It was in the reign of the Emperor Nintoku that the noted prime-minister Prince Take-no-uchi is said to have died. He had served six emperors, viz.: Keikō, Seimu, Chūai, Jingō-Kōgō, Ōjin, and Nintoku. [pg 080] His age[66] is given variously from two hundred and eighty-two to three hundred and eighty, in different books, one of which is a Chinese work and one a Korean. It will be remembered that he was the chief adviser of the warlike Empress Jingō in her invasion of Korea, and took an active part in the events which followed that expedition. That there was such a figure in Japanese history there can be little doubt, but that much of his life and the great age to which he lived are like many of the stories of the characters in the midst of which he lived, legendary and mythical, no one can question.
It was in this reign also that we have it stated that historiographers were sent out to the provinces and directed to make record of all important events and forward them to the court.
We have now reached a point in Japanese history where the accounts compiled by the historians of the times have written records on which to rely. The legendary and marvellous stories which have been the bulk of the preceding history may now be replaced by the soberer narrations which writing has preserved for us. It will be seen that the lives[67] of the emperors now drop from the astonishing age which in previous years they attained to a very moderate and reasonable length. In the subsequent chapters will be found the sober and chastened story to which Japanese history is henceforth reduced.
Chapter V. Native Culture And Continental Influences.
Before going on to the meagre story which is supplied to us by the early years of Japanese history, it will be well to glean from the myths and legends which tradition has preserved the lessons which they contain. Although we may be unable to concede the truth of these traditions in their entirety, and believe in the celestial origin of the race and the wonders of the divine age, we may be able to obtain from them many important facts regarding the habits and manner of life of the early Japanese.
We have often referred to the admirable work Mr. Chamberlain has done in his translation of the Kojiki, and in the scholarly notes he has added. But in our present enquiries we must give him still greater credit for the important lessons which he has drawn from the myths and legends of the Kojiki in his learned introduction. No writer at the present day can afford to dispense with the deductions which he has been able to draw from the oldest writings of the Japanese, and from the traditions of an older date which these writings have preserved. [pg 082] Relying therefore chiefly on this learned introduction,[68] we propose to enumerate in a summary manner the particulars concerning the early Japanese life.
In the first place the government of the early Japanese was of the tribal order. The emperor was the chieftain of an expedition which came from the island of Kyūshū and established a government by conquest. The chiefs of the various localities were reduced to subjection and became tributary to the emperor, or were replaced by new chiefs appointed by the emperor. The government was therefore essentially feudal in its characteristics. The emperor depended for the consideration of his plans and for their execution upon officers who were attached to his court. There were guilds composed of those who manufactured various articles, or who were employed to execute special plans. Thus we have guilds of clay image makers, guilds of ladies attendant on the emperor, guilds of butlers, guilds of cooks, guilds of guards, etc. To each of these there was a captain who became by appointment hereditary chief. We have no mention of money for the payment of services rendered. The taxes were probably paid in kind. And all transactions as far as they are mentioned at all seem to have been of the nature of barter.
The religious notions of the prehistoric Japanese were founded on the myths relating to their ancestor. Notwithstanding the vast number of deities who came into existence according to tradition, most of them vanish as soon as they are named and [pg 083] are no more heard of. Even deities like Izanagi and Izanami, who are represented as taking so important a part in events, are not perpetuated as objects of worship in Japanese history, and have no temples erected to their memory and no service prescribed or maintained in their honor. The most important deity in the Pantheon of the Japanese was Amaterasu-ō-mi-kami, who is also called in Chinese characters Tensho Daijin or the Sun Goddess. She appears not only in the myths concerning the origin of the Japanese race, but as the grandmother of the divine prince Hiko-ho-no-ni-nigi, who first came down to rule the Japanese empire. In the Shintō temples at Isé the principal deity worshipped at Gekū is Uké-moche-no-Kami, and the secondary deities Ninigi-no-Mikoto, who came down to found the Japanese empire and was the grandmother of the Emperor Jimmu, and two others. At the Naikū the principal deity is Amaterasu-ō-mi-kami (from heaven shining great deity), also called the Sun Goddess, and two secondary deities. The temples at Isé, especially those that are dedicated to the Sun Goddess, are the most highly regarded of any in Japan. Other temples of considerable popularity are situated in other parts of the empire. Thus there are Shintō temples in Kyūshū and in Izumo, which are old parts of Japan settled long before Buddhism was introduced.