Described by Terry Bennett as "a pioneer in the use of the camera in anthropological fieldwork,"[1] Torii is believed to have inspired researchers, including Ushinosuke Mori, to make use of photography in their research. Torii first made use of a camera while conducting fieldwork in North-East China in 1895.
Later, in the 1900s, Torii was assisted in his research by Mori, who acted as his interpreter.
Torii's Memorial Museum established by Tokushima Prefecture (徳島県立鳥居記念博物館).
Early life
Torii was born into a merchant family on the island of Shikoku, in the Tokushima quarter of Higashi Senba-chō (東船場町). Torii received formal education through second grade, and left school at age seven.[2] From an early age, he was a passionate collector of artifacts of all kinds, though he showed little interest in schoolwork. He eventually left school, until a teacher (Tominaga Ikutarō:富永幾太郎)[3] convinced him to complete his schooling. One of his hobbies was local history, and he pursued research in his home region.[4]
He began writing articles on anthropological topics as a teenager. These came to the attention and appreciation of Tokyo Imperial University (TIU) professor of anthropology Tsuboi Shōgorō (坪井正五郎). Shōgorō took an interest in him, and went to Tokushima to advise Torii to study anthropology. Acting on Shōgorō's advice, Torii moved to Tokyo at age 20.[5] Once there, Shōgorō hired Torii as a specimen classifier in the anthropology research institute of the university in 1893.[2]
Torii used eight different languages in his studies, including the Ainu language.[clarification needed] His article "Ainu people in Chishima Island", written in French, is a landmark in Ainu studies.
Torii spent most of his life in field-work (research). He insisted, "Studies should not be done only in the study room. Anthropology is in the fields and mountains." He believed that anthropological theories should be backed by empirical evidence.[7]
Torii began to use sound recording in anthropology research in domestic research at Okinawa Prefecture.
Though Torii is famous for research performed outside of Japan, his research began in Japan where he studied many places, including his hometown, Hokkaido, and Okinawa. During his time at TIU, he studied Japan, on the invitation of various prefectures, villages, streets, etc. After completing his research in an area, he held an exhibition, lecturing, and revealed discoveries. The Torii style is research, exhibit, and lecture.[8] In 1898 he became an assistant at TIU.
In 1895, TIU sent Torii to Northeast China to the Liaodong Peninsula, his first overseas posting. In 1896, the university sent Torii to Taiwan.[9]
In 1899 he worked in Hokkaido and Chishima Islands, studying the Ainu people, yielding a 1903 book Chishima Ainu, on the Kuril Ainu.
In 1900, he completed the first ascent of Taiwan's "Yu-mountain" (at the time, "Shin Taka-mountain").
In 1905, he became a TIU lecturer.
In 1906, he was engaged by the Karachin Royal Family of Mongolia. Kimiko worked as a teacher at Karachin Girl-School. Torii became a professor at Karachin Boy-School.
In 1911, Torii conducted fieldwork in Korea. At the time Sada Sekino described an ancient tomb as a Goguryeo artifact. Torii pointed out that it instead belonged to Han dynasty. This cost him friends since Sekino was a powerful figure at TIU. Torii proved that the Han Chinese had arrived in Korea at an early period.[10]
In 1921 Torii earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from TIU.
In 1922 Torii became an assistant professor at TIU.
In 1924 Torii left TIU and established Ryuzo Torii Institute, staffed by his family members.
In 1928 Torii worked on establishing Sophia University in Tokyo. It was the only foreign school there for many years. As a Catholic anthropologist, Torii did all procedures for Ryuzo Torii and succeeded in lifting it to a university level.[11]
In 1939 he joined the Harvard–Yenching Institute, the top Institute for Asian studies in the US at the time as an "Invited Professor". A sister university of Harvard was named Yenching University in Peking, China, and was an American missionary school. The Japanese Army could not come into this university until the Pearl Harbor attack. Torii was sent to the American area in China by the institute during the Second Sino-Japanese War, where his China anthropology studies reside.[12]
In 1920, Torii was honored for an Ordre des Palmes Académiques of France. The award disappeared within the university.
In 1964 the "Torii Memorial Museum" was established by Tokushima prefecture, at Naruto area. It is in a Japanese traditional castle on the top of Myoken Mountain. Funds came from local people, showing their memory and love for Ryuzo Torii. In 2010 the Museum moved to Tokushima city in the Forest of Culture area.
Personal life
In 1901, he married Kimiko, daughter of a samurai in Tokushima. She was talented in music, language, and education.
In the wake of Yoshino Sakuzō's criticism of Japan's Imperial ambitions in Korea, Torii aligned himself with those who justified Japanese annexation on the grounds that the contemporary consensus worldwide in linguistics, anthropology and archaeology were that the Korean and Japanese people were the same race/people (dōminzoku).[13][lower-alpha 1]
The Ainu are an Indigenous ethnic group who reside in northern Japan, including Hokkaido and the Tōhoku region of Honshu, as well as the land surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, such as Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the Khabarovsk Krai; although unconfirmed, they are also believed to have resided in the areas of Primorsky Krai, due to its proximity to Khabarovsk Krai. They have occupied these areas known to them as "Ainu Mosir", since before the arrival of the modern Yamato and Russians. These regions are often referred to as Ezochi (蝦夷地) and its inhabitants as Emishi (蝦夷) in historical Japanese texts.They are included in the Jomon cultural area, along with the mainland Japanese Yamato and Ryukyu ethnic groups.
Korpokkur, also written Koro-pok-kuru, korobokkuru, korbokkur, or koropokkur, koro-pok-guru, are a race of small people in folklore of the Ainu people of the northern Japanese islands. The name is traditionally analysed as a tripartite compound of kor, pok, and kur ("person") and interpreted to mean "people below the leaves of the Fuki" in the Ainu language.
Chie Nakane was a Japanese anthropologist and Professor Emerita of Social Anthropology at the University of Tokyo.
Motojirō Kajii was a Japanese writer in the early Shōwa period known for his poetic short stories. Kajii's works included Remon, "Shiro no aru machi nite". Fuyu no hi and Sakura no ki no shita ni wa. His poetic works were praised by fellow writers including Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima. Today his works are admired for their finely tuned self-observation and descriptive power.
Japanese people are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Japanese archipelago. Japanese people constitute 97.4% of the population of the country of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 125 million people are of Japanese descent, making them one of the largest ethnic groups. Approximately 120.8 million Japanese people are residents of Japan, and there are approximately 4 million members of the Japanese diaspora, known as Nikkeijin (日系人).
The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately 1,300 km (810 mi) northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the north Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many minor islets. The Kuril Islands consist of the Greater Kuril Chain and, at the southwest end, the parallel Lesser Kuril Chain. They cover an area of around 10,503.2 square kilometres (4,055.3 sq mi), with a population of roughly 20,000.
Fei Xiaotong or Fei Hsiao-tung was a Chinese anthropologist and sociologist. He was a pioneering researcher and professor of sociology and anthropology; he was also noted for his studies in the study of China's ethnic groups as well as a social activist. Starting in the late 1930s, he and his colleagues established Chinese sociology and his works were instrumental in laying a foundation for the development of sociological and anthropological studies in China, as well as in introducing social and cultural phenomena of China to the international community. His last post before his death in 2005 was as Professor of Sociology at Peking University.
Ainu music is the musical tradition of the Ainu people of northern Japan. Ainu people have no indigenous system of writing, and so have traditionally inherited the folklore and the laws of their culture orally, often through music.
Theodore C. Bestor was a professor of anthropology and Japanese studies at Harvard University. He was the president of the Association for Asian Studies in 2012. In 2018, he resigned as director from the Reischauer Institute following an investigation by Harvard officials that found he committed two counts of sexual misconduct.
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Inō Kanori was a Japanese anthropologist and folklorist known for his studies in Taiwanese indigenous peoples. Ino was the first person who classified the aboriginal tribes into several groups, instead of the traditional classification which imprecisely recognized these aborigines only as "cooked/domesticated" or "raw/wild".
Yoshiharu Sekino is a Japanese surgeon, explorer, travel writer, photographer and anthropologist.
The Harvard–Yenching Library is the primary location for East Asia-related collections at Harvard Library at Harvard University. In addition to East Asian languages, it houses collections in European languages and Southeast Asian language (Vietnamese). Totaling more than 1.5 million volumes, the Harvard-Yenching Library has one of the largest collections in East Asian studies outside of Asia.
Bronisław Piotr Piłsudski was an Polish ethnologist who researched the Ainu people after he was exiled by Tsar Alexander III of Russia to the Far East.
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"Kankō Ainu" is the Japanese term for Ainu people who are considered to live or portray a traditional or pseudo-traditional depiction of the Ainu people and their lifestyle in order to cater to the tourism industry.
The Hokkaido characters, also known as Aino characters or Ainu characters, are a set of characters discovered around 1886 on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. At the time of their discovery, they were believed to be a genuine script, but this view is not generally supported today.
In Japanese history, the Jōmon period is the time between c. 14,000 and 300 BC, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism and cultural complexity. The name "cord-marked" was first applied by the American zoologist and orientalist Edward S. Morse, who discovered sherds of pottery in 1877 and subsequently translated "straw-rope pattern" into Japanese as Jōmon. The pottery style characteristic of the first phases of Jōmon culture was decorated by impressing cords into the surface of wet clay and is generally accepted to be among the oldest in the world.
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