An Introductory Study of the "Tsugaru Nativist Group" centering on Hirao Rosen :Between Nativism snd Folklore:

Research Project

Project/Area Number	12610047
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	History of thought
Research Institution	International Christian University
Principal Investigator	KOJIMA Yasunori Social Sciencies ICU, professor, 教養学部・社会科学科, 教授 (70101590)
Project Period (FY)	2000 – 2001
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2001)
Budget Amount *help	¥2,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,000,000) Fiscal Year 2001: ¥900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000) Fiscal Year 2000: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000)
Keywords	Hirao, Rosen / Nativism / Yufu-Shinron / Yanagida, Kunio / Folklore / Hirata,Kanetane / Hirata,Atsutane / 幽府新論 / 平尾魯仙 / 平田銕胤 / 津軽国学社
Research Abstract	Hirao Rosen is known a representative painter from the Tsunami region ; in this study, however, I wish to examine his achievements as a nativist thinker (kokugakusha) and as a student of folklore. My attempt will to be place Hirao in the landscape of Japanese intellectual history. Beginning with Tsuruya Airyo, there are many disciple of Hirata Kanetane, the successor to Hirata Atsutane, in the Tsugaru region including Imamura Mitane, Iwama Shitataru, Mitsuya Otari, Masuda Kotaro, Ueda Heikichi, Takeda Seijiro, Sasaki Awaji, Ono Wakasa, and Sasaki Kensaku. These people constituted a group of Tsugaku Nativist scholars. Though an examination of his collected letters and other documentary sources, I show that Hirao Rosen was an key member of this group. Moreover, I attempt to clarify biographical details about his life. I analyzied one of his major works, Yufu Shinron which I see to be deeply influenced by Hirata Atsutane's discourse on the supernatural. The work tales note of the extensive ancient and contemporary research done on the supernatural both in China and Japan and presents empirical evidence in an attempt to prove the existence of "spirits, " "demons, " and "souls. " Hirao realized that local religious sentiments had deep roots and he attempted to bring these religious beliefs to the surface and give expression to them in his scholarship and thought. Through Rosen's intellectual endeavors, we can bring fresh light to bear on existing approaches to the study of Hirata Atsutane and his nativism. To date, most scholarship on Hirata has tended to con concentrate on his nationalistic thought or how he contributed to the development of kokutai ideology. However, it can also be shown that Hirata's thought served as a stepping-stone toward the folklore studies of Yanagida Kunio in the Meiji period and that the genealogy of folklore studies has nativist roots.