In this short paper I will describe the first Aboriginal art exhibition held in Japan, which had a big impact on Japanese anthropologists. The ‘Exhibition of Australian Aboriginal Art’ was held in Tokyo in 1965 for around one month and was planned by The Yomiuri Sinbun. This was the first Aboriginal art exhibition accompanied by Aboriginal people not only in Japan but also outside Australia. Unfortunately we have no documents or records about it left today, except for a copy of the catalogue. The exhibition was titled ‘Australian Primitive Art’ in Japanese, and it mainly displayed artworks from Arnhem Land and Kimberley in the northern part of Australia. The artwork came from the ‘Dorothy Bennet Collection’; she also attended the exhibition in Tokyo. According to a comment on the exhibition by noted novelist Kenzaburou Ooe, the artworks on show symbolized the humane Aboriginal civil society which contrasted with the Japanese people of the time who were forced to be involved in their own modern, complex, atomic power world.
For Japanese anthropologists this exhibition gave a chance to directly obtain vivid information on Australian Aboriginal arts. They previously had only academic information about Aboriginal culture through limited resources: some ethnographies like A. P. Elkin’s, and W. L. Waner’s books from the early 1940s. In 1969, four years after the exhibition, the famous Japanese anthropologist Seiichi Izumi [1915-1970], edited a book with Lance Bennet [son of Dorothy Bennet] entitled ‘Art of the Dreamtime; The Dorothy Bennet Collection of Australian Aboriginal Art’; in Japanese it is called ‘Australian Primitive Art’.
After this event there were no exhibitions of Aboriginal art held in galleries or museums in Japan until 1986 and 1992. In 1986 The Kobe City Museum and in 1992 The National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, and The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto and Tokyo, held exhibitions of Aboriginal art. At the Kobe exhibition, Dorothy Bennet visited again to display some artwork from Arnhem Land, but the 1992 exhibitions had no connection with the 1965 one but were planned by museum staff who had completed field research in Aboriginal communities in Australia from the 1980s on. Today a number of Japanese galleries and museums have Aboriginal art in their collections and just as importantly these institutions see Aboriginal art more correctly as contemporary art and not ‘primitive art’.

Key Words: ‘Australian Primitive Art’, 1965, Tokyo, Dorothy, Bennet, Seiichi Izumi

The purpose of this paper is to consider the social relationships of the sheep herders. It focuses especially on the social formations of grazing camps and the territorial relations among the herders, demonstrating how the forms and memberships of the grazing camps change according to their flexible relationships.
Fieldwork was carried out among the sheep herders of East Nepal. They engage in transhumance: the herders have their sedentary village, and some household members engage in pastoralism apart from their family. Most herders are male. They live together in their grazing camps, and share migration and grazing. The features of this way of life, as a result, are outlined in the following three points.
1) The formation of grazing camps is not restricted by village, ethnic group, or caste. The herders form grazing camps not only according to kin or affinal relationships but also according to mutual relationships as colleagues. In addition, large herd owners hire shepherds depending on herd size.
2) The relationships between herd owners and hired shepherds are unstable. Although large herd owners hire shepherds, there are problems with demand. Sometimes they are forced to join with other owners because of the scarcity of shepherds for hire.
3) The flexibility of the grazing camp affects herders’ relationships to “their pastures”. Despite the existence of territory and privileged use among the herders, others can access pastures by joint grazing with the privileged users. Joint grazing is decided by negotiations among the herders concerned. Furthermore, use-rights can be passed on when vacant territories appear due to the retirement of privileged users. Such succession is not restricted to kin or affinal relations.
The main feature of the herders’ social relationships is flexibility. There are no permanent groups. The forms and memberships of grazing camps change over time. Such a process makes it possible for herders’ social positions to change in the long run. It is possible for a hired herder to become the owner and succeed to the usu-right under certain conditions.

Key Words: transhumance, owners, hired shepherds, territories, joint grazing