A History of the Japanese People. Kikuchi Dairoku
That no distinction was made between wives and concubines has been alleged, but is not confirmed by the annals. Differentiation by rank appears to have been always practised, and the offspring was certainly thus distinguished.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION
A child in ancient Japan was born under considerable difficulties: its mother had to segregate herself in a parturition hut (ubuya), whence even light was excluded and where she was cut off from all attendance. This strange custom was an outcome of the Shinto canon of purity. Soon after birth, a child received from its mother a name generally containing some appropriate personal reference. In the most ancient times each person (so far as we can judge) bore one name, or rather one string of words compounded together into a sort of personal designation. But already at the dawn of the historical epoch we are met by the mention of surnames and of "gentile names bestowed by the sovereign as a recompense for some noteworthy deed."* These names constantly occur. The principal of them are suzerain (atae), departmental suzerain (agata-no-atae), departmental lord (agata-no-nushi), Court noble (ason), territorial lord (inaki), lord (iratsuko), lady (iratsume), duke (kimi), ruler (miyatsuko), chief (muraji), grandee (omi), noble (sukune), and lord (wake). In the case of the Emperors there are also canonical names, which were applied at a comparatively late date in imitation of Chinese usages, and which may be said to have completely replaced the names borne during life. Thus, the Emperor known to posterity as Jimmu was called Iware in life, the Emperor named Homuda while he sat on the throne is now designated Ojin, and the Emperor who ruled as Osazaki is remembered as Nintoku. In the Imperial family, and doubtless in the households of the nobility, wet-nurses were employed, if necessary, as also were bathing-women, washing-women, and rice-chewers.**
*B.H. Chamberlain.
**"Rice, which is mainly carbohydrate, is transformed into grape-sugar by the action of the saliva. This practice is still common in China and used to be so in Japan where it is now rarely met with. It was employed only until dentition was complete." (Munro.)
"To what we should call education, whether mental or physical, there is absolutely no reference made in the histories. All that can be inferred is that, when old enough to do so; the boys began to follow one of the callings of hunter or fisherman, while the girls stayed at home weaving the garments of the family. There was a great deal of fighting, generally of a treacherous kind, in the intervals of which the warriors occupied themselves in cultivating patches of ground."*
*B.H. Chamberlain.
BURIAL OF THE DEAD
Burial rites were important ceremonials. The house hitherto tenanted by the deceased was abandoned—a custom exemplified in the removal of the capital to a new site at the commencement of each reign—and the body was transferred to a specially erected mourning-hut draped inside with fine, white cloth. The relatives and friends then assembled, and for several days performed a ceremony which resembled an Irish wake, food and sake being offered to the spirit of the dead, prayers put up, and the intervals devoted to weird singing and solemn dancing. Wooden coffins appear to have been used until the beginning of the Christian era, when stone is said to have come into vogue.
At the obsequies of nobles there was considerable organization. Men (mike-hito) were duly told off to take charge of the offerings of food and liquor; others (kisari-mochi) were appointed to carry the viands; others (hahaki-mochi) carried brooms to sweep the cemetery; there were females (usu-me) who pounded rice, and females (naki-me) who sung dirges interspersed with eulogies of the deceased. The Records mention that at the burial of Prince Waka a number of birds were used instead of these female threnodists. It appears, further, that those following a funeral walked round the coffin waving blue-and-red banners, carrying lighted torches, and playing music.
In the sepulchres the arms, utensils, and ornaments used daily by the deceased were interred, and it was customary to bury alive around the tombs of Imperial personages and great nobles a number of the deceased's principal retainers. The latter inhuman habit was nominally abandoned at the close of the last century before Christ, images of baked clay being substituted for human sacrifices, but the spirit which informed the habit survived, and even down to modern times there were instances of men and women committing suicide for the purpose of rejoining the deceased beyond the grave. As to the nature of the tombs raised over the dead, the main facts have been stated in Chapter VI.
TEETH BLACKENING AND FACE PAINTING
The habit of blackening the teeth has long prevailed among married women in Japan, but the Yamato tombs have thus far furnished only one example of the practice, and no mention occurs in the ancient annals. Face painting, however, would seem to have been indulged in by both sexes. Several of the pottery images (haniwa) taken from the tombs indicate that red pigment was freely and invariably used for that purpose. It was applied in broad streaks or large patches, the former encircling the face or forming bands across it; the latter, covering the eyes or triangulating the cheeks. It is probable that this bizarre decoration was used only on ceremonial occasions and that it appears in a greatly accentuated form on the haniwa.
AMUSEMENTS
As to amusements in prehistoric times little information is furnished. Hunting the boar and the stag was the principal pastime, and hawking is described as having been practised in the fourth century of the Christian era. Music and dancing seem to have been in vogue from time immemorial, but there is nothing to tell what kind of musical instruments were in the hands of the early Yamato. The koto, a kind of horizontal lute, and the flute are spoken of in the Chronicles, but the date of their introduction is not indicated. Wrestling, cockfighting (with metal spurs), picnics, a kind of drafts, gambling with dice, and football are all referred to, and were probably indulged in from a very early date.
SLAVERY
The institution of slavery existed among the Yamato. It will be presently spoken of.
POSITION OF WOMEN
There is evidence to show that in the prehistoric age a high position was accorded to women and that their rights received large recognition. The facts that the first place in the Japanese pantheon was assigned to a goddess; that the throne was frequently occupied by Empresses; that females were chiefs of tribes and led armies on campaign; that jealous wives turned their backs upon faithless husbands; that mothers chose names for their children and often had complete charge of their upbringing—all these things go to show that the self-effacing rank taken by Japanese women in later ages was a radical departure from the original canon of society. It is not to be inferred, however, that fidelity to the nuptial tie imposed any check on extra-marital relations in the case of men: it had no such effect.
ENGRAVING: "IKEBANA" FLOWER ARRANGEMENT
ENGRAVING: ENTRANCE TO THE TOMB OF THE EMPEROR JIMMU IN UNEBI-YAMA
CHAPTER IX
THE PREHISTORIC SOVEREIGNS
JIMMU
IT is held by eminent Japanese historians that the Emperor Jimmu, when he set out for Yamato, did not contemplate an armed campaign but merely intended to change his capital from the extreme south to the centre of the country. This theory is based on the words of the address he made to his elder brothers and his sons when inviting them to accompany him on the expedition "Why should we not proceed to Yamato and make it the capital?"—and on the fact that, on arriving in the Kibi district, namely, the region now divided into the three provinces of Bizen, Bitchu, and Bingo, he made a stay of three years for the purpose of amassing an army and provisioning it, the perception that he would have to fight having been realized for the first time. Subsequently he encountered strongest resistance at the hands of Prince Nagasune, whose title of Hiko (Child of the Sun) showed that he belonged to the Yamato race, and who