the fact that Sir. Frazer’s theory on “king-killing custom” was completely wrong. However, in the Shilluk Kingdom, the king’s throne was succeeded to by the next king after the former king died. During the throne succession ceremony, the to-be king was possessed by the soul of the first king “Niikan,” whose soul had descended from the Firmament.
This soul, “Niikan” had been succeeded to by all kings since the first king Niikan. The to-be king was taken to the shrine which enshrined the wooden statue of the first king, Niikan. According to Sir Prichard, the to-be king sat on a chair prepared for him next to the chair, where the Niikan’s statue was sitting. After this, the to-be king fell into a strong spasm because he began to be taken over by the soul of Niikan. At the last stage he lost consciousness in front of the court members. Through this process, he was recognized as a king by all of his Kingdom’s subjects.
This means that the pattern of the succession to the throne of the Shilluk Kingdom was quite different from that of Tenno’s. Before the Meiji Restoration, the succession to Tenno’s throne had been carried out while the former Tenno was still alive. Tenno never experienced the state of spasm like Shilluk kings.
The main Daijo-Sai has been performed twice in the whole process of Daijo-Sai ceremony, which takes at least eight months. If Daijo-Sai had similar characteristics as the case of Shilluk Kingdom, it would be sufficient to conduct the Daijo-Sai once. The Daijo-Sai has nothing to do with the Shilluk Kingdom.
The Imperial Household Agency has not disclosed all the information that they have had regarding the Tenno’s ceremony. It does not disclose all the information especially regarding the rituals and every detail of the Imperial Household. However, the late Dr. Junichi Kamata, who was responsible for the enthronement rituals of the Present Tenno, published a book named “Sokuirei, Daijo-Sai Heisei Tairei Youwa (2003).” The direct meaning of the title of this book is “Essential Procedures of Daijo-Sai Ceremony in the Case of Current Tenno, which was held in the first year of Japanese Calendar Heisei (1989).” The content of the book requires the deep understanding of Shinto. The late Dr. Kamata wrote about the details of the ceremonies of the enthronement of the Present Tenno for the first time in Japanese history as the advisor to the Imperial Household Agency.
The late Dr. Junichi Kamata does not directly name the researchers, who made mistakes, and particular research works but insinuated “how cultic Origuchi doctrine is” in the book. He also referred to the late Dr. Katsuyoshi Watanabe as one of the researchers who understood the theoretical foundation of Shinto as a religion.
All the People Were “Equal” under the Meiji Regime
The main purpose of “Imperial” Bureaucratic Regime actually began after Sino-Japan War. Generally, the Meiji Restoration is said to be the revival of Tenji’s Regime in the sense of the typical invention of tradition. This terminology was used by not only British researchers but also researchers all over the world; this terminology was proposed by Dr. Eric Hobsbrown, a British historian who applied anthropological methods to historical events.
Dr. Hobbsbrown pointed out by analyzing so-called traditional customs seen in current England that great parts of traditional events of Great Britain were newly invented during the Victorian Era. He named this kind of phenomena seen worldwide “the Invention of Tradition.” In this sense, a great part of the institutions and their interpretations after the Meiji Restoration could also be seen as a kind of “Invention of Tradition.”
At first, the Meiji Regime tried to apply the bureaucratic system of the Qing Empire (1644-1912), using the neo-Confucian ideology, in which emperors ruled bureaucrats directly chosen through the employment examination for civil servants. The system in Japan was copied from that of Qing Empire. Through this testing system, those related to by birth were exiled from the political world, and the bureaucrats who passed the qualification tests could be the government officials and had to swear loyalty to their Emperor. The adoption of the Qing System caused the blood-related clans to fall apart.
In Japan, the Emperor Meiji (1867-1912) became the First Emperor in modern history. The feudalistic lord system was abolished under the Meiji Regime. Along with the same system, the Meiji Government abolished Samurai status from the center of the political power system. Tokyo Imperial University (presently the University of Tokyo) was founded for the purpose of educating bureaucrats, which came to be a new social status for people. By becoming a bureaucrat, a person was given an opportunity to gain a new high status by belonging to government offices and directly serving for the Emperor.
Korean Annexation
The main purpose of applying the Imperial bureaucratic system was to abolish the feudalistic status system in which the former regime, the Tokugawa Samurai Regime in Edo Period (1600-1867), had been built. Under the Emperor, all the people should be treated equally and it did not matter where they came from and even what their nationality were. This could be seen after Japan-Korea Treaty in 1907.
After Japan-Korea Treaty in 1907, Japanese government built Keijou Imperial University in order to recruit new bureaucrats to rule the Korean Peninsula. Any Korean person who passed the qualification test for civil servants was allowed to work in Japanese governmental offices as well and was treated according to the same rules as Japanese people in the Japanese bureaucratic system. In this test, the individual’s ability was the only issue and nationality was not a matter of importance. Korean and Japanese people were treated completely equally under this system. The university was closed down by GHQ (1946).
In the Japanese Empire, soon after the social and political reformation during the Meiji Period, some of the Samurai members, who were expelled from the political power system, felt deep resentment against the Meiji Regime and resisted the Regime by becoming traitors or terrorists. They assassinated a lot of political leaders of the Meiji Regime. Some of the leading politicians were assassinated because of the resentment of the collapse of their Samurai system.
Concerning this terrorism based on the resentment by those who belonged to the older power system against the leaders of the new Regime, I would like to mention the case which occurred in the Korean Peninsula in 1909. On October 26th, Hirobumi Ito, the first Superintendent General of the Korean Peninsula, was assassinated by a man named An Jungeun, who was a descendant of the former yangbang in the Korean Empire, which had held the dominant political power before Japan annexed the Korean Peninsula.
Before the assassination of Hirobumi Ito there had been a strong movement to merge the Korean Empire with the Japanese political system due to the strong pressure from Great Britain and France to prevent the Russian Empire from invading the Korean Peninsula. At first, Ito had objected to this movement because he insisted that it would impose a very heavy burden on the Japanese Regime. But the Japanese Empire Regime ordered him to become a Superintendent General of Korean Peninsula.
Ito had tried hard to modernize the Korean political system. He had abolished the feudalistic Yangban System of the Korean Empire, and introduced the westernized bureaucratic system. He stated, “Soon after the renovation of the Korean System, Japan should return the Korean government back to the hands of Korean people.” This renovation, however, was strongly resented by the Yangban members who had lost all of their political power. Some of them formed anti-Japan groups. Under these circumstances, An Jungeun assassinated Hirobumi Ito.
Before the Annexation, the common Korean people had been repressed by Yangban members, so they did not share the feeling of resentment against the Japanese Empire. The common Korean people hated Yangban class members. Common Korean people had had no chance to gain any political position under the Yangban System. Yangban’s ruling positions had been monopolized by a handful of wealthy prestigious Yangban families.
After the assassination Hirobumi Ito, the Japanese government decided to speed up the merger of the Japanese Empire and Korea because there was no one who objected to the annexation policy, and in 1910, the Japanese Empire-Korea merger treaty was finally signed. The new system always tends to be established at the cost of the old system.