抄録
Research findings of Japanese folklore studies have rarely been introduced in English in the past. One distinguishing feature of Japanese folklore studies is that it covers not only folklore, but also all aspects of Japanese people’s lives. Nihon-Minzokugaku, the official journal of the Folklore Society of Japan (FSJ), alone has published over 1,500 articles since 1958. With the cooperation of the Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology, the FSJ will publish a series of articles in the Japanese Review of Cultural Anthropology (JRCA) to introduce the society’s research efforts in the following areas: (1) family, kinship, and local communities; (2) environment and livelihoods; (3) religion and rituals; (4) festivals and performing arts; (5) oral tradition; (6) material culture; and (7) museums and public folklore. This introductory piece discusses the development of Kunio Yanagita’s folklore studies, particularly the influence of Western ethnology and anthropology in this process, in an attempt to characterize Japanese folklore studies.
