The methodology of historical science

research findings from field work as Yanagita did, but on the written accounts of the various

primitive peoples around the world. Therefore, Matsumoto became an armchair ethnologist like

Frazer and not a field worker like Yanagita who did research on Japanese folklore.

Legends in Fudoki.” For example, he indicated his source asNihonshoki: “InNihonshoki, Vol. 11,

it is written that, Shōmu Emperor watched utagaki at Suzaku Gate.”¹⁸¹ Furthermore, he

referred to Chinese historical records such as Records of the Grand Historian (史記) and the

Classic of History (書経).¹⁸² For example, Matsumoto drew from Records of the Grand

Historian in his paper “The Family in Ancient China and Totemism”: “The same legend is

mentioned in Zhou Records of the Great Historian.”¹⁸³ Thus, Matsumoto used the historical

records of legends as material for primitive culture in his ethnological research.

This means that Matsumoto’s concern for the primitive culture prevailed also in his

historical research. This is also made clear from Matsumoto’s criticism on Tanaka’s history: “His

view on the history was beyond the trends of the time, he sympathized rather with the old style

of historical perspective than with the historical philosophy [rekishi tetsugaku, 歴史哲学], but

he did not impose it to students.”¹⁸⁴ Therefore, Matsumoto considered Tanaka’s work as

old-fashioned since its pure historiography was based completely on historical documents.

Moreover, as an ethnologist, Matsumoto had doubts about the credibility of the historical

records.¹⁸⁵ This in apparent in his statement in his graduation thesis “The Research of the

181 Ibid, p. 35.

182 Matsumoto, Nobuhiro, “Taizan no kenkyū,” Tōkōkō, III, Keiō gijuku taiikukai sangakubu nenpō, Shuppan kagaku sōgō kenkyūjo, 1921, p. 3. “Shina kodai seishi no kenkyū” (1921), Tōa minzoku bunkaronkō, Seibundō shinkōsha, 1968, p. 412.

183 Matsumoto, Nobuhiro, “Shina kosei to tōtemizumu” (1921-1922), Tōa minzoku bunkaronkō, Seibundō shinkōsha, 1968, p. 470.

184 Matsumoto, Nobuhiro, “Tanaka hakushi wo itamu,”Mita hyōron, Mita hyōron hakkōjo No. 316, December 1923, p. 27.

185 This doubt was typical for ethnology as Wilhelm Schmidt suggested in his book: “Nevertheless, it still holds good what Ratzel n his day already emphasized, that history is not dependent upon the existence of written sources.” Schmidt, Wilhelm,The Culture Historical Method of Ethnology.The Scientific Approach to

Family in Ancient China”: “Many of Chinese classic texts are of relatively recent period, and

there are many forgeries among them, thus, they largely lack the credibility.”¹⁸⁶ Matsumoto’s

teacher Yanagita Kunio shared his distrust in written documents. Yanagita criticized historians

for using unreliable documents in his paper “Miscellaneous Talks on Musashino”: “... senseis

who research the history of Musashino should not easily agree with such kind of quick

conclusion; they give too much weight to the oral tradition or old records of the locality. Only

few old records are older than 200 years, many of them are oral tradition written three or four

generations ago. Moreover, there is rare evidence that there is no mistake in the oral tradition, it

is so to speak, a reference, which means that there should be other materials for

presumption...”¹⁸⁷ Due to doubts about the credibility of the written documents, Yanagita

conducted his research from material collected by his field work from the existing customs

among the people in the Japanese countryside.

However, Matsumoto collected his material only from works of other scholars and from

old documents. Therefore, he thought that the comparison with the contemporary culture of the

primitive peoples recorded in other scholars’ work could make up for the deficiency of the old

documents: “… by comparison with the similarities of the present uncivilized ethnic groups, we

the Racial Question, translated by S. A. Sieber, Fortuny’s, New York, 1939, p. 17. (Handbuch der Methode der kulturhistorischen Ethnologie, 1937).

186 Matsumoto, Nobuhiro, “Shina kodai seishi no kenkyū,” Mita hyōron, dai 3, 4, 5 gō, Mita hyōron hakkōjo, 1921, p. 411.

187 Yanagita, Kunio, “Musashino zatsuwa,” Tōkōkō, I, Keiō gijuku taiikukai sangakubu nenpō, Shuppan kagaku sōgō kenkyūjo, 1919, p. 30.

can clarify the insufficiencies in the legends, writings, customs, systems etc. existing in ancient

China.” ¹⁸⁸ For this reason, Matsumoto combined the material from the old documents with the

material on the contemporary primitive people in his writings.

As a result of Matsumoto’s adoption of the ethnological methods, Matsumoto’s approach

to research of ancient history was different from historians Tanaka Suiichiro, Hashimoto

Masukichi and Kato Shigeshi. In this sense, his graduation thesis “The Research of the Family

in Ancient China” represented an exception in the historical circles of Keio University because

Matsumoto adopted the ethnological theory of exogamy from Endo Ryukichi’s theory of totem

clans based on Frazer’s theory of totemism in it. ¹⁸⁹ This approach taken by Matsumoto was

criticized by orthodox historians at Keio University. Namely, Hashimoto argued the impossibility

of reconstruction of the very ancient past due to the lack of supportive material and refused

application of totemism for the clarification of the ancient Chinese family.¹⁹⁰ This was because,

unlike Matsumoto, Hashimoto did not believe in universalism and therefore he denied

ethnological methods based on the hypothesis of the universal primitive culture. However,

despite this rejection, Matsumoto kept applying the comparative method and the theory of

totemism in his further writings. Thus, as a result of adoption of the ethnological methodology,

Matsumoto became an ethnologist although he received formal training in the historical science.

188 Matsumoto, Nobuhiro, “Shina kodai seishi no kenkyū” (1921), Tōa minzoku bunkaronkō, Seibundō shinkōsha, 1968, p. 412.

189 Ibid, pp. 417-425.

190 Hashimoto, Masukichi, Tōyōshi kōza ikki, Jitaiko gokanmatsu, Ji taiko, Kokushi kōshūkai, 1926, pp.

132-134.

In conclusion, Matsumoto emerged as an ethnologist since he gave preference to his

ethnological methodology for examining history over the existing historical methodology. From

the ethnological methodology based on universalism, Matsumoto adopted comparative research,

combining it with Western scholars’ ethnological theories, and supplemented it with material

from historical documents. Matsumoto chose to combine ethnological methodology with

historical methodology because he shared Yanagita’s doubt about the credibility of the historical

documents. However, Matsumoto’s teachers in history, such as Hashimoto, were not universalists

and disagreed with Matsumoto’s ethnological approach to ancient history. Thus, by following

Yanagita, Matsumoto became an evolutionist ethnologist despite majoring in history and despite

being criticized by historians.