1) The richness of the factual data and the sharp insight of the author are amazing. 2) That Benedict begins her analysis with hierarchy in Japanese society is presumably based upon her recognition of it as the fundamental structural aspect of Japanese society as a whole. This is evidence of her keen analytical power. But there are some ambiguities and confusions regarding the factual data (e.g., structural-functional aspects of the tonarigumi of urban areas and the kumiai of rural areas ; honorifics and hierarchical structure of the army, etc.). There are various important problems in this field, which must be studied further : e.g., the relationships of hierarchy and family system ; the family system as a social and psychological basis of or background for totalitarianism. 3) The chapters on on and the duties originating from it contribute greatly to Japanese studies. But there are some misunderstandings regarding the factual data : e.g. the nature of nimmu, loyalty to the lord and master, and giri to one's name ; the relation of giri to ninjo, which is one of the most important problems among the behavior patterns of the Japanese. The chapter on ninjo suggests many interesting problems, but the reviewer thinks there are many misunderstandings of the factual data and in the analysis of ninjo (its relation to other behavior patterns, particularly giri, which is very important for understanding the structure of Japanese culture, is neglected). 4) That the author mentioned the "dilemma of virtue" as one of the characteristics of Japanese culture is evidence of her keen insight. But as far as the analysis of it is concerned, the most important factors are neglected. First, the moral principles that determine the behavior of the Japanese are not internal sanctions, but external sanctions (such as contempt from the world, losing one's face, etc.), and this fact is closely related to the existence of the "dilemma." Second, the life of the Japanese is like a double-exposure negative, where the opposing elements are superimposed one on another, fusing and interpenetrating. For example, the samurai morals (the absolute denial of the natural man) vs. ordinary people's morals (the open assertion of the natural and physical man) ; feudal vs. modern ; gemeinschaftlich vs. gesellschaftlich, etc. 5) The analysis of "shuyo" is very interesting and instructive for us Japanese. As shuyo, majime or makoto and other specifically Japanese virtues have not been studied as yet in Japan, the author's merit is to be highly appreciated. But further studies are desired. In particular the social background of these virtues must be clarified. It is probably to be found in the social-political structure of Japanese feudalism. 6) The chapter, "A Child Learns" is also very instructive for us. But questions must be raised as to the factual data on which the author's analysis is based. There are many other methods of training children in Japan, which vary from group to group, and which might result in considerably different conclusions about Japanese character. 7) In conclusion, the reviewer would like to add a few words concerning methodology. First, the author has neglected the historical aspect of her subject. When a society like that of Japan, which is in process of rapid change and transition, becomes the object of study, an historical approach should not be neglected. In present day Japan, the feudal and the modern, the oriental and the occidental, are co-existing, and they reflect and influence one another. In other words, there are many inconsistencies between various patterns of culture, and these inconsistencies can only be explained fully if the analysis is made with historical considerations. Second, the Japanese people and culture appear to Benedict as a homogeneous unit, and it is to be admitted that the aim of this book was to

(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

抄録全体を表示

1) Benedict's book was based on her research carried out in war time Washington, and this naturally limited the research methodology and techniques in several ways. The most noticeable limitation will be found in the selection of samples for the interview purpose. The majority of the sample is made up of Japanese who had been in the United States for many years, and obviously they cannot be fully representative of Japanese society. The written materials and movie films used for analysis of Japanese culture are also inadequate for the purpose of studying contemporary Japan. 2) As for the term "the Japanese people" as used by Benedict, it is a very loose expression and seems to include at least three different concepts. The first concept denotes the "average, common Japanese" or "the Japanese man in the street". The second concept signifies the "majority of the Japanese population" or "almost every Japanese". The third and most important concept of "the Japanese people" means the totality of many personality traits possessed by the cross-section of the whole population in Japan. The last mentioned concept can be considered as an equivalent of the total pattern of Japanese culture in its social-psychological aspects. 3) Benedict discussed the dual nature of Japanese personality, attributing its origin to the duality in cultural and social conditioning during childhood. However, this argument is based on a purely psychological interpretation of social behavior and inadequate to fully understand the complex social events taking place in modern Japan.

抄録全体を表示

It is of great interest to find that Benedict has selected hierarchy in Japanese social structure as basic to Japanese mentality. But Japanese hierarchy differs from her conception. It is rooted in the relation between the so-called "oyakata (parent, master) and kokata (children, servant)", which in the village community, is expressed in the relation between honke (stock-family) and makke (branch-family). Such a honke=oyakata and makke=kokata hierarchy was already found in the old clan system, unified around the uji-gami (clan-god), and underlies the later and larger hierarchy such as the recent state structure with the Tenno at its summit. Also when any distinction of social status appears within professional groups, we have always had hierarchy of the same character. As Benedict asserts, Japanese obligations and their reciprocals are the product of hierarchy in Japanese society, but her statements require some correction and rearrangement. The obligations and their reciprocals are divided into vertical and horizontal relations, both of which are determined by the giri and the repayment of the giri. It is in the case of the vertical relation that we speak of the on and ongaeshi (repayment of the on).

抄録全体を表示

What makes the reviewer sceptical of the scientific value of The Chrysanthemum and the Sword consists not in the misunderstandings found in the data themselves which the author has used, but in the inadequate treatment of these data. The auther arrives at over-generalized conclusions on the basis of partial data, and very often makes judgements about the character of the Japanese people in general from such propaganda as the no-surrender principle or the superiority of spiritual to physical power, which were believed only by a small part of militarists for a definite time, or which these militarists made use of for their struggle within the country. Of course, there is another question, which Ruth Benedict has not fully taken into consideration, of why the Japanese people so meekly suc-cumbed to the dictatorship of a militarist clique. It is in this question that we should seek a key to the patterns of Japanese culture. The Japanese can perceive very clearly what elements in their culture are new and functional and what are antiquated and non-funtional, whereas to most foreigners these cultural elements appear to co-exist side by side with equal functional significance. Therefore it strikes the Japanese as queer that Benedict accepts certain nolonger-influential thoughts or customs of the past as characteristic of the present-day Japanese culture. For example, the reviewer's own experience for the past half-century contradicts both in social and family life what the author has called "the Japan's confidence in hierarchy".

抄録全体を表示

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword leaves an impression that Benedict considered her "patterns of culture" as constant for and inherent in a nation or a tribe, which could not be altered by a change of environment or the evolution of society. This is doubtful. For instance, the origin of "shame cultures", which Benedict assigned to the Japanese in contrast with the Westerners' "guilt cultures", should be sought in the samurai class, for which mockery and ridicule were the greatest source of shame to the family or social group to which they belonged. While the Chinese mien-tzu (face, honor) concerns the individual, the Japanese gaibun (repute) and haji (shame) was a matter of the group. It is possible that such a culture pattern might collapse by the blow delivered by defeat. On the other hand, one can rarely find even among the Christian nations a people such as the Japanese who have so often and for so long and so conscienutiosly used the word tsumi (sin, guilt). Benedict's method of seeking in the words in daily use the underlying view of life and social norms is specifically welcome to us Volkskundler in Japan. Her keen perception has made it possible for her to take notice of so many contradictions between concepts represented by words of the apparent same meaning. However, in order to be consistent in this procedure, one should investigate first the origin and change of meaning of these words, especially how they have been used during the last one or two generations, and how their meaning has been confused due to the difference between written and spoken languages. E.g., the three words, "arigato", "kinodoku", "sumimasen", have had three different origins and are of different ages. To generalize about these three on the same level and seek a common meaning therein would be misleading. Benedict's analysis of the two words on and giri is also inadequate. In a study built on such strict methods as Benedict's even a small defect in the materials which have been used would be fatal. The data she has nsed are sometimes not only insufficient, but also wrongly chosen. This may be due to the fact that too little has been known to foreigners concerning the life and thought of the ordinary common Japanese, for those intellectuals who have offered foreigners (including Benedict) Japanese materials have themselves been educated more or less after the tradition of the samurai class. There exists another social world of common men more or less independent from the influence of the samurai. Bushido, "vendetta" and such like are products of one tiny part of the Japanese people. Lastly the reviewer tries to explain the so-called "typical Japanese boredom" as lack of tenacity or frailty against blows, which might be a common characteristic of peoples who live on islands and to whom no other alternative remains than to be annihilated when conquered by the enemy. In this way sake (rice-beer) and seclusion from the world have played a specific role in this country as means to escape from reality.

抄録全体を表示

This is an introductory paper on a study of Japanese vocabulary which will appear later in monograph form. Japanese words are compared with their equivalents in Altaic, Austric, Siniticic, and other Asiatic languages. This comparative study of Japanese vocabulary, especially the old forms and dialect forms, and the languages outside Japan, reveals that the Japanese language has many word families related to some of the word families in Korean, Ainu, Tungus (including Manchu), Mongolian, Turkic, Sinitic, Tibeto-Burmese, Thai, Austroasiatic and Austronesian languages. The author includes some references to the Uralian languages. The above-mentioned "word equations" are determined by assuming that the non-Japanese words have been brought to Japan, and incorporated as layers in the gradually evolving Japanese language, by succeeding tribes of immigrants coming from the Asiatic continent and from the islands to the south of Japan. This assumption, together with the hypothesis concerning the origin of the Japanese language, is supported to a certain extent by the results of archeological and ethnological studies, as well as those of physical anthropology. In the controversy over genetic relationship versus borrowing the author sides with C.C. Uhlenbeck, stating "the genetic relationship of large language groups...can only be explained by sustained assimilation, secondary differentiation and continually renewed regrouping. [It is] nothing but the common possession of an overwhelmingly large number of very ancient isoglosses". The Japanese language structure, syntax and morphology are related to the Altaic languages, including Korean, and not to Chinese and the Austric languages. In short "Japanese is a complicated mixed language, the vocabulary of which can be traced back to Austric", and also to Altaic, with some borrowing from Chinese ; "the grammatical and syntactic structure of Japanese is built after the model of the Altaic linguistic type".

抄録全体を表示

This is a search for the conceptual and distributional correlation between mana of the "Melanesian type" and "soul-substance" as reported from Indonesia. Starting from an analysis of the demaconcept of the Marind-Anim tribes, southeastern corner of West New Guinea, in which both mana and soul-substance seem to be confluent, the author points out that, while the tribes adhering to the mana-concept are found along the south-east coast of British New Guinea and further in the Melanesian island (thus corresponding approximately to the lines of cultural and racial migration suggested by Haddon, Ray and others), the belief in soul-substance is reported among the tribes distributed rather sporadically towards the north of the Marind-Anim up to Sentani Lake. A possibility of continuity with Indonesia for "soul-substance" is thus suggested.

抄録全体を表示

According to Dr. Kiyono, the modern Japanese are the result of physical change, having developed out of a prehistortc type, through a protohistoric intermediate type, with some Korean admixture. The Ainu, being different from the peoples either of prehistoric or protohistoric periods, had nothing to do with the formation of the modern Japanese. These conclusions are said to be derived, with statistical procedures, from a survey of skeletons of all those periods. Thus, if there were defects in his chronology of skeletons and his anthropometrical methods, his conclusions would be questionable. In the first place, because of insufficient description of the excavations and the relation to other relics excavated, the chronology of skeletons is ambiguous. Furthermore, several errors can be pointed out. In the second place, there are defects in his anthropometric methods. When measurements are compared, the characteristics compared are not always of the same kind, and therefore the basis of comparison fluctuates. The "mittlere Typendifferenz" is calculated only between the most convenient materials, and general conclusions are drawn in spite of the fact that the interrelations between all materials have not been exhaustively worked out. On the basis of Dr. Kiyono's own anthropometrical data, the reviewers have calculated the "Typendiffirenz" between all materials exhaustively, and reached the following results : 1) Though Dr. Kiyono concludes that the difference between the modern Japanese and their adjacent peoples is greater than that between local types of the modern Japanese, his evidence, especially with reference to the relation of the modern Japanese to the Koreans and Northern Chinese, cannot be validated. 2) On the basis of Dr. Kiyono's anthropometrical data, the Ainu, rather than the protohistoric Japanese, would more probably be regarded as the intermediate type between the modern Japanese and the prehistoric people. 3) Statistical evidence as to the mixture with the Koreans is lacking. In short, even provided that the chronology of materials were exact, it would be impossible to draw Dr. Kiyono's own conclusions from his own statistics.

抄録全体を表示

In a previous paper "The Ma-nu-kuan and Iron Culture of the Hsiung-nu" (JJE Vol. 12, No, 3, 1948), Prof. Egami has advanced the theory that the Ma-nu-kuan (Horse-and-Bow Barrier) was the institutional barrier which prohibited the Chinese from exporting the horse, cross-bow (弩) and iron to the Hsiung-nu, and therefore the abolishment of this institution in 82 B.C. introduced the iron age to the Hsiung-nu. The author argues here that the Ma-nu-kuan was established by the Han Dynasty to prohibit their export not to the Hsiung-nu, but to other Chinese princedoms that might be hostile to the dynasty. It was not an international, but intra-national barrier, and its abolishment meant neither the removal of the embargo on the export of the horse and cross-bow to the Hsiung-nu, nor the cause of the beginning of the iron-age in the latter.

抄録全体を表示