Ushinosuke Mori (森丑之助, January 16, 1877 – July 4, 1926) was a Japanese

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...

and

folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

. He studied the aborigines of Taiwan.

Early life

Mori was born in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

. Following his graduation from Kumamoto Chinese school, in 1895 Mori went to Taiwan as a Chinese language army interpreter during the

First Sino-Japanese war The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the p ...

. He had expressed his desire to contribute to Japanese scholarship by studying the peoples of Taiwan.

Career

For nine months in 1900, Mori participated in research as an interpreter and guide for anthropologist and

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project b ...

professor Ryuzo Torii, who was one of the first people to enter Taiwan after the Japanese took it over in 1895. From April 1908 to September 1910 he was commissioned to an old customs committee. By 1924, he was recorded as employed by the Governor-General of the National Taiwan Museum. While there, he conducted a survey of aboriginal residential districts throughout Taiwan. Over the course of twenty years Mori built a collection of survey records, created numerous video recordings and photographs (some of which are on display in the National Taiwan Museum), and established a language laboratory. His work included over 100 scholarly articles. According to historians Ping-hui Liao and David Der-Wei Wang, several of Mori's works were widely read and considered to be handbooks for those interested in knowing about the aboriginies of Taiwan. Paiwan

In addition to its effect on other anthropologists, Mori’s work had some influence in the arts. For example, Chinese sculptor Huang Tushui was able to sculpt figures with Taiwanese features without having direct contact with the people themselves because he had access to Mori’s images. And the author Haruo Satō gained personal insights directly from Mori himself which were later incorporated into his realistic literary depictions of aborigines. At least one of Haruo's stories, ''Demon Bird'', was directly inspired in by a passage from Mori's writings. Mori also discovered many alpine plants and named more than 20 species. Among these species were ''Berberis aristatoserrulata'' and ''Berberis brevisepala'', discovered in April 1910 on the Qing Dyansty Trail of the mountain of Guanmen-Shan. Although these two species were published in 1913 by Japanese botanist

Bunzō Hayata was a Japanese botanist noted for his taxonomic work in Japan and Formosa, present day Taiwan. Early life Hayata was born to a devout Buddhist family in Kamo, Niigata on December 2, 1874. When he was 16, Hayata became interested in botany, and ...

, no botanist visited Guanmen after Mori until 2014, when an international expedition of botanists and hikers trekked there in an attempt to discover more about them. Guided by notes left behind by Mori, the expedition was successful and both species were found on the mountain trail. In 1923 Mori was devastated by the

Great Kantō earthquake Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements * Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size * Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent People * List of people known as "the Great" *Artel Great (born ...

, causing him to lose most of his research. In July 1926, at age 49, he disappeared in a boat returning to Japan and it is speculated that he committed suicide.

Legacy

Historians Liao and Wang consider the legacy of Mori and Torii to be somewhat mixed. On one hand, their accounts and publications provide irreplaceable anthropological information about the aboriginies, as well as a wealth of detail about the natural landscape of Taiwan. On the other hand, government officials were able to use this information as they "exploited and oppressed the aboriginies under

heir Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offic ...

'civilizing barbarians' policy." Other historians note the same ambiguity. In fact, Mori himself understood his delicate position between the government (which was funding his work and also using his photographs for propaganda), which wanted to develop Taiwan for its natural resources, and the local populations, which were being treated inhumanely. Nevertheless, after the Tapani incident of 1915, in which great tensions followed a month-long uprising by Taiwanese Han and aboriginies against the Japanese government, Mori attempted to intervene using his expertise to provide a peaceful solution, but his assistance was rebuffed.

Bibliography

*台灣番族圖譜 *台灣番族志 (unfinished)

References

External links