Nearly 60 years have passed since Minamata disease was officially recognized in 1956. Even now, however, there is much about the Minamata disease incidents that is far from being resolved. There are on-going problems. Under these circumstances, a woman decided to become a kataribe (narrator/story-teller) at Minamata Disease Museum in September 2013. Her motivation for doing this was a powerful desire to help people understand that Minamata disease is not over and should not be considered over without the problems being solved. She believes that the power of a kataribe resides in how talk can make such messages prevail. The current research examines this kataribe s talk sessions and finds that they function as places to uncover the prejudice and preconceptions that we have about such talk sessions. It reveals that these places where we have believed that the lessons of the past should be narrated may function quite differently; that is, they are places for communicating not only what happened but also what is happening, and what will happen, imparting clues for the next generation about how to become narrators of such issues as kogai (environmental health hazards), wars and other significant incidents.
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