Kunio Yanagita
Kunio Yanagita 柳田 國男 | |||||
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Kunio Yanagita in 1951, photo by Ken Domon | |||||
| Born | Kunio Matsuoka July 31, 1875 Fukusaki, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan | ||||
| Died | August 8, 1962 (aged 87) Tokyo, Japan | ||||
| Occupations | Bureaucrat, Folklorist, Scholar, Writer | ||||
| Known for | Tōno Monogatari (遠野物語) Momotarō no Tanjō (桃太郎の誕生) Nihon mukashibanashi meii ("Japanese Folk Tales") | ||||
| Spouse | Taka Yanagita (1904) | ||||
| Parent | Yakusai Matsuoka (father) Naohei Yanagita (father-in-law) | ||||
| Japanese name | |||||
| Kyūjitai | 栁田 國男 | ||||
| Shinjitai | 柳田 国男 | ||||
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Kunio Yanagita (Japanese: 柳田 國男, Hepburn: Yanagita Kunio; July 31, 1875 – August 8, 1962) was a Japanese author, scholar, ethnographer, and folklorist. He began his career as a bureaucrat, but developed an interest in rural Japan and its folk traditions. This led to a change in his career. His pursuit of this led to his eventual establishment of Japanese native folkloristics, or minzokugaku, as an academic field in Japan. As a result, he is often considered to be the father of modern Japanese folklore studies.