ORIGIN OF THE NATION: GEOGRAPHICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RELICS
JAPAN'S CONNEXION WITH THE ASIATIC CONTINENT
THE group of islands forming Japan may be said to have routes of
communication with the continent of Asia at six places: two in the
north; two in the southwest, and two in the south. The principal
connexion in the north is across the narrow strait of Soya from the
northwest point of Yezo to Saghalien and thence to the Amur region of
Manchuria. The secondary connexion is from the north-east point of
Yezo via the long chain of the Kuriles to Kamchatka. The first of the
southwestern routes is from the northwest of Kyushu via the islands
of Iki and Tsushima to the southeast of Korea; and the second is from
the south of the Izumo promontory in Japan, by the aid of the current
which sets up the two southern routes. One of these is from the
southwest of Kyushu via the Goto Islands to southeastern China; the
other is from the south of Kyushu via the Ryukyu Islands, Formosa,
and the Philippines to Malaysia and Polynesia. It has also been
proved geologically* that the islands now forming Japan must at one
time have been a part of the Asiatic continent. Evidently these
various avenues may have given access to immigrants from Siberia,
from China, from Malaysia, and from Polynesia.
*There have been found in the gravel Tertiary mammals including
elephas primigenius, elephas Namadicus, stegodon Clifti, and unnamed
varieties of bear, deer, bison, ox, horse, rhinoceros, and whale.
(Outlines of the Geology of Japan; Imperial Geological Survey).
CULTURE
Archaeological research indicates the existence of two distinct
cultures in Japan together with traces of a third. One of these
cultures has left its relics chiefly in shell-heaps or embedded in
the soil, while the remains of another are found mainly in sepulchral
chambers or in caves. The relics themselves are palpably distinct
except when they show transitional approach to each other.
The older culture is attested by more than four thousand residential
sites and shell-heaps. Its most distinctive features are the absence
of all metallic objects and the presence of pottery not turned on the
wheel. Polished, finely chipped, and roughly hewn implements and
weapons of stone are found, as are implements of bone and horn.
It was, in short, a neolithic culture. The vestiges of the other
culture do not include weapons of stone. There are imitations of
sheath-knives, swords, and arrow-heads, and there are some models of
stone articles. But the alien features are iron weapons and hard
pottery always moulded on the wheel. Copper is present mainly in
connexion with the work of the goldsmith and the silversmith, and
arrow-heads, jingle-bells, mirrors, etc., are also present. The
former culture is identified as that of the aboriginal inhabitants,
the Yemishi; the latter belongs to the Yamato race, or Japanese
proper. Finally, "there are indications that a bronze culture
intervened in the south between the stone and the iron phases."*
*Munro's Prehistoric Japan.
PRIMITIVE CULTURE
The neolithic sites occur much more frequently in the northern than
in the southern half of Japan. They are, indeed, six times as
numerous on the north as on the south of a line drawn across the main
island from the coast of Ise through Orai. The neighbourhood of the
sea, at heights of from thirty to three hundred feet, and the
alluvial plains are their favourite positions. So far as the
technical skill shown by the relics--especially the pottery--is
concerned, it grows higher with the latitude. The inference is that
the settlements of the aborigines in the south were made at an
earlier period than those in the north; which may be interpreted to
mean that whereas the stone-using inhabitants were driven back in the
south at an early date, they held their ground in the north to a
comparatively modern era.
That is precisely what Japanese history indicates. Jimmu's conquests,
which took place several centuries before the Christian era, carried
him as far as the Ise-Omi line, but Yamato-dake's expedition against
the Yemishi north of that line was not planned until the second
century after Christ. Apart from the rough evidence furnished by the
quality of the relics, calculations have been made of the age of an
important shell-heap by assuming that it originally stood at the
seaside, and by estimating the number of years required to separate
it by the present interval from the coast at a fixed annual rate of
silting. The result is from five thousand to ten thousand years. A
book (the Hitachi Fudoki), published in A.D. 715, speaks of these
kaizuka (shell-heaps) as existing already at that remote period, and
attributes their formation to a giant living on a hill who stretched
out his hand to pick up shell-fish. This myth remained current until
the eighteenth century, and stone axes exhumed from the heaps were
called thunder-axes (rai-fu) just as similar relics in Europe were
called elf-bolts or thunder-stones.
There is great diversity of size among the shell-heaps, some being of
insignificant dimensions and others extending to five hundred square
yards. They are most numerous in the eight provinces forming the
Kwanto. In fact, in these ancient times, the Yamato race and the
aborigines had their headquarters in the same localities,
respectively, as the Imperial and Feudal governments had in mediaeval
and modern times. But there are no distinct traces of palaeolithic
culture; the neolithic alone can be said to be represented. Its
relics are numerous--axes, knives, arrow-heads, arrow-necks,
bow-tips, spear-heads, batons, swords, maces, sling-stones, needles,
drill-bows, drill and spindle weights, mortars and pestles, paddles,
boats, sinkers, fishing-hooks, gaffs, harpoons, mallets, chisels,
scrapers, hoes, sickles, whetstones, hammers, and drills.
It must be premised that though so many kinds of implements are here
enumerated, the nomenclature cannot be accepted as universally
accurate. The so-called "hoe," for example, is an object of disputed
identity, especially as agriculture has not been proved to have been
practised among the primitive people of Japan, nor have any traces of
grain been found in the neolithic sites. On the other hand, the
modern Ainu, who are believed to represent the ancient population,
include in their religious observances the worship of the first cakes
made from the season's millet, and unless that rite be supposed to
have been borrowed from the Yamato, it goes to indicate agricultural
pursuits.
There is, indeed, one great obstacle to any confident differentiation
of the customs and creeds prevalent in Japan. That obstacle consists
in the great length of the period covered by the annals. It may
reasonably be assumed that the neolithic aborigines were in more or
less intimate contact with the invading Yamato for something like
twenty-five centuries, an interval quite sufficient to have produced
many interactions and to have given birth to many new traditions. An
illustration is furnished by the mental attitude of the uneducated
classes in Japan towards the neolithic implements. So completely has
all memory of the human uses of these implements faded, that they are
regarded as relics of supernatural beings and called by such names as
raifu (thunder-axe), raitsui (thunder-club), kitsune no kuwa
(fox-hoe), raiko (thunder-pestle), and tengu no meshigai (rice-spoon
of the goblins). Many of the neolithic relics show that the people
who used them had reached a tolerably high level of civilization.
This is specially seen in the matter of ceramics. It is true that the
wheel was not employed, and that the firing was imperfect, but the
variety of vessels was considerable,* and the shapes and decorations
were often very praiseworthy. Thus, among the braziers are found
shapes obviously the originals of the Japanese choji-buro
(clove-censer) and the graceful rice-bowl, while community of
conception with Chinese potters would seem to be suggested by some of
the forms of these ancient vases. Particularly interesting are
earthenware images obtained from these neolithic sites. Many of them
have been conventionalized into mere anthropomorphs and are rudely
moulded. But they afford valuable indications of the clothing and
personal adornments of the aborigines.
*Cooking-pots and pans, jars and vases, bowls and dishes, cups,
bottles, nipple pots, lamps, braziers, ewers, strainers, spindles or
drill weights, stamps, ornaments, images, and plaques (Munro's
Prehistoric Japan).
What end these effigies were intended to serve remains an unsettled
question. Some suggest that they were used as substitutes for human
sacrifices, and that they point to a time when wives and slaves were
required to follow their husbands and masters to the grave. They may
also have been suggested by the example of the Yamato, who, at a very
remote time, began to substitute clay images for human followers of
the dead; or they may have been designed to serve as mere mementoes.
This last theory derives some force from the fact that the images are
found, not in graves or tombs, but at residential sites. No data have
been obtained, however, for identifying burying-places: sepulture may
have been carried out in the house of the deceased. Whichever
explanation be correct, the fact confronts us that these clay
effigies have no place in the cult of the modern Ainu. History
teaches, however, that degeneration may become so complete as to
deprive a nation of all traces of its original civilization. Such
seems to have been the case with the Ainu.
INTERMEDIATE CULTURE
Traces of a culture occupying a place intermediate between the
primitive culture and that of the Yamato are not conclusive. They are
seen in pottery which, like the ware of the neolithic sites, is not
turned on the wheel, and, like the Yamato ware, is decorated in a
very subdued and sober fashion. It is found from end to end of the
main island and even in Yezo, and in pits, shell-heaps, and
independent sites as well as in tombs, burial caves, and cairns of
the Yamato. Thus, there does not seem to be sufficient warrant for
associating it with a special race. It was possibly supplied to order
of the Yamato by the aboriginal craftsmen, who naturally sought to
copy the salient features of the conquering immigrants' ware.
BRONZE VESTIGES
There are also some bronze vestiges to which considerable interest
attaches, for evidently people using bronze weapons could not have
stood against men carrying iron arms, and therefore the people to
whom the bronze implements belonged must have obtained a footing in
Japan prior to the Yamato, unless they came at the latter's
invitation or as their allies. Moreover, these bronze relics--with
the exception of arrow-heads--though found in the soil of western and
southern Japan, do not occur in the Yamato sepulchres, which feature
constitutes another means of differentiation. Daggers, swords,
halberds, and possibly spear-heads constitute the hand-weapons. The
daggers have a certain resemblance to the Malay kris, and the swords
and halberds are generally leaf-shaped. But some features, as
overshort tangs and unpierced loops, suggest that they were
manufactured, not for service in battle but for ceremonial purposes,
being thus mere survivals from an era when their originals were in
actual use, and possibly those originals may have been of iron. Some
straight-edged specimens have been classed as spear-heads, but they
closely resemble certain ancient bronze swords of China. As for
bronze arrow-heads, they occur alike in Yamato sepulchres and in the
soil, so that no special inference is warranted in their case. The
bronze hand-weapons have been found in twelve provinces of southern
and western Japan: namely, five provinces of northwest Kyushu; three
on the Inland Sea; one facing Korea and China, and the rest on the
islands of Iki and Tsushima.
These localities and the fact that similar swords have been met with
in Shantung, suggest that the bronze culture came from central and
eastern Asia, which hypothesis receives confirmation from the
complete absence of bronze vestiges in the southern provinces of
Kyushu, namely, Osumi and Satsuma. Bronze bells, of which there are
many, belong to a separate page of archaeology. Though they have been
found in no less than twenty-four provinces, there is no instance of
their presence in the same sites with hand-weapons of bronze. In
Kyushu, Higo is the only province where they have been seen, whereas
in the main island they extend as far east as Totomi, and are
conspicuously numerous in that province and its neighbour, Mikawa,
while in Omi they are most abundant of all. They vary in height from
about one foot four inches to four and a half feet, and are of highly
specialized shape, the only cognate type being bells used in China
during the Chou dynasty (1122-225 B.C.) for the purpose of giving
military signals. A Chinese origin is still more clearly indicated by
the decorative designs, which show a combination of the circle, the
triangle, and the spiral, obviously identical with the decorative
motive* on Chinese drums of the Han dynasty (202 B.C.-A.D. 220). The
circle and the triangle occur also in the sepulchral pottery of the
Yamato sites, and considering the fact together with the abundance of
the bells in districts where the Yamato were most strongly
established, there seems to be warrant for attributing these curious
relics to the Yamato culture.
*This resemblance has been pointed out by a Japanese archaeologist,
Mr. Teraishi. Dr. Munro states that the same elements are combined in
an Egyptian decorative design.
To this inference it has been objected that no bells have been found
in the tombs of the Yamato. The same is true, however, of several
other objects known to have belonged to that people. If, then, the
bells be classed as adjuncts of the Yamato culture, shall we be
justified in assigning the bronze weapon to a different race? On the
whole, the most reasonable conclusion seems to be that all the bronze
relics, weapons, and bells alike, are "vestiges of the Yamato
procession at a time anterior to the formation of the great dolmens
and other tombs" [Munro]. A corollary would be that the Yamato
migrated from China in the days of the Chou dynasty (1122-225 B.C.),
and that, having landed in the province of Higo, they conquered the
greater part of Tsukushi (Kyushu), and subsequently passed up the
Inland Sea to Yamato; which hypothesis would invest with some
accuracy the date assigned by the Chronicles to Jimmu's expedition
and would constitute a general confirmation of the Japanese account
of his line of advance.
YAMATO CULTURE
The ancient Yamato are known chiefly through the medium of relics
found in their sepulchres. Residential sites exist in comparatively
small numbers, so far as research ha hitherto shown, and such sites
yield nothing except more or less scattered potsherds and low walls
enclosing spaces of considerable area. Occasionally Yamato pottery
and other relics are discovered in pits, and these evidences,
combined with historical references, go to show that the Yamato
themselves sometimes used pit-dwellings.
The tombs yield much more suggestive relics of metal, stone, and
pottery. Some four thousand of such sepulchres have been officially
catalogued, but it is believed that fully ten times that number
exist. The most characteristic is a tomb of larger dimensions
enclosing a dolmen which contains a coffin hollowed out from the
trunk of a tree, or a sarcophagus of stone,* the latter being much
more commonly found, as might be expected from its greater
durability. Burial-jars were occasionally used, as were also
sarcophagi of clay or terracotta,** the latter chiefly in the
provinces of Bizen and Mimasaka, probably because suitable materials
existed there in special abundance. Moreover, not a few tombs
belonged to the category of cists; that is to say, excavations in
rock, with a single-slabbed or many-slabbed cover; or receptacles
formed with stone clubs, cobbles, or boulders.
*The stone sarcophagus was of considerable size and various shapes,
forming an oblong box with a lid of a boatlike form.
**The terracotta sarcophagi were generally parallel, oblong or
elongated oval in shape, with an arched or angular covering and
several feet. One has been found with doors moving on hinges.
There is great difficulty in arriving at any confident estimate of
age amid such variety. Dolmens of a most primitive kind "exist side
by side with stone chambers of highly finished masonry in
circumstances which suggest contemporaneous construction" so that
"the type evidently furnishes little or no criterion of age," and,
moreover, local facilities must have largely influenced the method of
building. The dolmen is regarded by archaeologists as the most
characteristic feature of the Yamato tombs. It was a chamber formed
by setting up large slabs of stone, inclined slightly towards each
other, which served as supports for another slab forming the roof.
Seen in plan, the dolmens presented many shapes: a simple chamber or
gallery; a chamber with a gallery, or a series of chambers with a
gallery. Above the dolmen a mound was built, sometimes of huge
dimensions (as, for example, the misasagi* of the Emperor Tenchi--d.
A.D. 671--which with its embankments, measured 5040 feet square), and
within the dolmen were deposited many articles dedicated to the
service of the deceased. Further, around the covering-mound there are
generally found, embedded in the earth, terracotta cylinders
(haniwa), sometimes surmounted with figures or heads of persons or
animals.
*By this name all the Imperial tombs were called.
According to the Chronicles, incidents so shocking occurred in
connexion with the sacrifice of the personal attendants* of Prince
Yamato at his burial (A.D. 2) that the custom of making such
sacrifices was thenceforth abandoned, clay images being substituted
for human beings. The Records speak of a "hedge of men set up round a
tumulus," and it would therefore seem that these terracotta figures
usually found encircling the principal misasagi, represented that
hedge and served originally as pedestals for images. Within the
dolmen, also, clay effigies are often found, which appear to have
been substitutes for retainers of high rank. Had the ancient custom
been effectually abolished in the year A.D. 3, when the Emperor
Suinin is recorded to have issued orders in that sense, a simple and
conclusive means would be at hand for fixing the approximate date of
a dolmen, since all tombs containing clay effigies or encircled by
terracotta haniwa would necessarily be subsequent to that date, and
all tombs containing skeletons other than the occupants of the
sarcophagi would be referable to an earlier era. But although
compulsory sacrifices appear to have ceased from about the first
century of the Christian era, it is certain that voluntary sacrifices
continued through many subsequent ages. This clue is therefore
illusory. Neither does the custom itself serve to connect the Yamato
with any special race, for it is a wide-spread rite of animistic
religion, and it was practised from time immemorial by the Chinese,
the Manchu Tatars, and many other nations of northeastern Asia.
*They are said to have been buried upright in the precincts of the
misasagi. "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." (Chronicles. Aston's translation.)
The substitution of images for living beings, however, appears to
have been a direct outcome of contact with China, for the device was
known there as early as the seventh century before Christ. It would
seem, too, from the researches of a learned Japanese archaeologist
(Professor Miyake), that the resemblance between Japanese and Chinese
burial customs was not limited to this substitution. The dolmen also
existed in China in very early times, but had been replaced by a
chamber of finished masonry not later than the ninth century B.C. In
the Korean peninsula the dolmen with a megalithic roof is not
uncommon, and the sepulchral pottery bears a close resemblance to
that of the Yamato tombs. It was at one time supposed that the highly
specialized form of dolmen found in Japan had no counterpart anywhere
on the continent of Asia, but that supposition has proved erroneous.
The contents of the sepulchres, however, are more distinctive. They
consist of "noble weapons and armour, splendid horse-trappings,
vessels for food and drink, and various objects de luxe," though
articles of wood and textile fabrics have naturally perished. Iron
swords are the commonest relics. They are found in all tombs of all
ages, and they bear emphatic testimony to the warlike habits of the
Yamato, as well as to their belief that in the existence beyond the
grave weapons were not less essential than in life. Arrow-heads are
also frequently found and spear-heads sometimes.* The swords are all
of iron. There is no positive evidence showing that bronze swords
were in use, though grounds exist for supposing, as has been already
noted, that they were employed at a period not much anterior to the
commencement of dolmen building, which seems to have been about the
sixth or seventh century before Christ. The iron swords themselves
appear to attest this, for although the great majority are
single-edged and of a shape essentially suited to iron, about ten per
cent, are double-edged with a central ridge distinctly reminiscent of
casting in fact, a hammered-iron survival of a bronze leaf-shaped
weapon.** Occasionally these swords have, at the end of the tang, a
disc with a perforated design of two dragons holding a ball, a
decorative motive which already betrays Chinese origin. Other swords
have pommels surmounted by a bulb set at an angle to the tang,*** and
have been suspected to be Turanian origin.
*The most comprehensive list of these objects is that given in
Munro's Prehistoric Japan: "Objects of iron--(1), Swords and daggers;
(2), Hilt-guards and pommels; (3), Arrow-heads; (4), Spear-heads and
halberd-heads; (5) Armour and helmets; (6), Stirrups and bridle-bits;
(7), Ornamental trappings for horses; (8), Axes, hoes, or chisels;
(9), Hoes or spades; (10), Chains; (11), Rings; (12), Buckles; (13),
Smith's tongs or pincers; (14), Nails; (15), Caskets, handles,
hinges, and other fittings. Objects of copper and bronze--(1),
Arrow-heads; (2), Spear-heads; (3), Hilt-guards and pommels; (4),
Scabbard-covers and pieces of sheet-copper for ornamental uses; (5),
Helmets; (6), Arm-and-leg guards; (7), Shoes; (8), Horse-trappings;
(9), Belts; (10), Mirrors; (11), Bracelets and rings; (12), Various
fittings. Silver and gold were employed chiefly in plating, but fine
chains and pendants as well as rings of pure gold and silver have
been met with.
"The stone objects may be divided into two classes, viz:
"A. Articles of use or ornaments--(1), Head-rest; (2), Mortar and
pestle; (3), Caskets and vessels; (4), Cups and other vessels; (5),
Bracelets; (6), Magatama; (7), Other ornaments; (8), Plumb-line
pendant; (9), Spindle-weight; (10), Objects of unascertained
function.
"B. Sepulchral substitutes--(1), Swords and daggers; (2),
Sheath-knife; (3), Arrow-head; (4), Spear-head; (5), Shield; (6);
Armour; (7), Wooden dogs; (8), Mirror; (9), Comb; (10), Magatama;
(11), Cooking-knife; (12), Sickle or scythe-blade; (13), Hoe or
chisel; (14), Head of chisel or spear; (15), Bowl; (16), Table; (17),
Sword-pommel; (18), Nondescript objects." The above list does not
include pottery.
**The leaf-shaped bronze sword is found over all Europe from the
Mediterranean to Lapland, but generally without a central ridge.
***Mr. Takahashi, a Japanese archaeologist, suggests that these
weapons were the so called "mallet-headed swords" said to have been
used by Keiko's soldiers (A.D. 82) against the Tsuchi-gumo. The name,
kabutsuchi, supports this theory, kabu being the term for "turnip,"
which is also found in kabuya, a humming arrow having a turnip-shaped
head perforated with holes.
Yet another form--found mostly in the Kwanto provinces and to the
north of them, from which fact its comparatively recent use may be
inferred--was known in western Asia and especially in Persia, whence
it is supposed to have been exported to the Orient in connexion with
the flourishing trade carried on between China and Persia from the
seventh to the tenth century. That a similar type is not known to
exist in China proves nothing conclusive, for China's attitude
towards foreign innovations was always more conservative than
Japan's. Scabbards, having been mostly of wood, have not survived,
but occasionally one is found having a sheeting of copper thickly
plated with gold. Arrow-heads are very numerous. Those of bronze
have, for the most part, the leaf shape of the bronze sword, but
those of iron show many forms, the most remarkable being the
chisel-headed, a type used in Persia.
Spear-heads are not specially suggestive as to provenance, with the
exception of a kind having a cross-arm like the halberd commonly used
in China from the seventh century before Christ. Yamato armour
affords little assistance to the archaeologist: it bears no
particularly close resemblance to any type familiar elsewhere. There
was a corset made of sheet iron, well rivetted. It fastened in front
and was much higher behind than before, additioned protection for the
back being provided by a lattice-guard which depended from the helmet
and was made by fastening strips of sheet iron to leather or cloth.
The helmet was usually of rivetted iron, but occasionally of bronze,
with or without a peak in front. There were also guards of copper or
iron for the legs, and there were shoulder-curtains constructed in
the same manner as the back-curtain pendant from the helmet. Shoes of
copper complete the panoply.
The workmanship of these weapons and armour is excellent: it shows an
advanced stage of manufacturing skill. This characteristic is even
more remarkable in the case of horse-trappings. The saddle and
stirrups, the bridle and bit, are practically the same as those that
were used in modern times, even a protective toe-piece for the
stirrup being present. A close resemblance is observable between the
ring stirrups of old Japan and those of mediaeval Europe, and a much
closer affinity is shown by the bits, which had cheek-pieces and were
usually jointed in the centre precisely like a variety common in
Europe; metal pendants, garnished with silver and gold and carrying
globular jingle-bells in their embossed edges, served for horse
decoration. These facts are learned, not from independent relics
alone, but also from terracotta steeds found in the tumuli and
moulded so as to show all their trappings.
Other kinds of expert iron-work have also survived; as chains, rings
and, buckles, which differ little from corresponding objects in
Europe at the present day; and the same is true of nails, handles,
hinges, and other fittings. Tools used in working metal are rarely
found, a fact easily accounted for when we remember that such objects
would naturally be excluded from sepulchres.
There is another important relic which shows that the Yamato were
"indebted to China for the best specimens of their decorative art."
This is a round bronze mirror, of which much is heard in early
Japanese annals from the time of Izanagi downwards. In China the art
of working in bronze was known and practised during twenty centuries
prior to the Christian era; but although Japan seems to have
possessed the knowledge at the outset of the dolmen epoch, (circ. 600
B.C.), she had no copper mine of her own until thirteen centuries
later, and was obliged to rely on Korea for occasional supplies. This
must have injuriously affected her progress in the art of bronze
casting.
Nevertheless, in almost all the dolmens and later tombs mirrors of
bronze were placed. This custom came into vogue in China at an early
date, the mirror being regarded as an amulet against decay or a
symbol of virtue. That Japan borrowed the idea from her neighbour can
scarcely be doubted. She certainly procured many Chinese mirrors,
which are easily distinguished by finely executed and beautiful
decorative designs in low relief on their backs; whereas her own
mirrors--occasionally of iron--did not show equal skill of technique
or ornamentation. Comparative roughness distinguished them, and they
had often a garniture of jingle-bells (suzu) cast around the rim, a
feature not found in Chinese mirrors. They were, in fact, an inferior
copy of a Chinese prototype, the kinship of the two being further
attested by the common use of the dragon as a decorative motive.
Bronze vases and bowls, simple or covered, are occasionally found in
the Yamato sepulchres. Sometimes they are gilt, and in no case do
their shapes differentiate them from Chinese or modern Japanese
models.
It might be supposed that in the field of personal ornament some
special features peculiar to the Yamato civilization should present
themselves. There is none. Bronze or copper bracelets,* closed or
open and generally gilt, recall the Chinese bangle precisely, except
when they are cast with a garniture of suzu. In fact, the suzu
(jingle-bell) seems to be one of the few objects purely of Yamato
origin. It was usually globular, having its surface divided into
eight parts, and it served not only as part of a bangle and as a
pendant for horse-trappings but also as a post-bell (ekirei), which,
when carried by nobles and officials, indicated their right to
requisition horses for travelling purposes.
*Jasper also was employed for making bracelets, and there is some
evidence that shells were similarly used.
To another object interest attaches because of its wide use in
western Asia and among the Celtic peoples of Europe. This is the
penannular (or open) ring. In Europe, it was usually of solid gold or
silver, but in Japan, where these metals were very scarce in early
days, copper, plated with beaten gold or silver, was the material
generally employed. Sometimes these rings were hollow and sometimes,
but very rarely, flattened. The smaller ones seem to have served as
earrings, worn either plain or with pendants.
Prominent among personal ornaments were magatama (curved jewels) and
kudatama (cylindrical jewels). It is generally supposed that the
magatama represented a tiger's claw, which is known to have been
regarded by the Koreans as an amulet. But the ornament may also have
taken its comma-like shape from the Yo and the Yin, the positive and
the negative principles which by Chinese cosmographists were
accounted the great primordial factors, and which occupy a prominent
place in Japanese decorative art as the tomoye.* The cylindrical
jewels evidently owed their shape to facility for stringing into
necklaces or chaplets. The Chronicles and the Records alike show that
these jewels, especially the magatama, acted an important part in
some remarkable scenes in the mythological age.** Moreover, a sword,
a mirror, and a magatama, may be called the regalia of Japan. But
these jewels afford little aid in identifying the Yamato. Some of
them--those of jade, chrysoprase, and nephrite***--must have been
imported, these minerals never having been found in Japan. But the
latter fact, though it may be held to confirm the continental origin
of the Yamato, gives no indication as to the part of Asia whence they
emigrated.
*Professor Takashima has found magatama among the relics of the
primitive culture, but that is probably the result of imitation.
**The goddess of the Sun, when awaiting the encounter with Susanoo,
twisted a complete string, eight feet long, with five hundred
magatama. Lesser Kami were created by manipulating the jewels. When
Amaterasu retired into a cave, magatama were hung from the branches
of a sakaki tree to assist in enticing her out. Several other
reverential allusions are made to the jewels in later times.
***The jewels were of jasper, agate, chalcedony, serpentine,
nephrite, steatite, quartz, crystal, glass, jade (white and green),
and chrysoprase. Mention is also made of rakan, but the meaning of
the term is obscure. Probably it was a variety of jade.
YAMATO POTTERY
The pottery found in the Yamato tombs is somewhat more instructive
than the personal ornaments. It seems to have been specially
manufactured, or at any rate selected, for purposes of sepulture, and
it evidently retained its shape and character from very remote if not
from prehistoric times. Known in Japan as iwaibe (sacred utensils),
it resembles the pottery of Korea so closely that identity has been
affirmed by some archaeologists and imitation by others. It has
comparatively fine paste--taking the primitive pottery as
standard--is hard, uniformly baked, has a metallic ring, varies in
colour from dark brown to light gray, is always turned on the wheel,
has only accidental glaze, and is decorated in a simple, restrained
manner with conventionalized designs. The shapes of the various
vessels present no marked deviation from Chinese or Korean models,
except that, the tazzas and occasionally other utensils are sometimes
pierced in triangular, quadrilateral, and circular patterns, to which
various meanings more or less fanciful have been assigned.
There is, however, one curious form of iwaibe which does not appear
to have any counterpart in China or Korea. It is a large jar, or
tazza, having several small jars moulded around its shoulder,* these
small jars being sometimes interspersed with, and sometimes wholly
replaced by, figures of animals.** It is necessary to go to the
Etruscan "black ware" to find a parallel to this most inartistic kind
of ornamentation.
*This style of ornamentation was called komochi (child-bearing), the
small jars being regarded as children of the large.
**Mr. Wakabayashi, a Japanese archaeologist, has enumerated seven
varieties of figures thus formed on vases: horses, deer, wild boars,
dogs, birds, tortoises; and human beings.
With regard to the general decorative methods of the iwaibe potters,
it is noticeable, first, that apparent impressions of textiles are
found (they are seldom actual imprints, being usually imitations of
such), and, secondly, that simple line decoration replaces the rude
pictorial representations of a primitive culture and suggests
propagation from a centre of more ancient and stable civilization
than that of the Yamato hordes: from China, perhaps from Korea--who
knows? As for the terracotta figures of human beings and sometimes of
animals found in connexion with Yamato sepulchres, they convey little
information about the racial problem.* The idea of substituting such
figures for the human beings originally obliged to follow the dead to
the grave seems to have come from China, and thus constitutes another
evidence of intercourse, at least, between the two countries from
very ancient times.
*Chinese archaic wine-pots of bronze sometimes have on the lid
figures of human beings and animals, but these served a useful
purpose.
It has been remarked that "the faces seen on these images by no means
present a typical Mongolian type; on the contrary, they might easily
pass for European faces, and they prompt the query whether the Yamato
were not allied to the Caucasian race." Further, "the national
vestiges of the Yamato convey an impression of kinship to the
civilization which we are accustomed to regard as our own, for their
intimate familiarity with the uses of swords, armour, horse-gear, and
so forth brings us into sympathetic relation to their civilization."
[Munro.]
SUMMARY
It will be seen from the above that archaeology, while it discloses
to us the manners and customs of the ancient inhabitants of Japan,
does not afford material for clearly differentiating more than three
cultures: namely, the neolithic culture of the Yemishi; the iron
culture of the Yamato, and the intermediate bronze culture of a race
not yet identified. There are no archaeological traces of the
existence of the Kumaso or the Tsuchi-gumo, and however probable it
may seem, in view of the accessibility of Japan from the mainland,
not only while she formed part of the latter but even after the two
had become separate, that several races co-existed with the Yemishi
and that a very mixed population carried on the neolithic culture,
there is no tangible evidence that such was the case. Further, the
indications furnished by mythology that the Yamato were
intellectually in touch with central, if not with western Asia, are
re-enforced by archaeological suggestions of a civilization and even
of physical traits cognate with the Caucasian.
ENGRAVING: DRUM AND MASK
ENGRAVING: "NO" MASKS