Orioichi Shinobu

A Japanese ethnologist and poet who revolutionized the study of Japanese folklore and oral traditions.

Orioichi Shinobu (1887–1953), often overshadowed by his contemporary Yanagita Kunio, pioneered a unique interdisciplinary approach blending poetry, anthropology, and linguistics. His fieldwork in remote regions of Japan documented vanishing oral traditions, such as the Oral Epics of the Ainu, which challenged mainstream academic views of Japan's cultural homogeneity.

Shinobu's most controversial theory, 『The Dual Structure of Japanese Mythology』, argued that Shinto rituals absorbed elements from marginalized indigenous groups. This work, criticized in his lifetime, is now celebrated for exposing Japan's multicultural roots.

As a poet, he wrote under the pen name Shaku Chōkū, fusing modernist techniques with folk motifs. His collection 『Songs of the Disappeared』 (1932) remains a touchstone for postcolonial studies in East Asia.