Minakata Kumagusu (南方 熊楠; May 18, 1867 – December 29, 1941) was a Japanese author, biologist, naturalist and ethnologist.
Biography Minakata was born in Wakayama, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. In 1883, he moved to Tokyo, where he entered the preparatory school Kyōryū Gakkō. The headmaster of Kyōritsu, Takahashi Korekiyo, encouraged Minakata in his botanical studies, and stimulated his interest in the English language. The following year, Minakata passed the entrance exam to Tokyo University Preparatory School (Tokyo Daigaku Yobimon), counting among his classmates the novelist Natsume Sōseki. At the end of 1886, Minakata set off to study in the United States. He arrived in San Francisco in January of the next year, and he studied there for about six months. He next went to Michigan State Agricultural College, where he was accepted, becoming the first Japanese to pass the entrance exam there. These were just the first steps, however, in Minakata's unusually adventurous studies in various parts of the world, which would eventually include Cuba, Haiti, what is now Panama, Venezuela, and England, before returning to Japan. In addition to his studies in slime moulds, Minakata was intensely interested in folklore, religion and natural history. He wrote several papers, including 51 monographs in Nature. He is known for discovering many varieties of mycetozoa. Minakata had epilepsy, experiencing grand mal seizures. He was able to predict when he was about to have a seizure (as is common in epilepsy) due to a sense of déjà vu.
Life Minakata Kumagusu came back to Japan in 1900 after 14 years of unique study experience abroad mainly in the U.S. and England. He settled in Wakayama Prefecture, his birthplace, until his death in 1941. He lived in Tanabe City from 1904 to 1941. Minakata 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. He was also involved in anti-shrine-consolidation protests and the nature conservation movement in Japan. He was respected as "a great scholar with no degree" and loved by the locals who called him Minakata Sensei (the teacher) or Minakata-san (Mr. Minakata), while branded by some as an oddball. More than 60 years after his death, Minakata's achievements and life history has been made clear by a number of books and papers including The Complete Works of Minakata Kumagusu and The Diary of Minakata Kumagusu, and the research is still ongoing.
Childhood and years in Tokyo 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. Since childhood, he had had extraordinary interests in the natural world and demonstrated a marvelous memory. As early as at the age of seven he transcribed an encyclopedia. To develop his talent, Yahei, a self-made man, sent Minakata to the newly opened Wakayama Middle School (now Toin High), which was unconventional for a merchant family those days. Minakata's thirst for knowledge was growing bigger as he at home recited the Chinese classics and transcribed the books that he had learned by heart at a collector's place. That he transcribed Wakan Sansai Zue, an encyclopedia of 105 volumes, and Honzo Komoku, illustrated books of flora, in over five years is a famous episode from this period. At school, however, he remained a low achiever. He would finish lunch early and observe a frog or a crab in the empty lunch box. After finishing middle school, he went to Tokyo in March 1883. The following year he entered the Preparatory School of Tokyo University. Among his colleagues were Masaoka Shiki, Natsume Sōseki, and Bimyo Yamada, who later became eminent figures of Japanese literature. Again Minakata 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. In February 1886, following a failure at the end-of-year exam, he came home and told father that he would go to America. Initially opposed, Yahei finally gave in to his son's enthusiasm and let him go.
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