Yamato-Takeru beyond the “Traditional Culture” of Textbooks: Teaching the Ancient Myths from a Female Viewpoint

Abstract

The new curriculum guideline for the teaching of kokugo stipulates that the “traditional language and culture” should be intensively taught in the program of the subject. I fear that this way of teaching is apt to be nationalistic as pupils at some elementary schools are allegedly made to recite Kojiki like the recitation of the imperial rescript on education in the prewar period. But the ancient myths cannot be contained in the “traditional language and culture” defined by the Education Ministry. They are not the mere cultural heritages but the dynamic texts that never cease to change. To demonstrate it this paper will shed a new light on Yamato-Takeru, one of the familiar mythical figures in textbooks, from a female viewpoint.