64 Facts About Minakata Kumagusu

Minakata Kumagusu was a Japanese author, biologist, naturalist and ethnologist.

Minakata Kumagusu next went to Michigan State Agricultural College, where he was accepted, becoming the first Japanese to pass the entrance exam there.

Minakata Kumagusu wrote several papers, including 51 monographs in Nature.

Minakata Kumagusu is known for discovering many varieties of mycetozoa.

Minakata Kumagusu was able to predict when he was about to have a seizure due to a sense of deja vu.

Minakata Kumagusu came back to Japan in 1900 after 14 years of unique study experience abroad mainly in the US and England.

Minakata Kumagusu settled in Wakayama Prefecture, his birthplace, until his death in 1941.

Minakata Kumagusu lived in Tanabe City from 1904 to 1941.

Minakata Kumagusu devoted his entire life to studies of natural history and folklore, and contributed a number of articles to the British science magazine Nature and the British folklore magazine Notes and Queries.

Minakata Kumagusu was involved in anti-shrine-consolidation protests and the nature conservation movement in Japan.

Minakata Kumagusu was respected as "a great scholar with no degree" and loved by the locals who called him Minakata Sensei or Minakata-san, while branded by some as an oddball.

Minakata Kumagusu was born in the castle city of Wakayama on April 15,1867, the second son to a hardware dealer Yahei Minakata, 39, and wife Sumi, 30, and was raised with three brothers and two sisters.

Again Minakata Kumagusu was not interested in school and spent more time outside the university transcribing books in libraries, visiting zoos and botanic gardens, and collecting artifacts, animals, plants and minerals.

At the news that Miles J Berkeley, a world-famous British cryptogamist, and American botanist Moses A Curtis had collected 6,000 species of fungi including slime molds, Minakata decided to produce an illustrated book that would cover more.

Minakata Kumagusu boarded the City of Beijing in Yokohama in December 1886.

Minakata Kumagusu took the responsibility alone to save others from expulsion and early next morning left for Ann Arbor.

Minakata Kumagusu met bright Japanese students in Ann Arbor, the location of another state university.

When he heard from William W Calkins, a retired American colonel and a collector of lichens, that in Florida there were still many undiscovered plants, Minakata was ready to go.

Minakata Kumagusu collected plants and animals while staying with Jiang, a supportive Chinese vegetable storekeeper.

In London, Minakata Kumagusu visited Yoshikusu Nakai, branch manager of the Yokohama Shokin Bank, an old friend of the Minakata Kumagusu family from Wakayama.

Minakata Kumagusu lived in downtown London where rents were cheap.

Minakata Kumagusu then was introduced to Japanese Asian antique dealer Kataoka Prince.

Thereafter, Minakata Kumagusu visited the museum often to ask advice from Franks.

Minakata Kumagusu contributed regularly to the magazine after that and started writing for Notes and Queries.

Minakata Kumagusu continued to contribute a number of articles and letters to the magazines after returning to Japan and won a reputation worldwide as an authority on Oriental studies.

Minakata Kumagusu's rising reputation opened the door to friendships with notable figures including Frederick.

Minakata Kumagusu put it in his diary how they hit it off straight away on first acquaintance at the Douglas's office in the British Museum in March 1897 and quickly developed a friendship through visiting each other and talking until late almost every day.

In September 1900, Minakata Kumagusu got on board the Awa Maru at the Thames and went home.

Minakata Kumagusu was astounded Minakata had come back with tons of books and specimens but no degree.

Minakata Kumagusu later sent Minakata a reference letter addressed to Inukai Tsuyoshi, his guardian in Japan and later the prime minister.

In October 1901 Minakata Kumagusu left Wakayama by boat for Katsu'ura, where he lived at the branch of Minakata Kumagusu Sake Distillery, run by brother Tsunegusu, until October 1904.

Minakata Kumagusu collected insects and plants, made microscope slides and colored illustrated manuals, read hundreds of books, completed a draft for the English translation of Hojoki: The Ten Square Feet Hut co-authored with Frederick Victor Dickins, and proofread Primal Text of Japan by Dickins.

Minakata Kumagusu resumed writing for Nature and Notes and Queries.

Minakata Kumagusu completed The Origin of the Swallow-Stone Myth, a study he had planned at the end of the time in UK, that is considered the pinnacle of his research presented in English.

Minakata Kumagusu often invited friends and had parties at nearby luxury restaurants and teahouses; hired geishas, drank, sang Dodoitsu and Otsue, his favorite party pieces, and played strange performances.

In July 1906 at 40 Minakata Kumagusu married Matsue, 28, the fourth daughter of Munezo Tamura, chief priest of the Tokei Shrine.

Minakata Kumagusu usually woke at 11 am and worked at home from sometime in the afternoon until 5 o'clock next morning sorting specimens, drawing pictures, conducting research, reading and writing.

On top of the contributions he had made to British journals and magazines since coming home, Minakata Kumagusu started writing for journals and newspapers in Japan.

Minakata Kumagusu used his extraordinary memory and archives accumulated through interviews.

Minakata Kumagusu was worried that the consolidations would not only ruin historical buildings and antiquities but, by cutting trees, damage the scenery and the natural life around them.

Minakata Kumagusu contributed an opinion to every edition of a local paper, Muro Shinpo.

Minakata Kumagusu sent objection letters to major papers in Tokyo and Osaka and appealed to leading researchers for support, including Jinzo Matsumura, a notable botanist and professor of Tokyo University, to whom Minakata wrote long letters criticizing the deeds done by the central and prefectural governments.

Minakata Kumagusu was supported locally by a young Morihei Ueshiba.

Ultimately, Minakata Kumagusu's efforts saved a couple of forests, but a number of shrines and forests had become extinct during the decade.

Minakata Kumagusu then approached various social movements and public bodies in charge of the national heritage list in order to promote protection of the precious environment including the Kashima Island in Tanabe Bay.

Minakata Kumagusu's battle continued until his last years, which is why he is called a pioneer in ecology today.

In February 1911, when The Mountain God Loves Stonefish was published in the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Tokyo, Minakata Kumagusu received a letter from Yanagita.

Minakata Kumagusu published numerous research papers about folklore based on previous research papers of natural science already published and articles about shrine consolidation.

Minakata Kumagusu came to Tokyo for the first time in 36 years and spent five months raising money.

Minakata Kumagusu finally collected a considerable sum, but it was less than the prospect amount.

Minakata Kumagusu didn't provide 20,000 yen, his part of donation, which caused a rift between the two brothers.

Minakata Kumagusu had trouble making a living because of expensive medical bills.

In March 1929, Dr Hattori secretly visited and requested Minakata Kumagusu to give a lecturer on slime molds to Hirohito, then Emperor, in his future royal visit to the Wakayama region.

Minakata Kumagusu headed for Kashima Island in a frock coat he had bought in America and kept for years.

Minakata Kumagusu presented the Emperor with gifts including 110 specimens of slime molds kept in empty taffy boxes.

Minakata Kumagusu was a gentleman who had experience of living abroad as well as a traditional Japanese who showed a respect for the Imperial Family.

Minakata Kumagusu gradually ruined his health and stayed in bed.

In December 1941, soon after the Pacific War had erupted, Minakata Kumagusu was in a critical condition.

Minakata Kumagusu was buried at the Kouzanji Temple in Tanabe City overlooking Kashima island.

Young Minakata Kumagusu leaped out into the wider world when Japan was going through a metamorphosis from a feudal state into a westernized modern country.

Minakata Kumagusu went to America then to UK searching for a place where anybody, regardless of class, could study freely.

Minakata Kumagusu found it in the British Museum, where he put his heart and soul into research while buried in hundreds of books, arts and crafts and antiquities from the East and the West.

Minakata Kumagusu was blessed with an extraordinary memory and manipulated more than 10 languages.

The ecological relation between nature and human beings, which Minakata Kumagusu looked at through the studies of biology, folklore, ethnology and religion, is something to keep in mind.