Kunio Yanagita gave a difinition to his Folklore as the study of introspection as "nai-sei" such as self examination. He put importance on a historical mind as "shi-shin" to reflect on ourselves as well as experiance ourselves as "jikken" more like experiment. As he used to tell that he is always focusing on the present and the history is to be looked back from the present, that is to say, we have to start from our own experiences or enbironments.

He tried to seize the past accurately from present original national customs, habits or behaviors still remaining in the country side through his Folklore. And he told that Truth should be international while Good and Beauty are the things national as far as his Folklore is concerned. He was trying to protect Japanese original Good and Beauty from the imported methodology, Truth, Good and Beauty, based on Logics, Ethics and Aesthetics.

His aim was to figure out the original Japanese cosmology through the data base constracted in his instition from the information gathered by collecting activities of members scattered all over Japan.

Unfortunately Good and Beauty he tried to protect were based on the mentality itself and there was no enough logical backups to compose Japanese original cosmology to cope with incoming modern civilization based on international logics. That caused a self contradiction on his methodology which he believed that the truth should be international. Although Yanagita's Methodology to protect Japanese originality has given himself a self contradiction to reveal the defect or malfunction on Japanese mentality or cosmology, yet it is still effective only if you follow them without bending them.

Yoshiaki Yanagita