Exhibition on Works and Achievements of Kanori Ino and His Field Survey

In November 1895, Japanese scholar Kanori Ino (伊能嘉矩, 1867-1925) received permission from the Governor-General of Taiwan to conduct research in Taiwan. In the following year, he established the Taiwan Anthropology Society with Yasusada Tashiro (田代安定). Devoted to the scientific quest for truth, they traveled across Taiwan and left precious photographic images and records.

In 1897, Kanori Ino conducted a 192-day island-wide survey on the indigenous people in Taiwan. Instead of adopting the traditional, imprecise method of classifying them into "cooked/domesticated savage" (熟蕃) or "raw/wild savage" (生蕃), Ino was the first to propose a comprehensive categorization of Taiwan’s aboriginal tribes according to firsthand observation and historical documents.

Kanori Ino remained in Taiwan until 1906, and continued conducting research on the history and customs of Taiwan. His best known work, The History of Taiwanese Culture (臺灣文化志, in three volumes), was published three years after his death, honored by Prof. Yun-Ping Yang (楊雲萍) as one of the 10 must-read Taiwanese history books.

When Taihoku Imperial University (the predecessor of NTU) was established in 1928, university officials purchased a collection of Taiwanese aboriginal artifacts and specimens, including part of the personal library and manuscripts of Kanori Ino. The books and manuscripts were incorporated into the university library as the "Ino Collection (伊能文庫).” With the completion of the NTU Digital Taiwan-Related Archives Project in 2007, NTU Library has digitized and established metadata records for both the Ino Collection held at NTU Library as well as those materials kept in Japan to make the digital collection complete.

At the 120th anniversary of Ino’s island-wide field survey, NTU Library collaborated with the Department of Anthropology, Museum of Anthropology, Center for Indigenous Studies, and Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Resource Center in organizing the “Book and Manuscript Exhibition of Ino Kanori’s Field Survey of Taiwan,” which will occupy the central hall of the Main Library from November 10, 2017 to January 12, 2018.

The exhibition presents Ino’s important works and achievements, as well as the history of NTU Library's "Ino Collection." The exhibition tracks Ino's diary and uses DocuGIS to mark all the locations in his field survey at Puli in Aug 1897, juxtaposing images of the past and present to show how these spots have changed over the past century.

Book and Manuscript Exhibition of Ino Kanori’s Field Survey of Taiwan
Time: Nov 10, 2017 – Jan 12, 2018
Venue: Central Hall of the Main Library
Link: http://www.lib.ntu.edu.tw/events/2017_inokanori/