first mention of Japan in Chinese records is contained in a book called Shan-hai-ching, which states that "the northern and southern Wo* were subject to the kingdom of Yen." Yen was in the modern province of Pechili. It existed as an independent kingdom from 1 122 to 265 B.C. That the inhabitants of Japan were at any time subject to Yen is highly improbable, but that they were tributaries is not unlikely. In other words, intercourse between Japan and northern China was established in remote times via the Korean peninsula, and people from Japan, travelling by this route, carried presents to the Court of Yen, a procedure which, in Chinese eyes constituted an acknowledgement of suzerainty. The "northern and southern Wo" were probably the kingdom of Yamato and that set up in Kyushu by Ninigi, a supposition which lends approximate confirmation to the date assigned by Japanese historians for the expedition of Jimmu Tenno. It is also recorded in the Chronicles of the Eastern Barbarians, a work of the Han dynasty (A.D. 25–221), that Sin-Han, one of the three Korean kingdoms, produced iron, and that Wo and Ma-Han, the western of these Korean kingdoms, traded in it and used it as currency. It is very possible that this was the iron used for manufacturing the ancient double-edged swords (tsurugi) and halberds of the Yamato, a hypothesis strengthened by the fact that the sword of Susanoo was called Orochi no Kara-suki, Kara being a Japanese name for Korea.
*This word was originally pronounced Wa, and is written with the ideograph signifying "dwarf." It was applied to the Japanese by Chinese writers in earliest times, but on what ground such an epithet was chosen there is no evidence.
ENGRAVING: JAPANESE SADDLE, BRIDLE, AND STIRRUPS
CHAPTER VIII
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN REMOTE ANTIQUITY
If it be insisted that no credence attaches to traditions unsupported by written annals, then what the Records and the Chronicles, compiled in the eighth century, tell of the manners and customs of Japan twelve or thirteen hundred years previously, must be dismissed as romance. A view so extreme is scarcely justified. There must be a foundation of truth in works which, for the most part, have received the imprimatur of all subsequent generations of Japanese. Especially does that hold as to indications of manners, customs, and institutions. These, at least, are likely to be mirrored with a certain measure of accuracy, though they may often reflect an age later than that to which they are referred, and may even have been partially moulded to suit the ideas of their narrators. In briefly epitomizing this page of history, the plan here pursued is to adhere as far as possible to Japanese interpretations, since these must of necessity be most intelligent.
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE
At the basis of the social structure stand the trinity of Kami, mythologically called the Central Master (Naka-Nushi) and the two Constructive Chiefs (Musubi no Kami). The Central Master was the progenitor of the Imperial family; the Constructive Chiefs were the nobility, the official class. What was originally involved in the conception of official functions, we learn from incidents prefatory to the expedition conducted by Ninigi for the subjugation of Japan. Amaterasu (the Sun goddess) attached to the person of her grandson four chiefs and one chieftainess. To two of the former (Koyane and Futodama) she entrusted all matters relating to religious rites, and they became respectively the ancestors of the Nakatomi and the Imibe families. To the female Kami (Usume) was entrusted the making of sacred music and she founded the Sarume family. Finally, all military functions were committed to the chiefs, Oshihi and Kume, whose descendants constituted the Otomo and Kume families.
In every case these offices were hereditary for all time, and the families of their holders constitute the aristocracy of the nation, marrying among themselves and filling the highest offices from generation to generation. Their members bore the title of hiko (son of the Sun) and hime (daughter of the Sun), and those that governed towns and villages were called tomo no miyatsuko, while those that held provincial domains were entitled kuni no miyatsuko.
This was the origin of the Japanese polity. The descendants of Amaterasu, herself a descendant of the Central Master, occupied the throne in unbroken succession, and the descendants of the two Constructive Chiefs served as councillors, ministers, and generals. But the lineage of all being traceable to three chiefs who originally occupied places of almost equal elevation, they were united by a bond of the most durable nature. At the same time it appears that this equality had its disadvantage; it disposed the members of the aristocratic families to usurp the administrative power while recognizing its source, the Throne, and it encouraged factional dissensions, which sometimes resulted disastrously. As to the middle and lower classes, no evidence bearing on their exact composition is forthcoming. It is plain, however, that they accepted a subordinate position without active protest, for nothing like a revolt on their part is alluded to, directly or indirectly, in the Records or the Chronicles. The term for all subjects was tomobe.
DWELLING-HOUSES
The palace of the sovereign—called miya or odono—corresponded in appearance and construction with the shrines of the deities. It was built by erecting central pillars—originally merely sunk in the ground but in later times having a stone foundation—from which rafters sloped to corner posts, similarly erected, the sides being clapboarded. Nails were used, but the heavy timbers were tied together with ropes made by twisting the fibrous stems of climbing plants. A conspicuous feature was that the upper ends of the rafters projected across each other, and in the V-shaped receptacle thus formed, a ridge-pole was laid with a number of short logs crossing it at right angles. This disposition of timbers was evidently devised to facilitate tying and to impart stability to the thatch, which was laid to a considerable thickness.
It is not certain whether in the earliest times floors were fully boarded, or whether boarding was confined to a dais running round the sides, the rest of the interior being of beaten mud. Subsequently, however, the whole floor was boarded. Chimneys were not provided; charcoal being the principal fuel, its smoke did not incommode, and when firewood was employed, the fumes escaped through openings in the gable. For windows there were holes closed by shutters which, like the doors, swung upon hooks and staples. Rugs of skin or of rush matting served to spread on the boarded floor, and in rare cases silk cushions were employed.
The areas on which buildings stood were generally surrounded by palisades, and for a long time no other kind of defence save these palings seems to have been devised. Indeed, no mention of castles occurs until the first century B.C., when the strange term "rice-castle" (ina-ki) is found; the reference being apparently to a palisade fortified with rice-bags, or to a rice-granary used as a fortress. The palace of the sovereign towered so high by comparison that it was termed Asahi-no-tada-sasu-miya (miya on which the morning sun shines direct), or Yuhi-no-hiteru-miya (miya illumined by the evening sun), or some other figurative epithet, and to the Emperor himself was applied the title 0-mikado (great august Gate). The dwellings occupied by the nobility were similarly built, though on a less pretentious scale, and those of the inferior classes appear to have been little better than huts, not a few of them being partially sunk in the ground, as is attested by the fact that the term "enter" took the form of "creep in" (hairu).
In the instruction said to have been given by Amaterasu to her grandson Ninigi, on the eve of his expedition to Japan, the words are recorded: "My child, regard this mirror as you regard me. Keep it in the same house with yourself, and make it the mirror of purity." Accordingly the insignia—the mirror, the jewel, and the sword—were always kept in the main hall of the palace under the care of the Nakatomi and the Imibe families. An ancient volume (Kogo-shui) records that when the palace of Kashihara was reached by Jimmu's army, the grandson of the founder of the Imibe family—cutting timber with a consecrated axe (imi-ono) and digging foundations with a consecrated spade (imi-suki)—constructed a palace in which he placed the mirror, the jewel, and the sword, setting out offerings and reciting prayers to celebrate the completion of the building and the installation of the insignia.
"At that time the sovereign was still very close to the Kami,