About this site
Names of Collectors Included in This Database
All the individuals’ and organizations’ names appearing here are recorded in the Collection Management Registry (CMR) made by the Hoya Museum: those who willingly worked for the museum and who, in life, wished not to be known. Accordingly, this database includes only 493 individuals and 23 organizations whose names appear in CMR’s column of "collector," putting aside other columns, especially that of “donor.” Among these, biographies of 327 individuals and 23 organizations have detailed descriptions which will be found when you put their name into the text box of “Search the People” on the left of the search screen. Donors’ names will be found only when you search them on the right of the search screen (“Search the Objects”). Please not that, in the main body of the text, names of Japanese and Korean individuals appear with the last name first and the first name last, while European names do oppositely.
To be exact, it is not necessarily individuals and organizations appearing in the "collector" column who actually collected the object: in many cases, they merely delivered the object from the original collector to the museum in Tokyo. Moreover, CMR has the "donor" column in addition to the "collector," while both of the two are not strictly distinguished. However, a comparison of personal names in these columns reveals that most of the "collectors" are known through the museum activities in many cases, whereas "donors" are often the former owner or producer of objects. There is room to investigate, in the near future, what kinds of persons the donors were.
Accordingly, we have determined that the database should include all the names which appear in the "collector" column, while putting off disclosure of those in the "donor" column. Therefore, an object that has been “donated” by a certain person to the museum is regarded as irrelevant to him or her in this database. This incompleteness shall be improved through identification of the huge number of "donors" in the future. Please be understanding of this point.
List of Writers of Biographical Articles (alphabetical order, affiliation as of 2021 when this database was disclosured)
- ASAKURA Toshio (Ritsumeikan University / Peofessor Emeritus of National Museum of Ethnology)
- IIDA Taku (National Museum of Ethnology)
- INOUE Jun (Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation / Shibusawa Memorial Museum)
- KATO Koji (Musashino Art University)
- KIKUCHI Akira (Kyoto University)
- KIMURA Hiroki (Ritsumeikan University)
- KOBAYASHI Koichiro (Kanagawa University)
- KOJIMA Mabumi (Kagoshima Immaculate Heart University)
- NAGAI Miho (Shibusawa Memorial Museum)
- NOBAYASHI Atsushi (National Museum of Ethnology)
- SAKANO Toru (Nihon University)
- SAITO Reiko (National Museum of Ethnology)
- UDA Shuhei (National Museum of Ethnology)
Ethnographic Objects Included in This Database
In this database, pictures of Hoya Museum’s ethnographic objects can be browsed together with the contents of the museum’s Collection Management Registry (CMR) and other information which Minpaku added. Please click the image on the browsing page of the object collected by a certain person, and details of the object will be displayed. If you want to search objects by place or date of collection, click a button "Search objects with other retrieval conditions" on the browsing page, and you can move to the object retrieval window.
In fact, the number of search results does not necessarily represent the number of objects. What you can search in the database are not objects themselves but descriptive contents on CMR. When information related to an object appears several times on different pages of CMR, its hit count increases to the number of such appearances. This happened because some objects were doubly registered when the storage was moved or when history of objects was poorly documented. The conserver naturally got confused with their ID numbers because they had few colleagues. Moreover, Minpaku in Senri, Osaka, did not succeed all the objects, some of which were lost or disposed because of their damage. This database, however, displays information of such non-existing objects. Please be aware that what is found eventually by searching is "information" related to objects. The number of such information items reach 21,310, including cases where collectors cannot be identified.
For objects belonging to Minpaku, the contents of Minpaku’s existing database are browsed together with those of CMR on the same page. At the same time, you can find the results of researches made by the late Prof. KONDO Masaki, formerly belonging to Minpaku.
It is noteworthy that the names of ethnic groups and places remain what they used to be at the time of record in CMR. Therefore, they do not reflect the recent situation. Names of individuals and addresses, which are unsuitable for disclosure, are censored using "●." Other minimum processing was also made, such as replacement of the old-form kanji characters with the new-form ones, or supplementation of incorrect or imperfect collectors’ names (e.g. only family name) with parenthetical notation. ■ and □ stand for unreadable handwritten letters, while ★ does for a part in which unusual kanji characters were converted into katakana letters. Furthermore, be understanding of cases in which the contents of the "donor" column are undisclosed, as described in "Names of Collectors Included in This Database."
Updates of This Database
Descriptions of ethnographic objects are updated in accordance with such existing documents as Minpaku’s databases or Hoya Museum’s CMR. Descriptions of the collectors’ biography, on the other hand, are updated as the research progresses, so there may not be a final version. Update history of biographical articles are found here .
Questions and Comments about This Site
Please send e-mails to the following address for any new information related to the ethnographic objects that are accessible from this page. The information provided by the internet user will be utilized for the purpose of academic activities and public relations, while the personal information of information providers or those who are concerned will not be told to any third parties.
atticmusjr[at]minpaku.ac.jp (please replace [at] with @)
To see the Site Policy of the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, please click here. To provide general comments or make questions which are not concerned with this database, please use this form.