization see Berger and Luckmann 1966: 119–150.
8 Quine 1976; see also Cappai 2000.
9 See e.g. Spittler 1987 as well as Elsner and Rubiés 1999.
339
Justin Stagl
III.
Where does this love of otherness come from? What attracts school boys
and girl to foreign cultures and societies? One precondition is of course some
intrinsic value of »the other«: its beauty, its power, its social cohesion, and so
on. Another is its remoteness and mysteriousness. Together these two factors
make the other into a place for daydreaming, a kind of utopia. Yet it is not a
complete utopia: one can get there, enter it, become part of it, only if one
takes the necessary risks and pains. This difficulty of approach makes the
other into a kind of touchstone; it provokes the need to surmount obstacles
and to prove thereby one’s worth; its conquest can be compared to an initia-
tion. The other with all these qualities resembles the sacred, and indeed the
qualities ascribed by Rudolf Otto to what he calls the »numinous«: tremen-
dum, majestas, energeia, mirum, stupendum, and fascinans, also apply to the
»the other«.10 Its ambivalent attraction is felt in various degrees by all human
beings and thus interferes with their usual preference for the familiar, well
known, and nearby. In certain cases, this attraction comes to the fore as a
force molding the character. Such lovers of otherness have, on one hand,
some surplus curiosity (they are intellectuals) and, on the other hand, some
alienation from their own environment, be it psychological or socio-
structural. Between the familiar and the other operate thus various push and
pull factors.11
Groups with whom we identify, in whose framework we act and think,
whose standards we use for our evaluations, are called »reference groups« in
sociological parlance. Normally they are the groups to which we belong. Our
preference for groups in which we are members derives from the self-
preference of every healthy human being; one speaks thus of »group egoism«
or »ethnocentrism«.12 Yet in certain cases also non-membership groups may
serve as reference groups, such as sport clubs or musical bands do for their
fans, religious communities for would-be converts, the upper classes for the
snobs, or the proletariat for the inverted snobs. Reference group behavior is a
sign for human freedom of choice (Emge 1967). Therefore it is a stumbling
stone for socio-cultural determinists, e.g. for those who believe with Karl
Marx that being determines consciousness (see Ignatow 1984). Saidian criti-
cism is something I regard as Marxism in disguise. It will not admit that
orientalists are not trying to dominate and exploit the other in the interest of
the familiar. This crypto-marxist anti-orientalism has no sense for the numi-
nous. Presumably it regards it as an illusion or as opium for the populace.
10 See Otto 1963; Otto calls the »numinous« also the Ganz Andere (»absolutely
other«), pp. 28–37.
11 »The other« is a fashionable topic nowadays, whole libraries have been written on
it; see e.g. Münkler 1997 and Stagl 1981.
12 A comprehensive study gives Müller 1987.
340
What was it that attracted young Joe (or Pepi, as he would have been
called in those faraway days) to India? I do not know. What I do know, how-
ever, is my own early attraction to the Far East. When I search my soul as it
was then, I find that I admired China as a civilization where scholars held
sway and merchants were not highly regarded. I admired its supposed lack of
materialism, its ethics of officialdom, and high regard for poetry. I was en-
tranced by the teaching of Lao-tzu and the prose of Chuang-tzu. But China
also had its setbacks: It was too vast, too formless, too dainty, and in the
shape of contemporary communist China (including its admirers), it was
simply disgusting to me. Japan, on the other hand, possessed marked forms,
distinct lines, and an elegant minimalism which harmonized well with the
modernism of the 1950s. Besides, it had, unlike China (or Austria), preserved
its emperor. In addition to its aesthetic attraction came an ethical one for
somebody who came – like Slawik – from a military family: the attraction of
bushidō.
IV.
Entering the other, one does not escape one’s own life world: everybody
carries it around with him, like the snail does its house. »Coelum non animum
mutant qui trans mare currunt«, says Horace (Epist. I 11, 27), and Wilhelm
Busch rhymes:
Der Ort ist gut, die Lage neu,

Der alte Lump ist auch dabei.13
Flexible, extensible, but inescapable as it is, the life world is nonetheless

interspersed and surrounded with otherness. However close one comes to
other human beings, one never really knows them. One does not even know
oneself thoroughly: everybody has strange, uncanny parts of his self that he
rather avoids. My own past is but incompletely known to me, and even more
incompletely known is my future. What would have become of what I call
»me« under different circumstances? Who would Joe Kreiner be now if he
had not met Slawik and become his master pupil? Actually, the life world is
thin and shaky ground over a vast abyss of otherness. Otherness also sur-
rounds it in ever increasing circles, which at their outermost boundaries verge
on the absolutely incomprehensible and incompatible.14
Said and his ilk are thus right to a certain extent. Yet they overstate. What
the scientific community attempts to do is to link all possible forms of other-
ness to the »known« life world through language. The realm of the incom-
13 Wilhelm Busch: Maler Klecksel, zweites Kapitel.

14 For the concept of »life world« see e.g. Schütz and Luckmann 1979–1984; see also
notes 8 and 11 as well as Raible 1998.
341
Justin Stagl
prehensible and incompatible is thereby pushed back. Japanologists and oth-

ers labor at the outer boundaries of intercultural understanding. They thereby
build bridges over the abyss of mutual incomprehension. In most cases this
goes hand in hand with respect or even love for their objects of study. Their
research interconnect distant, ethnocentric, and sometimes mutually rejecting
cultures, which is in itself a noble task.
References Cited
BERGER, Peter L. and Thomas LUCKMANN (1966): The Social Construction of Reality.
A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
CAPPAI, Gabriele (2000): Kulturrelativismus und die Übersetzbarkeit des kulturell
Fremden in der Sicht von Quine und Davidson. Eine Beobachtung aus sozial-
wissenschaftlicher Perspektive. In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie 29, 4, pp. 253–
274.
ELSNER, Jaś and Joan-Pau RUBIÉS (eds) (1999): Voyages and Visions: Towards a
Cultural History of Travel. London: Reaktion Books.
EMGE, Richard Martinus (1967): Fremde Gruppen als Bezugsgruppen. In: Kölner
Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 19, pp. 246–262.
GOEBL, Hans (1999): Die Sprachensituation in der Donaumonarchie. In: Ingeborg
OHNHEISER, Manfred KIENPOINTNER und Helmut KALB (eds.): Sprachen in
Europa. Sprachsituation und Sprachpolitik in europäischen Ländern. Inns-
bruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft (= Innsbrucker Breiträge zur Kultur-
wissenschaft; 30), pp. 33-58.
IGNATOW, Assen (1984): Aporien der marxistischen Ideologielehre. Zur Kritik der
Auffassung der Kultur als »Ideologie in letzter Instanz«. München: Minerva-
Publikation.
MEAD, Georg H. (1934): Mind, Self and Society. From the Standpoint of a Social
Behaviorist. Ed., with introd., by Charles W[illiam] Morris. Chicago: Chicago
University Press.
MÜLLER, Klaus E. (1987): Das magische Universum der Identität. Elementarformen
sozialen Verhaltens. Ein ethnologischer Grundriss. Frankfurt and New York:
Campus.
MÜNKLER, Herfried (ed.) (1997): Furcht und Faszination. Facetten der Fremdheit.
Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
OTTO, Rudolf (1963): Das Heilige. Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen
und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen. 31th to 35th edition. München: Beck.
QUINE, W[illard] V[anOrman] (1976): The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
RAIBLE, Wolfgang (1998): Alterität und Identität. In: Zeitschrift für Literaturwissen-
schaft und Linguistik 28, pp. 7–22.
SAID, Edward W. (1978): Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.
342
SCHÜTZ, Alfred and Thomas LUCKMANN (1979–1984): Strukturen der Lebenswelt. 2

vols. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag (= Suhrkamp Taschen-
buch Wissenschaft; 284, 428).
SPITTLER, Gerd (1987): European Explorers as Caravan Travellers in the West Sudan.
In: Paideuma 33, pp. 391-406.
STAGL, Justin (1981): Kulturanthropologie und Gesellschaft. Eine wissenschaftssozio-
logische Darstellung der Kulturanthropologie und Ethnologie. 2., durchges., verb.
u. um e. Nachw. verm. Aufl. Berlin: Reimer (= Ethnologische Paperbacks).
STAGL, Justin (2002): Ethnozentrismus und Eurozentrismus. In: Günther DISTELRATH
und Peter KLEINEN (eds.): Fundamentalismus versus Wissenschaft? Zur Iden-
tität des Orients in östlichen und westlichen Diskursen. Bonn: Bier’sche Ver-
lagsanstalt (= Edition Asien), pp. 37–53.
STAGL, Justin (2005): Dürfen Europäer eurozentrisch sein? In: Erich HÖDL (ed.):
Europäische Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftsordnung. Marburg: Metropolis-
Verlag, pp. 17–30.
343
Harumi Befu
Consumer Nihonjinron
Introduction
Since the 1990s numerous meta-Nihonjinron treatises criticizing the dis-
course on the identity of Japan and the Japanese have been published. These
critics have not sufficiently appreciated the fact that much of this literature is
not serious scholarship, but instead it is meant to satisfy popular desire to
know Japan’s identity, where the usual canon of scholarship is of secondary
relevance at best, and that critiquing it as if it is serious scholarship is itself
misplaced scholarship. In the following I wish to elaborate on this thesis by
characterizing this type of consumer-oriented »popular Nihonjinron«, or
»consumer Nihonjinron«, and thereby distinguishing it from scholarly Nihon-
jinron. In this paper I will not elaborate on the contents of Nihonjinron, that
is, the specific ways in which Japan is supposed to be unique as numerous
Nihonjinron writers have discussed various contents of Nihonjinron, and I
have summarized these arguments elsewhere (Befu 2001: ch. 2).
Admittedly Nihonjinron literature runs the gamut from the most scholarly,
erudite treatises to highly popular, purely non-academic writings. What is
remarkable, however, is the fact that a preponderance of the literature be-
longs to the latter type – the type designed for mass consumption with little
regard for canon of scholarship. One might argue that the two are merely
extremes of a continuum, the difference being only a matter of degree. This is
only seemingly so. Most of the Nihonjinron literature is located near the
»non-scholarly« end of the continuum, rather than being in the middle of the
continuum. This non-scholarly Nihonjinron is qualitatively different from
that which is at or near the scholarly end of the continuum. In the following I
enumerate the ways in which the two differ in their »ideal-typical« forms – à
la Max Weber. As I elucidate these ideal types and when the two ends of the
continuum are compared, one can clearly see the distinction between them. In
taking up these two types of Nihonjinron, for lack of space I shall cite only a
few cases for illustrative purposes, but it should be noted that cases are legion
– over a thousand volumes can be easily cited just from post-1945.
Academic Nihonjinron, Consumer Nihonjinron

First, a scholarly treatise is always a product of accumulation of preceding
scholarship. Many scholars have worked on the question of who the Japanese
are, what Japanese culture consists of, etc., that is, on Nihonjinron. Subse-
345
Harumi Befu
quent scholarship would acknowledge and critique past contributions, which

would be cited in footnotes and listed in the bibliography. Such an exercise is
likely to result in modifying past understandings of the phenomenon, and a
novel interpretation created.
Take, for example, Bummei to shite no ie shakai [Ie society as civilization]
by Murakami Yasusuke, Kumon Shumpei, and Satō Seizaburō (1979), a 600
page tome in which the authors try to account for Japan’s modernization on
the basis of the two fundamental building blocks of the Japanese civilization,
namely uji and ie., especially the latter. The authors take 180 pages before
arriving at this thesis while they examine various theoretical frameworks
appropriate for Japan’s modernization. They explore historical sources going
back to the beginnings of Japan’s history. After defining the concept of ie
society in the first 280 pages, they outline the evolution of this ie society
starting with the Nara period, and demonstrate the three levels of the ie soci-
ety – the family, the business, and the state--in the remaining 320 pages. The
book makes reference to a variety of historical processes and theoretical
concepts in the courses of 600 pages. This work is in hard cover, weighing
1.1 kilogram. This is a serious work on the nature of Japanese civilization
with citations of many scholarly works. It is too heavy and too bulky for a
commuter to read on a train, holding the book in one hand and hanging onto a
strap with the other in a crowded train. The price – 3,800 yen – is exorbitant
for a normal office worker by 1979 standard and even by today’s standard.
Besides, the argument of the authors is too complex for most ordinary readers
to follow, and without considerable background in Japanese history and in
social science, it is not easy to comprehend the argument.
The same may be said of Hamaguchi Eshun’s Nihon kenkyū genron –
»kankeitai« to shite no Nihonjin to Nihon shakai [Fundamentals of Japanese
Studies: The Japanese and their society as »relatum«] (1998), another hard-
cover book, though not as voluminous as Bummei to shite no ie shakai, being
only 425 pages long. It is equally loaded with theories, concepts, paradigms,
and models in arriving at the concept of kankeitai, which he translates as
»relatum« as the fundamental building block of the society. Its scholarliness
is emphasized in the horizontal writing format, rather than the normal, verti-
cal writing. Pages are turned from right to left, as in English books which
virtually precludes the chance of being a best-seller, due to the relative cum-
bersomeness of reading from left to right rather than vertically. Extensive
references are supplemented by an equally extensive index.
As a third and the last example, let me cite Tan’itsu minzoku shinwa no
kigen [Origins of the myth of a homogeneous nation] by Oguma Eiichi
(1995). Oguma expounds in 440 pages how the myth of »homogeneous na-
tion« originated in Japan. Oguma historically reviews the origin and devel-
opment of the notion of »homogeneous Japan« from the beginning of the
Meiji period, citing major proponents of the idea and bringing in political
346
processes which led to the creation and perpetuation of the notion of homo-
geneity of the Japanese. Again, the book is full of citations of numerous pro-
tagonists in this issue and the index lists some 200 names.
Turning to popular Nihonjinron, in stark contrast, it dispenses with com-
plex arguments requiring many hundreds of pages. A popular Nihonjinron
work, instead, is usually an easy reading. Scholarly Nihonjinron engages in a
»debate« by taking an argument or a thesis propounded by another scholar,
often critiquing it and proposing a different position, a revision, or a new
interpretation. Popular Nihonjinron instead is a »monologue« rather than a
»dialogue«, in which the author takes issue with other scholars. That is, ref-
erences to predecessors in Nihonjinron are absent: the author engages in a
monologue, rather than a conversation or dialogue between the author and
previous contributors to the issue. Thus it does not reflect past contributions
to an issue, nor does it indicate accumulation of scholarship. Each work
stands alone. This obviously makes reading much easier since the reader need
not be concerned about preceding scholarship on the issue.
In academic discourse, whether in Nihonjinron or otherwise, an important
part of scholarship is the debate that takes place among those engaged in the
discussion. An argument is refined as scholars exchange views and critique
each other’s viewpoints. Progress in Nihonjinron – in understanding Japanese
people and culture – is achieved through such debate. But much of Nihonjin-
ron literature, which I label »popular«, does not follow this canon of scholar-
ship. Instead, each contribution is an independent treatise onto itself. Each
work is written as if it is the only work on the subject. For example, Aida
Yūji’s Nihonjin no ishiki kōzō [The structure of consciousness of the Japa-
nese] (1972) gives no reference to other authors’ works on the same topic.
The work has no bibliographic reference. How this work is related to another
work is totally unknown. As a result, no »progress« or improvement on the
understanding on the national consciousness of the Japanese is achieved.
In other words, in academic scholarship, an author of a book and its read-
ers are colleagues, that is, they are both scholars, though they may not always
be of equal standing. An author is sometimes a reader, and at other times a
reader is the author of another treatise of the same topic. They read each
other’s works; readers and authors constantly switching their roles. They
engage in dialogue, critiquing each other and citing one another. That is what
is implied in the citations and references of works by others. Since only a
small number of scholars are interested in this type of exchange, only a hand-
ful of copies is printed, and the book usually has no chance of selling out and
to be reprinted.
Popular Nihonjinron writers, on the other hand, are part of a production
team along with the publisher. Readers are consumers of products, where the
relationship between the producer and the consumer is irreversibly asymmet-
rical. Producers provide goods for consumers; consumers pay for them and
347
Harumi Befu
use them. Hence my labeling of »popular Nihonjinron« as »consumer Nihon-

jinron«. In this »consumer Nihonjinron«, writers and readers are not of equal
status. Basically writers only write and readers only read. Generally speaking
consumers do not reverse their role and become producers. To be sure, Ni-
honjinron writers can and do read Nihonjinron by others. But they constitute
an infinitesimal segment of the entire readership of consumer Nihonjinron.
Besides, the fact that they read Nihonjinron by others is almost never re-
flected in their own Nihonjinron writings.
Another major difference between scholarly and consumer Nihonjinron is
that scholarly Nihonjinron emphasizes logical clarity of the argument. Prem-
ises are clearly stated, empirical data are laid out, and conclusions are logi-
cally drawn from premises. The examples given above of scholarly Nihonjin-
ron all follow this canon of scholarship.
Consumer Nihonjinron literature, on the other hand, consists of anecdotal
incidents for evidence, such as those an author might have experienced while
traveling abroad as a proof of indelible difference between Japan and the rest
of the world. To the author of consumer Nihonjinron, this is a good enough
proof of Japan’s uniqueness. Consumer Nihonjinron writers also resort to
global stereotyping and generalizations, such as »Americans are individualis-
tic/egocentric whereas Japanese are group-oriented« without presenting ob-
jective proofs. Careful analysis of empirical evidence, such as quantitative
data, is not part of the methodology of popular Nihonjinron.
Consumer Nihonjinron thus lacks rigorous methodology for proving Ja-
pan’s uniqueness. The way they »prove« the uniqueness is disarmingly sim-
ple. In most cases, Japan is compared with a Western culture or with some
vaguely generalized »the West«, and whatever way in which Japan is differ-
ent from the West is declared to be unique. »Only in Japan« or »not known
outside Japan« is the commonly used expression in such an exercise. Yet no
attempt is ever made to survey all cultures of the world to ascertain that the
given characteristic is never found anywhere other than in Japan, past or
present. Lacking in the West is usually sufficient grounds for Japan’s unique-
ness because for the vast majority of Japanese the non-Western world (esp.
southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America) is of only tangential
interest compared with the West. Comparison of Japan with the non-West
world for the sake of proving Japan’s uniqueness is not of much interest,
though for rigorous scientific methodology, such exercise is, of course, im-
perative. Yamashita Hideo’s Nihon no kotoba to kokoro [The language and
the heart of Japan] (1986), for example, is devoted to demonstrating the
uniqueness of Japanese language and how it expresses the »heart« of the
Japanese, but makes no systematic comparison with any other language of
the world.
In academic Nihonjinron, theory and data must show correspondence; data
must support the theory. Empirical data must be produced which adequately
348
satisfy theoretical propositions. The academic Nihonjinron literature re-

viewed above, all satisfy this canon of scholarship.
In consumer Nihonjinron, stringent correlation between data and theory
for support of conclusion with an abundance of data is not required. The
reader is more interested in the »story-ness« which the author develops than
in empirical accuracy. For example, Isaiah Ben Dasan quotes an Israeli dip-
lomat at the beginning of his best-seller, Nihonjin to Yudayajin (1970) as
saying that »water and security are free in Japan«. This startling statement is
re-cited over and over in various writings reviewing this book precisely be-
cause it is startling. The statement is obviously false, but the reader is taken
aback by the statement that the reader had never imagined. Taken by surprise,
and hypnotically persuaded because of the authority that any author com-
mands, the reader then tends to accept almost any of the subsequent proposi-
tions made by the author, no matter how wrong or preposterous. How un-
trustworthy BanDasan’s assertions in this book is demonstrated by Asami
Sadao (1983), professor at Tōhoku Gakuin University who received an ad-
vance degree at Harvard University majoring in theology with specialization
in the Old Testament. He critiques, chapters by verses, all the errors in the
book with the erudition of a Biblical scholar. But readers are not persuaded
by him. Asami’s book never made the best seller list, while BenDasan’s book
continues to be on the non-fiction long-seller list.
Or take Sabata Toyoyuki (1964), who claimed that European subsistence
economy is based on pastoralism. Based on this rather dubious premise, he
then argues the importance of individual ownership of a herd and its grazing
land for the rise of individualism. In Japan, on the other hand, wet rice culti-
vation is said to require cooperation among villagers and also creates amae –
the quintessential Japanese propensity for psychological interdependence
among members of a group – as well as closely knit kinship units, according
to him. How subsistence economy can directly cause social and psychologi-
cal characteristics is never theoretically explained. But here again, not know-
ing any better, the reader is taken aback by an unfamiliar and extraordinary
view of the West that rather than questioning the premises, the reader is
mesmorized by the unusualness of the thrust of the argument and ends up
accepting whatever conclusion that follows.
To take another example, Suzuki Hideo (1978), in Shinrin no shikō, sa-
baku no shikō [Forest thinking, desert thinking], claims that the Japanese
pattern of thinking is conditioned by the »forest living« of the Japanese,
whereas Westerners’ thinking pattern is conditioned by their »desert life«.
The Japanese have not lived in forest for millennium, and Europe has never
been a desert. One might conceive of the origins of Christianity in the Middle
Eastern desert, but to connect desert ecology with the thinking pattern of
Europeans is a little difficult. Nonetheless, on these premises is Suzuki’s
argument constructed.
349
Harumi Befu
The position of popular Nihonjinron is well characterized by afore-

mentioned Isaiah BenDasan, alias Yamamoto Shichihei. BenDasan is the
author of the run-away best seller Nihonjinron book Yudayajin to Nihonjin
(1970). Its hard cover edition sold 800,000 copies and the softcover edition,
two million copies. It has been reprinted more than fifty times. Unquestiona-
bly, this book has been the most widely read Nihonjinron book up to now.
Yet, paucity of scholarly merit of this best seller was roundly exposed by
Prof. Asami Sadao, as noted above. What he said in an interview (BenDasan
1984: 7) reveals what popular Nihonjinron is, and why it sells well:
That [Yudayajin to Nihonjin] is an essay, you know. An essay is some-
thing the reader enjoys reading. It [reading it] is supposed to be pleasur-
able activity. It is enough if the reader thought it was interesting upon
finishing it. Naturally there would be serious problems if you treat it as
an academic treatise […] So I am well aware that it has problems as an
academic work.
An important function of consumer Nihonjinron is to supply the reading
consumer with material which appropriately satisfies their curiosity for the
whys and wherefores. Consumer Nihonjinron writers are poised to provide
ready answers to questions of self-identity in simple, easily, understandable
language, uncluttered with erudite theories and terminology, cumbersome
footnotes, bibliography, and index. These answers are inexpensively had in
paperback books, as I will argue later.
An important point to realize at this point is that contents of popular Ni-
honjinron varies enormously according to the social and political exigencies
of the time, not on the basis of what social theory is being marshaled forth, as
in scholarly Nihonjinron (Befu 2002: Ch. 2, Ch. 7). In other words, consumer
Nihonjinron is a tool for the general public to make sense of the changing
political, social, economic, and cultural conditions. For example, the immedi-
ate prewar and war-time Nihonjinron discourse centered around the imperial
system, which was supposed to have lasted 2600 years since its founding by
the mythological emperor Jimmu. And the living emperor was bestowed with
divine quality to buttress the myth. Thus Nihonjinron became an ideological
engine for the war effort.
As soon as the war was over in 1945, the emperor as the ideological center
piece was totally discarded and has never been reinstated in the postwar Ni-
honjinron. Instead, the Nihonjinron of the time was imbued with blaming of
traditional values and institutions, which were all at the core of the pre-1945
Nihonjinron, as causes of Japan’s defeat of the war. This postwar self-
castigation gradually gave way, coinciding with the time of Japan’s rapid
economic growth, to a more positive outlook, in which redeeming values and
institutions were resuscitated from the pre-1945 tradition, and were included
in the Nihonjinron of the late 60s on. Group orientation of the Japanese as a
prime feature of Nihonjinron, for example, began to be talked about around
350
this time – in the late 60s and the early 70s. Invocation of this concept was a
useful means to make sense of Japan’s economic success, as this success was
attributed, among others, to the group behavior of the Japanese.
Nihonjinron has to do with the self identity of the Japanese, i.e., the image
of themselves. In this sense, Nihonjinron may be said to be a discursive por-
trait of the Japanese in collective sense, their collective self. This portrait is
drawn by Nihonjinron writers. Each Nihonjinron work may be said to be a
»portrait«, each one somewhat differing from others. In most of the postwar
years, that is, starting with the late 1960s when Japan was ridding itself of
self-castigation and shame of the lost war of the immediate postwar period
and entering the glorious period of double digit economic growth, this self-
portrait had to be imbued with pride. Nihonjinron as a self portrait thus
should portray Japan in a most favorable light. The mass, it should be noted,
is more interested in portraiture that is flattering, not necessarily one that
accurately depicts the real self. A person who commissions a portrait to an
artist expects the art work to make one feel good. S/he definitely does not
want a depiction of self which throws an unfavorable light. A mole on the
face may have to be removed or shown smaller than it is in reality. The face
may have to be portrayed more beautifully than s/he really is.
Such depiction – or shall we say »deception«? – is more likely to be ac-
cepted than a brute reality. If the consumer is able to paint his or her own
portrait, the consumer can create one that suits him or her, making appropri-
ate »revisions«. But most consumers are not artists and must rely on profes-
sional artists to create an image of them. Even a photographic portrait is not
expected to depict »reality«. If it is simply a matter of depicting the reality,
almost anyone can be a portrait photographer; one need not go to a studio for
the purpose. The fact that desirable features of a person must be enhanced
through the tricks of lights and shadows and through touching up the negative
shows the importance of depicting »untruth«. Human desire for a favorable
portrait extends to collective portraiture of a culture or a nation. Most con-
sumers, that is, most readers, are unable to write a treatise on the cultural or
national identity that suits them. Thus, instead, they rely on writers of such
discursive identity. Nihonjinron literature is a mass-produced national or
collective portrait to satisfy the needs of consumers.
To take another analogy, consumer Nihonjinron books are like one’s
cloths. Very few people have the expertise to sew one’s own clothes. Thus
one goes to a store and picks the one that suits best. Consumer Nihonjinron is
like the clothes one wears. At any major bookstore, literally hundreds of
books on Nihonjinron line shelves. People buy consumer Nihonjinron books
as they buy clothes at a store. They can pick and choose, among a shelf full
of Nihonjinron books, the one that s/he likes, just as consumers pick the
clothes they like from among dozens hanging on the rack.
351
Harumi Befu
It is no wonder that most Nihonjinron books, i.e., popular works in Nihon-

jinron have not been taken up seriously in the scholarly circle. Normally,
results of scholarly research are published, besides in book form, in profes-
sional journals specializing in particular disciplines like anthropology, psy-
chology, or political science, or in a university’s research bulletin commonly
called kiyō in Japan. These sources are never read by ordinary readers of
Nihonjinron. Most people never even know the existence of such sources
since these bulletins are almost never sold at bookstores but are distributed
free of charge to fellow scholars and research libraries. Nihonjinron treatises
are almost never, if ever, .published in such specialized professional journals
or university organs since they lack proper scholarly merit. Moreover, popu-
lar Nihonjinron books are almost never taken up for review in scholarly jour-
nals as they are not deemed worthy, or not having scholarly merit to be re-
viewed in technical or professional journals.
What is the relationship between the consumer type Nihonjinron and
scholarly Nihonjinron? At least one area of relationship can be identifies. A
college professor often writes a »consumer-oriented« Nihonjinron book as
well as a scholarly Nihonjinron book. To be sure, some scholars never write
for the general public. They are satisfied with writing in technical and spe-
cialized journals, in short, with engaging in debate and discussion with fellow
scholars. But other scholars write both serious scholarly works and also
popular books, where the latter inevitably reflect the serious scholarship of
the author. They write articles in magazines for the general public, such as
Chūō kōron, Shokun, Seiron, Bungei shunjū, and Sekai, or in inexpensive
pocket books known in Japan as bunko and shinsho, which are widely read
by the educated general public. For example, Nihonjin no shinri [Psychology
of the Japanese] by Hitotsubashi University’s Minami Hiroshi (1954) or
Nihonteki keiei [The Japanese style management] by Tokyo University’s
Odaka Kunio (1984) are both available in the shinsho edition at a price af-
fordable for normal office workers. They are small and light enough to be
carried to work and read in train. Both these authors have also written serious
Nihonjinron treatises.
These Nihonjinron works are »watered down« versions of what these au-
thors might write in technical books and journals. Nonetheless, they contain
gist of scholarly works to be communicated to the general public. Or, some-
times scholars write Nihonjinron in popular sources, and then write a more
scholarly version. Thus trafficking between purely scholarly discourse and
the consumer level discussion does take place. In the West there is a strong
tendency for scholars to avoid writing for the general public. Those who do
so are labeled »popularizers« with a definite pejorative connotation. As a
scholar, such a label is a kiss of academic death, as s/he would no longer be
taken seriously as a scholar. For this reason most scholars in the West shun
352
popularizing activities. This makes it difficult for them to understand why

Japanese scholars do write in popular books.
In Japan, popularizing, or to put it in a more positive term, educating the
public by writing books that appeal to them is an accepted or even laudable
modus operandi for scholars. A large number of scholars practice this educa-
tional function in Japan. One scholar confided to me that about one half of
his income is derived from royalties from books he had written and other
educational activities for the general public.
Above, I have characterized popular Nihonjinron by contrasting it with se-
rious Nihonjinron. The former is meant for public consumption; it is a verita-
ble consumer product rather than scholarship. Let me spell out the distinction
between the two by spelling out the nature of this consumer product qua
consumer product.
First, the most important consideration for a mass consumer product is
sales figures. Economy of scale is the name of the game. It should be pro-
duced inexpensively and it should sell many copies at a price affordable to
anyone. For a popular Nihonjinron book one might imagine an office worker
carrying a copy in his pocket or her carrying case and reading it in a crowded
commuter train.
– First, a hard cover book with four to five hundred pages, as scholarly
Nihonjinron books often are, cost at least two or three thousand yen
even thirty or forty years ago. Most consumers would not want to
spend that much money for a single book. Thus it is imperative to
keep the cost down – to less than a thousand yet. Aforementioned
Yamashita Hideo’s Nihon no kotoba to kokoro, for example, is
available at 860 yen.
– Second, in order to keep the cost down, the book should be short.
Most consumers do not have the patience to read through hundreds
of pages – unless it is a novel, regardless of the cost.
– Third, for the sake of readability, the argument has to be uncompli-
cated. The greater the number of pages, the more difficulty it is for
the general reader to follow the argument to the end. This is another
reason why a consumer Nihonjinron book should be short.
If sales figures are expected to be small, as scholarly Nihonjinron
books tend to be, the publisher must increase the price per copy to
recover the cost of production, which discourages the reader from
buying the book. Since a scholarly book is expected to be read only
by a handful of fellow scholars, its market is highly restricted. Given
the limited market, the price has to be marked up sufficiently to re-
cover the cost of production. Often these stratagems are not enough
to recover the cost, and external subvention, government or private,
353
Harumi Befu
is needed to publish a scholarly book of limited sale. Thus an

entirely different strategy is employed for scholarly books.
– Fourth, to increase the profit, popular Nihonjinron books are printed
in paperback – in editions known as shinshō or bunko. These are
»pocket book« varieties that can be produced inexpensively, costing
around 400 yen in the 60s and 70s at bookstores. Even now in years
2000s, they do not exceed 1,000 yen in price. They are inexpen-
sively produced and printed in large quantities, realizing the econ-
omy of scale.
– Fifth, another way of keeping the cost down is to eliminate illustra-
tions, or to keep them to the minimum. If they are included, they are
virtually all black-and-white, rather than in color. The cover, how-
ever, is generally in color and attractive, indeed to catch the attention
of those who come to bookstore to browse.
– Sixth, cost conscious publishers are shy of footnotes, endnotes, in-
dex, and bibliographic citations, all of which mean additional costs
in layout. Therefore popular Nihonjinron books generally lack these
features, or have only a minimum amount of them. This is, of
course, contrary to scholarly practices, in which these references are
required in order to indicate the sources of information that one uses
as bases for further development of ideas.
Conclusion
Much ink has been spilled to criticize Nihonjinron. But much of it is mis-
placed criticism. Peter Dale (1986) and Roy Andrew Miller (1982) are fond
of ridiculing Japanese Nihonjinron writers for their essentialist writings. But
they direct their criticisms against popular Nihonjinron writers, not to serious
and scholarly writers. Also, of late, critics have directed their criticism at the
Nihonjinron thesis of the homogeneity of the Japanese. The argument stems
from the realization of increasing numbers of foreign populations in Japan,
notably from Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and Middle East who
come to Japan to work, creating a multi-ethnic society in Japan. These pro-
tagonists criticize proponents of the homogeneity thesis in face of increasing
numbers of minorities.
But these critics do not sort out scholarly Nihonjinron from consumer Ni-
honjinron; they do not realize that the two have fundamentally different char-
acters and objectives. Scholarly Nihonjinron seeks »truth« whereas consumer
Nihonjinron seeks to create a subjectively pleasing collective portraiture of
themselves, setting aside the matter of »truth« as of secondary relevant. If
these critics critique scholarly Nihonjinron which seeks »truth«, the exercise
is appropriate. But they virtually all criticize consumer Nihonjinron in terms
of their »truth-seeking« function, when its objectives are not necessarily to
354
seek »truth« but to please consumers. Critics of Nihonjinron seem to be un-

aware of the fact that their criticism is misguided and misplaced.
References Cited
AIDA, Yūji (1972): Nihonjin no ishiki kōzō [The structure of consciousness of the
Japanese]. Tokyo: Kōdansha.
ASAMI, Sadao (1983): Nise Yudayajin to Nihonjin [Pseudo »Jews and the Japanese«].
Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha.
BEFU, Harumi (2001): Hegemony of Homogeneity: Anthropological Analysis of Ni-
honjinron. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press.
BENDASAN, Isaiah (1970): Nihonjin to Yudayajin [The Japanese and the Jews]. To-
kyo: Yamamoto Shoten.
BENDASAN, Isaiah (1984): An Interview with Isaiah BenDasan. In: Asahi Journal
June 22.
DALE, Peter (1986): The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness. London: Croom Helm.
HAMAGUCHI, Eshun (1998): Nihon kenkyū genron: »Kankeitai« to shite no Nihonjin to
Nihon shakai [Fundamentals of Japanese Studies: The Japanese and Japanese
society as »relatum»]. Tokyo: Yuhikaku.
MILLER, Roy Andrew (1982): Japan’s Modern Myth: The Language and Beyond.
New York: Weatherhill.
MINAMI, Hiroshi (1954): Nihonjin no shinri [The psychology of the Japanese]. Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten.
MURAKAMI, Yasusuke, Shunpei KUMON, and Seizaburō SATŌ (1979): Bummei to shite
no ie shakai [Familial society as civilization]. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha.
ODAKA, Kunio (1984): Nihon-teki keiei: sono shinwa to genjitsu [Japanese-style
management: Its myth and reality). Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha.
OGUMA, Eiji (1995): Tan’itsu minzoku shinwa no kigen [Origins of the myth of a
homogeneous nation]. Tokyo: Shin’yosha.
SABATA, Toyoyuki (1964): Nihon o minaosu: sono rekishi to kokuminsei [Re-
evaluating Japan: Its history and national character). Tokyo: Kōdansha.
SUZUKI, Hideo (1978): Shinrin no shikō sabaku no shikō [Forest thinking, desert
thinking]. Tokyo: Nippon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai.
YAMASHITA, Hideo (1986): Nihon no kotoba to kokoro [The language and the heart of
Japan]. Tokyo: Kōdansha.
355
List of Contributors
Klaus ANTONI, Professor of Japanese Studies at the Eberhard Karls Univer-

sity of Tübingen, Germany.
Harumi BEFU, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Anthropology at
Stanford Unversity, Stanford, California, U.S.A.
Rosa CAROLI, Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Studies at the
Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy.
Ronald P. DORE, among numerous positions held were Professor of Sociol-
ogy, LSE and SOAS, University of London (1965–1969), Professorial Fel-
low, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex (1970–1981),
Visiting Professor, Imperial College, London, and Harvard University (1986–
1989), and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, M.I.T. (1989–1994).
FUKUTA Ajio, Professor at the Department of Cross-Cultural Studies, Faculty
of Foreign Languages, Kanagawa University, Yokohama, Japan.
Patrick HEINRICH, acting chairman of the Department of Modern Japanese
Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Duisburg/Essen, Ger-
many.
ISHIGE Naomichi, Professor Emeritus and former Director-General (1997–
2003) of the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan.
ITŌ Abito, Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo.
Axel KLEIN, currently research fellow at the German Institute for Japanese
Studies, Tokyo, Japan.
KUWAYAMA Takami, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Graduate School
of Letters, Hokkaidō University, Sapporo, Japan.
Sepp LINHART, Professor of Japanese Studies at the Institute of East Asian
Studies, University off Vienna, Austria.
Ralph LÜTZELER, currently research fellow at the German Institute for Japa-
nese Studies, Tokyo, Japan.
Wolfgang MICHEL, Professor at the Department of Multicultural Society,
Faculty of Languages and Cultures, Kyūshū University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Claudius C. MÜLLER, Director of the State Museum of Ethnology, Munich,
Germany.
357
List of Contributors
Karl NEUHAUSEN, retired senior lecturer (Akademischer Oberrat) at the Insti-

tute of Greek and Latin Philology, University of Bonn.
Christian OBERLÄNDER, Professor of Japanese Studies, Martin Luther Uni-
versity, Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.
Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER, senior lecturer at the Department of Japanese
Studies, Institute of Oriental and Asian Studies, University of Bonn.
SASAKI Kōmei, Professor Emeritus and former Director-General (1993–
1997) of the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan.
Ulrike SCHAEDE, Associate Professor of Japanese Business and Management,
University of California at San Diego, U.S.A.
Timon SCREECH, Professor of History of Japanese Art, School of Oriental
and African Studies, University of London, United Kingdom.
Gregory SMITS, Associate Professor of East Asian History, The Pennsylvania
State University, University Park, U.S.A.
Justin STAGL, Professor of Sociology, University of Salzburg, Austria.
TAKARA Kurayoshi, Professor at the Department of Languages and Cultures,
University of the Ryūkyūs, Nishihara, Okinawa, Japan.
358

Bup 6

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Bup 6

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Bup 6

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hans Dieter Ölschleger (ed.

Theories and Methods in

Papers in Honor of Josef Kreiner

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der

Veröffentlichungen der Bonn University Press

© 2008, V&R unipress in Göttingen / www.vr-unipress.de

Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier.

Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER

Karl August NEUHAUSEN

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS............................................................................... 357

On February 2 and 3, 2006, the Institute of Japanese Studies / Center for

Hans Dieter Ölschleger Bonn, September 2007

It is a great honor and pleasure to be invited to celebrate Josef Kreiner’s

Postwar Japan’s Search for Modernity

investigations in that ward were punctuated by visits, often with groups of

The Skipped-Over Stage

The Economic Success Story

vanced military technology with an absurd ethic of fanatical sacrificial loy-

Japan: A Successful, But Also a Good Society?

The Turn of the Tide

Fundamental Change in the Japanese Firm

shareholder principals. Their duty is to maximize shareholder returns, getting

Back to Diffusion or Evolution

Modernity or a New Stratification?

Well, maybe. Greater affluence and the expansion of individual choice

increasingly self-recruited. It increasingly sends its children to selective pri-

Cause For Our Concern Too?

1. A Brief History of Japanese Anthropology

1 A most comprehensive survey, written in English, on this topic is found in Shi-

many people, bunka jinruigaku (»cultural anthropology«) became popular

2. Major Characteristics of Japanese Anthropology

3. The Status of Japanese Studies Within Japanese Anthropology

during 1976–86, and 27 (16%) during 1986–94.6 By contrast, articles dealing

6 As noted in the preceding paragraph, in the immediate post-Second World War

4. The Development of Folklore Studies in Japan

folkloristics, therefore, has had fundamental similarities with its German

5. The Relationship Between Japanese Anthropology and Folklore Studies

8 According to Iwamoto Michiya (2006), in terms of institutional organization, this

9 Kokugaku developed during the mid- to the late-Tokugawa period (1603–1868).

10 Another telling example of Yanagita’s debt to Western scholarship concerns the

formed a nationwide network of amateur researchers called kyōdoshika (liter-

6. Japanese Anthropology and Folklore Studies Today

ship. In order to avoid misunderstandings, however, it should be added before

honor of Josef Kreiner, whose deep knowledge of Japanese scholarship has

MINAKATA, Kumagusu (2005): Minakata Kumagusu Eibun ronkō [English writings of

In this paper I consider distinctive attributes of Japanese culture, but my

als it is Confucianism, with its logical analysis of universal humanity, that

Mono, Tama, and Nushi

Yoru, Yadoru, and Kakaru

ing« on one’s mind (ki ni kakaru), or the »possession« of something by a

Harau, Shizumeru, and Kuyō

holder, and it is considered perfectly normal for the holder to occasionally

Komeru: »Investing« Gifts and Other Objects

Names of things: folk vocabulary

logically deficient. However, the field of Japanese folklore studies is itself

consistent types of knowledge can coexist without being regarded as incon-

indigenous tradition has been overlooked by other industrially advanced

The Chinese Tradition and the Inhabitants of the Japanese Archipelago

Civilized and Uncivilized