DEATH BY NEGLECT AND SACRIFICE IN JAPAN—THE NEW-BORN
TABOO—MYTH OF THE EXPOSURE OF THE CHILD OF THE
GODS—GROWTH OF THE MARRIAGE CUSTOM—THE ARRIVAL OF THE
CHINESE—MODERN CANNIBALISM—MODERN LAWS ON THE SALE OF
CHILDREN.
The first inhabitants of Japan were a numerous people named
Koropok-guru, who lived in conelike huts built over holes dug in the
earth and who were exterminated by the Ainu people. The latter were
in turn conquered by the race that we speak of today as the Japanese;
these last settlers coming to the islands of Japan from somewhere
in the north of Central Asia, while a second stream of South Asian
immigrants were drifted to Japan by the Japan current.
In the _Kojiki_, or “Records of Ancient Matters,” dictated by
Hide-no-are and completed in A.D. 711 or 712, we have a record of the
mythology, manners, language, and the traditional history of Japan;
this “history” purports to give the actual story of Japan from the year
660 B. C., when the first Emperor Jimmu, “having subdued and pacified
the savage deities and extirpated the unsubmissive people, dwelt at
the palace of Kashiwabara.” Modern Japanese scholars as well as Western
scholars are inclined to say that there is really no authentic history
before A.D. 461 but as a picture of the customs of early Japan, the
_Kojiki_ is still the only authentic document that we have.
Inazo Nitobe, in dividing the history of his country into periods,
groups the legendary age and all that went before the political reforms
of the seventh century as the first period, under the name of the
“ancient period.”
These ancient people, the mythical people of the _Kojiki_, had passed
through a genuine Bronze Age and had in general attained a high level
of barbaric skill. Of their many curious customs, both in the _Kojiki_
and in the equally important _Nihongi_ or “Chronicles of Japan,”
prominent notice is made of the “parturition house”—“one-roomed but
without windows, which a woman was supposed to build and retire into
for the purpose of being delivered unseen.” Here is evidence that the
infant was “taboo” until it had been received by the head of the house.
Even up to recent times in the island of Hachijo the custom survived
according to Ernest Satow, who visited this island in 1878.
“In Hachijo,” wrote Mr. Satow, “women, when about to become mothers,
were formerly driven out to the huts on the mountainside, and according
to the accounts of native writers, left to shift for themselves, the
result not unfrequently being the death of the new-born infant, or
if it survived the rude circumstances under which it first saw the
light, the seeds of disease were sown which clung to it throughout
its after life. The rule of non-intercourse was so strictly enforced
that the woman was not allowed to leave the hut even to visit her own
parents at the point of death, and besides the injurious effects that
this solitary confinement must have had on the wives themselves, their
prolonged absence was a serious loss to households where there were
elder children and large establishments to be superintended. The rigour
of the custom was so far relaxed in modern times that the huts were no
longer built on the hills, but were constructed inside the homestead.
It was a subject of wonder to people from other parts of Japan that the
senseless practice should still be kept up, and its abolition was often
recommended, but the administration of the Shoguns was not animated by
a reforming spirit, and it remained for the government of the Mikado
to exhort the islanders to abandon this and the previously mentioned
custom. They are therefore no longer sanctioned by official authority
and the force of social opinion against them is increasing, so that
before long these relics of ancient ceremonial religion will in all
probability have disappeared from the group of islands.”
As with most early histories there is little description of custom or
manners in either the _Kojiki_ or the _Nihongi_, but we gather what the
general attitude was toward children from the fact that the conception
of marriage was probably limited to cohabitation, this condition
lasting until well on into the Middle Ages,[100] cohabitation being
often secret at first, but afterward acknowledged. When the latter
conditions had come to prevail, the young man, instead of going to his
mistress under the cover of the night, brought her back publicly to his
parents’ home, and that was the beginning of his own home.
Little is there in the _Kojiki_ about the care of children but the
harshness toward women about to have children, as shown in the frequent
reference to the parturition houses, shows that unless they were
children of royalty they were left to whatever care their mothers might
be able to bestow on them.
In the account of the making of Japan by the two Heavenly Deities,
known as the Izani-gi-no-kami and Izana-mi-no-kami, the Man Who Invites
and the Female Who Invites, it is stated that their first child was not
retained.
“This child,” says the legend,[101] after retailing the events that led
up to its birth, “they placed in a boat of reeds and let it float away.
Next they gave birth to the island of Aha. This is not reckoned among
their children.”
Among the gods, therefore, children were rejected or accepted without
ceremony, and with such an attitude of rejection or acceptance
depicted as the normal condition among the deities, it may easily be
imagined what was the attitude of the ordinary beings who modelled
their conduct on that of the deities.
It is told of the first Emperor Jimmu, that, meeting a group of
seven maidens, he invited one of them to become a wife of his, and
on her acceptance the sovereign passed the night at her house. This
constituted the only marriage ceremony that the times knew. As far as
the woman was concerned, all that the new condition meant was that she
was liable to receive a visit at any time from her new lord and master,
but on his side there was no obligation, no duty of fidelity, and he
was free to form as many similar unions as fancy dictated.
The children were brought up by the mother and one household of a
man might be in absolute ignorance of another.[102] Mistress, wife,
and concubine were on the same footing and could be discarded at
any moment. When the Deity of Eight Thousand Spears, attired in his
favourite courting costume, is about to go forth and search for a
“better wife” he boldly announces that:
When I take and attire myself so
Carefully in my august garments green
As the kingfisher—
It is with the intention of finding another mate.
To this the Chief Empress, Her Augustness the Forward Princess, to whom
the frank statement is made, plaintively replies:
“Thou ... indeed, being a man, probably hast on the various
island-headlands that thou seest and on every beach-headland that thou
lookest on, a wife like the young herbs. But I, alas! being a woman
have no man except thee; I have no spouse except thee!”[103]
What became of the children in the cases of conjugal separation does
not appear, a statement that is made by no less a Japanese authority
than Chamberlain.[104] In only one instance is there any reference made
to the fate of a child that had been deserted, but this is an unusual
case, where the father had violated the rules of the parturition house,
with the result that the mother disappears, leaving the father to take
care of the child. He pledged himself to look after it until the day of
his death but the sister of the child’s mother was first invoked to act
as nurse.
The result of this system of family life was that where the children
of different mothers but of the same father discovered one another’s
presence there were feuds and much fighting, especially as it was the
children of the latest affection who were generally the recipients of
his favour to the chagrin and anger of the less favoured children and
families. Marriages between half-brothers and halfsisters were another
result of the system, the only restriction on marriages of any kind
being that children of the same mother should not marry. Sons of the
same father were thus incited to be enemies rather than brothers, in
the accepted sense, and the annals of the civil wars are replete with
tales of treachery and ambition and show almost an entire absence of
natural affection. The fact that the children had no claim on the love
and the protection of the father and that their mother was condemned
under the ancient system to the function of a mere animal, is cited by
Brinkley as the reason for this cruelty and treachery.[105]
This was the position of the child in the society that is depicted in
the _Kojiki_ and the _Nihongi_, although the latter, written about
forty years after the _Kojiki_ (A.D. 720), and under the influence of
the Chinese, is more apt to depict the conditions that sprang up with
the spreading Chinese culture.
The fourth century brought to Japan a knowledge of Chinese classics,
and Chinese morals, and in 552 A.D., there came a still greater change
when the Buddhistic religion was introduced through a copy of the
scripture and an image of Buddha being sent to the Yamato Court by the
government of one of the Korean kingdoms. Unsuccessful preachments
there had been by unofficial missionaries before this, but the arrival
of the Korean ambassador served to bring to the attention of the
government the new religion in a manner calculated to arouse interest
in its doctrines.
Whatever may be the defects of Shintoism, human sacrifice never seems
really to have been part of its practice,[106] and to this fact,
with the increasing regard for life that came with civilization, is
undoubtedly due the little emphasis given to infanticide among the
Japanese. Another influence, undoubtedly, and this is said to be the
“best point of Shinto,”[107] is that the people were taught that they
themselves were sons and daughters of the gods, a belief apt to save
the killing of surplus members of society in a time of economic stress.
According to the _Nihongi_, human sacrifice was put an end to in Japan
in the year A.D. 3:
“Tenth month, fifth day: Yamato-hiko, the Mikado’s younger brother by
the mother’s side, died.
“Eleventh month, second day: Yamato-hiko was buried at Tsukizaka in
Musa. Thereupon his personal attendants were assembled, and were all
buried alive upright in the precinct of the tomb. For several days they
died not, but wept and wailed day and night. At last they died and
rotted. Dogs and crows gathered and ate them.
“The Emperor, hearing the sound of their weeping and wailing, was
grieved at heart, and commanded his high officers, saying:
“‘It is a very painful thing to force these whom one has loved in life
to follow him in death. Though it be an ancient custom, why follow it
if it is bad? From this time forward, take counsel so as to put a stop
to the following of the dead.’
“A.D. 3, seventh month, sixth day: The Empress Hibasuhime no Mikoto
died. Sometime before the burial the Emperor commanded his ministers,
saying:
“‘We have already recognized that the practice of following the dead is
not good. What should now be done in performing this burial?’
“Thereupon Nomi no Sukune came forward and said:
“‘It is not good to bury living men upright at the tumulus of a prince.
How can such a practice be handed down to posterity? I beg leave to
propose an expedient which I will submit to your Majesty.’
“So he sent messengers to summon up from the land of Idzumo a hundred
men of the clay-workers Be. He himself directed the men of the
clay-workers Be to take clay and form therewith shapes of men, horses,
and various objects, which he presented to the Emperor, saying:
“‘Henceforward, let it be the law for future ages to substitute things
of clay for living men, and to set them up at tumuli.’
“Then the Emperor was greatly rejoiced, and commended Nomi no Sukune,
saying:
“‘Thy expedient hath greatly pleased our heart.’
“So the things of clay were first set up at the tomb of Hibasuhime no
Mikoto. And a name was given to those clay objects. They were called
_hani-wa_ or ‘clay rings.’
“Then a decree was issued, saying:
“‘Henceforth these clay figures must be set up at tumuli; let no men be
harmed.’
“The Emperor bountifully rewarded Nomi no Sukune for this service, and
also appointed him to the official charge of the clay-workers Be. His
original title was therefore changed, and he was called Hashi no Omi.
This was how it came to pass that the Hashi no Muraji superintended the
burials of Emperors.”[108]
The date ascribed to this incident cannot be depended on. “Chinese
accounts speak of the custom of human sacrifices at the burial of a
sovereign as in full force in Japan so late as A.D. 247,” says Aston.
Probably all the events of this part of Japanese history are very much
antedated. But of the substantial accuracy of the narrative there can
be no doubt. Some of these clay figures (known as _tsuchi-ningio_) are
still in existence, and may be seen in the British Museum, where they
constitute the chief treasure of the Gowland collection. The Uyeno
Museum in Tokio also possessed specimens, both of men and horses. None,
however, remain _in situ_ at the tombs. The _hani-wa_ (clay-rings),
cylinders which may now be seen embedded in the earth round all the
principal _misasagi_, are so numerous that they can hardly have all
been surmounted by figures. But they are of the same workmanship and of
the same date, and no doubt some of them are the pedestals of images,
the above-ground part of which has been destroyed by the weather or by
accident.
[Illustration: TSUCHI-NINGIO. CLAY FIGURE SUBSTITUTED FOR HUMAN
SACRIFICE—JAPAN
(REPRODUCED FROM “TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE JAPAN SOCIETY,”
VOLUME 1)]
[Illustration: CROCK CONTAINING REMAINS OF SACRIFICED CHILD. UNEARTHED
AT TELL TA’ANNEK
(REPRODUCED FROM “LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT”)]
“A similar substitution of straw or wooden images for living men took
place in China in ancient times, though by a curious inversion of
ideas, the former practice is described as leading to the latter.”[109]
While neither the lion or the tiger ever troubled Japan and her most
carnivorous and destructive animals have been wolves, tradition has
ascribed the sacrifice of human beings in Japan to the desire to
placate the god of wild animals. The victim was always a girl, and from
the earliest ages the manner of selecting her was to affix to the roof
of a house a bow and arrow. When the householder arose in the morning
and discovered what was accepted as a divine intimation, the eldest
daughter of the family was buried alive, it being supposed that her
flesh served as a meal for the deity. Later the priests of Buddha found
a more profitable method of disposing of these girls by selling them as
slaves; thereby following out the fundamental tenet of the Buddhistic
religion, which is the sanctity of human life, and at the same time
increasing their wealth. Some writers refer to this practice as being
a sacrifice to an animal in the service of Shakamuni, which would have
made it a Buddhistic rite, but the idea is scoffed at by Brinkley.[110]
Even up to recent times it is said the habit of sacrificing human
beings in order to make the foundation of any great work more stable
was common. The corpses of two human beings were said to be under the
scarps “of the futile forts hurriedly erected for defence of Yedo
[Tokio] in the interval between Commodore Perry’s first and second
coming.”[111]
In the Tokugawa period, extending from about 1615 to 1860, two and
a half centuries, Japan was a hermit nation distinguished for its
peaceful character. Yet its population for one hundred years remained
almost stationary. By some authorities, this has been explained not
only on the ground of many famines and devastating diseases but the
common practice of abortion and the fact that the Samurai considered it
disgraceful to marry until they were thirty, and equally disgraceful to
raise a family of more than three children.
“Among the lower classes it was not common to rear all the children
born, especially if girls came too frequently.” Also, “While there
was hardly in the whole country a hospital in our sense of the
term, there were in the large cities physicians famous for their
skill in preventing the birth of living children. They kept private
establishments to accommodate calculating patrons. All authorities
agreed that sexual morality in the large cities was at a very low ebb
among all classes, while luxury and effeminacy prevailed among people
high in birth and wealth.”[112]
As a picture of what the people were driven to and a terrible example
of what attitude famine may lead parents to take toward their children,
there is no more important document than the statement of Shirakawa
Rakuo, distinguished as the Minister of Finance of the Eleventh Shogun,
Iyenari. The trace of cannibalism in semi-civilized peoples is easier
to understand after the fearful famine in the third year of Temmei
(1783).
“A trustworthy man,” says Rakuo,[113] “who had travelled in this
district [northern part of country], told me that in a village which
had previously contained 800 houses there were only thirty left, the
inhabitants of the rest all having died. Having entered a village in
which the houses seemed to be larger and more numerous than usual, he
proposed to rest there for the night. He soon discovered, however, that
not a single house was inhabited, but in all the houses he saw bones
and skulls scattered about the floor. As he went on he saw innumerable
bones and skulls by the roadside. He met a man leading a pack-horse on
the road, who said that he could survive without eating the flesh of
human beings as he was supported by a rich uncle. In some places even
those who abandoned themselves to eating human flesh could not find
food enough to live. Great numbers starved to death. The price paid for
a dog was 500 sen, sometimes even as high as 800 sen, a rat 50 sen. A
rare work of art found no purchasers and could not be exchanged for a
_go_ of rice. If a person died he was of course eaten by the survivors.
Those who died of starvation, however, could not be eaten, because
their flesh decayed so soon. Some people, therefore, killed those who
were certain to starve and put the flesh into brine so as to keep it
for a long time. Among other people there was a farmer who went to his
neighbour and said, ‘My wife and one of my sons have already died from
want of food. My remaining son is certain to die within a few days,
so I wish to kill him while his flesh is still eatable, but being his
father, I do not dare to raise the sword against him, so I beg you to
kill the boy for me.’ The neighbour agreed to do this, but stipulated
that he should get a part of the flesh as a reward for his service.
This was agreed to and the neighbour at once killed the boy. As soon as
the deed was done, the farmer, who stood by, struck his neighbour with
a sword and killed him, saying that he ‘was very glad to avenge his
son and at the same time have double the quantity of food.’”
Up to the close of the seventeenth century, feudal legislation was
very harsh, one of the worst laws of ancient times in force until
that time being that by which children were punished for the crime
of their parents.[114] If a man or a woman had been sentenced to be
crucified or burnt and had male children above fifteen years of age,
those children were similarly executed, and if they were under that age
they were given over to a relative to be reared until they reached the
age of fifteen, when they were banished. When the criminal parent was
condemned to the ordinary hanging or beheading it was still within the
discretion of the judge to condemn the male children to be executed or
exiled. The female children, while exempt from the capital punishment,
were liable to be sold as slaves.
In 1721, during the reign of the enlightened Yoshimune, who was
Shogun from 1716 to 1746, there were many reforms, and it was then
enacted that for all crimes, even those punishable with crucifixion
and exposure of the head, only the criminal himself must be punished.
In the case of the most heinous of all crimes, according to Japanese
standards, parricide or the murder of a teacher, a special tribunal was
declared to be the only place where it could be decided whether the
children and grandchildren should be implicated. Interesting too is
the fact that this leniency extended to the farmers and merchants only,
the Samurai not being included, it being assumed that the crime of a
person of nobility and education was a more serious matter than a crime
by a person less fortunate—a theory of justice that has never taken
root in the minds of the Occidentals except among romancers.
From the time, early in the seventeenth century, when the governing
power of Japan fell into the hands of the Buddhist Tokugawa family,
through Iyeyasu, the head of the house, there was an endeavour to check
the sale of children. No less than eight enactments were issued between
1624 and 1734 declaring the sale of human beings punishable by death.
Progress naturally was slow when the conditions were so flagrant that
there were open offices where the sales and purchase of children were
effected.[115] In 1649 an absurd compromise was attempted when a law
was passed declaring it was lawful to sell a child, providing that the
consent of the child was obtained. There was an attempt to regulate,
without abolishing, slavery in the law of 1655, which declared that
in a dispute between an employer and the employed, the employer,
if found to be in the wrong, might be imprisoned or meted out any
punishment that the employed might suggest. It is safe to add that
the administrative criminal machinery was not in the hands of the
proletariat, nor was there any suffrage that threatened to put the
employed in the position of judge.
It was during this period that the law was passed allowing the parent
to have his son or daughter imprisoned, a just cause being assumed. A
father had the right to punish his son, but the son had the right to
appeal to a magistrate for a review of the sentence; but “costs” of
the appeal were dangerous inasmuch as if the son lost he had to suffer
whatever penalty his father might dole out to him. The Occidental mind
will not appreciate so readily the attempts of the Tokugawas, beginning
1627, to regulate the social evil, one of their early laws depriving
employers of all authority “to retain the services of a female for
immoral purposes outside the appointed quarter.”
Modern writers on Japan lay stress on the affection of the Japanese
for their children, and yet “during the famine of 1905 many girls
who had been sold by the suffering parents were redeemed by the
Christians.”[116] This sacrifice of the children to the welfare of the
parents is traceable to the influence of Confucius. To the same source
may be ascribed the fact that, though in ancient times the female sex
was prominent in Japan, after the introduction of Confucianism the
Samurai considered it beneath him to even converse with his wife and
children.[117] “Neither God nor the ladies inspired any enthusiasm in
the Samurai’s heart,” says Professor Chamberlain. For is it not written
by the great moralist Karbara Ekken in the _Owna Dargaku_, “It was the
custom of the ancients, on the birth of a female child, to let it lie
on the floor for the space of three days. Even in this may be seen the
likening of the man to heaven and of the woman to earth.”[118]
Only a few years ago a child, both of whose parents had died of
cholera, was on the point of being buried alive by neighbours when it
was rescued.[119] “Certain parts of Japan have been notorious from of
old for this practice,” says Gulick. “In Toas the evil was so rampant
that a society for its prevention has been in existence many years. It
helps support children of poor parents who might be tempted to dispose
of them criminally.”
On the other hand, this word from Professor Goodrich, who as a member
of the faculty of the Imperial College pictures a nation far from
indifferent to the welfare of the child:
“Ever since the beginning of that indefinite period which we call
‘modern times’ the birth of a child has always been an occasion for
rejoicing. To be sure, in Japan that joy was very much greater when
it was a boy baby; yet the Japanese have never displayed such intense
dislike to girl babies as have the Chinese. One great reason for this
was that the population of Japan was not so dense as it is in China.
It was easier to provide for children, and therefore there was no
incentive to put girl babies out of the way. I am sorry to say that
very lately, since the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), when the Japanese
people are almost crushed by the weight of taxes to provide money with
which to pay war expenses and to keep up army and navy, the number of
cases of female infanticide is increasing alarmingly.”[120]