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A groundbreaking document of rural Japanese life, stories, and traditions from 1850-1960.
Tsuneichi Miyamoto (1907-1981), a leading Japanese folklore scholar and rural advocate, walked 160,000 kilometers to conduct interviews and capture a dying way of life. This collection of photos, vignettes, and life stories from pre- and postwar rural Japan is the first English translation of his modern Japanese classic. From blowfish to landslides, Miyamoto's stories come to life in Jeffrey Irish's fluid translation.
"Though largely unknown in the West, Miyamoto Tsuneichi (1907-81) was a pioneering figure in the field of Japanese folklore studies, on a par with the legendary Yanagita Kunio. Fishermen, farmers, and itinerant peddlers regaled him with tales of local legends, sex, violence, natural disasters, and folk religion. Translator [Jeffrey] Irish, a resident of a rural Japanese village himself, brings a deft touch to the translation."
—Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries
"Miyamoto's years of walking and listening in the remote farming and fishing communities of Japan put him in touch with the basics. The translation by Jeffrey Irish is excellent. It's our good luck that we get to savor this text now too."
—Gary Snyder
"Miyamoto...captures utterly ordinary folk rituals of everyday life with flair and grace."
—Tokyo Art Beat
"It’s a treasure trove of information about life in Japan just before WWII. This is a keeper for the book shelves as I am sure I will refer back to it often."
—Amy Chavez, Books on Asia
"The past, one sees, really is a foreign country, Miyamoto’s journey into that foreign place, his visits with its forgotten people, exquisitely told and exquisitely translated, is essential."
—Japan Times
"In what Miyamoto sets out to do, he succeeds. He has made the 'forgotten Japanese' eminently memorable."
—Clark Chilson, University of Pittsburgh, in Asian Ethnology.
Tsuneichi Miyamoto (1907-81) was a a leading scholar of Japanese folklore and customs. He walked over 160,000 kilometers through rural Japan, collecting the songs, stories, and images of a dying way of life, and was an advocate of social and economic invigoration of rural Japan.
Jeffrey S. Irish is a scholar who has long been immersed in life in rural Japan. Irish wrote a column for a Japanese newspaper for ten years and is the author of four books in Japanese about rural Japan. He served twice as "mayor" of a village, population 30, and teaches courses in community regeneration at a university in Kagoshima.
Contents
Translator's Introduction 7
Author's Preface 14
Part One Life Stories
I Meetings 21
2 Folksongs 30
3 Grandpa Kajita Tomigoro 41
4 Nagura Talk 58
5 Women's Society 90
6 Tosa Genji 108
7 My Grandfather 128
8 The Worldly (I): Masuda Itaro 145
9 The Worldly (II): Sakon Kumata 161
1O Literate Transmitters (I): Tanaka Umeji 178
11 Literate Transmitters (II): Takagi Seiichi 195
Part Two Village Stories
12 The Child Hunt 213
13 Tosa Terakawa Night Tale 217
14 Village Meetings 226
15 The Story of Kawame 237
16 Totsukawa Landslide 264
17 Birth of New Totsukawa Village 281
18 The Wanderers' Family Tree 285
Glossary 305