To understand modern Japan, we need to study the past even more than in
the case of most Western nations. For survivals of ancient traditions
play a large part in Japan’s national life today. These beliefs and
practices can be traced back for nearly two thousand years. What were
these institutions like in their earliest form?
Historians give only a partial answer to this question. The latest
island invaders, who became the dominant Japanese, were a group of
clans or tribes. Leadership in these clans was hereditary. The clan
elder was both chieftain and high priest. He supervised or performed
sacrifices to the clan god, who was usually held to be his direct
ancestor. All clansmen were supposedly united by blood ties to the clan
elder, and thus shared in the divine descent.
“THE WAY OF THE GODS”
Societies ruled by a priest-king, usually called “theocracies,” have
existed in many parts of the world. In Japan, however, theocracy
grew all the stronger because of a mythological tradition, later
called Shinto, or “Way of the Gods,” centering about a Sun Goddess
(Amaterasu). There were many aspects to Shinto, including an early
nature worship. But its main feature came to be the story of the Sun
Goddess, whose descendants were the Japanese people. Early in their
history the rulers of Japan raised this myth to the dignity of a state
cult. The chieftain of the Yamato clan, the strongest of all, claimed
direct descent from the Sun Goddess. This claim was a very real thing
in Japan. It was taken much more literally than our vaguer Western idea
of “the divine right of kings,” which persisted until the eighteenth
century in Europe.
The clansmen were aristocrats who handed on their privileges from
father to son, and to whom war was second nature. But agriculture, in
the shape of the cultivation of rice, was already a cornerstone in
the economy of this early Japanese society. Under the clansmen were
“guilds” of farmers and artisans, who did most of the productive work.
Membership in these producing units also passed from father to son.
These serfs, as well as a smaller number of actual slaves, were made up
largely of war captives, conquered natives, or immigrants from Korea.
[Illustration: JAPAN’S EARLY SOCIETY (5-6th CENTURIES)]
The chief ideas of this primitive Shinto society are quite clear.
There was a strong emphasis on the hereditary principle. The idea of
an aristocracy of the blood was strengthened by the idea of descent
from the gods. Government was by men, not by law. The clan or group,
not the individual, was important. The mass of the people lived to
serve their rulers. We shall see how these primitive ideas--so like the
totalitarian ideas of today--have influenced Japanese history through
the centuries.