Let’s go back in time a little bit and talk about Kumagusu the folklorist and natural historian.

The “Draft of A Study of the Twelve Zodiac Animals” on display is an outline of Kumagusu’s ideas written on the back of a newspaper when he was 46 years old. One part of the actual essay was first published in the New Year’s 1914 edition of the magazine Taiyō, and discussed the history and the legends behind the “Tiger” Zodiac, since 1914 was the year of the tiger. From then on for ten years, Kumagusu published an essay about that year’s Zodiac animal in the New Year’s edition of Taiyō. All together they make up his “Study of the Twelve Zodiac Signs”.

The majority of the literature about the twelve Zodiac signs, from past and present, east and west, starts with a discussion of the name of the animal, then moves on to what kind of animal it is, how it relates to humans, and the mythology behind it. Kumagusu, who had spent years as a child copying an encyclopedia word for word, followed a similar structure in his essay. The knowledge he gained copying literature at the British Museum in London was also of good use in this way. “A Study of the Twelve Zodiac Signs” contains a mixture of eastern and western ideas and was an attempt at cross-cultural studies.

Kumagusu planned to publish all twelve essays, but the one about the final Zodiac animal, the ox, was never completed. Perhaps Kumagusu simply felt he had too much to say and couldn’t put it all into words.