Ethnological Exhibits in Natural History Museums

本研究的重点是博物馆向公众传播民族学信息的方式。通过这样做，它旨在调查博物馆作为“民族学交流工具”的意义，从而探索更好的方式来定义它们在未来的社会功能。研究尤其关注“阿伊努”文化的再现。研究主要集中在四个问题上——专业策展人对阿伊努人藏品的形成；由专业策展人举办的阿伊努文化和历史展览；针对小学生的教育项目；促进展览的项目。通过与国外其他博物馆的收藏进行比较和对比，实现了对收藏的关注。展览的问题是通过探索参观者如何理解我们博物馆的展品来调查的。对于宣传方案，我们分析了过去使用的海报，并调查了其设计中体现的民族学的理解和观点。我们还回顾了阿伊努文化是如何在国外展出的，并将其与国内展品进行了比较。最后，我们制作了一个教育项目，让小学生了解阿伊努人陷阱的重要性。民族学资料不是凭空产生的。相反，策展人在他们的收藏和展览中发挥着积极的作用。从这个意义上说，策展人的观点是有意义和重要的。与此同时，我们也确认，这些展品并不一定能向观众传达策展人的信息。此外，我们发现通过海报等其他方式传播的民族学信息也起到了重要的作用。我们希望在未来的研究中，能结合博物馆评论的方法，继续我们的研究。通过这样做，我们不仅希望更客观地评价展品，而且希望找到更有效地改变展品内容的方法。

This research focused on the ways in which museums communicated ethnological information to the public. By doing so, it aimed to investigate the significance of the museums as an "ethnological communication tool" so as to explore better ways of defining their function in the society in the future. In particular, the research paid attention to the representation of "Ainu" culture.The research focused primarily on four issues--formation of Ainu collections by professional curators ; exhibition of Ainu culture and history done by professional curators ; educational programs that target elementary school students ; programs that promote exhibitions.The focus on collections was achieved by comparing and contrasting the museum's collection with that of others abroad. The issue of exhibition was investigated by exploring how the visitors to our museum understood the exhibits. As for the promotional programs, we analyzed posters that were used in the past and investigated the ethnological understandings and views that were reflected in their designs. We also reviewed how the Ainu culture was exhibited abroad and compared it with domestic exhibits. Finally, we made an educational program to teach elementary school children the significance of Ainu traps.Ethnological materials do not come into existence in vacuum. Rather curators play an active role in their collection and exhibition. In that sense, curators' views are meaningful and important. At the same time, we confirmed that the exhibits do not necessarily communicate the curator's messages to viewers. In addition, we found out that ethnological information communicated through other means such as posters also plays a significant role.We hope to continue our research further by incorporationg the methods of museum reviews in the future. By doing so, not only do we wish to evaluate exhibits in a more objective manner, but also we hope to find ways to change the contents of our exhibits in a more effective way.