Session Name: Alternative Channels of Knowledge Production, Transmission, and Circulation in Tokugawa Japan
2 - Dissemination of Knowledge and Experience of Foreign Animals and Animal Life in Tokugawa Japan
Thursday, August 1, 2024
14:00 – 15:45 (GMT+7)
Presentation Abstract In Tokugawa Japan, knowledge about foreign fauna entered not only through pictorial and written accounts but also through the actual import of foreign animals. Several manuscripts describe foreign animals from the Asian mainland and from other continents. My focus here is not on the “spectacular” animals that were presented to the shogun but on the many other animals that were imported, sometimes displayed, and discussed and depicted in manuscripts, pamphlets, and popular publications. Many of them were birds, like ostriches and other larger and smaller birds imported from mainland Asia to be kept as songbirds or other types of pet birds. My investigation will center around the following questions: How were these animals perceived by the wider population in Japan? What were the practical problems in keeping and rearing these animals in Japan? What were the benefits and joys related to these imports? Records of imports, manuals for specific animals and reports of misemono exhibitions, as well as contemporary diaries and animal encyclopedias will be used as sources to check imports and their spread and how they contributed to zoological knowledge exchange. The aim of this presentation is to view the exchange not merely as an “import” issue, but instead to place the exchange in a broader setting involving animal-human interactions, and economic, dietary, and zoological impacts.
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