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Engelbert Kaempfer: 'The First Interpreter of Japan'
From: The British Library
| By:
Yu-Ying Brown |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
In the late seventeenth century the German physician Engelbert Kaempfer smuggled out of Japan the first systematic collection of materials to be seen in Europe. Yu-Ying Brown, consultant to the Japanese collections at The British Library, explores the importance of Kaempfer's collection, which became the basis of the West's earliest scientific account of the closed island empire. |
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| Engelbert Kaempfer on the Dutch tribute mission to the court at Edo; detail from a sketch by Kaempfer, 1691. | |
 ngelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716) amassed his collection during the time he worked for the Dutch East India Company in Nagasaki between 1690 and 1692. The British Library acquired the collection as part of the bequest of Sir Hans Sloane, a founder of the British Museum, who had purchased it together with Kaempfer's posthumous papers from his nephew between 1723-5. He then arranged for Kaempfer's German manuscript Heutiges Japan (Japan Today) to be published in English. This was undertaken at Sloane's expense by his librarian, a Swiss doctor called Johann Caspar Scheuchzer (1702-29). |
The publication of the History of Japan in 1727 immortalised Kaempfer as 'the first interpreter of Japan'. This monumental work was soon translated into other European languages, and provided the West with its first ever scientific account of Japan. This feature, centred on the Kaempfer archives, explores how his Japanese source materials--books, maps, genre paintings and so forth--relate to Kaempfer's own manuscript notes and sketches as well as those of his translator Scheuchzer. |
Kaempfer and <I>'sakoku'</I> Japan
Born at Lemgo in Westphalia, Kaempfer was among the most learned and travelled of his generation.  He received an excellent medical and humanistic education at German, Dutch, Polish and Swedish universities. Then, after a prolonged stay in Persia, he reached Nagasaki in September 1690 via posts with the Dutch East India Company in India, Indonesia and Thailand. His stay coincided with the Genroku era (1688-1704), half a century after the shogunate regime had broken contact with the outside world following the uprising by Christian converts in Shimabara in 1637-8. Under this national seclusion policy, the Dutch and Chinese merchants, the only foreigners allowed to stay on, were confined to their respective settlements, the former being on Deshima, a tiny artificial islet in Nagasaki bay. Practically the only time they were able to leave and see the country was on the annual tribute mission to the shogun's court at Edo (present-day Tokyo). |
Kaempfer used his two such trips (each three months in duration) to record vividly the scenes along the road, the reception of his party at inns, the people they encountered, and the audiences with shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi at Edo castle. The society he then saw astonished him. It was urban, civilised, pleasure-loving, literate, artistic and, above all, peaceful. No doubt it was the contrast with a war-torn and fragmented Germany that led him to conclude that Japan 'was never in a happier condition than it now is, governed by an arbitrary [secular] monarch, shut up and kept from all commerce and communication with foreign nations'. |
This favourable evaluation of the seclusion policy was first published in Latin in Amoenitatum Exoticarum (Lemgo, 1712). Scheuchzer translated the work into English, along with other Japanese topics such as tea culture and acupuncture, and appended them to the History of Japan. Copies of the Dutch edition later found their way to Japan where the essay itself was translated as the Sakoku-ron, the treatise on sakoku (1801). The term sakoku, literally 'the country that shut itself up', has since entered the Japanese vocabulary. Needless to say, this thesis intensified the political debates that were to climax in the 1850s as Commodore Perry's gunboat diplomacy forced open Japan's closed door. |
The mystery of Kaempfer's assistant
During Kaempfer's time in Japan, the Dutch at Deshima were virtual prisoners kept under constant surveillance. The small circle of Japanese assigned to attend to their affairs, chiefly licensed interpreters or tsuji, were bound by solemn oath not to discourse with them. However, Kaempfer found his way through this 'iron curtain'. In the Preface to the History, he records how he won the trust of his interpreters by teaching them Western medicine and treating them when sick, and by plying them 'with a cordial and plentiful supply of European liquors'. |
More significantly, Kaempfer had the good fortune to be assigned, on his arrival, a studious young man as his servant and medical student. Kaempfer recognised his potential by employing him as an auxiliary when treating the otona, the governor of Deshima. As a result, his servant was permitted to remain with him throughout the two years, even accompanying him on the tribute-paying trips to Edo. During this time, the servant became fluent in Dutch and provided Kaempfer with a great deal of information and material on Japan. However, while explicitly acknowledging in the Preface the invaluable service rendered by this student-servant, Kaempfer kept his identity secret lest he endangered his life. |
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| Ukejo no koto; the document revealing the identity of Kaempfer's Japanese assistant. | |
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Only recently has this mystery been solved by the discovery of a Japanese document in The British Library. This paper, entitled Ukejo no koto, is a guarantee of good conduct for Kaempfer's servant. He is named as Imamura Gen'emon, twenty-year old son of an interpreter; and the recipient of the master copy of this document was Yoshikawa Gibuemon, the governor of Deshima. The person named as Imamura Gen'emon in the document was none other than Imamura Ichibei, alias Eisei (1671-1736), a notable historical figure. After Kaempfer's departure, he rose rapidly to become chief interpreter (otsuji), and was to play an important role in Dutch-Japanese relations. |
The first research library on Japan
Kaempfer's Japanese library, now a distinct element in the British Library Oriental and India Office Collections, comprises 32 individual works in 54 volumes, plus ten maps and seven recently discovered archival documents. The seven documents include, apart from Ukejo no koto, two other important pieces. One is the earliest extant staff pass to Deshima, which could well have belonged to Imamura. The other, entitled Gojomoku ('Strict shogunal commands') lists the five articles of law that the Dutch traders had to observe. Article 3 reads 'report at once any Portuguese missionary activities'. The gist of the whole document has long been known from Kaempfer's translation in the History, but its original text in Japanese was unknown. |
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| Kaempfer's ex-libris seal. | |
With one or two exceptions, the printed books are not in themselves remarkable, being the kind of literature that was mass-produced during the last half of the seventeenth century for popular education and entertainment. They comprise travel guides or dochuki ('itineraries'); maps; primer copy books, including Nanatsu iroha and Kakubiki senjimon (on which is found Kaempfer's only ex-libris seal); calendars and almanacs (such as Kenai choho-ki); illustrated encyclopaedias; legal codes; samurai directories known as bukan; historical chronologies; poetry; war tales such as the 'Battle of Shimabara' and the 'Fall of Osaka Castle' (Osaka monogatari); texts for noh (dramatic theatre) and joruri (puppet plays). Although it was small by modern standards, Kaempfer put his Japanese library to maximum use. Thus it is possible to identify precisely the sources used in the History. For Book I, which discusses the country's physical geography and fauna and flora, Kaempfer verified his own information with encyclopaedias such as Kinmo zui. Two chronological works, Dai Nihon odaiki and Wakan nenpyo-roku provided the main data for Book II on the political constitution of the empire. |
The usefulness of the dochuki itineraries to Kaempfer on his two journeys to Edo can be seen from his extensive annotations on them. He observed that the multitudes travelling on the road 'always carried about them printed road-books in which were set down at what price, the best victuals are to be got'. Like the bulk of this library, the dochuki were published in pocket-size format for ease of carriage. However, their flimsiness and ephemeral utility mean that they are extremely rare today. Many of Kaempfer's copies are unique, preserved in excellent condition with the original title-slips still attached. The texts themselves are indispensable to the study of the Japanese cult of travel in this, its formative era. |
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| Padded appliqué picture of a monk from Kaempfer's album. | |
Although maps of all kinds topped the list of prohibitions, Kaempfer managed to smuggle out ten: four of Japan; one each of the cities of Osaka, Kyoto and Nagasaki; two very rare maps of Edo; and a pictorial map covering the land and sea routes from Edo to Nagasaki. In the History, he stressed the difficulties involved in obtaining any plans, particularly of Edo. Yet his description of the intricate layout of Edo castle was to horrify one interpreter who remarked how 'terrible' it was that a European had acquired so much precise information about the seat of the shogunate. Kaempfer's maps of Japan (based on Shinsen dai Nihon zukan, one of the earliest maps to have shown Hokkaido), though considerably modified by Scheuchzer, were to have an enormous influence on generations of European cartographers. |
Kaempfer's images of Japan
The non-book items held by The British Library are preserved in a large album within the Western Manuscripts department. They comprise a curious mixture of Japanese and Chinese items. Among them are the three wonderfully lively oshie or padded appliqué pictures. |
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| Padded appliqué picture of a drummer from Kaempfer's album. | |
A superb set of 29 Chinese colour prints representing birds, flowers and fruit, which has become known in the world of graphic art simply as the 'Kaempfer prints' was transferred to The British Museum's Department of Prints and Drawings in 1906 and is now in the Department of Oriental Antiques. Interestingly, Dr Anne Farrer, a former British Museum curator, has suggested in recent research that the association with Kaempfer is incorrect and she has proposed that the prints were in fact made during the second quarter of the eighteenth century rather than in the late seventeenth century. The association of Kaempfer with the prints has come about through the misinterpretation of descriptive catalogue entries by catalogue compilers at The British Museum from the eighteenth century onwards, which was to lead to the misattribution in the provenance of the prints. Dr Farrer proposes that the prints should be referred to by the name of their makers as 'The Ding family prints from the Sloane collection'. |
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| Padded appliqué picture of a cheerleader from Kaempfer's album. | |
The main part of the album consists of fifty meisho-e (pictures of famous places) executed in the colourful tradition of the Sumiyoshi school. It is not surprising that with their rich topographical, sociological and architectural information, they were taken by both Kaempfer and Scheuchzer as models for their respective illustrations. As such they have a major role to play in unravelling the extent of the discrepancies between Kaempfer's original drawings and his translator's adaptations for copper engravings. |
Scheuchzer's legacy
Recent Kaempfer studies have called into question the accuracy of Scheuchzer's interpretation as well as the contents layout of the History. The criticism has been particularly stringent from those seeking a literal translation, even though Scheuchzer himself said 'my aim is to express the sense of the author'. Yet had he gone for word-for-word translation, the History might not have been nearly as readable or influential. Furthermore, had Scheuchzer not appended Kaempfer's Sakoku-ron, both Kaempfer and his History of Japan could well have remained in oblivion to this day. |
Scheuchzer's contribution to the quality of the illustrations in the History was also considerable. He was something of a pioneer in the way he successfully reproduced pictures from many of the illustrated books. His prowess as an illustrator culminates in the title-page of the History. He decorated the border with coiled dragons from the Kinmo zui with vignettes of daimyo crests and insignia from the Taihei bukan taizen. This must constitute one of the earliest pieces of 'Japonisme'. |
Evidently Sloane had recognised his talent as translator, editor and illustrator, having given him full rein in the making of the History. The book was even published with Scheuchzer's own dedication to George I, the text of which was quoted 250 years later by Elizabeth II during her state visit to Japan in 1975. The sadness is that, unlike Kaempfer's interpreter Imamura Gen'emon, who lived to be 65 and very successful, Johann Caspar Scheuchzer died in 1729, two years after the publication of the History of Japan. He was aged 27. |
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