Discovery of "Minka" in the Age of the People

Haruhiko Fujita

《The Journal of Asian Arts & Aesthetics》 3期 (2009/12) Pp. 37-41

https://doi.org/10.6280/JAAA.2009.03.05

並列摘要

In Japan, ”Minka” literally means ”private house” as opposed to ”public building.” It particularly means ”common people's houses” rather than those of the aristocratic or ruling classes. Though it generally means ”private house,” the word ”minka” is particularly used for traditional townhouse of historic cities, fisherman's house, or farmhouse. Though existed in a large number all over the country, ”minka” was, in a sense, discovered in the 1910s. It was during the ”democratic” Taishō era (1912-1926) when the word ”mingei” was also coined from ”minshū” and ”kōgei.”
The 1910s was also an initial stage of Minzokugaku (Folklore studies) in Japan. Yanagida Kunio is related to the discovery or rediscovery of ”minka.” Nitobe Inazō is also connected to it. A group Kyōdo-kai was formed in Tokyo in 1910 by a small number of people including Nitobe and Yanagida. Though monthly met at Nitobe's house, they gradually became less active. In 1917, another group Hakubō-kai was also organized in Tokyo. It was led by Yanagida and Satō Kōichi, an architect and professor at Waseda University. The Hakubō-kai, a study group of traditional houses that were disappearing all over Japan in the course of Westernization, modernization, and industrialization, jointed with the Kyōdo-kai, started research of traditional houses in various parts of the country. Satō was central in their organization, and his assistant Kon Wajirō (1881-1973) was even more important in their research and publication. In September 1918, their first report was published. It was the time when the term ”minka” reappeared with a new meaning at bookstores. The term had been used for various different meanings before 1918.
Kon published Nihon no Minka in 1922. It enjoyed a quiet boom of ”minka.” Though Hakubō-kai dissolved only with their first report, Minka-zushū Volume 1 Saitama prefecture, another group Ryokusō-kai succeeded their publication project, and published a new series of Minka-zushū between 1930 and 1931. In 1936, Kon organized the ”Minka Kenkyū-kai” with younger members. They published their journal Minka for eight years. The ”Nihon Mingei Kyōkai” was organized by Yanagi Muneyoshi and others in 1934. They had started their journal Kōgei in 1931. It was also around this time when the study of ”Mingu (folk utensil)” was started. It was an age of ”min (people),” and ”minka” studies was the first to arise before ”mingei” and ”mingu” studies.
Today, Kon Wajirō is known as the founder of ”Kōgengaku (studies of modern societies)” rather than a pioneer of ”minka” studies. ”Kōgengaku” is Kon's coinage from ”Kōkogaku (archaeology),” and it was developed from his activities after the Great Kantō Earthquake of September 1, 1923, just a year after the publication of Kon's Nihon no Minka. Returned from research in rural areas, Kon started ”Barrack Sōshoku-sha (barrack decorating company).” Faced with not only poverty, misery, and various difficulties, but also the vitality of the urban people to conquer them, Kon and his fellows started decorating temporary shelters called ”barrack” with paint ornamentation. Kon also started research of recovering modern life on streets of Tokyo in 1925. It led to the foundation of ”Kōgengaku.” Kon's move from traditional ”minka” to modern societies was surprisingly sudden. Although he continued his activities related to ”minka,” his major focus was certainly shifted to urban life. But, there was no discrepancy between his traditional ”minka” and ”barrack decoration” as well as ”Kōgengaku” studies.
Today, 563 ”minka” are designated as ”Important Cultural Properties.” Among various ”minka” presented in Kon's Nihon no Minka, however, only a few remain. Many of ”Important Cultural Properties” are houses of rich farmers and fishermen, or wealthy merchants. Kon's Nihon no Minka included some of them. But, it also included many examples of groundbreakers' huts or poor tenant farmers' shanties. Kon was more interested in the primordial way of human life, in the original or originating way of human housing. Though born as son of wealthy doctor, he was interested neither in established upper societies nor in aesthetics of magnificent ”minka.” Kon's traditional ”minka” studies and his modern ”barrack decoration” activities, as well as his ”Kōgengaku” studies were all built on the same ground of ”min” or the ”people.”

並列關鍵字

Minka ； Kōgengaku ； Kon Wajirō ； Satō Kōichi ； Yanagida Kunio ； Nitobe Inazō ； Yanagi Muneyoshi