A History of the Japanese People Part 8

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

ENGRAVING: j.a.pANESE 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 j.a.pan 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 j.a.panese. Especially does that hold as to indications of manners, customs, and inst.i.tutions. 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 j.a.panese 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 n.o.bility, the official cla.s.s. 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 j.a.pan.

Amaterasu (the Sun G.o.ddess) 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 k.u.me, whose descendants const.i.tuted the Otomo and k.u.me families.

In every case these offices were hereditary for all time, and the families of their holders const.i.tute the aristocracy of the nation, marrying among themselves and filling the highest offices from generation to generation. Their members bore the t.i.tle 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 ent.i.tled kuni no miyatsuko.

This was the origin of the j.a.panese 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 cla.s.ses, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 t.i.tle 0-mikado (great august Gate). The dwellings occupied by the n.o.bility were similarly built, though on a less pretentious scale, and those of the inferior cla.s.ses 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 j.a.pan, 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 j.a.pan, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 j.a.pan. 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 j.a.panese 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 pet.i.tions for renewed a.s.sistance, 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 c.o.c.k, 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 j.a.panese 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 ill.u.s.trious deeds performed during life. Of the former group the mult.i.tudinous 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 G.o.ddess 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 gra.s.s--the last a female divinity (Kaya-no-hime). The second group those deified for ill.u.s.trious 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 circ.u.mscribed 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 j.a.pan--known as Shinto, or "the way of the G.o.ds"--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 const.i.tuted 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 superst.i.tions. 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 j.a.panese 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 l.u.s.trations 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 G.o.ddess.* 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 G.o.ds 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 const.i.tuted crimes in ancient j.a.pan were divided into two cla.s.ses: 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 j.a.pan. 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-sh.e.l.l; 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 pa.s.sers, by manipulating stones, and by counting footsteps.

MILITARY FORCES

It has been related that when the "heavenly grandson" undertook his expedition to j.a.pan, the military duties were entrusted to two mikoto* who became the ancestors of the Otomo and the k.u.me families.

There is some confusion about the subsequent differentiation of these families, but it is sufficient to know that, together with the Monon.o.be 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 a.s.serted 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 j.a.pan.

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 quant.i.ties 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 a.s.signment 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 n.o.bility 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 a.s.semblies 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 j.a.pan 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 j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan. 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