*By the Nihon Bummei Shiryaku.
PICTORIAL ART
While Yuryaku was on the throne, Korea and China sent pictorial experts to Japan. The Korean was named Isuraka, and the Chinese, Shinki. The latter is said to have been a descendant of the Emperor Wen of the Wei dynasty. His work attracted much attention in the reign of Muretsu, who bestowed on him the uji title of Ooka no Obito. His descendants practised their art with success in Japan, and from the time of the Emperor Tenchi (668-671) they were distinguished as Yamato no eshi (painters of Yamato).
POETRY
If we credit the annals, the composition of poetry commenced in the earliest ages and was developed independently of foreign influences. From the sovereign down to the lowest subject, everyone composed verses. These were not rhymed; the structure of the Japanese language does not lend itself to rhyme. Their differentiation from prose consisted solely in the numerical regularity of the syllables in consecutive lines; the alternation of phrases of five and seven syllables each. A tanka (short song) consisted of thirty-one syllables arranged thus, 5, 7, 5, 7, and 7; and a naga-uta (long song) consisted of an unlimited number of lines, all fulfilling the same conditions as to number of syllables and alternation of phrases. No parallel to this kind of versification has been found yet in the literature of any other nation. The Chronicles and the Records abound with tanka and naga-uta, many of which have been ascribed by skeptics to an age not very remote from the time when those books were compiled. But the Japanese themselves think differently. They connect the poems directly with the events that inspired them. Further reference to the subject will be made hereafter. Here it will suffice to note that the composing of such verselets was a feature of every age in Japan.
UTA-GAKI
A favourite pastime during the early historic period was known as uta-gaki or uta-kai. In cities, in the country, in fields, and on hills, youths and maidens assembled in springtime or in autumn and enjoyed themselves by singing and dancing. Promises of marriage were exchanged, the man sending some gifts as a token, and the woman, if her father or elder brother approved, despatching her head-ornament (oshiki no tamakatsura) to her lover. On the wedding day it was customary for the bride to present "table-articles" (tsukue-shiro) to the bridegroom in the form of food and drink. There were places specially associated in the public mind with uta-gaki—Tsukuba Mountain in Hitachi, Kijima-yama in Hizen, and Utagaki-yama in Settsu. Sometimes men of noble birth took part in this pastime, but it was usually confined to the lower middle classes. The great festival of bon-odori, which will be spoken of by and by, is said to be an outgrowth of the uta-gaki.
SUPERSTITIONS
No influences of alien character affected the religious beliefs of the Japanese during the period we are now considering (fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries). The most characteristic feature of the time was a belief in the supernatural power of reptiles and animals. This credulity was not limited to the uneducated masses. The Throne itself shared it. Yuryaku, having expressed a desire to see the incarnated form of the Kami of Mimoro Mountain, was shown a serpent seventy feet long. In the same year a group of snakes harrassed a man who was reclaiming a marsh, so that he had to take arms against them and enter into a compact of limitations and of shrine building. Other records of maleficent deities in serpent shape were current, and monkeys and dragons inspired similar terror. Of this superstition there was born an evil custom, the sacrifice of human beings to appease the hostile spirits. The Kami of Chusan in Mimasaka province was believed to be a giant ape, and the Kami of Koya, a big reptile. The people of these two districts took it in turn to offer a girl at the shrines of those Kami, and in the province of Hida another colossal monkey was similarly appeased. There were further cases of extravagant superstition.