Japan Part 3

The Central-Land-of-Reed-Plains(43) being now reported as peaceful, the heavenly deities sent His-Augustness-Heaven-Plenty-Earth-Plenty-Heaven's-Sun-Height-Prince-Rice-Ear-Ruddy-Plenty,(44) who was a grandson of Her-Augustness-the-Sun-G.o.ddess, to dwell in and rule over it. There were joined to him in this mission(45) the Deity-Prince-of-Saruta as his vanguard and five chiefs of companies. They gave him also the string of jewels and the mirror with which the Sun G.o.ddess had been allured from the cave, and also the herb-quelling-great-sword which His-Augustness-the-Impetuous-Male-Deity had taken from the tail of the serpent. And they charged him saying, Regard this mirror precisely as if it were our august spirit, and reverence it as if reverencing us.

Then His-Augustness-Heaven's-Prince-Rice-Ear-Ruddy-Plenty, taking leave of the plains of heaven, and pushing asunder the heavenly spreading clouds, descended upon the peak of Takachiho(46) in Tsukushi, a mountain which is still pointed out in the present island of Kyushu. And noting that the place was an exceedingly good country, he built for himself a palace and dwelt there. And he married a wife who was the daughter of a deity of the place, who bore him three sons whom he named Prince Fire-Shine, Prince Fire-Climax, and Prince Fire-Subside.

_Princes Fire-Shine and Fire-Subside._

Now Prince Fire-Shine was a notable fisherman and Prince Fire-Subside was a hunter. And Prince Fire-Subside said unto his elder brother, Let us exchange our occupations and try our luck. And after some hesitation on the part of the elder brother the exchange was made. But Prince Fire-Subside was not successful and lost the fish-hook in the sea. Then Prince Fire-Shine proposed to his younger brother to exchange back the implements which they had used. But the younger brother said he had had no luck and had lost the hook in the sea. But Prince Fire-Shine was angry and demanded his hook. Then Prince Fire-Subside broke his sword into many fragments and made them into fish-hooks, which he gave to his brother in place of the one he had lost. But he would not receive them. Then he made a thousand fish-hooks and offered these. But he said, I want my original hook.

And as Prince Fire-Subside was weeping by the sea sh.o.r.e the Deity Salt-Possessor came to him and asked him why he wept. He replied, I have exchanged a fish-hook with my elder brother, and have lost it, and he will not be satisfied with any compensation I can make, but demands the original hook. Then the Deity Salt-Possessor built a boat and set him in it, and said to him, Sail on in this boat along this way, and you will come to a palace built of fishes' scales. It is the palace of the Deity Ocean-Possessor. There will be a ca.s.sia tree by the well near the palace.

Go and sit in the top of that tree, and the daughter of the Ocean-Possessor will come to thee and tell thee what to do.

So he sailed away in the boat and came to the palace of the Ocean-Possessor, and he climbed the ca.s.sia tree and sat there. And the maidens of the daughter of the Sea Deity came out to draw water, and saw the beautiful young man sitting in the tree. Then he asked them for some water. And they drew water and gave it to him in a jewelled cup. Without drinking from it he took the jewel from his neck and put it in his mouth and spat it into the vessel, and it clung to the vessel. So the maidens took the vessel and the jewel clinging to it into the palace to their mistress. And they told her that a beautiful young man was sitting in the ca.s.sia tree by the well.

The Sea Deity then went out himself and recognized the young man as Prince Fire-Subside. He brought him into the palace, spread rugs for him to sit on, and made a banquet for him. He gave him his daughter in marriage, and he abode there three years.

At last one morning his daughter reported to the Sea Deity that Prince Fire-Subside, although he had pa.s.sed three years without a sigh, yet last night he had heaved one deep sigh. The Sea Deity asked him why he sighed.

Then Prince Fire-Subside told him about his difficulty with his brother, and how he would accept no compensation for his lost fish-hook, but demanded the return of the original. Thereupon the Sea Deity summoned together all the fishes of the sea and asked them if any one of them had swallowed this hook. And all the fishes said that the _tai_ had complained of something sticking in its throat, and doubtless that was the lost hook.

The throat of the _tai_ therefore being examined, the hook was found and given to Prince Fire-Subside.

Then the Sea Deity dismissed him to his own country, and gave him two jewels, a flow-tide jewel and an ebb-tide jewel. And he set him on the head of an immense crocodile and bade the crocodile convey him carefully and come back and make a report. And Prince Fire-Subside gave the recovered hook to his brother. But a spirit of animosity still dwelt in his heart, and he tried to kill his brother. Then Prince Fire-Subside threw out the flow-tide jewel, and the tide came in upon the Prince Fire-Shine and was about to drown him. And he cried out to his brother and expressed his repentance. Then Prince Fire-Subside threw out the ebb-tide jewel and the tide flowed back and left him safe.

Then Prince Fire-Shine bowed his head before his younger brother, and said, Henceforth I will be thy guard by day and night, and will faithfully serve thee.

And His-Augustness-Prince-Fire-Subside succeeded his father and dwelt in the palace of Takachiho five hundred and eighty years. The place of his tomb is still shown on Mount Takachiho in the province of Hyuga of the island of Kyushu. And he left as his successor his son, whom the daughter of the Sea Deity had borne him. And this son was the father of His-Augustness-Divine-Yamato-Iware-Prince, who is known to posterity by his canonical name of Jimmu, the first emperor of j.a.pan.

CHAPTER IV. FOUNDING THE EMPIRE.

We have now come to the time when the movements which resulted in the establishment of the empire of j.a.pan took place. The events are still overlaid with myth and legend, which could only have been transmitted by oral tradition. But they have to do with characters and places which are tied to the present by stronger cords than those of the divine age. What the events really were which are involved in the myths of the preceding chapter it is impossible to predicate. That the celestial invasion of the island of Kyushu means the coming thither of a chief and his followers from the continent by way of Korea seems most reasonable. The inter-mixture of Izumo with these legends may mean that another migration of a kindred race took place to that part of the Main island. The easy access to both Izumo and Kyushu from Korea makes these migrations the natural explanation of the landing of the j.a.panese upon these fertile and tempting islands.

Without settling the difficult ethnographical questions which are involved in this problem, we propose to follow the Kyushu invaders into the Main island. We will note the slow and laborious steps by which they proceeded to establish a government, which through many changes and emergencies continues to this day.

The Prince, whom we will continue to call Jimmu,(47) had an elder brother, Prince Itsu-se, who seems, however, to have been less active and energetic than the younger. At least, even from the first it is Prince Jimmu who is represented as taking the initiative in the movements which were now begun. The two brothers consulted together and resolved to conduct an expedition towards the east. It will be remembered that their grandfather had established his palace on Mount Takachiho, which is one of the two highest peaks in Kyushu, situated in the province of Hyuga, nearly in the middle of the southern extension of the island of Kyushu. It was from this place that the two brothers started on their expedition. It was no doubt such an expedition as the Norse Vikings of a later day often led into the islands of their neighbors. They had with them a force composed of the descendants of the invaders who had come with their grandfather from the continent. They marched first through the country called Toyo, which was a luxuriant and fertile region on the northeast part of the island. Thence they marched to the palace of Wokada, situated in a district of the island of Tsukushi, lying on the northwest coast facing Tsushima and the peninsula of Korea, and bordering on the straits of the Inland sea. Here they remained a year and probably built the boats by which they crossed the Inland sea.

From Tsukushi they crossed to the province of Aki in the Main island on the coast of the Inland sea, where it is said they remained seven years.

The progress seems like that of the hordes of the Goths in the early ages of European history. It was not merely a military expedition, but a migration of a tribe with all its belongings, women and children, old men and old women, and household and agricultural effects. The military band under Prince Jimmu and his brother formed the vanguard and protection of the tribe. During their seven years' sojourn in Aki they were compelled to resort to agriculture as well as fishing for their support.

Then they skirted along the north coast of the Inland sea to Takashima in the province of Kibi. Thence they crept with their awkward boats eastward among the luxuriant islands. They met a native of the coast out in his boat fishing and engaged his services as a guide. He conducted them to Naniwa, which now bears the name of Osaka, where they encountered the swift tides and rough sea which navigators still meet in this place.

Finally they landed at a point which we cannot recognize, but which must have been in the neighborhood of Osaka at the mouth of the Yodo river.

Here their conflicts with the natives began. The whole region seems to have been occupied by tribes not unlike their own, who had probably come thither from the settlements in Izumo. The first to dispute their progress was Prince Nagasune (Long Legs), of Tomi, who raised an army and resisted the landing of the invaders. It was in the battle that ensued at this place that Prince Itsu-se, the elder brother, received a wound in his hand from an arrow shot by Prince Nagasune. The reason given reveals a curious superst.i.tion which seems to have prevailed from this early time. The j.a.panese prince on receiving the wound exclaims, "It is not right for me, an august child of the Sun G.o.ddess, to fight facing the sun. It is for this reason that I am stricken by the wretched villain's hurtful hand."

Prince Itsu-se, after a few days, died from the effects of the wound. He is buried on mount Kama in the province of Kii.

It is needless to recount all the legends which cl.u.s.ter around this invasion of the central provinces of j.a.pan; about the wild boar which came out of the mountains near k.u.mano, before which Prince Jimmu and all his warriors fell down in a faint; about the miraculous sword which was sent down from the heavenly plains to aid him in subduing the Central-Land-of-Reed-Plains; about a crow eight feet long which was sent to guide him in his expedition, and about the deities with tails who in several places were encountered. To our conception they seem meaningless, and do not in any measure contribute to the progress of the story. They bear evidence of a later invention, and do not belong legitimately to the narrative.

At Uda, on the east coast of the Yamato peninsula, there lived two brothers named Ukashi. The elder brother undertook to deceive Prince Jimmu, and set a trap in which to capture and slay him. But the younger brother revealed the plot, whereupon the followers of Prince Jimmu compelled the traitor to retreat into his own trap, where they killed him.

The younger brother was honored and rewarded by Jimmu, and appears afterward among the hereditary princes of the country.

Again, as he was making his progress through the country Prince Jimmu came upon a company of the savages known as pit-dwellers,(48) whom the _Kojiki_ calls earth-spiders, and describes them as having tails. There appear to have existed at this period remnants of these tribes as far south as the 35th parallel. At a later period they were driven out by the Ainos, and nothing but some of their relics now exists, even in Yezo. The peculiarity by which they were known was, that they lived in a sort of pit dug out of the earth in the sides of the mountains, over which they built a roof of limbs and gra.s.s. In the present case there were eighty of the warriors of this tribe. Prince Jimmu made a banquet for them in one of their pits and a.s.signed an equal number of his own men to act as attendants. Each of these attendants was girded with a sword. Then from a post outside he sang a song,(49) and at a given signal in this song the eighty attendants fell upon the eighty earth-spiders and slew them all.

Thus having subdued all opposing forces and brought the country into subjection, Prince Jimmu established himself in a palace built for him at Kashiwara in the province of Yamato. This is usually regarded by j.a.panese historians as the beginning of the empire, and the present era(50) is reckoned from this establishment of a capital in Yamato. From the record of the length of the reigns of the several emperors contained in the _Kojiki_, and the _Nihongi_, and later books, the date of the accession of the Emperor Jimmu is fixed at 660 B.C. We have given elsewhere(51) our reason for believing the record of the early reigns of doubtful authenticity. Nevertheless, as it is impossible to propose a definite change, it is better to use the accepted scheme with its admitted defects.

The Emperor Jimmu after his accession continued to reign seventy-five years and, according to the _Kojiki_, died at the age of one hundred and thirty-seven. The _Nihongi_, however, gives his age at death as one hundred and twenty-seven, and this has been adopted by the government in its published chronology.(52) His burial place is said to be on the northern side of mount Unebi in the province of Yamato. It is just to a.s.sign to the Emperor Jimmu the exalted place which the j.a.panese claim for him in their history. That he was a prince of high enterprise is evident from his adventurous expedition from the home of his family into the barbarous and unknown regions of the Main island. He accomplished its conquest with less slaughter and cruelty than the customs of the times seemed to justify. He made it his policy to effect terms with the native princes and seek their co-operation in his government. He extended his sway so that it covered Anato, now known as Nagato, and Izumo on the west, and reached probably to Owari on the east. All this time he had held a firm hand on the island from which he had come, so that few if any outbreaks occurred among its restless Turanian or native inhabitants.

The Emperor Jimmu was succeeded by his third son, known by his canonical name as the Emperor Suizei. The reigning emperor, it seems, exercised the right to select the son who should succeed him. This was not always the oldest son, but from the time he was chosen he was known as _taishi_, which is nearly equivalent to the English term crown prince. The Emperor Suizei, it is said, occupied a palace at Takaoka, in Kazuraki, in the province of Yamato. This palace was not far from that occupied by his father, yet it was not the same. And in the reigns of the successive sovereigns down to A.D. 709, when the capital was for a time established at Nara, we observe it as a most singular circ.u.mstance that each new emperor resided in a new palace. In the first place, the palace spoken of in these early times was probably a very simple structure. Mr. Satow, in his paper(53) on the temples at Ise, gives an account of the form and construction of the prehistoric j.a.panese house. The Shinto temple in its pure form is probably a survival of the original palace. Before the introduction of edge-tools of iron and boring implements or nails, the building must have been constructed in a very primitive fashion. It will be understood that stone or brick were never used. Wood was the only material for the frame. The roof was thatched with rushes or rice straw.

The pure Shinto temples of modern times are built with the utmost simplicity and plainness. Although the occasion for adhering to primitive methods has long since pa.s.sed away, yet the buildings are conformed to the styles of structure necessary before the introduction of modern tools and appliances. To build a new palace therefore for a new emperor involved by no means such an outlay of time and work as might be imagined.

It is not improbable that when a young man was chosen crown prince he had an establishment of his own a.s.signed to him, and this became his palace which he occupied when he became emperor. When a man died, and especially when an emperor died, it was an ancient custom to abandon his abode. It became unclean by the presence in it of a dead body, and therefore was no longer used.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Shinto Temple

Nothing is narrated of the immediate successors of the Emperor Jimmu of importance to this story. The accounts contained in either of the oldest histories relate merely to the genealogies of the several sovereigns.

The Emperor Suizei was, as we have seen, the third son of Jimmu and reigned thirty-two years, dying at the age of eighty-four.(54)

The third emperor was Annei, the only son of the Emperor Suizei. He reigned thirty-seven years and died at the age of fifty-seven.

The fourth emperor was Itoku, the oldest son of the Emperor Annei. He reigned thirty-three years and died at the age of seventy-seven.

The fifth emperor was Kosho, the oldest son of the Emperor Itoku. He reigned eighty-two years and died at the age of one hundred and fourteen years.

The sixth emperor was Koan, the oldest son of the Emperor Kosho. He reigned one hundred and one years and died at the age of one hundred and thirty-seven.

The seventh emperor was Korei, the second son of the Emperor Koan. He reigned seventy-five years and died at the age of one hundred and twenty-eight.

The eighth emperor was Kogen, the oldest son of the Emperor Korei. He reigned fifty-six years and died at the age of one hundred and sixteen.

The ninth emperor was Kaikwa, a younger son of the Emperor Kogen. He reigned fifty-nine years and died at the age of one hundred and eleven.

The tenth emperor was Sujin, a younger son of the Emperor Kaikwa. He reigned sixty-seven years and died at the age of one hundred and nineteen.

It is narrated that during his reign a pestilence broke out which was so severe that the country was almost depopulated. The emperor was greatly disturbed by this calamity, and there appeared to him in the night a divine vision. The Great Deity, the Great Master of Things, appeared and revealed to him, that if he would cause him to be appropriately worshipped the pestilence would cease. The worship was accordingly ordained and executed, and the pestilence forthwith abated.

In this reign expeditions were also sent into the northwestern and northeastern districts of the Main island to repress the disturbances which had arisen. The reports from these expeditions were in each case favorable, and the whole empire was in a condition of quiet and prosperity, such as had not before existed. Taxes were for the first time levied on the proceeds of the chase and on the handiwork of the women.

Reservoirs for the collection of water, used in the irrigation of the rice crops, were constructed in the imperial provinces, and encouragement was everywhere given to the growing industries of the country.

The Emperor Sujin was succeeded by his younger son who is known as the eleventh emperor under the name of Suinin. He is said to have reigned ninety-nine years, and to have died at the age of one hundred and forty-one.

A conspiracy came near ending the life of this emperor. A brother of the empress was ambitious to attain supreme authority. He approached his sister with the subtle question, Which is dearer to thee, thine elder brother or thy husband? She replied, My elder brother is dearer. Then he said, If I be truly the dearer to thee, let me and thee rule the empire.

And he gave her a finely tempered dagger and said to her, Slay the emperor with this in his sleep. So the emperor, unconscious of danger, was sleeping one day with his head on the lap of the empress. And she, thinking the time had come, was about to strike him with the dagger. But her courage failed her, and tears fell from her eyes on the face of the sleeping emperor. He started up, awakened by the falling tears, and said to her, I have had a strange dream. A violent shower came up from the direction of Saho and suddenly wet my face. And a small damask-colored snake coiled itself around my neck. What can such a dream betoken? Then the empress, conscience-stricken, confessed the conspiracy with her brother.

The emperor, knowing that no time was to be lost, immediately collected a force of troops and marched against his brother-in-law. He had entrenched himself behind palisades of timber and awaited the emperor's attack. The empress, hesitating between her brother and her husband, had made her escape to her brother's palace. At this terrible juncture she was delivered of a child. She brought the child to the palisades in sight of the emperor, and cried out to him to take it under his care. He was deeply moved by her appeal to him and forthwith planned to rescue both the child and its mother. He chose from among his warriors a band of the bravest and most cunning, and commanded them, saying, When ye go to take the child, be sure that ye seize also the mother.

But she, fearing that the soldiers would try to s.n.a.t.c.h her when they came for the child, shaved off her hair and covered her head with the loose hair as if it were still adhering. And she made the jewel-strings around her neck and arms rotten, and she rendered her garments, by which they might catch hold of her, tender by soaking them in _sake_. When the soldiers came to her she gave them the child and fled. Then they seized her by the hair and it came away in their hands; and they clutched at the jewel-strings and they broke; and then they grasped her garments, but they had been rendered tender and gave way in their hands. So she escaped from them and fled. Then they went back to the emperor and reported that they had been unable to capture the mother, but they had brought the babe. The emperor was angry at what the soldiers told him. He was angry at the jewellers who had made the rotten jewel-strings and deprived them of their lands. He called to the empress through the burning palisades around the palace-for the soldiers had set fire to the palace-saying, A child's name must be given by its mother; what shall be the name of this child? And she answered, Let it be called Prince Homu-chiwake. And again he called: How shall he be reared? She replied, Take for him a foster-mother and bathing woman who shall care for him. Then he asked again, saying: Who shall loosen the small, fresh pendant which you have tied upon him? And she gave directions concerning this also. Then the emperor paused no longer, but slew the rebellious prince in his burning palace, and the empress perished with her wicked brother.