SENRI ETHNoLoGIcAL STuDIEs 16 1984
A Concrete
of Japanese
Civilization
Holistic Approach to
Cultue: An Example
Studies
the Study
of
Josef KREINER
Bonn:Uhiversity
1.
2.
3.
4.
The History of Japanology in
Europe
Approaches in Japanology 5.
The Study of Japanese Culture
in Japan 6.Holistic Approaches to the Study
of Japanese culture in Modern l
Japan lTheContemporaryStateofJapa- l
nology as a concrete science l
Studies of Social Structure at the i
vmage Levei l
Theodor Adorno [1957] once charged that empirical sociology only doubles
reality. Sociology, he criticized, confines itselfto mere description of social situations
and exhibits no ambition for their explanation. On the other hand, Justin Stagl
[1973] complains that trying to understand social reality by means ofmodern empirical
sociology would be more than disappointing. He stresses that compared to its
methodological rigor and rcu77nesse, the results obtained by empirical sociology
remain remarkably pale and indistinct.
It is my opinion that both these criticisms apply to that human science which
makes the study of Japanese culture its object, traditionally called Japanology and
more recently known as Japanese studies, and newly established in Japan as 7Vihon
bunka kenkyti. I will first discuss the nature of this science, and then concentrate on a
recapitulation of studies of social structure at the village level.
1. THE HISTORY OF JAPANOLOGY IN EUROPE'
Japanology, or for that, Japanese studies, is different from other area studies like
Indology or Sinology, in that it has a long history and tradition within Japan as well.
It is therefore necessary to review both its fbreign and domestic roots when tracing
its history.
The European study of Japan and its culture dates back to the first encounter
between the two cultures, and quite early there appeared such monumental synopses
as Bernhardus Varenius' 1649 Descriptio regni laponiae and various works by Louis
Frois. One may even doubt if there was anything like an interruption between these
pioneer works and the better known researchers like Philipp Franz von Siebold who
37
38 KREINER
visited Japan in the latter half of the Edo period (1603-1868) as an employee of the
Dutch East Indian company, taken over at that time by the Dutch government. In
any case, the nature of this study as well as its substance changed with von Siebold.
.It is often erroneously assumed that there existed no substantial knowledge nor
any clear image of Japan in Europe befbre Engelbert Kaempfer's History qf .lapan
was published in 17l7, and that it did not reach the German speaking countries before
1770, when its first fu11-length edition in the German language was published by
Dohm in Lemgo. Both these assumptions are wrong. Japan and those European
countries with which the Japanese were first in contact had similar, feudalistic social
structures when these contacts began.i) Therefore the language of European feudal
culture was quite appropriate fbr describing Japan and its culture. This led even to
neglect of the existing differences between both cultures: Japan was seen as a part of
Europe and was included in the criticism of Europe by Europeans just beginning.
It was used as the most suitable model in focusing on European contradictions and
weaknesses. Jesuit-drama of the counter-refbrmation in Middle Europe used
Japanese themes, as did novels and fiction in the Baroque period. Only with the
beginning of the era of enlightenment, was China depicted as a model of reason, and
Japan seen in a more negative way.
As early as 1726, in Jonathan Swift's 7-7avels into Several Remote ATdtions of the
Pl7brld, by Lemuel Gulliver..., and later also in Voltaire's Candicle ou l'optimisme,
(1759), there appears the motif of the selfhumiliation of Europeans (Dutch), who for
the sake of money and earthly profit in Japan deny their religion, a motif used to
criticize European society. Kaempfer's narration of the various "monkey-farces,"
which the Dutch omperhoq171 and his companions played befbre the Shdgun at their
hofeis to Edo, echoes this motif in fiction like the "Chinese letters" by Goldsmith
[1760-61] or d'Argens [1739-40[. Here Japan is, not only the country where Europe
as a whole is humiliated, but also a countty which resembles Europe in many ways･
To sum up, the European image of intimate closeness of both cultures is a very
concrete one and is developed within the context of European selfiawareness and
or selferiticism.
Von Siebold's assignment to do a "whole study of Japan, including its geography,
nature, people, economy, customs and politics" marks the beginning of an entirely
different approach. Here I need not point out, that von Seibold was sent to Japan
after a rather long interruption of Dutch trade brought on by the Napoleonic wars in
Europe, and that an extension of trade relations through scientific exploration was one
of his clear-cut goals. Doubtless there was also the infiuence of French encyclopedists,
a tradition which infiuenced the European studies of Japan for quite a long
time. This influence continued until very recently, and may have been responsible
for the failure of von Siebold's systematic and comprehensive approach to result in
either a new image of Japan or in a new holtistic study of Japanese culture. Studies
1) I have dealt with this early history ofcontacts and the image ofJapan in Middle Europe
through the eighteenth century in a more detailed paper [KREiNER 1984].
Holistic Approach to Japanese Studies 39
of Japan were instead fragmented into a number of isolated approaches in various
disciplines. There were also no successors to the study of Japanese language and
literature, which was also stimulated a good deal around the middle of the nineteenth
century in some universities and academies by von Siebold and by collections which
he generously donated a!1 over Europe.2) During the latter half of the century it was
mainly foreigners residing in Meiji Japan as diplomats, missionaries or specialists
hired by the Japanese Government (o-yatoi-gaikokwfin) who promoted studies in
various fields. British scholars like Ernest Satow, William George Aston, John
Harrington Gubbins, Algernon B. Mitford or Basil Hall Chamberlain in particular
used their knowledge of Japanese language as a tool for further penetration into
Japanese history, politics and the like, and combined in a very favorable manner a
more theoretical approach with practical aims.3)
With the return of these scholars to Europe at the turn of the century and the
establishment here of the first institutes and chairs of Japanology at European umversities,
the nature and content of Japanese studies again saw considerable change. If
European scholars had befbre taken up, shoulder to shoulder with their Japanese
colleagues, the very central problems of Japanese culture and history, they now
became increasingly separated not only in space from their object of study, but
they lost contact with more recent developments in their field in Japan as well. They
came to' confine themselves largely to studies of classical literature, "marching and
countermarching through the literature, because it is there," as Levenson [1964] has
described a similar situationin Sinology. In contrast, Japanese scholars specializing
in Japanese literature were the very ones with the most meager knowledge of foreign
languages, so it was only natural that there existed almost no contact between foreign
and Japanese studies in this field for quite a long time and that in Japan "Japanology"
was considered no more than a hobby fbr a few Japanophile foreigners.
While the Japanologists' command of the language enabled them sometimes to
acquire an even remarkable general knowledge of Japan, in most cases they had no
training in any academic discipline, This lack resulted in an isolation of Japanologists
even among their own faculty members.4) The harsh criticism concentrated on
Japanology after the Second World War in Middle Europe in the 1960 fbcused on
just this state of affairs. It even questioned the right of this "selficontained, in
ward-looking" and "in its worst manifestations ... a little bit amateurish," science
to exist [BowNAs 1976: 266, 272]. The newly established Japanese studies which
had emerged in the United States during and after World War II, was seen as the
2) J. J. Hoffmann in Leiden, Leon Rosny in Paris, August Pfizmaier in Vienna.
3) It was in connection with Satow's writings that the term "Japanologist" was first
recorded, appearing in A. E. Nordensllj61d's 71he Vbycrge of the Vlega Round Asia and
Europe [1881: II: 321].
4) Cornelius Ouwehand in his Inaugural Lecture at Zurich, 1969, speaks of "der einsame
Japanologe" [OuwEHAND 1969, 1976].
5) See Geofflrrey Bownas in his 1966 Inaugural Lecture at Cambridge [BowNAs 1967, 1976]
For a German view, see Hammitzsch [1966].
40 KREINER
only possible means of salvation.5) The fact that Japanology was not split up into
several approaches according to the academic disciplines was taken as a sign of its
--immaturity. Japanese studies, on the contrary, was expected to develop within the
theoretical and methodological frame-work of these more "professional" disciplines.
2. APPROACHES IN JAPANOLOGY
One may distinguish between two types of approach even within the newly created
Japanese studies. The first is best represented by Ruth Benedict's 71he Chrysanthemum
and the Sword [1946]. This essentially social anthropological approach
envisages Japan as a monolithic whole, neglecting the abundance of local color as
well as historical variation in Japanese culture. The second approach, concentrating
on specific aspects of Japanese culture, succeeded in producing a wealth of valuable
new knowledge in the field, and even introduced new problems in the scientific study
of Japan. For this approach, the enrichment of knowledge within the discipline in
general with materials from Japan is of course the first and most importqnt aim, to
which the understanding of Japanese culture is only secondary and subordinate.
The overwhelming majority of cultural and social anthropological studies of this
second type remain on the level of monographic description of a limited area, usually
a village or town, and lack any attempt at generalization. They do not treat, for
example, the meaning of "small tradition" within Japanese culture or Japanese
villages.6) I shall touch on these problems again below.
With the exception of the British, European Japanologists are still hesitant to
adopt this model of Japanese studies as their own. Japanologists are generating a
very broad knowledge of Japan, and Japanology is still defined as "the whole entity
of human sciences which make Japan their object, including politiCal and cultural
history, history of thought and religion; and in its wider meaning also including
archaeology, ethnology, sociology, jurisprudence and economics" [LEwiN 1968:
172]. As long as the growing wealth of material and knowledge created by Japanese
scholars in these fields continues to challenge their European colleagues, there seem
to remain only three options for the future.
The first would voluntarily limit Japanology to what is often called "Japanology
in a narrow sense," that is, the traditional European approach-especially strong in
Germany----of a philological study of'Japanese language and literature. This is as
justified as any other limitation to the social sciences, for example, although in this
case a change in "label," perhaps to something like "Japanese literature" would be
fair. A second option would be to stress the role as of Japanology as "translator,"
to transmit the results of Japanese scholarship to the West,7) but this option is in no
way suMcient for the definition of this discipline and may be left aside here.
6) Here I suggest John Embree [1939] and Richard K. Beardsley, John W. Hall, and
Robert E. Ward [1959]. The latter is a representative of a number of village monographs
resulting from the University of Michigan's Okayama-based program.
7) GUnther Wenck proposes this possibility in his Jmpanische Phonetik [WENcK 1954: 4].
Holistic Approach to Japanese Studies 41
The last option would be an "irrevocable" split-up of Japanblogy according to
the model of Anglo-American Japanese studies. "What is needed now is. the education
of historians, linguists, sociologists and economists, with complete Japanological
training" [HAMMiTzscH 1966: 145; BowNAs 1967: 10]. A similar solution was
applied to Chinese studies some years ago, but was turned down by sociology.8)
Such a division would, I think, result in the loss of the very aim toward which
Japanology and only Japanology strives': knowledge of Japanese culture. Even
what Lewin [1968: 172] calls "the sum of human studies which make Japan their
obiect" will not suMce to achieve a through understanding of Japanese culture.
It must be understood that the Europeari study of Japan through long years of
seclusion had lost not only contact with its allied disciplines in general, but also with
the development of its counterpart, the study of Japanese culture in Japan. It had
thus limited itself to only a small portion of its nominal defini'tion. Harsh criticism
of this situation has led to the ideas discussed above, but as I hdpe I have shown, all
of these result from mjsunderstanding of the real object of this･ study and of its
importance, and seem to me inadequate as solutions. In this repsect, a look at the
development of this discipline in Japan may be of advantage.
3. THE STUDY OF JAPANESE CULTURE IN JAPAN
Reflections on its own history and culture in Japan date back quite a long time,
first becoming systematized during the first decades of the Edo period [KREiN.ER(ed.)
1976]. While scholars of Western (at that time Dutch) learning (rangaku) as well as
of the Chinese tradition (kangaku) also contributed to some extent to the study of
Japan, the school of learning which devoted itself exclusively to a holistic approach
is that known as kokzrgaku (national learning), or wcrgaku (Japanese learning).
Because kokugaku developed nationalistic traits very early in its own history, and was
used for nationalistic purposes during the nineteenth century and up until 1945, there
was a tendency after the war to describe koktrgaku as a pure study Qf literature.
The term kokugaku has from its beginning, however, had broader implications
than either of these extreme interpretations can indicate. It was first used by Kdgen
(Sd) Shiren in his Genkyo--shakusho published in 1322, in contrast to the Buddhismcentered
Indian studies (bongaku). As such, it centers, of course, primarily on the
specific Japanese tradition of Shint6 and comes very close to being a theological
study of the Shint6 restoration (as in Yoshida-Shintd and other sects). '' Sometimes
it even becomes kami-no-manabi (studies of ancient religion), as for example in
Yoshimi Yukikazu's Xsuzu-kawa-no-ki of 1744. But in Motoori Norinaga's
Uiyamabumi (1798), perhaps the most fundamental theoretical work of kokugaku,
8) See･Maurice Freedman [1964: 528]: "Social science is about society; Sinology i.s
about China." In the same vein, Twitchett [1964: 110] says "Both (Sinology and
Sociology) are essentially bodies of technique and approaches designed for specific
purposes.... there is no question of avalue judgement between them." Both of theSe
statements are true as well in the case of Japanese Studies.
42 KREINER
the ultimate goal is described as the discovery of "the michi of men." In this connection
"men" means ofcourse "Japanese men" and "michi," or "way" may be taken
to mean "cultural pattern" as used in cultural anthropology, or to be similar to
Ruth Benedict's "dominant drive" or to Leo Frobenius' "paideuma." I would even
go so far as to ask whether or not this michi of the kokugaku-tradition may be compared
to what Professor Umesao calls "a set of human beings and institutions" as
the obiect of civilization studies.
The philological approach within koktrgaku, commonly known as uta-no-manabi
(studies in poetry), was granted great importance especially after 1945, and it has
great meaning in Motoori's system as well. This is largely because the kokoro
(spirit) of ancient Japan can be traced only in classical literature. But to Motoori,
uta-no-manabi as well as the three other pillars of kokugaku, namely kiroku-nomanabi
(studies in ancient history), yitsoku-no-manabi (studies in ancient customs)
and kami-no-manabi are only necessary preliminaries, subordinated in the theory of
cognition to the central aim `of comprehending michi as a whole. In other words,
Motoori's scholarship takes the holistic approach of a cultural science, and it is in
this sense that his fo11owers understood it. For example, Haga Yaichi and Ueda
Mannen began to call it "philology" quite in accord with the broad definition of
philology as a science of men and culture put forward by scholars like August
Boeckh (1877) and others.9)
But neither this concept newly imported from Germany nor the traditional
kokngaku was able to develop further durjng the Meiji-period (1868-1912). What
Boeckh had already pointed out with regard to Kant, namely, the danger that
philology might easily be misinterpreted as a "science of literature," manifested
itself in Japan, too. In the process of accepting modern science, kokugaku was split
up into various separate approaches to difllerent aspects of Japanese culture. This is
comparable to the fate of Japanology as it was replaced by Japanese studies, and to
what is being suggested now in Europe. Although these newly developed approaches
have brought excellent results, neither they nor their combined eflbrts have been able
to replace the central aim of koktrgaku, that is, the comprehension of Japanese culture
as a whole. In Japan, therefore, the need for a holistic approach, moving beyond the
level of the various academic disciplines, has never ceased to be felt.
4. HOLISTIC APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF JAPANESE CULTURE IN
MODERN JAPAN
Yanagita Kunio established a holistic approach to the study of Japanese culture,
which he first called minkan-densho--ron (traditionpopulaires) and later on minzokLrgaku
(J7bLkskuncle), which goes well beyond the content and common definitions of
European folklore and may justly be considered a universal science of Japanese cul-
9) See especially August Boeckh's definition of philology as "Erkennen des Erkannten,"
which comprises the whole of conscious culture [BoEcKH 1877: 8, 10, 13].
Holistic Approach to Japanese Studies 43
ture. In this, Yanagita saw himself and his approach as the legitimate successor to
the kokugaku tradition, which he criticized only for its excessive emphasis on literary
tradition.iO) Yanagita saw his ultimate aim to be the reconstruction of the history
of that segment of the Japanese people who was without script. He called these
people Jbmin, the "enduring people," and considered them to be at the very center
of Japanese culture. Through this unique approach, Yanagita's understanding of
"rice (ine)" and "rice-farming" as Leitmotiv of Japanese culture changed our
understandingofJapanfundamentally. ThemethodologicalweaknessofYanagita's
system, however, led his successors to lose the deep understanding of their master
and they often failed to move away from the study of survivals in folk culture,
something their European colleagues had referred to as fblklore for a long time.
In the field of Japanese literature (kokubungaku), too, there had been efforts to
overcome the narrow limitations of this approach by including Yanagita's "culture
of oral tradition" and to develop a new science of bunkagaku (cultural science)
[HisAMATsu 1966, 1976] ; but, as far as I know, these have not been very successfu1.
In contrast to Yanagita's view of Japanese culture as a coherent whole, defined
by the central element of "rice-farming," in the approach of historical ethnology,
represented by Oka Masao and his fo11owers, Japanese culture was defined as a
complicated structure of difierent cultural strata [IsHiDA et al. 1948, 1956]. This
approach has won great interest especially in the fields of archaeology and ancient
history, and, recently, even among the Japanese public. But concrete field work by
Japanese cultural and social anthropologists continues to concentrate primarily on
village-level monographs. At this point I would like to draw attention to Ishida
Eiichird's attempt to provide cultural anthropology with just such a theory and to
build a new "science ofJapanese culture (7Vihon bunka kenkyti)" [IsHiDA 1967]. The
object of Ishida's "comparative cultural study of the character of the Japanese
people" is "the culture of the Japanese people on a superorganic level," or "Japanese
culture as a whole, built up in organic, integral correlations."
What Ishida calls here "culture" is easily misunderstood. As a supra-historical
pattern, it may be equated with Professor Umesao's bumpo- (grammar), to what
he calls "cultural style," or even to the "civilization as a system, created by the
fusion of various cultural elements." From this, one has to distinguish the idea
of concrete elements, which are shaped by the "grammar" of a culture. In other
words, one has to discern, first, culture as a sum of various cultural elements, theri
the system of ideas (bummei or civjlization) definjng the structure of this given
culture, and lastly the concrete "grammar" of this structure.
To sum up, I would like to stress the fact that notwithstanding great developments
in the general disciplines in Japan, there have been continuing efforts to
maintam an approach seeking supra-historical patterns or leitmotijls of Japanese
culture as an organic and integral whole, an eflbrt which the earlier kokugaku had
10) See Yanagita [1935: 290]: "Wareware no gakumon.... wo shin-kokugaku to iu mo
habakaranu." Also the title Shin-kokergaku-don was used for some his of publications
in 1946-1947.
44 KREINER
already encompassed. These efforts have come from cultural and social anthropology
in the widest sense. Japanology as the integral study of Japanese culture
as a whole, or of the idea-system of this culture has fragmented into several different
approaches defined by the methods of the disciplines, in general. This has resulted
in the loss of the original and central aim of this field, that is, comprehension of the
Japanese .culture, and has led to a series of studies of particular elements or traits
of culture. But as,I have already stated, it is not its methods but its aim and
object which define a science. In this sense, the history and development of Nihon
bunka kenkJyti within Japan provide a valuable model relevant to non-Japanese
scholars in the field. First it helps us define clearly the object of our study, and
secondly it shows us that to achieve this aim, a suitable methodology from any
discipline in general may be applied.
5. THE CONTEMPORARY STATE OF JAPANOLOGY AS A CONCRETE
SCIENCE
Japanology (and here I deliberately use the term as tantamount to Japanese
studies, because in my opinion neither has an advantage over the other) will, if defined
as above, cease to be a hobby ofJapanophiles. Neither will it be reserved to Japanese
scholars. Ishida's attempt and the more elaborately designed proposal by Professor
Umesao of civilization studies as a discipline may form the general framework of the
theory of cognition, to which Japanology as a specific and concrete science belongs.
This science embraces two different approaches which are already in use. The
first is a more structuralistic one which attempts to comprise Japanese culture and
society in a monolithic way, often threatening to reduce itself to mere journalistic
discussion as in what is known as 7Vihonjin7ron, generalizing from personal impressions.
The second approach is the one adopted by social anthropological studies in
their monographic descriptions of village-level societies, lacking any attempt to
generalize findings to the national level. To bridge this very large gap, works on
intermediate levels may be quite usefu1 and ih fact some have already appeared with
this purpose [KREiNER 1983]. The idea proposed is that following village studies,
explorations of the culture of a given area would be necessary. What is here called
"area" does not mean local administrative areas like provinces, prefectures or coun･･
ties, but should be understood as a geographically and, most important, historically
defined area. In Japan, especially the so called Kytzgakkai-rengo-, a federation of
usually about nine disciplines, has been attempting to bring about interdisciplinary
studies on the culture of various areas since the early 1950s. But as early as 1954 in
the publication of the first of a series of fieldwork studies, Imamura Yutaka stated
that the original goal had not been reached. He stressed that interdisciplinary work
does not mean that many scholars of different disciplines work together in one place
or area, but that through their joint efforts results should be achieved which exceed
the sum of all the separate studies [IMAMuRA 1954: 566]. It was not possible to
achieve this at the first attempt at Tsushima, nor later on with the far more elaborate
Holistic Approach to Japanese Studies
45
and costly enterprises of K)2tigakkai-rengo". Harsh criticism come from Nakano
[NAKANo 1974] and from Nakane Chie [NAKANE 1970: 33], who writes, that "the
individual representatives (of the nine learned societies) developed no communal
links with members of other groups, and the societies have generally remained
quite distinct from each other." Nakane concludes that "these effbrts (of the
Kyiigakkai-rengo- to achieve true interdisciplinary work) turned out to be rather
disappointing.1' Moreover, the original aim, i.e., the comprehension of the integral
culture of a given area, seems to have been entirely lost.
Similar attempts fo11owed those of the Ilytigakkai-rengo-. For example, the late
Wakamori Tar6 of the fbrmer Toky6 University of Education conducted a series of
studies with the goal of describing the folk culture of various areas, including marginal
areas like Shimokita, Kunisaki and Iwami, just as the Kytigakkai-rengo- had done.
Again, these attempts proved unsuccessfu1 in grasping and describing the cultural
patterns of the areas in question. The same may be said of other, more sporadic
attempts like the study on the Kinki area by scholars of Ky6to University [KydTo
DAiGAKu KiNKi-KEN S6G6-KENKyUKAi (ed.) 1969] or the study of the Tokyo metropolis
[ToKyo ToRiTsu DAiGAKu TosHi-KENKyOKAI (ed.) 1968]. As some of the
above-mentioned critics rightly point out, attempts by a great number of specialists
to study as many cultural traits or segments of the culture as possible is basically
different from what I have defined as the aim of Japanology, so long as they make no
attempt to grasp the nature of that culture, i.e., the pattern or grammar underlying
and structuring it. The same holds true also for the few foreign attempts at interdisciplinary
studies at the intermedjate level.ii) For most ofthese, the failure to pose
a historical problem is perhaps the most decisive cause of their failure. With the
introduction of such a historical view, a comparative approach will automatically
gain significance and will make it possible finally to combine several such studies to
achieve a perception of Japanese culture as a whole.
6. STUDIES OF SOCML STRUCTURE AT THE VILAGE LEVEL
In studies of Japanese culture and society on the village level, Yanagita Kunio
had already, in 1931, proposed a scheme for classifying various types of villages,
based on their historical genesis [YANAGiTA 1931; SuMiyA 1974]. He categorized
villages according to this scheme into onden-mura, dezukuri-mura, kaido--mura and
shinden-mura. Yanagita's great interest in the first type of villages, the onclen-mura,
is discernable all through his work. It is diMcult to understand why he considered
this type, which was created by dispersed samurai fieeing into backward valleys and
which is historically speaking only of secondary importance, to be the original form of
the Japanese village. But it was just this view, which had the greatest effect on later
studies and is even influencing the current image of Japanese society in the West.
11) For example, the "Program on East Asian Local Systems" of the Center for East
Asian Studies of Stanford University or the Aso project of the Institute fUr Japanologie
of the Un!versity of Vienna. For the latter see also Slawik and Kreiner (eds.) 1975.
46 KREINER
Yanagita's theory was later carried on, together with Yamada Moritar6's concept of
areas with difierent processes of reproduction of capital [YAMADA 1960] and Ariga
Kisaemon's definition [1956] of the village as a federation of ie-families, by Fukutake
Tadashi [1949], who finally shaped the theory of two different types of social structure
on the village level. According to Fukutake, eastern Japan is characterized by the
so-called dozoku-type which stresses the vertically structured lord-vassal-like relationship
of branch families to their stem family in every aspect of life, whereas western
and southwestern Japan is characterized by more horizontally structured interaction
of families of equal status (ko--gumi type). Not only is the latter defined negatively
as the opposite of the dozoku-type, but it is also understood to be historically younger,
a product of the dissolution of the former dozoku-type, which is thought to be the
characteristic Japanese type ofsocial structure. This view has gained much popularity.
Taking the form of the "vertical society" of Japan as envisioned by Nakane
Chie, it continues to be most influential as a means of describing and solving the problems
of Japanese society.
Aside from the difficulty of describing the complex structure of a whole culture
or a whole society by means ofjust one principle, there arises also a historical contradiction.
It is yet to be explained why the pattern of social structure prevailing in
northeastern Japan, which is the most backward area of economic development,
according to Yamada, should be considered the base for the success of modern
Japan. Here Harada Toshiaki's concept gains great significance. According the
Harada, that type of village organization which may be described by alternating or
rotating leadership among several families of euqal status and ranking and which is
to be found especially in the Kinki-region and western Japan is the historically
original and characteristically Japanese type of social organization [SuMiyA 1982].
Both these approaches to a definition of Japanese society share a basic weakness
in that they both use only a single principle for explanation. It may be of importance
to make use of both these concepts, the "vertical society" and Harada'a principle,
to match the complex reality of Japanese society.
In the field of Japanese religious beliefs we again recognize a similar situation.
While Yanagita stresses belief in an ancestor-village tutelary deity (njigami) as historically
old and at the very core of Japanese religious thinking, Harada on the
contrary envisages fbr the village a monotheistic belief in an almighty god without
name and image as basic. While Origuchi Shinobu describes a dualistic world-view
with a paradisic "Other World" beyond the seas, Yanagita speaks of a dark realm of
the dead, but again Harada proposes a world-view, embracing in one world both
man and god. In addition to these, in recent years shamanism as a constituent of
Japanese religious culture has been emphasized. Here again it will be impossible
to rely on only one principle of explanation. Comparative studies will prove that
most if not all these elements, which have so often been labelled "typically Japanese,"
are in no way restricted to Japan, but show a quite extensive, if not universal, distribution.
What may be called "Japanese" is perhaps their unique pattern of incorporation
in the structure of Japanese culture. The problem ofwhy such elements can and
Holistic Approach to Japanese Studies 47
do co-exist, or alternate, or function within Japanese culture in the way they do may
not be solved or answered by any 'ofthe specific academic disciplines. Such problems
must be left to a more all-embracing science of culture on a higher level, which in the
case of Japanese culture is Japanology as a concrete manifestation of a science of
culture, i. e., civilization studies.
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