Keigo Seki (関 敬吾, Seki Keigo, 1899–1990) was a Japanese folklorist. He joined a group under Yanagita Kunio, but often came to different conclusions regarding the same folktales. Along with collecting and compiling folktales, Seki also arranged them into a series of categories.[1]
This work culminated in his Nihon mukashibanashi shūsei (Collection of Japanese Folktales) (1928, revised 1961), in three volumes, which classified Japanese folktales after the model of the Aarne-Thompson system.[2]
A selection was published as Nihon No Mukashi-Banashi (1956–7), and was translated into English as Folktales of Japan (1963) by Robert J. Adams.[3][4]
Seki was a native of Nagasaki Prefecture and graduate of Toyo University.[5][2] He studied philosophy and worked as a librarian for the university.[2] He founded the Japanese Society for Folk Literature (Nihon Koshobungei Gakkai) in 1977 and was its first president.[2] Seki understood German and translated two works of folktales from German to Japanese, Kaarle Krohn's Die folkloristische Arbeitsmethode (Folklore Methodology, 1926) and Aarne's Vergleichende Märchenforschung (Comparative Studies of Folklore, 1908).[2]
Keigo Seki's research was on how folklore came to Japan and if some folktales had been imported to Japan from countries such as India and China.[2] Seki's second hypothesis was that folktales should be examined to understand their impact on ordinary events and are to help people in their daily lives.[6] Seki also thought that there was a universal element to folktales and that they are not based on particular ethnic groups.[6]
In “Types of Japanese Folktales.” Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 25, 1966, Keigo Seki details his own categorization system for folktales, but it did not catch on and the Aarne-Thompson system prevailed. Seki's system had Japanese folktales divided into in the following 18 categories:[7]