ABSTRACT

Before discussing the problem of Japanese cultural origins I should like to define what we mean by “Japanese culture.” Japanese culture is, of course, the culture of the Japanese people throughout history. The concept of a people (or Volk in German) is not biological but cultural. The Japanese appeared on the Japanese archipelago at a particular time in history as a unified ethnic group with a common language called Japanese and with a common traditional way of life. The unity and the “we-feeling” of the Japanese must have been further strengthened by political unification as a Japanese nation and by their subsequent common history and destiny. However, something that is as difficult to change as the core personality of an individual, once it is established, does exist in the case of a people and its culture, and it is just the origins of this sort of Japanese culture that we are now going to discuss.