Like all modern peoples, the Japanese of today are a mixed race. In
prehistoric times one migrant people after another overran the islands.
The ocean set a barrier to further migration. So the invaders had to
settle down, either exterminating the people already there or else
intermarrying with them.
[Illustration: JAPAN’S ISLAND HOME]
The last invasions must have occurred early in the Christian era.
Scholars are not agreed on the exact racial proportions of the groups
which mingled to form the modern Japanese people. The basic stock is
probably Mongolian, the result of migrations through Korea from the
north Asiatic continent. There is apparently a southern admixture,
coming from either southeast China or Malaysia. Many of these groups
were late invaders of the islands. They found there an Ainu people,
possibly of Caucasian racial origin. Ainu remnants still survive in
Japan, but most of them have been absorbed or exterminated in the
course of centuries of warfare.
[Illustration: EARLY INVADERS AND SETTLERS]
Three main racial elements thus entered into the making of the Japanese
people. To the Mongol strain is undoubtedly due the warlike spirit of
the Japanese, while from southeast Asia comes a mythology that has been
interwoven with Japan’s political institutions. Later, there were also
many Chinese and Korean immigrants. By the end of the seventh century,
according to one source, more than one-third of Japan’s noble families
claimed Chinese or Korean descent.
[Illustration: A Magatama, or bead ornament, common in early Japanese
tombs. Often made of jade, nephrite or chrysoprase--materials found not
in Japan but in the Ural-Baikal regions.]