German Ethnological Tradition in Studies of Japan: Erwin von Baelz as Anthropologist and Ethnologist

Abstract

This article offers a closer look at Erwin von Baelz’s academic work in the field of anthropology and ethnology. A biographical sketch demonstrates factors that influenced his research and its reception in the academic world. The analysis of anthropological and ethnological works of Baelz outlines his most important findings and conclusions as well as his theoretical views. Baelz’s works were very mainstream for their time in terms of the subject of study, methodology, and theoretical background. However, it is also a case of isolation, since the geographical distance between Japan and Europe prevented him from fully participating in European academic discourse. The effects of such isolation present themselves in the reception of his work: he was mostly mentioned by the scholars who shared his opinion on the European origins of the Ainu as his academic standing was enough to legitimize this theory as proven, while other ideas and observations of his remained mostly unnoticed.