A history of the Japanese people
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Title: A history of the Japanese people
from the earliest times to the end of the Meiji era
Author: F. Brinkley
Dairoku Kikuchi
Release date: December 23, 2008 [eBook #27604]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27604
Credits: E-text prepared by Geoffrey Berg from digital material generously made available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE ***
E-text prepared by Geoffrey Berg from digital material generously made
available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org)
Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
http://www.archive.org/details/historyofjapanes00briniala
A HISTORY OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE
From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era
by
CAPT. F. BRINKLEY, R. A.
Editor of the "Japan Mail"
With the Collaboration of BARON KIKUCHI
Former President of the Imperial University at Kyoto
With 150 Illustrations Engraved on Wood by Japanese Artists;
Half-Tone Plates, and Maps
DEDICATED BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION TO HIS MAJESTY MEIJI TENNO, THE LATE
EMPEROR OF JAPAN
FOREWORD
It is trite to remark that if you wish to know really any people, it
is necessary to have a thorough knowledge of their history, including
their mythology, legends and folk-lore: customs, habits and traits of
character, which to a superficial observer of a different nationality
or race may seem odd and strange, sometimes even utterly subversive
of ordinary ideas of morality, but which can be explained and will
appear quite reasonable when they are traced back to their origin.
The sudden rise of the Japanese nation from an insignificant position
to a foremost rank in the comity of nations has startled the world.
Except in the case of very few who had studied us intimately, we were
a people but little raised above barbarism trying to imitate Western
civilisation without any capacity for really assimilating or adapting
it. At first, it was supposed that we had somehow undergone a sudden
transformation, but it was gradually perceived that such could not be
and was not the case; and a crop of books on Japan and the Japanese,
deep and superficial, serious and fantastic, interesting and
otherwise, has been put forth for the benefit of those who were
curious to know the reason of this strange phenomenon. But among so
many books, there has not yet been, so far as I know, a history of
Japan, although a study of its history was most essential for the
proper understanding of many of the problems relating to the Japanese
people, such as the relation of the Imperial dynasty to the people,
the family system, the position of Buddhism, the influence of the
Chinese philosophy, etc. A history of Japan of moderate size has
indeed long been a desideratum; that it was not forthcoming was no
doubt due to the want of a proper person to undertake such a work.
Now just the right man has been found in the author of the present
work, who, an Englishman by birth, is almost Japanese in his
understanding of, and sympathy with, the Japanese people. It would
indeed be difficult to find any one better fitted for the task--by no
means an easy one--of presenting the general features of Japanese
history to Western readers, in a compact and intelligible form, and
at the same time in general harmony with the Japanese feeling. The
Western public and Japan are alike to be congratulated on the
production of the present work. I may say this without any fear of
reproach for self-praise, for although my name is mentioned in the
title-page, my share is very slight, consisting merely in general
advice and in a few suggestions on some special points.
DAIROKU KIKUCHI.
KYOTO, 1912.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
During the past three decades Japanese students have devoted much
intelligent labour to collecting and collating the somewhat
disjointed fragments of their country's history. The task would have
been practically impossible for foreign historiographers alone, but
now that the materials have been brought to light there is no
insuperable difficulty in making them available for purposes of joint
interpretation. That is all I have attempted to do in these pages,
and I beg to solicit pardon for any defect they may be found to
contain.
F. BRINKLEY.
TOKYO, 1912.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. The Historiographer's Art in Old Japan
II. Japanese Mythology
III. Japanese Mythology (Continued)
IV. Rationalization
V. Origin of the Japanese Nation: Historical Evidences
VI. Origin of the Nation: Geographical and Archaeological
Relics
VII. Language and Physical Characteristics
VIII. Manners and Customs in Remote Antiquity
IX. The Prehistoric Sovereigns
X. The Prehistoric Sovereigns (Continued)
XI. The Prehistoric Sovereigns (Continued)
XII. The Protohistoric Sovereigns
XIII. The Protohistoric Sovereigns (Continued)
XIV. From the 29th to the 35th Sovereign
XV. The Daika Reforms
XVI. The Daiho Laws and the Yoro Laws
XVII. The Nara Epoch
XVIII. The Heian Epoch
XIX. The Heian Epoch (Continued)
XX. The Heian Epoch (Continued)
XXI. The Capital and the Provinces
XXII. Recovery of Administrative Authority by the Throne
XXIII. Manners and Customs of the Heian Epoch
XXIV. The Epoch of the Gen (Minamoto) and the Hei (Taira)
XXV. The Epoch of the Gen and the Hei (Continued)
XXVI. The Kamakura Bakufu
XXVII. The Hojo
XXVIII. Art, Religion, Literature, Customs, and Commerce in the
Kamakura Period
XXIX. Fall of the Hojo and Rise of the Ashikaga
XXX. The War of the Dynasties
XXXI. The Fall of the Ashikaga
XXXII. Foreign Intercourse, Literature, Art, Religion, Manners,
and Customs in the Muromachi Epoch
XXXIII. The Epoch of Wars (Sengoku Jidai)
XXXIV. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu
XXXV. The Invasion of Korea
XXXVI. The Momo-Yama Epoch
XXXVII. Christianity in Japan
XXXVIII. The Tokugawa Shogunate
XXXIX. First Period of the Tokugawa Bakufu; from the First
Tokugawa Shogun, Ieyasu, to the Fourth, Ietsuna
(1603-1680)
XL. Middle Period of the Tokugawa Bakufu; from the Fifth
Shogun, Tsunayoshi, to the Tenth Shogun, Ieharu
(1680-1786)
XLI. The Late Period of the Tokugawa Bakufu. The Eleventh
Shogun,Ienari (1786-1838)
XLII. Organization, Central and Local; Currency and the
Laws of the Tokugawa Bakufu
XLIII. Revival of the Shinto Cult
XLIV. Foreign Relations and the Decline of the Tokugawa
XLV. Foreign Relations and the Decline of the Tokugawa (Continued)
XLVI. The Meiji Government
XLVII. Wars with China and Russia
APPENDIX
1. Constitution of Japan, 1889
2. Anglo-Japanese Agreement, 1905
3. Treaty of Portsmouth, 1905
INDEX
HISTORICAL MAPS
Japan about 1337: Northern and Southern Courts
Japan in Era of Wars, 1577: Distribution of Fiefs
Japan in 1615: Feudatories
Japan, Korea and the Mainland of Asia
FULL PAGE HALF-TONES
Capt. F. Brinkley, R. A.
The Emperor Jimmu
The Shrine of Ise
Prehistoric Remains: Plate A
Prehistoric Remains: Plate B
Prince Shotoku
Kaigen Ceremony of the Nara Daibutsu
Thirty-six Versifiers (Painting by Korin)
Cherry-Viewing Festival at Mukojima
Kamakura Daibutsu
Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion)
Court Costumes
Tokugawa Shrine at Nikko
The Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito)
Sinking of the Russian Battleship Osliabya
Admiral Togo
WORKS CONSULTED
ENGRAVING: MT. FUJI SEEN FROM THE FUJI-GAWA
CHAPTER I
THE HISTORIOGRAPHER'S ART IN OLD JAPAN
MATERIALS FOR HISTORY
IN the earliest eras of historic Japan there existed a hereditary
corporation of raconteurs (Katari-be) who, from generation to
generation, performed the function of reciting the exploits of the
sovereigns and the deeds of heroes. They accompanied themselves on
musical instruments, and naturally, as time went by, each set of
raconteurs embellished the language of their predecessors, adding
supernatural elements, and introducing details which belonged to the
realm of romance rather than to that of ordinary history. These
Katari-be would seem to have been the sole repository of their
country's annals until the sixth century of the Christian era. Their
repertories of recitation included records of the great families as
well as of the sovereigns, and it is easy to conceive that the favour
and patronage of these high personages were earned by ornamenting the
traditions of their households and exalting their pedigrees. But when
the art of writing was introduced towards the close of the fourth
century, or at the beginning of the fifth, and it was seen that in
China, then the centre of learning and civilization, the art had been
applied to the compilation of a national history as well as of other
volumes possessing great ethical value, the Japanese conceived the
ambition of similarly utilizing their new attainment. For reasons
which will be understood by and by, the application of the
ideographic script to the language of Japan was a task of immense
difficulty, and long years must have passed before the attainment of
any degree of proficiency.
Thus it was not until the time of the Empress Suiko (593-628) that
the historical project took practical shape. Her Majesty, at the
instance, doubtless, of Prince Shotoku, one of the greatest names in
all Japan's annals, instructed the prince himself and her chief
minister, Soga no Umako, to undertake the task of compiling
historical documents, and there resulted a Record of the Emperors
(Tennoki), a Record of the Country (Koki), and Original Records
(Hongi) of the Free People (i.e., the Japanese proper as
distinguished from aliens, captives, and aborigines), of the great
families and of the 180 Hereditary Corporations (Be). This work was
commenced in the year 620, but nothing is known as to the date of its
completion. It represents the first Japanese history. A shortlived
compilation it proved, for in the year 645, the Soga chiefs,
custodians of the documents, threw them into the fire on the eve of
their own execution for treason. One only, the Record of the Country,
was plucked from the flames, and is believed to have been
subsequently incorporated in the Kojiki '(Records of Ancient
Things).' No immediate attempt seems to have been made to remedy the
loss of these invaluable writings. Thirty-seven years later the
Emperor Temmu took the matter in hand. One of his reasons for doing
so has been historically transmitted. Learning that "the chronicles
of the sovereigns and the original words in the possession of the
various families deviated from the truth and were largely amplified
with empty falsehoods," his Majesty conceived that unless speedy
steps were taken to correct the confusion and eliminate the errors,
an irremediable state of affairs would result.
Such a preface prepares us to learn that a body of experts was
appointed to distinguish the true and the false, and to set down the
former alone. The Emperor did, in fact, commission a number of
princes and officials to compile an authentic history, and we shall
presently see how their labours resulted. But in the first place a
special feature of the situation has to be noted. The Japanese
language was then undergoing a transition. In order to fit it to the
Chinese ideographs for literary purposes, it was being deprived of
its mellifluous polysyllabic character and reduced to monosyllabic
terseness. The older words were disappearing, and with them many of
the old traditions. Temmu saw that if the work of compilation was
abandoned solely to princely and official littérateurs, they would
probably sacrifice on the altar of the ideograph much that was
venerable and worthy to be preserved. He therefore himself undertook
the collateral task of having the antique traditions collected and
expurgated, and causing them to be memorized by a chamberlain, Hiyeda
no Are, a man then in his twenty-eighth year, who was gifted with
ability to repeat accurately everything heard once by him. Are's mind
was soon stored with a mass of ancient facts and obsolescent
phraseology, but before either the task of official compilation or
that of private restoration had been carried to completion the
Emperor died (686), and an interval of twenty-five years elapsed
before the Empress Gemmyo, on the 18th of September, 711, ordered a
scholar, Ono Yasumaro, to transcribe the records stored in Are's
memory. Four months sufficed for the work, and on the 28th of
January, 712, Yasumaro submitted to the Throne the Kojiki (Records of
Ancient Things) which ranked as the first history of Japan, and which
will be here referred to as the Records.
THE NIHONGI AND THE NIHON SHOKI
It is necessary to revert now to the unfinished work of the classical
compilers, as they may be called, whom the Emperor Temmu nominated in
682, but whose labours had not been concluded when his Majesty died
in 686. There is no evidence that their task was immediately
continued in an organized form, but it is related that during the
reign of Empress Jito (690-696) further steps were taken to collect
historical materials, and that the Empress Gemmyo (708-715)--whom we
have seen carrying out, in 712, her predecessor Temmu's plan with
regard to Hiyeda no Are--added, in 714, two skilled littérateurs to
Temmu's classical compilers, and thus enabled them to complete their
task, which took the shape of a book called the Nihongi (Chronicle of
Japan).
This work, however, did not prove altogether satisfactory. It was
written, for the most part, with a script called the Manyo syllabary;
that is to say, with Chinese ideographs employed phonetically, and it
did not at all attain the literary standard of its Chinese prototype.
Therefore, the Empress entrusted to Prince Toneri and Ono Yasumaro
the task of revising it, and their amended manuscript, concluded in
720, received the name of Nihon Shoki (Written Chronicles of Japan),
the original being distinguished as Kana Nihongi, or Syllabic
Chronicles. The Nihon Shoki consisted originally of thirty-one
volumes, but of these one, containing the genealogies of the
sovereigns, has been lost. It covers the whole of the prehistoric
period and that part of the historic which extends from the accession
of the Emperor Jimmu (660 B.C.) to the abdication of the Empress Jito
(A.D. 697). The Kojiki extends back equally far, but terminates at
the death of the Empress Suiko (A.D. 628).
THE FUDOKI
In the year 713, when the Empress Gemmyo was on the throne, all the
provinces of the empire received orders to submit to the Court
statements setting forth the natural features of the various
localities, together with traditions and remarkable occurrences.
These documents were called Fudoki (Records of Natural Features).
Many of them have been lost, but a few survive, as those of Izumo,
Harima, and Hitachi.
CHARACTER OF THE RECORDS AND THE CHRONICLES
The task of applying ideographic script to phonetic purposes is
exceedingly difficult. In the ideographic script each character has a
distinct sound and a complete meaning. Thus, in China shan signifies
"mountain," and ming "light." But in Japanese "mountain" becomes yama
and "light" akari. It is evident, then, that one of two things has to
be done. Either the sounds of the Japanese words must be changed to
those of the Chinese ideographs; or the sounds of the Chinese
ideographs must alone be taken (irrespective of their meaning), and
with them a phonetic syllabary must be formed. Both of these devices
were employed by a Japanese scholar of early times. Sometimes
disregarding the significance of the ideographs altogether, he used
them simply as representing sounds, and with them built up pure
Japanese words; at other times, he altered the sounds of Japanese
words to those of their Chinese equivalents and then wrote them
frankly with their ideographic symbols.
In this way each Japanese word came to have two pronunciations:
first, its own original sound for colloquial purposes; and second,
its borrowed sound for purposes of writing. At the outset the spoken
and the written languages were doubtless kept tolerably distinct. But
by degrees, as respect for Chinese literature developed, it became a
learned accomplishment to pronounce Japanese words after the Chinese
manner, and the habit ultimately acquired such a vogue that the
language of men--who wrote and spoke ideographically--grew to be
different from the language of women--who wrote and spoke
phonetically. When Hiyeda no Are was required to memorize the annals
and traditions collected and revised at the Imperial Court, the
language in which he committed them to heart was pure Japanese, and
in that language he dictated them, twenty-nine years later, to the
scribe Yasumaro. The latter, in setting down the products of Are's
memory, wrote for the most part phonetically; but sometimes, finding
that method too cumbersome, he had recourse to the ideographic
language, with which he was familiar. At all events, adding nothing
nor taking away anything, he produced a truthful record of the myths,
traditions, and salient historical incidents credited by the Japanese
of the seventh century.
It may well be supposed, nevertheless, that Are's memory, however
tenacious, failed in many respects, and that his historical details
were comparatively meagre. An altogether different spirit presided at
the work subsequently undertaken by this same Yasumaro, when, in
conjunction with other scholars, he was required to collate the
historical materials obtained abundantly from various sources since
the vandalism of the Soga nobles. The prime object of these
collaborators was to produce a Japanese history worthy to stand side
by side with the classic models of China. Therefore, they used the
Chinese language almost entirely, the chief exception being in the
case of the old poems, a great number of which appear in the Records
and the Chronicles alike. The actual words of these poems had to be
preserved as well as the metre, and therefore it was necessary to
indite them phonetically. For the rest, the Nihon Shoki, which
resulted from the labours of these annalists and literati, was so
Chinese that its authors did not hesitate to draw largely upon the
cosmogonic myths of the Middle Kingdom, and to put into the mouths of
Japanese monarchs, or into their decrees, quotations from Chinese
literature. "As a repertory of ancient Japanese myth and legend there
is little to choose between the Records and the Chronicles. The
former is, on the whole, the fuller of the two, and contains legends
which the latter passes over in silence; but the Chronicles, as we
now have them, are enriched by variants of the early myths, the value
of which, for purposes of comparison, is recognized by scientific
inquirers. But there can be no comparison between the two works when
viewed as history. Hiyeda no Are's memory cannot be expected to
compete in fullness and accuracy with the abundant documentary
literature accessible to the writers of the Chronicles, and an
examination of the two works shows that, in respect to the record of
actual events, the Chronicles are far the more useful authority".*
*Aston's Nihongi.
It will readily be supposed, too, that the authors of both works
confused the present with the past, and, in describing the manners
and customs of by-gone eras, unconsciously limned their pictures with
colours taken from the palette of their own times, "when the national
thought and institutions had become deeply modified by Chinese
influences." Valuable as the two books are, therefore, they cannot be
accepted without large limitations. The Nihon Shoki occupied a high
place in national esteem from the outset. In the year following its
compilation, the Empress Gensho summoned eminent scholars to the
Court and caused them to deliver lectures on the contents of the
book, a custom which was followed regularly by subsequent sovereigns
and still finds a place among the New Year ceremonials. This book
proved to be the precursor of five others with which it is commonly
associated by Japanese scholars. They are the Zoku Nihongi
(Supplementary Chronicles of Japan), in forty volumes, which covers
the period from 697 to 791 and was finished in 798; the Nihon Koki
(Later Chronicles of Japan), in forty volumes--ten only
survive--which covers the period from 792 to 833; the Zoku Nihon Koki
(Supplementary Later Chronicles), in twenty volumes, which covers the
single reign of the Emperor Nimmyo (834-850) and was compiled in 869;
the Montoku Jitsu-roku (True Annals of Montoku), in ten volumes,
covering the reign of Montoku (851-858), and compiled in 879, and the
Sandai Jitsu-roku (True Annals of Three Reigns) in fifty volumes,
covering the period from 859 to 887 and compiled in 901. These five
compilations together with the Nihon Shoki are honoured as the Six
National Histories. It is noticeable that the writers were men of the
highest rank, from prime ministers downwards. In such honour was the
historiographer's art held in Japan in the eighth and ninth
centuries.
CHRONOLOGY
Before beginning to read Japanese history it is necessary to know
something of the chronology followed in its pages. There have been in
Japan four systems for counting the passage of time. The first is by
the reigns of the Emperors. That is to say, the first year of a
sovereign's reign--reckoning from the New Year's day following his
accession--became the 1 of the series, and the years were thenceforth
numbered consecutively until his death or abdication. This method
might be sufficiently accurate if the exact duration of each reign
were known as well as the exact sequence of the reigns. But no such
precision could be expected in the case of unwritten history,
transmitted orally from generation to generation. Thus, while
Japanese annalists, by accepting the aggregate duration of all the
reigns known to them, arrive at the conclusion that the first
Emperor, Jimmu, ascended the throne in the year 660 B.C., it is found
on analysis that their figures assign to the first seventeen
sovereigns an average age of 109 years.
The second system was by means of periods deriving their name (nengo)
from some remarkable incident. Thus, the discovery of copper in Japan
was commemorated by calling the year Wado (Japanese copper), and the
era so called lasted seven years. Such a plan was even more liable to
error than the device of reckoning by reigns, and a specially
confusing feature was that the first year of the period dated
retrospectively from the previous New Year's day, so that events were
often recorded as having occurred in the final year of one period and
in the opening year of another. This system was originally imported
from China in the year A.D. 645, and is at present in use, the year
1910 being the forty-third of the Meiji (Enlightenment and Peace)
period.
The third system was that of the sexagenary cycle. This was operated
after the manner of a clock having two concentric dials, the
circumference of the larger dial being divided into ten equal parts,
each marked with one of the ten "celestial signs," and the
circumference of the smaller dial being divided into twelve equal
parts each marked with one of the twelve signs of the zodiac. The
long hand of the clock, pointing to the larger dial, was supposed to
make one revolution in ten years, and the shorter hand, pointing to
the small dial, revolved once in twelve years. Thus, starting from
the point where the marks on the two dials coincide, the long hand
gained upon the short hand by one-sixtieth each year, and once in
every sixty years the two hands were found at the point of
conjunction. Years were indicated by naming the "celestial stem" and
the zodiacal sign to which the imaginary hands happen to be pointing,
just as clock-time is indicated by the minutes read from the long
hand and the hours from the short. The sexagenary cycle came into use
in China in 623 B.C. The exact date of its importation into Japan is
unknown, but it was probably about the end of the fourth century A.D.
It is a sufficiently accurate manner of counting so long as the tale
of cycles is carefully kept, but any neglect in that respect exposes
the calculator to an error of sixty years or some multiple of sixty.
Keen scrutiny and collation of the histories of China, Korea, and
Japan have exposed a mistake of at least 120 years connected with the
earliest employment of the sexagenary cycle in Japan.
The fourth method corresponds to that adopted in Europe where the
number of a year is referred to the birth of Christ. In Japan, the
accession of the Emperor Jimmu--660 B.C.--is taken for a basis, and
thus the Occidental year 1910 becomes the 2570th year of the Japanese
dynasty. With such methods of reckoning some collateral evidence is
needed before accepting any of the dates given in Japanese annals.
Kaempfer and even Rein were content to endorse the chronology of the
Chronicles--the Records avoid dates altogether--but other Occidental
scholars* have with justice been more sceptical, and their doubts
have been confirmed by several eminent Japanese historians in recent
times. Where, then, is collateral evidence to be found?
*Notably Bramsen, Aston, Satow, and Chamberlain.
In the pages of Chinese and Korean history. There is, of course, no
inherent reason for attributing to Korean history accuracy superior
to that of Japanese history. But in China the habit of continuously
compiling written annals had been practised for many centuries before
Japanese events began even to furnish materials for romantic
recitations, and no serious errors have been proved against Chinese
historiographers during the periods when comparison with Japanese
annals is feasible. In Korea's case, too, verification is partially
possible. Thus, during the first five centuries of the Christian era,
Chinese annals contain sixteen notices of events in Korea. If Korean
history be examined as to these events, it is found to agree in ten
instances, to disagree in two, and to be silent in four.* This record
tends strongly to confirm the accuracy of the Korean annals, and it
is further to be remembered that the Korean peninsula was divided
during many centuries into three principalities whose records serve
as mutual checks. Finally, Korean historians do not make any such
demand upon our credulity as the Japanese do in the matter of length
of sovereigns' reigns. For example, while the number of successions
to the throne of Japan during the first four centuries of the
Christian era is set down as seven only, making fifty-six years the
average duration of a reign, the corresponding numbers for the three
Korean principalities are sixteen, seventeen, and sixteen,
respectively, making the average length of a reign from twenty-four
to twenty-five years. It is, indeed, a very remarkable fact that
whereas the average age of the first seventeen Emperors of Japan, who
are supposed to have reigned from 660 B.C. down to A.D. 399, was 109
years, this incredible habit of longevity ceased abruptly from the
beginning of the fifth century, the average age of the next seventeen
having been only sixty-one and a half years; and it is a most
suggestive coincidence that the year A.D. 461 is the first date of
the accepted Japanese chronology which is confirmed by Korean
authorities.
*Aston's essay on Early Japanese History
In fact, the conclusion is almost compulsory that Japanese authentic
history, so far as dates are concerned, begins from the fifth
century. Chinese annals, it is true, furnish one noteworthy and much
earlier confirmation of Japanese records. They show that Japan was
ruled by a very renowned queen during the first half of the third
century of the Christian era, and it was precisely at that epoch that
the Empress Jingo is related by Japanese history to have made herself
celebrated at home and abroad. Chinese historiographers, however, put
Jingo's death in the year A.D. 247, whereas Japanese annalists give
the date as 269. Indeed there is reason to think that just at this
time--second half of the third century--some special causes operated
to disturb historical coherence in Japan, for not only does Chinese
history refer to several signal events in Japan which find no place
in the latter's records, but also Korean history indicates that the
Japanese dates of certain cardinal incidents err by exactly 120
years. Two cycles in the sexagenary system of reckoning constitute
120 years, and the explanation already given makes it easy to
conceive the dropping of that length of time by recorders having only
tradition to guide them.
On the whole, whatever may be said as to the events of early Japanese
history, its dates can not be considered trustworthy before the
beginning of the fifth century. There is evidently one other point to
be considered in this context; namely, the introduction of writing.
Should it appear that the time when the Japanese first began to
possess written records coincides with the time when, according to
independent research, the dates given in their annals begin to
synchronize with those of Chinese and Korean history, another very
important landmark will be furnished. There, is such synchronism, but
it is obtained at the cost of considerations which cannot be lightly
dismissed. For, although it is pretty clearly established that an
event which occured at the beginning of the fifth century preluded
the general study of the Chinese language in Japan and may not
unreasonably be supposed to have led to the use of the Chinese script
in compiling historical records, still it is even more clearly
established that from a much remoter era Japan had been on terms of
some intimacy with her neighbours, China and Korea, and had exchanged
written communications with them, so that the art of writing was
assuredly known to her long before the fifth century of the Christian
era, to whatever services she applied it. This subject will present
itself again for examination in more convenient circumstances.
ENGRAVING: YUKIMIDORO (Style of Stone Lantern used in Japanese
Gardens)
ENGRAVING: "YATSUHASHI" STYLE OF GARDEN BRIDGE
CHAPTER II
JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY
KAMI
THE mythological page of a country's history has an interest of its
own apart from legendary relations; it affords indications of the
people's creeds and furnishes traces of the nation's genesis. In
Japan's mythology there is a special difficulty for the
interpreter--a difficulty of nomenclature. It has been the constant
habit of foreign writers of Japan's story to speak of an "Age of
Gods" (Kami no yo). But the Japanese word Kami* does not necessarily
convey any such meaning. It has no divine import. We shall presently
find that of the hundreds of families into which Japanese society
came to be divided, each had its Kami, and that he was nothing more
than the head of the household. Fifty years ago, the Government was
commonly spoken of as O Kami (the Honourable Head), and a feudatory
frequently had the title of Kami of such and such a locality. Thus to
translate Kami by "deity" or "god" is misleading, and as the English
language furnishes no exact equivalent, the best plan is to adhere to
the original expression. That plan is adopted in the following brief
summary of Japanese mythology.
*Much stress is laid upon the point by that most accurate scholar,
Mr. B. H. Chamberlain.
COSMOGONY
Japanese mythology opens at the beginning of "the heaven and the
earth." But it makes no attempt to account for the origin of things.
It introduces us at once to a "plain of high heaven," the dwelling
place of these invisible* Kami, one of whom is the great central
being, and the other two derive their titles from their productive
attributes. But as to what they produced or how they produced it, no
special indication is given. Thereafter two more Kami are born from
an elementary reedlike substance that sprouts on an inchoate earth.
This is the first reference to organic matter. The two newly born
Kami are invisible like their predecessors, and like them are not
represented as taking any part in the creation. They are solitary,
unseeable, and functionless, but the evident idea is that they have a
more intimate connexion with cosmos than the Kami who came previously
into existence, for one of them is named after the reed-shoot from
which he emanated, and to the other is attributed the property of
standing eternally in the heavens.
*The expression here translated "invisible" has been interpreted in
the sense that the Kami "hid their persons," i.e., died, but the true
meaning seems to be that they were invisible.
Up to this point there has not been any suggestion of measuring time.
But now the record begins to speak of "generations." Two more
solitary and invisible beings are born, one called the Kami who
stands eternally on earth, the other the "abundant integrator." Each
of these represents a generation, and it will be observed that up to
this time no direct mention whatever is made of sex. Now, however,
five generations ensue, each consisting of two Kami, a male and a
female, and thus the epithet "solitary" as applied to the first seven
Kami becomes intelligible. All these generations are represented as
gradually approximating to the exercise of creative functions, for
the names* become more and more suggestive of earthly relations. The
last couple, forming the fifth generation, are Izanagi and Izanami,
appellations signifying the male Kami of desire and the female Kami
of desire. By all the other Kami these two are commissioned to "make,
consolidate, and give birth to the drifting land," a jewelled spear
being given to them as a token of authority, and a floating bridge
being provided to carry them to earth. Izanagi and Izanami thrust the
spear downwards and stir the "brine" beneath, with the result that it
coagulates, and, dropping from the spear's point, forms the first of
the Japanese islands, Onogoro. This island they take as the basis of
their future operations, and here they beget, by ordinary human
processes--which are described without any reservations--first, "a
great number of islands, and next, a great number of Kami." It is
related that the first effort of procreation was not successful, the
outcome being a leechlike abortion and an island of foam, the former
of which was sent adrift in a boat of reeds. The islands afterwards
created form a large part of Japan, but between these islands and the
Kami, begotten in succession to them, no connexion is traceable. In
several cases the names of the Kami seem to be personifications of
natural objects. Thus we have the Kami of the "wind's breath," of the
sea, of the rivers, of the "water-gates" (estuaries and ports), of
autumn, of "foam-calm," of "bubbling waves," of "water-divisions," of
trees, of mountains, of moors, of valleys, etc. But with very rare
exceptions, all these Kami have no subsequent share in the scheme of
things and cannot be regarded as evidence that the Japanese were
nature worshippers.
*The Kami of mud-earth; the Kami of germ-integration; the Kami of the
great place; the Kami of the perfect exterior, etc.
A change of method is now noticeable. Hitherto the process of
production has been creative; henceforth the method is transformation
preceded by destruction. Izanami dies in giving birth to the Kami of
fire, and her body is disintegrated into several beings, as the male
and female Kami of metal mountains, the male and female Kami of
viscid clay, the female Kami of abundant food, and the Kami of youth;
while from the tears of Izanagi as he laments her decease is born the
female Kami of lamentation. Izanagi then turns upon the child, the
Kami of fire, which has cost Izanami her life, and cuts off its head;
whereupon are born from the blood that stains his sword and spatters
the rocks eight Kami, whose names are all suggestive of the violence
that called them into existence. An equal number of Kami, all having
sway over mountains, are born from the head and body of the
slaughtered child.
At this point an interesting episode is recorded. Izanagi visits the
"land of night," with the hope of recovering his spouse.* He urges
her to return, as the work in which they were engaged is not yet
completed. She replies that, unhappily having already eaten within
the portals of the land of night, she may not emerge without the
permission of the Kami** of the underworld, and she conjures him,
while she is seeking that permission, not to attempt to look on her
face. He, however, weary of waiting, breaks off one of the large
teeth of the comb that holds his hair*** and, lighting it, uses it as
a torch. He finds Izanami's body in a state of putrefaction, and amid
the decaying remains eight Kami of thunder have been born and are
dwelling. Izanagi, horrified, turns and flees, but Izanami, enraged
that she has been "put to shame," sends the "hideous hag of hades" to
pursue him. He obtains respite twice; first by throwing down his
head-dress, which is converted into grapes, and then casting away his
comb, which is transformed into bamboo sprouts, and while the hag
stops to eat these delicacies, he flees. Then Izanami sends in his
pursuit the eight Kami of thunder with fifteen hundred warriors of
the underworld.**** He holds them off for a time by brandishing his
sword behind him, and finally, on reaching the pass from the nether
to the upper world, he finds three peaches growing there with which
he pelts his pursuers and drives them back. The peaches are rewarded
with the title of "divine fruit," and entrusted with the duty of
thereafter helping all living people***** in the central land of
"reed plains"****** as they have helped Izanagi.
*It is unnecessary to comment upon the identity of this incident with
the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.
**It will be observed that we hear of these Kami now for the first
time.
***This is an obvious example of a charge often preferred against the
compilers of the Records that they inferred the manners and customs
of remote antiquity from those of their own time.
****Again we have here evidence that the story of creation, as told
in the Records, is not supposed to be complete. It says nothing as to
how the denizens of the underworld came into existence.
*****The first mention of human beings.
******This epithet is given to Japan.
This curious legend does not end here. Finding that the hag of hades,
the eight Kami of thunder, and the fifteen hundred warriors have all
been repulsed, Izanami herself goes in pursuit. But her way is
blocked by a huge rock which Izanagi places in the "even pass of
hades," and from the confines of the two worlds the angry pair
exchange messages of final separation, she threatening to kill a
thousand folk daily in his land if he repeats his acts of violence,
and he declaring that, in such event, he will retaliate by causing
fifteen hundred to be born.
In all this, no mention whatever is found of the manner in which
human beings come into existence: they make their appearance upon the
scene as though they were a primeval part of it. Izanagi, whose
return to the upper world takes place in southwestern Japan,* now
cleanses himself from the pollution he has incurred by contact with
the dead, and thus inaugurates the rite of purification practised to
this day in Japan. The Records describe minutely the process of his
unrobing before entering a river, and we learn incidentally that he
wore a girdle, a skirt, an upper garment, trousers, a hat, bracelets
on each arm, and a necklace, but no mention is made of footgear.
Twelve Kami are born from these various articles as he discards them,
but without exception these additions to Japanese mythology seem to
have nothing to do with the scheme of the universe: their titles
appear to be wholly capricious, and apart from figuring once upon the
pages of the Records they have no claim to notice. The same may be
said of eleven among fourteen Kami thereafter born from the pollution
which Izanagi washes off in a river.
*At Himuka in Kyushu, then called Tsukushi.
But the last three of these newly created beings act a prominent part
in the sequel of the story. They are the "heaven-shining Kami"
(Amaterasu-o-mi-Kami), commonly spoken of as the "goddess of the
Sun;" the Kami of the Moon, and the Kami of force.* Izanagi expresses
much satisfaction at the begetting of these three. He hands his
necklace to the Kami of the Sun and commissions her to rule the
"plain of heaven;" he confers upon the Kami of the Moon the dominion
of night, and he appoints the Kami of force (Susanoo) to rule the
sea-plain. The Kami of the Sun and the Kami of the Moon proceed at
once to their appointed task, but the Kami of force, though of mature
age and wearing a long beard, neglects his duty and falls to weeping,
wailing, and fuming. Izanagi inquires the cause of his discontent,
and the disobedient Kami replies that he prefers death to the office
assigned him; whereupon he is forbidden to dwell in the same land
with Izanagi and has to make his abode in Omi province. Then he forms
the idea of visiting the "plain of high heaven" to bid farewell to
his sister, the goddess of the Sun.
*Mr. Chamberlain translates the title of this Kami "brave, swift,
impetuous, male, augustness."
But his journey is attended with such a shaking of mountains and
seething of rivers that the goddess, informed of his recalcitrancy
and distrusting his purpose, makes preparations to receive him in
warlike guise, by dressing her hair in male fashion (i.e. binding it
into knots), by tying up her skirt into the shape of trousers, by
winding a string of five hundred curved jewels round her head and
wrists, by slinging on her back two quivers containing a thousand
arrows and five hundred arrows respectively, by drawing a guard on
her left forearm, and by providing herself with a bow and a sword.
The Records and the Chronicles agree in ascribing to her such an
exercise of resolute force that she stamps her feet into the ground
as though it had been soft snow and scatters the earth about.
Susanoo, however, disavows all evil intentions, and agrees to prove
his sincerity by taking an oath and engaging in a Kami-producing
competition, the condition being that if his offspring be female, the
fact shall bear condemnatory import, but if male, the verdict shall
be in his favour. For the purpose of this trial, they stand on
opposite sides of a river (the Milky Way). Susanoo hands his sword to
Amaterasu-o-mi-Kami, who breaks it into three pieces, chews the
fragments, and blowing them from her mouth, produces three female
Kami. She then lends her string of five hundred jewels to Susanoo
and, he, in turn, crunches them in his mouth and blows out the
fragments which are transformed into five male Kami. The beings thus
strangely produced have comparatively close connexions with the
mundane scheme, for the three female Kami--euphoniously designated
Kami of the torrent mist, Kami of the beautiful island, and Kami of
the cascade--become tutelary goddesses of the shrines in Chikuzen
province (or the sacred island Itsuku-shima), and two of the male
Kami become ancestors of seven and twelve families, respectively, of
hereditary nobles.
On the "high plain of heaven," however, trouble is not allayed. The
Sun goddess judges that since female Kami were produced from the
fragments of Susanoo's sword and male Kami from her own string of
jewels, the test which he himself proposed has resulted in his
conviction; but he, repudiating that verdict, proceeds to break down
the divisions of the rice-fields laid out by the goddess, to fill up
the ditches, and to defile the palace--details which suggest either
that, according to Japanese tradition, heaven has its agriculture and
architecture just as earth has, or that the "plain of high heaven"
was really the name of a place in the Far East. The Sun goddess makes
various excuses for her brother's lawless conduct, but he is not to
be placated. His next exploit is to flay a piebald horse and throw it
through a hole which he breaks in the roof of the hall where the
goddess is weaving garments for the Kami. In the alarm thus created,
the goddess* is wounded by her shuttle, whereupon she retires into a
cave and places a rock at the entrance, so that darkness falls upon
the "plain of high heaven" and upon the islands of Japan,** to the
consternation of the Kami of evil, whose voices are heard like the
buzzing of swarms of flies.
*According to the Records, it is the attendants of the goddess that
suffer injury.
**Referring to this episode, Aston writes in his Nihongi:
"Amaterasu-o-mi-Kami is throughout the greater part of this narrative
an anthropomorphic deity, with little that is specially
characteristic of her solar functions. Here, however, it is plainly
the sun itself which witholds its light and leaves the world to
darkness. This inconsistency, which has greatly exercised the native
theologians, is not peculiar to Japanese myth."
Then follows a scene perhaps the most celebrated in all the
mythological legends; a scene which was the origin of the sacred
dance in Japan and which furnished to artists in later ages a
frequent motive. The "eight hundred myriads" of Kami--so numerous
have the denizens of the "plain of high heaven" unaccountably
become--assemble in the bed of the "tranquil river"* to confer about
a means of enticing the goddess from her retirement. They entrust the
duty of forming a plan to the Kami of "thought combination," now
heard of for the first time as a son of one of the two producing
Kami, who, with the "great central" Kami, constituted the original
trinity of heavenly denizens. This deity gathers together a number of
barn-yard fowl to signal sunrise, places the Kami of the "strong arm"
at the entrance of the cave into which the goddess has retired,
obtains iron from the "mines of heaven" and causes it to be forged
into an "eight-foot" mirror, appoints two Kami to procure from Mount
Kagu a "five-hundred branched" sakaki tree (cleyera Japonica), from
whose branches the mirror together with a "five-hundred beaded"
string of curved jewels and blue and white streamers of hempen cloth
and paper-mulberry cloth are suspended, and causes divination to be
performed with the shoulder blade of a stag.
*The Milky Way.
Then, while a grand liturgy is recited, the "heaven-startling" Kami,
having girdled herself with moss, crowned her head with a wreath of
spindle-tree leaves and gathered a bouquet of bamboo grass, mounts
upon a hollow wooden vessel and dances, stamping so that the wood
resounds and reciting the ten numerals repeatedly. Then the
"eight-hundred myriad" Kami laugh in unison, so that the "plain of
high heaven" shakes with the sound, and the Sun goddess, surprised
that such gaiety should prevail in her absence, looks out from the
cave to ascertain the cause. She is taunted by the dancer, who tells
her that a greater than she is present, and the mirror being thrust
before her, she gradually comes forward, gazing into it with
astonishment; whereupon the Kami of the "strong arm" grasps her hand
and drags her out, while two other Kami* stretch behind her a rope
made of straw, pulled up by the roots,** to prevent her return, and
sunshine once more floods the "plain of high heaven."
*These two are the ancestors of the Kami of the Nakatomi and the
Imibe hereditary corporations, who may be described as the high
priests of the indigenous cult of Japan.
**This kind of rope called shime-nawa, an abbreviation of
shiri-kume-nawa may be seen festooning the portals of any Shinto
shrine.
The details of this curious legend deserve attention for the sake of
their close relation to the observances of the Shinto cult. Moreover,
the mythology now takes a new departure. At the time of Izanagi's
return from hades, vague reference is made to human beings, but after
Susanoo's departure from the "plain of high heaven," he is
represented as holding direct converse with them. There is an
interlude which deals with the foodstuffs of mortals. Punished with a
fine of a great number of tables* of votive offerings, his beard cut
off, and the nails of his fingers and toes pulled out, Susanoo is
sentenced to expulsion from heaven. He seeks sustenance from the Kami
of food, and she responds by taking from the orifices of her body
various kinds of viands which she offers to him. But he, deeming
himself insulted, kills her, whereupon from her corpse are born rice,
millet, small and large beans, and barley. These are taken by one of
the two Kami of production, and by him they are caused to be used as
seeds.
*The offerings of food in religious services were always placed upon
small, low tables.
Thereafter Susanoo descends to a place at the headwaters of the river
Hi (Izumo province). Seeing a chop-stick float down the stream, he
infers the existence of people higher up the river, and going in
search of them, finds an old man and an old woman lamenting over and
caressing a girl. The old man says that he is an earthly Kami, son of
the Kami of mountains, who was one of the thirty-five Kami borne by
Izanami before her departure for hades. He explains that he had
originally eight daughters, but that every year an eight-forked
serpent has come from the country of Koshi and devoured one of the
maidens, so that there remains only Lady Wonderful, whose time to
share her sisters' fate is now at hand. It is a huge monster,
extending over eight valleys and eight hills, its eyes red like
winter cherries, its belly bloody and inflamed, and its back
overgrown with moss and conifers. Susanoo, having announced himself
as the brother of the Sun goddess, receives Lady Wonderful and at
once transforms her into a comb which he places in his hair. He then
instructs the old man and his wife to build a fence with eight gates,
placing in every gate a vat of rice wine.
Presently the serpent arrives, drinks the wine, and laying down its
heads to sleep, is cut to pieces by Susanoo with his ten-span sabre.
In the body of the serpent the hero finds a sword, "great and sharp,"
which he sends to the Sun goddess, at whose shrine in Ise it is
subsequently found and given to the famous warrior, Yamato-dake, when
he is setting out on his expedition against the Kumaso of the north.
The sword is known as the "Herb-queller." Susanoo then builds for
himself and Lady Wonderful a palace at Suga in Izumo, and composes a
celebrated verse of Japanese poetry.* Sixth in descent from the
offspring of this union is the "Kami of the great land," called also
the "Great-Name Possessor," or the "Kami of the reed plains," or the
"Kami of the eight thousand spears," or the "Kami of the great land
of the living," the last name being antithetical to Susanoo's title
of "Ruler of Hades."
*"Many clouds arise,
On all sides a manifold fence,
To receive within it the spouse,
They form a manifold fence
Ah! that manifold fence."
Several legends are attached to the name of this multinominal
being--legends in part romantic, in part supernatural, and in part
fabulous. His eighty brethren compel him to act as their servant when
they go to seek the hand of Princess Yakami of Inaba. But on the way
he succours a hare which they have treated brutally and the little
animal promises that he, not they, shall win the princess, though he
is only their baggage-bearer. Enraged at the favour she shows him,
they seek in various ways to destroy him: first by rolling down on
him from a mountain a heated rock; then by wedging him into the cleft
of a tree, and finally by shooting him. But he is saved by his
mother, and takes refuge in the province of Kii (the Land of Trees)
at the palace of the "Kami of the great house."* Acting on the
latter's advice, he visits his ancestor, Susanoo, who is now in
hades, and seeks counsel as to some means of overcoming his eighty
enemies. But instead of helping him, that unruly Kami endeavours to
compass his death by thrusting him into a snake-house; by putting him
into a nest of centipedes and wasps, and finally by shooting an arrow
into a moor, sending him to seek it and then setting fire to the
grass. He is saved from the first two perils through the agency of
miraculous scarves given to him by Princess Forward, Susanoo's
daughter, who has fallen in love with him; and from the last dilemma
a mouse instructs him how to emerge.
*A son of Susanoo. Under the name of Iso-Takeru he is recorded to
have brought with him a quantity of seeds of trees and shrubs, which
he planted, not in Korea, but in Tsukushi (Kyushu) and the eight
islands of Japan. These words "not in Korea" are worthy of note, as
will presently be appreciated.
A curious episode concludes this recital: Susanoo requires that the
parasites shall be removed from his head by his visitor. These
parasites are centipedes, but the Great-Name Possessor, again acting
under the instruction of Princess Forward, pretends to be removing
the centipedes, whereas he is in reality spitting out a mixture of
berries and red earth. Susanoo falls asleep during the process, and
the Great-Name Possessor binds the sleeping Kami's hair to the
rafters of the house, places a huge rock at the entrance, seizes
Susanoo's life-preserving sword and life-preserving bow and arrows as
also his sacred lute,* and taking Princess Forward on his back,
flees. The lute brushes against a tree, and its sound rouses Susanoo.
But before he can disentangle his hair from the rafters, the
fugitives reach the confines of the underworld, and the enraged Kami,
while execrating this visitor who has outwitted him, is constrained
to direct him how to overcome his brethren and to establish his rule
firmly. In all this he succeeds, and having married Princess Yakami,
to whom he was previously engaged,** he resumes the work left
unfinished by Izanagi and Izanami, the work of "making the land."
*Sacred because divine revelations were supposed to be made through a
lute-player.
**In the story of this Kami, we find the first record of conjugal
jealousy in Japan. Princess Forward strongly objects to her husband's
excursions into novel fields.
The exact import of this process, "making the land," is not
discernible. In the hands of Izanagi and Izanami it resolves itself
into begetting, first, a number of islands and, then, a number of
Kami. At the outset it seems to have no more profound significance
for the Great-Name Possessor. Several generations of Kami are
begotten by him, but their names give no indication of the parts they
are supposed to have taken in the "making of the land." They are all
born in Japan, however, and it is perhaps significant that among them
the one child--the Kami of wells--brought forth by Princess Yakami,
is not included. Princess Forward has no children, a fact which
doubtless augments her jealousy of her husband's amours; jealousy
expressed in verses that show no mean poetic skill. Thus, the
Great-Name Possessor on the eve of a journey from Izumo to Yamato,
sings as he stands with one hand on his saddle and one foot in the
stirrup:--
Though thou sayest thou willst not weep
If like the flocking birds, I flock and depart,
If like the led birds, I am led away and
Depart; thou wilt hang down thine head like
A single Eulalia upon the mountain and
Thy weeping shall indeed rise as the mist of
The morning shower.
Then the Empress, taking a wine-cup, approaches and offers it to
him, saying:
Oh! Thine Augustness, the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears!
Thou, my dear Master-of-the-Great-Land indeed,
Being a man, probably hast on the various island headlands thou
seest,
And on every beach-headland that thou lookest on,
A wife like the young herbs. But as for me, alas!
Being a woman, I have no man except thee; I have no spouse except
thee.
Beneath the fluttering of the ornamented fence,
Beneath the softness of the warm coverlet,
Beneath the rustling of the cloth coverlet,
Thine arms, white as rope of paper-mulberry bark softly patting
my breast soft as the melting snow,
And patting each other interlaced, stretching out and pillowing
ourselves on each other's arms,
True jewel arms, and with outstretched legs, will we sleep.*
*B. H. Chamberlain.
"Having thus sung, they at once pledged each other by the cup with
their hands on each other's necks." It is, nevertheless, from among
the children born on the occasion of the contest between the Sun
goddess and Susanoo that the Great-Name Possessor first seeks a
spouse--the Princess of the Torrent Mist--to lay the foundation of
fifteen generations of Kami, whose birth seems to have been essential
to the "making of the land," though their names afford no clue to the
functions discharged by them. From over sea, seated in a gourd and
wearing a robe of wren's feathers, there comes a pigmy, Sukuna
Hikona, who proves to be one of fifteen hundred children begotten by
the Kami of the original trinity. Skilled in the arts of healing
sickness and averting calamities from men or animals, this pigmy
renders invaluable aid to the Great-Name Possessor. But the useful
little Kami does not wait to witness the conclusion of the work of
"making and consolidating the country." Before its completion he
takes his departure from Cape Kumano in Izumo to the "everlasting
land"--a region commonly spoken of in ancient Japanese annals but not
yet definitely located. He is replaced by a spirit whose coming is
thus described by the Chronicles:
After this (i.e. the departure of Sukuna), wherever there was in the
land a part which was imperfect, the Great-Name Possessor visited it
by himself and succeeded in repairing it. Coming at last to the
province of Izumo, he spake and said: "This central land of reed
plains had always been waste and wild. The very rocks, trees, and
huts were all given to violence... But I have now reduced it to
submission, and there is none that is not compliant." Therefore he
said finally: "It is I, and I alone, who now govern this land. Is
there, perchance, anyone who could join with me in governing the
world?" Upon this a divine radiance illuminated the sea, and of a
sudden there was something which floated towards him and said: "Were
I not here, how couldst thou subdue this land? It is because I am
here that thou hast been enabled to accomplish this mighty
undertaking." Then the Great-Name Possessor inquired, saying, "Then
who art thou?" It replied and said: "I am thy guardian spirit, the
wonderous spirit." Then said the Great-Name Possessor: "True, I know
therefore that thou art my guardian spirit, the wonderous spirit.
Where dost thou now wish to dwell?" The spirit answered and said, "I
wish to dwell on Mount Mimoro in the province of Yamato." Accordingly
he built a shrine in that place and made the spirit go and dwell
there. This is the Kami of Omiwa.*
*Aston's Translation of the Nihongi.
After the above incident, another begetting of Kami takes place on a
large scale, but only a very few of them--such as the guardian of the
kitchen, the protector of house-entrances, the Kami of agriculture,
and so forth--have any intelligible place in the scheme of things.
ENGRAVING: CRESTS
CHAPTER III
JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY (Continued)
THE SUBJUGATION OF JAPAN
THE dividing line between mythological tradition and historical
legend is now reached. It will have been observed that, after the
descent of Susanoo, the Kami on the "plain of high heaven" took no
further part in "making" or "ruling" the "ever fruitful land of
reed-covered moors, and luxuriant rice-fields," as Japan was called.
Everything was left in the hands of Susanoo, the insubordinate Kami,
who had been expelled from heaven for his destructive violence. His
descendant in the sixth generation, the Great-Name Possessor, now
held supreme sway over the islands, in conjunction with a number of
his own relations, his seat of power being in the province of Izumo.
At this juncture the goddess of the Sun decided that a sovereign
should be sent down to govern the land of many islands, and she chose
for this purpose the son of the eldest* of the five Kami born from
her necklace during the procreation competition with Susanoo.
In the first place, however, it was considered necessary to reduce
the country to order, observation having shown it to be in a state of
tumult. For that purpose the second of the five necklace
Kami--considered "the most heroic" of all the beings on the "plain of
high heaven"--was despatched. But he "curried favour" with the
Great-Name Possessor and took up his abode in Japan. At the end of
three years,** seeing that he had not returned, it was decided by the
Kami in council to send another envoy, the Heavenly Young Prince. But
he proved even more disloyal, for he married the daughter of the
Great-Name Possessor, famous for her beauty,*** and planning to
succeed his father-in-law as sovereign of the land, remained in Izumo
for eight years. A third conclave of the Kami was now convened by the
Sun goddess and her coadjutor, the Great-Producing Kami,* and they
decided to despatch a pheasant to make observations.
*This Kami married a daughter of one of the two Great-Producing Kami
who belonged to the original trinity, and who co-operates with the
Sun goddess throughout.
**This is the first mention of a measure of time in the Records.
***She was called Princess Undershining, because her beauty shone
through her raiment.
The bird flew down and lit on a cassia tree at the gate of the
Heavenly Young Prince's dwelling, whereupon the prince, at the
instigation of a female spy, taking a bow given to him originally by
the Great-Producing Kami, shot a shaft which pierced the bird's bosom,
and, reaching the Milky Way where sat the Sun goddess and the
Great-Producing Kami, was recognized by the latter, who threw it back
to earth, decreeing that it should strike the prince were he guilty
of treason, and leave him unharmed if the blood on the arrow was that
of the earthly Kami whom he had been sent to quell. The shaft struck
the prince and killed him.
At this point the course of the history is interrupted by an
unintelligible description of the resulting obsequies--held in heaven
according to the Chronicles, on earth according to the Records. Wild
geese, herons, kingfishers, sparrows, and pheasants were the
principal officiators; the mourning rites, which included singing,
and dancing,* continued for eight days and eight nights, and the
proceedings were rudely interrupted by the prince's brother-in-law,
who, coming to condole and being mistaken for the deceased, is so
enraged by the error that he draws his sword, cuts down the mortuary
house, and kicks away the pieces.
*It has been conjectured, with much probability, that this singing
and dancing was a ceremony in imitation of the rites performed to
entice the Sun goddess from her cave. The motive was to resuscitate
the dead.
These two failures did not deter the Great-Producing Kami and the Sun
goddess. They again took counsel with the other beings on the "plain
of high heaven," and it was decided to have recourse to the Kami born
from the blood that dropped from Izanagi's sword when he slew the
Kami of fire. To one of these--the Kami of courage--the mission of
subduing the land of many islands was entrusted, and associated with
him in the work was the Kami of boats, a son of Izanagi and Izanami.
The two descended to Izumo. They carried swords ten hand-breadths
long, and having planted these upside down, they seated themselves on
the points and delivered their message to the Great-Name Possessor,
requiring him to declare whether or not he would abdicate in favour
of the newly named sovereign.
The Great-Name Possessor replied that he must consult his son, who
was absent on a hunting expedition. Accordingly, the Kami of boats
went to seek him, and, on being conducted into his father's presence,
the latter declared his willingness to surrender, sealing the
declaration by suicide.* There remained, then, only the second son of
the Great-Name Possessor to be consulted. He did not submit so
easily. Relying on his great strength, he challenged the Kami of
courage to a trial of hand grasping. But when he touched the Kami's
hand it turned first into an icicle and then into a sword-blade,
whereas his own hand, when seized by the Kami, was crushed and thrown
aside like a young reed. He fled away in terror, and was pursued by
the Kami as far as the distant province of Shinano, when he saved his
life by making formal submission and promising not to contravene the
decision of his father and elder brother.
*He stepped on the side of his boat so as to upset it, and with hands
crossed behind his back sank into the sea.
Then the Great-Name Possessor, having "lost his sons, on whom he
relied," agreed to abdicate provided that a shrine were built in
memory of him, "having its pillars made stout on the nethermost
rock-bottom, and its cross-beams raised to the 'plain of high
heaven.'"* He handed over the broad-bladed spear which had assisted
him to pacify the land, and declaring that if he offered resistance,
all the earthly Kami, too, would certainly resist, he "hid in the
eighty road-windings."
*This hyperbolical language illustrates the tone of the Records and
the Chronicles. Applied to the comparatively humble buildings that
served for residences in ancient Japan, the description in the text
is curiously exaggerated. The phrase here quoted finds frequent
reproduction in the Shinto rituals.
Thus, already in the eighth century when the Records and the
Chronicles were compiled, suicide after defeat in battle had become a
recognized practice. The submission and self-inflicted death of the
Great-Name Possessor did not, however, save his followers. All the
rebellious Kami were put to the sword by the envoys from the "plain
of high heaven." This chapter of the annals ends with an account of
the shrine erected in memory of the Great-Name Possessor. It was
placed under the care of a grandson of the Kami born to Izanagi and
Izanami, who is represented as declaring that he "would continue
drilling fire for the Kami's kitchen until the soot hung down eight
hand-breadths from the roof of the shrine of the Great-Producing Kami
and until the earth below was baked to its nethermost rocks; and that
with the fire thus drilled he would cook for him the fish brought in
by the fishermen, and present them to him in baskets woven of split
bamboos which would bend beneath their weight."
THE DESCENT UPON TSUKUSHI
It had been originally intended that the dominion of Japan should be
given to the senior of the five Kami born of the five-hundred-jewel
string of the Sun goddess. But during the interval devoted to
bringing the land to a state of submission, this Kami's spouse, the
Princess of the Myriad Looms of the Luxuriant Dragon-fly Island,* had
borne a son, Hikoho no Ninigi, (Rice-Ears of Ruddy Plenty), and this
boy having now grown to man's estate, it was decided to send him as
ruler of Japan. A number of Kami were attached to him as guards and
assistants, among them being the Kami of "thought combination," who
conceived the plan for enticing the Sun goddess from her cave and who
occupied the position of chief councillor in the conclave of high
heaven; the female Kami who danced before the cave; the female Kami
who forged the mirror, and, in short, all the Kami who assisted in
restoring light to the world. There were also entrusted to the new
sovereign the curved-jewel chaplet of the Sun goddess, the mirror
that had helped to entice her, and the sword (herb-queller) which
Susanoo had taken from the body of the eight-headed serpent.
*"Dragon-fly Island" was a name anciently given to Japan on account
of the country's shape.
These three objects thenceforth became the three sacred things of
Japan. Strict injunction was given that the mirror was to be regarded
and reverenced exactly as though it was the spirit of the Sun
goddess, and it was ordered that the Kami of "thought combination"
should administer the affairs of the new kingdom. The fact is also to
be noted that among the Kami attached to Hikoho no Ninigi's person,
five--three male and two female--are designated by the Records as
ancestors and ancestresses of as many hereditary corporations, a
distinctive feature of the early Japan's polity. As to the manner of
Hikoho no Ninigi's journey to Japan, the Chronicles say that the
Great-Producing Kami threw the coverlet of his couch over him and
caused him to cleave his way downwards through the clouds; but the
Records allege that he descended "shut up in the floating bridge of
heaven."
The point has some interest as furnishing a traditional trace of the
nature of this so-called invasion of Japan, and as helping to confirm
the theory that the "floating bridge of heaven," from which Izanagi
thrust his spear downwards into the brine of chaos, was nothing more
than a boat. It will naturally be supposed that as Hikoho no Ninigi's
migration to Japan was in the sequel of a long campaign having its
main field in the province of Izumo, his immediate destination would
have been that province, where a throne was waiting to be occupied by
him, and where he knew that a rich region existed. But the Records
and the Chronicles agree in stating that he descended on
Kirishimayama* in Tsukushi, which is the ancient name of the island
of Kyushu. This is one of the first eight islands begotten by Izanagi
and Izanami. Hence the alternative name for Japan, "Land of the Eight
Great Islands."
*Takachiho-dake is often spoken of as the mountain thus celebrated,
but Takachiho is only the eastern, and lower, of the two peaks of
Kirishima-yama.
It was, moreover, to a river of Tsukushi that Izanagi repaired to
cleanse himself from the pollution of hades. But between Kyushu
(Tsukushi) and Izumo the interval is immense, and it is accentuated
by observing that the mountain Kirishima, specially mentioned in the
story, raises its twin peaks at the head of the Bay of Kagoshima in
the extreme south of Kyushu. There is very great difficulty in
conceiving that an army whose ultimate destination was Izumo should
have deliberately embarked on the shore of Kagoshima. The landing of
Ninigi--his full name need not be repeated--was made with all
precautions, the van of his army (kume) being commanded by the
ancestor of the men who thenceforth held the highest military rank
(otomo) through many centuries, and the arms carried being bows,
arrows, and swords.*
*The swords are said to have been "mallet-headed," but the term still
awaits explanation.
All the annals agree in suggesting that the newcomers had no
knowledge of the locality, but whereas one account makes Ninigi
consult and obtain permission from an inhabitant of the place,
another represents him as expressing satisfaction that the region lay
opposite to Kara (Korea) and received the beams of the rising and the
setting sun, qualifications which it is not easy to associate with
any part of southern Kyushu.
At all events he built for himself a palace in accordance with the
orthodox formula--its pillars made stout on the nethermost
rock-bottom and its cross-beams made high to the plain of heaven--and
apparently abandoned all idea of proceeding to Izumo. Presently he
encountered a beautiful girl. She gave her name as Brilliant Blossom,
and described herself as the daughter of the Kami of mountains one of
the thirty-five beings begotten by Izanagi and Izanami who would seem
to have been then living in Tsukushi, and who gladly consented to
give Brilliant Blossom. He sent with her a plentiful dower--many
"tables"* of merchandise--but he sent also her elder sister,
Enduring-as-Rock, a maiden so ill favoured that Ninigi dismissed her
with disgust, thus provoking the curse of the Kami of mountains, who
declared that had his elder daughter been welcomed, the lives of the
heavenly sovereigns** would have been as long as her name suggested,
but that since she had been treated with contumely, their span of
existence would be comparatively short. Presently Brilliant Blossom
became enceinte. Her lord, however, thinking that sufficient time had
not elapsed for such a result, suspected her of infidelity with one
of the earthly Kami,*** whereupon she challenged the ordeal of fire,
and building a parturition hut, passed in, plastered up the entrance,
and set fire to the building. She was delivered of three children
without mishap, and their names were Hosuseri (Fire-climax), Hohodemi
(Fire-shine), and Hoori (Fire-subside).
*This expression has reference to the fact that offerings at
religious ceremonials were always heaped on low tables for laying
before the shrine.
**The expression "heavenly sovereign" is here applied for the first
time to the Emperors of Japan.
***The term "earthly" was applied to Kami born on earth, "heavenly"
Kami being those born in heaven.
THE CASTLE OF THE SEA DRAGON
At this stage the annals digress to relate an episode which has only
collateral interest Hosuseri and Hohodemi made fishing and hunting,
respectively, their avocations. But Hohodemi conceived a fancy to
exchange pursuits, and importuned Hosuseri to agree. When, however,
the former tried his luck at angling, he not only failed to catch
anything but also lost the hook which his brother had lent him. This
became the cause of a quarrel. Hosuseri taunted Hohodemi on the
foolishness of the original exchange and demanded the restoration of
his hook, nor would he be placated though Hohodemi forged his sabre
into five hundred hooks and then into a thousand. Wandering
disconsolate,* by the seashore, Hohodemi met the Kami of salt, who,
advising him to consult the daughter of the ocean Kami,** sent him to
sea in a "stout little boat."
*"Weeping and lamenting" are the words in the Records.
**One of the Kami begotten by Izanagi and Izanami.
After drifting for a time, he found himself at a palace beside which
grew a many-branched cassia tree overhanging a well. He climbed into
the tree and waited. Presently the handmaidens of Princess Rich Gem,
daughter of the ocean Kami, came to draw water, and seeing a shadow
in the well, they detected Hohodemi in the cassia tree. At his
request they gave him water in a jewelled vessel, but instead of
drinking, he dropped into the vessel a gem from his own necklace, and
the handmaidens, unable to detach the gem, carried the vessel to
their mistress. Then the princess went to look and, seeing a
beautiful youth in the cassia tree, "exchanged glances" with him. The
ocean Kami quickly recognized Hohodemi; led him in; seated him on a
pile of many layers of sealskins* overlaid by many layers of silk
rugs; made a banquet for him, and gave him for wife Princess Rich
Gem.
*Chamberlain translates this "sea-asses' skins," and conjectures that
sea-lions or seals may be meant.
Three years passed tranquilly without the bridegroom offering any
explanation of his presence. At the end of that time, thoughts of the
past visited him and he "sighed." Princess Rich Gem took note of this
despondency and reported it to her father, who now, for the first
time, inquired the cause of Hohodemi's coming. Thereafter all the
fishes of the sea, great and small, were summoned, and being
questioned about the lost hook, declared that the tai* had recently
complained of something sticking in its throat and preventing it from
eating. So the lost hook was recovered, and the ocean Kami instructed
Hohodemi, when returning it to his brother, to warn the latter that
it was a useless hook which would not serve its purpose, but would
rather lead its possessor to ruin. He further instructed him to
follow a method of rice culture the converse of that adopted by his
brother, since he, the ocean Kami, would rule the waters so as to
favour Hohodemi's labours, and he gave him two jewels having the
property of making the tide ebb and flow, respectively. These jewels
were to be used against Hosuseri, if necessary.
*Pagrus major.
Finally the Kami of the ocean instructed a crocodile to carry
Hohodemi to his home. This was accomplished, and in token of his safe
arrival, Hohodemi placed his stiletto on the crocodile's neck for
conveyance to the ocean Kami.
The programme prescribed by the latter was now faithfully pursued, so
that Hosuseri grew constantly poorer, and finally organized a fierce
attack upon his younger brother, who, using the tide-flowing jewel,
overwhelmed his assailants until they begged for mercy, whereupon the
power of the tide-ebbing jewel was invoked to save them. The result
was that Hosuseri, on behalf of himself and his descendants for all
time, promised to guard and respectfully serve his brother by day and
by night. In this episode the hayabito had their origin. They were
palace guards, who to their military functions added the duty of
occasionally performing a dance which represented the struggles of
their ancestor, Hosuseri, when he was in danger of drowning.
BIRTH OF THE EMPEROR JIMMU
After the composition of the quarrel described above, Princess Rich
Gem arrived from the castle of the ocean Kami, and built a
parturition hut on the seashore, she being about to bring forth a
child. Before the thatch of cormorants' feathers could be completed,
the pains of labour overtook her, and she entered the hut, conjuring
her husband not to spy upon her privacy, since, in order to be safely
delivered, she must assume a shape appropriate to her native land.
He, however, suffered his curiosity to overcome him, and peeping in,
saw her in the form of an eight-fathom crocodile. It resulted that
having been thus put to shame, she left her child and returned to the
ocean Kami's palace, declaring that there should be no longer any
free passage between the dominions of the ocean Kami and the world of
men. "Nevertheless afterwards, although angry at her husband's having
wished to peep, she could not restrain her loving heart," and she
sent her younger sister, Good Jewel, to nurse the baby and to be the
bearer of a farewell song to Hohodemi.
The Records state that the latter lived to the age of 580 years and
that his mausoleum was built to the west of Mount Takachiho, on which
his palace stood. Thus for the first time the duration of a life is
stated in the antique annals of Japan. His son, called Fuki-ayezu
(Unfinished Thatch), in memory of the strange incident attending his
birth, married Princess Good Jewel, his own aunt, and by her had four
sons. The first was named Itsuse (Five Reaches) and the youngest,
Iware (a village in Yamato province). This latter ultimately became
Emperor of Japan, and is known in history as Jimmu (Divine Valour), a
posthumous name given to him many centuries after his death.* From
the time of this sovereign dates and events are recorded with full
semblance of accuracy in the Chronicles, but the compilers of the
Records do not attempt to give more than a bald statement of the
number of years each sovereign lived or reigned.
*Posthumous names for the earthly Mikados were invented in the reign
of Kwammu (A.D. 782-805), i.e., after the date of the compilation of
the Records and the Chronicles. But they are in universal use by the
Japanese, though to speak of a living sovereign by his posthumous
name is a manifest anomaly.
THE EXPEDITION TO YAMATO
According to the Chronicles, the four sons of Fuki-ayezu engaged in a
celebrated expedition from Tsukushi (Kyushu) to Yamato, but one
alone, the youngest, survived. According to the Records, two only
took part in the expedition, the other two having died before it set
out. The former version seems more consistent with the facts, and
with the manner of the two princes' deaths, as described in the
Records. Looking from the east coast of the island of Kyushu, the
province of Yamato lies to the northeast, at a distance of about 350
miles, and forms the centre of the Kii promontory. From what has
preceded, a reader of Japanese history is prepared to find that the
objective of the expedition was Izumo, not Yamato, since it was to
prepare for the occupation of the former province that the Sun
goddess and her coadjutors expended so much energy. No explanation
whatever of this discrepancy is offered, but it cannot be supposed
that Yamato was regarded as a halfway house to Izumo, seeing that
they lie on opposite coasts of Japan and are two hundred miles
distant.
The Chronicles assign the genesis of the enterprise to Prince Iware,
whom they throughout call Hohodemi, and into whose mouth they put an
exhortation--obviously based on a Chinese model--speaking of a land
in the east encircled by blue mountains and well situated, as the
centre of administrative authority. To reach Yamato by sea from
Kyushu two routes offer; one, the more direct, is by the Pacific
Ocean straight to the south coast of the Kii promontory; the other is
by the Inland Sea to the northwestern coast of the same promontory.
The latter was chosen, doubtless because nautical knowledge and
seagoing vessels were alike wanting.
It is not possible, however, to speak with confidence as to the
nature of the ships possessed by the Japanese in early times. The
first mention of ships occurs in the story of Susanoo's arrival in
Japan. He is said to have carried with him quantities of tree seeds
which he planted in the Eight Island Country, the cryptomeria and the
camphor being intended to serve as "floating riches," namely ships.
This would suggest, as is indeed commonly believed, that the boats of
that era were simply hollow trunks of trees.
Five centuries later, however, without any intervening reference, we
find the Emperor Sujin urging the construction of ships as of
cardinal importance for purposes of coastwise transport--advice which
is hardly consistent with the idea of log boats. Again, in A.D. 274,
the people of Izu are recorded as having built and sent to the Court
a vessel one hundred feet long; and, twenty-six years later, this
ship having become old and unserviceable, was used as fuel for
manufacturing salt, five hundred bags of which were distributed among
the provinces with directions to construct as many ships.
There is no mention in either the Chronicles or the Records of any
marked change in the matter of marine architecture during all these
years. The nature of the Kyushu expeditionary ships must therefore
remain a matter of conjecture, but that they were propelled by oars,
not sails, seems pretty certain. Setting out from some point in
Kyushu probably the present Kagoshima Bay the expedition made its way
up the east coast of the island, and reaching the Bungo Channel,
where the tide is very rapid, obtained the services of a fisherman as
pilot. Thence the fleet pushed on to Usa in the province of Buzen, at
the north of Kyushu, when two local chieftains built for the
entertainment and residence of the princes and their followers a "one
pillared palace"--probably a tent. The next place of call was Oka (or
Okada) in Chikuzen, where they passed a year before turning eastward
into the Inland Sea, and pushing on to one of the many islands off
the coast of Aki, they spent seven years before proceeding to another
island (Takashima) in Kibi, as the present three provinces of Bingo,
Bitchu, and Bizen were then called. There they delayed for eight
years the Chronicles say three--in order to repair the oars of their
vessels and to procure provisions.
Up to this time there had been no fighting or any attempt to effect a
lodgment on the mainland. But the expedition was now approaching the
narrow westerly entrance to the present Osaka Bay, where an army
might be encountered at any moment. The boats therefore sailed in
line ahead, "the prow of each ship touching the stern of the other."
Off the mouth of the river, now known as the Yodo, they encountered
such a high sea that they called the place Nami-hana (Wave
Flowers), a name subsequently abbreviated to Naniwa. Pushing
on, the expeditionary force finally landed at a place--not now
identifiable--in the province of Kawachi, which bounds Yamato on the
west.
The whole voyage had occupied four years according to the Chronicles,
sixteen according to the Records. At Kusaka they fought their first
battle against the army of Prince Nagasune and were repulsed, Prince
Itsuse being wounded by an arrow which struck his elbow. It was
therefore decided to change the direction of advance, so that instead
of moving eastward in the face of the sun, a procedure unpleasing to
the goddess of that orb, they should move westward with the sun
behind them. This involved re-embarking and sailing southward round
the Kii promontory so as to land on its eastern coast, but the
dangerous operation of putting an army on board ship in the presence
of a victorious enemy was successfully achieved by the aid of
skilfully used shields.
On the voyage round Kii, where stormy seas are frequent, the fleet
encountered a heavy gale and the boats containing two of the princes
were lost.* Prince Itsuse had already died of his wound, so of the
four brothers there now remained only the youngest, Prince Iware. It
is recorded that, at the age of fifteen, he had been made heir to the
throne, the principle of primogeniture not being then recognized, and
thus the deaths of his brothers did not affect that question. Landing
ultimately at Kumano on the southeast of Kii, the expeditionary force
was stricken by a pestilence, the prince himself not escaping. But at
the behest of the Sun goddess, the Kami of thunder caused a sword of
special virtue to come miraculously into the possession of an
inhabitant of Kii, who carried it to the prince, and at once the
sickness was stayed. When, however, the army attempted to advance
into the interior, no roads were found and precipitous mountains
barred the progress. In this dilemma the Sun goddess sent down the
three-legged crow of the Sun** to act as guide.
*In the Chronicles the two princes are represented as having
deliberately entered the stormy sea, angered that such hardships
should overtake the descendants of the ocean Kami.
**The Yang-wu, or Sun-crow (Japanese Yata-garasu), is a creature of
purely Chinese myth. It is supposed to be red in colour, to have
three legs, and to inhabit the sun.
Thus indiscriminately are the miraculous and the commonplace
intermixed. Following this bird, the invading force pushed on into
Yamato, receiving the allegiance of a body of men who fished with
cormorants in the Yoshino River and who doubtless supplied the army
with food, and the allegiance of fabulous beings with tails, who came
out of wells or through cliffs. It is related that the invaders
forced the elder of two brothers into a gyn which he had prepared for
their destruction; and that on ascending a hill to reconnoitre,
Prince Iware observed an army of women and a force of eighty
"earth-hiders (Tsuchi-gumo) with tails," by which latter epithet is
to be understood bandits or raiders who inhabited caves.
How it fared with the amazons the annals do not say, but the eighty
bandits were invited to a banquet and slaughtered in their cups.
Still the expeditionary force encountered great opposition, the roads
and passes being occupied by numerous hostile bands. An appeal was
accordingly made for divine assistance by organizing a public
festival of worship, the vessels employed--eighty platters and as
many jars--being made by the hands of the prince himself with clay
obtained from Mount Kagu in Yamato.* Several minor arrangements
followed, and finally swords were crossed with the army of Nagasune,
who had inflicted a defeat on the invaders on the occasion of their
first landing at Kusaka, when Prince Itsuse received a mortal wound.
A fierce battle ensued. Prince Iware burned to avenge his brother's
death, but repeated attacks upon Nagasune's troops proved abortive
until suddenly a golden-plumaged kite perched on the end of Prince
Iware's bow, and its effulgence dazzled the enemy so that they could
not fight stoutly.**
*The Chronicles state that the prince made ame on the platters. Ame
is confectioned from malted millet and is virtually the same as the
malt extract of the Occident.
**This tradition of the golden kite is cherished in Japan. The "Order
of the Golden Kite" is the most coveted military distinction.
From this incident the place where the battle occurred was called
Tabi-no-mura, a name now corrupted into Tomi-no-mura. It does not
appear, however, that anything like a decisive victory was gained by
the aid of this miraculous intervention. Nagasune sought a conference
with Prince Iware, and declared that the ruler of Yamato, whom he
served, was a Kami who had formerly descended from heaven. He offered
in proof of this statement an arrow and a quiver belonging to the
Kami. But Prince Iware demonstrated their correspondence with those
he himself carried. Nagasune, however, declining to abstain from
resistance, was put to death by the Kami he served, who then made act
of submission to Prince Iware.
The interest of this last incident lies in the indication it seems to
afford that a race identical with the invaders had already settled in
Yamato. Prince Iware now caused a palace to be built on the plain of
Kashiwa-bara (called Kashihara by some historians), to the southwest
of Mount Unebi, and in it assumed the imperial dignity, on the first
day of the first month of the year 660 B.C. It is scarcely necessary
to say that this date must be received with all reserve, and that the
epithet "palace" is not to be interpreted in the European sense of
the term. The Chronicles, which alone attempt to fix the early dates
with accuracy, indicate 667 B.C. as the year of the expedition's
departure from Kyushu, and assign to Prince Iware an age of
forty-five at the time. He was therefore fifty-two when crowned at
Kashiwa-bara, and as the same authority makes him live to an age of
127, it might be supposed that much would be told of the last
seventy-five years of his life.
But whereas many pages are devoted to the story of his adventures
before ascending the throne, a few paragraphs suffice for all that is
subsequently related of him. While residing in Kyushu he married and
had two sons, the elder of whom, Tagishi-mimi, accompanied him on his
eastward expedition. In Yamato he married again and had three sons,
the youngest of whom succeeded to the throne. The bestowing of titles
and rewards naturally occupied much attention, and to religious
observances scarcely less importance seems to have been attached. All
references to these latter show that the offices of priest and king
were united in the sovereign of these days. Thus it was by the
Emperor that formulae of incantation to dissipate evil influences
were dictated; that sacrifices were performed to the heavenly Kami so
as to develop filial piety; and that shrines were consecrated for
worshiping the Imperial ancestors. Jimmu was buried in a tumulus
(misasagi) on the northeast of Mount Unebi. The site is officially
recognized to this day, and on the 3rd of April every year it is
visited by an Imperial envoy, who offers products of mountain, river,
and sea.
TRACES OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE
What traces of Chinese or foreign influence are to be found in the
legends and myths set down above? It is tolerably certain that
communication existed between China and Japan from a date shortly
prior to the Christian era, and we naturally expect to find that
since China was at that time the author of Asiatic civilization, she
contributed materially to the intellectual development of her island
neighbour. Examining the cosmogonies of the two countries, we find at
the outset a striking difference. The Chinese did not conceive any
creator, ineffable, formless, living in space; whereas the Japanese
imagined a great central Kami and two producing powers, invisible and
working by occult processes.
On the other hand, there is a marked similarity of thought. For, as
on the death of Panku, the giant toiler of Chinese myth on whom
devolved the task of chiselling out the universe, his left eye was
transmitted into the orb of day and his right into the moon, so when
the Japanese Kami returned from his visit to the underworld, the sun
emerged from the washing of his left eye and the moon from the
washing of his right. Japanese writers have sought to differentiate
the two myths by pointing out that the sun is masculine in China and
feminine in Japan, but such an objection is inadequate to impair the
close resemblance.
In truth "creation from fragments of a fabulous anthropomorphic being
is common to Chaldeans, Iroquois, Egyptians, Greeks, Tinnehs,
Mangaians, and Aryan Indians," and from that fact a connexion between
ancient Japan and West Asia might be deduced by reference to the
beings formed out of the parts: of the fire Kami's body when Izanagi
put him to the sword. On the other hand, the tale of which the birth
of the sun and the moon forms a part, namely, the visit of Izanagi to
hades in search of Izanami, is an obvious reproduction of the
Babylonian myth of Ishtar's journey to the underworld in search of
Du'uzu, which formed the basis of the Grecian legend of Orpheus and
Eurydice. Moreover, Izanami's objection to return, on the ground of
having already eaten of the food of the underworld, is a feature of
many ancient myths, among which may be mentioned the Indian story of
Nachiketas, where the name Yama, the Indian god of the lower world,
bears an obvious resemblance to the Japanese yomi (hades), as does,
indeed, the whole Indian myth of Yami and Yama to that of Izanagi and
Izanami.
Is it not also more than a mere coincidence that as all the Semitic
tribes worshipped the goddess Isis, so--the Japanese worshipped, for
supreme being, the goddess of the Sun? Thus, here again there would
seem to have been some path of communication other than that via
China between Japan and the west of Asia. Further, the "river of
heaven"--the Milky Way--which so often figures in Japanese mythology,
is prominent in Chinese also, and is there associated with the
Spinning Damsel, just as in the Japanese legend it serves the Kami
for council-place after the injury done by Susanoo's violence to the
Sun goddess and her spinning maidens. It has been remarked
[Chamberlain] that the chop-stick which Susanoo found floating down
a river in Izumo, and the sake (rice-wine) which he caused to be made
for the purpose of intoxicating the eight-headed serpent, are
obviously products of Chinese civilization, but as for the rescue of
the maiden from the serpent, it is a plain replica of the legend of
Perseus and Andromeda, which, if it came through China, left no mark
in transit.
Less palpable, but still sufficiently striking, is the resemblance
between the story of Atalanta's golden apples and the casting down of
Izanagi's head-dress and comb as grapes and bamboo sprouts to arrest
the pursuit of the "hag of hades." But indeed this throwing of his
comb behind him by Izanagi and its conversion into a thicket are
common incidents of ancient folk-lore, while in the context of this
Kami's ablutions on his return from hades, it may be noted that Ovid
makes Juno undergo lustration after a visit to the lower regions and
that Dante is washed in Lethe when he passes out of purgatory. Nor is
there any great stretch of imagination needed to detect a likeness
between the feathered messenger sent from the Ark and the three
envoys--the last a bird--despatched from the "plain of high heaven"
to report upon the condition of disturbed Japan. This comparison is
partially vitiated, however, by the fact that there is no tradition
of a deluge in Japanese annals, though such phenomena are like ly to
occur occasionally in all lands and to produce a great impression on
the national imagination. "Moreover, what is specially known to us as
the deluge has been claimed as an ancient Altaic myth. Yet here we
have the oldest of the undoubtedly Altaic nations without any legend
of the kind." [Chamberlain.]
It appears, further, from the account of the Great-Name Possessor's
visit to the underworld, that one Japanese conception of hades
corresponded exactly with that of the Chinese, namely, a place where
people live and act just as they do on earth. But the religion out of
which this belief grew in China had its origin at a date long
subsequent to the supposed age of the Gods in Japan. The peaches with
which Izanagi pelted and drove back the thunder Kami sent by Izanami
to pursue him on his return from the underworld were evidently
suggested by the fabulous female, Si Wang-mu, of Chinese legend, who
possessed a peach tree, the fruit of which conferred immortality and
repelled the demons of disease. So, too, the tale of the palace of
the ocean Kami at the bottom of the sea, with its castle gate and
cassia tree overhanging a well which serves as a mirror, forms a page
of Chinese legendary lore, and, in a slightly altered form, is found
in many ancient annals.
The sea monster mentioned in this myth is written with a Chinese
ideograph signifying "crocodile," but since the Japanese cannot have
had any knowledge of crocodiles, and since the monster is usually
represented pictorially as a dragon, there can be little doubt that
we are here confronted by the Dragon King of Chinese and Korean
folk-lore which had its palace in the depths of the ocean. In fact,
the Japanese, in all ages, have spoken of this legendary edifice as
Ryu no jo (the Dragon's castle).
The eminent sinologue, Aston, has shrewdly pointed out that the term
wani (crocodile) may be a corruption of the Korean word, wang-in
(king), which the Japanese pronounced "wani." As for the "curved
jewels," which appear on so many occasions, the mineral jade, or
jadelike stone, of which many of them were made, has never been met
with in Japan and must therefore have come from the continent of
Asia. The reed boat in which the leech, first offspring of Izanagi
and Izanami, was sent adrift, "recalls the Accadian legend of Sargon
and his ark of rushes, the biblical story of Moses as an infant and
many more," though it has no known counterpart in Chinese mythology.
It is noticeable that in spite of the honour paid to the stars in the
Chinese cosmogony, the only star specially alluded to in Japanese
myth is Kagase, who is represented as the last of the rebellious Kami
on the occasion of the subjugation of Izumo by order of the Sun
goddess and the Great-Producing Kami. So far as the Records and the
Chronicles are concerned, "the only stars mentioned are Venus, the
Pleiades, and the Weaver," the last being connected with a Chinese
legend, as shown above.
Two other points remain to be noticed. One is that divination by
cracks in a deer's roasted shoulder blade, a process referred to more
than once in the Records and the Chronicles, was a practice of the
Chinese, who seem to have borrowed it from the Mongolians; the other,
that the sounding arrow (nari-kabura) was an invention of the Huns,
and came to Japan through China. It had holes in the head, and the
air passing through these produced a humming sound. As for the
Chronicles, they are permeated by Chinese influence throughout. The
adoption of the Chinese sexagenary cycle is not unnatural, but again
and again speeches made by Chinese sovereigns and sages are put into
the mouths of Japanese monarchs as original utterances, so that
without the Records for purposes of reference and comparison, even
the small measure of solid ground that can be constructed would be
cut from under the student's feet.
ENGRAVING: BUNDAI SUZURI BAKO (A WRITING SET)
ENGRAVING: 'NO' MASKS
CHAPTER IV
RATIONALIZATION
GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES
THE southwestern extremity of the main island of Japan is embraced by
two large islands, Kyushu and Shikoku, the former lying on the west
of the latter and being, in effect, the southern link of the island
chain which constitutes the empire of Japan. Sweeping northward from
Formosa and the Philippines is a strong current known as the
Kuro-shio (Black Tide), a name derived from the deep indigo colour of
the water. This tide, on reaching the vicinity of Kyushu, is
deflected to the east, and passing along the southern coast of Kyushu
and the Kii promontory, takes its way into the Pacific. Evidently
boats carried on the bosom of the Kuro-shio would be likely to make
the shore of Japan at one of three points, namely, the south, or
southeast, of Kyushu, the south of Shikoku or the Kii promontory.
Now, according to the Records, the first place "begotten" by Izanagi
and Izanami was an island called Awa, supposed to be in the vicinity
of Awaji. The latter is a long, narrow island stretching from the
northeast of Shikoku towards the shore of the main island--which it
approaches very closely at the Strait of Yura--and forming what may
be called a gate, closing the eastern entrance to the Inland Sea.
After the island of Awa, the producing couple gave birth to Awaji and
subsequently to Shikoku, which is described as an island having four
faces, namely, the provinces of Awa, Iyo, Tosa, and Sanuki.
Rejecting the obviously allegorical phantasy of "procreation," we may
reasonably suppose ourselves to be here in the presence of an
emigration from the South Seas or from southern China, which debarks
on the coast of Awaji and thence crosses to Shikoku. Thereafter, the
immigrants touch at a triplet of small islands, described as "in the
offing," and thence cross to Kyushu, known at the time as Tsukushi.
This large island is described in the Records as having, like
Shikoku, one body and four faces, and part of it was inhabited by
Kumaso, of whom much is heard in Japanese history. From Kyushu the
invaders pass to the islands of Iki and Tsushima, which lie between
Kyushu and Korea, and thereafter they sail northward along the coast
of the main island of Japan until they reach the island of Sado.
All this--and the order of advance follows exactly the procreation
sequence given in the Records--lends itself easily to the supposition
of a party of immigrants coming originally from the south, voyaging
in a tentative manner round the country described by them, and
establishing themselves primarily on its outlying islands.
The next step, according to the Records, was to Yamato. About this
name, Yamato, there has been some dispute. Alike in ancient and in
modern times the term has been applied, on the one hand, to the whole
of the main island, and, on the other, to the single province of
Yamato. The best authorities, however, interpret it in the latter
sense for the purposes of the Izanagi-and-Izanami legend, and that
interpretation is plainly consistent with the probabilities, for the
immigrants would naturally have proceeded from Awaji to the Kii
promontory, where the province of Yamato lies. Thereafter--on their
"return," say the Records, and the expression is apposite--they
explored several small islands not identifiable by their names but
said to have been in Kibi, which was the term then applied to the
provinces of Bingo, Bitchu, and Bizen, lying along the south coast of
the Inland Sea and thus facing the sun, so that the descriptive
epithet "sun-direction" applied to the region was manifestly
appropriate.
In brief, the whole narrative concerts well with the idea of a band
of emigrants carried on the breast of the "Black Tide," who first
make the circuit of the outlying fringe of islands, then enter the
mainland at Yamato, and finally sail down the Inland Sea, using the
small islands off its northern shore as points d'appui for
expeditions inland.
JAPANESE OPINION
Japanese euhemerists, several of whom, in former times as well as in
the present, have devoted much learned research to the elucidation of
their country's mythology, insist that tradition never intended to
make such a demand upon human credulity as to ask it to believe in
the begetting of islands by normal process of procreation. They
maintain that such descriptions must be read as allegories. It then
becomes easy to interpret the doings of Izanagi and Izanami as simple
acts of warlike aggression, and to suppose that they each commanded
forces which were to have co-operated, but which, by failing at the
outset to synchronize their movements, were temporarily unsuccessful.
It will seem, as we follow the course of later history, that the
leading of armies by females was common enough to be called a feature
of early Japan, and thus the role assigned to Izanami need not cause
any astonishment. At their first miscarriage the two Kami, by better
organization, overran the island of Awaji and then pushed on to
Shikoku, which they brought completely under their sway.
But what meaning is to be assigned to the "plain of high heaven"
(Takama-ga-hara)? Where was the place thus designated? By a majority
of Japanese interpreters Takama-ga-hara is identified as the region
of Taka-ichi in Yamato province. The word did not refer to anything
supernatural but was used simply in an honorific sense. In later ages
Court officials were called "lords of the moon" (gekhei) or
"cloud-guests" (unkaku), while officials not permitted to attend the
Court were known as "groundlings" (jige); the residence of the
Emperor was designated "purple-clouds hall" (shishin-deri); to go
from the Imperial capital to any other part of the country was to
"descend," the converse proceeding being called to "ascend," and the
palace received the names of "blue sky" and "above the clouds."
To-day in Yamato province there is a hill called Takama-yama and a
plain named Takama-no. The Records say that when the Sun goddess
retired to a rock cave, a multitude of Kami met at Taka-ichi to
concert measures for enticing her out, and this Taka-ichi is
considered to be undoubtedly the place of the same name in Yamato.
But some learned men hold that Takama-ga-hara was in a foreign
country, and that the men who emigrated thence to Japan belonged to a
race very superior to that then inhabiting the islands. When,
however, the leader of the invaders had established his Court in
Yamato the designation Takama-ga-hara came to be applied to the
latter place.
Whichever theory be correct--and the latter certainly commends itself
as the more probable--it will be observed that both agree in
assigning to Takama-ga-hara a terrestrial location; both agree in
assigning the sense of "unsettled and turbulent" to the "floating,
drifting" condition predicated of the country when the Kami first
interested themselves in it, and both agree in interpreting as an
insignium of military authority the "jewelled spear" given to Izanagi
and Izanami--an interpretation borne out by the fact that, in
subsequent eras of Japanese history, it was customary for a ruler
to delegate authority in this manner. Applying the same process
of reasoning to the socalled "birth" of Kami, that process
resolves itself very simply into the creation of chieftains and
administrators.
RATIONALIZATION OF THE LEGEND OF THE VISIT TO HADES
It would seem that from Yamato the invaders prosecuted their campaign
into the interior, reaching Izumo on the west coast. The Records
say that after Izanami's death in giving birth to the Kami of fire,
she was buried at Mount Kagu on the confines of Izumo and Hoki.
Now the land of Yomi generally interpreted "underworld"--which
Izanagi visited in search of Izanami, was really identical with
Yomi-shima, located between the provinces of Hoki and Izumo, and
Ne-no-Kuni*--commonly taken to mean the "netherland"--subsequently
the place of Susanoo's banishment, was in fact a designation of
Izumo, or had the more extensive application of the modern Sanin-do
and Sanyo-do (districts in the shadow of the hill and districts on
the sunny side of the hill), that is to say, the western provinces
and the south coast of the Inland Sea.
*In the language of ancient Japan ne meant "mountain," and Ne-no-Kuni
signified simply "Land of Mountains."
What the allegory of the visit to hades would seem to signify,
therefore, was that Izanami was defeated in a struggle with the local
chieftains of Izumo or with a rebellious faction in that province;
was compelled to make act of submission before Izanagi arrived to
assist her--allegorically speaking she had eaten of the food of
hades--and therefore the conference between her and Izanagi proved
abortive. The hag who pursued Izanagi on his retreat from Yomi
represents a band of amazons--a common feature in old Japan--and his
assailant, the Kami of thunder, was a rebel leader.
As for the idea of blocking the "even pass of hades" with rocks, it
appears to mean nothing more than that a military force was posted at
Hirasaka--now called Ifuyo-saka in Izumo--to hold the defile against
the insurgent troops under Izanami, who finally took the field
against Izanagi. It may be inferred that the struggle ended
indecisively, although Izanagi killed the chieftain who had
instigated the rebellion (the so-called "Kami of fire"), and that
Izanami remained in Izumo, becoming ruler of that province, while
Izanagi withdrew to the eastern part of Tsukushi (Kyushu), where he
performed the ceremony of grand lustration.
THE STORY OF SUSANOO
The story of Susanoo lends itself with equal facility to
rationalization. His desire to go to his "mother's land" instead of
obeying his father and ruling the "sea-plain" (unabara)--an
appellation believed by some learned commentators to apply to
Korea--may easily be interpreted to mean that he threw in his lot
with the rebellious chiefs in Izumo. Leading a force into Yamato, he
laid waste the land so that the "green mountains were changed into
withered mountains," and the commotion throughout the country was
like the noise of "flies swarming in the fifth month." Finally he was
driven out of Yamato, and retiring to Izumo, found that the local
prefect was unable to resist the raids of a tribe from the
north under the command of a chief whose name--Yachimata no
Orochi--signified "eight-headed serpent."
This tribe had invaded the province and taken possession of the hills
and valleys in the upper reaches of the river Hi, whence tradition
came to speak of the tribe as a monster spreading over hills and
dales and having pine forests growing on its back. The tribute of
females, demanded yearly by the tribe, indicates an exaction not
uncommon in those days, and the sword said to have been found by
Susanoo in the serpent's tail was the weapon worn by the last and the
stoutest of Orochi's followers.
There is another theory equally accordant with the annals and in some
respects more satisfying. It is that Susanoo and his son, Iso-takeru,
when they were expelled from Yamato, dwelt in the land of
Shiragi--the eastern of the three kingdoms into which Korea was
formerly divided--and that they subsequently built boats and rowed
over to Izumo. This is distinctly stated in one version of the
Chronicles, and another variant says that when Iso-takeru descended
from Takama-ga-hara, he carried with him the seeds of trees in great
quantities but did not plant them in "the land of Han" (Korea).
Further, it is elsewhere stated that the sword found by Susanoo in
the serpent's tail was called by him Orochi no Kara-suki (Orochi's
Korean blade), an allusion which goes to strengthen the reading of
the legend.
THE DESCENT OF NINIGI
Omitting other comparatively trivial legends connected with the age
of Susanoo and his descendants, we come to what may be called the
second great event in the early annals of Japan, namely, the descent
of Ninigi on the southern coast of Tsukushi (Kyushu). The Records and
the Chronicles explicitly state that this expedition was planned in
the court at Takama-ga-hara (the "plain of high heaven"), and that,
after sending forces to subdue the disturbed country and to obtain
the submission of its ruler, the grandson (Ninigi) of the Sun goddess
was commissioned to take possession of the land. It is also clearly
shown that Izumo was the centre of disturbance and that virtually all
the preliminary fighting took place there. Yet when Ninigi descends
from Takama-ga-hara--a descent which is described in one account as
having taken place in a closed boat, and in another, as having been
effected by means of the coverlet of a couch--he is said to have
landed, not in Izumo or in Yamato, but at a place in the far south,
where he makes no recorded attempt to fulfil the purpose of his
mission, nor does that purpose receive any practical recognition
until the time of his grandson Iware. The latter pushes northward,
encountering the greatest resistance in the very province (Yamato)
where his grandfather's expedition was planned and where the Imperial
Court was held.
It is plain that these conditions cannot be reconciled except on one
of two suppositions: either that the Takama-ga-hara of this section
of the annals was in a foreign country, or that the descent of Ninigi
in the south of Japan was in the sequel of a complete defeat
involving the Court's flight from Yamato as well as from Izumo.
Let us first consider the theory of a foreign country. Was it Korea
or was it China? In favour of Korea there are only two arguments, one
vague and the other improbable. The former is that one of Ninigi's
alleged reasons for choosing Tsukushi as a landing-place was that it
faced Korea. The latter, that Tsukushi was selected because it
offered a convenient base for defending Japan against Korea. It will
be observed that the two hypotheses are mutually conflicting, and
that neither accounts for debarkation at a part of Tsukushi
conspicuously remote from Korea. It is not wholly impossible,
however, that Ninigi came from China, and that the Court which is
said to have commissioned him was a Chinese Court.
In the history of China a belief is recorded that the Japanese
sovereigns are descended from a Chinese prince, Tai Peh, whose father
wished to disinherit him in favour of a younger son. Tai Peh fled to
Wu in the present Chekiang, and thence passed to Japan about 800 B.C.
Another record alleges that the first sovereign of Japan was a son of
Shao-kang of the Hsia dynasty (about 850 B.C.), who tattooed his body
and cut off his hair for purposes of disguise and lived on the bank
of the Yangtsze, occupying himself with fishing until at length he
fled to Japan.
That Ninigi may have been identical with one of these persons is not
inconceivable, but such a hypothesis refuses to be reconciled with
the story of the fighting in Izumo which preceded the descent to
Tsukushi. The much more credible supposition is that the Yamato
Court, confronted by a formidable rebellion having its centre in
Izumo, retired to Tsukushi, and there, in the course of years,
mustered all its followers for an expedition ultimately led by the
grandson of the fugitive monarch to restore the sway of his house.
This interpretation of the legend consists with the fact that when
Jimmu reached Yamato, the original identity of his own race with that
of the then ruler of the province was proved by a comparison of
weapons.
THE CASTLE OF THE OCEAN KAMI
With regard to the legend of the ocean Kami, the rationalists
conceive that the tribe inhabiting Tsukushi at the time of Ninigi's
arrival there had originally immigrated from the south and had
gradually spread inland. Those inhabiting the littoral districts were
ultimately placed by Ninigi under the rule of Prince Hohodemi, and
those inhabiting the mountain regions under the sway of Prince
Hosuseri. The boats and hooks of the legend are symbolical of
military and naval power respectively. The brothers having quarrelled
about the limits of their jurisdictions, Hohodemi was worsted, and by
the advice of a local elder he went to Korea to seek assistance.
There he married the daughter of the Ocean King--so called because
Korea lay beyond the sea from Japan--and, after some years'
residence, was given a force of war-vessels (described in the legend
as "crocodiles") together with minute instructions (the tide-ebbing
and the tide-flowing jewels) as to their skilful management. These
ships ultimately enabled him to gain a complete victory over his
elder brother.
WHAT THE JAPANESE BELIEVE
These rationalizing processes will commend themselves in different
degrees to different minds. One learned author has compared such
analyses to estimating the historical residuum of the Cinderella
legend by subtracting the pumpkin coach and the godmother. But we are
constrained to acknowledge some background of truth in the annals of
old Japan, and anything that tends to disclose that background is
welcome. It has to be noted, however, that though many learned
Japanese commentators have sought to rationalize the events described
in the Records and the Chronicles, the great bulk of the nation
believes in the literal accuracy of these works as profoundly as the
great bulk of Anglo-Saxon people believes in the Bible, its
cosmogony, and its miracles.
The gist of the Japanese creed, as based on their ancient annals, may
be briefly summarized. They hold that when the Sun goddess handed the
three sacred objects to Ninigi--generally called Tenson, or "heavenly
grandchild"--she ordained that the Imperial Throne should be coeval
with heaven and earth. They hold that the instructions given with
regard to these sacred objects comprised the whole code of
administrative ethics. The mirror neither hides nor perverts; it
reflects evil qualities as faithfully as good; it is the emblem of
honesty and purity. The jewel illustrates the graces of gentleness,
softness, amiability, and obedience, and is therefore emblematic of
benevolence and virtue.* The sword indicates the virtues of strength,
sharpness, and practical decision, and is thus associated with
intelligence and knowledge. So long as all these qualities are
exercised in the discharge of administrative functions, there can be
no misrule.
*It must be remembered that the jewel referred to was a piece of
green or white jade.
They further hold that when the Sun goddess detailed five Kami to
form the suite of Ninigi, these Kami were entrusted with the
ministerial duties originally discharged by them, and becoming the
heads of five administrative departments, transmitted their offices
to generation after generation of their descendants. Thus Koyane was
the ancestor of the Nakatomi family who discharged the priestly
duties of worship at the Court and recited the Purification Rituals;
Futodama became the ancestor of the Imibe (or Imbe), a hereditary
corporation whose members performed all offices connected with
mourning and funerals; Usume became ancestress of the Sarume, whose
duties were to perform dances in honour of the deities and to act as
mediums of divine inspiration; Oshihi was the ancestor of the Otomo
chief who led the Imperial troops, and Kume became the ancestor of
the Kumebe, a hereditary corporation of palace guards. Further, they
hold that whereas Ninigi and his five adjunct Kami all traced their
lineage to the two producing Kami of the primal trinity, the special
title of sovereignty conferred originally on the Sun goddess was
transmitted by her to the Tenson (heavenly grandchild), Ninigi, the
distinction of ruler and ruled being thus clearly defined. Finally
they hold that Ninigi and these five adjunct Kami, though occupying
different places in the national polity, had a common ancestor whom
they jointly worshipped, thus forming an eternal union.
ENGRAVING: ANCIENT CIVIL AND MILITARY HEAD-GEAR
CHAPTER V
ORIGIN OF THE JAPANESE NATION: HISTORICAL EVIDENCES
IN considering the question of the origin of the Japanese nation four
guides are available; namely, written annals, archaeological relics,
physical features, and linguistic affinities.
WRITTEN ANNALS
The annals, that is to say, the Records and the Chronicles, speak of
six peoples; namely, first, Izanagi and his fellow Kami, who, as
shown above, may reasonably be identified with the original
immigrants represented in the story of the so-called "birth" of the
islands; secondly, Jimmu and his followers, who re-conquered the
islands; thirdly, the Yemishi, who are identical with the modern
Ainu; fourthly, the Kumaso; fifthly, the Sushen; and sixthly the
Tsuchi-gumo (earth-spiders). By naming these six separately it is not
intended to imply that they are necessarily different races: that
remains to be decided. It will be convenient to begin with the
Sushen.
THE SUSHEN
The Sushen were Tungusic ancestors of the Manchu. They are first
mentioned in Japanese annals in A.D. 549, when a number of them
arrived by boat on the north of Sado Island and settled there, living
on fish caught during spring and summer and salted or dried for
winter use. The people of Sado regarded them as demons and carefully
avoided them, a reception which implies total absence of previous
intercourse. Finally they withdrew, and nothing more is heard of
their race for over a hundred years, when, in A.D. 658, Hirafu, omi
of Abe and warden of Koshi (the northwestern provinces, Etchu,
Echizen, and Echigo), went on an expedition against them.
Nothing is recorded as to the origin or incidents of this campaign.
One account says that Hirafu, on his return, presented two white
bears to the Empress; that he fought with the Sushen and carried back
forty-nine captives. It may be assumed, however, that the enterprise
proved abortive, for, two years later (660), he was again sent
against the Sushen with two hundred ships. En route for his
destination he took on board his own vessel some of the inhabitants
of Yezo (Yemishi) to act as guides, and the flotilla arrived
presently in the vicinity of a long river, unnamed in the annals but
supposed to have been the Ishikari, which debouches on the west coast
of Yezo. There a body of over a thousand Yemishi in a camp facing the
river sent messengers to report that the Sushen fleet had arrived in
great force and that they were in imminent danger. The Sushen had
over twenty vessels and were lying in a concealed port whence Hirafu
in vain sent messengers to summon them.
What ensued in thus told in the Chronicles: "Hirafu heaped up on the
beach coloured silk stuffs, weapons, iron, etc.," to excite the
cupidity of the Sushen, who thereupon drew up their fleet in order,
approached "with equal oars, flying flags made of feathers tied to
poles, and halted in a shallow place. Then from one of their ships
they sent forth two old men who went round the coloured silk stuffs
and other articles which had been piled up, examined them closely,
whereafter they changed the single garments they had on, and each
taking up a piece of cloth went on board their ship and departed."
Meanwhile the Japanese had not made any attempt to molest them.
Presently the two old men returned, took off the exchanged garments
and, laying them down together with the cloth they had taken away,
re-embarked and departed.
Up to this Hirafu seems to have aimed at commercial intercourse. But
his overtures having been rejected, he sent to summon the Sushen.
They refused to come, and their prayer for peace having been
unsuccessful, they retired to "their own palisades." There the
Japanese attacked them, and the Sushen, seeing that defeat was
inevitable, put to death their own wives and children. How they
themselves fared is not recorded, nor do the Chronicles indicate
where "their own palisades" were situated, but in Japan it has always
been believed that the desperate engagement was fought in the Amur
River, and its issue may be inferred from the fact that although the
Japanese lost one general officer, Hirafu was able on his return to
present to the Empress more than fifty "barbarians," presumably
Sushen. Nevertheless, it is recorded that in the same year (A.D.
660), forty-seven men of Sushen were entertained at Court, and the
inference is either that these were among the above "savages"--in
which case Japan's treatment of her captured foes in ancient times
would merit applause--or that the Sushen had previously established
relations with Japan, and that Hirafu's campaign was merely to repel
trespass.
During the next sixteen years nothing more is heard of the Sushen,
but, in A.D. 676, seven of them arrived in the train of an envoy from
Sinra, the eastern of the three kingdoms into which Korea was then
divided. This incident evokes no remark whatever from the compilers
of the Chronicles, and they treat with equal indifference the
statement that during the reign of the Empress Jito, in the year A.D.
696, presents of coats and trousers made of brocade, together with
dark-red and deep-purple coarse silks, oxen, and other things were
given to two men of Sushen. Nothing in this brief record suggests
that any considerable intercourse existed in ancient times between
the Japanese and the Tungusic Manchu, or that the latter settled in
Japan in any appreciable numbers.
THE YEMISHI
The Yemishi are identified with the modern Ainu. It appears that the
continental immigrants into Japan applied to the semi-savage races
encountered by them the epithet "Yebisu" or "Yemishi," terms which
may have been interchangeable onomatopes for "barbarian." The
Yemishi are a moribund race. Only a remnant, numbering a few
thousands, survives, now in the northern island of Yezo. Nevertheless
it has been proved by Chamberlain's investigations into the origin of
place-names, that in early times the Yemishi extended from the north
down the eastern section of Japan as far as the region where the
present capital (Tokyo) stands, and on the west to the province now
called Echizen; and that, when the Nihongi was written, they still
occupied a large part of the main island.
We find the first mention of them in a poem attributed to the Emperor
Jimmu. Conducting his campaign for the re-conquest of Japan, Jimmu,
uncertain of the disposition of a band of inhabitants, ordered his
general, Michi, to construct a spacious hut (muro) and invite the
eighty doubtful characters to a banquet. An equal number of Jimmu's
soldiers acted as hosts, and, at a given signal, when the guests were
all drunk, they were slaughtered. Jimmu composed a couplet expressing
his troops' delight at having disposed of a formidable foe so easily,
and in this verselet he spoke of one Yemishi being reputed to be a
match for a hundred men.
Whether this couplet really belongs to its context, however, is
questionable; the eighty warriors killed in the muro may not have
been Yemishi at all. But the verse does certainly tend to show that
the Yemishi had a high fighting reputation in ancient times, though
it will presently be seen that such fame scarcely consists with the
facts revealed by history. It is true that when next we hear of the
Yemishi more than seven and a half centuries have passed, and during
that long interval they may have been engaged in a fierce struggle
for the right of existence. There is no evidence, however, that such
was the case.
On the contrary, it would seem that the Japanese invaders encountered
no great resistance from the Yemishi in the south, and were for a
long time content to leave them unmolested in the northern and
eastern regions. In A.D. 95, however, Takenouchi-no-Sukune was
commissioned by the Emperor Keiko to explore those regions. He
devoted two years to the task, and, on his return in 97, he submitted
to his sovereign this request: "In the eastern wilds there is a
country called Hi-taka-mi (Sun-height). The people of this country,
both men and women, tie up their hair in the form of a mallet and
tattoo their bodies. They are of fierce temper and their general name
is Yemishi. Moreover, the land is wide and fertile. We should attack
it and take it." [Aston's translation.] It is observable that the
principal motive of this advice is aggressive. The Yemishi had not
molested the Japanese or shown any turbulence. They ought to be
attacked because their conquest would be profitable: that was
sufficient.
Takenouchi's counsels could not be immediately followed. Other
business of a cognate nature in the south occupied the Court's
attention, and thirteen years elapsed before (A.D. 110) the
celebrated hero, Prince Yamato-dake, led an expedition against the
Yemishi of the east. In commanding him to undertake this task, the
Emperor, according to the Chronicles, made a speech which, owing to
its Chinese tone, has been called apocryphal, though some, at any
rate, of the statements it embodies are attested by modern
observation of Ainu manners and customs. He spoke of the Yemishi as
being the most powerful among the "eastern savages;" said that their
"men and women lived together promiscuously," that there was "no
distinction of father and child;" that in winter "they dwelt in holes
and in summer they lived in huts;" that their clothing consisted of
furs and that they drank blood; that when they received a favour they
forgot it, but if an injury was done them they never failed to avenge
it, and that they kept arrows in their top-knots and carried swords
within their clothing. How correct these attributes may have been at
the time they were uttered, there are no means of judging, but the
customs of the modern Ainu go far to attest the accuracy of the
Emperor Keiko's remarks about their ancestors.
Yamato-dake prefaced his campaign by worshipping at the shrine of
Ise, where he received the sword "Herb-queller," which Susanoo had
taken from the last chieftain of the Izumo tribesmen. Thence he
sailed along the coast to Suruga, where he landed, and was nearly
destroyed by the burning of a moor into which he had been persuaded
to penetrate in search of game. Escaping with difficulty, and having
taken a terrible vengeance upon the "brigands" who had sought to
compass his destruction, he pushed on into Sagami, crossed the bay to
Kazusa and, sailing north, reached the southern shore of Shimosa,
which was the frontier of the Yemishi. The vessels of the latter
assembled with the intention of offering resistance, but at the
aspect of the Japanese fleet and the incomparably superior arms and
arrows of the men it carried, they submitted unconditionally and
became personal attendants on Yamato-dake.
Three things are noticeable in this narrative. The first is that the
"brigands of Suruga" were not Yemishi; the second, that the Yemishi
offered no resistance, and the third, that the Yemishi chiefs are
called in the Chronicles "Kami of the islands" and "Kami of the
country"--titles which indicate that they were held in some respect
by the Japanese. It is not explicitly recorded that Yamato-dake had
any further encounter with the Yemishi, but figurative references
show that he had much fighting. The Chronicles quote him as saying,
after his return to Kii from an extended march through the
northeastern provinces and after penetrating as far as Hi-taka-mi
(modern Hitachi), the headquarters of the Yemishi, that the only
Yemishi who remained unsubmissive were those of Shinano and Koshi
(Echigo, Etchu, and Echizen). But although Yamato-dake subsequently
entered Shinano, where he suffered much from the arduous nature of
the ground, and though he sent a general to explore Koshi, he
ultimately retired to Owari, where he died from the effects of
fatigue and exposure according to some authorities, of a wound from a
poisoned arrow according to others. His last act was to present as
slaves to the shrine of Ise the Yemishi who had originally
surrendered and who had subsequently attached themselves to his
person. They proved so noisy, however, that the priestess of the
shrine sent them to the Yamato Court, which assigned for them a
settlement on Mount Mimoro. Here, too, their conduct was so turbulent
that they received orders to divide and take up their abode at any
place throughout the five provinces of Harima, Sanuki, Iyo, Aki, and
Awa, where, in after ages, they constituted a hereditary corporation
of Saeki (Saekibe).
These details deserve to be recorded, for their sequel shows
historically that there is an Yemishi element in the Japanese race.
Thus, in later times we find the high rank of muraji borne by a
member of the Saekibe. Fifteen years (A.D. 125) after the death of
Yamato-dake, Prince Sajima was appointed governor-general of the
fifteen provinces of Tosan-do (the Eastern Mountain circuit); that is
to say, the provinces along the east coast. He died en route and his
son, Prince Mimoro, succeeded to the office. During his tenure of
power the Yemishi raised a disturbance, but no sooner was force
employed against them than they made obeisance and threw themselves
on the mercy of the Japanese, who pardoned all that submitted.
This orderly condition remained uninterrupted until A.D. 367, when
the Yemishi in Kazusa made one of the very few successful revolts on
record. They killed Tamichi, a Japanese general sent against them,
and they drove back his forces, who do not appear to have taken very
effective measures of retaliation. In 482 we find the Yemishi
rendering homage to the Emperor Kenso, a ceremony which was repeated
on the accession of the Emperor Kimmei (540).
But, though meek in the presence of peril, the Yemishi appear to have
been of a brawling temperament. Thus, in 561, several thousands of
them showed hostility on the frontier, yet no sooner were their
chiefs threatened with death than they submitted. At that time all
the provinces in the northeast and northwest--then included in Mutsu
and Dewa--were in Yemishi possession. They rebelled again in 637, and
at first gained a signal success, driving the Japanese general,
Katana, into a fortress where he was deserted by his troops. His wife
saved the situation. She upbraided her husband as he was scaling the
palisades to escape by night, fortified him with wine, girded his
sword on herself, and caused her female attendants--of whom there
were "several tens"--to twang bowstrings. Katana, taking heart of
grace, advanced single handed; the Yemishi, thinking that his troops
had rallied, gave way, and the Japanese soldiers, returning to their
duty, killed or captured all the insurgents.
No other instance of equally determined resistance is recorded on the
part of the Yemishi. In 642, several thousands made submission in
Koshi. Four years later (646), we find Yemishi doing homage to the
Emperor Kotoku. Yet in 645 it was deemed necessary to establish a
barrier settlement against them in Echigo; and whereas, in 655, when
the Empress Saimei ascended the throne, her Court at Naniwa
entertained ninety-nine of the northern Yemishi and forty-five of the
eastern, conferring cups of honour on fifteen, while at the same time
another numerous body came to render homage and offer gifts, barely
three years had elapsed when, in 655, a Japanese squadron of 180
vessels, under the command of Hirafu, omi of Abe, was engaged
attacking the Yemishi at Akita on the northwest coast of the main
island.
All this shows plainly that many districts were still peopled by
Yemishi and that their docility varied in different localities. In
the Akita campaign the usual surrender was rehearsed. The Yemishi
declared that their bows and arrows were for hunting, not for
fighting, and the affair ended in a great feast given by Hirafu, the
sequel being that two hundred Yemishi proceeded to Court, carrying
presents, and were appointed to various offices in the localities
represented, receiving also gifts of arms, armour, drums, and flags.*
*It is related that these flags had tops shaped like cuttlefish.
An interesting episode is recorded of this visit. One of the Yemishi,
having been appointed to a high post, was instructed to investigate
the Yemishi population and the captive population. Who were these
captives? They seem to have been Sushen, for at the feast given by
Hirafu his Yemishi guests came accompanied by thirty-five captives,
and it is incredible that Japanese prisoners would have been thus
humiliated in the sight of their armed countrymen. There will be
occasion to recur to this point presently. Here we have to note that
in spite of frequent contact, friendly or hostile, and in spite of so
many years of intercourse, the Yemishi seem to have been still
regarded by the Japanese as objects of curiosity. For, in the year
654, envoys from Yamato to the Tang Emperor of China took with them a
Yemishi man and woman to show to his Majesty.
The Chinese sovereign was much struck by the unwonted appearance of
these people. He asked several questions, which are recorded verbatim
in the Chronicles; and the envoys informed him that there were three
tribes of Yemishi; namely, the Tsugaru* Yemishi, who were the most
distant; next, the Ara Yemishi (rough or only partially subdued), and
lastly, the Nigi Yemishi (quiet or docile); that they sustained life
by eating, not cereals, but flesh, and that they dispensed with
houses, preferring to live under trees and in the recesses of
mountains. The Chinese Emperor finally remarked, "When we look at the
unusual bodily appearance of these Yemishi, it is strange in the
extreme."
*The Story of Korea, by Longford.
Evidently whatever the original provenance of the Yemishi, they had
never been among the numerous peoples who observed the custom of
paying visits of ceremony to the Chinese capital. They were
apparently not included in the family of Far Eastern nations. From
the second half of the seventh century they are constantly found
carrying tribute to the Japanese Court and receiving presents or
being entertained in return. But these evidences of docility and
friendship were not indicative of the universal mood. The Yemishi
located in the northeastern section of the main island continued to
give trouble up to the beginning of the ninth century, and throughout
this region as well as along the west coast from the thirty-eighth
parallel of latitude northward the Japanese were obliged to build six
castles and ten barrier posts between A.D. 647 and 800.
These facts, however, have no concern with the immediate purpose of
this historical reference further than to show that from the earliest
times the Yamato immigrants found no opponents in the northern half
of the island except the Yemishi and the Sushen. One more episode,
however, is germane. In the time (682) of the Emperor Temmu, the
Yemishi of Koshi, who had by that time become quite docile, asked for
and received seven thousand families of captives to found a district.
A Japanese writing alleges that these captives were subjects of the
Crown who had been seized and enslaved by the savages. But that is
inconsistent with all probabilities. The Yamato might sentence these
people to serfdom among men of their own race, but they never would
have condemned Japanese to such a position among the Yemishi.
Evidently these "captives" were prisoners taken by the Yamato from
the Koreans, the Sushen, or some other hostile nation.
THE KUMASO
There has been some dispute about the appellation "Kumaso." One high
authority thinks that Kuma and So were the names of two tribes
inhabiting the extreme south of Japan; that is to say, the provinces
now called Hyuga, Osumi, and Satsuma. Others regard the term as
denoting one tribe only. The question is not very material. Among all
the theories formed about the Kumaso, the most plausible is that they
belonged to the Sow race of Borneo and that they found their way to
Japan on the breast of the "Black Tide." Many similarities of custom
have been traced between the two peoples. Both resorted freely to
ornamental tattooing; both used shields decorated with hair; both
were skilled in making articles of bamboo, especially hats; both were
fond of dancing with accompaniment of singing and hand-clapping; and
both dressed their hair alike. Japanese annals use the word "Kumaso"
for the first time in connexion with the annexation of Tsukushi
(Kyushu) by the Izanagi expedition, when one of the four faces of the
island is called the "land of Kumaso." Plainly if this nomenclature
may be taken as evidence, the Kumaso must have arrived in Japan at a
date prior to the advent of the immigrants represented by Izanagi and
Izanami; and it would further follow that they did not penetrate far
into the interior, but remained in the vicinity of the place of
landing, which may be supposed to have been some point on the
southern coast of Kyushu. Nor does there appear to have been any
collision between the two tides of immigrants, for the first
appearance of the Kumaso in a truculent role was in A.D. 81 when they
are said to have rebelled.
The incident, though remote from the capital, was sufficiently
formidable to induce the Emperor Keiko to lead a force against them
in person from Yamato. En route he had to deal with "brigands"
infesting Suwo and Buzen, provinces separated by the Inland Sea and
situated respectively on the south of the main island and the north
of Kyushu. These provinces were ruled by chieftainesses, who declared
themselves loyal to the Imperial cause, and gave information about
the haunts and habits of the "brigands," who in Suwo had no special
appellation but in Buzen were known as Tsuchi-gumo, a name to be
spoken of presently. They were disposed of partly by stratagem and
partly by open warfare. But when the Yamato troops arrived in Hyuga
within striking distance of the Kumaso, the Emperor hesitated. He
deemed it wise not to touch the spear-points of these puissant foes.
Ultimately he overcame them by enticing the two daughters of the
principal leaders and making a show of affection for one of them. She
conducted Japanese soldiers to her father's residence, and having
plied him with strong drink, cut his bow-string while he slept so
that the soldiers could kill him with impunity. It is recorded that
Keiko put the girl to death for her unfilial conduct, but the
assassination of her father helped the Japanese materially in their
campaign against the Kumaso, whom they succeeded in subduing and in
whose land the Emperor remained six years.
The Kumaso were not quelled, however. Scarcely eight years had
elapsed from the time of Keiko's return to Yamato when they rebelled
again, "making ceaseless raids upon the frontier districts;" and he
sent against them his son, Yamato-dake; with a band of skilled
archers. This youth, one of the most heroic figures in ancient
Japanese history, was only sixteen. He disguised himself as a girl
and thus gained access to a banquet given by the principal Kumaso
leader to celebrate the opening of a new residence. Attracted by the
beauty of the supposed girl, the Kumaso chieftain placed her beside
him, and when he had drunk heavily, Yamato-dake stabbed him to the
heart,* subsequently serving all his band in the same way. After
this, the Kumaso remained quiet for nearly a century, but in the year
193,** during the reign of the Emperor Chuai, they once more
rebelled, and the Emperor organized an expedition against them. He
failed in the struggle and was killed by the Kumaso's arrows.
Thenceforth history is silent about them.
*The Chronicles relate that when the Kumaso was struck down he asked
for a moment's respite to learn the name of his slayer, whose prowess
astounded him. On receiving an answer he sought the prince's
permission to give him a title, and declared that instead of being
called Yamato Oguna, the name hitherto borne by him, he should be
termed Yamato-dake (Champion of Japan) because he had conquered the
hitherto unconquerable. The prince accepted the name, and then gave
the Kumaso his coup de grace.
**It should be understood that these dates, being prehistoric, are
not wholly reliable.
Who, then, were they? It is related in the Chronicles that, after
breaking the power of the Kumaso, the Emperor Keiko made a tour of
inspection in Tsukushi (Kyushu), and arriving at the district of
Kuma, summoned two brothers, princes of Kuma, to pay homage. One
obeyed, but the other refused, and soldiers were therefore sent to
put him to death. Now Kuma was the name of the three kingdoms into
which the Korean peninsula was divided in ancient times, and it has
been suggested [Aston] that the land of Kuma in Korea was the parent
country of Kuma in Japan, Kom in the Korean language having the same
meaning (bear) as Kuma in the Japanese. This, of course, involves the
conclusion that the Kumaso were originally Korean emigrants; a theory
somewhat difficult to reconcile with their location in the extreme
south of Kyushu.
The apparent silence of the annals about the subsequent career of the
tribe is accounted for by supposing that the Kumaso were identical
with the Hayato (falcon men), who make their first appearance upon
the scene in prehistoric days as followers of Hosuseri in his contest
with his younger brother, Hohodemi, the hero of the legend about the
palace of the sea god. Hohodemi according to the rationalized version
of the legend having obtained assistance in the shape of ships and
mariners from an oversea monarch (supposed to have reigned in Korea),
returned to Tsukushi to fight his brother, and being victorious,
spared Hosuseri's life on condition that the descendants of the
vanquished through eighty generations should serve the victor's
descendants as mimes.
"On that account," says the Chronicles, "the various Hayato,
descended from Hosuseri to the present time, do not leave the
vicinity of the Imperial palace enclosure and render service instead
of watch-dogs." The first mention of the name Hayato after the
prehistoric battle in Kyushu, occurs in the year 399, when Sashihire,
one of the tribe, was induced to assassinate his master, an Imperial
prince. This incident goes to show that individual members of the
tribe were then employed at Court; an inference confirmed fifty-one
years later, when, on the death of Emperor Yuryaku, "the Hayato
lamented night and day beside the misasagi (tomb) and refused the
food offered to them, until at the end of seven days they died."
It can scarcely be doubted that we have here a reversion to the old
custom which compelled slaves to follow their lords to the grave. The
Hayato serving in the Court at that epoch held the status generally
assigned in ancient days to vanquished people, the status of serfs or
slaves. Six times during the next 214 years we find the Hayato
repairing to the Court to pay homage, in the performance of which
function they are usually bracketted with the Yemishi. Once (682) a
wrestling match took place in the Imperial presence between the
Hayato of Osumi and those of Satsuma, and once (694) the viceroy of
Tsukushi (Kyushu) presented 174 Hayato to the Court.
THE TSUCHI-GUMO
In ancient Japan there was a class of men to whom the epithet
"Tsuchi" (earth-spiders) was applied. Their identity has been a
subject of much controversy. The first mention made of them in
Japanese annals occurs in connexion with the slaughter of eighty
braves invited to a banquet by the Emperor Jimmu's general in a
pit-dwelling at Osaka.* The Records apply to these men the epithet
"Tsuchi-gumo," whereas the Chronicles represent the Emperor as
celebrating the incident in a couplet which speaks of them as
Yemishi. It will be seen presently that the apparent confusion of
epithet probably conveys a truth.
*This incident has been already referred to under the heading
"Yemishi." It is to be observed that the "Osaka" here mentioned is
not the modern city of Osaka.
The next allusion to Tsuchi-gumo occurs in the annals of the year
(662 B.C.) following the above event, according to the chronology of
the Chronicles. The Emperor, having commanded his generals to
exercise the troops, Tsuchi-gumo were found in three places, and as
they declined to submit, a detachment was sent against them.
Concerning a fourth band of these defiant folk, the Chronicles say:
"They had short bodies and long legs and arms. They were of the same
class as the pigmies. The Imperial troops wove nets of dolichos,
which they flung over them and then slew them."
There are four comments to be made on this. The first is that the
scene of the fighting was in Yamato. The second, that the chiefs of
the Tsuchi-gumo had Japanese names--names identical, in two cases,
with those of a kind of Shinto priest (hafuri), and therefore most
unlikely to have been borne by men not of Japanese origin. The third,
that the presence of Tsuchi-gumo in Yamato preceded the arrival of
Jimmu's expedition. And the fourth, that the Records are silent about
the whole episode. As for the things told in the Chronicles about
short bodies, long limbs, pigmies, and nets of dolichos, they may be
dismissed as mere fancies suggested by the name Tsuchi-gumo, which
was commonly supposed to mean "earth-spiders." If any inference may
be drawn from the Chronicles' story, it is that there were Japanese
in Yamato before Jimmu's time, and that Tsuchi-gumo were simply bands
of Japanese raiders.
ENGRAVING: AINUS (INHABITANTS OF HOKKAIDO, THE NORTHERN ISLAND)
They are heard of next in the province of Bungo (on the northeast of
Kyushu) where (A.D. 82) the Emperor Keiko led an army to attack the
Kumaso. Two bands of Tsuchi-gumo are mentioned as living there, and
the Imperial forces had no little difficulty in subduing them. Their
chiefs are described as "mighty of frame and having numerous
followers." In dealing with the first band, Keiko caused his bravest
soldiers to carry mallets made from camellia trees, though why such
weapons should have been preferred to the trenchant swords used by
the Japanese there is nothing to show. (Another account says
"mallet-headed swords," which is much more credible). In dealing with
the second, he was driven back once by their rain of arrows, and when
he attacked from another quarter, the Tsuchi-gumo, their submission
having been refused, flung themselves into a ravine and perished.
Here again certain points have to be noticed: that there were
Tsuchi-gumo in Kyushu as well as in Yamato; that if one account
describes them as pigmies, another depicts them as "mighty of frame,"
and that in Kyushu, as in Yamato, the Tsuchi-gumo had Japanese names.
Only once again do the annals refer to Tsuchi-gumo. They relate
curtly that on his return from quelling the Kumaso the Emperor Keiko
killed a Tsuchi-gumo in the province of Hizen. The truth seems to be
that factitious import has been attached to the Tsuchi-gumo. Mainly
because they were pit-dwellers, it was assumed for a tune that they
represented a race which had immigrated to Japan at some date prior
to the arrival of the Yemishi (modern Ainu). This theory was founded
on the supposed discovery of relics of pit-dwellers in the islands of
Yezo and Itorop, and their hasty identification as Kuro-pok-guru--the
Ainu term for underground dwellers--whose modern representatives are
seen among the Kurilsky or their neighbours in Kamchatka and
Saghalien. But closer examination of the Yezo and Itorop pits showed
that there was complete absence of any mark of antiquity--such as the
presence of large trees or even deep-rooted brushwood;--that they
were arranged in regular order, suggesting a military encampment
rather than the abode of savages; that they were of uniform size,
with few exceptions; that on excavation they yielded fragments of
hard wood, unglazed pottery, and a Japanese dirk, and, finally, that
their site corresponded with that of military encampments established
in Yezo and the Kuriles by the Japanese Government in the early part
of the nineteenth century as a defence against Russian aggression.
Evidently the men who constructed and used these pit-dwellings were
not prehistoric savages but modern Japanese soldiers. Further very
conclusive testimony has been collected by the Rev. John Batchelor,
who has devoted profound study to the Ainu. He found that the
inhabitants of Shikotan, who had long been supposed to be a remnant
of pre-Ainu immigrants, were brought thither from an island called
Shimushir in the Kurile group in 1885 by order of the Japanese
Government; that they declared themselves to be descended from men of
Saghalien; that they spoke nothing but the Ainu language, and that
they inhabited pits in winter, as do also the Ainu now living in
Saghalien. If any further proof were needed, it might be drawn from
the fact that no excavation has brought to light any relics whatever
of a race preceding and distinct from the Yemishi (Ainu), all the
pits and graves hitherto searched having yielded Yamato or Yemishi
skulls. Neither has there been found any trace of pigmies.
An Ainu myth is responsible for the belief in the existence of such
beings: "In very ancient times, a race of people who dwelt in pits
lived among us. They were so very tiny that ten of them could easily
take shelter beneath one burdock leaf. When they went to catch
herrings they used to make boats by sewing the leaves together, and
always fished with a hook. If a single herring was caught, it took
all the strength of the men of five boats, or ten sometimes, to hold
it and drag it ashore, while whole crowds were required to kill it
with their clubs and spears. Yet, strange to say, these divine little
men used even to kill great whales. Surely these pit-dwellers were
gods."*
*"The Ainu and their Folk-lore," by Batchelor.
Evidently if such legends are to be credited, the existence of
fairies must no longer be denied in Europe. Side by side with the
total absence of all tangible relics may be set the fact that,
whereas numerous place-names in the main island of Japan have been
identified as Ainu words, none has been traced to any alien tongue
such as might be associated with earlier inhabitants. Thus, the
theory of a special race of immigrants anterior to the Yemishi has to
be abandoned so far as the evidence of pit-dwelling is concerned.
The fact is that the use of partially underground residences
cannot be regarded as specially characteristic of any race or as
differentiating one section of the people of Japan from another. To
this day the poorer classes in Korea depend for shelter upon pits
covered with thatch or strong oil-paper. They call these dwellings um
or um-mak, a term corresponding to the Japanese muro. Pit-dwellers
are mentioned in old Chinese literature, and the references to the
muro in the Records and Chronicles show that the muro of those days
had a character similar to that of the modern Korean um-mak [Aston].
We read of a muro being dug; of steps down to it; and we read of a
muro big enough to hold 160 persons at one time. The muro was not
always simply a hole roofed over: it sometimes contained a house
having a wooden frame lashed together with vine-tendrils, the walls
lined with sedges and reeds and plastered with a mixture of grass and
clay. The roof was thatched with reeds; there was a door opening
inwards, and a raised platform served for sleeping purposes. A
dwelling closely resembling this description was actually unearthed
near Akita in O-U, in 1807. Muro were used in ancient times by the
highest as Well as the poorest classes. Susanoo is said by the Izumo
Fudoki to have made for himself a muro; Jimmu's sort is represented
as sleeping in a great muro, and the Emperor Keiko, when (A.D.82)
prosecuting his campaign in Kyushu, is said to have constructed a
muro for a temporary palace. "In fact, pit-dwelling in northern
climates affords no indication of race."
CONCLUSION FROM HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
Thus the conclusion suggested by historical evidence is that the
Japanese nation is composed of four elements: the Yamato; the Yemishi
(modern Ainu); the Kumaso (or Hayato), and the Sushen. As to the last
of these, there is no conclusive indication that they ever immigrated
in appreciable numbers. It does not follow, of course, that the
historical evidence is exhaustive, especially Japanese historical
evidence; for the annalists of Japan do not appear to have paid any
special attention to racial questions.
ENGRAVING: ANCIENT HANGING BELLS
ENGRAVING: FUTAMI-GA-URA (The Husband and Wife Rocks)
CHAPTER VI
ORIGIN OF THE NATION: GEOGRAPHICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RELICS
JAPAN'S CONNEXION WITH THE ASIATIC CONTINENT
THE group of islands forming Japan may be said to have routes of
communication with the continent of Asia at six places: two in the
north; two in the southwest, and two in the south. The principal
connexion in the north is across the narrow strait of Soya from the
northwest point of Yezo to Saghalien and thence to the Amur region of
Manchuria. The secondary connexion is from the north-east point of
Yezo via the long chain of the Kuriles to Kamchatka. The first of the
southwestern routes is from the northwest of Kyushu via the islands
of Iki and Tsushima to the southeast of Korea; and the second is from
the south of the Izumo promontory in Japan, by the aid of the current
which sets up the two southern routes. One of these is from the
southwest of Kyushu via the Goto Islands to southeastern China; the
other is from the south of Kyushu via the Ryukyu Islands, Formosa,
and the Philippines to Malaysia and Polynesia. It has also been
proved geologically* that the islands now forming Japan must at one
time have been a part of the Asiatic continent. Evidently these
various avenues may have given access to immigrants from Siberia,
from China, from Malaysia, and from Polynesia.
*There have been found in the gravel Tertiary mammals including
elephas primigenius, elephas Namadicus, stegodon Clifti, and unnamed
varieties of bear, deer, bison, ox, horse, rhinoceros, and whale.
(Outlines of the Geology of Japan; Imperial Geological Survey).
CULTURE
Archaeological research indicates the existence of two distinct
cultures in Japan together with traces of a third. One of these
cultures has left its relics chiefly in shell-heaps or embedded in
the soil, while the remains of another are found mainly in sepulchral
chambers or in caves. The relics themselves are palpably distinct
except when they show transitional approach to each other.
The older culture is attested by more than four thousand residential
sites and shell-heaps. Its most distinctive features are the absence
of all metallic objects and the presence of pottery not turned on the
wheel. Polished, finely chipped, and roughly hewn implements and
weapons of stone are found, as are implements of bone and horn.
It was, in short, a neolithic culture. The vestiges of the other
culture do not include weapons of stone. There are imitations of
sheath-knives, swords, and arrow-heads, and there are some models of
stone articles. But the alien features are iron weapons and hard
pottery always moulded on the wheel. Copper is present mainly in
connexion with the work of the goldsmith and the silversmith, and
arrow-heads, jingle-bells, mirrors, etc., are also present. The
former culture is identified as that of the aboriginal inhabitants,
the Yemishi; the latter belongs to the Yamato race, or Japanese
proper. Finally, "there are indications that a bronze culture
intervened in the south between the stone and the iron phases."*
*Munro's Prehistoric Japan.
PRIMITIVE CULTURE
The neolithic sites occur much more frequently in the northern than
in the southern half of Japan. They are, indeed, six times as
numerous on the north as on the south of a line drawn across the main
island from the coast of Ise through Orai. The neighbourhood of the
sea, at heights of from thirty to three hundred feet, and the
alluvial plains are their favourite positions. So far as the
technical skill shown by the relics--especially the pottery--is
concerned, it grows higher with the latitude. The inference is that
the settlements of the aborigines in the south were made at an
earlier period than those in the north; which may be interpreted to
mean that whereas the stone-using inhabitants were driven back in the
south at an early date, they held their ground in the north to a
comparatively modern era.
That is precisely what Japanese history indicates. Jimmu's conquests,
which took place several centuries before the Christian era, carried
him as far as the Ise-Omi line, but Yamato-dake's expedition against
the Yemishi north of that line was not planned until the second
century after Christ. Apart from the rough evidence furnished by the
quality of the relics, calculations have been made of the age of an
important shell-heap by assuming that it originally stood at the
seaside, and by estimating the number of years required to separate
it by the present interval from the coast at a fixed annual rate of
silting. The result is from five thousand to ten thousand years. A
book (the Hitachi Fudoki), published in A.D. 715, speaks of these
kaizuka (shell-heaps) as existing already at that remote period, and
attributes their formation to a giant living on a hill who stretched
out his hand to pick up shell-fish. This myth remained current until
the eighteenth century, and stone axes exhumed from the heaps were
called thunder-axes (rai-fu) just as similar relics in Europe were
called elf-bolts or thunder-stones.
There is great diversity of size among the shell-heaps, some being of
insignificant dimensions and others extending to five hundred square
yards. They are most numerous in the eight provinces forming the
Kwanto. In fact, in these ancient times, the Yamato race and the
aborigines had their headquarters in the same localities,
respectively, as the Imperial and Feudal governments had in mediaeval
and modern times. But there are no distinct traces of palaeolithic
culture; the neolithic alone can be said to be represented. Its
relics are numerous--axes, knives, arrow-heads, arrow-necks,
bow-tips, spear-heads, batons, swords, maces, sling-stones, needles,
drill-bows, drill and spindle weights, mortars and pestles, paddles,
boats, sinkers, fishing-hooks, gaffs, harpoons, mallets, chisels,
scrapers, hoes, sickles, whetstones, hammers, and drills.
It must be premised that though so many kinds of implements are here
enumerated, the nomenclature cannot be accepted as universally
accurate. The so-called "hoe," for example, is an object of disputed
identity, especially as agriculture has not been proved to have been
practised among the primitive people of Japan, nor have any traces of
grain been found in the neolithic sites. On the other hand, the
modern Ainu, who are believed to represent the ancient population,
include in their religious observances the worship of the first cakes
made from the season's millet, and unless that rite be supposed to
have been borrowed from the Yamato, it goes to indicate agricultural
pursuits.
There is, indeed, one great obstacle to any confident differentiation
of the customs and creeds prevalent in Japan. That obstacle consists
in the great length of the period covered by the annals. It may
reasonably be assumed that the neolithic aborigines were in more or
less intimate contact with the invading Yamato for something like
twenty-five centuries, an interval quite sufficient to have produced
many interactions and to have given birth to many new traditions. An
illustration is furnished by the mental attitude of the uneducated
classes in Japan towards the neolithic implements. So completely has
all memory of the human uses of these implements faded, that they are
regarded as relics of supernatural beings and called by such names as
raifu (thunder-axe), raitsui (thunder-club), kitsune no kuwa
(fox-hoe), raiko (thunder-pestle), and tengu no meshigai (rice-spoon
of the goblins). Many of the neolithic relics show that the people
who used them had reached a tolerably high level of civilization.
This is specially seen in the matter of ceramics. It is true that the
wheel was not employed, and that the firing was imperfect, but the
variety of vessels was considerable,* and the shapes and decorations
were often very praiseworthy. Thus, among the braziers are found
shapes obviously the originals of the Japanese choji-buro
(clove-censer) and the graceful rice-bowl, while community of
conception with Chinese potters would seem to be suggested by some of
the forms of these ancient vases. Particularly interesting are
earthenware images obtained from these neolithic sites. Many of them
have been conventionalized into mere anthropomorphs and are rudely
moulded. But they afford valuable indications of the clothing and
personal adornments of the aborigines.
*Cooking-pots and pans, jars and vases, bowls and dishes, cups,
bottles, nipple pots, lamps, braziers, ewers, strainers, spindles or
drill weights, stamps, ornaments, images, and plaques (Munro's
Prehistoric Japan).
What end these effigies were intended to serve remains an unsettled
question. Some suggest that they were used as substitutes for human
sacrifices, and that they point to a time when wives and slaves were
required to follow their husbands and masters to the grave. They may
also have been suggested by the example of the Yamato, who, at a very
remote time, began to substitute clay images for human followers of
the dead; or they may have been designed to serve as mere mementoes.
This last theory derives some force from the fact that the images are
found, not in graves or tombs, but at residential sites. No data have
been obtained, however, for identifying burying-places: sepulture may
have been carried out in the house of the deceased. Whichever
explanation be correct, the fact confronts us that these clay
effigies have no place in the cult of the modern Ainu. History
teaches, however, that degeneration may become so complete as to
deprive a nation of all traces of its original civilization. Such
seems to have been the case with the Ainu.
INTERMEDIATE CULTURE
Traces of a culture occupying a place intermediate between the
primitive culture and that of the Yamato are not conclusive. They are
seen in pottery which, like the ware of the neolithic sites, is not
turned on the wheel, and, like the Yamato ware, is decorated in a
very subdued and sober fashion. It is found from end to end of the
main island and even in Yezo, and in pits, shell-heaps, and
independent sites as well as in tombs, burial caves, and cairns of
the Yamato. Thus, there does not seem to be sufficient warrant for
associating it with a special race. It was possibly supplied to order
of the Yamato by the aboriginal craftsmen, who naturally sought to
copy the salient features of the conquering immigrants' ware.
BRONZE VESTIGES
There are also some bronze vestiges to which considerable interest
attaches, for evidently people using bronze weapons could not have
stood against men carrying iron arms, and therefore the people to
whom the bronze implements belonged must have obtained a footing in
Japan prior to the Yamato, unless they came at the latter's
invitation or as their allies. Moreover, these bronze relics--with
the exception of arrow-heads--though found in the soil of western and
southern Japan, do not occur in the Yamato sepulchres, which feature
constitutes another means of differentiation. Daggers, swords,
halberds, and possibly spear-heads constitute the hand-weapons. The
daggers have a certain resemblance to the Malay kris, and the swords
and halberds are generally leaf-shaped. But some features, as
overshort tangs and unpierced loops, suggest that they were
manufactured, not for service in battle but for ceremonial purposes,
being thus mere survivals from an era when their originals were in
actual use, and possibly those originals may have been of iron. Some
straight-edged specimens have been classed as spear-heads, but they
closely resemble certain ancient bronze swords of China. As for
bronze arrow-heads, they occur alike in Yamato sepulchres and in the
soil, so that no special inference is warranted in their case. The
bronze hand-weapons have been found in twelve provinces of southern
and western Japan: namely, five provinces of northwest Kyushu; three
on the Inland Sea; one facing Korea and China, and the rest on the
islands of Iki and Tsushima.
These localities and the fact that similar swords have been met with
in Shantung, suggest that the bronze culture came from central and
eastern Asia, which hypothesis receives confirmation from the
complete absence of bronze vestiges in the southern provinces of
Kyushu, namely, Osumi and Satsuma. Bronze bells, of which there are
many, belong to a separate page of archaeology. Though they have been
found in no less than twenty-four provinces, there is no instance of
their presence in the same sites with hand-weapons of bronze. In
Kyushu, Higo is the only province where they have been seen, whereas
in the main island they extend as far east as Totomi, and are
conspicuously numerous in that province and its neighbour, Mikawa,
while in Omi they are most abundant of all. They vary in height from
about one foot four inches to four and a half feet, and are of highly
specialized shape, the only cognate type being bells used in China
during the Chou dynasty (1122-225 B.C.) for the purpose of giving
military signals. A Chinese origin is still more clearly indicated by
the decorative designs, which show a combination of the circle, the
triangle, and the spiral, obviously identical with the decorative
motive* on Chinese drums of the Han dynasty (202 B.C.-A.D. 220). The
circle and the triangle occur also in the sepulchral pottery of the
Yamato sites, and considering the fact together with the abundance of
the bells in districts where the Yamato were most strongly
established, there seems to be warrant for attributing these curious
relics to the Yamato culture.
*This resemblance has been pointed out by a Japanese archaeologist,
Mr. Teraishi. Dr. Munro states that the same elements are combined in
an Egyptian decorative design.
To this inference it has been objected that no bells have been found
in the tombs of the Yamato. The same is true, however, of several
other objects known to have belonged to that people. If, then, the
bells be classed as adjuncts of the Yamato culture, shall we be
justified in assigning the bronze weapon to a different race? On the
whole, the most reasonable conclusion seems to be that all the bronze
relics, weapons, and bells alike, are "vestiges of the Yamato
procession at a time anterior to the formation of the great dolmens
and other tombs" [Munro]. A corollary would be that the Yamato
migrated from China in the days of the Chou dynasty (1122-225 B.C.),
and that, having landed in the province of Higo, they conquered the
greater part of Tsukushi (Kyushu), and subsequently passed up the
Inland Sea to Yamato; which hypothesis would invest with some
accuracy the date assigned by the Chronicles to Jimmu's expedition
and would constitute a general confirmation of the Japanese account
of his line of advance.
YAMATO CULTURE
The ancient Yamato are known chiefly through the medium of relics
found in their sepulchres. Residential sites exist in comparatively
small numbers, so far as research ha hitherto shown, and such sites
yield nothing except more or less scattered potsherds and low walls
enclosing spaces of considerable area. Occasionally Yamato pottery
and other relics are discovered in pits, and these evidences,
combined with historical references, go to show that the Yamato
themselves sometimes used pit-dwellings.
The tombs yield much more suggestive relics of metal, stone, and
pottery. Some four thousand of such sepulchres have been officially
catalogued, but it is believed that fully ten times that number
exist. The most characteristic is a tomb of larger dimensions
enclosing a dolmen which contains a coffin hollowed out from the
trunk of a tree, or a sarcophagus of stone,* the latter being much
more commonly found, as might be expected from its greater
durability. Burial-jars were occasionally used, as were also
sarcophagi of clay or terracotta,** the latter chiefly in the
provinces of Bizen and Mimasaka, probably because suitable materials
existed there in special abundance. Moreover, not a few tombs
belonged to the category of cists; that is to say, excavations in
rock, with a single-slabbed or many-slabbed cover; or receptacles
formed with stone clubs, cobbles, or boulders.
*The stone sarcophagus was of considerable size and various shapes,
forming an oblong box with a lid of a boatlike form.
**The terracotta sarcophagi were generally parallel, oblong or
elongated oval in shape, with an arched or angular covering and
several feet. One has been found with doors moving on hinges.
There is great difficulty in arriving at any confident estimate of
age amid such variety. Dolmens of a most primitive kind "exist side
by side with stone chambers of highly finished masonry in
circumstances which suggest contemporaneous construction" so that
"the type evidently furnishes little or no criterion of age," and,
moreover, local facilities must have largely influenced the method of
building. The dolmen is regarded by archaeologists as the most
characteristic feature of the Yamato tombs. It was a chamber formed
by setting up large slabs of stone, inclined slightly towards each
other, which served as supports for another slab forming the roof.
Seen in plan, the dolmens presented many shapes: a simple chamber or
gallery; a chamber with a gallery, or a series of chambers with a
gallery. Above the dolmen a mound was built, sometimes of huge
dimensions (as, for example, the misasagi* of the Emperor Tenchi--d.
A.D. 671--which with its embankments, measured 5040 feet square), and
within the dolmen were deposited many articles dedicated to the
service of the deceased. Further, around the covering-mound there are
generally found, embedded in the earth, terracotta cylinders
(haniwa), sometimes surmounted with figures or heads of persons or
animals.
*By this name all the Imperial tombs were called.
According to the Chronicles, incidents so shocking occurred in
connexion with the sacrifice of the personal attendants* of Prince
Yamato at his burial (A.D. 2) that the custom of making such
sacrifices was thenceforth abandoned, clay images being substituted
for human beings. The Records speak of a "hedge of men set up round a
tumulus," and it would therefore seem that these terracotta figures
usually found encircling the principal misasagi, represented that
hedge and served originally as pedestals for images. Within the
dolmen, also, clay effigies are often found, which appear to have
been substitutes for retainers of high rank. Had the ancient custom
been effectually abolished in the year A.D. 3, when the Emperor
Suinin is recorded to have issued orders in that sense, a simple and
conclusive means would be at hand for fixing the approximate date of
a dolmen, since all tombs containing clay effigies or encircled by
terracotta haniwa would necessarily be subsequent to that date, and
all tombs containing skeletons other than the occupants of the
sarcophagi would be referable to an earlier era. But although
compulsory sacrifices appear to have ceased from about the first
century of the Christian era, it is certain that voluntary sacrifices
continued through many subsequent ages. This clue is therefore
illusory. Neither does the custom itself serve to connect the Yamato
with any special race, for it is a wide-spread rite of animistic
religion, and it was practised from time immemorial by the Chinese,
the Manchu Tatars, and many other nations of northeastern Asia.
*They are said to have been buried upright in the precincts of the
misasagi. "For several days they died not, but wept and wailed day
and night. At last they died and rotted. Dogs and crows gathered and
ate them." (Chronicles. Aston's translation.)
The substitution of images for living beings, however, appears to
have been a direct outcome of contact with China, for the device was
known there as early as the seventh century before Christ. It would
seem, too, from the researches of a learned Japanese archaeologist
(Professor Miyake), that the resemblance between Japanese and Chinese
burial customs was not limited to this substitution. The dolmen also
existed in China in very early times, but had been replaced by a
chamber of finished masonry not later than the ninth century B.C. In
the Korean peninsula the dolmen with a megalithic roof is not
uncommon, and the sepulchral pottery bears a close resemblance to
that of the Yamato tombs. It was at one time supposed that the highly
specialized form of dolmen found in Japan had no counterpart anywhere
on the continent of Asia, but that supposition has proved erroneous.
The contents of the sepulchres, however, are more distinctive. They
consist of "noble weapons and armour, splendid horse-trappings,
vessels for food and drink, and various objects de luxe," though
articles of wood and textile fabrics have naturally perished. Iron
swords are the commonest relics. They are found in all tombs of all
ages, and they bear emphatic testimony to the warlike habits of the
Yamato, as well as to their belief that in the existence beyond the
grave weapons were not less essential than in life. Arrow-heads are
also frequently found and spear-heads sometimes.* The swords are all
of iron. There is no positive evidence showing that bronze swords
were in use, though grounds exist for supposing, as has been already
noted, that they were employed at a period not much anterior to the
commencement of dolmen building, which seems to have been about the
sixth or seventh century before Christ. The iron swords themselves
appear to attest this, for although the great majority are
single-edged and of a shape essentially suited to iron, about ten per
cent, are double-edged with a central ridge distinctly reminiscent of
casting in fact, a hammered-iron survival of a bronze leaf-shaped
weapon.** Occasionally these swords have, at the end of the tang, a
disc with a perforated design of two dragons holding a ball, a
decorative motive which already betrays Chinese origin. Other swords
have pommels surmounted by a bulb set at an angle to the tang,*** and
have been suspected to be Turanian origin.
*The most comprehensive list of these objects is that given in
Munro's Prehistoric Japan: "Objects of iron--(1), Swords and daggers;
(2), Hilt-guards and pommels; (3), Arrow-heads; (4), Spear-heads and
halberd-heads; (5) Armour and helmets; (6), Stirrups and bridle-bits;
(7), Ornamental trappings for horses; (8), Axes, hoes, or chisels;
(9), Hoes or spades; (10), Chains; (11), Rings; (12), Buckles; (13),
Smith's tongs or pincers; (14), Nails; (15), Caskets, handles,
hinges, and other fittings. Objects of copper and bronze--(1),
Arrow-heads; (2), Spear-heads; (3), Hilt-guards and pommels; (4),
Scabbard-covers and pieces of sheet-copper for ornamental uses; (5),
Helmets; (6), Arm-and-leg guards; (7), Shoes; (8), Horse-trappings;
(9), Belts; (10), Mirrors; (11), Bracelets and rings; (12), Various
fittings. Silver and gold were employed chiefly in plating, but fine
chains and pendants as well as rings of pure gold and silver have
been met with.
"The stone objects may be divided into two classes, viz:
"A. Articles of use or ornaments--(1), Head-rest; (2), Mortar and
pestle; (3), Caskets and vessels; (4), Cups and other vessels; (5),
Bracelets; (6), Magatama; (7), Other ornaments; (8), Plumb-line
pendant; (9), Spindle-weight; (10), Objects of unascertained
function.
"B. Sepulchral substitutes--(1), Swords and daggers; (2),
Sheath-knife; (3), Arrow-head; (4), Spear-head; (5), Shield; (6);
Armour; (7), Wooden dogs; (8), Mirror; (9), Comb; (10), Magatama;
(11), Cooking-knife; (12), Sickle or scythe-blade; (13), Hoe or
chisel; (14), Head of chisel or spear; (15), Bowl; (16), Table; (17),
Sword-pommel; (18), Nondescript objects." The above list does not
include pottery.
**The leaf-shaped bronze sword is found over all Europe from the
Mediterranean to Lapland, but generally without a central ridge.
***Mr. Takahashi, a Japanese archaeologist, suggests that these
weapons were the so called "mallet-headed swords" said to have been
used by Keiko's soldiers (A.D. 82) against the Tsuchi-gumo. The name,
kabutsuchi, supports this theory, kabu being the term for "turnip,"
which is also found in kabuya, a humming arrow having a turnip-shaped
head perforated with holes.
Yet another form--found mostly in the Kwanto provinces and to the
north of them, from which fact its comparatively recent use may be
inferred--was known in western Asia and especially in Persia, whence
it is supposed to have been exported to the Orient in connexion with
the flourishing trade carried on between China and Persia from the
seventh to the tenth century. That a similar type is not known to
exist in China proves nothing conclusive, for China's attitude
towards foreign innovations was always more conservative than
Japan's. Scabbards, having been mostly of wood, have not survived,
but occasionally one is found having a sheeting of copper thickly
plated with gold. Arrow-heads are very numerous. Those of bronze
have, for the most part, the leaf shape of the bronze sword, but
those of iron show many forms, the most remarkable being the
chisel-headed, a type used in Persia.
Spear-heads are not specially suggestive as to provenance, with the
exception of a kind having a cross-arm like the halberd commonly used
in China from the seventh century before Christ. Yamato armour
affords little assistance to the archaeologist: it bears no
particularly close resemblance to any type familiar elsewhere. There
was a corset made of sheet iron, well rivetted. It fastened in front
and was much higher behind than before, additioned protection for the
back being provided by a lattice-guard which depended from the helmet
and was made by fastening strips of sheet iron to leather or cloth.
The helmet was usually of rivetted iron, but occasionally of bronze,
with or without a peak in front. There were also guards of copper or
iron for the legs, and there were shoulder-curtains constructed in
the same manner as the back-curtain pendant from the helmet. Shoes of
copper complete the panoply.
The workmanship of these weapons and armour is excellent: it shows an
advanced stage of manufacturing skill. This characteristic is even
more remarkable in the case of horse-trappings. The saddle and
stirrups, the bridle and bit, are practically the same as those that
were used in modern times, even a protective toe-piece for the
stirrup being present. A close resemblance is observable between the
ring stirrups of old Japan and those of mediaeval Europe, and a much
closer affinity is shown by the bits, which had cheek-pieces and were
usually jointed in the centre precisely like a variety common in
Europe; metal pendants, garnished with silver and gold and carrying
globular jingle-bells in their embossed edges, served for horse
decoration. These facts are learned, not from independent relics
alone, but also from terracotta steeds found in the tumuli and
moulded so as to show all their trappings.
Other kinds of expert iron-work have also survived; as chains, rings
and, buckles, which differ little from corresponding objects in
Europe at the present day; and the same is true of nails, handles,
hinges, and other fittings. Tools used in working metal are rarely
found, a fact easily accounted for when we remember that such objects
would naturally be excluded from sepulchres.
There is another important relic which shows that the Yamato were
"indebted to China for the best specimens of their decorative art."
This is a round bronze mirror, of which much is heard in early
Japanese annals from the time of Izanagi downwards. In China the art
of working in bronze was known and practised during twenty centuries
prior to the Christian era; but although Japan seems to have
possessed the knowledge at the outset of the dolmen epoch, (circ. 600
B.C.), she had no copper mine of her own until thirteen centuries
later, and was obliged to rely on Korea for occasional supplies. This
must have injuriously affected her progress in the art of bronze
casting.
Nevertheless, in almost all the dolmens and later tombs mirrors of
bronze were placed. This custom came into vogue in China at an early
date, the mirror being regarded as an amulet against decay or a
symbol of virtue. That Japan borrowed the idea from her neighbour can
scarcely be doubted. She certainly procured many Chinese mirrors,
which are easily distinguished by finely executed and beautiful
decorative designs in low relief on their backs; whereas her own
mirrors--occasionally of iron--did not show equal skill of technique
or ornamentation. Comparative roughness distinguished them, and they
had often a garniture of jingle-bells (suzu) cast around the rim, a
feature not found in Chinese mirrors. They were, in fact, an inferior
copy of a Chinese prototype, the kinship of the two being further
attested by the common use of the dragon as a decorative motive.
Bronze vases and bowls, simple or covered, are occasionally found in
the Yamato sepulchres. Sometimes they are gilt, and in no case do
their shapes differentiate them from Chinese or modern Japanese
models.
It might be supposed that in the field of personal ornament some
special features peculiar to the Yamato civilization should present
themselves. There is none. Bronze or copper bracelets,* closed or
open and generally gilt, recall the Chinese bangle precisely, except
when they are cast with a garniture of suzu. In fact, the suzu
(jingle-bell) seems to be one of the few objects purely of Yamato
origin. It was usually globular, having its surface divided into
eight parts, and it served not only as part of a bangle and as a
pendant for horse-trappings but also as a post-bell (ekirei), which,
when carried by nobles and officials, indicated their right to
requisition horses for travelling purposes.
*Jasper also was employed for making bracelets, and there is some
evidence that shells were similarly used.
To another object interest attaches because of its wide use in
western Asia and among the Celtic peoples of Europe. This is the
penannular (or open) ring. In Europe, it was usually of solid gold or
silver, but in Japan, where these metals were very scarce in early
days, copper, plated with beaten gold or silver, was the material
generally employed. Sometimes these rings were hollow and sometimes,
but very rarely, flattened. The smaller ones seem to have served as
earrings, worn either plain or with pendants.
Prominent among personal ornaments were magatama (curved jewels) and
kudatama (cylindrical jewels). It is generally supposed that the
magatama represented a tiger's claw, which is known to have been
regarded by the Koreans as an amulet. But the ornament may also have
taken its comma-like shape from the Yo and the Yin, the positive and
the negative principles which by Chinese cosmographists were
accounted the great primordial factors, and which occupy a prominent
place in Japanese decorative art as the tomoye.* The cylindrical
jewels evidently owed their shape to facility for stringing into
necklaces or chaplets. The Chronicles and the Records alike show that
these jewels, especially the magatama, acted an important part in
some remarkable scenes in the mythological age.** Moreover, a sword,
a mirror, and a magatama, may be called the regalia of Japan. But
these jewels afford little aid in identifying the Yamato. Some of
them--those of jade, chrysoprase, and nephrite***--must have been
imported, these minerals never having been found in Japan. But the
latter fact, though it may be held to confirm the continental origin
of the Yamato, gives no indication as to the part of Asia whence they
emigrated.
*Professor Takashima has found magatama among the relics of the
primitive culture, but that is probably the result of imitation.
**The goddess of the Sun, when awaiting the encounter with Susanoo,
twisted a complete string, eight feet long, with five hundred
magatama. Lesser Kami were created by manipulating the jewels. When
Amaterasu retired into a cave, magatama were hung from the branches
of a sakaki tree to assist in enticing her out. Several other
reverential allusions are made to the jewels in later times.
***The jewels were of jasper, agate, chalcedony, serpentine,
nephrite, steatite, quartz, crystal, glass, jade (white and green),
and chrysoprase. Mention is also made of rakan, but the meaning of
the term is obscure. Probably it was a variety of jade.
YAMATO POTTERY
The pottery found in the Yamato tombs is somewhat more instructive
than the personal ornaments. It seems to have been specially
manufactured, or at any rate selected, for purposes of sepulture, and
it evidently retained its shape and character from very remote if not
from prehistoric times. Known in Japan as iwaibe (sacred utensils),
it resembles the pottery of Korea so closely that identity has been
affirmed by some archaeologists and imitation by others. It has
comparatively fine paste--taking the primitive pottery as
standard--is hard, uniformly baked, has a metallic ring, varies in
colour from dark brown to light gray, is always turned on the wheel,
has only accidental glaze, and is decorated in a simple, restrained
manner with conventionalized designs. The shapes of the various
vessels present no marked deviation from Chinese or Korean models,
except that, the tazzas and occasionally other utensils are sometimes
pierced in triangular, quadrilateral, and circular patterns, to which
various meanings more or less fanciful have been assigned.
There is, however, one curious form of iwaibe which does not appear
to have any counterpart in China or Korea. It is a large jar, or
tazza, having several small jars moulded around its shoulder,* these
small jars being sometimes interspersed with, and sometimes wholly
replaced by, figures of animals.** It is necessary to go to the
Etruscan "black ware" to find a parallel to this most inartistic kind
of ornamentation.
*This style of ornamentation was called komochi (child-bearing), the
small jars being regarded as children of the large.
**Mr. Wakabayashi, a Japanese archaeologist, has enumerated seven
varieties of figures thus formed on vases: horses, deer, wild boars,
dogs, birds, tortoises; and human beings.
With regard to the general decorative methods of the iwaibe potters,
it is noticeable, first, that apparent impressions of textiles are
found (they are seldom actual imprints, being usually imitations of
such), and, secondly, that simple line decoration replaces the rude
pictorial representations of a primitive culture and suggests
propagation from a centre of more ancient and stable civilization
than that of the Yamato hordes: from China, perhaps from Korea--who
knows? As for the terracotta figures of human beings and sometimes of
animals found in connexion with Yamato sepulchres, they convey little
information about the racial problem.* The idea of substituting such
figures for the human beings originally obliged to follow the dead to
the grave seems to have come from China, and thus constitutes another
evidence of intercourse, at least, between the two countries from
very ancient times.
*Chinese archaic wine-pots of bronze sometimes have on the lid
figures of human beings and animals, but these served a useful
purpose.
It has been remarked that "the faces seen on these images by no means
present a typical Mongolian type; on the contrary, they might easily
pass for European faces, and they prompt the query whether the Yamato
were not allied to the Caucasian race." Further, "the national
vestiges of the Yamato convey an impression of kinship to the
civilization which we are accustomed to regard as our own, for their
intimate familiarity with the uses of swords, armour, horse-gear, and
so forth brings us into sympathetic relation to their civilization."
[Munro.]
SUMMARY
It will be seen from the above that archaeology, while it discloses
to us the manners and customs of the ancient inhabitants of Japan,
does not afford material for clearly differentiating more than three
cultures: namely, the neolithic culture of the Yemishi; the iron
culture of the Yamato, and the intermediate bronze culture of a race
not yet identified. There are no archaeological traces of the
existence of the Kumaso or the Tsuchi-gumo, and however probable it
may seem, in view of the accessibility of Japan from the mainland,
not only while she formed part of the latter but even after the two
had become separate, that several races co-existed with the Yemishi
and that a very mixed population carried on the neolithic culture,
there is no tangible evidence that such was the case. Further, the
indications furnished by mythology that the Yamato were
intellectually in touch with central, if not with western Asia, are
re-enforced by archaeological suggestions of a civilization and even
of physical traits cognate with the Caucasian.
ENGRAVING: DRUM AND MASK
ENGRAVING: "NO" MASKS
CHAPTER VII
LANGUAGE AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
LANGUAGE
HOWEVER numerous may have been the races that contributed originally
to people Japan, the languages now spoken there are two only, Ainu
and Japanese. They are altogether independent tongues. The former
undoubtedly was the language of the Yemishi; the latter, that of the
Yamato. From north to south all sections of the Japanese nation--the
Ainu of course excepted--use practically the same speech. Varieties
of local dialects exist, but they show no traits of survival from
different languages. On the contrary, in few countries of Japan's
magnitude does corresponding uniformity of speech prevail from end to
end of the realm. It cannot reasonably be assumed that, during a
period of some twenty-five centuries and in the face of steady
extermination, the Yemishi preserved their language quite distinct
from that of their conquerors, whereas the various languages spoken
by the other races peopling the island were fused into a whole so
homogeneous as to defy all attempts at differentiation. The more
credible alternative is that from time immemorial the main elements
of the Japanese nation belonged to the same race, and whatever they
received from abroad by way of immigration became completely absorbed
and assimilated in the course of centuries.
No diligent attempt has yet been made to trace the connexion--if any
exist--between the Ainu tongue and the languages of northeastern
Asia, but geology, history, and archaeology suffice to indicate that
the Yemishi reached Japan at the outset from Siberia. The testimony
of these three sources is by no means so explicit in the case of the
Yamato, and we have to consider whether the language itself does not
furnish some better guide. "Excepting the twin sister tongue spoken
in the Ryukyu Islands," writes Professor Chamberlain, "the Japanese
language has no kindred, and its classification under any of the
recognized linguistic families remains doubtful. In structure, though
not to any appreciable extent in vocabulary, it closely resembles
Korean, and both it and Korean may possibly be related to Mongol and
to Manchu, and might therefore lay claim to be included in the
so-called 'Altaic group' In any case, Japanese is what philologists
call an agglutinative tongue; that is to say, it builds up its words
and grammatical forms by means of suffixes loosely soldered to the
root or stem, which is invariable."
This, written in 1905, has been supplemented by the ampler researches
of Professor S. Kanazawa, who adduces such striking evidences of
similarity between the languages of Japan and Korea that one is
almost compelled to admit the original identity of the two. There are
no such affinities between Japanese and Chinese. Japan has borrowed
largely, very largely, from China. It could scarcely have been
otherwise. For whereas the Japanese language in its original form--a
form which differs almost as much from its modern offspring as does
Italian from Latin--has little capacity for expansion, Chinese has
the most potential of all known tongues in that respect. Chinese may
be said to consist of a vast number of monosyllables, each expressed
by a different ideograph, each having a distinct significance, and
each capable of combination and permutation with one or more of the
others, by which combinations and permutations disyllabic and
trisyllabic words are obtained representing every conceivable shade
of meaning.
It is owing to this wonderful elasticity that Japan, when suddenly
confronted by foreign arts and sciences, soon succeeded in building
up for herself a vocabulary containing all the new terms, and
containing them in self-explaining forms. Thus "railway" is expressed
by tetsu-do, which consists of the two monosyllables tetsu (iron) and
do (way); "chemistry" by kagaku, or the learning (gaku) of changes
(ka); "torpedo" by suirai, or water (sui) thunder (rai); and each of
the component monosylables being written with an ideograph which
conveys its own meaning, the student has a term not only appropriate
but also instructive. Hundreds of such words have been manufactured
in Japan during the past half-century to equip men for the study of
Western learning, and the same process, though on a very much smaller
scale, had been going on continuously for many centuries, so that the
Japanese language has come to embody a very large number of Chinese
words, though they are not pronounced as the Chinese pronounce the
corresponding ideographs.
Yet in spite of this intimate relation, re-enforced as it is by a
common script, the two languages remain radically distinct; whereas
between Japanese and Korean the resemblance of structure and
accidence amounts almost to identity. Japanese philologists allege
that no affinity can be traced between their language and the tongues
of the Malay, the South Sea islanders, the natives of America and
Africa, or the Eskimo, whereas they do find that their language bears
a distinct resemblance to Manchu, Persian, and Turkish. Some go so
far as to assert that Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit are nearer to
Japanese than they are to any European language. These questions
await fuller investigation.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RACES
The Japanese are of distinctly small stature. The average height of
the man is 160 centimetres (5 feet 3.5 inches) and that of the woman
147 centimetres (4 feet 10 inches). They are thus smaller than any
European race, the only Occidentals over whom they possess an
advantage in this respect being the inhabitants of two Italian
provinces. [Baelz.] Their neighbours, the Chinese and the Koreans,
are taller, the average height of the northern Chinese being 168
centimetres (5 feet 7 inches), and that of the Koreans 164
centimetres (5 feet 5.5 inches). Nevertheless, Professor Dr. Baelz,
the most eminent authority on this subject, avers that "the three
great nations of eastern Asia are essentially of the same race," and
that observers who consider them to be distinct "have been misled by
external appearances." He adds: "Having made a special study of the
race question in eastern Asia, I can assert that comity of race in
general is clearly proved by the anatomical qualities of the body. In
any case the difference between them is much smaller than that
betwee
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