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 between the inhabitants of northern and southern Europe."

The marked differences in height, noted above, do not invalidate this dictum: they show merely that the Asiatic yellow race has several subdivisions. Among these subdivisions the more important are the Manchu-Korean type, the Mongol proper, the Malay, and the Ainu. To the first, namely the Manchu-Korean, which predominates in north China and in Korea, Baelz assigns the higher classes in Japan; that is to say, the men regarded as descendants of the Yamato. They have "slender, elegant and often tall figures, elongated faces with not very prominent cheek-bones, more or less slanting eyes, aquiline noses, large upper teeth, receding chins, long slender necks, narrow chests, long trunks, thin limbs, and often long fingers, while the hair on the face and body is scarce." Dr. Munro, however, another eminent authority, holds that, "judging from the Caucasian and often Semitic physiognomy seen in the aristocratic type of Japanese, the Yamato were mainly of Caucasic, perhaps Iranian, origin. These were the warriors, the conquerors of Japan, and afterwards the aristocracy, modified to some extent by mingling with a Mongoloid rank and file, and by a considerable addition of Ainu." He remarks that a white skin was the ideal of the Yamato, as is proved by their ancient poetry.

As for the Mongol-proper type, which is seen in the lower classes and even then not very frequently, its representative is squarely built, and has prominent cheek-bones, oblique eyes, a more or less flat nose with a large mouth. The Malay type is much commoner. Its characteristics are small stature, good and sometimes square build, a face round or angular, prominent cheek-bones, large horizontal eyes, a weak chin, a short neck, broad well-developed chest, short legs, and small delicate hands. As for the Ainu type, Dr. Baelz finds it astonishing that they have left so little trace in the Japanese nation. "Yet those who have studied the pure Ainu closely will observe, particularly in the northern provinces, a not insignificant number of individuals bearing the marks of Ainu blood. The most important marks are: a short, thickly set body; prominent bones with bushy hair, round deep-set eyes with long divergent lashes, a straight nose, and a large quantity of hair on the face and body all qualities which bring the Ainu much nearer to the European than to the Japanese proper."

GENERAL PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

In addition to physical characteristics which indicate distinctions of race among the inhabitants of Japan, there are peculiarities common to a majority of the nation at large. One of these is an abnormally large head. In the typical European the height of the head is less than one-seventh of the stature and in Englishmen it is often one-eighth. In the Japanese is it appreciably more than one-seventh. Something of this may be attributed to smallness of stature, but such an explanation is only partial.

Shortness of legs in relation to the trunk is another marked feature. "Long or short legs are mainly racial in origin. Thus, in Europe, the northern, or Teutonic race—namely Anglo-Saxons, North Germans, Swedes, and Danes—are tail; long-legged, and small-headed, while the Alpine, or central European race are short of stature, have short legs and large heads with short necks, thus resembling the Mongolian race in general, with which it was probably originally connected." [Baelz.]

In the Japanese face, too, there are some striking points. The first is in the osseous cavity of the eyeball and in the skin round the eye. "The socket of the Japanese eye is comparatively small and shallow, and the osseous ridges at the brows being little marked, the eye is less deeply set than in the European. Seen in profile, forehead and upper lid often form one unbroken line." Then "the shape of the eye proper, as modelled by the lids, shows a most striking difference between the European and the Mongolian races; the open eye being almost invariably horizontal in the former but very often oblique in the latter on account of the higher level of the outer corner. But even apart from obliqueness the shape of the corner is peculiar in the Mongolian eye. The inner corner is partly or entirely covered by a fold of the upper lid continuing more or less into the lower lid. This fold, which has been called the Mongolian fold, often also covers the whole free rim of the upper lid, so that the insertion of the eyelashes is hidden. When the fold takes an upward direction towards the outer corner, the latter is a good deal higher than the inner corner, and the result is the obliqueness mentioned above. The eyelashes are shorter and sparser than in the European, and whereas in the European the lashes of the upper and the lower lid diverge, so that their free ends are farther distant than their roots, in the Japanese eye they converge, the free ends being nearer together than the insertions. Then again in the lower class the cheek-bones are large and prominent, making the face look flat and broad, while in the higher classes narrow and elongated faces are quite common. Finally, the Japanese is less hairy than the European, and the hair of the beard is usually straight." [Baelz.]

VIEWS OF JAPANESE ETHNOLOGISTS

It may well be supposed that the problem of their nation's origin has occupied much attention among the Japanese, and that their ethnologists have arrived at more or less definite conclusions. The outlines of their ideas are that one of the great waves of emigration which, in a remote age, emerged from the cradle of the human race in central Asia, made its way eastward with a constantly expanding front, and, sweeping up the Tarim basin, emerged in the region of the Yellow River and in Manchuria. These wanderers, being an agricultural, not a maritime, race, did not contribute much to the peopling of the oversea islands of Japan. But in a later—or an earlier—era, another exodus took place from the interior of Asia. It turned in a southerly direction through India, and coasting along the southern seaboard, reached the southeastern region of China; whence, using as stepping-stones the chain of islands that festoon eastern Asia, it made its way ultimately to Korea and Japan.

Anterior to both of these movements another race, the neolithic Yemishi of the shell-heaps, had pushed down from the northeastern regions of Korea or from the Amur valley, and peopled the northern half of Japan. The Korean peninsula, known in Chinese records as Han, appears in the form of three kingdoms at the earliest date of its historical mention: they were Sin-Han and Pyon-Han on the east and Ma-Han on the West. The northeastern portion, from the present Won-san to Vladivostok, bore the name of Yoso, which is supposed to have been the original of Yezo, the Yoso region thus constituting the cradle of the Yemishi race.

Japanese ethnologists interpret the ancient annals as pointing to very close intercourse between Japan and Korea in early days,* and regard this as confirming the theory stated above as to the provenance of the Yamato race. Connexion with the colonists of northern China was soon established via Manchuria, and this fact may account for some of the similarities between the civilization as well as the legends of the Yamato and those of Europe, since there is evidence that the Greeks and Romans had some hazy knowledge of China, and that the Chinese had a similarly vague knowledge of the Roman Empire,** possibly through commercial relations in the second century B.C.

*The annals state of Princes Mikeno and Inahi, elder brothers of Prince Iware (afterwards Jimmu Tenno). that the former "crossed over to the Eternal Land" (Tokoyo-no-kuni) and the latter went down to the sea plain, it being his deceased mother's land. Japanese archaeologists identify "mother's land" as Shiragi in Korea, and Tokoyo-no-kuni as the western country where the sun sets, namely China. They further point out that Susanoo with his son, Itakeru, went to Shiragi and lived at Soshi-mori, for which reason Susanoo's posthumous title was Gozu Tenno, gozu being the Japanese equivalent for the Korean soshi-mori (ox head). Susanoo is also quoted as saying, "there are gold and silver in Koma and it were well that there should be a floating treasury;"* so he built a vessel of pine and camphor-wood to export these treasures to Japan. The "Korea" here spoken of is the present Kimhai in Kyongsan-do. It is further recorded that Susanoo lived for a time at Kumanari-mine, which is the present Kongju. Again, a Japanese book, compiled in the tenth century A.D., enumerates six shrines in the province of Izumo which were called Kara-kuni Itate Jinja, or shrine of Itakeru of Korea. A much abler work, Izuma Fudoki, speaks of Cape Kitsuki in Izumo as a place where cotton-stuffs were imported from Shiragi by Omitsu, son of Susanoo. There are other evidences to the same effect, and taken in conjunction with the remarkable similarity of the Korean and Japanese languages, these facts are held to warrant the conclusion that the most important element of the Japanese nation came via Korea, its Far Eastern colony being the ultima thule of its long wanderings from central Asia.

**See Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Vol. 6, p. 189 b.

The first mention of Japan in Chinese records is contained in a book called Shan-hai-ching, which states that "the northern and southern Wo* were subject to the kingdom of Yen." Yen was in the modern province of Pechili. It existed as an independent kingdom from 1 122 to 265 B.C. That the inhabitants of Japan were at any time subject to Yen is highly improbable, but that they were tributaries is not unlikely. In other words, intercourse between Japan and northern China was established in remote times via the Korean peninsula, and people from Japan, travelling by this route, carried presents to the Court of Yen, a procedure which, in Chinese eyes constituted an acknowledgement of suzerainty. The "northern and southern Wo" were probably the kingdom of Yamato and that set up in Kyushu by Ninigi, a supposition which lends approximate confirmation to the date assigned by Japanese historians for the expedition of Jimmu Tenno. It is also recorded in the Chronicles of the Eastern Barbarians, a work of the Han dynasty (A.D. 25-221), that Sin-Han, one of the three Korean kingdoms, produced iron, and that Wo and Ma-Han, the western of these Korean kingdoms, traded in it and used it as currency. It is very possible that this was the iron used for manufacturing the ancient double-edged swords (tsurugi) and halberds of the Yamato, a hypothesis strengthened by the fact that the sword of Susanoo was called Orochi no Kara-suki, Kara being a Japanese name for Korea.

*This word was originally pronounced Wa, and is written with the ideograph signifying "dwarf." It was applied to the Japanese by Chinese writers in earliest times, but on what ground such an epithet was chosen there is no evidence.

ENGRAVING: JAPANESE SADDLE, BRIDLE, AND STIRRUPS



CHAPTER VIII

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN REMOTE ANTIQUITY

If it be insisted that no credence attaches to traditions unsupported by written annals, then what the Records and the Chronicles, compiled in the eighth century, tell of the manners and customs of Japan twelve or thirteen hundred years previously, must be dismissed as romance. A view so extreme is scarcely justified. There must be a foundation of truth in works which, for the most part, have received the imprimatur of all subsequent generations of Japanese. Especially does that hold as to indications of manners, customs, and institutions. These, at least, are likely to be mirrored with a certain measure of accuracy, though they may often reflect an age later than that to which they are referred, and may even have been partially moulded to suit the ideas of their narrators. In briefly epitomizing this page of history, the plan here pursued is to adhere as far as possible to Japanese interpretations, since these must of necessity be most intelligent.

THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE

At the basis of the social structure stand the trinity of Kami, mythologically called the Central Master (Naka-Nushi) and the two Constructive Chiefs (Musubi no Kami). The Central Master was the progenitor of the Imperial family; the Constructive Chiefs were the nobility, the official class. What was originally involved in the conception of official functions, we learn from incidents prefatory to the expedition conducted by Ninigi for the subjugation of Japan. Amaterasu (the Sun goddess) attached to the person of her grandson four chiefs and one chieftainess. To two of the former (Koyane and Futodama) she entrusted all matters relating to religious rites, and they became respectively the ancestors of the Nakatomi and the Imibe families. To the female Kami (Usume) was entrusted the making of sacred music and she founded the Sarume family. Finally, all military functions were committed to the chiefs, Oshihi and Kume, whose descendants constituted the Otomo and Kume families.

In every case these offices were hereditary for all time, and the families of their holders constitute the aristocracy of the nation, marrying among themselves and filling the highest offices from generation to generation. Their members bore the title of hiko (son of the Sun) and hime (daughter of the Sun), and those that governed towns and villages were called tomo no miyatsuko, while those that held provincial domains were entitled kuni no miyatsuko.

This was the origin of the Japanese polity. The descendants of Amaterasu, herself a descendant of the Central Master, occupied the throne in unbroken succession, and the descendants of the two Constructive Chiefs served as councillors, ministers, and generals. But the lineage of all being traceable to three chiefs who originally occupied places of almost equal elevation, they were united by a bond of the most durable nature. At the same time it appears that this equality had its disadvantage; it disposed the members of the aristocratic families to usurp the administrative power while recognizing its source, the Throne, and it encouraged factional dissensions, which sometimes resulted disastrously. As to the middle and lower classes, no evidence bearing on their exact composition is forthcoming. It is plain, however, that they accepted a subordinate position without active protest, for nothing like a revolt on their part is alluded to, directly or indirectly, in the Records or the Chronicles. The term for all subjects was tomobe.

DWELLING-HOUSES

The palace of the sovereign—called miya or odono—corresponded in appearance and construction with the shrines of the deities. It was built by erecting central pillars—originally merely sunk in the ground but in later times having a stone foundation—from which rafters sloped to corner posts, similarly erected, the sides being clapboarded. Nails were used, but the heavy timbers were tied together with ropes made by twisting the fibrous stems of climbing plants. A conspicuous feature was that the upper ends of the rafters projected across each other, and in the V-shaped receptacle thus formed, a ridge-pole was laid with a number of short logs crossing it at right angles. This disposition of timbers was evidently devised to facilitate tying and to impart stability to the thatch, which was laid to a considerable thickness.

It is not certain whether in the earliest times floors were fully boarded, or whether boarding was confined to a dais running round the sides, the rest of the interior being of beaten mud. Subsequently, however, the whole floor was boarded. Chimneys were not provided; charcoal being the principal fuel, its smoke did not incommode, and when firewood was employed, the fumes escaped through openings in the gable. For windows there were holes closed by shutters which, like the doors, swung upon hooks and staples. Rugs of skin or of rush matting served to spread on the boarded floor, and in rare cases silk cushions were employed.

The areas on which buildings stood were generally surrounded by palisades, and for a long time no other kind of defence save these palings seems to have been devised. Indeed, no mention of castles occurs until the first century B.C., when the strange term "rice-castle" (ina-ki) is found; the reference being apparently to a palisade fortified with rice-bags, or to a rice-granary used as a fortress. The palace of the sovereign towered so high by comparison that it was termed Asahi-no-tada-sasu-miya (miya on which the morning sun shines direct), or Yuhi-no-hiteru-miya (miya illumined by the evening sun), or some other figurative epithet, and to the Emperor himself was applied the title 0-mikado (great august Gate). The dwellings occupied by the nobility were similarly built, though on a less pretentious scale, and those of the inferior classes appear to have been little better than huts, not a few of them being partially sunk in the ground, as is attested by the fact that the term "enter" took the form of "creep in" (hairu).

ADMINISTRATION AND WORSHIP

In the instruction said to have been given by Amaterasu to her grandson Ninigi, on the eve of his expedition to Japan, the words are recorded: "My child, regard this mirror as you regard me. Keep it in the same house with yourself, and make it the mirror of purity." Accordingly the insignia—the mirror, the jewel, and the sword—were always kept in the main hall of the palace under the care of the Nakatomi and the Imibe families. An ancient volume (Kogo-shui) records that when the palace of Kashihara was reached by Jimmu's army, the grandson of the founder of the Imibe family—cutting timber with a consecrated axe (imi-ono) and digging foundations with a consecrated spade (imi-suki)—constructed a palace in which he placed the mirror, the jewel, and the sword, setting out offerings and reciting prayers to celebrate the completion of the building and the installation of the insignia.

"At that time the sovereign was still very close to the Kami, and the articles and utensils for the latter were little distinguished from those for the former. Within the palace there stood a store house (imi-kura), the Imibe family discharging daily and nightly the duties relating to it." Thus it is seen that in remote antiquity religious rites and administrative functions were not distinguished. The sovereign's residence was the shrine of the Kami, and the term for "worship" (matsuri) was synonymous with that for "government."

RELIGIOUS RITES

The ceremony spoken of above—the Odono matsuri, or consecration of the palace—is the earliest religious rite mentioned. Next in importance was the "harvest festival." In the records of the mythological age it is related that Amaterasu obtained seeds of the "five cereals," and, recognizing their value as food, caused them to be cultivated, offering a part to the Kami when they were ripe and eating some herself. This became a yearly custom, and when Ninigi set out to conquer Japan, his grandmother gave rice seed to the ancestors of the Nakatomi and the Imibe families, who thenceforth conducted the harvest festival (nii-name, literally "tasting the new rice") every autumn, the sovereign himself taking part, and the head of the Nakatomi reciting a prayer for the eternity of the Imperial line and the longevity of the Emperor. Other important rites were the "great purification" (Oharai) performed twice a year, on the last day of the sixth month and the last day of the twelfth month; the "fire-subduing fete," the "spirit-tranquillizing fete," etc.

Of all these rites the principal features were the recitation of rituals and the offering of various objects, edible or otherwise useful. The rituals (norito) being, in several cases, set formulas, lent themselves with special facility to oral transmission from generation to generation. It is certain that they were familiar to the compilers of the Records and the Chronicles, and they contain expressions dating from such a remote era as to have become incomprehensible before history began to be written in Japan. In the year A.D. 927, seventy-five of the norito were transcribed into a book (Yengi-shiki, or Ceremonial Law) which contains, in addition to these rituals, particulars as to the practice of the Shinto religion; as to the organization of the priesthood—which included ten virgin princesses of the Imperial family, one each for the two great temples of Watarai in Ise and Kamo in Yamashiro—and as to the Shinto shrines qualified to receive State support. These shrines totalled 3132, among which number 737 were maintained at the Emperor's charges. Considering that the nation at that time (tenth century) did not comprise more than a very few millions, the familiar criticism that the Japanese are indifferent to religion is certainly not proved by any lack of places of worship. The language of the rituals is occasionally poetic, often figurative and generally solemn,* but they are largely devoted to enumeration of Kami, to formulae of praise for past favours, to petitions for renewed assistance, and to recapitulations of the offerings made in support of these requests. As for the offerings, they comprise woven stuffs, and their raw materials, models of swords, arrows, shields, stags' antlers, hoes, fish (dried and fresh), salt, sake, and, in some cases, a horse, a cock, and a pig. In short, the things offered were essentially objects serviceable to living beings.

*The Norito of the Great Purification Service has been translated by Mr. W. G. Aston in his Japanese Literature.

THE KAMI

The Kami may be broadly divided into two groups, namely, those originally regarded as superior beings and those elevated to that rank in consideration of illustrious deeds performed during life. Of the former group the multitudinous and somewhat heterogenous components have been supposed to suggest the amalgamation of two or more religious systems in consequence of a blending of races alien to one another. But such features may be due to survivals incidental to the highest form of nature religion, namely, anthropomorphic polytheism.

There were the numerous Kami, more or less abstract beings without any distinguishing functions, who preceded the progenitors of the Yamato race, and there was the goddess of the Sun, pre-eminent and supreme, together with deities of the Moon, of the stars, of the winds, of the rain, of fire, of water, of mountains, of mines, of fields, of the sea, of the trees, and of the grass—the last a female divinity (Kaya-no-hime). The second group those deified for illustrious services during life—furnished the tutelary divinities (uji-gami or ubusuna-Kami) of the localities where their families lived and where their labours had been performed. Their protection was specially solicited by the inhabitants of the regions where their shrines stood, while the nation at large worshipped the Kami of the first group. Out of this apotheosis of distinguished mortals there grew, in logical sequence, the practice of ancestor worship. It was merely a question of degrees of tutelary power. If the blessings of prosperity and deliverance could be bestowed on the denizens of a region by the deity enshrined there, the same benefits in a smaller and more circumscribed measure might be conferred by the deceased head of a family. As for the sovereign, standing to the whole nation in the relation of priest and intercessor with the deities, he was himself regarded as a sacred being, the direct descendant of the heavenly ancestor (Tenson).

THERIANTHROPIC ELEMENTS

That the religion of ancient Japan—known as Shinto, or "the way of the gods"—had not fully emerged from therianthropic polytheism is proved by the fact that, though the deities were generally represented in human shape, they were frequently conceived as spiritual beings, embodying themselves in all kinds of things, especially in animals, reptiles, or insects. Thus, tradition relates that the Kami of Mimoro Mountain appeared to the Emperor Yuryaku (A.D. 457-459) in the form of a snake; that during the reign of the Emperor Keitai (A.D. 507-531), a local deity in the guise of a serpent interfered with agricultural operations and could not be placated until a shrine was built in its honour; that in the time of the Emperor Kogyoku, the people of the eastern provinces devoted themselves to the worship of an insect resembling a silkworm, which they regarded as a manifestation of the Kami of the Moon; that the Emperor Keiko (A.D. 71-130) declared a huge tree to be sacred; that in the days of the Empress Suiko (A.D. 593-628), religious rites were performed before cutting down a tree supposed to be an incarnation of the thunder Kami; that on the mountain Kannabi, in Izumo, there stood a rock embodying the spirit of the Kami whose expulsion from Yamato constituted the objective of Ninigi's expedition, and that prayer to it was efficacious in terminating drought, that the deity Koto-shiro-nushi became transformed into a crocodile, and that "the hero Yamato-dake emerged from his tomb in the shape of a white swan."

Many other cognate instances might be quoted. A belief in amulets and charms, in revelations by dreams and in the efficacy of ordeal, belongs to this category of superstitions. The usual form of ordeal was by thrusting the hand into boiling water. It has been alleged that the Shinto religion took no account of a soul or made any scrutiny into a life beyond the grave. Certainly no ideas as to places of future reward or punishment seem to have engrossed attention, but there is evidence that not only was the spirit (tama) recognized as surviving the body, but also that the spirit itself was believed to consist of a rough element (am) and a gentle element (nigi), either of which predominated according to the nature of the functions to be performed; as when a nigi-tama was believed to have attached itself to the person of the Empress Jingo at the time of her expedition to Korea, while an ara-tama formed the vanguard of her forces.

Some Japanese philosophers, however—notably the renowned Motoori—have maintained that this alleged duality had reference solely to the nature of the influence exercised by a spirit on particular occasions. Shinto has no sacred canon like the Bible, the Koran, or the Sutras. Neither has it any code of morals or body of dogma. Cleanliness may be called its most prominent feature. Izanagi's lustrations to remove the pollution contracted during his visit to the nether world became the prototype of a rite of purification (misogi) which always prefaced acts of worship. A cognate ceremony was the harai (atonement). By the misogi the body was cleansed; by the harai all offences were expiated; the origin of the latter rite having been the exaction of certain penalties from Susanoo for his violent conduct towards the Sun goddess.* The two ceremonies, physical cleansing and moral cleansing, prepared a worshipper to approach the shrine of the Kami. In later times both rites were compounded into one, the misogi-harai, or simply the harai. When a calamity threatened the country or befell it, a grand harai (o-harai) was performed in atonement for the sins supposed to have invited the catastrophe. This principle of cleanliness found expression in the architecture of Shinto shrines; plain white wood was everywhere employed and ornamentation of every kind eschewed. In view of the paramount importance thus attached to purity, a celebrated couplet of ancient times is often quoted as the unique and complete canon of Shinto morality,

*His nails were extracted and his beard was plucked out.

"Unsought in prayer, "The gods will guard "The pure of heart."*

*Kokoro dani Makoto no michi ni Kanai naba Inorazu tote mo Kami ya mamoran.

It is plain, however, that Shinto cannot be included in the category of ethical religions; it belongs essentially to the family of nature religions.

CRIMES

The acts which constituted crimes in ancient Japan were divided into two classes: namely, sins against heaven and sins against the State. At the head of the former list stood injuries to agricultural pursuits, as breaking down the ridges of rice-fields, filling up drains, destroying aqueducts, sowing seeds twice in the same place, putting spits in rice-fields, flaying an animal alive or against the grain, etc. The crimes against the State were cutting and wounding (whether the living or the dead), defilement on account of leprosy or cognate diseases, unnatural offences, evil acts on the part of children towards parents or of parents towards children, etc. Methods of expiating crime were recognized, but, as was the universal custom in remote times, very cruel punishments were employed against evil-doers and enemies. Death was inflicted for comparatively trivial offences, and such tortures were resorted to as cutting the sinews, extracting the nails and the hair, burying alive, roasting, etc. Branding or tattooing seems to have been occasionally practised, but essentially as a penalty or a mark of ignominy.

DIVINATION

As is usually the case in a nation where a nature religion is followed, divination and augury were practised largely in ancient Japan. The earliest method of divination was by roasting the shoulder-blade of a stag and comparing the cracks with a set of diagrams. The Records and the Chronicles alike represent Izanagi and Izanami as resorting to this method of presaging the future, and the practice derives interest from the fact that a precisely similar custom has prevailed in Mongolia from time immemorial. Subsequently this device was abandoned in favour of the Chinese method, heating a tortoise-shell; and ultimately the latter, in turn, gave way to the Eight Trigrams of Fuhi. The use of auguries seems to have come at a later date. They were obtained by playing a stringed instrument called koto, by standing at a cross-street and watching the passers, by manipulating stones, and by counting footsteps.

MILITARY FORCES

It has been related that when the "heavenly grandson" undertook his expedition to Japan, the military duties were entrusted to two mikoto* who became the ancestors of the Otomo and the Kume families. There is some confusion about the subsequent differentiation of these families, but it is sufficient to know that, together with the Mononobe family, they, were the hereditary repositories of military authority. They wore armour, carried swords, spears and bows, and not only mounted guard at the palace but also asserted the Imperial authority throughout the provinces. No exact particulars of the organization of these forces are on record, but it would seem that the unit was a battalion divided into twenty-five companies, each company consisting of five sections of five men per section, a company being under the command of an officer whose rank was miyatsuko.

*"August being," a term of respect applied to the descendants of the Kami.

FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION

No mention is made of such a thing as currency in prehistoric Japan. Commerce appears to have been conducted by barter only. In order to procure funds for administrative and religious purposes, officers in command of forces were despatched to various regions, and the inhabitants were required to contribute certain quantities of local produce. Steps were also taken to cultivate useful plants and cereals and to promote manufactures. The Kogo-shui states that a certain mikoto inaugurated the fashioning of gems in Izumo, and that his descendants continued the work from generation to generation, sending annual tribute of articles to the Court every year. Another mikoto was sent to plant paper-mulberry and hemp in the province of Awa (awa signifies "hemp"), and a similar record is found in the same book with regard to the provinces of Kazusa and Shimosa, which were then comprised in a region named Fusa-kuni. Other places owed their names to similar causes.

It is plain that, whatever may have been the case at the outset, this assignment of whole regions to the control of officials whose responsibility was limited to the collection of taxes for the uses of the Court, could not but tend to create a provincial nobility and thus lay the foundations of a feudal system. The mythological accounts of meetings of the Kami for purposes of consultation suggest a kind of commonwealth, and recall "the village assemblies of primitive times in many parts of the world, where the cleverness of one and the general willingness to follow his suggestions fill the place of the more definite organization of later times."* But though that may be true of the Yamato race in the region of its origin, the conditions found by it in Japan were not consistent with such a system, for Chinese history shows that at about the beginning of the Christian era the Island Empire was in a very uncentralized state and that the sway of the Yamato was still far from receiving general recognition. A great Japanese scholar** has contended that the centralization which prevailed in later ages was wholly an imitation of Chinese bureaucracy, and that organized feudalism was the original form of government in Japan. The annals appear to support that view to a limited extent, but the subject will presently be discussed at greater length.

*B. H. Chamberlain.

**Hirata Atsutane.

RAIMENT

In the use of clothing and the specialization of garments the early Japanese had reached a high level. We read in the ancient legends of upper garments, skirts, trousers, anklets, and head-ornaments of stones considered precious.* The principal material of wearing apparel was cloth woven from threads of hemp and mulberry bark. According to the annals, the arts of spinning, weaving, and dyeing were known and practised from the earliest age. The Sun goddess herself is depicted as seated in the hall of the sacred loom, reeling silk from cocoons held in her mouth, and at the ceremony of enticing her from her retirement, the weaving of blue-and-white stuffs constituted an important adjunct. Terms are used (akarurtae and teru-tae) which show that colour and lustre were esteemed as much as quality. Ara-tae and nigi-tae were the names used to designate coarse and fine cloth respectively; striped stuff was called shidori, and the name of a princess, Taku-hata-chiji, goes to show that corrugated cloth was woven from the bark of the taku. Silken fabrics were manufactured, but the device of boiling the cocoons had not yet been invented. They were held in the mouth for spinning purposes, and the threads thus obtained being coarse and uneven, the loom could not produce good results. Silk stuffs therefore did not find much favour: they were employed chiefly for making cushions, cloth woven from cotton, hemp, or mulberry bark being preferred for raiment. Pure white was the favourite colour; red, blue, and black being placed in a lower rank in that order. It has been conjectured that furs and skins were worn, but there is no explicit mention of anything of the kind. It would seem that their use was limited to making rugs and covering utensils.** Sewing is not explicitly referred to, but the needle is; and in spite of an assertion to the contrary made by the Chinese author of the Shan-hai-ching (written in the fourth century A.D.) there is no valid reason to doubt that the process of sewing was familiar.

*B. H. Chamberlain.

**In China the case was different. There, garments made of skins or covered with feathers were worn in remote antiquity before the art of weaving had become known. The Records recount that in the age of the Kami "there came" (to Japan) "riding on the crest of the waves, a kami dressed in skins of geese," and this passage has been quoted as showing that skins were used for garments in Japan. But it is pointed out by Japanese commentators that this Kami Sukuna-bikona is explicitly stated to have come from a foreign country, and that if the passage warrants any inference, it is that the visitor's place of departure had been China.

As to the form of the garments worn, the principal were the hakama and the koromo. The hakama was a species of divided skirt, used by men and women alike. It has preserved its shape from age to age, and is to-day worn by school-girls throughout Japan. The koromo was a tunic having tight sleeves reaching nearly to the knees. It was folded across the breast from right to left and secured by a belt of cloth or silk tied round the loins. Veils also were used by both sexes, one kind (the katsugi) having been voluminous enough to cover the whole body. "Combs are mentioned, and it is evident that much attention was devoted to the dressing of the hair."* Men divided theirs in the middle and bound it up in two bunches, one over each ear. Youths tied theirs into a top-knot; girls wore their locks hanging down the back but bound together at the neck, and married ladies "dressed theirs after a fashion which apparently combined the last two methods." Decoration of the head was carried far on ceremonial occasions, gems, veils, and even coronets being used for the purpose. "There is no mention in any of the old books of cutting the hair or beard except in token of disgrace; neither do we gather that the sexes, but for this matter of head-dress, were distinguished by a diversity of apparel or ornamentation."*

*B. H. Chamberlain.

FOOD AND DRINK

Rice was the great staple of diet in ancient, as it is in modern, times. The importance attaching to it is shown by the fact that the Sun goddess herself is represented as engaging in its cultivation and that injuring a rice-field was among the greatest offences. Barley, millet, wheat, and beans are mentioned, but the evidence that they were grown largely in remote antiquity is not conclusive. The flesh of animals and birds was eaten, venison and wild boar being particularly esteemed. Indeed, so extensively was the hunting of deer practised that bows and arrows were often called kago-yumi and kago-ya (kago signifies "deer"). Fish, however, constituted a much more important staple of diet than flesh, and fishing in the abundantly stocked seas that surround the Japanese islands was largely engaged in. Horses and cattle were not killed for food. It is recorded in the Kogo-shui that the butchering of oxen to furnish meat for workers in a rice-field roused the resentment of a Kami called Mitoshi. There does not appear to have been any religious or superstitious scruple connected with this abstention: the animals were spared simply because of their usefulness. Vegetables occupied a large space in the list of articles of food. There were the radish, the cabbage, the lotus, the melon, and the wild garlic, as well as as several kinds of seaweed. Salt was used for seasoning, the process of its manufacture having been familiar from the earliest times. Only one kind of intoxicating liquor was ever known in Japan until the opening of intercourse with the Occident. It was a kind of beer brewed* from rice and called sake. The process is said to have been taught by Sukuna, who, as shown above, came to Japan from a foreign country—probably China—when the Kami, Okuni-nushi, was establishing order in the Japanese islands.

*The term for "brew" being kamu or kamosu, the former of which is homonymous with the equivalent for "to chew," some commentators have supposed that sake was manufactured in early times by grinding rice with the teeth. This is at once disproved by the term for "yeast," namely, kabi-tachi (fermenting).

COOKING AND TABLE EQUIPAGE

From time immemorial there were among the officials at the Imperial Court men called kashiwa-de, or oak-leaf hands. They had charge of the food and drink, and their appellation was derived from the fact that rice and other edibles were usually served on oak leaves. Earthenware utensils were used, but their surface, not being glazed, was not allowed to come into direct contact with the viands placed on them. In this practice another example is seen of the love of cleanliness that has always characterized and distinguished the Japanese nation. Edibles having been thus served, the vessels containing them were ranged on a table, one for each person, and chop-sticks were used. Everything was cooked, with the exception of certain vegetables and a few varieties of fish. Friction of wood upon wood provided fire, a fact attested by the name of the tree chiefly used for the purpose, hi-no-ki, or fire-tree. To this day the same method of obtaining a spark is practised at the principal religious ceremonials. Striking metal upon stone was another device for the same purpose, and there is no record in Japan, as there is in China, of any age when food was not cooked. Various vessels of unglazed pottery are mentioned in the Records, as bowls, plates, jars, and wine-holders, the last being often made of metal. These were all included in the term suemono, which may be translated "table-utensils."

ARMS, ARMOUR, AND GEMS

It has already been stated that archaeological research shows the Yamato race to have been in possession of iron swords and spears, as well as metal armour and shields, from a very early period, probably the date of these colonists' first coming to Japan. They also used saddles, stirrups, bridles, and bits for horses, so that a Yamato warrior in full mail and with complete equipment was perhaps as formidable a fighting man as any contemporary nation could produce. Bows and arrows were also in use. The latter, tipped with iron or stone and feathered, were carried in a quiver. The swords employed by men were originally double-edged. Their names* show that they were used alike for cutting and thrusting, and that they varied in length from ten "hands" to five. There was also a small single-edged sword** carried by women and fastened inside the robe. The value attached to the sword is attested by numerous appellations given to blades of special quality. In later times the two-edged sword virtually fell out of use, being replaced by the single-edged.

*Tsurugi (to pierce) and tachi (to cut).

**This was originally called himo-kala-ha, which literally means "cord single edge." subsequently kala-ha became katana, by which term all Japanese swords are now known.

Sometimes a spear was decorated with gems. It is curious that gems should have been profusely used for personal adornment in ancient times by people who subsequently eschewed the custom well-nigh altogether, as the Japanese did. The subject has already been referred to in the archaeological section, but it may be added here that there were guilds of gem-makers (Tama-tsukuri-be) in several provinces, and that, apart from imported minerals, the materials with which they worked were coral, quartz, amber, gold, silver, and certain pebbles found in Izumo.

AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY

It appears that when the Yamato immigrants reached Japan, the coast lands were overgrown with reeds and the greater part of the island was covered with primeval forests. Fabulous accounts are given of monster trees. Thus, in the Tsukushi Fudoki we read of an oak in Chikugo which towered to a height of 9700 feet, its branches shading the peaks of Hizen in the morning and the mountains of Higo in the evening. The Konjaku Monogatari tells of another oak with a stem measuring 3000 feet in circumference and casting its shadow over Tamba at dawn and on Ise at sunset. In the Fudoki of other provinces reference is made to forest giants in Harima, Bungo, Hitachi, etc., and when full allowance has been made for the exaggerations of tradition, there remains enough to indicate that the aboriginal inhabitants did not attempt any work of reclamation.

Over regions measuring scores of miles perpetual darkness reigned, and large districts were often submerged by the overflow of rivers. There is no mention, however, of a deluge, and Professor Chamberlain has called attention to the remarkable fact that a so-called "Altaic myth" finds no place in the traditions of "the oldest of the undoubtedly Altaic nations."

The annals are eloquent in their accounts of the peopling of the forests by wild and fierce animals and the infesting of the vallies by noxious reptiles. The Nihongi, several of the Fudoki, the Konjaku Monogatari, etc., speak of an eight-headed snake in Izumo, of a horned serpent in Hitachi, and of big snakes in Yamato, Mimasaka, Bungo, and other provinces; while the Nihon Bummei Shiryaku tells of wolves, bears, monkeys, monster centipedes, whales, etc., in Harima, Hida, Izumo, Oki, Tajima, and Kaga. In some cases these gigantic serpents were probably bandit chiefs transfigured into reptiles by tradition, but of the broad fact that the country was, for the most part, in a state of natural wilderness there can be little doubt.

Under the sway of the Yamato, however, a great change was gradually effected. Frequent allusions are made to the encouragement of agriculture and even its direct pursuit by the Kami. The Sun goddess is represented as having obtained seeds of the five cereals from the female Kami, Ukemochi,* and as having appointed a village chief to superintend their culture. She had three regions of her own specially devoted to rice growing, and her unruly brother, Susanoo, had a similar number, but the latter proved barren. The same goddess inaugurated sericulture, and entrusted the care of it to a princess, who caused mulberry trees to be planted and was able to present silk fabrics to Amaterasu. In the reign of Jimmu, hemp is said to have been cultivated, and Susanoo, after his reformation, became the guardian of forests, one of his functions being to fix the uses of the various trees, as pine and hinoki (ground-cypress) for house building, maki (podocarpus Chinensis) for coffin making, and camphor-wood for constructing boats. He also planted various kinds of fruit-trees. Thenceforth successive sovereigns encouraged agriculture, so that the face of the country was materially changed.

*The Sun goddess, Amaterasu, and the goddess of Food (Ukemochi no Kami) are the two deities now worshipped at the great shrine of Ise.

In the matter of farming implements, however, neither archaeology nor history indicates anything more than iron spades, wooden hoes shod with bronze or iron, hand-ploughs, and axes. As to manufacturing industries, there were spinners and weavers of cotton and silk, makers of kitchen utensils, polishers of gems, workers in gold, silver, copper, and iron, forgers of arms and armour, potters of ornamental vessels, and dressers of leather. In later eras the persons skilled in these various enterprises formed themselves into guilds (be), each of which carried on its own industry from generation to generation.

The fact that there must have been an exchange of goods between these various groups is almost the only indication furnished by the annals as to trade or commerce. In the name of a daughter of Susa (Princess Kamu-o-ichi) we find a suggestion that markets (ichi) existed, and according to the Wei Records (A.D. 211-265) there were, at that time, "in each province of Japan markets where the people exchanged their superfluous produce for articles of which they were in need." But Japanese history is silent on this subject.

About the be, however, a great deal is heard. It may be described as a corporated association having for purpose the securing of efficiency by specialization. Its members seem to have been at the outset men who independently pursued some branch of industry. These being ultimately formed into a guild, carried on the same pursuit from generation to generation under a chief officially appointed. "Potters, makers of stone coffins, of shields, of arrows, of swords, of mirrors, saddlers, painters, weavers, seamstresses, local recorders, scribes, farmers, fleshers, horse-keepers, bird-feeders, the mibu who provided wet-nurses for Imperial princes, palace attendants, and reciters (katari) were organized into be under special chiefs who were probably responsible for their efficient services. It would appear, however, that 'chief of be' was sometimes a title bestowed for exceptional service and that it was occasionally posthumous."*

*Munro.

Be were also organized for the purpose of commemorating a name quite irrespective of industrial pursuits. "The religious be were for general or special purposes. For instance, there was a be of sun-worshippers, while the Imibe, a body of abstainers, were obliged to avoid ritual contamination or impurity. They carried out a technique of spiritual aseptics, both in their persons and through the utensils which they employed, much as a modern surgeon guards against infection of his patient. Thus they were prepared to perform sacred functions."*

*Munro.

NAVIGATION AND FISHING

No information is obtainable as to the nature of the boats used in very early times, but it may reasonably be inferred that the Yamato and other immigrant races possessed craft of some capacity. Several names of boats are incidentally mentioned. They evidently refer to the speed of the craft—as bird-boat (tori-fune), pigeon-boat (hato-fune)—or to the material employed, as "rock-camphor boat" (iwa-kusu-bune). "The presence of neolithic remains on the islands around Japan proves that the boats of the primitive people were large enough to traverse fifty miles, or more, of open sea."* Only one distinct reference to sailing occurs, however, in the ancient annals. On the occasion of the alleged expedition to Korea (A.D. 200) under the Empress Jingo, the Chronicles say, "Sail was set from the harbour of Wani." At a date nearly three centuries earlier, there appears to have been a marked deficiency of coasting vessels, for the Chronicles quote an Imperial decree issued B.C. 81, which says: "Ships are of cardinal importance to the Empire. At present the people of the coast, not having ships, suffer grievously by land transport. Therefore let every province be caused to have ships built;"* and it is related that, a few months later, the building of ships was begun. Again, in A.D. 274, a vessel (the Karano) one hundred feet in length, was constructed in the province of Izu, and twenty-six years later, according to the Chronicles, the Emperor issued this order: "The Government ship named Karano was sent as tribute by the Lord of Izu. It is rotten and unfit for use. It has, however, been in the Government use for a long time, and its services should not be forgotten. Shall we not keep the name of that ship from being lost and hand it down to after ages?" The Karano was then broken and her timbers being employed as firewood for roasting salt, the latter was given to the various provinces, which, in return, were caused to build ships for the State, the result being a fleet of five hundred vessels.

*Aston's Nihongi.

It would seem that there was always an abundance of fishing-boats, for fishing by traps, hooks, and nets was industriously carried on. A passage in the Records speaks of a thousand-fathom rope of paper-mulberry which was used to draw the net in perch fishing. Spearing was also practised by fishermen, and in the rivers cormorants were used just as they are to-day.

MARRIAGE

It does not appear that the marriage tie possessed any grave significance in ancient Japan, or that any wedding ceremony was performed; unless, indeed, the three circuits made by Izanagi and Izanami prior to cohabitation round a "heavenly august pillar" be interpreted as the circumambulatory rite observed in certain primitive societies. Pouring water over a bride seems, however, to have been practised and is still customary in some provinces, though as to its antiquity nothing can be said. An exchange of presents is the only fact made clear by the annals. There did not exist in Japan, as in China, a veto on marriages between people of the same tribe, but this difference does not signify any reproach to Japan: the interdict was purely political in China's case, and corresponding conditions did not exist in Japan.

On the other hand, the Japanese system permitted a degree of licence which in the Occident is called incest: brothers and sisters might intermarry provided that they had not been brought up together. To understand this condition it is necessary to observe that a bride generally continued to live in her family dwelling where she received her husband's visits, and since there was nothing to prevent a husband from contracting many such alliances, it was possible for him to have several groups of children, the members of each group being altogether unknown to the members of all the rest. In a later, but not definitely ascertained era, it became customary for a husband to take his wife to his own home, and thereafter the veto upon such unions soon became imperative, so that a Prince Imperial in the fifth century who cohabited with his sister forfeited the succession and had to commit suicide, his conduct being described in the Chronicles as "a barbarous outrage."

In all eras sisters might marry the same man, and polygamy was common. A Chinese book, compiled in the early years of the Christian epoch, speaks of women being so numerous in Japan that nobles had four or five wives and commoners two or three. Of course, the reason assigned for this custom is incorrect: not plenitude of females but desire of abundant progeny was primarily the cause. It is notable that although the line between nobles and commoners was strictly drawn and rigidly observed, it did not extend to marriage in one sense: a nobleman could always take a wife or a concubine from the family of an inferior. In fact, orders were commonly issued to this or that province to furnish so many ladies-in-waiting (uneme)—a term having deeper significance than it suggests—and several instances are recorded of sovereigns summoning to court girls famed for beauty. That no distinction was made between wives and concubines has been alleged, but is not confirmed by the annals. Differentiation by rank appears to have been always practised, and the offspring was certainly thus distinguished.

BIRTH AND EDUCATION

A child in ancient Japan was born under considerable difficulties: its mother had to segregate herself in a parturition hut (ubuya), whence even light was excluded and where she was cut off from all attendance. This strange custom was an outcome of the Shinto canon of purity. Soon after birth, a child received from its mother a name generally containing some appropriate personal reference. In the most ancient times each person (so far as we can judge) bore one name, or rather one string of words compounded together into a sort of personal designation. But already at the dawn of the historical epoch we are met by the mention of surnames and of "gentile names bestowed by the sovereign as a recompense for some noteworthy deed."* These names constantly occur. The principal of them are suzerain (atae), departmental suzerain (agata-no-atae), departmental lord (agata-no-nushi), Court noble (ason), territorial lord (inaki), lord (iratsuko), lady (iratsume), duke (kimi), ruler (miyatsuko), chief (muraji), grandee (omi), noble (sukune), and lord (wake). In the case of the Emperors there are also canonical names, which were applied at a comparatively late date in imitation of Chinese usages, and which may be said to have completely replaced the names borne during life. Thus, the Emperor known to posterity as Jimmu was called Iware in life, the Emperor named Homuda while he sat on the throne is now designated Ojin, and the Emperor who ruled as Osazaki is remembered as Nintoku. In the Imperial family, and doubtless in the households of the nobility, wet-nurses were employed, if necessary, as also were bathing-women, washing-women, and rice-chewers.**

*B.H. Chamberlain.

**"Rice, which is mainly carbohydrate, is transformed into grape-sugar by the action of the saliva. This practice is still common in China and used to be so in Japan where it is now rarely met with. It was employed only until dentition was complete." (Munro.)

"To what we should call education, whether mental or physical, there is absolutely no reference made in the histories. All that can be inferred is that, when old enough to do so; the boys began to follow one of the callings of hunter or fisherman, while the girls stayed at home weaving the garments of the family. There was a great deal of fighting, generally of a treacherous kind, in the intervals of which the warriors occupied themselves in cultivating patches of ground."*

*B.H. Chamberlain.

BURIAL OF THE DEAD

Burial rites were important ceremonials. The house hitherto tenanted by the deceased was abandoned—a custom exemplified in the removal of the capital to a new site at the commencement of each reign—and the body was transferred to a specially erected mourning-hut draped inside with fine, white cloth. The relatives and friends then assembled, and for several days performed a ceremony which resembled an Irish wake, food and sake being offered to the spirit of the dead, prayers put up, and the intervals devoted to weird singing and solemn dancing. Wooden coffins appear to have been used until the beginning of the Christian era, when stone is said to have come into vogue.

At the obsequies of nobles there was considerable organization. Men (mike-hito) were duly told off to take charge of the offerings of food and liquor; others (kisari-mochi) were appointed to carry the viands; others (hahaki-mochi) carried brooms to sweep the cemetery; there were females (usu-me) who pounded rice, and females (naki-me) who sung dirges interspersed with eulogies of the deceased. The Records mention that at the burial of Prince Waka a number of birds were used instead of these female threnodists. It appears, further, that those following a funeral walked round the coffin waving blue-and-red banners, carrying lighted torches, and playing music.

In the sepulchres the arms, utensils, and ornaments used daily by the deceased were interred, and it was customary to bury alive around the tombs of Imperial personages and great nobles a number of the deceased's principal retainers. The latter inhuman habit was nominally abandoned at the close of the last century before Christ, images of baked clay being substituted for human sacrifices, but the spirit which informed the habit survived, and even down to modern times there were instances of men and women committing suicide for the purpose of rejoining the deceased beyond the grave. As to the nature of the tombs raised over the dead, the main facts have been stated in Chapter VI.

TEETH BLACKENING AND FACE PAINTING

The habit of blackening the teeth has long prevailed among married women in Japan, but the Yamato tombs have thus far furnished only one example of the practice, and no mention occurs in the ancient annals. Face painting, however, would seem to have been indulged in by both sexes. Several of the pottery images (haniwa) taken from the tombs indicate that red pigment was freely and invariably used for that purpose. It was applied in broad streaks or large patches, the former encircling the face or forming bands across it; the latter, covering the eyes or triangulating the cheeks. It is probable that this bizarre decoration was used only on ceremonial occasions and that it appears in a greatly accentuated form on the haniwa.

AMUSEMENTS

As to amusements in prehistoric times little information is furnished. Hunting the boar and the stag was the principal pastime, and hawking is described as having been practised in the fourth century of the Christian era. Music and dancing seem to have been in vogue from time immemorial, but there is nothing to tell what kind of musical instruments were in the hands of the early Yamato. The koto, a kind of horizontal lute, and the flute are spoken of in the Chronicles, but the date of their introduction is not indicated. Wrestling, cockfighting (with metal spurs), picnics, a kind of drafts, gambling with dice, and football are all referred to, and were probably indulged in from a very early date.

SLAVERY

The institution of slavery existed among the Yamato. It will be presently spoken of.

POSITION OF WOMEN

There is evidence to show that in the prehistoric age a high position was accorded to women and that their rights received large recognition. The facts that the first place in the Japanese pantheon was assigned to a goddess; that the throne was frequently occupied by Empresses; that females were chiefs of tribes and led armies on campaign; that jealous wives turned their backs upon faithless husbands; that mothers chose names for their children and often had complete charge of their upbringing—all these things go to show that the self-effacing rank taken by Japanese women in later ages was a radical departure from the original canon of society. It is not to be inferred, however, that fidelity to the nuptial tie imposed any check on extra-marital relations in the case of men: it had no such effect.

ENGRAVING: "IKEBANA" FLOWER ARRANGEMENT

ENGRAVING: ENTRANCE TO THE TOMB OF THE EMPEROR JIMMU IN UNEBI-YAMA



CHAPTER IX

THE PREHISTORIC SOVEREIGNS

JIMMU

IT is held by eminent Japanese historians that the Emperor Jimmu, when he set out for Yamato, did not contemplate an armed campaign but merely intended to change his capital from the extreme south to the centre of the country. This theory is based on the words of the address he made to his elder brothers and his sons when inviting them to accompany him on the expedition "Why should we not proceed to Yamato and make it the capital?"—and on the fact that, on arriving in the Kibi district, namely, the region now divided into the three provinces of Bizen, Bitchu, and Bingo, he made a stay of three years for the purpose of amassing an army and provisioning it, the perception that he would have to fight having been realized for the first time. Subsequently he encountered strongest resistance at the hands of Prince Nagasune, whose title of Hiko (Child of the Sun) showed that he belonged to the Yamato race, and who exercised military control under the authority of Nigihayahi, elder brother of Jimmu's father. This Nigihayahi had been despatched from the continental realm of the Yamato—wherever that may have been—at a date prior to the despatch of his younger brother, Ninigi, for the purpose of subjugating the "land of fair rice-ears and fertile reed plains," but of the incidents of his expedition history takes no notice: it merely shows him as ruling in Yamato at the time of Jimmu's arrival there, and describes how Nigihayahi, having been convinced by a comparison of weapons of war that Jimmu was of his own lineage, surrendered the authority to him and caused, Prince Nagasune to be put to death.

From a chronological point of view it is difficult to imagine the co-existence of Jimmu and his great-granduncle, but the story may perhaps be accepted in so far as it confirms the tradition that, in prosecuting his Yamato campaign, Jimmu received the submission of several chieftains (Kami) belonging to the same race as himself. Reference to these facts is essential to an understanding of the class distinctions found in the Japanese social system. All the chieftains who led the expedition from Kyushu were subsequently designated Tenshin—a term which may be conveniently rendered "Kami of the descent"—and all those who, like Nigihayahi, had previously been in occupation of the country, were styled kum-tsu-Kami, or "territorial Kami." Another method of distinguishing was to include the former in the Kwobetsu and the latter in the Shimbetsu—distinctions which will be more fully explained hereafter—and after apotheosis the members of these two classes became respectively "deities of heaven" and "deities of earth," a distinction possessing historical rather than qualificatory force.

As for subdivisions, the head of a Kwobetsu family had the title of omi (grandee) and the head of a Shimbetsu family that of muraji (chief). Thus, the organization of the State depended primarily on the principle of ancestor worship. The sceptre descended by divine right without any regard to its holder's competence, while the administrative posts were filled by men of the same race with a similar hereditary title. Aliens like the Yezo, the Tsuchi-gumo, and the Kumaso were either exterminated or made slaves (nuhi).

THE TERM "YAMATO"

As to the term "Yamato," it appears that, in the earliest times, the whole country now called Japan was known as Yamato, and that subsequently the designation became restricted to the province which became the seat of government. The Chinese, when they first took cognizance of the islands lying on their east, seem to have applied the name Wado—pronounced "Yamato" by the Japanese—to the tribes inhabiting the western shores of Japan, namely, the Kumaso or the Tsuchi-gumo, and in writing the word they used ideographs conveying a sense of contempt. The Japanese, not unnaturally, changed these ideographs to others having the same sounds but signifying "great peace." At a later time the Chinese or the Koreans began to designate these eastern islands, Jih-pen, or "Sunrise Island," a term which, in the fifteenth century, was perverted by the Dutch into Japan.

THE FIRST NINE EMPERORS

In attempting to construct coherent annals out of the somewhat fragmentary Japanese histories of remote ages, the student is immediately confronted by chronological difficulties. Apart from the broad fact that the average age of the first seventeen Emperors from Jimmu downwards is 109 years, while the average age of the next seventeen is only sixty-one and a half years, there are irreconcilable discrepancies in some of the dates themselves. Thus, according to the Records, the eighth Emperor, Kogen, died at fifty-seven, but according to the Chronicles he ascended the throne at fifty-nine and reigned fifty-six years. Again, whereas the ninth sovereign, Kaikwa, is by the Records given a life of only sixty-three years, the Chronicles make him assume the sceptre at fifty-one and wield it for fifty-nine years. Such conflicts of evidence are fatal to confidence. Nor do they disappear wholly until the beginning of the fifth century, at which time, moreover, the incidents of Japanese history receive their first confirmation from the history of China and Korea.

It is therefore not extravagant to conclude that the first ten and a half centuries covered by Japanese annals must be regarded as prehistoric. On the other hand, the incidents attributed to this long interval are not by any means of such a nature as to suggest deliberate fabrication. An annalist who was also a courtier, applying himself to construct the story of his sovereign's ancestors, would naturally be disposed to embellish his pages with narratives of great exploits and brilliant achievements. Neither the Records nor the Chronicles can be said to display such a propensity in any marked degree. The Chronicles do, indeed, draw upon the resources of Chinese history to construct ethical codes and scholarly diction for their Imperial figures, but the Records show no traces of adventitious colour nor make an attempt to minimize the evil and magnify the good.

Thus, while it is evident that to consolidate Jimmu's conquest and to establish order among the heterogeneous elements of his empire he must have been followed by rulers of character and prowess, the annals show nothing of the kind. On the contrary, the reigns of his eight immediate successors are barren of all striking incident. The closing chapter of Jimmu himself is devoted chiefly to his amours, and the opening page in the life of his immediate successor, Suisei, shows that the latter reached the throne by assassinating his elder brother. For the rest, the annals of the eight sovereigns who reigned during the interval between 561 and 98 B.C. recount mainly the polygamous habits of these rulers and give long genealogies of the noble families founded by their offspring—a dearth of romance which bears strong witness to the self-restraint of the compilers. We learn incidentally that on his accession each sovereign changed the site of his palace, seldom passing, however, beyond the limits of the province of Yamato, and we learn, also, that the principle of primogeniture, though generally observed, was often violated.

HSU FUH

A Japanese tradition assigns to the seventy-second year of the reign of Korei the advent of a Chinese Taoist, by name Hsu Fuh. Korei, seventh in descent from Jimmu, held the sceptre from 290 to 215 B.C., and the seventy-second year of his reign fell, therefore, in 219 B.C. Now, to the east of the town of Shingu in Kii province, at a place on the seashore in the vicinity of the site of an ancient castle, there stands a tomb bearing the inscription "Grave of Hsu Fuh from China," and near it are seven tumuli said to be the burial-places of Hsu's companions. Chinese history states that Hsu Fuh was a learned man who served the first Emperor of the Chin dynasty (255-206 B.C.), and that he obtained his sovereign's permission to sail to the islands of the east in search of the elixir of life. Setting out from Yentai (the present Chefoo) in his native province of Shantung, Hsu landed at Kumano in the Kii promontory, and failing to find the elixir, preferred to pass his life in Japan rather than to return unsuccessful to the Court of the tyranical Chin sovereign, burner of the books and builder of the Great Wall. A poem composed in the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1280) says that when Hsu Fuh set out, the books had not been burned, and that a hundred volumes thus survived in his keeping. Of course, the date assigned by Japanese tradition to the coming of Hsu may have been adapted to Chinese history, and it therefore furnishes no evidence as to the accuracy of the Chronicles' chronology. But the existence of the tomb may be regarded as proving that some communication took place between China and Japan at that remote epoch.*

*The route taken by Hsu Fuh namely, from Chefoo down the China Sea and round the south of Japan is difficult to understand.

THE TENTH EMPEROR, SUJIN

The reign of this sovereign (97-30 B.C.) is the first eventful period since the death of Jimmu. It is memorable for the reorganization of religious rites; for the extension of the effective sway of the Throne, and for the encouragement of agriculture. When the first Emperor installed the sacred insignia in the palace where he himself dwelt, the instinct of filial piety and the principle of ancestor worship were scarcely distinguishable. But as time passed and as the age of the Kami became more remote, a feeling of awe began to pervade the rites more strongly than a sense of family affection, and the idea of residing and worshipping in the same place assumed a character of sacrilege. This may have been directly suggested by a pestilence which, decimating the nation, was interpreted as implying the need of greater purity. A replica of the sacred mirror was manufactured, and the grandson of the great worker in metal Mahitotsu, the "One-eyed" was ordered to forge an imitation of the sacred sword. These imitations, together with the sacred jewel, were kept in the palace, but the originals were transferred to Kasanui in Yamato, where a shrine for the worship of the Sun goddess had been built. But though the pestilence was stayed, it brought an aftermath of lawlessness and produced much unrest in the regions remote from Yamato. Sujin therefore organized a great military movement, the campaign of the Shido shogun, or "Generalissimo of the four Circuits."*

*The term "do" indicates a group of provinces.

The leaders chosen for this task were all members of the Imperial family—a great-uncle, an uncle, a younger brother, and a first cousin of the Emperor—and the fields of operation assigned to them were: first, to the west along the northern shore of the Inland Sea; secondly, to the northwest into Tamba, Tango, and Tajima; thirdly, to the north along the sea of Japan, and finally to the east along the route now known as the Tokaido. No attempt is made by the writers of either the Records or the Chronicles to describe the preparations for this extensive campaign. Tradition seems to have preserved the bare fact only.

One interesting interlude is described, however. Before the first body of troops had passed beyond range of easy communication with Mizugaki in Yamato, where the Court resided, the prince in command heard a girl singing by the wayside, and the burden of her song seemed to imply that, while foes at home menaced the capital, foes abroad should not be attacked. The prince, halting his forces, returned to Mizugaki to take counsel, and the Emperor's aunt interpreted the song to signify that his Majesty's half-brother, Haniyasu, who governed the adjacent province of Yamato, was plotting treason. Then all the troops having been recalled, preparations to guard the capital were made, and soon afterwards, news came that Haniyasu, at the head of an army, was advancing from the direction of Yamashiro, while his wife, Ata, was leading another force from Osaka, the plan being to unite the two armies for the attack on Yamato. The Emperor's generals at once assumed the offensive. They moved first against Princess Ata, killed her and exterminated her forces; after which they dealt similarly with Haniyasu. This chapter of history illustrates the important part taken by women in affairs of State at that epoch, and incidentally confirms the fact that armour was worn by men in battle.

The four Imperial generals were now able to resume their temporarily interrupted campaigns. According to the Chronicles they completed the tasks assigned to them and returned to the capital within six months. But such chronology cannot be reconciled with facts. For it is related that the generals sent northward by the western seaboard and the eastern seaboard, respectively, came together at Aizu,* one reaching that place via Hitachi, the other via Echigo. Thus, it would result that Yamato armies at that remote epoch marched hundreds of miles through country in the face of an enemy within a few months. Further, to bring the aboriginal tribes into subjugation, an isolated campaign would have been quite inadequate. Some kind of permanent control was essential, and there is collateral evidence that the descendants of the four princely generals, during many generations, occupied the position of provincial magnates and exercised virtually despotic sway within the localities under their jurisdiction. Thus in the provinces of Omi, of Suruga, of Mutsu, of Iwashiro, of Iwaki, of Echigo, of Etchu, of Echizen, of Bizen, of Bitchu, of Bingo, of Harima, of Tamba, and elsewhere, there are found in later ages noble families all tracing their descent to one or another of the Shido shoguns despatched on the task of pacifying the country in the days of the Emperor Sujin. The genealogies which fill pages of the Records from the days of Jimmu downwards point clearly to the growth of a powerful feudal aristocracy, for the younger sons born to successive sovereigns bear, for the most part, names indicative of territorial lordship; but it seems justifiable to conclude that the first great impetus to that kind of decentralization was given by Sujin's despatch of the Shido shoguns.

*Hence the term "Aizu," form, signifies "to meet."

AGRICULTURE AND TAXATION

The digging of reservoirs and tunnels for irrigating rice-fields received unprecedented attention in the reign of this Emperor, and mention is for the first time made of taxes—tributes of "bow-notches and of finger-tips," in other words, the produce of the chase and the products of the loom. A census was taken for taxation purposes, but unhappily the results are nowhere recorded. The Court gave itself some concern about maritime transport also. A rescript ordered that ships should be built by every province, but nothing is stated as to their dimensions or nature. In this rescript it is mentioned that "the people of the coast not having ships, suffer grievously by land transport." What they suffered may be inferred from a description in the Chronicles where we read that at the building of the tomb of a princess, "the people, standing close to each other, passed the stones from hand to hand, and thus transported them from Osaka to Yamato."

FOREIGN INTERCOURSE

Korea, when Japanese history is first explicitly concerned with it, was peopled by a number of semi-independent tribes, and the part of the peninsula lying southward of the Han River—that is to say, southward of the present Seoul—comprised three kingdoms. Of these Ma-Han occupied the whole of the western half of the peninsula along the coast of the Yellow Sea; while Sin-Han and Pyong-Han formed the eastern half, lying along the shore of the Sea of Japan. The three were collectively spoken of as Sam-Han (the three Han). But Japan's relations with the peninsula did not always involve these major divisions. Her annals speak of Shiragi (or Sinra), Kara, Kudara, and Koma. Shiragi and Kara were principalities carved respectively out of the southeast and south of Pyong-Han. Thus, they lay nearest to Japan, the Korea Strait alone intervening, and the Korea Strait was almost bridged by islands. Kudara constituted the modern Seoul and its vicinity; Koma, (called also Korai and in Korea, Kokuli), the modern Pyong-yang and its district. These two places were rendered specially accessible by the rivers Han and Tadong which flowed through them to the Yellow Sea; but of course in this respect they could not compare with Shiragi (Sinra) and Kara, of which latter place the Japanese usually spoke as Mimana.

There can scarcely be any doubt that the Korean peninsula was largely permeated with Chinese influences from a very early date, but the processes which produced that result need not be detailed here. It has been also shown above that, in the era prior to Jimmu, indications are found of intercourse between Japan and Korea, and even that Susanoo and his son held sway in Shiragi. But the first direct reference made by Japanese annals to Korea occurs in the reign of Sujin, 33 B.C. when an envoy from Kara arrived at the Mizugaki Court, praying that a Japanese general might be sent to compose a quarrel which had long raged between Kara and Shiragi, and to take the former under Japan's protection. It appears that this envoy had travelled by a very circuitous route. He originally made the port of Anato (modern Nagato), but Prince Itsutsu, who ruled there, claimed to be the sole monarch of Japan and refused to allow the envoy to proceed, so that the latter had to travel north and enter Japan via Kehi-no-ura (now Tsuruga.)