日本民俗学の芽生えThe Dawn of Japanese Folklore Studies

Today I have come to Shiiba Village, located deep in the mountains of Miyazaki Prefecture. Shiiba Village has long preserved its unique village culture while surviving through modern times, making it a rare and remarkable presence in Japan that has attracted attention since long ago.

The origin of this remote settlement, which is by no means convenient, lies in the legend that the defeated Heike clan fled into the deep mountains after their loss at the Battle of Dan-no-ura. According to the old record Shiibayama Yuraiki (椎葉山由来記), Yoritomo Minamoto ordered Yoichi Nasu to pursue them, but due to illness his younger brother Daihachiro Nasu went in his place to Shiiba. Daihachiro discovered the hidden survivors, but when he saw them quietly farming and living in seclusion, he felt compassion and abandoned the pursuit, reporting instead to the shogunate that the mission had been accomplished. He then stayed in the area, built a residence, established Itsukushima Shrine to enshrine the guardian deity of the Heike, and cooperated with the villagers by teaching farming techniques. It is also said that love blossomed between him and Tsurutomi-hime, a descendant of Taira no Kiyomori, and the story of hanging a bell on a sansho tree as a signal for their secret meetings is still sung in the folk song Hietsuki-bushi (ひえつき節). Later, when Daihachiro received an order to return, he entrusted her with his treasured sword Tengokumaru, leaving the words, “If a boy is born, raise him in Shimotsuke, if a girl, raise her here,” and departed. The child born was a girl, and it is said that she later married and gave her husband the name “Nasu Shimotsuke no Kami” in memory of her beloved.

In this way, customs and beliefs derived from the Heike were brought into Shiiba Village and developed uniquely. Yet what drew my particular interest is that the history of Japanese folklore studies itself began here, with the presence of Kunio Yanagita.

Yanagita visited Shiiba Village at the age of thirty-three. At that time, he was a government official (Councilor of the Legislative Bureau) and not a specialist in folklore research. In fact, in Japan then, the academic discipline of “folklore” did not yet exist, and only scattered surveys were being conducted by individuals across the country.

However, when Yanagita was dispatched to Kyushu as a government official, he heard accounts of Shiiba’s customs, drastically changed his schedule, and stayed for six nights and seven days to observe and record them. The first result of this was Nochi no Karikotoba no Ki (後狩詞記), published at his own expense in only fifty copies. Later, he released his early trilogy, Nochi no Karikotoba no Ki, Ishigami Mondo (石神問答), and Tono Monogatari (遠野物語), and, while drawing on Western methods of positioning “folklore” as a discipline, he went on to become the founder of Japanese folklore studies.

At the time, folklore was not recognized as an academic discipline, and Yanagita emphasized its importance while adopting a stance that prioritized fieldwork. He rejected superficial systematization before methodology was established and for a long time referred to his work simply as “the study of popular traditions.” It was only in his fifties that he began to write and lecture using the term minzokugaku (民俗学).

Yanagita prioritized traveling across the Japanese archipelago and recording as many examples of folk life as possible. This approach was fundamentally at odds with those who focused on desk research and academic approval through publications. Folklore studies, which recorded the daily lives of commoners, was even ridiculed as a “barbarian science.” Yet Yanagita chose the field over formality and continued to advocate for its significance.

Shiiba Village thus became the turning point where Yanagita stepped away from his career as a bureaucrat to embark on his path as a folklore researcher, and it has remained a sacred site for those interested in folklore studies ever since. Even today, abundant materials remain, allowing visitors to experience them firsthand.

Of course, Shiiba Village has long suffered from depopulation and aging due to its remoteness, but in recent years it has drawn attention as an attractive destination for migrants, integrating with local life and being recognized as one of Japan’s most successful models of resettlement.

Moreover, Shiiba retains a way of life once found across Japan but now nearly vanished: slash-and-burn agriculture. Today, buckwheat and grains are planted after the burning, but in the past, villagers also harvested naturally growing tea from the burned fields, processing it with pan-firing techniques unique to each household and thus preserving a distinctive tea culture. Now, however, slash-and-burn itself has become rare, wild tea has diminished, and the pan-firing tradition is fading with the aging of practitioners and the lack of successors. Yet efforts continue, supported by newcomers, to carry it on.

What struck me most in visiting Shiiba Village this time was the question of why people had to live in such remote mountains in the first place. If, as the Heike fugitive legend suggests, people historically sought refuge deep in the mountains for similar reasons, what histories lay behind those lives? The traditions, customs, and festivals that remain in Shiiba continue to pass down these ancient layers in diverse forms, and they still captivate the hearts of many Japanese people.