Paper short abstract:

This paper depicts the private museums established in the first half of the twentieth century, to show a neglected but important aspect of the history of popularizing anthropology in Japan. The collection of them was left for the present Japanese anthropology for future international cooperation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to shed the light on a hidden aspect of the history of cultural anthropology in Japan by focusing on the private museums established in 1920s to 30s. Indeed, it is well known that a part of the oldest collection of the National Museum of Ethnology in Japan was come from the collection of "Attic Museum," a private museum and institute owned by Keizo Shibusawa, the famous patron and scholar of Japanese anthropology, yet there were still many amateur or non-professional anthropologists and several private museums of ethnology established by them at that time. And those anthropologists or devotees of anthropological studies contributed to popularize the anthropological comparison of world cultures to the Japanese people, and left their collection of Asian folk-crafts for the present Japanese anthropology as the precious resources for future cooperation with foreign scholars. The two private museums in Nara prefecture are depicted in this paper. One is "Toyo Minzoku Hakubutsukan," Museum of Oriental Culture, and the other is Tenri Sankokan Museum. The former was established by Toyokatsu Tsukumo in 1928. Tsukumo was an assistant to Frederick Starr, one of the founding members of the sociology and anthropology at University of Chicago. The latter was established by Shozen Nakayama in 1930. Nakayama was the leader of Tenrikyo, a Japanese new religion. By impressed with the activities of the French Catholic mission in Shanghai, he conceptualized the museum as an educational facility for the missionary work of Tenrikyo.