一、folklore的传来 folklore这一学问19世纪末从西欧传到日本。与此同时,被称作etnography、ethnology的学问也传过来了。然而,当时这两门学科究竟研究什么、怎样研究等问题并不明确,相互间的区别也较模糊。甚至译名也不统一,把ethnography、ethnology译作土俗学、人类学,把folklore译作俗说学、俚谚学等。民俗学这一术语也早巳被采用,但它只不过是土俗学的别名而已。在日本,最初介绍这些名词术语的主要是人类学家。当时由于自然人类学(体质人类学)和文化人类学的区别不太明确,并用两种术语的学者也不罕见。他们为了寻找人类区别于其他生物的某种差别,到日本各地去探寻那些奇风异俗。 First, the folklore came Folklore learned from the West in the late 19th century spread to Japan. In the meantime, the science known as etnography, ethnology has also come. However, at that time, it was not clear what the two disciplines should study and how they should be studied. The differences between them were also vague. Even the translation is not uniform, the ethnography, ethnology translated as folklore, anthropology, folklore translated as vulgar, learning and so on. The term folklore has long been adopted, but it is nothing more than an alias for earth folklore. In Japan, anthropologists were primarily the first to introduce these terminology. The difference between natural anthropology (physical anthropology) and cultural anthropology was less clear at the time, and it was not uncommon for scholars who used both terminologies. In order to find some difference between humans and other creatures, they went all over Japan to explore the strange things.