MATERIALS OF HISTORY.

 

Before attempting a brief sketch of Japanese history, it may be interesting to the reader to know something of the sources of such history, and the character and amount of the materials. A dynasty of rulers who ostentatiously boast of twenty-five centuries of unbroken succession should have solid foundation of fact for their boast. The august representatives of the mikado Mutsuhito, the one hundred and twenty-third of the imperial line of Dai Nippon, who, in the presence of the President and Congress of the United States, and of the sovereigns of Europe, claimed the immemorial antiquity of the Japanese imperial rule, should have credentials to satisfy the foreigner and silence the skeptic.

In this enlightened age, when all authority is challenged, and a century after the moss of oblivion has covered the historic grave of the doctrine of divine right, the Japanese still cling to the divinity of the mikado, not only making it the dogma of religion and the engine of government, but accrediting their envoys as representatives of, and asking of foreign diplomatists that they address his imperial Japanese majesty as the King of Heaven (Tenno). A nation that has passed through the successive stages of aboriginal migration, tribal government, conquest by invaders, pure monarchy, feudalism, anarchy, and modem consolidated empire, should have secreted the material for much interesting history. In the many lulls of peace, scholars would arise, and opportunities would offer, to record the history which previous generations had made. The foreign historian who will bring the necessary qualifications to the task of composing a complete history of Japan, i. e., knowledge of the languages and literature of Japan, China, Corea, and the dialects of the Malay Archipelago, Siberia, and the other islands of the North Pacific, historical insight, sympathy, and judicial acumen, has before him a virgin field.

The body of native Japanese historical writings is rich and solid. It is the largest and most important division of their voluminous literature. It treats very fully the period between the rise of the noble families from about the ninth century until the present time. The real history of the period prior to the eighth century of the Christian era is very meagre. It is nearly certain that the Japanese possessed no writing until the sixth century a.d. Their oldest extant composition is the Kojiki, or “Book of Ancient Traditions.” It may be called the Bible of the Japanese. It comprises three volumes, composed a.d. 711-712. It is said to have been preceded by two similar works, written respectively in a.d. 620 and a.d. 681; but neither of these has been preserved. The first volume treats of the creation of the heavens and earth; the gods and goddesses, called kami; and the events of the holy age, or mythological period. The second and third give the history of the mikados from the year 1 (660 b.c.) to the 1288th of the Japanese era. It was first printed during a.d. 1624-1642.

The term ‘mikado’ is in general adhered to throughout this work. Other titles found in the native literature, and now or formerly in common use, are, Ten-shi (Son of Heaven); Tenno, or Ten O (Heaven-king); Kotei (Sovereign Ruler of Nations); Kinri (The Forbidden Interior); Dairi (Imperial Palace); Chotei (Hall of Audience); Dai O (Great King); O Uji (The Great Family); Gosho (Palace). In using these titles, the common people add sama, a respectful term, after them. Several of them, as is evident, were used originally to denote places. It was quite common for the people in later time to speak of the mikado as Miako sama, or Uyé sama (Superior Lord), in distinction from the shogun, whom they designated as Yedo sama. The Chinese eharaeters employed to express the term ‘mikado’ mean Honorable Gate, an idea akin to the Turkish Sublime Porte. Satow, however, derives it from mi, great, august, awful; and to (do in composition), place; the notion being that the mikado is too far above ordinary mortals to be spoken of directly. Hence the Gate of the Palace is used as a figure for him. So, also, Ren-ka (Base of the Chariot, or Below the Palanquin); and Hei-ka (Foot of the Throne, or of the Steps leading to the Dais), are used to denote the imperial person. A term anciently used was Nin O (King of Men).”

The Nihongi, completed a.d. 720, also contains the Japanese cosmogony, records of the mythological period, and brings down the annals of the mikado to a.d. 699. These are the oldest books in the language. Numerous and very valuable commentaries upon them have been written. They contain so much that is fabulous, mythical, or exaggerated, that their statements, especially in respect of dates, can not be accepted as true history. According to the Kojiki, Jinmu Tenno was the first emperor; yet it is extremely doubtful whether he was a historical personage. The best foreign scholars and critics regard him as a mythical character. The accounts of the first mikados are very meagre. The accession to the throne, marriage and death of the sovereign, with notices of occasional rebellions put down, tours made, and worship celebrated, are recorded, and interesting glimpses of the progress of civilization obtained.

A number of works, containing what is evidently good history, illustrate the period between the eighth and eleventh centuries. A still richer collection of both original works and modern compilations treat of the medieval period from the eleventh to the sixteenth century—the age of intestine strife and feudal war. The light which the stately prose of history casts upon the past is further heightened by the many poems, popular romances, founded on historic fact, and the classic compositions called monogatari, all of which help to make the perspective of by-gone centuries melt out into living pictures. That portion of the history which treats of the introduction, progress, and expulsion of Christianity in Japan has most interest to ourselves. Concerning it there is much deficiency of material, and that not of a kind to satisfy Occidental tastes. The profound peace which followed the victories of Iyeyasu, and which lasted from 1600-1868—the scholastic era of Japan—gave the peaceful leisure necessary for the study of ancient history, and the creation of a large library of histor­ical literature, of which the magnificent works called the Dai Nihon Shi (“History of Great Japan”), and Nihon Guai Shi (“Japanese Outer, or Military History ”), are the best examples.

Under the Tokugawa shoguns (1603-1868) liberty to explore, chron­icle, and analyze the past in history was given; but the seal of silence, the ban of censorship, and the mandate forbidding all publication were put upon the production of contemporary history. Hence, the peaceful period, 1600 to 1853, is less known than others in earlier times. Several good native annalists have treated of the post-Perry period (1853-1872), and the events leading to the Restoration.

In the department of unwritten history, such as unearthed relics, coins, weapons, museums, memorial stones, tablets, temple records, etc., there is much valuable material. Scarcely a year passes but some rich trover is announced to delight the numerous native archaeologists.

The Japanese are intensely proud of their history, and take great care in making and preserving records. Memorial-stones, keeping green the memory of some noted scholar, ruler, or benefactor, are among the most striking sights on the highways, or in the towns, villages, or temple-yards, betokening the desire to defy the ravages of oblivion and resist the inevitable tooth of Time.

Almost every large city has its published history; towns and villages have their annals written and preserved by local antiquarians; family records are faithfully copied from generation to generation; diaries, notes of journeys or events, dates of the erections of buildings, the names of the officiating priests, and many of the subscribing worshipers, are religiously kept in most of the large Buddhist temples and monasteries. The bonzes (Jap. bozu) delight to write of the lives of their saintly predecessors and the mundane affairs of their patrons. Almost every province has its encyclopedic history, and every high­road its itineraries and guide-books, in which famous places and events are noted. Almost every neighborhood boasts its Old Mortality, or local antiquary, whose delight and occupation are to know the past. In the large cities professional story-tellers and readers gain a lucrative livelihood by narrating both the classic history and the legendary lore. The theatre, which in Japan draws its subjects for representation almost exclusively from the actual life, past or present, of the Japanese people, is often the most faithful mirror of actual history. Few people seem to be more thoroughly informed as to their own history: parents delight to instruct their children in their national lore; and there are hundreds of child’s histories of Japan.

Besides the sober volumes of history, the number of books purporting to contain truth, but which are worthless for purposes of historical investigation, is legion. In addition to the motives, equally operative in other countries for the corruption or distortion of historical narrative, was the perpetual desire of the Buddhist monks, who were in many eases the writers, to glorify their patrons and helpers, and to damn their enemies. Hence their works are of little value. So plentiful are these garbled productions, that the buyer of books always asked for jitsu-roku, or “true records,” in order to avoid the “zu-zan,” or “editions of Zu,” so called from Zu, a noted Chinese forger of history.

In the chapters on the history of Japan, I shall occasionally quote from the text of some of the standard histories in literal translation. I shall feel only too happy if I can imitate the terse, vigorous, and luminous style of the Japanese annalists. The vividness and pictorial detail of the classic historians fascinate the reader who can analyze the closely massed syntax. Many of the pages of the Nihon Guai Shi, especially, are models of compression and elegance, and glow with the chastened eloquence that springs from clear discernment and conviction of truth, gained after patient sifting of facts, and groping through difficulties that lead to discovery. Many of its sentences are epigrams. To the student of Japanese it is a narrative of intensest interest.

The Kojiki and Nihongi, which give the only records of very ancient Japan, and on which all other works treating of this period are based, can not be accepted as sober history. Hence, in outlining the events prior to the second century of the Christian era, I head the chapters, not as the “Dawn of History,” but the “Twilight of Fable.” From these books, and the collections of ancient myths (Koshi Seibun), as well as the critical commentaries and explanations of the Japanese rationalists, which, by the assistance of native scholars, I have been able to consult, the two following chapters have been compiled.

 

JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY.

 

In the beginning all things were in chaos. Heaven and earth were not separated. The world floated in the cosmic mass, like a fish in water, or the yolk in an egg. The ethereal matter sublimed and formed the heavens, the residuum became the present earth, from the warm mold of which a germ sprouted and became a self-animate being, called Kuni-toko-tachi no mikoto. Two other beings of like genesis appeared. After them came four pairs of beings (kami). These were all single (hitori-gami, male, sexless, or self-begotten).

It will be seen at once that the Japanese scheme of creation starts without a Creator, or any First Cause; and that the idea of space apart from matter is foreign to the Japanese philosophical system. Mikoto (mase.), mikami (fem.), mean “ augustness.” It is not the same term as mikado. No is the particle of.

The opening sentence of the Kojiki is as follows: At the time of the beginning of heaven and earth there existed three hashira-gami (pillar or chief kami, or gods). The name of one kami was Ame-no-naka-nushi-no-kami (Lord of the Mid­dle of Heaven); next, Taka-mimusubi-no-kami (High Ineffable Procreator); next, Kami-musubi-no-kami (Ineffable Procreator). These three, existing single, hid their bodies (died, or passed away, or became pure spirit). Next, when the young land floated like oil moving about, there came into existence, sprouting upward like the ashi (rush) shoot, a kami named Umaji-ashikabikikoji-no-kami (Delightful Rush-sprout); next, Ame-uo-toko-tachi-no-kami. These two chief kami, existing single, hid their bodies. Next, came into existence these three, Kuni-no-toko-tachi-no-mikoto, etc., etc.

The Nihongi opens as follows: Of old, when heaven and earth were not yet separated, and the in (male, active, or positive principle) and the yo (female, pass­ive, or negative principle) were not yet separated, chaos, enveloping all things, like a fowl’s egg, contained within it a germ. The clear and ethereal substance expanding, became heaven; the heavy and thick substance agglutinating, became earth. The ethereal union of matter was easy, but the thickened substance hardened with difficulty. Therefore, heaven existed first; the earth was fixed afterward. Subsequently deity (kami) was born (umaru). Now, it is said that, “in the beginning of heaven and earth, the soil floated about like a fish floating on the top of the water,” etc.

Evidently in the Kojiki we have the purely Japanese theory of creation, and in the Nihongi the same account, with Chinese philosophical ideas and terms added. In both, matter appears before mind, and the deities have no existence before matter.

Proceeding now to the work of creation, the kami separated the primordial substance into the five elements—wood, fire, metal, earth, and water—and ordained to each its properties and combination. As yet, the division into sexes had not taken place. In [Chinese] philosophical language, the male (yo) and female (in) principles that pervade all things had not yet appeared. The first manifestation of the male essence was Izanagi; of the female, Izanami. Standing together on the floating bridge of heaven, the male plunged his jeweled falchion, or spear, into the unstable waters beneath them, and withdrawing it, the trickling drops formed an island, upon which they descended. The creative pair, or divine man and woman, designing to make this island a pillar for a continent, separated—the male to the left, the female to the right—to make a journey round the island. At their meeting, the female spirit spoke first, “How joyful to meet a lovely man!” The male spirit, offended that the first use of the tongue had been by a woman, required the circuit to be repeated. On their second meeting, the man cried out, “How joyful to meet a lovely woman!” They were the first couple; and this was the beginning of the art of love, and of the human race. The island (Awaji), with seven other large, and many thousand small ones, became the Everlasting Great Japan. At Izanami’s first conception, the female essence in being more powerful, a female child was born, greatly to the chagrin of the father, who wished for male offspring. The child was named Amaterasu o mikami, or, the Heaven-illuminating Goddess. She shone beautifully, and lighted the heavens and the earth. Her father, therefore, transferred her from earth to heaven, and gave her the ethereal realm to rule over. At this time the earth was close to heaven, and the goddess easily mounted the pillar, on which heaven rested, to her kingdom.

The second child was also a female, and was called Tsuki no kami, and became the Goddess of the Moon. The third child, Hiruko (leech), was a male, but not well formed. When three years old, being still unable to stand, his parents made an ark of camphor-wood, and set him adrift at sea. He became the first fisherman, and was the God of the Sea and of Storms.

After two girls and a cripple had thus been born, the father was de­lighted with the next fruit of his spouse, a fine boy, whom they named Sosanoo no mikoto. Of him they entertained the highest hopes. He grew up, however, to be a most mischievous fellow, killing people, pulling up their trees, and trampling down their fields. He grew worse as he grew up. He was made ruler over the blue sea; but he never kept his kingdom in order. He let his beard grow down over his bosom. He cried constantly; and the land became a desert, the rivers and seas dried up, and human beings died in great numbers. His father, inquiring the reason of his surly behavior, was told that he wished to go to his mother, who was in the region under the earth. He then made his son ruler over the kingdom of night. The august scape-grace still continued his pranks, unable to refrain from mischief. One day, after his sister, the Sun-goddess, had planted a field with rice, he turned a wild horse loose, which trampled down and spoiled all her work. Again, having built a store-house for the new rice, he defiled it so that it could not be used. At another time, his sister was sitting at her loom, weaving. Sosanoo, having skinned a live horse by drawing its skin off from the tail to the head, flung the reeking hide over the loom, and the carcass in the room. The goddess was so frightened that she hurt herself with the shuttle, and, in her wrath, retired to a cave, closing the mouth with a large rock. Heaven, earth, and the four quarters became enshrouded in darkness, and the distinction between day and night ceased. Some of the turbulent and ill-mannered gods took advantage of the darkness to make a noise like the buzzing of flics, and the confusion was dreadful.

Then all the gods (eight hundred thousand in number) assembled on the heavenly river-plain of Yasu, to discuss what was to be done to appease the anger of the great goddess. The wisest of the gods was intrusted with the charge of thinking out a stratagem to entice her forth. The main part of the plan was to make an image of the self-imprisoned goddess, which was to bd more beautiful than herself, and thus excite at once her curiosity and her jealousy. It was to be a round mirror like the sun.

A large rock from near the source of the river was taken to form an anvil. To make the bellows, they took the whole skin of a deer, and, with iron from the mines of heaven, the blacksmith-god made two mirrors, which successively failed to please the gods, being too small. The third was large and beautiful, like the sun.

The heavenly artisans now prepared to make the finest clothes and jewelry, and a splendid palace for the Sun-goddess, when she should come out. Two gods planted the paper-mulberry and hemp, and prepared bark and fibre; while three other gods wove them into coarse, striped, and fine cloth, to deck her dainty limbs. Two gods, the first carpenters, dug holes in the ground with a spade, erected posts, and built a palace. Another deity, the first jeweler, made a string of magatama (curved jewels), the material for a necklace, hair-pins, and bracelets. Two other gods held in their hands the sacred wands, called tama-gushi.

Two gods were then appointed to find out, by divination, whether the goddess was likely to appear. They caught a buck, tore out a bone from one of its forelegs, and set it free again. The bone was placed in a fire of cherry-bark, and the crack produced by the heat in the blade of the bone was considered a satisfactory omen.

A sakaki-tree was then pulled up by the roots. To the upper branches was hung the necklace of jewels, to the middle was attached the mirror, and from the lower branches depended the coarse and fine cloth. This was called a gohei. A large number of perpetually crowing cocks was obtained from (what had been) the region of perpetual day. These irrepressible chanticleers were set before the cave, and began to crow lustily in concert. The God of Invincibly Strong Hands was placed in concealment near the rocky door, ready to pull the goddess out at her first peering forth. A goddess with a countenance of heavenly glossiness, named Uzume, was appointed manager of the dance. She first bound up her flowing sleeves close to her body, under the armpits, by a creeping plant, called masaki, and donned a head­dress made of long moss. While she blew a bamboo tube, with holes pierced in it between the joints, the other deities kept time to the music with two flat, hard pieces of wood, which they clapped together. Another kami took six bows, and, from the long moss hanging from the pine-trees on the high hills, she strung the bows, and made the harp called the koto. His son made music on this instrument by drawing across the strings grass and rushes, which he held in both hands. Bonfires were now lighted before the door of the cavern, and the orchestra of fifes, drums, cymbals, and harp began. The goddess Uzume now mounted the circular box, having a baton of twigs of bamboo grass in one hand, with a spear of bamboo twined with grass, on which small bells tinkled. As she danced, the drum-like box prepared for her resounded, and she, becoming possessed by a spirit of folly, sung a song in verses of six syllables each, which some interpret as the numerals, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000. The goddess, as she danced, loosened her dress, exposing her nude charms. All this was caused by the spirit which possessed her. It so excited the mirth of the gods that they laughed so loudly that heaven shook. The song and its interpretations are:

“Hito, futa, miyo ……….One, two, three, four,

Itsu, muyu, nana………..Five, six, seven.

Ya, koko-no, tari………..Eight, nine, ten,

Momo, chi, yorodzu…….Hundred, thousand, ten thousand.”

 

“Ye gods, behold the cavern doors!

Majesty appears—hurra!

Our hearts are quite satisfied;

Behold my charms.”

or,

“ Gods, behold the door!

Lo! the majesty of the goddess!

Shall we not be filled with rapture?

Are not my charms excellent ?”

The Sun-goddess within, unable to account for the ill-timed mirth, since heaven and earth were in darkness, rose, and approaching the rocky door, listened to the honeyed words of one of the gods, who was praising her. Impelled further by curiosity, she opened the door slightly, and asked why Uzume danced and the gods laughed? Uzume replied, “I dance because there is an honorable deity who sur­passes your glory.” As she said this, the exceedingly beauteous god Futodama showed the mirror. The Sun-goddess within, astonished at her own loveliness, which she now first beheld in the reflection, stepped out a little further to gratify her curiosity. The God of Invincibly Strong Hands, who stood concealed, pulled the rock door open, caught her by the hand, and dragged her forth. The wisest of the gods, who superintended the whole proceedings, took a rope of twisted rice-straw, passed it behind her, and said, “Do not go behind this.” They then removed the Sun-goddess to her new palace, and put a straw rope around it to keep off evil gods. Her wicked brother was punished by having each particular hair of his head pulled out, and his finger and toe nails extracted. He was then banished.

Izanami’s fifth child, the last in whose conception the two gods shared, was a son, called the God of Wild Fire. In bringing him forth the goddess suffered great pain; and from the matter which she vomited in her agony sprung the God and Goddess of Metal. She afterward created the gods of Clay and Fresh Water, who were to pacify the God of Fire when inclined to be turbulent. Izanami had enjoined her consort not to look at her during her retirement, but he disregarded her wish. She fled from him, and departed to the nether regions. Izanagi, incensed at the God of Fire, clove him in three pieces with his sword. From these fragments sprung the gods of Thunder, of Mountains, and of Rain. He then descended into the region of night to induce Izanami to come back to the earth. There he met his consort, who would not return. He found the region to be one of perpetual and indescribable foulness, and, before he left, he saw the body of his wife had become a mass of putrefaction. Escaping into the upper world, he washed himself in the sea, and, in the act of escape and purification, many gods were created. According to one version, Amaterasu was produced out of his left eye, and Sosanoo out of his nose. Those deities created out of the filth from which he cleansed himself became the wicked gods, who now war against the good gods and trouble mankind. The God of Clay and the Goddess of Fresh Water married. Their offspring was Naka musubi. From his head grew the mulberry and silk-worm, and from his navel sprung the five cereals, rice. wheat, beans, millet, and sorghum.

Another legend, changing the sex of Sosanoo, says the Sun-goddess spoke to Sosanoo (the Moon-goddess), who reigned jointly with her over the high plain of heaven, and said, “I have heard that there is a food-possessing goddess in the central country of luxuriant reedy moors (Japan). Go and see.” Descending from heaven, he came to the august abode of the Goddess of Food, and asked for refreshment. The goddess, creating various forms of food, such as boiled rice from the land, fish from the sea, beasts, with coarse and fine hair, from the hills, set them on a banqueting-table before Sosanoo, who, enraged at the manner of the creation of the food, killed her.

Reporting the matter in heaven, Amaterasu was angry at Sosanoo, and degraded her (the Moon-goddess) from joint rule, and condemned her to appear only at night, while she, the Sun-goddess, slept. Ama­terasu then sent a messenger the second time to see whether the Food-goddess was really dead. This was found to be the case. Out of the dead body were growing, millet on the forehead; silk-worms and a mulberry-tree on the eyebrows; grass on the eyes; on the belly, rice, barley, and large and small beans. The head finally changed into a cow and horse. The messenger took them all, and presented them to Amaterasu. The Sun-goddess rejoiced, and ordained that these should be the food of human beings, setting apart rice as the seed of the watery fields, and the other cereals as the seed of the dry fields. She appointed lords of the villages of heaven, and began for the first time to plant the rice-seeds. In the autumn the drooping ears ripened in luxuriant abundance. She planted the mulberry-trees on the fragrant hills of heaven, and rearing silk-worms, and chewing cocoons in her mouth, spun thread. Thus began the arts of agriculture, silk-worm rearing, and weaving.

When Sosanoo was in banishment, there was a huge eight-headed dragon that had devastated the land and eaten up all the fair virgins. Sosanoo enticed the monster to partake of an intoxicating liquor set in eight jars, and then slew him while in stupor. In the tail of the dragon he found a sword of marvelous temper, which he presented to Amaterasu. This sword, called “Cloud-cluster,” afterward became one of the three sacred emblems constituting the regalia of the Japanese sovereigns. In these last days of commerce, Sosanoo’s exploit is pictured on the national paper money. He is also said to have invented poetry. Being as irregularly amorous as the Jupiter of anoth­er mythology, he was the father of many children by various mothers. One of the most illustrious of his offspring was Daikoku, now worshiped in every household as the God of Fortune. In the later stages of the mythology, heaven and earth are found peopled with myriads of kami, some of whom have inhabited heaven from the beginning, while those on the earth have been ruling or contending together from an indefinite period. Finally, before ushering in the third or final stage of the mythical history, there are general war and confusion among the gods on earth, and Amaterasu resolves to bring order out of the troubles, and to subdue and develop the land for herself.

She desired to make a son of her own a ruler over the terrestrial world. One had been produced from her necklace, called Oshi-bo­no no mikoto, who married Tamayori hime no mikoto, one of the granddaughters of Izanagi and Izanami. Their offspring was Ninigi no mikoto. After much delay, caused by the dispatch and failure of envoys to the gods of the earth, he prepared to descend from heaven to his realm on earth. The Sun-goddess gave her grandson various treasures, chief of which were the mirror, emblem of her own soul, and now worshiped at Ise, the sword Cloud-cluster, taken by Sosanoo from the dragon’s tail, and a stone or seal. Concerning the mirror she said, “Look upon this mirror as my spirit; keep it in the same house and on the same floor with yourself, and worship it as if you were worshiping my actual presence.”

Another version of this divine investiture is given in these words: “For centuries upon centuries shall thy followers rule this kingdom. Herewith receive from me the succession and the three crown talismans. Should you at any future time desire to see me, look in this mirror. Govern this country with the pure lustre that radiates from its surface. Deal with thy subjects with the gentleness which the smooth rounding of the stone typifies. Combat the enemies of thy kingdom with this sword, and slay them on the edge of it.”

Accompanied by a number of inferior gods of both sexes, he descended on the floating bridge of heaven, on which the first pair had stood when separating the dry land from the water, to the mountain of Kirishima, between Hiuga and Ozumi, in Kiushiu. After his descent, the sun and earth, which had already receded from each other to a considerable distance, became further separated, and communication by the floating bridge of heaven ceased. According to the commentators on the sacred books, as Japan lay directly opposite to the sun when it separated from the earth, it is clear (to a devout Japanese) that Japan lies on the summit of the globe. As it was created first, it is especially the Land of the Gods, the Holy Land, the Country of the Divine Spirits. All other countries were formed later by the spontaneous consolidation of the foam and mud of the sea. All foreign countries were of course created by the power of the heavenly gods, but they were not begotten by Izanagi and Izanami, nor did they give birth to the Sun-goddess, which is the cause of their in­feriority. Japan is superior to all the world for the reasons given above. The traditions current in other countries as to the origin of the world are of course incorrect, since, being so far from the sources of truth, they can not be accurate, and must be greatly distorted. From the fact of the divine descent of the Japanese people proceeds their immeasurable superiority to the natives of other countries in courage and intelligence. This opinion, long held by Japanese in general, still lingers among the fanatical Shinto scholars, and helps to explain the intense hatred and contempt manifested toward foreigners as late as within the last decade.

Ninigi no mikoto descended on Kirishima yama, and was received with due honors by one of the kami of the place. He had a son, who lived five hundred and eighty years. This son married a sea-monster, who appeared to him in the form of a woman, and by her he had a son, who became ruler, and was succeeded by a son born of an aunt. Ninigi, the heavenly descendant, was thus the great-grandfather of Jimmu Tenno, the first emperor of Japan.

It is not easy to weave into a continuous and consistent whole the various versions of the Japanese accounts of creation and the acts of the gods, or to be always safe in deciding their origin, sex, or relations to each other; for these spirits act like Milton’s, and “as they please, they limb themselves.” These myths arising among the primitive Japanese people of various localities, who never attempted to formulate them, are frequently at hopeless variance with each other; and the ingenuity and ability of the learned native commentators on the sacred books, especially the Nihongi and Kojiki, are exercised to the highest degree to reconcile them.

One author devotes twenty volumes of comment to two of the text of the Kojiki in these earnest efforts, making his works a rich mine to the student of Japanese antiquities. Translated into English, in the spirit of a devout Japanese, an exalted Biblical or Miltonic style should be used. Mr. Aston thus renders a passage from the Nakatomi no harai, one of the most ancient monuments of the language, describing the descent of the god Ninigi to the earth (Japan): “They caused him to thrust from him heaven’s eternal throne, to fling open heaven’s eternal doors, to cleave with might his way from out heaven’s many­piled clouds, and then to descend from heaven.”

A literal, or even free, translation into plain English could not, however, be made in a book to be read, unexpurgated, in the family circle. Many physiological details, and not a few references probably, pure to the native pure, would not be suffered by the tastes or moral codes in vogue among the mass of readers in Europe or America. Like the mythology of Greece, that of Japan is full of beauty, pathos, poetic fancy, charming story, and valorous exploit. Like that, it forms the soil of the national art, whether expressed in bronze, porcelain, colors; or poetry, song, picture, the dance, pantomime, romance, symbolism; or the esthetics of religion.

In spite of Buddhism, rationalism, and skeptical philosophy, it has entered as fully into the life and art and faith of the people of Japan as the mythology of the Aryan nations has entered into the life and art of Europe. Like that of the nations classic to us, the Japanese mythology, when criticised in the light of morals, and as divorced from art, looked at by one of alien clime, race, and faith, contains much that is hideous, absurd, impure, and even revolting. Judged as the growth and creation of the imagination, faith, and intellect of the primitive inhabitants of Japan, influenced by natural surroundings, it is a faithful mirror of their country, and condition and character, before these were greatly modified by outside religion or philosophy. Judged as a religious influence upon the descendants of the ancient Nihonese—the Japanese, as we know them—it may be fairly held responsible for much of the peculiar moral traits of their character, both good and evil. The Japanese mythology is the doctrinal basis of their ancient and indigenous religion, called Kami no michi, or Shinto (way or doctrine of the gods, or, by literal rendering, theology).

One of the greatest pleasures to a student of Japanese art, antiquities, and the life as seen in the Japan of today, is to discover the survivals of primitive culture among the natives, or to trace in their customs the fashions and ceremonies current tens of centuries ago, whose genesis is to be sought in the age of the gods. Beneath the poetic and mythical costume are many beautiful truths.

One of the many Japanese rationalistic writers explains the hiding of Amaterasu in the cave as an eclipse of the sun. Ebisu, the third child of the first pair, is now worshiped as the God of Daily Food, fish being the staple of Japanese diet. He is usually represented as a jolly angler, with a red fish (tai) under one fat arm, and a rod and line under the other. One need not go far from Kioto to find the identical spots of common earth which the fertile imagination of the children of Nippon has transfigured into celestial regions. Thus, the prototype of “the dry bed of the river Aine no yasu” is now to be seen in front of the city of Kioto, where the people still gather for pleasure or public ceremony. The “land of roots,” to which Sosanoo was banished, is a region evidently situated a few miles north-west of Kioto. The dancing of Suzume before the cavern is imitated in the pantomimic dance still seen in every Japanese village and city street. The mirror made from iron in the mines of heaven by the Blacksmith, god was the original of the burnished disks before which the Japanese beauty of today, sitting for hours on knee and heels, and nude to the waist, heightens her charms. A mask of Suzume, representing the laughing face of a fat girl, with narrow forehead, having the imperial spots of sable, and with black hair in rifts on her forehead, cheeks puffed out, and dimpled chin, adorns the walls of many a modern Japanese house, and notably on certain festival days, and on their many occasions of mirth. The stranger, ignorant of its symbolic import, could, without entering the palace, find its prototype in five minutes, by looking around him, from one of the jolly fat girls at the well or the rice-bucket. The magatama jewels, curved and perforated pieces of soap-stone occasionally dug up in various parts of Japan, show the work of the finger of man, and ancient pictures depict the chiefs of tribes decked with these adornments. In the preparations made to attract forth the Sun-goddess, we see the origin of the arts of music by wind and stringed instruments, dancing, divination, adornment, weaving, and carpentry. To this day, when the Japanese female is about to sweep, draw water, or perform household duties, she binds up her sleeves to her armpits, with a string twisted over her shoulders, like the sleeve-binder of the dancing goddess. Before Shinto shrines, trees sacred to the kami, at New-year’s-day before gates and doors, and often in children’s plays, one sees stretched the twisted ropes of rice-straw. In the month of August especially, but often at the fairs, festivals, and on holidays, the wand of waving jewels, made by suspending colored paper and trinkets to a branch of bamboo, and something like a Christmas-tree, is a frequent sight. The gohei is still the characteristic emblem seen on a Shinto shrine. All these relics, trivial and void of meaning to the hasty tourist, or the alien, whose only motive for dwelling on the island is purely sordid, are, in the eye of the native, and the intelligent foreigner, ancient, sacred, and productive of innocent joy, and to the latter, sources of fresh surprise and enjoy­ment of a people in themselves intensely interesting.

 

THE TWILIGHT OF FABLE.

 

Between the long night of the unknown ages that preceded the advent of the conquerors, and the morning of what may be called real history, there lies the twilight of mythology and fabulous narration.

The mythology of Nippon, though in essence Chinese, is Japanese in form and coloring, and bears the true flavor of the soil from whence it sprung. The patriotic native or the devout Shintoist may accept the statements of the Kojiki as genuine history; but in the cold, clear eye of an alien they are the inventions of men shaped to exalt the imperial family. They are a living and luxurious growth of fancy around the ruins of facts that in the slow decay of time have lost the shape by which recognition is possible. Chinese history does indeed, at certain points, corroborate what the Japanese traditions declare, and thus gives us some sure light; but for a clear understand­ing of the period antedating the second century of the Christian era, the native mythology and the fabulous narrations of the Kojiki are but as moonlight.

Jimmu Tenno, the first mikado, was the fifth in descent from the Sun-goddess. His original name was Kan Yamato Iware Hiko no mikoto. The title Jimmu Tenno, meaning “spirit of war,” was post­humously applied to him many centuries afterward. When the Kojiki was compiled, pure Japanese names only were in use. Hence, in that book we meet with many very long quaint names and titles which, when written in the Chinese equivalents, are greatly abbreviated. The introduction of the written characters of China at a later period enabled the Japanese to express almost all their own words, whether names, objects, or abstract ideas, in Chinese as well as Japanese. Thus, in the literature of Japan two languages exist side by side, or imbedded in each other. This applies to the words only. Japanese syntax, being incoercible, has preserved itself almost entirely unchanged.

The Kojiki states that Jimmu was fifty years old when he set out upon his conquests. He was accompanied by his brothers and a few retainers, all of whom are spoken of as kami, or gods. The country of Japan was already populated by an aboriginal people dwelling in villages, each under a headman, and it is interesting to notice how the inventors of the Kojiki account for their origin. They declare, and the Japanese popularly believe, that these aboriginal savages were the progeny of the same gods (Izanagi and Izanami) from whom Jimmu sprung; but they were wicked, while Jimmu was righteous.

The interpretation doubtless is, that a band of foreign invaders land­ed in Hiuga, in Kiushiu, or they were perhaps colonists, who had occupied this part of the country for some time previous. The territory of Hiuga could never satisfy a restless, warlike people. It is mountainous, voleanic, and one of the least productive parts of Japan.

At the foot of the famous mountain of Kirishima, which lies on the boundary between Hiuga and Ozumi, is the spot where Jimmu resided, and whence he took his departure.

Izanagi and Izanami first, and afterward Ninigi, the fourth ancestor of Jimmu, had descended from this same height to the earth. Every Japanese child who lives within sight of this mountain gazes with reverent wonder upon its summit, far above the sailing clouds and within the blue sky, believing that here the gods came down from heaven.

The story of Jimmu’s march is detailed in the Kojiki, and the nu­merous popular books based upon it. A great many wonderful creatures and men that resembled colossal spiders were encountered and overcome. Even wicked gods had to be fought or circumvented. His path was to Usa, in Buzen; thence to Okada; thence by ship through the windings of the Suwo Nada, a part of the Inland Sea, landing in Aki. Here he built a palace, and remained seven years. He then went to the region of Bizen, and, after dwelling there eight years, he sailed to the East. The waves were very rough and rapid at the spot near the present site of Osaka, where he finally succeeded in landing, and he gave the spot the name Nami Haya (swift waves). This afterward became, in the colloquial, and in poetry, Naniwa.

Hitherto the career of the invaders had been one of victory and easy conquest, but they now received their first repulse. After severe fighting, Jimmu was defeated, and one of his brothers was wounded. A council of war was held, and sacred ceremonies celebrated to discover the cause of the defeat. The solemn verdict was that as children of the Sun-goddess they had acted with irreverence and presumption in journeying in opposition to the course of the sun from west to east, instead of moving, as the sun moves, from east to west. Thereupon they resolved to turn to the south, and advance westward. Leaving the ill-omened shores, they coasted round the southern point of Kii, and landed at Arasaka. Here a peaceful triumph awaited them, for the chief surrendered, and presented Jimmu with a sword. A representation of this scene, engraved on steel, now adorns the green­back of one of the denominations of the national banknotes issued in 1872. The steps of the conqueror were now bent toward Yamato. The mountain-passes were difficult, and the way unknown; but by act of one of the gods, Michi no Omi no mikoto, who interposed for their guidance, a gigantic crow, having wings eight feet long, went before the host, and led the warriors into the rich land of Yamato. Here they were not permitted to rest, for the natives fought stoutly for their soil.

On one occasion the clouds lowered, and thick darkness brooded over the battlefield, so that neither of the hosts could discern each other, and the conflict stayed. Suddenly the gloom was cleft by the descent from heaven of a bird like a hawk, which, hovering in a flood of golden effulgence, perched upon the bow of Jimmu. His adversaries, dazzled to blindness by the awful light, fled in dismay. Jimmu, being now complete victor, proceeded to make his permanent abode, and fixed the miako, or capital, at Kashiwabara, some miles distant from the present site of Kioto. Here he set up his government, and began to rule over all the lands which he had conquered. Peace was celebrated with rejoicing, and religious ceremonies of imposing magnificent. He distributed rewards to his soldiers and officers, and chose his chief captains to be rulers over provinces, apportioning them lands, to be held in return for military service. It will be noticed that this primal form of general government was a species of feudalism. Such a political system was of the most rudimentary kind; only a little better than the Council of the Six Nations of the Iroquois, or was similar to that of the Aztecs of Mexico.

The country being now tranquilized, weapons were laid aside, and attention was given to the arts of peace. Among the first things accomplished was the solemn deposit of the three sacred emblems—mirror, sword, and ball — in the palace. Sacrifices were offered to the Sun-goddess on Torimino yama.

Jinnnu married the princess Tatara, the most beautiful woman in Japan, and daughter of one of his captains. During his life-time his chief energies were spent in consolidating his power, and civilizing his subjects. Several rebellions had to be put down. After choosing an heir, he died, leaving three children, at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven years, according to the Nihongi, and of one hundred and thirty-seven, according to the Kojiki.

It is by no means certain that Jimmu was a historical character. The only books describing him are but collections of myths and fables, in which exists, perhaps, a mere skeleton of history. Even the Japanese writers, as, for instance, the author of a popular history (Dai Nihon Koku Kai Biaku Yuraii Ki), interpret the narratives in a rationalistic manner. Thus, the “eight-headed serpents” in the Kojiki are explained to be persistent arch-rebels, or valorous enemies; the “ground-spiders,” to be rebels of lesser note; and the “spider-pits or holes,” the rebels’ lurking-places. The gigantic crow, with wings eight feet long, that led the host into Yamato was probably, says the native writer, a famous captain whose name was Karasu (crow), who led the advance-guard into Yamato, with such valor, directness, and rapidity, that it seemed miraculous. The myth of ascribing the guidance of the army to a crow was probably invented later. A large number of the incidents related in the Kojiki have all the characteristics of the myth.

Chinese tradition ascribes the peopling of Japan to the following causes: The grandfather (Taiko) of the first emperor (Buwo) of the Shu dynasty (thirty-seven emperors, eight hundred and seventy-two years, b.c. 1120-249) in China, having three sons, wished to bequeath his titles and estates to his youngest son, notwithstanding that law and custom required him to endow the eldest. The younger son refused to receive the inheritance; but the elder, knowing that his father Taiko would persist in his determination, and unwilling to cause trouble, secretly left his father’s house and dominions, and sailed away to the South of China. Thence he is supposed to have gone to Japan and founded a colony in Hiuga. His name was Taihaku Ki. From this legend the Chinese frequently apply the name Kishi Koku, or “country of the Ki family,” to Japan.

Whatever may be the actual facts, Jimmu Tenno is popularly believed to have been a real person, and the first emperor of Japan. He is deified in the Shinto religion, and in thousands of shrines dedicated to him the people worship his spirit. In the official list of mikados, he is named as the first. The reigning emperor refers to him as his ancestor from whom he claims unbroken descent. The 7th day of the Fourth month (April 7th) is fixed as the anniversary of his ascension to the throne, and that day is a national holiday, on which the iron-clad navy of modern Japan fires salutes, from Krupp and Armstrong guns, in his honor, and the military, in French uniforms, from Snider and Remington rifles, burn in memoriam powder.

The era of Jimmu is the starting-point of Japanese chronology, and the year 1 of the Japanese era is that upon which he ascended the throne at Kashiwabara. A large number of Japanese students and educated men who have been abroad, or who, though remaining at home, have shed their old beliefs, and imbibed the modern spirit of nihilism, regard Jimmu as a myth. The majority, however, cling to their old belief that the name Jimmu represents a historical verity, and hold it as the sheet-anchor of their shifting faith. A young Japanese, fresh from several years’ residence in Europe, was recently rallied concerning his belief in the divinity of the mikado and in the truth of the Kojiki. His final answer was, “It is my duty to believe in them.”

 

SUJIN, THE CIVILIZER.

 

From the death of Jimmu Tenno to that of Kimmei, in whose reign Buddhism was introduced (a.d. 571), there were, according to the Dai Nihon Shi, thirty-one mikados. During this period of twelve hundred and thirty-six years, believed to be historic by most Japanese, the most interesting subjects to be noted are the reforms of Sujin Tenno, the military expeditions to Eastern Japan by Yamato Dake, the invasion of Corea by the Empress Jingu Kogo, and the introduction of Chinese civilization and of Buddhism.

The Nihongi details the history and exploits of these ancient rulers with a minuteness and exactness of circumstances that are very suspicious. It gives the precise birthdays and ages of the emperors, who in those days attained an incredible longevity. Takenouchi, the Japanese Methusaleh, lived to be over three hundred and fifty years old, and served as prime minister to five successive emperors. Twelve mikados lived to be over one hundred years old. One of them ruled one hundred and one years. The reigns of the first seventeen averaged over sixty-one years. From the seventeenth to the thirty-first, the average reign is little over twelve years. In the list there are many whose deeds, though exaggerated in the mirage of fable, are, in the main, most probably historic.

Sujin, also called Shujin or Simin (b.c. 97-30), was, according to the Dai Nihon Shi, a man of intense earnestness and piety. The traits of courage and energy which characterizes his youth gave him in manhood signal fitness for his chosen task of elevating his people. He mourned over their wickedness, and called upon them to forsake their sins, and turn their minds to the worship of the gods. A great pestilence having broken out, and the people being still unrepentant, the pious monarch rose early in the morning, fasted, and purified his body with water, and called on the kami to stay the plague. After solemn public worship the gods answered him, and the plague abated. A revival of religious feeling and worship followed. In his reign dates the building of special shrines for the adoration of the gods. Hitherto the sacred ceremonies had been celebrated in the open air. Further, the three holy regalia (mirror, sword, and ball) had hitherto been kept in the palace of the mikado. It was believed that the efficacy of the spirit was so great that the mikado dwelling with the spirit was, as it were, equal to a god. These three emblems had been placed within the palace, that it might be said that where they were dwelt the divine power. A rebellion having broken out during his reign, he was led to believe that this was a mark of the disfavor of the gods, and in consequence of his keeping the emblems under his own roof. Reverencing the majesty of the divine symbols, and fearing that they might be defiled by too close proximity to his carnal body, he removed them from his dwelling, and dedicated them in a temple erected for the purpose at Kasanui, a village in Yamato. He appointed his own daughter priestess of the shrine and custodian of the symbols—a custom which has continued to the present time.

The shrines of Uji, in Isé, which now hold these precious relics of the divine age, are always in charge of a virgin princess of imperial blood. Later, being warned by the goddess Amaterasu to do so, she carried the mirror from province to province, seeking a suitable locality; but having grown old in their search, Yamato himé (himé after female proper names means "princess") continued it, and finally, after many changes, they were deposited in their present place a.d. 4. Copies of the mirror and sword were, however, made by Sujin, and placed in a separate building within the palace called the “place of reverence.” This was the origin of the chapel still connected with the mikado’s imperial palace.

From the most early time the dwelling and surroundings of the mi­kado were characterized by the most austere simplicity, quite like the Shinto temples themselves, and the name miya was applied to both. In imagining the imperial palace in Japan, the reader on this side the Pacific must dissolve the view projected on his mind at the mention of the term “palace.” Little of the stateliness of architecture or the splendor and magnificence of the interior of a European palace belongs to the Japanese imperial residence. A simple structure, larger than an ordinary first-class dwelling, but quite like a temple in outward appear­ance, and destitute of all meretricious or artistic ornamentation within, marks the presence of royalty, or semi-divinity, in Japan. Even in Kioto, for centuries, the palace, except for its size and slightly greater elevation, could not be distinguished from the residences of the nobles, or from a temple. All this was in keeping with the sacredness of the personage enshrined within. For vain mortals, sprung from inferior or wicked gods, for upstart generals, or low traders bloated with wealth, luxury and display were quite seemly. Divinity needed no material show. The circumstances and attributes of deity were enough. The indulgence in gaudy display was opposed to the attributes and character of the living representative of the Heavenly Line. This rigid simplicity was carried out even after death. In striking contrast with the royal burial customs of the nations of Asia are those of Japan.

All over the East, the tombs of dead dynasties are edifices of all others the most magnificent. The durable splendor of the homes of the departed far exceed that of the palaces of the living. But in Japan, in place of the gorgeous mausoleums and the colossal masterpieces of mortuary architecture of continental Asia, the sepulchres of the mikados seem monuments of chaste poverty. Nearly all of the imperial tombs are within the three provinces of Yamato, Yamashiro, and Set-tsu. A simple base of stone, surmounted by a low shaft, set upon a hillock, surrounded by a trench, and inclosed with a neat railing of timber, marks the resting-places of the dead emperors. All this is in accordance with the precepts of Shinto.

The whole life of Sujin was one long effort to civilize his half­savage subjects. He ordained certain days when persons of both sexes must lay aside their regular employment, and give the Government his or her quantum of labor. The term for the labor of the men means “bow-point,’’ and of the women “hand-point,” implying that in the one ease military service was the chief requirement, and in the other that of the loom or the field. He endeavored, in order to secure just taxation, to inaugurate a regular periodical census, and to reform the methods of dividing and recording time. He encouraged the building of boats, in order to increase the means of transportation, promote commerce, and to bring the people at the extremities of the country in contact with each other. Communication between Corea and Kiushiu was rendered not only possible, but promised to be regular and profitable. We read that, during his reign, an envoy, bringing presents, arrived from Mimana, in Corea, b.c. 33. Six years later, it is recorded that the prince, a chief of Shiraki, in Corea, came to Japan to live. It is evident that these Coreans would tell much of what they had seen in their own country, and that many useful ideas and appliances would be introduced under the patronage of this enlightened monarch. Sujin may be also called the father of Japanese agriculture, since he encouraged it by edict and example, ordering canals to be dug, water-courses provided, and irriga­tion to be extensively carried on. Water is the first necessity of the rice-farmer of Asia. It is to him as precious a commodity as it is to the miner of California. Rice must be sown, transplanted, and grown under water. Hence, in a country where this cereal is the staple crop, immense areas of irrigated fields are necessary. One of the unique forms of theft in rice-countries, which, in popular judgment, equals in iniquity the stealing of ore at the mines, or horses on the prairies, is the drawing off water from a neighbor’s field. In those old rude times, the Japanese water-thief, when detected, received but little more mercy than the horse-robber in the West. The immense labor necessary to obtain the requisite water-supply can only be appreciated by one who has studied the flumes of California, the tanks of India, or the various appliances in Southern Asia. In Japan, it is very common to terrace, with great labor, the mountain gulches, and utilize the stream in irrigating the platforms, thus changing a noisy, foaming stream into a silent and useful servant. In many cases, the water is led for miles along artificial canals, or ditches, to the fertile soil which needs it. On flat lands, at the base of mountains, huge reservoirs are excavated, and tapped as often as desired. In the bosom of the Hakone Mountains, between Sagami and Suruga, is a deep lake of pure cold water, over five thousand feet above the sea-level. On the plain below are few or no natural streams. Centuries ago, but long after Sujin’s time, the mountain wall was breached and tunneled by manual labor, and now through the rocky sluices flows a flood sufficient to enrich the millions of acres of Suruga province. The work begun by Sujin was followed up vigorously by his successor, as we read that, in the year a.d. 6, a proclamation was issued ordering canals and sluices to be dug in over eight hundred places.

The emperor had two sons, whom he loved equally. Unable to de­termine which of them should succeed him, he one day told them to tell him their dreams the next morning, and he should decide the issue by interpretation. The young princes accordingly washed their bodies, changed their garments, and slept. Next day the elder son said, “I dreamed that I climbed up a mountain, and, facing the east, I cut with the sword and thrust with the spear eight times.” The younger said, “I climbed the same mountain, and, stretching snares of cords on every side, tried to catch the sparrows that destroy the grain.” The emperor then interpreted the dream, “You, my son,” said he to the elder, “looked in one direction. You will go to the East, and become its governor.” “You, my son,” said he to the younger, “looked in every direction. You will govern on all sides. You will become my heir.” It happened as the father had said. The younger became emperor, and a peaceful ruler. The elder became the governor of, and a warrior in, the East.

The story is interesting as illustrating the method of succession to the throne. Usually it was by primogeniture, but often it depended upon the will or whim of the father, the councils of his chiefs, or the intrigues of courtiers.

The energies of this pious mikado were further exerted in devising and executing a national military system, whereby his peaceably dis­posed subjects could be protected and the extremities of his dominions extended. The eastern and northern frontiers were exposed to the assaults of the wild tribes of Ainos who were yet unsubdued. Between the peaceful agricultural inhabitants who owned the sway of the ruler in Yamato, and the untamed savages who gloried in their freedom, a continual border-war existed. The military division of the empire into four departments was made, and a shogun, or general, was appointed over each. These departments were the To, Nan, and Sai kai do, and Hokurokudo, or the East, South, and West-sea Circuits, and the Northern-land Circuit. The strict division of the empire into do, or circuits, according with the natural features and partitions of the country, which is still recognized, was of later time; but already, b.c.25, it seems to have been foreshadowed by Sujin.

One of these shoguns, or generals, named Obiko, who was assigned to the Northern Department, lying north of Yamato and along the west coast, holds a high place of renown among the long list of famous Japanese warriors. It is said that when, just after he had started to join his command, he heard of a conspiracy against the mikado, returning quickly, he killed the traitor, restored order, and then resumed his duties in the camp at the North. His son held command in the East. In the following reign, it is written that military arsenals and magazines were established, so that weapons and rations were ready at any moment for a military expedition to repel incursions from the wild tribes on the border, or to suppress insurrections within the pale of the empire. The half-subdued inhabitants in the extremes of the realm needed constant watching, and seem to have been as restless and treacherous as the Indians on our own frontiers. The whole history of the extension and development of the mikado’s empire is one of war and blood, rivaling, if not exceeding, that of our own country in its early struggles with the Indians. This constant military action and life in the camp resulted, in the course of time, in the creation of a powerful and numerous military class, who made war professional and hereditary. It developed that military genius and character which so distinguish the modern Japanese, and mark them in such strong contrast with other nations of Eastern Asia. The long- sustained military operations also served to consolidate the empire.

In these ancient days, however, there was no regular army, no special class of warriors, as in later times. Until the eighth century, the armies were extemporized from the farmers and people generally, as occasion demanded. The war over, they returned to their daily employments. The mikados were military chiefs, and led their armies, or gave to their sons or near relatives only, the charge of expeditions.

It is not my purpose to follow in detail the long series of battles, or even court conspiracies and intrigues, which fill the Japanese histories, and lead some readers to suppose that war was the normal condition of the palace and empire. I prefer to show the condition of the people, their methods of life, customs, ideas, and beliefs. Although wars without and intrigues within were frequent, these by no means made up the life of the nation. Peace had its victories, no less renowned than those of war. A study of the life of the people, showing their progress from barbarism to civilization, will, I think, be of more interest to the reader than details concerning imperial rebels, poisoners, or stabbers.

In the Japanese histories, and in official language, literature, and eti­quette of later days, there exists the conception of two great spheres of activity and of two kinds of transactions, requiring two methods of treatment. They are the nai and guai, the inner and the outer, the interior and exterior of the palace, or the throne and the empire. Thus the Nihon Guai Shi, by Rai Sanyo, or “External History of Japan,” treats of the events, chiefly military, outside the palace. His other work, Nihon Seiki, treats rather of the affairs of the “forbidden interior” of the palace. In those early days this conception had not been elaborated.

The mikado from ancient times has had two crests, answering to the coats of arms in European heraldry. One is a representation of a chrysanthemum (kiku), and is used for government purposes outside the palace. It is embroidered on flags and banners, and printed on official documents. Since the Restoration, in 1868, the soldiers of the imperial army wear it as a frontlet on their caps. The other crest, representing a blossom and leaves of the Paulownia imperialis (kiri), is used in business personal to the mikado and his family. The ancient golden chrysanthemum has, since 1868, burst into new bloom, like the flowering of the nation itself, and has everywhere displaced the trefoil of the parvenus of later feudalism—the Tokugawas, the only military vassals of the mikado who ever assumed the preposterous title of “ Tycoon.”

                  .

YAMATO-DAKE, THE CONQUEROR OF THE KUANTO

 

Kuanto (east of the barrier). The term Kuanto was, probably as early as the ninth century, applied to that part of Japan lying east of the guard-gate, or barrier, at Ozaka, a small village on the borders of Yamashiro and Omi. It included thirty-three provinces. The remaining thirty-three provinces were called Kuan-sei (west of the barrier). In modern times and at present, the term Kuanto (written also Kanto) is applied to the eight provinces (Kuan-hasshiu) east of the Hakoné range, consisting of Sagami, Musashi, Kodzuké, Shimotsuké, Kadzusa, Awa, Shimosa, and Hitachi. Sometimes Idzu, Kai, and the provinces of Hondo north of the thirty-eighth parallel, formerly called Mutsu and Déwa, are also included.

 

A new hero appears in the second century, whose personality seems so marked that it is impossible to doubt that within the shell of fabulous narration is a rich kernel of history. This hero, a son of the twelfth emperor, Keiko (71-130 a.d.), is pictured as of fair mien, manly and graceful carriage. In his youth he led an army to put down a rebellion in Kiushiu; and, wishing to enter the enemy’s camp, he disguised himself as a dancing-girl, and presented himself before the sentinel, who, dazed by the beauty and voluptuous figure of the supposed damsel, and hoping for a rich reward from his chief, admitted her to the arch-rebel’s tent. After dancing before him and his carousing guests, the delighted voluptuary drew his prize by the hand into his own tent. Instead of a yielding girl, he found more than his match in the heroic youth, who seized him, held him powerless, and took his life. For this valorous effort he received the name Yamato-Dake, or, the Warlike. Thirteen years after this victory, a.d. 110, the tribes in eastern Japan revolted, and Yamato-Dake went to subdue them. He stopped at the shrine of the Sun-goddess in Isé, and, leaving his own sword under a pine-tree, he obtained from the priestess the sacred sword, one of the holy emblems enshrined by Sujin. Armed with this palladium, he penetrated into the wilds of Suruga, to fight the Ainos, who fled before him from the plains into the woods and mount­ain fastnesses. The Aino method of warfare, like that of our North American Indians, was to avoid an encounter in the open field, and to fight in ambush from behind trees, rocks, or in the rank undergrowth, using every artifice by which, as pursued, they could inflict the greatest damage upon an enemy with the least loss and danger to themselves. In the lore of the forest they were so well read that they felt at home in the most tangled wilds. They were able to take advantage of every sound and sign. They were accustomed to disguise themselves in bear-skins, and thus act as spies and scouts. Fire was one of their chief means of attack. On a certain occasion they kindled the underbrush, which is still seen so densely covering the uncleared portions of the base of Fuji. The flames, urged by the wind, threatened to surround and destroy the Japanese army—a sight which the Ainos beheld with yells of delight. The Sun-goddess then appeared to Yamato-Dake, who, drawing the divinely bestowed sword— Murakumo, or “Cloud-cluster”—cut the grass around him. So invincible was the blade that the flames ceased advancing and turned toward his enemies, who were consumed, or fled defeated. Yamato-Dake then gratefully acknowledging to the gods the victory vouchsafed to him, changed the name of the sword to Kusanagi (Grass-mower).

Crossing the Hakoné Mountains, he descended into the great plain of the East, in later days called the Kuanto, which stretches from the base of the central ranges and table-land of Hondo to the shores of the Pacific, and from Sagami to Iwaki. On reaching the Bay of Yedo at about Kamizaki, near Uraga, off which Commodore Perry anchored with his steamers in 1853, the hills of the opposite peninsula of Awa seemed so very close at hand, that Yamato-Dake supposed it would be a trifling matter to cross the intervening channel. He did not know what we know so well now, that at these narrows of the bay the winds, tides, currents, and weather are most treacherous. Having embarked with his host, a terrific storm arose, and the waves tossed the boat so helplessly about that death seemed inevitable. Then the frightened monarch understood that the Sea-god, insulted by his disparaging remark, had raised the storm to punish him. The only way to appease the wrath of the deity was by the sacrifice of a victim. Who would offer? One was ready. In the boat with her lord was his wife, Tachibana himé. Bidding him farewell, she leaped into the mad waves. The blinding tempest drove on the helpless boat, and the victim and the saved were parted. But the sacrifice was accepted. Soon the storm ceased, the sky cleared, the lovely landscape unveiled in serene repose. Yamato-Dake landed in Kadzusa, and subdued the tribes. At the head of the peninsula, at a site still pointed out within the limits of modern Tokio, he found the perfumed wooden comb of his wife, which had floated ashore. Erecting an altar, he dedicated the precious relic as a votive offering to the gods. A Shinto shrine still occupies the site where her spirit and that of Yamato-Dake are worshiped by the fishermen and sailors, whose junks fill the Bay of Yedo with animation and picturesque beauty. As usual, a pine-tree stands near the shrine. The artist has put Mount Fuji in the distance, a beautiful view of which is had from the strand. Yamato-Dake then advanced northward, through Shimosa, sailing along the coast in boats to the border, as the Japanese claimed it to be, between the empire proper and the savages, which lay at or near the thirty-eighth parallel. The two greatest chiefs of the Ainos, apprised of his coming, collected a great army to overwhelm the invader. Seeing his fleet approaching, and awed at the sight, they were struck with consternation, and said, “These ships must be from the gods. If so, and we draw bow against them, we shall be destroyed.” No sooner had Yamato-Dake landed than they came to the strand and surrendered. The hero kept the leaders as hostages, and having tranquilized the tribes, exacting promise of tribute, he set out on the homeward jour­ney. His long absence from the capital in the wilds of the East doubtless disposed him to return gladly. He passed through Hitachi and Shimosa, resting temporarily at Sakura, then through Musashi and Kai. Here he is said to have invented the distich, or thirty-one-syllable poem, so much used at the present day. After his army had been refreshed by their halt, he sent one of his generals into Echizen and Echigo to tranquilize the North-west and meet him in Yamato. He himself marched into Shinano. Hitherto, since crossing the Hakoné range, he had carried on his operations on the plains. Shi­nano is a great table-land averaging twenty-five hundred, and rising in many places over five thousand, feet above the sea-level, surrounded and intersected by the loftiest peaks and mountain ranges in Japan. Ninety-five miles north-west of Tokio is the famous mountain pass of Usui Togé, the ascent of which from Sakamoto, on the high plain below, is a toilsome task. At this point, twenty-six hundred feet above Sakamoto, unrolls before the spectator a magnificent view of the Bay of Yedo and the plain below, one of the most beautiful and impressive in Japan. Here Yamato stood and gazed at the land and water, draperied in the azure of distance, and, recalling the memory of his beloved wife, who had sacrificed her life for him, he murmured, sadly, “Adzuma, adzuma” (My wife, my wife). The plain of Yedo is still, in poetry, called Adzuma. One of the princes of the blood uses Ad­zuma as his surname; and the ex-Confederatc iron-clad ram Stone­wall, now of the Japanese navy, is christened Adzuma-kuan.

To cross the then almost unknown mountains of Shinano was a bold undertaking, which only a chief of stout heart would essay. To travel in the thinly populated mountainous portions of Japan even at the present time, at least to one accustomed to the comfort of the palace-cars of civilization, is not pleasant. In those days, roads in the Kuanto were unknown. The inarch of an army up the slippery ascents, through rocky defiles, over lava-beds and river torrents, required as much nerve and caution as muscle and valor. To their superstitious fancies, every mountain was the abode of a god, every cave and defile the lurking-place of spirits. Air and water and solid earth were populous with the creatures of their imagination. Every calamity was the manifestation of the wrath of the local gods; every success a proof that the good kami were specially favoring them and their leaders. The clouds and fogs were the discomfiting snares of evil deities to cause them to lose their path. The asphyxiating exhalation from volcanoes, or from the earth, which to this day jet out inflammable gas, were the poisonous breath of the mountain gods, insulted by the daring intrusion into their sacred domain. On one occasion the god of the mountain came to Yamato-Dake, in the form of a white deer, to trouble him. Yamato-Dake, suspecting the animal, threw some wild garlic in its eye, causing it to smart so violently that the deer died. Immediately the mountain was shrouded in mist and fog, and the path disappeared. In the terror and dismay, a white dog—a good kami in disguise—appeared, and led the way safely to the plains of Mino.

Again the host were stricken by the spirit of the white deer. All the men and animals of the camp were unable to stand, stupefied by the mephitic gas discharged among them by the wicked kami. Happily, some one bethought him of the wild garlic, ate it, and gave to the men and animals, and all recovered. At the present day in Japan, partly in commemoration of this incident, but chiefly for the purpose of warding off infectious or malarious diseases, garlic is hung up before gates and doors in time of epidemic, when an attack of disease is apprehended. Thousands of people believe it to be fully as efficacious as a horseshoe against witches, or camphor against contagion. Descending to the plains of Mino, and crossing through it, he came to Ibuki yama, a mountain shaped like a truncated sugar-loaf, which rears its colossal flat head in awful majesty above the clouds. Yamato-Dake attempted to subdue the kami that dwelt on this mountain. Leaving his sword, “Grass-mower,” at the foot of the mountain, he advanced unarmed. The god transformed himself into a serpent, and barred his progress. The hero leaped over him. Suddenly the heavens darkened. Losing the path, Yamato-Dake swooned and fell. On drinking of a spring by the way, he was able to lift up his head. Henceforward it was called Same no idzumi, or the Fountain of Recovery. Reaching Otsu, in Isé, though still feeble, he found, under the pine-tree, the sword which he had taken off before, and forthwith composed a poem: “O pine, were you a man, I should give you this sword to wear for your fidelity.” He had been absent in the Kuanto three years. He recounted before the gods his adventures, difficulties, and victories, made votive offerings of his weapons and prisoners, and gave solemn thanks for the deliverance vouchsafed him. He then reported his transactions to his father, the mikado, and, being weak and nigh to death, he begged to see him. The parent sent a messenger to comfort his son. When he arrived, Yamato-Dake was dead. He was buried at Nobono, in Isé. From his tomb a white bird flew up; and on opening it, only the chaplet and robes of the dead hero were found. Those who followed the bird saw it alight at Koto-hiki hara (Plain of the Koto-players) in Yamato, which was henceforth called Misazaki Shiratori (Imperial Tomb of the White Bird). His death took place a.d. 113, at the age of thirty-six. Many temples in the Kuanto and in various parts of Japan are dedicated to him.

I have given so full an account of Yamato-Dake to show the style and quality of ancient Japanese tradition, and exhibit the state of Eastern Japan at that time, and because under the narration there is good history of one who extended the real boundaries of the early empire. Yamato-Dake was one of the partly historic and partly ideal heroes that are equally the cause and the effect of the Japanese military spirit. It may be that the future historians of Japan may con­sider this chapter as literary trash, and put Yamato-Dake and all his deeds in the same limbo with Romulus and his wolf-nurse, William Tell and his apple; but I consider him to have been a historical personage, and his deeds a part of genuine history.

 

THE INTRODUCTION OF CONTINENTAL CIVILIZATION.

 

If Japan is to Asia what Great Britain is to Europe—according to the comparison so often made by the modern Japanese—then Corea was to Dai Nippon what Norman France was to Saxon England. Through this peninsula, and not directly from China, flowed the influences whose confluence with the elements of Japanese life produced the civilization which for twelve centuries has run its course in the island empire. The comparison is not perfect, inasmuch as Japan sent the conqueror to Corea, whereas Normandy sent William across the Channel. In the moral and aesthetic conquest of Rome by Greece, though vanquished by Roman arms, we may perhaps find a closer resemblance to the events of the second triad of the Christian centuries in the history of Japan.

Is it true among historic nations that anciently the position of woman was higher than in later times? It has been pointed out by more than one writer on Greece “that in the former and ruder period women had undoubtedly the higher place, and their type exhibited the highest perfection.” This is certainly the case in Japan. The women of the early centuries were, according to Japanese history, possessed of more intellectual and physical vigor, filling the offices of state, religion, and household honors, and approaching more nearly the ideal cherished in those countries in which the relation of the sexes is that of professed or real equality. Certain it is that, whereas there are many instances of ancient Japanese women reaching a high plane of social dignity and public honor, in later ages the virtuous woman dwelt in seclusion; exemplars of ability were rare; and the courtesan became the most splendid type of womanhood. This must be more than the fancy of poets. As in the Greece of Homer and the tragedians, so in early Nippon, woman’s abilities and possibilities far surpassed those that were hers in the later days of luxury and civilization. To a woman is awarded the glory of the conquest of Corea, whence came letters, religion, and civilization to Japan.

In all Japanese tradition or history, there is no greater female char­acter than the empress Jingu (godlike exploit). Her name was Okinaga Tarashi himé, but she is better known by her posthumous title of Jingu Kogo, or Jingu, the wife or spouse of the mikado. She was equally renowned for her beauty, piety, intelligence, energy, and martial valor. She was not only very obedient to the gods, but they delighted to honor her by their inspiration. She feared neither the waves of the sea, the arrows of the battlefield, nor the difficulties that wait on all great enterprises. Great as she was in her own person, she is greater in the Japanese eyes as the mother of the god of war.

In the year 193 a rebellion broke out at Kumaso, in Kiushiu. The mikado Chiuai (191-200) headed his army, and marched to subdue the rebels. Jingu Kogo, or Jingu, the empress, followed him by ship, embarking from Tsuruga, in Echizen—a port a few miles north-west of the head of Lake Biwa—meeting her husband at Toyo no ura, near the modern Shimonoseki, of indemnity fame. While worshiping on one of the islands of the Inland Sea, the god spoke to her, and said, “Why are you so deeply concerned to conquer Kumaso? It is but a poor, sparse region, not worth conquering with an army. There is a much larger and richer country, as sweet and lovely as the face of a fair virgin. It is dazzling bright with gold, silver, and fine colors, and every kind of rich treasures is to be found in Shiraki (in Corea). Worship me, and I will give you power to conquer the country without bloodshed; and by my help, and the glory of your conquest, Kumaso shall be straightway subdued.” The emperor, hearing this from his wife, which she declared was the message of the gods, doubted, and, climbing to the summit of a high mountain, looked over the sea, and seeing no land to the westward, answered her: “I looked everywhere and saw water, but no land. Is there a country in the sky? If not, you deceived me. My ancestors worshiped all the gods: is there any whom they did not worship?”

The gods, answering through the inspired empress, made reply: “If you believe only your doubts, and say there is no country when I have declared there is one, you blaspheme, and you shall not go thither; but the empress, your wife, has conceived, and the child within her shall conquer the country.” Nevertheless, the emperor doubted, and advanced against Kumaso, but was worsted by the rebels. While in camp, he took sick and died suddenly. According to another tradition, he was slain in battle by an arrow. His minister, Takenouchi, concealed his death from the soldiers, and carried the corpse back to Toyo no ura, in Nagato. The brave Jingu, with the aid of Takenouchi, suppressed the rebellion, and then longed for conquest beyond the sea.

While in Hizen, in order to obtain a sign from the gods she went down to the seashore, and baited a hook with a grain of boiled rice, to catch a fish. “Now,” said she, “I shall conquer a rich country if a fish be caught with this grain of rice.” The bait took. A fish was caught, and Jingu exultingly accepted the success of her venture as a token of celestial approval of her design. “Medzurashiki mono!” (wonderful thing), exclaimed the royal lady. The place of the omen is still called Matsura, corrupted from the words she used. In further commemoration, the women of that section, every year, in the first part of the Fourth month, go fishing, no males being allowed the priv­ilege on that day. The pious Jingu prepared to invade Corea; but wishing another indication of the will of the kami, she on one occasion immersed her hair in water, saying that, if the gods approved of her enterprise, her tresses would become dry, and be parted into two divisions. It was as she desired. Her luxuriant black hair came from the water dry, and parted in two. Her mind was now fixed. She ordered her generals and captains to collect troops, build ships, and be ready to embark. Addressing them, she said: “The safety or destruction of our country depends upon this enterprise. I intrust the details to you. It will be your fault if they are not carried out. I am a woman, and young; I shall disguise myself as a man, and undertake this gallant expedition, trusting to the gods, and to my troops and captains. We shall acquire a wealthy country. The glory is yours, if we succeed; if we fail, the guilt and disgrace shall be mine.” Her captains, with unanimity and enthusiasm, promised to support her and carry out her plans. The enterprise was a colossal one for Japan at that time. Although the recruiting went on in the various provinces, and the ships were built, the army formed slowly. Chaf­ing at the delay, but not discouraged, again she had recourse to the efficacy of worship and an appeal to the gods. Erecting a tabernacle of purification, with prayers and lustrations and sacrifices she prayed the kami to grant her speedy embarkation and success. The gods were propitious. Troops came in. The army soon assembled, and all was ready, a.d. 201.

Before starting, Jingu issued orders to her soldiers, as follows:

“ No loot.

“ Neither despise a few enemies nor fear many.

“ Give mercy to those who yield, but no quarter to the stubborn.

“ Rewards shall be apportioned to the victors; punishments shall be meted to the deserters.”

Then the words of the gods came, saying, “The Spirit of Peace will always guide you and protect your life. The Spirit of War will go before you and lead your ships.”

Jingu again returned thanks for these fresh exhibitions of divine favor, and made her final preparations to start, when a new impediment threatened to delay hopelessly the expedition, or to rob it of its soul and leader, the Amazonian chief. She discovered that she was pregnant. Again the good favor of the gods enabled her to triumph over the obstacles which nature, or the fate of her sex, might throw in the path of her towering ambition. She found a stone which, being placed in her girdle, delayed her accouchement until her return from Corea.

It does not seem to have been perfectly clear in the minds of those ancient filibusters where Corea was, or for what particular point of the horizon they were to steer. They had no chart or compass. The sun, stars, and the flight of birds were their guides. In a storm they would be helpless. One fisherman had been sent to sail westward and report. He came beak declaring there was no land to be seen. Another man was dispatched, and returned, having seen the mountains on the mainland. The fleet sailed in the Tenth month. Winds, waves, and currents were all favorable. The gods watched over the fleet, and sent shoals of huge fishes to urge on the waves that by their impact lifted the sterns and made the prows leap as though alive. The ships beached safely in Southern Corea, the Japanese army landed in the glory of sunlight and the grandeur of war in splendid array. The king of this part of Corea had heard from his messengers of the coming of a strange fleet from the East, and, terrified, exclaimed, “We never knew there was any country outside of us. Have our gods forsaken us?” The invaders had no fighting to do as they expected. It was a bloodless invasion. The Coreans came, holding white flags, and surrendered, offering to give up their treasures. They took an oath that they would be tributary to Japan, that they would never cause their conquerors to dispatch another expedition, and that they would send hostages to Japan. The rivers might flow backward, or the pebbles in their beds leap up to the stars, yet would they not break their oath. Jingu set up weapons before the gate of the king in token of peace. By his order eighty ships well laden with gold and silver, articles of wealth, silk and precious goods of all kinds, and eighty hos­tages, men of high families, were put on board.

The stay of the Japanese army in Corea was very brief, and the troops returned in the Twelfth month. Jingu was, on her arrival, delivered of a son, who, in the popular estimation of gods and mortals, holds even a higher place of honor than his mother, who is believed to have conquered Southern Corea through the power of her yet unborn illustrious offspring. After leaving her couch, the queen-regent erected in Nagato (Choshiu) a shrine, and in it dedicated the Spirit of War that had guided her army. She then attended to the funeral rites of her deceased husband, and returned to the capital.

The conquest of Corea, more correctly a naval raid into one of the southern provinces, took place a.d. 203. The motive which induced the invasion seems to have been the same as that carried out by Hideyoshi in 1583, and contemplated in 1873—mere love of war and conquest. The Japanese refer with great pride to this their initial exploit on foreign soil. It was the first time they had ever gone in ships to a foreign country to fight. For the first time it gave them the opportunity of displaying their valor in making “the arms of Ja­pan shine beyond the seas”—a pet phrase which occurs in many documents in Japan, even in this 2536th year of the Japanese empire, and of our Lord 1876. Nevertheless, the honor of the exploit is given to the unborn son on whom dwelt the Spirit of War, rather than to the mother who bore him.

The queen-mother is worshiped in many temples as Kashii dai mio jin. The son, Ojin, afterward a great warrior, was, at his death, 313 a.d., deified as the god of war; and down through the centuries he has been worshiped by all classes of people, especially by soldiers, who offer their prayers, pay their vows, and raise their votive offerings to him. Many of the troops, before taking steamer for Formosa, in 1874, implored his protection. In his honor some of the most magnificent temples in Japan have been erected, and almost every town and village, as well as many a rural grove and hill, has its shrine erected to this Japanese Mars. He is usually represented in his images as of frightful, scowling countenance, holding, with arms akimbo, a broad two-edged sword. One of the favorite subjects of Japanese artists of all periods is the group of figures consisting of the snowy-bearded Takenouchi, in civil dress, holding the infant of Jingu Kogo in his arms, the mother standing by in martial robes. Jingu is the heroine and model for boys, not of the girls. In the collection of pictures, images, and dolls which in Japanese households on the 5th of May, every year, teach to the children the names and deeds of the national heroes, and instill the lessons taught by their example, this warrior woman is placed among the male, and not among the female, groups.

Nine empresses in all have sat upon the throne of Japan as rulers, four of whom reigned at the capital, Nara. None have won such martial renown as Jingu. It is not probable, however, that military enterprise will ever again give the nation another ideal woman like the conqueror of Corea. It is now, in modern days, given to the Empress of Japan to elevate the condition of her female subjects by graciously encouraging the education of the girls, and setting a noble example, not only of womanly character and of active deeds of benevolence, but also in discarding the foolish and barbarous customs of past ages, notably that of blacking the teeth and shaving off the eyebrows. This the present empress, Haruko, has done. Already this chief lady of the empire has accomplished great reforms in social customs and fashions, and, both by the encouragement of her presence and by gifts from her private purse, has greatly stimulated the cause of the education and the elevation of woman in Japan. Haply, it may come to pass that this lady in peaceful life may do more for the good and glory of the empire than even the renowned queen-regent, Jingu Kogo.

The early centuries of the Christian era, from the third to the eighth, mark that period in Japanese history during which the future development and character of the nation were mightily influenced by the introduction, from the continent of Asia, of the most potent factors in any civilization. They were letters, religion, philosophy, literature, laws, ethics, medicine, science, and art. Heretofore the first unfoldings of the Japanese intellect in the composition of sacred hymns, odes, poems, myths, and tradition had no prop upon which to train, and no shield against oblivion but the unassisted memory. The Japanese were now to have records. Heretofore religion was simply the rude offspring of human imagination, fear, and aspiration, without doctrinal systems, moral codes, elaborate temples, or sacerdotal caste. Henceforth the Japanese were to be led, guided, and developed in morals, intellect, and worship by a religion that had already brought the nations of Asia under its sway—a strong, overpowering, and aggressive faith, that was destined to add Japan to its conquests. Buddhism, bringing new and greater sanctions, penalties, motives, and a positive theology and code of morals, was to develop and broaden the whole nature of the individual man, and to lead the entire nation forward. Chinese philosophy and Confucian morals were to form the basis of the education and culture of the Japanese statesman, scholar, and noble, to modify Shinto, and with it to create new ideals of government, of codes, laws, personal honor, and household ordering. Under their influence, and that of circumstances, have been shaped the unique ideals of the samurai; and by it a healthy skepticism, amidst dense superstition, has been maintained. The coming of many immigrants brought new blood, ideas, opinions, methods, improvements in labor, husbandry, social organization. Japan received from China, through Corea, what she is now receiving from America and Europe—a new civilization.

For nearly a century after the birth of Ojin, the record of events is blank. In 249 a.d. a Japanese general, Arata, was sent to assist one state of Corea against another. Occasional notices of tribute-bearers arriving from Corea occur. In 283 a number of tailors, in 284 excellent horses, were sent over to Japan. In 285, Wani, a Corean scholar, came over to Japan, and, residing some time at the court, gave the mikado’s son instruction in writing. If the Nihongi—the authority for the date of Wani’s arrival in Japan—could be trusted in its chronology, the introduction of Chinese writing, and probably of Buddhism, would date from this time; but the probabilities are against positive certainty on this point. If it be true, it shows that the first missionary conquest of this nation was the work of four centuries, instead of as many decades. Wani died in Japan, and his tomb stands near Ozaka. In a.d. 403 a court annalist was chosen. Envoys and tribute-bearers came, and presents were exchanged. In 462 mulberry-trees were planted—evidently brought, together with the silk-worm, for whose sustenance they were intended—from China or Corea. Again, tailors in 471, and architects in 493, and learned men in 512, arrived. An envoy from China came in 522. The arrival of fresh immigrants and presents from Corea in 543 is noted. In 551, during a famine in Corea, several thousand bushels of barley were dispatched thither by Japan. In 552, a company of doctors, diviners, astronomers, and mathematicians from Corea came to live at the Japanese court. With them came Buddhist missionaries. This may be called the introduction of continental civilization. Beginning with Jingu, there seems to have poured into the island empire a stream of immigrants, skilled artisans, scholars, and teachers, bringing arts, sciences, letters and written literature, and the Buddhist religion. This was the first of three great waves of foreign civilization in Japan.

The first was from China, through Corea in the sixth; the second from Western Europe, in the fifteenth century; the third was from America, Europe, and the world, in the decade following the advent of Commodore Perry. These innovations were destined to leaven mightily the whole Japanese nation as a lump. Of these none was so powerful and far-reaching in effects as that in the sixth century, and no one element as Buddhism. This mighty force was destined to exert a re­sistless and unifying influence on the whole people. Nothing, among all the elements that make up Japanese civilization, has been so potent in forming the Japanese character as the religion of Buddha. That the work of these new civilizers may be fully appreciated, let us glance at life in Dai Nippon before their appearance.

 

LIFE IN ANCIENT JAPAN

The comparatively profound peace from the era of Sujin Tenno to the introduction of Chinese civilization was occasionally interrupted by insurrections in the southern and western parts of the empire, or by the incursions of the unsubdued aborigines in the North and East.

During these centuries there continued that welding of races—the Aino, Malay, Nigrito, Corean, and Yamato—into one ethnic composite—the Japanese—and the development of the national temperament, molded by nature, circumstances, and original bent, which have produced the unique Japanese character. Although, in later centuries, Japan borrowed largely from China, blood, language, religion, letters, education, laws, politics, science, art, and the accumulated treasures of Chinese civilization, her children are today, as they have ever been, a people distinct from the Chinese, ethnologically, physically, and morally.

Though frequent fighting was necessary, and many of the aborigi­nes were slaughtered, the great mass of them were tranquilized. To rude men, in a state of savagery whose existence is mainly animal, it matters little who are their masters, so long as they are not treated with intolerable cruelty. The aborigines attached to the land roamed over it to hunt, or remained upon it to till it, and, along the water­courses and sea-coast, to fish. With a soil that repaid generously the rude agriculture of that day, an ample food-supply in the sea, without severe labor, or exorbitant tribute to pay, the conquered tribes, when once quieted, lived in happiness, content, and peace. The government of them was the easiest possible. The invaders from the very beginning practiced that system of concubinage which is practical polygamy, and filled their harems with the most attractive of the young native females. The daughter of the former chief shared the couch of the conqueror, and the peasant became the wife of the soldier, securing that admixture of races that the merest tyro in ethnology notices in modern Japan. In certain portions, as in the extreme north of Hondo, the Aino type of face and head, and the general physical characteristics of skin, hair, eyes, and form, have suffered the least modification, owing to later conquest and less mixture of foreign blood. In Southern and Central Japan, where the fusion of the races was more perfect, the oval face, oblique eyes, aquiline nose, prominent features, and light skin prevail. Yet even here are found comparatively pure specimens of the Malay and even Nigrito races, besides the Aino and Corean types. The clod-hopper, with his flat, round face, up­turned nose, expanded at the roots and wide and sunken at the bridge, nostrils round, and gaping like the muzzle of a proboscidian, bears in his veins the nearly pure blood of his aboriginal ancestors. Intellectually and physically, he is the developed and improved Aino—the resultant of the action upon the original stock of the soil, food, climate, and agricultural life, prolonged for more than twenty centuries.

In the imperial family, and among the kugé, or court-nobles, are to be oftener found the nearest approach to the ideal Japanese of high birth. Yet even among these, who claim twenty-five centuries of semi-divine succession, and notably among the daimios, or territorial nobles—the parvenus of feudalism—the grossly sensual cast, the ani­mal features, the beastly expression, the low type, the plebeian face of some peasant ancestor re-appear to plague the descendant, and to imbitter his cup of power and luxury. This phenomenon is made abundant capital of by the native fiction-writers, caricaturists, and dramatists. The diversity of the two types is shown, especially by the artists, in strongly marked contrast. In the pictures illustrative of legendary or historic lore, and notably on the Japanese fans, now so fashionably common among us, the noble hero, the chivalrous knight, or the doughty warrior, is delineated with oblique eyes, high eyebrows, rounded nose, oval face, and smooth skin; while the peas­ant, boor, vanquished ruffian, or general scape-goat, is invariably a man of round, flat face, upturned and depressed nose, gaping nostrils, horizontal eyes, and low eyebrows. In painting the faces of actors, singing-girls, and those public characters who, though the popular idols, are of low birth and blood, the fan-artist exaggerates the marks of beauty to the delight of his native, and to the disgust of his foreign, patrons. What depreciates the value of his wares in the eyes of the latter enhances it in those of the natives.

All savages worship heroes, and look upon their conquerors, who have been able apparently to overcome not only themselves, but even the gods in whom they trusted, if not as gods themselves, at least as imbued with divine power. The Ainos of Yezo to this day adore the warrior Yoshitsune. Their fathers doubtless considered Jimmu and his followers as gods or men divinely assisted. The conquerors were not slow in cultivating such a belief for their own benefit, and thus what was once the fancy of savages became the dogma of religion and the tool of the magistrate. The reverence and obedience of the people were still further secured by making the government purely theocratic, and its general procedure and ceremonial identical with those of worship. The forms of local authority among the once independent tribes were but little interfered with, and the govern­ment exercised over them consisted at first chiefly in the exaction of tribute. The floating legends, local traditions, and religious ideas of the aborigines, gathered up, amplified by the dominant race, transformed and made coherent by the dogmatics of a theocracy, became the basis of Shinto, upon which a modified Chinese cosmogony and abstract philosophical ideas were afterward grafted. It was this background that has made the resultant form of Shinto different from what is most probably its prototype, the ante-Confucian Chinese religion. In its origin, Shinto is from the mainland of Asia. In growth and development it is “a genuine product of Japanese soil.” As yet, before the advent of Buddhism and Chinese philosophy, there were no moral codes, no systems of abstract doctrines, no priestly caste. These were all later developments. There were then no colossal temples with their great belfries and immense bells whose notes quivered the air into leagues of liquid melody; no sacred courtyards decked with palm-trees; no costly shrines decked out in the gaudy magnificence characteristic of Buddhism, or impure Shinto. No extensive monasteries, from which floated on the breeze the chanting of priests or the droning hum of students, were then built. No crimson pagodas peeped on from camphor groves, or cordons of fire­warding firs and keyaki-trees. No splendid vestments, gorgeous ritual, waves of incense, blazing lights, antiphonal responses, were seen or heard in the thatched huts which served as shrines of the kami. Na idols decked the altars. No wayside images dotted the mountain or the meadow paths. No huge portals (torii) of stone or red-lacquered timber stood fronting or opening the path to holy edifices.

On the hilltop, or riverside, or forest grove, the people assembled when invocations were offered and thanksgiving rendered to the gods. Confession of sin was made, and the wrath of the kami, therefore, was deprecated. The priest, after fasting and lustrations, purified himself and, robed in white, made offerings of the fruits of the earth or the trophies of the net and the chase.

At the court, a shrine of the Sun-goddess had been set up and sacrifices offered. Gradually in the towns and villages similar shrines were erected, and temples built; but for long centuries among the mountains, along the rivers and sea-coasts, the child of the soil set up his fetich, made the water-worn stone, the gnarled tree, or the storm­cloud his god. Wherever evil was supposed to lurk, or malignity reside, there were the emblems of the Aino religion. On precipice, in gorge, in that primeval landscape, stood the plume of curled shavings to ward off the evil influences. In agony of terror in presence of the awful phenomenon of nature, earthquake, typhoon, flood, or tidal wave, the savage could but supplicate deified Nature to cease from wrath and tumult, and restore her face in peace of sunshine and calm.

The houses of the ancient Japanese were oblong huts, made by placing poles of young trees, with the bark on, upright in the ground, with transverse poles to make the frame, and fastened together with ropes made of rushes or vines. The walls were of matted grass, boughs, or rushes, the rafters of bamboo, and the sloping roof of grass-thatch, fastened down by heavy ridge-poles. The two larger rafters at each end projected and crossed each other, like two bayonets in a stack of guns. Across the ridge-pole, and beneath it and another heavy tree laid lengthwise on top of the thatch, projected at right angles on either side short, heavy logs, which by their weight, and from being firmly bound by withes running under the ridge-pole, kept the thatch firmly in its place. This primeval hut is the model of the architecture of a pure Shinto temple. A short study of one easily reveals the fact. The floor, of hardened earth, had the fire in the centre; the doors and windows were holes covered at times with mats—in short, the Aino hut of today. The modern Japanese dwelling is simply an improvement upon that ancient model.

The clothing of that period consisted of skins of animals, coarsely woven stuff of straw, grass, bark, palm-fibre, and in some cases of asbestos. Silk and cotton fabrics were of later invention and use. It is evident, even from modern proof, as exhibited in the normal Japanese of today, that the wearing of many garments was not congenial to the ancient people. As for straw and grass, these materials are even now universally used in town and country for hats, raincoats, leggings, sandals, and a great variety of wearing apparel. A long loose garment, with the breech, or loin-cloth, and girdle, leggings, and sandals of straw, comprised a suit of ancient Japanese clothing. The food of the people consisted chiefly of fish, roots, and the flesh of ani­mals. They ate venison, bear-meat, and other flesh, with untroubled consciences, until Buddhism came with its injunctions. The conquerors evidently brought cereals with them, and taught their cultivation; but the main reliance of the masses was upon the spoils of the rivers and sea. Even now the great centres and lines of the population are rivers and the sea-coast. Roots, sea-weed, and edible wild vegetables were, as at present, an important portion of native diet.

The landscape of modern Japan is one of minute prettiness. It is one continued succession of mountains and valleys. The irregularities of the surface render it picturesque, and the labors of centuries have brought almost every inch of the cultivable soil in the populous districts into a state of high agricultural finish. The peasant of today is in many cases the direct descendant of the man who first plunged mattock and hoe into the rooty soil, and led the water from a distance of miles to his new-made fields. The gullies, gorges, and valleys are everywhere terraced for the growth of rice. Millions of irrigated fields without fences or live-stock, bounded by water-courses, and ani­mate with unharmed and harmless wild-fowl, the snowy heron, and the crane, and whose fertility astonishes the stranger, and the elaborate system of reservoirs, ditches, and flumes, are the harvest of twenty centuries of toil. The face of nature has been smoothed; the unkempt luxuriance of forest and undergrowth has been sobered; the courses of rivers have been bridled; the once inaccess­ible sides of mountains graded, and their summits crossed by the paths of the traveler or pilgrim. The earth has been honey-combed by miners in quest of its metallic wealth.

In the primeval landscape of Japan there were no meadows, hedges, cattle, horses, prairies of ripening rice, irrigated fields, and terraced gulches. Then also, as now, the landscape was nude of domestic animal life. Instead of castled cities, fortified hills, gardens, and hedges, were only thatched villages, or semi-subterranean huts.

No water-courses had been altered, no slopes or hills denuded of timber. The plethora of nature was unpruned; the scrub bamboo, wild flowers, or grass covered the hills. The great plains of the East and North were luxuriant moors, covered with grass, reeds, or bamboo, populous with wild animal life. No laden junks moved up the rivers. The mulberry and tea plantations had not yet been set out. The conquerors found a virgin soil and a land of enrapturing beauty. They brought with them, doubtless, a knowledge of agriculture and metals. Gradually the face of nature changed. The hunter became a farmer. The women learned to spin and weave cotton and hemp. Division of labor began. The artisan and merchant appeared. Arts, sciences, skilled agriculture, changed the face of the land. Society emerged from its savage state, and civilization began.

As yet there was no writing. All communications were oral, all teachings handed down from father to son. Memory was the only treasury of thought. There is, indeed, shown in Japan at the present day a so-called ancient Japanese alphabet—the kami, or god, letters—which it is asserted the ancient Japanese used. This assertion is voided of truth by the testimony of the best native scholars to the contrary. No books or ancient inscriptions exist in this character. I have myself sought in vain, in the graveyards of Kioto and other ancient places, to discover any of these characters upon the old tombs. The best authorities, scholars who have investigated the subject, pro­nounce the so-called god-letters a forgery, that reveals their artificial and modern character upon a slight examination. They consist almost entirely of a system of straight lines and circles, which has, doubtless, either been borrowed from Corea, or invented by some person in modern times. Yet the morning of literature had dawned before writing was known. Poems, odes to the gods, prayers, fragments of the Shinto liturgy, which still exist in the Kojiki and Nihongi, had been composed. From these fragments we may presume that a much larger unwritten literature existed, which was enjoyed by the men who, in those early days, by thought and reflection, attained to a certain de­gree of culture above their fellows. The early sovereigns worshiped the gods in person, and prayed that their people might enjoy a suf­ficiency of food, clothing, and shelter from the elements; and twice a year, in the Sixth and Twelfth months, the people assembled at the riverside, and, by washings and prayer, celebrated the festival of General Purification, by which the whole nation was purged of offenses and pollutions. This was the most characteristic of Shinto festivals, and the liturgy used in celebrating it is still in vogue at the present day. Time was measured by the phases of the moon, and the summer and winter solstices. The division of months and years was in use. The ancient laws and punishments were exceedingly se­vere. Besides the wager of battle to decide a quarrel, the ordeal still in use among the Ainos was then availed of. The persons involved immersed their hands in boiling water. He whose hand was scalded most was the guilty one. The wholly innocent escaped without scath, or was so slightly injured that his hand rapidly healed.

Japanese art had its birth in mercy, about the time of Christ’s ad­vent on earth. A custom long adhered to among the noble classes was the burial of the living with the dead (Jun-shi, dying with the master). The wife, and one or more servants, of the deceased lord committed suicide, and were inhumed with him. The mikado Suinin, son of Sujin, attempted (b.c. 2) to abolish the cruel rite by imperial edict. Yet the old fashion was not immediately abandoned. In a.d. 3, the empress died. Nomi no Tsukune, a courtier, having made some clay images, succeeded in having these substituted for the living victims. This was the birth of Japanese art. Henceforth these first products of man’s unfolding genius stood vicarious for the breathing beings they simulated. For this reform, the originator was given the honorable designation, Haji (Ha, clay; shi, ji, teacher = clay-image teacher, or artist).

The domestic life and morals of those days deserve notice. There were no family names. The institution of marriage, if such it may be called, was upon the same basis as that among the modern Ainos or North American Indians. Polygamy was common. Marriage between those whom we consider brothers and sisters was frequent, and a thing not to be condemned. Children of the same fathers by different mothers were not considered fraternally related to each other, and hence could marry; but marriage between a brother and sister born of the same mother was prohibited as immoral.

The annexed illustration is taken from a native work, and represents a chief or nobleman in ancient Japan. It will be noticed that beards and mustaches were worn in those days. The artist has depicted his subject with a well-wrinkled face to make him appear venerable, and with protruding cheeks to show his lusty physique, recall­ing the ideals of Chinese art, in which the men are always portly and massive, while the women are invariably frail and slender. His pose, expression, folded arms, and dress of figured material (consisting of one long loose robe with flowing sleeves, and a second garment, like very wide trousers, girded at the waist with straps of the same material) are all to be seen, though in modified forms, in modern Japan. The fashions of twenty centuries have changed but slightly. Suspended from his girdle may be seen the magatama chatelaine, evidently symbolizing his rank. The magatama are perforated and polished pieces of soap-stone or cornelian, of various colors, shaped something like a curved seed-pod. They were strung together like beads. Other ornaments of this age were the kudatama, jewels of gold, silver, or iron. The ancient sword was a straight, double-edged blade, about three feet long.

Buddhists and Confucianism assert that there existed no words in their language for benevolence, justice, propriety, sagacity, and truth. Doubtless these virtues existed, though not as necessary principles, to be taught, formulated, and incorporated into daily life. Chastity and restraint among the unmarried were not reckoned as necessary virtues; and the most ancient Japanese literature, to say nothing of their mythology, proves that marriage was a flimsy bar against the excursions of irregular passion. Great feasts and drinking-bouts, in which excessive eating was practiced, were common. They were fond of the chase, and hunting-parties were frequent from the most ancient times. Among the commendable features of their life were the habit of daily bathing and other methods of cleanliness. They treated their wom­en with comparative kindness and respect. They loved the beautiful in Nature, and seemed to have been ever susceptible to her charms. In brief, they had neither the virtues nor vices of high civilization.

The arts were in the rudest state. Painting, carving, and sculpture were scarcely known. No theatre existed. Sacred dancing with masks, at the holy festivals, was practiced as part of the public worship, with music from both wind and stringed instruments.

Until the seventh century of our era, when the Chinese centralized system was adopted, the government of the Japanese empire was a species of feudalism. The invaders, on conquering the land, divided it into fiefs that were held sometimes by direct followers of Jimmu, or by the original Aino chiefs, or nobles of mixed blood, on their rendition of homage or tribute to the conqueror. The frequent defection of these native or semi-Japanese chief was the cause of the numerous rebellions, the accounts of which enter so largely into the history of the first centuries of the empire. The mikado himself ruled over what is now called the Kinai, or Five Home Provinces, a space of country included between Lake Biwa and the bays of Osaka and Owari. The provinces in Shikoku, Kiushiu, and the circuits west, north, and east, were ruled by tributary chiefs who paid homage to the mikado as their suzerain, but most probably allowed him to interfere to a slight extent in the details of the administration of their lands. In eases of dispute between them, the mikado doubtless acted as umpire, Ins geographical position, superior power, and the sacredness of person insuring his supremacy at all times, even in the height of turbulence and riot so often prevailing.

In the ancient mikadoate, called by the Japanese the Osei era, or the government of monarchs, there were several features tending to increase the power of the suzerain, or central chief. The first was the essentially theocratic form of the government. The sovereign was the centre of that superstitious awe, as well as of loyalty and personal reverence, which still exists. There grew into being that prestige, that sense of hedging divinity and super-mortal supremacy of the mikado that still forms the most striking trait of the Japanese char­acter, and the mightiest political, as it is a great religious and moral, force in Japan, overshadowing even the tremendous power of Buddhism, which is, as Shinto is not, armed with the terrors of eternity. In both a theological and political sense, in him dwelt the fullness of the gods bodily. He was their hypostasis. He was not only their chosen servant, but was himself a god, and the vicegerent of all the gods. His celestial fathers had created the very ground on which they dwelt. His wrath could destroy, his favor appease, celestial anger, and bring them fortune and prosperity. He was their preserver and benefactor. In his custody were the three sacred symbols. It was by superior intellect and the dogmatism of religion, as well as with superior valor, weapons, and skill, that a handful of invaders con­quered and kept a land populated by millions of savages.

To the eye of a foreigner and a native of Japan, this imperfect picture of primitive Japan which I have given appears in very different lights. The native who looks at this far-off morning of Great Japan, the Holy Country, sees his ancestors only through the atmosphere in which he has lived and breathed. The dim religious light of reverent teaching of mother, nurse, father, or book falls on every object to reveal beauty and conceal defects. The rose-tints which innocent child­hood casts upon every object here makes all things lovely. Heaven lies about his country’s infancy. The precepts of his religion make the story sacred, and forbid the prying eye and the sandaled foot. The native loves, with passionate devotion, the land that nursed his holy ancestors, and thrills at the oft-told story of their prowess and their holy lives. He makes them his model of conduct.

The foreigner, in cold blood and with critical eye, patiently seeks the truth beneath, and, regarding not the dogma which claims to rest upon it, looks through dry light. To the one Nippon is the Land of the Gods, and the primal ages were holy. To the other, Japan is merely a geographical division of the earth, and its beginnings were from barbarism.

 

THE ANCIENT RELIGION.

 

The ancient religion of the Japanese is called Kami no michi (way or doctrine of the gods; i.e., theology). The Chinese form of the same is Shinto. Foreigners call it Shintoism, or Sintooism. Almost all the foreign writers who have professed to treat of Shinto have described only the impure form which has resulted from the contact with it of Buddhism and Chinese philosophy, and as known to them since the sixteenth century. My purpose in this chapter is to give a mere outline of ancient Shinto in its purity. A sketch of its tradi­tional and doctrinal basis has been given. Only a very few Shinto temples, called miya, have preserved the ancient purity of the rites and dogmas during the overshadowing influences of Buddhism.

In Japanese mythology the universe is Japan, the legends relating to Japan exclusively. All the deities, with perhaps a few exceptions, are historical personages; and the conclusion of the whole matter of cosmogony and celestial genealogy is that the mikado is the descendant and representative of the gods who created the heavens and earth (Japan). Hence, the imperative duty of all Japanese is to obey him. Its principles, as summed up by the Department of Religion, and promulgated throughout the empire so late as 1872, are expressed in the following commandments:

1. “ Thou shalt honor the Gods, and love thy country.

2. “ Thou shalt clearly understand the principles of Heaven and the duty of man.

3. “ Thou shalt revere the Mikado as thy sovereign, and obey the will of his court.”

The chief characteristic, which is preserved in various manifestations, is the worship of ancestors, and the deification of emperors, heroes, and scholars. The adoration of the personified forces of nature enters largely into it. It employs no idols, images, or effigies in its worship. Its symbols are the mirror and the gohei—strips of notched white paper depending from a wand of wood. It teaches no doctrine of the immortality of the soul, though it is easy to see that such a dogma may be developed from it, since all men (Japanese) are descended from the immortal gods. The native derivation of the term for man is hito (“light-bearer”); and the ancient title of the mi­kado’s heir-apparent was “light-inheritor.” Fire and light (sun) have from earliest ages been the objects of veneration.

Shinto has no moral code, no accurately defined system of ethics or belief. The leading principle of its adherents is imitation of the illustrious deeds of their ancestors, and they arc to prove themselves worthy of their descent by the purity of their lives. A number of salient points in their mythology are recognized as maxims for their guidance. It expresses great detestation of all forms of uncleanness, and is remarkable for the fullness of its ceremonies for bodily purification. Birth and death are especially polluting. Anciently, the corpse and the lying-in woman were assigned to buildings set apart, which were afterward burned. The priest must bathe and don clean garments before officiating, and bind a slip of paper over his mouth, lest his breath should pollute the offerings. Many special festivals were observed for purification, the ground dedicated for the purpose being first sprinkled with salt. The house and ground were defiled by death, and those who attended a funeral must also free themselves from contamination by the use of salt. The ancient emperors and priests in the provinces performed the actual ablution of the people, or made public lustrations. Later on, twice a year, at the festivals of purification, paper figures representing the people were thrown into the river, allegorical of the cleansing of the nation from the sins of the past six months. Still later, the mikado deputized the chief minister of religion at Kioto to perform the symbolical aet for the people of the whole country.

After death, the members of a family in which death had occurred must exclude themselves from all intercourse with the world, attend no religious services, and, if in official position, do no work for a specified number of days.

Thanksgiving, supplication, penance, and praise are all represented in the prayers to the gods, which are offered by both sexes. The emperor and nobles often met in the temple gardens to compose hymns or sacred poems to the gods. Usually in prayer the hands are clapped twice, the head or the knees bowed, and the petition made in silence. The worshiper does not enter the temple, but stands before it, and first pulls a rope dangling down over a double gong, like a huge sleigh-bell, with which he calls the attention of the deity. The kami are believed to hear the prayer when as yet but in thought, before it rises to the lips. Not being intended for human ears, eloquence is not needed. The mikado in his palace daily offers up peti­tions for all his people, which are more effectual than those of his sub­jects. Washing the hands and rinsing out the mouth, the worshiper repeats prayers, of which the following is an example: “O God, that dwellest in the high plain of heaven, who art divine in substance and in intellect, and able to give protection from guilt and its penalties, to banish impurity, and to cleanse us from uncleanness—hosts of gods, give ear and listen to these our petitions.” Or this: “I say with awe, deign to bless me by correcting the unwitting faults which, seen and heard by you, I have committed; by blowing off and clearing; away the calamities which evil gods might inflict; by causing me to live long, like the hard and lasting rock; and by repeating to the gods of heavenly origin, and to the gods of earthly origin, the petitions which I present every day, along with your breath, that they may hear with the sharp-earedness of the forth-galloping colt.”

The offerings, most commonly laid with great ceremony by the priest, in white robes, before the gods, were fruit and vegetables in season, fish and venison. At night they were removed, and became the property of the priest. Game and fowls were offered up as an act of worship, but with the peculiarity that their lives were not sacri­ficed. They were hung up by the legs before the temple for some time, and then permitted to escape, and, being regarded as sacred to the gods, were exempt from harm. The new rice and the products furnished by the silk-worm and the cotton-plant were also dedicated.

Before each temple stood a torii, or bird-rest. This was made of two upright tree-trunks. On the top of these rested a smoother tree, with ends slightly projecting, and underneath this a smaller horizontal beam. On this perched the fowls offered up to the gods, not as food, but as chanticleers to give notice of day-break. In later centuries the meaning of the torii was forgotten, and it was supposed to be a gateway. The Buddhists attached tablets to its cross-beam, painted or coppered its posts, curved its top-piece, made it of stone or bronze, and otherwise altered its character. Resembling two crosses with their ends joined, the torii is a conspicuous object in the landscape, and a purely original work of Japanese architecture.

All the miyas were characterized by rigid simplicity, constructed of pure wood, and thatched. No paint, lacquer, gilding, or any meretricious ornaments were ever allowed to adorn or defile the sacred structure, and the use of metal was avoided. Within, only the gohei and the daily offerings were visible. Within a closet of purest wood is a case of wood containing the “august spirit-substitute,” or “gods’-seed,” in which the deity enshrined in the particular temple is believed to reside. This spirit-substitute is usually a mirror, which in some temples is exposed to view. The principal Shinto temples are at Ise, in which the mirror given by Amaterasu to Ninigi, and brought down from heaven, was enshrined. Some native writers assert that the mirror was the goddess herself; others, that it merely represented her. All others in Japan are imitations or copies of this original.

The priests of Shinto are designated according to their rank. They are called kannushi (shrine-keepers). Sometimes they receive titles from the emperor, and the higher ranks of the priesthood are court nobles. They are, in the strictest sense of the word, Government officials. The office of chief minister of religion was hereditary in the Nakatomi family. Ordinarily they dress like other people, but are robed in white when officiating, or in court-dress when at court. They marry, rear families, and do not shave their heads. The office is usually hereditary. Virgin priestesses also minister at the shrines.

After all the research of foreign scholars who have examined the claims of Shinto on the soil, and by the aid of the language, and the sacred books and commentators, many hesitate to decide whether Shinto is “a genuine product of Japanese soil,” or whether it is not closely allied with the ancient religion of China, which existed before the period of Confucius. The weight of opinion inclines to the latter belief. Certain it is that many of the Japanese myths are almost exactly like those of China, while many parts of the cosmogony can be found unaltered in older Chinese works. The Kojiki (the Bible of the Japanese believers in Shinto) is full of narrations; but it lays down no precepts, teaches no morals or doctrines, prescribes no ritual. Shinto has very few of the characteristics of a religion, as understood by us. The most learned native commentators and exponents of Shinto expressly maintain the view, that Shinto has no moral code. Motoori, the great modern revivalist of Shinto, teaches, with polemic em­phasis, that morals were invented by the Chinese because they were an immoral people; but in Japan there was no necessity for any sys­tem of morals, as every Japanese acted aright if he only consulted his own heart. The duty of a good Japanese consists in obeying the commands of the mikado without questioning whether these commands are right or wrong. It was only immoral people, like the Chinese, who presumed to discuss the character of their sovereigns. Among the ancient Japanese, government and religion were the same.

 

THE THRONE AND THE NOBLE FAMILIES.

 

From the beginning of the Japanese empire, until the century aft­er the introduction of Buddhism, the mikados were the real rulers of their people, having no hedge of division between them and their subjects. The palace was not secluded from the outer world. No screen hid the face of the monarch from the gaze of his subjects. No bureaucracy rose, like a wall of division, between ruler and ruled. No hedge or net of officialdom hindered free passage of remonstrance or petition. The mikado, active in word and deed, was a real ruler, leading his armies, directing his Government. Those early days of comparative national poverty when the mikado was the warrior-chief of a conquering tribe; and, later, when he ruled a little kingdom in Central Japan, holding the distant portions of his quasi-empire in tribute; and, still later, when he was the head of an undivided empire—mark the era of his personal importance and energy. Then, in the mikado dwelt a manly soul, and a strong mind in a strong body. This era was the golden age of the imperial power. He was the true executive of the nation, initiating and carrying out the enterprises of peace or war. As yet, no military class had arisen to make themselves the arbiters of the throne; as yet, that throne was under no proprietorship; as yet, there was but one capital and centre of authority.

Gradually, however, there arose families of nobility who shared and dictated the power, and developed the two official castes of civilian and military officials, widening the distance between the sovereign and his subjects, and rendering him more and more inaccessible to his people. Then followed in succession the decay of his power, the creation of a dual system of government, with two capitals and centres of authority; the domination of the military classes; the centuries of anarchy; the progress of feudalism; the rending of the empire into hundreds of petty provinces, baronies, and feudal tenures. Within the time of European knowledge of Japan, true national unity has scarcely been known. The political system has been ever in a state of unstable equilibrium, and the nation but a conglomeration of units, in which the forces of repulsion ever threatened to overcome the forces of cohesion. Two rulers in two capitals gave to foreigners the im­pression that there were two “emperors” in Japan—an idea that has  been incorporated into most of the textbooks and cyclopedias of Christendom. Let it be clearly understood, however, that there never was but one emperor in Japan, the mikado, who is and always was the only sovereign, though his measure of power has been very different at various times. Until the rise and domination of the military classes, he was in fact, as well as by law, supreme. How the mikado’s actual power ebbed away shall form the subject of this and the following chapter.

From the death of Nintoku Tenno, the last of the long-lived mika­dos, to Kimmei (540-571), in whose time continental civilization was introduced, a period of one hundred and forty-one years, fourteen emperors ruled, averaging a little over ten years each. From Kimmei to Gotoba (a.d. 1198) fifty-three emperors reigned, averaging eleven years each.

In a.d. 603, the first attempt to create orders of nobility for the nobles, already numerously existing, was made by the Empress Suiko. Twelve orders were instituted, with symbolic names, after the Chinese custom—such as Virtue, Humanity, Propriety, etc.— distinguished by the colors of the caps worn. In 619, this system was changed for that having nine ranks, with two divisions. In each of the last six were two subdivisions, thus in reality making thirty grades. The first grade was a posthumous reward, given only to those who in life had held the second. Every officer, from the prime minister to the official clerks, had a rank attached to his office, which was independent of birth or age. All officers were presented, and all questions of pre­cedence were settled, in accordance with this rank.

The court officials, at first, had been very few, as might be imagined in this simple state of society without writing. The Jin Gi Kuan, which had existed from very ancient times, supervised the ceremonies of religion, the positions being chiefly held by members of the Nakatomi family. This was the highest division of the Government. In a.d. 603, with the introduction of orders of nobility, the form of government was changed from simple feudalism to centralized monarchy, with eight ministries, or departments of state, as follows:

1. Nakatsukasa no Slid (Department of the Imperial Palace).

2. Shiki bu Sho (Department of Civil Office and Education).

3. Ji bu Sho (Department of Etiquette and Ceremonies).

4. Mim bu Sho (Department of Revenue and Census).

5. Hid bu Sho (Department of War).

6. Gib bu Sho (Department of Justice).

7. O kura Sho (Department of Treasury).

8. Ku nai Sho (Department of Imperial Household).

The Jin Gi Kuan (Council of Religion; literally, Council of the Gods of Heaven and Earth), though anciently outranking the Dai Jo Kuan (Great Government Council), lost its prestige after the introduction of Buddhism. The Dai Jo Kuan, created a.d. 786, superintended the eight boards and ruled the empire by means of local governors appointed from the capital. In it were four ministers:

1. Dai Jo Dai Jin (Great Minister of the Great Government).

2. Sa Dai Jin (Great Minister of the Left).

3. U Dai Jin (Great Minister of the Right).

4. Nai Dai Jin (Inner Great Minister).

Of the eight departments, that of War ultimately became the most important. A special department was necessary to attend to the public manners and forms of society, etiquette being more than morals, and equal to literary education. The foreign relations of the empire were then of so little importance that they were assigned to a bureau of the above department. The treasury consisted of imperial store­houses and granaries, as money was not then in general use. Rice was the standard of value, and all taxes were paid in this grain.

The introduction of these orders of nobility and departments of state from China brought about the change from the species of feudalism hitherto existing to centralized monarchy, the rise of the noble families, and the fixing of official castes composed, not, as in most ancient countries, of the priestly and warrior classes, but, as in China, of the civilian and military.

The seeds of the mediaeval and modern complex feudalism, which lasted until 1872, were planted about this time. A division of all the able-bodied males into three classes was now made, one of which was to consist of regular soldiers permanently in service. This was the “military class,” from which the legions kept as garrisons in the remote provinces were recruited. The unit of combination was the go, consisting of five men. Two go formed a fonz, five kua a i«z, two tai a no, ten rid a dan. These terms may be translated “file,” “squad,” “company,” “battalion,” “regiment.” The dan, or regiment, could also be regularly divided into four detachments. The generals who commanded the army in the field were in many cases civil officials, who were more or less conversant with the rude military science of the day. In their time, success in war depended more on disciplined numbers and personal valor, and was not so much a problem of weight, mathematics, machinery, and money as in our day. The expeditions were led by a shogun, or general, who, if he commanded three regiments, was called a tai-shogun, or generalissimo. The vice-commanders were called fuku-shogun. Thus it will be seen that the term “shogun” is merely the Japanese word for “general.” All generals were shoguns, and even the effete figure-head of the great usurpation at Yedo, with whom Commodore Perry and those who fol­lowed him made treaties, supposing him to be the “secular emperor,” was nothing more.

Muster-rolls were kept of the number of men in the two remaining classes that could be sent in the field on an emergency; and whenever an insurrection broke out, and a military expedition was determined upon, orders were sent to the provinces along the line of march to be ready to obey the imperial command, and compare the quota required with the local muster-rolls. An army would thus be quickly assem­bled at the capital, or, starting thence, could be re-enforced on the route to the rebellious province. All that was necessary were the orders of the emperor. When war was over, the army was dissolved, and the army corps, regiments, and companies were mustered out of service into their units of combination, go of five men. The general, doffing helmet, made his votive offering to the gods, and returned to garrison duty.

Until about the twelfth century, the Japanese empire, like the old Roman, was a centre of civilization surrounded by barbarism, or, rather, like a wave advancing ever farther northward. The numerous revolts in Kiushiu, Shikoku, and even in the North and East of Hondo, show that the subjugation of these provinces was by no means complete on their first pacification. The Kuanto needed continual military care, as well as civil government; while the northern provinces were in a chronic state of riot and disorder, being now peaceful and loyally obedient, and anon in rebellion against the mikado. To keep the remote provinces in order, to defend their boundaries, and to collect tribute, military occupation became a necessity; and, accordingly, in each of the distant provinces, especially those next to the frontier, beyond which were the still unconquered savages, an army was permanently encamped. This, in the remote provinces, was the permanent military force. Throughout the country was a reserve militia, or latent army; and in the capital was the regular army, consisting of the generals and “the Six Guards,” or household troops, who formed the regular garrison of Kioto in peace, and in war became the nucleus of the army of chastisement.

This system worked well at first, but time showed its defects, and wherein it could be improved. Among that third of the population classed as soldiers, some naturally proved themselves brave, apt, and skillful; others were worthless in war, while in the remaining two-thirds many who were able and willing could not enter the army. About the end of the eighth century a reform was instituted, and a new division of the people made. The court decided that all those among the rich peasants who had capacity, and were skilled in archery and horsemanship, should compose the military class, and that the remainder, the weak and feeble, should continue to till the soil and apply themselves to agriculture. The above was one of the most significant of all the changes in the history of Japan. Its fruits are seen today in the social constitution of the Japanese people. Though there are many classes, there are but two great divisions of the Japanese, the military and the agricultural. It wrought the complete severance of the soldier and the farmer. It lifted up one part of the people to a plane of life on which travel, adventure, the profession and the pursuit of arms, letters, and the cultivation of honor and chivalry were possible, and by which that brightest type of the Japanese man, the samurai, was produced. This is the class which for centuries has monopolized arms, polite learning, patriotism, and intellect of Japan. They are the men whose minds have been ever open to learn, from whom sprung the ideas that once made, and which later overthrew, the feudal system, which wrought the mighty reforms that swept away the shogunate in 1868, restored the mikado to ancient power, who introduced those ideas that now rule Japan, and sent their sons abroad to study the civilization of the West. To the samurai Japan looks today for safety in war, and progress in peace. The samurai is the soul of the nation. In other lands the priestly and the military castes were formed. In Japan one and the same class held the sword and the pen—liberal learning and secular culture. The other class—the agricultural—remained unchanged. Left to the soil to till it, to live and die upon it, the Japanese farmer has remained the same today as he was then. Like the wheat that for successive ages is planted as wheat, sprouts, beards, and fills as wheat, the peasant, with his horizon bounded by his rice-fields, his water-courses, or the timbered hills, his intellect laid away for safe-keeping in the priests’ hands, is the son of the soil; caring little who rules him, unless he is taxed beyond the power of flesh and blood to bear, or an overmeddlesome officialdom touches his land to transfer, sell, or redivide it: then he rises as a rebel. In time of war, he is a disinterested and a passive spectator, and he does not fight. lie changes masters with apparent unconcern. Amidst all the ferment of ideas induced by the contact of Western civilization with Asiatic within the last two decades, the farmer stolidly remains conservative: he knows not, nor cares to hear, of it, and hates it because of the heavier taxes it imposes upon him.

To support the military, a certain portion of rice was set apart permanently as revenue, and given as wages to the soldiers. This is the origin of the pensions still enjoyed by the samurai, and the burden of the Government and people, which in 1876, after repeated reductions, amounts to nearly $18,000,000.

Let us notice how the noble families originated. To this hour these same families, numbering one hundred and fifty-five in all, dwell in Tokio or Kioto, intensely proud of their high descent from the mikados and the heavenly gods, glorying in their pedigree more than the autochthons of Greece gloried in their native soil. The ex­istence of this feeling of superiority to all mankind among some of the highest officials under the present mikado’s government has been the cause of bitter quarrels, leading almost to civil war. Under the altered circumstances of the national life since 1868, the officials of ancient lineage, either unable to conceal, or desirous of manifesting their pride of birth, have on various occasions stung to rage the rising young men who have reached power by sheer force of merit. Between these self-made men, whose minds have been expanded by contact with the outer world, and the high nobles nursed in the atmosphere of immemorial antiquity, and claiming descent from the gods, an estrangement that at times seems irreconcilable has grown. As the chasm between the forms and spirit of the past and the present widens, as the modern claims jostle the ancient traditions, as vigorous parvenuism challenges effete antiquity, the difficulty of harmonizing these tendencies becomes apparent, adding another to the cat­alogue of problems awaiting solution in Japan. I have heard even high officers under the Government make the complaint I have indicated against their superiors; but I doubt not that native patience and patriotism will heal the wound, though the body politic must suffer long.

The kugé, or court nobles, sprung from mikados. From the first, polygamy was common among both aborigines and conquerors. The emperor had his harem of many beauties who shared his couch. In very ancient times, as early as Jimmu, it was the custom to choose one woman, called kogo, who was wife or empress in the sense of receiving special honor, and of having her offspring most likely to succeed to the throne. In addition to the wife, the mikado had twelve concubines, whose offspring might fill the throne in case of failure of issue by the wife. To guard still further against desinence, four families of imperial descent were afterward set apart, from which an heir to the throne or a husband of the mikado’s daughter might be sought. In either case the chosen one became mikado. Only those sons, brothers, or grandsons of the sovereign, to whom the title was specially granted by patent, were called princes of the blood. There were five grades of these. Surnames were anciently unknown in Japan; individuals only having distinguishing appellatives. In 415, families were first distinguished by special names, usually after those of places. Younger sons of mikados took surnames and founded cadet families. The most famous in the Japanese peerage are given below. By long custom it came to pass that each particular family held the monopoly of some one high office as its prerogative. The Nakatomi family was formerly charged with the ceremonies of Shinto, and religious offices became hereditary in that family. The Fujiwara (Wistaria meadow) family is the most illustrious in all Japan. It was founded by Kamatari, who was regent of the empire (a.d. 645-649), who was said to have been descended from Amé no ko yané no mikoto, the servant of the grandfather of Jimmu. The influence of this family on the destinies of Japan, and the prominent part it has played in history, will be fully seen. At present ninety-five of the one hundred and fifty-five families of kugé arc of Fujiwara name and descent. The office of Kuambaku, or Regent, the highest to which a subject could attain, was held by members of this family exclusively. The Sugawara family, of which six families of kuge are descendants, is nearly as old as the Fujiwara. Its members have been noted for scholarship and learning, and as teachers and lecturers on religion.

The Taira family was founded by Takamochi, great grandson of the Emperor Kuammu (a.d. 782-805), and became prominent as the great military vassals of the mikado. But five kugé families claim descent from the survivors.

The Minamoto family was founded by Tsunemoto, grandson of the Emperor Seiwa (839-880). They were the rivals of the Taira. Seventeen families of kugé are descended from this old stock. The office of Sei-i Tai Shogun, or Barbarian-chastising Great General, was monopolized by the Minamoto, and, later, by other branches of the stock, named Ashikaga and Tokugawa.

Though so many offices were created in the seventh century, the kugé were sufficiently numerous to fill them. The members of the Fujiwara family gradually absorbed the majority, until almost all of the important ones at court, and the governorships of many provinces, were filled by them. When vacancies occurred, no question was raised as to this or that man’s fitness for the position: it was simply one of high descent, and a man of Fujiwara blood was sure to get the appointment, whether he had abilities or not. This family, in spite of its illustrious name and deeds, are to be credited with the formation of a “ring” around the mikado, which his people could not break, and with the creation of one of the most accursed systems of nepotism ever seen in any country. Proceeding step by step, with craft and signal ability, they gradually obtained the administration of the government in the mikado’s name. Formerly it had been the privilege of every subject to petition the sovereign. The Fujiwara ministers gradually assumed the right to open all such petitions, and decide upon them. They also secured the appointment of younger sons, brothers, nephews, and kinsmen to all the important positions. They based their hold on the throne itself by marrying their daughters to the mikado, whose will was thus bent to their own designs. For centuries the empresses were chiefly of Fujiwara blood. In this way, having completely isolated the sovereign, they became the virtual rulers of the country and the proprietors of the throne, and dictated as to who should be made emperor. Every new office, as fast as created, was filled by them. In the year 888, the title of Kuambaku (literally, “the bolt inside the gate,” but meaning “to represent to the mikado ”) was first used and bestowed on a Fujiwara noble. The Kuambaku was the highest subject in the empire. He was regent during the minority of the emperor, or when an empress filled the throne. The office of Kuambaku, first filled by Fujiwara Mototsune, became hereditary in the family, thus making them all powerful. In time the Fujiwaras, who had increased to the proportions of a great elan, were divided into five branches called the Sekke, or Regent families, named Konoyé, Kujo, Nijo, Iehijo, and Takadzukasa.

So long as the succession to the throne was so indefinite, and on such a wide basis, it was easy for this powerful family to choose the heir whenever the throne was empty, as it was in their power to make it empty when it so suited them, by compelling the mikado to abdicate.

In a.d. 794 the capital was removed to Kioto, seven miles from Lake Biwa, and there permanently located. Before that time it was at Kashiwabara, at Nara, or at some place in the Home Provinces (kinai) of Yamato, Yamashiro, or Settsu. So long as the course of empire was identified with that of a central military chief, who was the ruler of a few provinces and suzerain of tributaries, requiring him to be often in camp or on the march, government was by the sword rather than by the sceptre, and the permanent location of a capital was unnecessary. As the area of dominion increased and became more settled the government business grew apace, in amount and complexity, and division of labor was imperative, and a permanent capital was of prime importance. The choice was most felicitous. The ancient city of Heianjo, seven miles south-west of the southern end of Lake Biwa, was chosen. The Japanese word meaning capital, or large city, is miako, of which kio or kioto is the Chinese equivalent. The name Heianjo soon fell into disuse, the people speaking of the city as the miako. Even this term gave way in popular usage to Kioto. Miako is now chiefly used in poetry, while the name most generally applied has been and is Kioto, the miako by excellence. Kioto remained the capital of Japan until 1868, when the miako was removed to Yedo, which city having become the kio, was renamed Tokio, or Eastern capital. The name Yedo is no longer in use among the Japanese. No more eligible site could have been chosen for the purpose. Kioto lies not mathematically, but geographically and practically in respect of the distribution of population and habitable area, in the centre of Japan. It is nearly in the middle of the narrowest neck of land between the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean. It lies at the foot, and stands like a gate between the great mountain ranges, diverging north and south, or east and west. Its situation at the base of the great central lake of Biwa, or Omi, forty miles from whose northern point is the harbor and sea-port of Tsuruga, makes it accessible to the ships coining from the entire west coast and from Yezo. On the west and east the natural mountain roads and passes slope down and open toward it. Forty miles to the south are the great harbors lining the bay of Osaka, the haven of all ships from northern or southern points of the eastern coast. Easy river com­munications connect Osaka with Kioto.

The miako is beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole empire of Japan. The tone of reverential tenderness, of exulting joy, the sparkling of the eyes with which Japanese invariably speak of Kioto, witness to the fact of its natural beauty, its sacred and classic associations, and its place in the affections of the people. The city stands on an elliptical plain walled in on all sides by evergreen hills and mountains, like the floor of a huge flattened crater no longer choked with lava, but mantled with flowers. On the south the river Kamo, and on the north, east, and west, flowing in crystal clearness, the affluents of Kamo curve around the city, nearly encircle it, uniting at the south-west to form the Yodo River. Through the centre and in several of the streets the branches of the river flow, giving a feeling of grateful coolness in the heats of summer, and is the source of the cleanliness characteristics of Kioto. The streets run parallel and cross at right angles, and the whole plan of the city is excellent. The mikado’s palaee is situated in the north-eastern quarter. Art and nature are wedded in beauty. The monotony of the clean squares is broken by numerous groves, temples, monasteries, and cemeteries. On the mountain overlooking the city peep out pagodas and shrines. The hill-slopes blossom with gardens. The suburbs are places of delight and loveliness. The blue Lake of Biwa, the tea-plantations of Uji, the thousand chosen resorts of picnic groups in the adjacent shady hills, the resorts for ramblers, the leafy walks for the poet, the groves for the meditative student or the pious monk, the thousand historical and holy associations invest Kioto with an interest attaching to no other place in Japan. Here, or in its vicinity, have dwelt for seventeen centuries the mikados of Japan.

As the children and descendants of the mikados increased at the capital there was formed the material for classes of nobility. It was to the interest of these nobles to cherish with pride their traditions of divine descent. Their studied exaltation of the mikado as their head was the natural consequence. The respect and deference of dis­tant tributary princes wishing to obtain and preserve favor at court served only to increase the honor of these nobles of the capital. The fealty of the distant princes was measured not only by their tribute and military assistance, but by their close conformity to the customs of the miako, which naturally became the centre of learning and civilization.

Previous to the era of Sujin, the observance of the time of begin­ning the new year, as well as the celebration of the sacred festivals to the gods, was not the same throughout the provinces. The acceptance of a uniform calendar promulgated from the eapital was then, as now, a sign of loyalty of far greater significance than would appear to us at first sight. This was forcibly shown in Yokohama, as late as 1872, after the mikado had abolished the lunar, and ordered the use of the solar, or Gregorian, calendar in his dominions. The resident Chi­nese, in an incendiary document, which was audaciously posted on the gates of the Japanese magistrate’s office, denounced the Japanese for having thus signified, by the adoption of the barbarians’ time, that they had yielded themselves up to be the slaves of the “ foreign devils.”

The mikado has no family name. He needs none, because his dynasty never changes. Being above ordinary mortals, no name is necessary to distinguish him from men. He need be personally dis­tinguished only from the gods. When he dies, he will enter the company of the gods. He is deified under some name, with Tenno (son, or king, of heaven) affixed. It was not proper (until 1872, when the custom was abrogated) for ordinary people to pronounce the name of the living mikado aloud, or to write it in full: a stroke should be left out of each of the characters.

Previous to the general use of Chinese writing, the mikados, about fifty in all, had long names ending in “mikoto,” a term of respect equiv­alent to “augustness,” and quite similar to those applied to the gods. These extremely long names, now so unmanageable to foreign, and even to modern native, tongues, gave place in popular use to the greatly abbreviated Chinese equivalents. A complete calendar of the names of the gods and goddesses, mikados and empresses and heroes, was made out in Chinese characters. It is so much more convenient to use these, that I have inserted them in the text, even though to do so seems in many an instance an anachronism. The difference in learned length and thundering sound of the Japanese and the Chinese form of some of these names will be easily seen and fully appreciated after a glance, by the Occidental reader who is terrified at the uncouthness of both, or who fears to trust his vocal organs to attempt their pro­nunciation. Amaterasu o mikarni becomes Ten Sho Dai Jin; Okinaga Tarashi Himé becomes Jingu Kogo.

After the Chinese writing became fashionable, the term mikoto was dropped. The mikados after death received a different name from that used when living: thus Kan Yamato Iware hiko no mikoto became, posthumously, Jimmu Tenno.

The Golden Age of the mikado’s power ceased after the introduc­tion of Buddhism and the Chinese system of officialdom. The decadence of his personal power began, and steadily continued. Many of the high ministers at court became Buddhists, as well as the mi­kados. It now began to be a custom for the emperors to abdicate after short reigns, shave off their hair in token of renunciation of the world, become monks, and retire from active life, taking the title Ho-o (ho, law of Buddha; o, mikado=cloistered emperor). During the eighth century, while priests were multiplying, and monasteries were everywhere being established, the court was the chief propaganda. The courtiers vied with each other in holy zeal and study of the sacred books of India, while the minds of the empresses and boy-emperors were occupied with schemes for the advancement of Buddhism. In 741, the erection of two great temples, and of a seven-storied pagoda in each province, was ordered. The abdication after short reigns made the mikados mere puppets of the ministers and courtiers. Instead of warriors braving discomforts of the camp, leading armies in battle, or fighting savages, the chief rulers of the empire abdicated, after short reigns, to retire into monasteries, or give themselves up to license. This evil state of affairs continued, until, in later centuries, effeminate men, steeped in sensual delights, or silly boys, who droned away their lives in empty pomp and idle luxury, or became the tools of monks, filled the throne. Meanwhile the administration of the empire from the capital declined, while the influence of the military classes increased. As the mikado’s actual power grew weaker, his nominal importance increased. He was surrounded by a hedge of etiquette that secluded him from the outer world. He never appeared in public. His subjects, except his wife and concubines and highest ministers, never saw his face. He sat on a throne of mats behind a curtain. His feet were never allowed to touch the earth. When he went abroad in the city, he rode in a car closely curtained, and drawn by bullocks. The relation of emperor and subject thus grew mythic­al, and the way was paved for some bold usurper to seize the actuality of power, while the name remained sacred and inviolate.

 

THE BEGINNING OF MILITARY DOMINATION.

 

With rank, place, and power as the prizes, there were not want­ing rival contestants to dispute the monopoly of the Fujiwara. The prosperity and domineering pride of the scions of this ancient house, instead of overawing those of younger families that were forming in the capital, served only as spurs to their pride and determination to share the highest gifts of the sovereign. It may be easily supposed that the Fujiwara did not attain the summit of their power without the sacrifice of many a rival aspirant. The looseness of the marriage tie, the intensity of ambition, the greatness of the prize—the throne itself—made the court ever the fruitful soil of intrigue, jealousies, proscription, and even the use of poison and the dagger. The fate of many a noble victim thus sacrificed on the altars of jealousy and revenge forms the subject of the most pathetic passages of the Japanese historians, and the tear-compelling scenes of the romance and the drama. The increase of families was the increase of feuds. Arrogance and pride were matched by craft and subtlety that finally led to quarrels which rent the nation, to civil war, and to the almost utter extinction of one of the great families.

The Sugawara were the most ancient rivals of the Fujiwara. The most illustrious victim of court intrigue bearing this name was Suga­wara Michizaue. This polished courtier, the Beauclerc of his age, had, by the force of his talents and learning, risen to the position of inner great minister. As a scholar, he ranked among the highest of his age. At different periods of his life he wrote, or compiled, from the oldest records various histories, some of which are still extant. His industry and ability did not, however, exempt him from the jealous annoyances of the Fujiwara courtiers, who imbittered his life by poisoning the minds of the emperor and courtiers against him. One of them, Tokihira, secured an edict banishing him to Kiushiu. Here, in the horrors of poverty and exile, he endeavored to get a petition to the mikado, but failed to do so, and starved to death, on the 25th day of the Second month, 903. Michizane is now known by his posthumous name of Tenjin. Many temples have been erected in his honor, and students worship his spirit, as the patron god of letters and literature. Children at school pray to him that they may become good writers, and win success in study. Some of his descendants are still living.

When Michizane died, the Sugawara were no longer to be dreaded as a rival family. Another brood were springing np, who were destined to become the most formidable rivals of the Fujiwara. More than a century before, one of the concubines, or extra wives, of the Emperor Kuammu had borne a son, who, having talents as well as imperial blood, rose to be head of the Board of Civil Office, and master of court ceremonies—an office similar to the lord high chamberlain of England. To his grandson Takamochi was given the surname of Taira in 889—one hundred and one years before the banishment of Michizane.

The civil offices being already monopolized by the Fujiwara, the members of the family of Taira early showed a fondness and special fitness for military life, which, with their experience, made them most eligible to the commands of military expeditions. The Fujiwara had become wholly wedded to palace life, and preferred the ease and luxury of the court to the discomforts of the camp and the dangers of the battlefield. Hence the shoguns, or generals, were invariably appointed among sons of the Taira or the Minamoto, both of which families became the military vassals of the crown. While the men led the armies, fought the foe, and returned in triumph, the mothers at home fired the minds of their sons with the recital of the deeds of their fathers. Thus bred to arms, inured to war, and living chiefly in the camp, a hardy race of warriors grew up and formed the military caste. So long as the Taira or Minamoto leaders were content with war and its glory, there was no reason for the Fujiwara to fear danger from them as rivals at court. But in times of peace and inaction, the minds of these men of war longed to share in the spoils of peace; or, having no more enemies to conquer, their energies were turned against their fellows. The peculiar basis of the imperial succession opened an equally wide field for the play of female ambition; and while Taira and Minamoto generals lusted after the high offices held by Fujiwara courtiers, Taira and Minamoto ladies aspired to become empresses, or at least imperial concubines, where they might, for the glory of their family, beard the dragon of power in his own den. They had so far increased in influence at court, that in 1008, the wife of the boy-emperor, Ichijo, was chosen from the house of Minamoto.

The Minamoto family, or, as the Chinese characters express the name, Genji, was founded by Tsunemoto, the grandson of Seiwa (859-880) and son of the minister of war. His great-grandson Yoriyoshi became a shogun, and was sent to fight the Ainos; and the half-breeds, or rebels of mixed Aino and Japanese blood, in the east and extreme north of Hondo. Yoriyoshi’s son, Yoshiiye, followed his father in arms, and was likewise made a shogun. So terrible was Yoshiiye in battle that he was called Hachiman taro. The name Taro is given to the first-born son. Hachiman is the Buddhist form of Ojin, the deified son of Jingu Kogo, and the patron of warriors, or god of war. After long years of fighting, he completely tranquilized the provinces of the Kuanto. His great-grandson Yoshitomo became the greatest rival of the Taira, and the father of Yoritomo, one of the ablest men in Japanese history. The star of Minamoto was in the ascendant.

Meanwhile the Taira shoguns, who had the military oversight of the South and West, achieved a succession of brilliant victories. As a reward for his services, the court bestowed the island of Tsushima on Tadamori, the head of the house. It being a time of peace, Tadainori came to Kioto to live, and while at court had a liaison with one of the palace lady attendants, whom he afterward married. The fruit of this union was a son, who grew to be a man of stout physique. In boyhood he gave equal indications of his future greatness and his future arrogance. He wore unusually high clogs—the Japanese equiv­alent for “ riding a high horse.” His fellows gave the strutting roisterer the nickname of koheda (“high clogs”). Being the son of a soldier, he had abundant opportunity to display his valor. At this time the seas swarmed with pirates, who ravaged the coasts and were the scourge of Corea as well as Japan. Kiyomori, a boy full of fire and energy, thirsting for fame, asked to be sent against the pirates. At the age of eighteen he cruised in the Sea of Iyo, or the Suwo Nada, which is part of the Inland Sea, a sheet of water extremely beautiful in itself, and worthy, in a high degree, to be called the Mediterranean of Japan. While on shipboard, he made himself a name by attacking and capturing a ship full of the most desperate villains, and by destroying their lurking-place. His early manhood was spent alternately in the capital and in service in the South. In 1153, at the age of thirty-six, he succeeded his father as minister of justice. The two families of Minamoto and Taira, who had together emerged from comparative obscurity to fame, place, and honor, had dwelt peacefully together in Kioto, or had been friendly rivals as soldiers in a common cause on distant battlefields, until the year 1156, from which time they became implacable enemies. In that year the first battle was fought between the adherents of two rival claimants of the throne. The Taira party was successful, and obtained posses­sion of the imperial palace, which gave them the supreme advantage and prestige which have ever since been possessed by the leader or party in whose hands the mikado is. The whole administration of the empire was now at Kiyomori’s disposal. The emperor, who thus owed his elevation to the Taira, made them the executors of his policy. This was the beginning of the domination of the military classes that lasted until 1868. The ambition of Kiyomori was now not only to advance himself to the highest position possible for a subject to occupy, but also to raise the influence and power of his family to the highest pitch. He further determined to exterminate the only rivals whom he feared—the Minamoto. Not content with exercising the military power, he filled the offices at court with his own relatives, carrying the policy of nepotism to a point equal to that of his rivals, the Fujiwara. In 1167, at the age of fifty years, having, by his ener­gy and cunning, made himself the military chief of the empire, having crushed not only the enemies of the imperial court, but also his own, and having tremendous influence with the emperor and court, he received the appointment of Dai Jo Dai Jin.

Kiyomori was thus, virtually, the ruler of Japan. In all his measures he was assisted, if not often instigated to originate them by the ex-emperor, Go-Shirakawa, who ascended the throne in 1156, and abdicated in 1159, but was the chief manager of affairs during the reigns of his son and two grandsons. This mikado was a very im­moral man, and the evident reason of his resigning was that he might abandon himself to debaueliery, and wield even more actual power than when on the throne. In 1169, he abdicated, shaved off his hair, and took the title of Ho-o, or “cloistered emperor,” and became a Buddhist monk, professing to retire from the world. In industrious seclusion, he granted the ranks and titles created by his predecessor in lavish profusion. lie thus exercised, as a monk, even more influ­ence than when in actual office. The head of the Taira hesitated not to use all these rewards for his own and his family’s private ends. In him several offices were held by one person. He argued that as others who had done no great services for court or emperor had held high offices, he who had done so much should get all he could. Finally, neither court nor emperor could control him, and he banished kugé, and even moved the capital and court at his pleasure. In 1168, the power of the Taira family was paramount. Sixty men of the house held high offices at court, and the lands from which they enjoyed revenue extended over thirty provinces. They had splendid palaces in Kioto and at Fukuwara, where the modern treaty-port of Hogo now stands overlooking the splendid scenery of the Inland Sea. Hesitating at nothing that would add to his glory or power, Kiyomori, in 1171, imitating his predecessors, made his daughter the eoncubine, and afterward the wife, of the Emperor Takakura, a boy eleven years old. Of his children one was now empress, and his two sons were generals of highest rank. His cup of power was full.

The fortunes of the Fujiwara and Minamoto were under hopeless eclipse, the former having no military power, the latter being scat­tered in exile. Yoshitomo, his rival, had been killed, while in his bath, by Osada, his own traitorous retainer, who was bribed by Kiyomori to do the deed. The head of Yoshitomo’s eldest son had fallen under the sword at Kioto, and his younger sons—the last of the Minamoto, as he supposed—were in banishment, or immured in monasteries.

The most famous archer, Minamoto Tametomo, took part in many of the struggles of the two rival families. His great strength, equal to that of many men (fifty, according to the legends), and the fact that his right arm was shorter than his left, enabled him to draw a bow which four ordinary warriors could not bend, and send a shaft five feet long, with enormous bolt-head. The court, influenced by the Taira, banished him, in a cage, to Idzu (after cutting the muscles of his arm), under a guard. He escaped, and fled to the islands of Oshima and Hachijo, and the chain south of the Bay of Yedo. His arm having healed, he ruled over the people, ordering them not to send tribute to Idzu or Kioto. A fleet of boats was sent against him. Tametomo, on the strand of Oshima, sped a shaft at one of the approaching vessels that pierced the thin gunwale and sunk it. He then, after a shout of defiance, shut himself up, set the house on fire, and killed himself. Another account declares that he fled to the Liu Kiu Islands, ruled over them, and founded the family of Liu Kiu kings, being the father of Sunten, the first historical ruler of this group of islands. A picture of this doughty warrior has been chosen to adorn the greenback currency of the banks of modern Japan.

“Woe unto thee, O land, when thy king is a child!” The mikados during the Taira period were nearly all children. Toba began to reign at six, abdicating at seventeen in behalf of his son Shiutoku, four years old; who at twenty-four resigned in favor of Konoye, then four rears old. The latter died at the age of sixteen, and was succeeded by Go-Shirakawa, who abdicated after three years in favor of Nijo, sixteen years old, who died after six years, when Rokujo, one year old, succeeded. After three years, Takakura, eight years old, ruled thirteen years, resigning to Antoku, then three years of age. It is easily seen that the real power lay not with these boys and ba­bies, but with the august wire-pullers behind the throne.

The Heiké Monogatari, or the “Historic Romance of the Taira,” is one of the most popular of the many classic works of fiction read by all classes of people in Japan. In this book the chief events in the lives, and even the manners and personal appearance, of the principal actors of the times of the Taira are seen, so that they become more than shadows of names, and seem to live before us, men of yesterday. The terms Heike and Genji, though Chinese forms of the names Taira and Minamoto, were, from their brevity, popularly used in preference to the pure native, but longer, forms of Taira and Minamoto.

 

YORITOMO AND THE MINAMOTO FAMILY.

 

Next to portraying the beauties of nature, there is no class of subjects in which the native artists delight more than in the historical events related in their classics. Arnone these there are none treated with more frequency and spirit than the flight of Yoshitomo’s concubine, Tokiwa, after the death of her lord at the hands of bribed traitors. After the fight with the Taira in Kioto, in 1159, he fled eastward, and was killed in a bathroom by three hired assassins at Utsumi, in Owari. Tokiwa was a young peasant-girl of surpassing beauty, whom Yoshitoino had made his concubine, and who bore him three children. She fled, to escape the minions of Taira. Her flight was in winter, and snow lay on the ground. She knew neither where to go nor how to subsist; but, clasping her babe to her bosom, her two little sons on her right, one holding his mother’s hand, the other carrying his father’s sword, trudged on. That babe at her breast was Yoshitsune—a name that awakens in the breast of a Japanese youth emotions that kindle his enthusiasm to emulate a character that was the mirror of chivalrous valor and knightly conduct, and that saddens him at the thought of one who suffered cruel death at the hands of a jealous brother. Yoshitsune, the youngest son of Yoshitomo, lives, and will live, immortal in the minds of Japanese youth as the Bayard of Japan.

Kiyomori, intoxicated with success, conceived the plan of exterminating the Minamoto family root and branch. Not knowing where Tokiwa and her children had fled, he seized her mother, and had her brought to Kioto. In Japan, as in China, filial piety is the highest duty of man, filial affection the strongest tie. Kiyomori well knew that Tokiwa’s sense of a daughter’s duty would prevail over that of a mother’s love or womanly fear. He expected Tokiwa to come to Kioto to save her mother.

Meanwhile the daughter, nearly frozen and half starved, was met in her flight by a Taira soldier, who, pitying her and her children, gave her shelter, and fed her with his own rations. Tokiwa heard of her mother’s durance at Kioto. Then came the struggle between maternal and filial love. To enter the palace would be the salvation of her mother, but the death of her children. What should she do? Her wit showed her the way of escape. Her resolution was taken to go to the capital, and trust to her beauty to melt the heart of Kiyomori. Thus she would save her mother and the lives of her sons.

Her success was complete. Appearing in the presence of the dreaded enemy of her children, Kiyomori was dazed by her beauty, and wished to make her his concubine. At first she utterly refused; but her mother, weeping floods of tears, represented to her the misery of disobedience, and the happiness in store for her, and Tokiwa was obliged to yield. She consented on condition of his sparing her offspring.

Kiyomori’s retainers insisted that these young Minamotos should be put to death; but by the pleadings of the beautiful mother, backed by the intercession of Kiyomori’s aunt, their lives were spared. The babe grew to be a healthy, rosy-cheeked boy, small in stature, with a ruddy face and slightly protruding teeth. In spirit he was fiery and impetuous. All three of the boys, when grown, were sent to a monastery near Kioto, to be made priests: their fine black hair was shaved, and they put on the robes of Buddhist neophytes. Two of them remained so, but Yoshitsune gave little promise of becoming a grave and reverend bonze, who would honor his crape, and inspire respect by his bald crown and embroidered collar. He refused to have his hair shaved off, and in the monastery was irrepressibly merry, lively, and self-willed. The task of managing this young ox (Ushi-waka, he was then called) gave the holy brethren much trouble, and greatly scandalized their reverences. Yoshitsune, chafing at his dull life, and longing to take part in a more active one, and especially in the wars in the North, of which he could not but hear, determined to escape. How to do it was the question.

Among the outside lay-folk who visited the monastery for trade or business was an iron-merchant, who made frequent journeys from Kioto to the north of Hondo. In those days, as now, the mines of Oshiu were celebrated for yielding the best iron for swords and other cutting implements. This iron, being smelted from the magnetic oxide and reduced by the use of charcoal as fuel, gave a steel of singular purity and temper which has never been rivaled in modern times.

Yoshitsune begged the merchant to take him to Mutsu. He, being afraid of offending the priest, would not at first consent. Yoshitsune persuaded him by saying that the priests would be only too glad to be rid of such a troublesome boy. The point was won, and Yoshitsune went off. The boy’s surmises were correct. The priest thought it excellent riddance to very bad rubbish.

While in the East, they stopped some time in Kadzusa, then infested with robbers. Here Yoshitsune gave signal proof of his mettle. Among other exploits, he, on one occasion, single-handed and unarmed, seized a bold robber, and, on another, assisted a rich man to defend his house, killing five of the ruffians with his own hand. Yorishigé, his companion and bosom-friend, begged him not to indulge in any unnecessary displays of orange, lest the Taira would surely hear of him, and know he was a Minamoto, and so destroy him. They finally reached their destination, and Yoshitsune was taken to live with Hidehira, a nobleman of the Fujiwara, who was prince of Mutsu. Here he grew to manhood, spending his time most congenially, in the chase, in manly sports, and in military exercises. At the age of twenty-one, he had won a reputation as a soldier of peerless valor and consummate skill, and the exponent of the loftiest code of Japanese chivalry. He became to Yoritomo, his brother, as Ney to Napoleon. Nor can the splendor of the marshal’s courage’ outshine that of the young Japanese shogun’s.

Yoritomo, the third son of Yoshitomo, was born in the year 1146, and consequently was twelve years old when his brother Yoshitsune was a baby. After the defeat of his father, he, in the retreat, was separated from his companions, and finally fell into the hands of a Taira officer. On his way through a village called Awohaka, in Omi, a girl, the child of the daughter of the headman whom Yoshitomo had once loved, hearing this, said, “I will follow my brother and die with him.” Her people stopped her as she was about to follow Yoshitomo, but she afterward went out alone and drowned herself. The Taira officer brought his prize to Kioto, where his execution was ordered, and the day fixed; but there, again, woman’s tender heart and supplications saved the life of one destined for greater things. The boy’s captor had asked him if he would like to live. He answered, “Yes; both my father and brother are dead; who but I can pray for their happiness in the next world ?” Struck by this filial answer, the officer went to Kiyomori’s stepmother, who was a Buddhist nun, having become so after the death of her husband, Tadamori. Becoming inter­ested in him, her heart was deeply touched; the chambers of her memory were unlocked when the officer said, “Yoritomo resembles Prince Uma.” She had borne one son of great promise, on whom she had lavished her affection, and who had been named Uma. The mother’s bosom heaved under the robes of the nun, and, pitying Yoritomo, she resolved to entreat Kiyomori to spare him. After importunate pleadings, the reluctant son yielded to his mother’s prayer, but condemned the youth to distant exile—a punishment one degree less than death, and Yoritomo was banished to the province of Idzu. He was advised by his former retainers to shave off his hair, enter a mon­astery, and become a priest; but Morinaga, one of his faithful servants, advised him to keep his hair, and with a brave heart await the future. Even the few that still called themselves vassals of Minamoto did not dare to hold any communication with him, as he was under the charge of two officers who were responsible to the Taira for the care of their ward. Yoritomo was a shrewd, self-reliant boy, gifted with high self-control, restraining his feelings so as to express neither joy nor grief nor anger in his face, patient, and capable of great endurance, winning the love and respect of all. He was as  Prince Hal.” He afterward became as “bluff King Harry,” barring the lat­ter’s bad eminence as a niarrier of many wives.

Such was the condition of the Minamoto family. No longer in power and place, with an empress and ministers at court, but scattered, in poverty and exile, their lives scarcely their own. Yoritomo was fortunate in his courtship and marriage, the story of which is one of great romantic interest. His wife, Masago, is one of the many fe­male characters famous in Japanese history. She contributed not a little to the success of her husband and the splendor of the Kamakura court, during her life, as wife and widow. She outlived her husband many years. Her father, Hojo Tokimasa, an able man, in whose veins ran imperial blood, made and fulfilled a solemn oath to assist Yoritomo, and the Hojo family subsequently rose to be a leading one in Japan.

The tyranny and insolence of Kiyomori at Kioto had by this time (1180), one year before his death, become so galling and outrageous that one of the royal princes, determining to kill the usurper, conspired with the Minamoto men to overthrow him. Letters were sent to the clansmen, and especially to Yoritomo, who wrote to Yoshitsune and to his friends to join him and take up arms. Among the for­mer retainers of his father and grandfather were many members of the Miura family. Morinaga personally secured the fealty of many men of mark in the Kuanto; but among those who refused to rise against the Taira was one, Tsunetoshi, who laughed scornfully, and said. “For an exile to plot against the Heishi [Taira] is like a mouse plotting against a cat.”

At the head of the peninsula of Idzu is a range of mountains, the outjutting spurs of the chain that trends upward to the table-lands of Shinano, and thus divides Eastern from Western Japan. This range is called Hakone, and is famous not only as classic ground in history, but also as a casket enshrining the choicest gems of nature. It is well known to the foreign residents, who resort hither in summer to enjoy the pure air of its altitudes. Its inspiring scenery embraces a lake of intensely cold pure water, and of great depth and elevation above the sea-level, groves of aromatic pines of colossal size, savage gorges, sublime mountain heights, overerowned by cloud-excelling Fuji, foaming cataracts, and boiling springs of intermittent and rhythmic flow, surrounded by infernal vistas of melted sulphur enveloped in clouds of poisonous steam, or incrusted with myriad glistening crystals of the same mineral. Over these mountains there is a narrow pass, which is the key of the Kuanto. Near the pass, above the village of Yumoto, is Ishi Bashi Yama (Stone-bridge Mountain), and here Yoritomo’s second battle was fought, and his first defeat experienced. “Every time his bowstring twanged an enemy fell,” but finally he was obliged to flee. He barely escaped with his life, and fortunately eluded pursuit, secreting himself in a hollow log, having first sent his father-in-law to call out all his retainers and meet again. He afterward hid in the priest’s wardrobe, in one of the rooms of a tem­ple. Finally, reaching the sea-shore, he took ship and sailed across the bay to Awa. “At this time the sea and land were covered with his enemies.” Fortune favored the brave Yoritomo, defeated, but not discouraged, while on the water met a company of soldiers, all equipped, belonging to the Miura clan, who became his friends, and offered to assist him. Landing in Awa, he sent out letters to all the Minamoto adherents to bring soldiers and join him. He met with encouraging and substantial response, for many hated Kiyomori and the Taira; and as Yoritomo’s father and grandfather had given pro­tection and secured quiet in the Kuanto, the prestige of the Minamoto party still remained. The local military chieftains had fought under Yoritomo’s father, and were now glad to join the son of their old leader. He chose Kamakura as a place of retreat and permanent residence, it having been an old seat of the Minamoto family. Yoriyoshi had, in 1063, built the shrine of Hachiman at Tsurugaoka, near the village, in gratitude for his victories. Yoritomo now organized his troops, appointed his officers, and made arrangements to establish a fixed commissariat. The latter was a comparatively easy thing to do in a fertile country covered with irrigated rice-fields and girdled with teeming seas, and where the daily food of soldier, as of laborer, was rice and fish. Marching up around the country at the head of the Bay of Yedo through Kadzusa, Shimosa, Musashi, and Sagami, crossing, on his way, the Sumida River, which flows through the modern Tokio, many men of rank, with their followers and horses, joined him. His father-in-law also brought an army from Kai. In a few months he had raised large forces, with many noted generals. He awakened new life in the Minamoto clan, and completely turned the tide of success. Many courtiers from Kioto, disappointed in their schemes at court, or in any way chagrined at the Taira, flocked to Yoritomo as his power rose, and thus brought to him a fund of experience and ability which he was not slow to utilize for his own benefit. Meanwhile the Taira had not been idle. A large army was dispatched to the East, reaching the Fuji River, in Suruga, about the same time that the Minamoto, headed by Yoritomo, appeared on the other side. The Taira were surprised to see such a host in arms. Both armies encamped on opposite banks, and glared at each other, eager for the fight, but neither attempting to cross the torrent. This is not to be wondered at. The Fujikawa bears the just reputation of being the swiftest stream in Japan. It rises in the northern part of Kai, on the precipitous side of the group of mountains called Yatsu dake, or “eight peaks,” and, winding around the western base of the lordly Fuji, collecting into its own volume a host of impetuous tributaries born from the snows of lofty summits, it traverses the rich province of Suruga in steep gradient, plunging across the Tokaido, in arrowy celerity and volcanic force, into the sea near the lordly mountain which it encircles. To cross it at any time in good boats is a feat requiring coolness and skill; in a flood, impossibility; in the face of a hostile attack, sure annihilation. Though supremely eager to measure swords, neither party cared to cross to the attack, and the wager of battle was postponed. Both armies retired, the Taira retreating first.

It is said that one of the Taira men, foreseeing that the tide would turn in favor of Yoritomo, went to the river flats at night, and scared up the flocks of wild fowl; and the Taira, hearing the great noise, imagined the Minamoto host was attacking them, and fled, panic-stricken. Yoritomo returned to Kamakura, and began in earnest to found a city that ultimately rivaled Kioto in magnificence, as it excelled it in pow­er. He gathered together and set to work an army of laborers, carpenters, and armorers. In a few months a city sprung up where once had been only timbered hills and valleys, matted with the perennial luxuriance of reeds or scrub bamboo, starred and fragrant with the tall lilies that still abound. The town lay in a valley surrounded by hills on every side, opening only on the glorious sea. The wall of hills was soon breached by cuttings which served as gateways, giving easy access to friends, and safe defense against enemies. While the laborers delved and graded, the carpenters plied axe, hooked adze, and chisel, and the sword-makers and armorers sounded a war chorus on their anvils by day, and lighted up the hills by their forges at night. The streets marked out were soon lined with shops; and merchants came to sell, bringing gold, copper, and iron, silk, cotton, and hemp, and raw material for food and clothing, war and display. Store­houses of rice were built and filled; boats were constructed and launched; temples were erected. In process of time, the wealth of the Kuanto centred at Kamakura. While the old Taira chief lay dying in Kioto, praying for Yoritomo’s head to be laid on his new tomb, this same head, safely settled on vigorous shoulders, was devising the schemes, and seeing them executed, of fixing the Minamoto power permanently at Kamakura, and of wiping the name of Taira from the earth.

The long night of exile, of defeat, and defensive waiting of the Minamoto had broken, and their day had dawned with sudden and unexpected splendor. Henceforward they took the initiative. While Yoritomo carried on the enterprises of peace and the operations of war from his sustained stronghold, his uncle, Yukiiye, his cousin, Yoshinaka, and his brother, Yoshitsune, led the armies in the field.

Meanwhile, in 1181, Kiyomori fell sick at Kioto. He had been a monk, as well as a prime minister. His death was not that of a saint. He did not pray for his enemies. The Nihon Guai Shi thus describes the scene in the chamber where the chief of the Taira lay dying: In the Second leap-month, his sickness having increased, his family and high officers assembled round his bedside and asked him what he would say. Sighing deeply, lie said, “He that is born must necessarily die, and not I alone. Since the period of Heiji (1159), I have served the imperial house. I have ruled under heaven (the empire) absolutely. I have attained the highest rank possible to a subject. I am the grandfather of the emperor on his mother’s side. Is there still a regret ? My regret is only that I am dying, and have not yet seen the head of Yoritomo of the Minamoto. After my decease, do not make offerings to Buddha on my behalf; do not read the sacred books. Only cut off the head of Yoritomo of the Minamoto, and hang it on my tomb. Let all my sons and grandsons, retainers and servants, each and every one, follow out my commands, and on no account neglect them.” So saying, Kiyomori died at the age of sixty-four. His tomb, near Hiogo, is marked by an upright monolith and railing of granite. Munemori, his son, became head of the Taira house. Strange words from a death-bed; yet such as these wero more than once used by dying Japanese warriors. Yoritomo’s head was on his body when, eighteen years afterward, in 1199, he died peacefully in his bed.

Nevertheless, while in Kamakura, his bed-chamber was nightly guard­ed by chosen warriors, lest treachery might cut off the hopes of the Minamoto. The flames of war were now lighted throughout the whole empire. From Kamakura forces were sent into the provinces of Hitachi, in the East, and of Echizen and Kaga, North and West, destroying the authority of the Kioto bureaucracy. Victory and increase made the army of the rising clan invincible. After numerous bloody skirmishes, the victors advanced through Omi, and swooped on the chief prize, and Kioto, the coveted capital, was in their hands. The captors of the city were Yukiiye and Yoshinaka, the uncle and cousin of Yoritomo respectively. The Taira, with the young mikado, Antoku, and his wife, Kiyomori’s daughter, fled. Gotoba, his brother, was proclaimed mikado in his stead, and the estates and treasures of the Taira were confiscated, and divided among the victors.

Yoshinaka was called the Asahi shogun (Morning-sun General), on account of the suddenness and brilliancy of his rising. Being now in command of a victorious army at the capital, swollen with pride, and intoxicated with sudden success, and with the actual power then in his hands, he seems to have lost his head. He was elevated to high rank, and given the title and office of governor of Echigo; but having been bred in the country, he would not endure the cap and dress of ceremony, and was the subject of ridicule to the people of Kioto. He became jealous of his superior, Yoritomo, who was in Kamakura, two hundred miles away. He acted in such an arbitrary and overbearing spirit that the wrath of the cloistered emperor Goshirakawa was roused against him. Being able to command no military forces, he incited the monks of the immense monasteries of Hiyeizan and Miidera, near the city, to obstruct his authority. Before they could execute any schemes, Yoshinaka, with a military force, seized them, put the ex-mikado in prison, beheaded the abbots, and deprived the high officers of state of their honors and titles. He then wrested from the court the title of Sei-i Shogun (Barbarian-subjugating General). His exercise of power was of brief duration, for Yoshitsuné was invested with the command of the forces in the West, and, sent against him, he was defeated and killed, and the ex-mikado was released, and the reigning emperor set free from the terrorism under which he had been put.

Meanwhile the Taira men, in their fortified palace at Fukuwara, were planning to recover their lost power, and assembling a great army in the South and West. The Minamoto, on the other hand, were expending all their energies to destroy them. The bitter animosity of the two great families had reached such a pitch that the extermination of one or the other seemed inevitable. In 1184, Yoshitsuné laid siege to the Fukuwara palace, and, after a short time, set it on fire. The son of Kiyomori and his chief followers fled to Sanuki, in Shikoku. Thither, as with the winged feet of an avenger, Yoshitsuné followed, besieged them at the castle of Yashima, burned it, and drove his enemies, like scattered sheep, to the Straits of Shimonoseki.

Both armies now prepared a fleet of junks, for the contest was to be upon the water. In the Fourth month of the year 1185, all was ready for the struggle. The battle was fought at Dan no ura, near the modern town of Shimonoseki, where, in 1863, the combined squadrons of England, France, Holland, and the United States bombarded the batteries of the Choshiu clansmen. In the latter instance the foreigner demonstrated the superiority of his artillery and discipline, and, for the sake of trade and gain, wreaked his vengeance as savage and unjust as any that stains the record of native war.

In 1185, nearly seven centuries before, the contest was between men of a common country. It was the slaughter of brother by brother. The guerdon of ambition was supremacy. The Taira clan were at bay, driven, pursued, and hunted to the sea-shore. Like a wounded stag that turns upon its pursuers, the clan were about to give final battle; by its wager they were to decide their future destiny—a grave in a bloody sea, or peace under victory. They had collected five hundred vessels. They hurried on board their aged fathers and mothers, their wives and children. Among them were gentle ladies from the palace, whose silken robes seemed sadly out of place in the crowded junks. There were mothers, with babes at breast, and little children, too young to know the awful passions that kindle man against man.

Among the crowd were the widow and daughter of Kiyomori, the former a nun, the latter the empress-dowager, with the dethroned mikado, a child six years old. With them were the sacred insignia of imperial power, the sword and ball.

The Minamoto host was almost entirely composed of men, unincumbered with women or families. They had seven hundred junks. Both fleets were gayly fluttering with flags and streamers. The Taira pennant was red, the Minamoto white, with two black bars near the top. The junks, though clumsy, were excellent vessels for fighting purposes —fully equal to the old war-galleys of Actium.

On one side were brave men flushed with victory, with passions kindled by hate and the memory of awful wrongs. On the other side were brave men nerved with the courage of despair, resolved to die only in honor, scorning life and country, wounds and death.

The battle began. With impetuosity and despair, the Taira drove their junks hard against the Minamoto, and gained a temporary advantage by the suddenness of their onset. Seeing this, Yoshitsune, ever fearless, cried out and encouraged his soldiers. Then came a lull in the combat. Wada, a noted archer of the Minamoto, shot an arrow, and struck the junk of a Taira leader. “Shoot it back I” cried the chief. An archer immediately plucked it out of the gunwale, and, fitting it to his bow before the gaze of the crews of the hostile fleet, let fly. The arrow sped. It grazed the helmet of one, and pierced another warrior. The Minamoto were ashamed. “Shoot it back!” thundered Yoshitsuné. The archer, plucking it out and coolly examining it, said, “It is short and weak.” Drawing from his quiver an arrow of fourteen fists’ length, and fitting it to the string, he shot it. The five-feet length of shaft leaped through the air, and, piercing the armor and flesh of the Taira bowman who reshot the first arrow, fell, spent, into the sea beyond. Elated with the lucky stroke, Yoshitsuné emptied his quiver, shooting with such celerity and skill that many Taira fell. The Minamoto, encouraged, and roused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, redoubled their exertions with oar and arrow, and the tide of victory turned. The white flag triumphed. Yet the Taira might have won the day had not treachery aided the foe. The pages of Japanese history teem with instances of the destruction of friends by traitors. Perhaps the annals of no other country are richer in the recitals of results gained by treachery. The Arnold of the Taira army was Shigeyoshi, friend to Yoshitsuné. He had agreed upon a signal, by which the prize could be seen, and when seen could be sur­rounded and captured. Yoshitsuné, eagerly scanning the Taira fleet, finally caught sight of the preconcerted signal, and ordered the captains of a number of his junks to surround the particular one of the Taira. In a triee the junks of the white pennant shot alongside the devoted ship, and her decks were boarded by armed men. Seeing this, a Taira man leaped from his own boat to kill Yoshitsuné in close combat. Yoshitsuné jumped into another junk. His enemy, thus foiled, drowned himself. In the hand-to-hand fight with swords, Tomomori and six other Taira leaders were slain.

Seeing the hopeless state of affairs, and resolving not to be captured alive, the nun, Kiyomori’s widow, holding her grandson, the child emperor, in her arms, leaped into the sea. Taigo, the emperor’s mother, vainly tried to save her child. Both were drowned. Munemori, head of the Taira house, and many nobles, gentlemen, and ladies, were made prisoners.

The combat deepened. The Minamoto loved fighting. The Taira scorned to surrender. Revenge lent its maddening intoxication. Life, robbed of all its charms, gladly welcomed glorious death. The whizzing of arrows, the clash of two-handed swords, the clanging of armor, the sweep of churning oars, the crash of colliding junks, the wild song of the rowers, the shouts of the warriors, made the storm­chorus of battle. One after another the Taira ships, crushed by the prows of their opponents, or scuttled by the iron bolt-heads of the Minamoto archers, sunk beneath the bubbling waters, leaving red whirlpools of blood. Those that were boarded were swept with sword and spear of their human freight. The dead bodies clogged the decks, on which the mimic tides of blood ebbed and flowed and splashed with the motion of the waves, while the scuppers ran red like the spouts of an abattoir. The warriors who leaped into the sea became targets for the avenger’s arrows. Noble and peasant, woman and babe, rower and archer, lifting imploring arms, or sullenly spurning mercy, perished by hundreds.

That May morning looked upon a blue sea laughing with unnum­bered ripples, and glinting with the steel of warriors decked in all the glory of battle-array, and flaunting with the gay pennants of the fleet which it seemed proud to bear. At night, heaving crimson like the vat of a dyer, defiled by floating corpses, and spewing its foul corruption for miles along the strand, it bore awful though transient witness to the hate of man.

The Taira, driven off the face of the earth, were buried with war’s red burial beneath the sea, that soon forgot its stain, and laughed again in purity of golden gleam and deep-blue wave. The humble fisherman casting his nets, or trudging along the shore, in astonishment saw the delicate corpses of the court lady and the tiny babe, and the sun-bronzed bodies of rowers, cast upon the shore. The child who waded in the surf to pick up shells was frightened at the wave rolled carcass of the dead warrior, from whose breast the feathered arrow or the broken spear-stock protruded. The peasant, for many a day after, burned or consigned to the burial flames many a fair child whose silken dress and light skin told of higher birth and gentler blood than their own rude brood.

Among a superstitious people dwelling by and on the sea, such an awful ingulfing of human life made a profound impression. The presence of so many thousand souls of dead heroes was overpowering. For years, nay, for centuries afterward, the ghosts of the Taira found naught but unrest in the sea in which their mortal bodies sunk. The sailor by day hurried with bated breath past the scene of slaughter and unsubstantial life. The mariner by night, unable to anchor, and driven by wind, spent the hours of darkness in prayer, while his vivid imagination converted the dancing phosphorescence into the white hosts of the Taira dead. Even today the Choshiu peasant fancies he sees the ghostly armies baling out the sea with bottomless dippers, condemned thus to cleanse the ocean of the stain of centuries ago.

A few of the Taira escaped and fled to Kiushiu. There, secluded in the fastnesses of deep valleys and high mountains, their descendants, who have kept themselves apart from their countrymen for nearly seven hundred years, a few hundred in number, still live in poverty and pride. Their lurking-place was discovered only within the last century. Of the women spared from the massacre, some married their conquerors, some killed themselves, and others kept life in their defiled bodies by plying the trade in which beauty ever finds ready customers. At the present day, in Shimonoseki, the courtesan descended from the Taira ladies claims, and are accorded, special privileges.

The vengeance of the Minamoto did not stop at the sea. They searched every hill and valley to exterminate every male of the doomed clan. In Kioto many boys and infant sons of the Taira family were living. All that were found were put to death. The Herod of Kamakura sent his father-in-law to attend to the bloody business.

In the Fourth month the army of Kamakura returned to Kioto, enjoying a public triumph, with their spoils and prisoners, retainers of the Taira. They had also recovered the sacred emblems. For days the streets of the capital were gay with processions and festivals, and the coffers of the temples were enriched with the pious offerings of the victors, and their walls with votive tablets of gratitude.

Munemori was sent to Kamakura, where he saw the man whose head his father had charged him on his death-bed to cut off and hang on his tomb. His own head was shortly afterward severed from his body by the guards who were conducting him to Kioto.