HISTORY OF JAPAN LIBRARY

JAMES MURDOCH' HISTORY OF JAPAN FROM THE ORIGINS

TO THE ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE IN 1542 AD

CHAPTER I

PROTOHISTORIC JAPAN.

(CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES.)

WHOEVER hopes to enter upon the history of Old Japan with profit will find it advisable to furnish himself with some outline of the general state of affairs in the Far East during the three or four centuries which precede and follow the beginning of the Christian era.

At that time China—which by the way was then only a fraction of the modern Chinese Empire—bore a relation to the surrounding lands similar in most respects to that borne by the Roman Empire to the wilds of Germany and Britain and the peoples of the North generally. She alone had an old and stable civilisation, she alone had a written history, she alone indeed was acquainted with and practised the art of writing. Hence it is in Chinese authors and not in any native records that we find the earliest authentic information about the Japanese and about the inhabitants of the peninsula which is now known as Korea.

The third, or Chow dynasty of Chinese sovereigns lasted for almost nine centuries—from 1122 to 255 BC. Its dominions extended from the 33rd to the 38th parallel of latitude, and from longitude 106° to 118°,—in other words it comprised the southern portion of the Province of Chih-li (Zhili, alternately romanized as Chihli, was a northern administrative region of China since the 14th-century that lasted through the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty until 1911, when the region was dissolved, converted to a province, and renamed Hebei in 1928.), Shan-si, and Shen-si ( Shaanxi) the northern portions of Honan and Kiang-su, and the western half of Shantung,—a tract of some 300,000 square miles,— approximately one-fifth of the present superficies of what is now known as China Proper. Under the early Chow monarchs a sort of feudalism had grown up. By 770 BC the feudatories had got seriously out of hand, and the subsequent five hundred years are mainly occupied with the record of domestic disorder and internecine strife. That was the Ashikaga or the Carolingian age of China. The “Spring and Autumn” of Confucius, which covers the two centuries and a half between 722 and 481 BC, gives us the record of more than 1G0 principalities, each eager to devour the other, although all equally under the nominal suzerainty of Chow. But by that time Chow had in truth become as impotent as the Holy Roman Empire at its feeblest. By 425 BC these one hundred and sixty contestants had been reduced to seven; besides which there was a curtailed domain of Chow, of which these seven were now practically independent. Presently one of the seven not only ate up all its six rivals, but even made an end of the venerable Chow, and again reunited China under a strong central government. The new dominant power was the semi-barbarous Ts‘in (not Tsin), which after an independent existence in the north-west had rejoined the semi-federative system under Chow, to make a summary end of it three or four generations afterwards. This short-lived Tsin Dynasty (255-202 BC) is remarkable in as far as it provides a welcome landmark for bewildered Western students of Chinese history in the person of Chi Hwangti, who has not unreasonably been called the Chinese Napoleon. Inasmuch as he was the contemporary of one of Napoleon’s chief rivals to military fame, and as one of his undertakings—the Great Wall, which still survives as one of the wonders of the world—was begun in the very year of Cannae (214 BC), it becomes tolerably easy for the European student to “place” him and to bear this date in mind. Succeeding to the throne a mere boy of 13 years in 246, he soon asserted the force of his genius. His military achievements were the drastic settlement of accounts with the Hiung-Nu Tartars, who had been a terror to China for centuries, the crushing of the formidable Honan rebellion set on foot by the feudatories who had been dispossessed when the Empire was recentralised, and the carrying of his victorious arms and the limits of the Empire to the Yang-tse-kiang and the Poyang and Tungting Lakes. The thirty-six provinces into which China was now divided nominally included the Liaotung, South China, and the valley of the upper Yang-tse as far as navigable. But nothing definite was as yet known of Canton, Foo­chow, Yunnan, Thibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, or Japan. Japan indeed had been heard of by the people of the vassal kingdom around the modern Peking a century before, and in the course of Chi Hwang-ti’s eastern tour in the direction of Shan-hai-kwan and Chefoo vague rumours of certain islands beyond the sea had reached his ears.

However, it was not till the reign of Wuti, the sixth of the succeeding Han Dynasty (202 BC to 221 AD.) that the Chinese acquired any trustworthy information concerning either Korea or Japan. About 108 BC they overran the north of the Korean Peninsula, and although their direct hold upon it was brief, it was not only the beginning of detailed knowledge of that country and of Japan, but of a more or less intermittent communication between those lands and the Middle Kingdom. From our earliest authentic sources it abundantly appears that the term “Korean” at this time was meaningless, for the Peninsula was then occupied by a congeries of heterogeneous tribes of different stock, language, and institutions. Most of these had undoubtedly entered the country from the north, by land. As regards the peoples in the extreme south-west the case may very well have been different; presently the reasons for assigning them a southern oversea origin will be adverted to at some length, inasmuch as this consideration will be found to be of consequence when we come to deal with primaeval Japan.

As the oldest Japanese historical documents are greatly occupied with Korean relations, the student will find it highly advantageous to acquaint himself with the main outlines of the political developments in the Peninsula during the first six or seven centuries of our era.

Shortly after the withdrawal of the Chinese in the first century BC three kingdoms were founded, and gradually developed into great Powers.

In the north, Koguryn was established in BC 37, and lasted down to 668 AD. This is the State which appears as Koma in the Japanese annals. As it lay so far to the north the relations of the islanders with it were not very intimate until shortly before its fall, while they never had any territorial foothold in it at all.

The south of the Peninsula was occupied by two considerable States which first became conterminous immediately to the south of the Kogurvu frontier. The earliest of these two was Silla, which arose on the Japan Sea coast in BC 57 and after absorbing its rivals ran its course until 935. It appears in the Nihongi as Shiragi. It was this State that Jingo Kogo is alleged to have conquered in 200 AD. The relations between the islanders and Silla (or Shiragi) were generally hostile.

The third kingdom, called Pakche by the Koreans and Kudara by the Japanese, and lasting from 17 BC to 660 AD stretched along the Yellow Sea coast from the neighbourhood of Seoul, the present Korean capital, to the south-western extremity of the Peninsula. Its relations with Japan were friendly on the whole; and it was from it that the islanders got the first tincture of continental civilisation.

At this point a word of caution becomes necessary. It would be a serious mistake to regard the extent of these three kingdoms as synonymous with the present Korea. Koguryu stretched far to the north into Manchuria at different times, and on the other hand there were many small independent communities on the confines of the two southern States. A rough modern analogy may bs found in the position of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark with respect to France and Germany. Along the southern sea-board opposite a line drawn from Tsushima to Quelpart and for a hundred miles or more inland was a loose confederacy of communities that acknowledged the suzerainty neither of Pakche nor of Silla. It was in this quarter that Japanese influence was strongest, its centre being the Miyake of Imna or Mimana. In fact at the dawn of history this stretch of country would appear to have been much more Japanese and much more under the influence of Yamato than was either the northern half of the main island of the Japanese archipelago, or the south of Kyushu and the adjacent islets.

Thus this section of Korea is of no small interest to the Japanese historian. Nor is it without still higher claims upon our attention. It was in this tract of country, together with the southern part of that western sea-board fringe which became the kingdom of Pakche, that the so-called Han tribes, the Ma-han, the Chin-han, and the Pyon-ban, were settled. Of these a recent historian has remarked that in them we shall find the solution of the most interesting and important problem that Korea has to offer either to the historian or the ethnologist Mr. Hulbert then proceeds to adduce a body of cumulative evidence going to suggest that these communities were not of northern but of southern origin, and that they reached Korea not by land but from over sea. The items he enumerates in support of this contention do not indeed amount to proof; but taken together with other still stronger considerations that might well be added to them they indicate that the line of investigation here suggested is likely to be a profitable one, rich perhaps in surprises.

These Han tribes were different in almost everything from the tribes beyond the mountains in the other parts of the Peninsula. Furthermore, there are good grounds for believing that it was the language of these tribes that became the basic element in Korean. Now, two of these tribes at least had the Japanese for neighbours. They had frequent intercourse with these neighbours and were a good deal influenced by contact with them. Modern Korean, no doubt with a vocabulary seriously affected by, if not mainly made up of, words of non-Han provenance, is undoubtedly closely akin to Japanese in structure, while there is no lack of analogies even in the terms of the two tongues. The only other member of this family is Luchuan, which differs from Japanese pretty much as, say, Portuguese does from Italian, a connecting link between Japanese and Luchuan being found in the dialect of Satsuma.

Now all this has an important bearing upon the question of the possibility of an answer to that sphinx-like riddle—the origin or origins of the Japanese people. After trying some half-dozen hypotheses by the tests of (1) power to account for all the known facts in the case, linguistic, anthropological, ethnological, archaeological, and legendary,—if there can be such a thing as a “legendary” fact; (2) to meet new facts as they appear; and (3) of applicability as an instrument of research, it has been found that there is only one that is even partially equal to sustaining the triple strain. The inhabitants of the Luchus, of Satsuma, and the rest of Southern Kyushu and the peoples of the old Hans in Korea are, or were, of the same stock or origin,—either Malay or Indonesian. And just as the people of the three Hans supplied the basic element in the Korean language, so those of Luchu and Kyushu have furnished that element in the tongue of modern Japan. Furthermore they have furnished Japan with her Imperial House and with the greater part of her aristocracy and ruling caste. So far from southern Kyushu and Luchu having been peopled from Korea, it is not at all either impossible or even unlikely that it was South-Western Korea that was peopled from Luchu and Kyushu. That Southern Kyushu and South-Western Korea should have been settled by immigrants from the Southern Seas need excite less surprise than the fact that Madagascar has been mainly peopled not from the neighbouring continent of Africa but from a remote Malayo Polynesian centre.

The hold of the Chinese upon Northern and Central Korea lasted for no more than two generations—from 106 to 36 BC. Although they appear to have had no immediate political foothold in the extreme south of the Peninsula at this time, they were able to enter into relations not only with the native rulers in this district but even with Japanese chieftains in their mountainous island in the midst of the ocean, and to glean rough details about this mysterious land. Towards the end of the later Han dynasty (25-220 AD) we meet with a sort of summary of what the Chinese had then ascertained about their island neighbours. From this it appears that some chieftain in Southern Japan sent an envoy with tribute to the Chinese Court, which thought fit to bestow a seal and a ribbon upon him. Half a century later (107 AD) a certain king of Wa (i.e. Japan) presented 160 living persons and made a request for an interview. The next important item we meet with refers to the latter half of the second century a.d. “During the reigns of Hwan-ti and Ling-ti (AD 147-190) Wa (i.e. Japan) was in a state of great confusion, and there was a civil war for many years, during which time there was no chief. Then (i.e. about or after 190 AD) there arose a woman, old and unmarried, who had devoted herself to magic arts, by which she was clever in deluding the people. The nation agreed together to set her up as Queen. She has 1,000 female attendants; but few people see her face, except one man. who serves her meals and is the medium of communication with her. She dwells in a palace with lofty pavilions, surrounded by a stockade, and is protected by a guard of soldiers. The laws and customs are strict.”

All this is substantially corroborated by certain passages in the Wei records written some half century later.

To the average Western reader such terms as Han and Wei records are no doubt next door to meaningless. To make things clear, it may be well to my I hat on the fall of the Han dynasty (after a sway of some four hundred and twenty years) in AD 220, China fell apart three rival States. One under Liu Pi had its capital in Sz’chuen and embraced the upper Yang-tse valley and the south-west of the old Empire. The second under Siun Kien with its capital at Nanking stretched south along the sea-board from Shantung and the Yellow River to the mountains of Fukien. The third, under Tsao Tsao, with its capital at Lohyang, comprised the northern provinces. These States were known as the Shuh, the Wu, and the Wei respectively, and the period of their existence (220-265 AD) is one of the most stirring and picturesque in the whole course of Chinese history. About a thousand years afterwards Lo Kuang-Chung took their struggles as the theme of his San Kuo Chih Yen—undoubtedly the greatest historical romance produced in the Far East. In Japan its effect has been perhaps even greater than it has been in China. In course of time it became the favourite reading of the Japanese Samurai,—the so-called bushi,—and any attempt to account for the growth of what is now known as Bushido can be attended with but partial success, unless the influence of this novel be taken into account. In its pages the Japanese bushi found not a few of his ideals.

“They (i.e. the Japanese) had formerly kings, but for seventy or eighty years there was great confusion and civil war prevailed. After a time they agreed to set up a woman named Himeko as their sovereign. She had no husband, but her younger brother assisted her in governing the country. After she became Queen, few persons saw her.”

That this Japanese “She” was something more substantial than a mere myth may be inferred that in the Wei Chi we meet with full details of missions sent by her to the Northern Chinese Court at Lohyang in 238 and 243 AD; while several communications passed between her and the Chinese Prefect of Tai-fang (not far from the modern Seoul) in Korea.

In 247 “a messenger came to the Prefect of Tai-fang from Wa (Japan) to explain the causes of the enmity which had always prevailed between Queen Himeko and Himekuko, King of Konu. A letter was sent admonishing them. At this time Queen Himeko died. A great mound was raised over her, more than a hundred paces in diameter, and over 1,000 of her male and female attendants followed her in death. Then a king was raised to the throne, but the people would not obey him, and civil war again broke out. A girl of thirteen, a relative of Himeko, named Iyo (or Yih-yii) was then made Queen and order was restored.” At this time another Chinese envoy appeared in Japan, and was safely escorted back, a number of slaves, pearls and other things being then sent as presents.

Doubtless it was from such missions as the preceding that the Chinese obtained their knowledge of Japan. It is to be observed that the exchange of communications between the Chinese authorities and the islanders was not confined to a central Japanese government. The country was divided into more than 100 “provinces'”—more probably tribes or clans—and of these thirty-two provinces communicated with the Han authorities by a postal service. This communication is said to have begun shortly after the Chinese conquest of Northern and Central Korea in 106 BC. Naturally the missions must have been under the conduct of Chinese officials or Chinese adventurers, who at that early date had penetrated into most of the surrounding semi-barbaric States, and found their own personal account in opening up and promoting intercourse be­tween the chieftains of the regions in which they had settled and the nearest Chinese authorities, and, if possible, the Chinese Court. It was such adventurers who composed dispatches for Mongols and Manchus and Huns and Koreans and Japanese at a time when these peoples were all innocent of any acquaintance either with the Chinese language or the art of writing. We have something like an analogy to all this in the famous Japanese embassies to the Pope in 1582, and to the city of Seville, the King of Spain, and the Pope in 1614. And just as it is to the European missionaries who really organised and conducted these embassies that we are indebted for what is most valuable in the data accessible to us about the Japan of the later sixteenth and earlier seventeenth century, so it is these early Chinese adventurers that we have to thank for the only authentic accounts we have of primaeval Japan.

At the time these Han and Wei records were compiled in the third century AD there seem to have been two, and possibly more, independent Japanese States in Japan, for we are expressly told that the kings of Konu, who held sway somewhere in the neighbourhood of the present Tokyo, were of the same race as the Japanese of Yamato but not subject to them. The chief power, Great Wa, had its seat in Yamato,—in other words in the district around Lake Biwa, and between Lake Biwa and the Pacific. It evidently extended along both shores of the Inland Sea, on to Nagato and Chikuzen, on which it contrived to keep a very firm hand. In these quarters there were local hereditary kings or princelets, but they all stood in wholesome awe of the Imperial Local Commissioner who had his seat at Ito in the latter province, and who had subordinates stationed at various points in the interior. It is tolerably clear that the Yamato authorities regarded this north-western corner of Kyushu with special solicitude inasmuch as it was their base for enterprises in Southern Korea, where their influence was much stronger than it was in the centre and south of Kyushu itself. At one time there had evidently been an independent community in Idzumo on the coast of the Sea of Japan; but possibly long before this date it had been incor­porated in the dominions of the Great Was.

From these records we furthermore gather that the Japan­ese had distinctions of rank, that some were vassals to others, that taxes were collected, that there were markets in the various provinces for the exchange of superfluous commodities, under the supervision of the central authorities. It is somewhat surprising to find how often the assertion that all the islanders practised tattooing is reiterated in these records. “The men, both small and great, tattoo their faces and work designs on their bodies,” ‘‘The men all tattoo their faces and adorn their bodies with designs. Differences of rank are indicated by the position and size of the patterns.” “The women use pink and scarlet to smear their bodies with, as rice-powder is used in China.” Japanese women have always been well spoken of by sojourners in the land, it would seem. “The women are faithful and not jealous,” we are explicitly told by these early Chinese travellers. We are furthermore informed that they were more numerous than the men, and strangely enough the very first remark made by the Japanese gentleman whom I entrusted with the task of analysing the earliest Japanese census records (about 700 AD) was about the astonishing preponderance of females even in those later days! In those early times there seems to have been no lack of occupation for them—“All men of high rank have four or five wives, others two or three” “There is no theft, and litigation is infrequent.” Froez was almost to repeat these words thirteen centuries later. “The wives and children of those who break the laws are confiscated (one source of slaves) and for grave crimes the offender’s family is extirpated.”

“Mourning lasts for some ten days only, during which time the members of the family weep and lament, whilst their friends come singing, dancing and making music. They practise divination by burning bones and by that means ascertain good and bad luck, and whether or not to undertake journeys and voyages. They appoint a man whom they style the ‘mourning-keeper’. He is not allowed to comb his hair, to wash, to eat meat, or to approach women. When they are fortunate they make him valuable presents; but if they fall ill, or meet with disaster, they set it down to the mourning-keeper’s failure to observe his vows and together they put him to death.”

The correctness of all this is substantiated by later native sources. In this early Japanese “medicine-man” we have no difficulty in recognising the Imibe of the Kojiki and Nihongi and the Shinto rituals.

One particular assertion we meet with in these records raises the question of how the Japanese reckoned time. “The Was are not acquainted with the New Year or the four Seasons, but reckon the year by the spring cultivation of the fields, and by the autumn ingathering of the crops.” “They are a long-lived race, and persons who have reached 100 years are very common.”

Now at the date of the compilation of the Kojiki and the Kihongi at the beginning of the eighth century Japanese literati were well acquainted with Chinese histories. In fact the Nihongi bristles with passages transferred verbatim et literatim from these histories, and applied to embellish the record of mythical and legendary Japan. That the compilers of the earliest official annals were acquainted with the above passage is more than likely. And it is at least possible that it may have furnished them with one of the inducements which led them to bestow the gift of longevity upon their early Emperors in such lordly measure. Of the one hundred and four sovereigns of Japan who occupied the throne between 400 AD and 1867 AD only seventeen attained the span of three score years and ten, and of these not one lived to ninety, while no more than four exceeded the age of eighty years. And with respect to the earliest two of these four our chronology is doubtful. Now to the period of 1,060 years antecedent to 400 AD the official annalists assigned no more than sixteen rulers, the average reign thus running to 66 years. One of these, Chuai Tenno, who died in 200 a.d. after a short reign of eight years, was only 52 at that date; but then the Nihongi by implication asserts that he was born 37 years after the death of his father, Prince Yamato-dake no Mikoto. The second, third, and fourth in the line of these legendary Emperors lived to 84, 57, and 77 respectively. But of all the others not one fell short of a century; the assigned ages ranging indeed from 108 to 143, the average for the twelve being 122 years. Thus possibly the official annalists regarded the preceding statement in the Han records as a hint too valuable to be neglected.

After 265 AD communication between China and Japan apparently ceased; at all events it is only early in the fifth century that we again begin to glean information about contemporary Japan from the records of the Middle Kingdom. For the intervening century and a half the sole foreign source available for stray notices of Japan and the Japanese is the standard histories of Ancient Korea. The most extensive is the Tong-guk Tong-Kam—commonly referred to as the Tong- Kam—which was published somewhere about 1470 AD. This had been preceded by the Sam-guk-sa or History of the Three Countries compiled in 1145 from the original annals and records of the kingdoms of Koguryu (37 BC—668 AD), Pakche (17 BC—660 AD) and Silla (57 BC—935 AD). About the authenticity and trustworthiness of the very earliest of these records, authorities differ; it is to a great extent a question of the date of the introduction of the art of writing into, and its diffusion in, the Peninsula. Mr. Courant thinks it likely that while the northern kingdom of Koguryu from its proximity to China may have had a tincture of Chinese letters from early times, it was only between 347 and 375 that passing events began to get committed to writing in Pakche, and that Silla lagged behind Japan even, in this respect. Consequently, if this be so the details of Pakche history previous to the middle of the fourth century and of that of Silla till a still later period repose upon oral tradition “et ne méritent qu'une demi-créance.”

In the first four centuries of our era the Silla annals make mention of some thirteen or fourteen Japanese descents on the coasts; in the fifth century alone an almost equal (eleven) number of hostile attempts on the part of the islanders is recorded. Apart from this we meet with a few other references to intercourse with Japan. In BC 48 we are told the Japanese pirates stopped their incursions into the Peninsula for the time being. Thirty years later we meet with a Japanese high in the service of the Silla King. In 158 AD we come across the strange legend of Yung-o and Seo-o, Silla subjects who were spirited across the sea to become sovereigns in Japan, leaving their own native land in darkness, to the great consternation of the authorities. The story of how light was ultimately restored to Silla reminds one of the Amaterasu and Susanoo legend. About a century later we are told that the first envoy ever received from Japan arrived in Silla (249 AD). A Korean general told him that it would be well for his King and Queen to come and be slaves in the kitchen of the King of Silla. The envoy at once turned about and returned to Japan, and soon a punitive expedition from the islands appeared. The offending Korean told the King of what he had done, and then walked straight into the Japanese camp and offered himself as a sacrifice. The Japanese burned him alive and then withdrew. Next year the same envoy came once more and was well received by the Silla King. But the general’s wife obtained leave to work in the kitchen of the envoy’s establishment and contrived to poison his food, and that put an effectual stop to the exchange of diplomatic civilities between the two countries for some considerable time. At last, in 300 AD, another friendly mission from Japan appeared, and a return embassy was sent. Twelve years later (312) the Japanese asked for a matrimonial alliance with Silla, and the daughter of a Silla noble was sent as a consort for the Japanese sovereign. In another similar request was refused, and in the following year the Japanese Court wrote to break off all intercourse with Silla.

If we are to believe the Nihongi, Silla had been conquered by Jingo Kogo in 200 AD, and the Kings of Pakche and Koguryu had then sent envoys to acknowledge the suzerainty of Japan. After that all three kingdoms had meanwhile more or less carefully complied with the obligations they had then incurred to send tribute. Now, down to 400 AD no confidence whatsoever can be reposed either in the chronology of the Nihongi or in the individual incidents it professes to record. Valuable institutional and social items may possibly enough be gleaned from its pages; but when perfervid patriotic enthusiasts begin to dilate upon its claims to our respect as a history, we can do nothing but smile and pass on. The question of the credibility of the early Silla annals may be left to the judgement of the reader; the essential considerations have been adduced already.

As regards Japanese intercourse with the kingdom of Pakche, we find ourselves on somewhat more solid ground. The event in this connection recorded in the Nihongi,—the submission of the Pakche sovereign to Jingo Kogo in 200 A.D.,— is doubtless mythical. But a few pages later on in the Nihongi we meet with the first of a series of incidents which are seemingly more or less authentic, as not a few of them can be traced in the Korean records. But the remarkable thing is that the compilers of the Nihongi have antedated them by two cycles or 120 years. Mr. Aston had no difficulty in establishing this interesting fact independently; but he had been anticipated by the great Japanese scholar Motoori, who had arrived at a similar result a century before the acute Irish critic. This means that certain events assigned to 225, 260, 265, 272, 277, and so on, by the Nihongi really occurred in 357, 380, 385, 392, and 397 respectively. Of these the one given under 284 is perhaps the most important of the series. “ In 284 the King of Pakche sent Atogi with tribute of two good horses. Atogi was placed in charge of the Imperial stables. He could read the classics well, and the Heir Apparent became his pupil. The Emperor asked him whether there were any better scholars in Pakche than himself. He said, “Yes, one Wani, whereupon a Japanese official was sent to bring him.” Wani arrived in the following year, and became the instructor of the Prince in the Chinese classics. Now, for 284 AD we must substitute 404 D. The Sam guk-sa tells us that it was only between 346 and 375 that passing events began to get committed to writing in Pakche, while the Tong-kam is even still more explicit. “In 375 Pakche appointed a certain Kohung as professor. It was not till now that Pakche had any records. The country had no writing previous to this time”.

Of course the bearing of all this upon the authenticity of what passes as early Japanese history is self-apparent, not only to such as insist that history is a science, but even to those who merely hold that, while history in as far as it is an art of presentation must be regarded as literature, historians must be rigorously scientific in their methods of investigation. In the Nihongi we read that “on the 8th day of the 8th month, 403 AD, local recorders were appointed for the first time in the various provinces, who noted down statements and com­municated the writings of the four quarters.” That such officers were appointed is indeed credible enough, but that they were appointed a year or two before the introduction of the art of writing into Japan is not credible. What is likely is that in the course of that or the subsequent generations Korean scribes may have been assigned to some such duty. It is an interesting fact that the earliest date of the accepted Japanese chronology which is substantiated by external evidence is 461 AD.

In addition to foreign contemporary records there is still one more “source” for Japanese history previous to 461. But in dealing with this special source the exercise of the greatest caution is necessary, for archaeology has been responsible for some strange vagaries. However, the student is strongly recommended to study Mr. Howland’s monograph on “The Dolmens of Japan and their Builders” in the Transactions of the Japan Society, London, 1897-8. The learned author places the beginning of the dolmen age in the second century before Christ and its close somewhere between 600 and 700 AD. The correctness of the latter assumption is confirmed by contemporary records. The great statesman Kamatari died in 669 and was buried in a dolmen tumulus. His son Joe was then in China studying for the Buddhist priesthood, and on his return he had his father’s corpse removed and buried under a miniature pagoda of stone. This marked the decline of the old system of interment. In 695 the common people were forbidden to erect mausolea of any kind, and seven years later this prohibition was extended to all under the third rank.

As regards the date of the beginning of the dolmen age there must necessarily be much uncertainty. We know from the language of subsequent legislation that the custom of depositing articles of the highest value in tombs was a comparatively late development,—about the beginning of the fifth century AD. In the time of Yuryaku (459-479) no expense in the construction of sepulchres was spared; and the people, imitating the example of the Court, expended so much of their substance upon tombs and on valuables to be deposited in them that they became seriously impoverished. Again, in 641, in consequence of the magnificence that attended the obsequies of the Emperor Jomei, elaborate mausolea and expensive funerals caused widespread destitution among nobles and people alike. In the drastic decree of 646 dealing with the subject of interments it is roundly asserted that of late the poverty of our people is absolutely owing to the construction of tombs.

However, when we calmly consider how rapidly any fashionable craze or practice has been wont to spread in Japan at all times, it is not necessary to postulate a span of centuries for the evolution of the dolmen. At the beginning of the 17th century what made the Japanese people feel the pinch of poverty was not the erection of mausolea so much as castle­building. Now, what was the length of the period necessary to cover Japan with some 200 or 300 huge fortresses, some of which would have been capable of holding almost the whole of the mausolea of early Japan within their enceintes? The earliest of these fortresses—that of Azuchi—was begun in 1575 or 1576,—forty years later, in 1616, the Tokugawas for­bade the erection of any more new castles!

Moreover, even before Yuryaku (459-479) we bear of fre­quent exchanges of “tribute” between the Japanese and the neighbouring kingdoms in Korea. These foreign articles were most valuable, because most rare in Japan, and precisely on account of their value they would most likely be deposited in the tombs. Such is the case with the so-called magatama or “curved jewels” so frequently found in the old sepulchral chambers at all events, for the jade or jade-like stone of which many of them are made is a mineral which has never yet been met with in Japan. May not a good deal of the dolmen pottery be also of Korean provenance ?

But perhaps the most suggestive among the archaeological spoils of the dolmens is the abundant horse furniture and trappings which have been recovered. Writes Mr. Gowland: “Even in the earliest part of the period the horse was the companion and servant of man.” Now, in those Chinese Han records we are distinctly told that at that date (about 220 AD) there were no oxen or horses in Japan! Modern zoologists seem to have arrived at conclusions consonant with this statement; one modern authority will have it that the horse was introduced into Japan in the third century AD. The Japanese word for horse, uma, is notoriously of Chinese and not of native origin.

These considerations are of no very great profundity, but they may serve to indicate that caution is necessary when we begin to speculate about the exact date of the beginning of the dolmen-building age in Japan.

The geographical distribution of the dolmens is exceedingly interesting, for it gives us a clue to the chief centres of Japanese power in the early centuries of our era. Yamato and the provinces around the modern Kyoto are richest in these remains. Then come Iwami, Idzumo, Hoki, and Inaba on the Japan Sea, with a connecting group in Tamba. Westward they are found in the Sanyodo, in Shikoku, and in the east and north of Kyushu, while their eastward limit is a comparatively small cluster in the Province of Iwaki, a much larger group being found at the junction of the three provinces of Kodzuke, Shimotzuke, and Musashi. Among the dolmens there is one class deserving of especial attention,—that known as “Imperial burial mounds,” termed by Mr. Gowland from their shape “double” mounds, although they never contain more than one dolmen. These large double mounds were undoubtedly the tombs of men of the highest rank or of preeminent power. Soga’s erection of such a tomb during his lifetime by means of forced labour and State serfs was taken as one strong indication of his intention to usurp the Imperial throne (642 AD). “Nearly all the emperors whose names are recorded in the Kojiki, and many whose names and existence have been forgotten, were probably buried in these double mounds. But,” continues Mr. Gowland, “I have also found these mounds of Imperial form in the important dolmen districts of Idzumo and Hoki, Bizen, Kodzuke, and Hyuga which are remote from the central provinces, the seats of the recognised emperors. This would seem to indicate that these regions were once independent centres, or were governed by chiefs who were regarded as equals with the central ruling family.” “Now as regards Kodzuke, the centre of the kingdom of Konu at the head of Tokyo Bay, we know from the Han and Wei records that this outpost of the Yamato people in Ainu-land was independent of the Queen of Great Wa in the first half of the third century AD. There is a great deal in the mythical and legendary part of the Kojiki and the Nihongi which points to the early existence of an independent sovereign State in Idzumo on the shore of the Sea of Japan. We hear of the Imperial Court being established in Hyuga for seven years, and at another time for eight years in North-Western Kyushu, and of Hyuga princesses and Kibi (m. Bizen) princesses being sent for and wedded by Yamato sovereigns.

Now, let us glance at those sections of Japan where dolmens are not to be found. In the north, south of a line drawn from Kaga, perhaps from Tsuruga to Mount Tsukuba, the Ainu power was still unbroken. In the interior of the mountainous Kii peninsula there were still unsubdued autochthons. And in the south of Kyushu there were the dreaded and untamable Kumaso.

This brings us to a brief consideration of that vexed topic the origin or origins of the Japanese people,—a subject that has given rise to endless speculation and interminable debate. It seems to be agreed that the earliest inhabitants of these islands were the Ainu—or the Yemishi, as they are called in the oldest Japanese annals—that these entered Yezo from Amur-land, and spread southward, gradually occupying nearly the whole of the main island and even pushing well down into Kyushu. The evidence adduced consists of place-names and of the “kitchen middens” or shell mounds, with their contents of bones of animals (mingled with a few of men), shells, and stone implements, together with vessels of pottery, but no objects of metal. Their possession of the land appears to have been first challenged by immigrants from Korea, who gradually established a civilised or semi-civilised State with Idzumo for its centre. To call these immigrants “Koreans” serves no useful purpose, for the population of Korea was exceedingly heterogeneous. Among peoples of various race the Peninsula harboured numbers of Chinese adventurers or refugees escaping from the horrors of dynastic cataclysms, oppressive government or civil strife. Legend has it that a band of such adventurers possessed themselves of a part of South-Western Korea and established among the tribes they found there a kingdom which lasted from 193 to 9 BC.

Now, Dr. Raelz has pointed out that what is regarded (mistakenly) as the type of the aristocratic Japanese countenance—the fine long oval face with well-chiselled features, oblique eyes with long drooping eyelids and elevated and arched eyebrows, high and narrow forehead, rounded and slightly aquiline nose, bud-like mouth, and pointed chin—is really the aristocratic type among the Chinese, and that this type is not infrequently met with in the Korean Peninsula at the present day. Is it unreasonable to presume that these exceptionally handsome Japanese and Koreans are of Chinese ancestry ? Chinese writers mention a belief that the Japanese are descended from the Chinese prince, T’ai Peh of Wu, and that a colony from China under Sii-she settled in Japan in 219 BC—the age of the Chinese Napoleon. In a Japanese “Burke” or “Debrett” of the early 9th century of some 1,200 noble families nearly one-third are assigned either a Chinese or a Korean origin. And most of those families appear to have been settled in Idzumo originally.

Altogether it seems not unlikely that the Idzumo State was founded, not by Akkadians, but by Chinese refugees or adventurers direct from China, or by the descendants of Chinese who had settled in Korea,—perhaps by the combined efforts of both at various epochs. The chief objection to this hypothesis may be easily disposed of. That objection is linguistic. The Chinese language is monosyllabic, while Japanese is notoriously polysyllabic, and besides all this the vocabulary and the grammatical structure of the two tongues are about as different as can well be conceived. Now how much Latin is spoken in the British Islands? The Roman invaders present us with an analogy to the position and subsequent fortunes of these (presumably) Chinese adventurers in Idzumo, only of course with this great difference—that while Latin and Celtic were sister tongues there is apparently no connection between Ainu and Chinese whatever. What was to be the dominant language in Britain was introduced by the Teutonic tribes from the Continent. In course of time Latin and Celtic got swamped—Latin entirely so. And so was it with Ainu and Early Chinese in Japan when brought face to face with the language of that tribe or rather those tribes from the south that evidently played in Japan the part of the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes in England. Nor is it necessary to assume that the language of the presumed Chinese settlers in Idzumo was Chinese. It is notorious that at the present day there are thousands of the grandchildren and other descendants of Chinese immigrants into the Dutch East Indies and Siam to whom Chinese is an alien and unknown tongue. The ancestors of the Idzumo adventurers may have been settled in South-Western Korea for several generations, and during this time they may well have lost acquaintance with their own original language and adopted that of the Mahan and other tribes among which they had their settlements; this old South-Western Korean tongue being, according to Mr. Hulbert and others, the basic element in the modern speech of the Peninsula.

According to Sir Ernest Satow’s hypothesis, “tradition points to a conquest of Japan from the side of Korea by a people settling in Idzumo and speaking a language allied to Korean. These were followed by a race of warriors coming from the south and landing in Hyuga—it might be Malay or perhaps a branch of that warlike and intelligent race of which a branch survives in New Zealand, speaking originally a language rich in vowel terminations, who conquered the less warlike but more civilised inhabitants they found in possession, and adopted their language with modifications peculiar to themselves.”

About the origin of these southern invaders and about the route by which they arrived in Japan there has been great divergence of opinion. Dr. Baelz, while admitting that they are not of the same stock as the settlers in Idzumo, will have it that they must have entered Japan by the same route as the former,—that is through Korea. Of course this is not impossible; however, the balance of probability seems to be in favour of Satow’s hypothesis, perhaps even Southern Korea may have been settled from the South Seas vid Kyushu. Of course, most of this is hypothetical, and with the limited data at our disposal,—notices in early contemporary Chinese histories, notices from subsequent Korean histories, archaeological discoveries, ethnological and linguistic considerations, and Japanese legend as “selected” for the Kojiki and Nihongi —it is questionable whether in this matter we can ever rise to anything beyond a mere conflict of rival hypotheses. Here as everywhere else it is a case of the survival of the fittest; and the test of fitness here, as in other hypotheses, is the relative power of explaining all the known facts and such new facts as may emerge, of meeting all objections, and of serviceability as an instrument of research.

Now, keeping this all-important consideration ever in mind, and after perusing the numerous learned, and also unlearned, treatises on this subject, and after much pondering on all that has been advanced, I have been forced to the conclusion that the following hypothetical resume of results may be found of most service to future inquirers. The southern invaders, known at first as Kumaso and later on as Hayato, probably arrived in Southern Kyushu long before the establishment of the Idzumo State. Of these invaders, evidently of sea faring proclivities, a branch passed into South-Western Korea, which, according to Mr. Hulbert’s hypothesis, was peopled from the south and not from the north. Those settled in Kyushu came into conflict with the Ainu, a few of whom they may have driven to take refuge in the Luchu Islands, while the others were exterminated or thrown back into the main island. Meanwhile the Idzumo State got founded by immigrants of Chinese extraction whose ancestors had settled among the Korean Kumaso, had dominated them by their superior culture, but from the paucity of their numbers had been driven to acquire the “Korean-Kumaso” language. Ultimately a branch of the Kyushu Kumaso came into contact with this Idzumo State, or rather with its outlying dependencies, and had either conquered them, or come to terms and gradually amalgamated with this continental people, their superiors in culture, but their inferiors in war and in the prosaic work a day task of administration, and in real practical ability generally.

The combination of this branch of the Kumaso and the Idzumo men proved irresistible; they pushed their conquests eastward along both shores of the Inland Sea, and ultimately established a strong central State in Yamato, at the expense of the aboriginal Ainu, who may already have found themselves hard pressed by the impact of the Idzumo people from the north-west. Then gradually, partly by arms, partly by astute diplomacy and a constant process of amalgamation, this Yamato power at last succeeded in establishing a suzerainty over Idzumo and so subjecting to its control the whole of the main island west of a line drawn from Tsuruga to Owari, and the northern sea boards of Shikoku and Kyushu, the rest of which meanwhile remained in possession of other Kumaso tribes which continued to lead an independent but uncultured existence of their own. In course of time a body of the Yamato Was, now a mixed race of Kumaso and Idzumo men, pushed on into Ainuland, and established the independent kingdom of Konu in the Great Plain of Musashi in the basing of the Tone and Sumida Rivers.

The Kumaso who fared forth to find their fortune in the Idzumo domains bore pretty much the same relation to the Kumaso who remained in their earlier southern seats in Kyu­shu that the Franks, who established themselves in Gaul about the time of Clovis, did to those Teutonic tribes who remained behind in the forests of Germany and who were subjected to the sway of their more civilised brethren by Charlemagne some three centuries afterwards.

One interesting matter in connection with this has been alluded to by Dr. Baelz, who points out that the members of the Imperial House generally have the southern or Satsuma type of features. Now, during the last millennium or more the Emperors have taken their consorts from one great house mainly,—from the Fujiwara to wit. And the first ancestor of this house is represented as descending from Heaven with the grandchild of the Sun Goddess, when he appeared in Osumi to take possession of Japan. A less remote ancestor was Jimmu Tenno’s staunch and trusty henchman. It is true that after his conquest of Central Japan Jimmu is represented as wedding a Yamato princess, and we are told that it was from the issue of this marriage that the successor to the throne and the subsequent Imperial line came, Jimmu’s eldest son, born in Kyushu the offspring of a Kyushu mother, having been set aside to his not unnatural discontent. The Yamato marriage may have been resorted to as a political device to forward the amalgamation of the southerners and the Idzumo people. However, the fact remains that the dominant strain in the Imperial House is Fujiwara, that its members have mostly the Satsuma type of countenance and physique, and that legend assigns the Imperial line and the Fujiwaras alike a southern or Satsuma origin.

CHAPTER I. PROTOHISTORIC JAPAN (CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES.)

CHAPTER II. LEGENDARY JAPAN. (JAPANESE SOURCES.)