An Introduction to the History of Japan

by Katsuro Hara

It is a very dangerous feat, of course, to determine any ethnological question solely from a philological standpoint. For the sake of argument, however, let us assume for a while the hypothesis that the main element in the Japanese race came over from the northern Asiatic continent on the opposite shore of the Sea of Japan, by way, perhaps, of the peninsula of Korea and the island of Tsushima, or across the Sea of Japan. The ethnologists who adopt this view assume that the Chinese must be excluded from the above body of immigrants, the Chinese who were doubtlessly a far more advanced people even in those ages than the other neighbouring races, and were destined to become the most influential benefactors of Japanese civilisation. If regarded from the linguistic point of view only, it may be not at all unnatural thus to exclude the Chinese blood from the veins of our forefathers. In order to do so, however, it would be necessary at the same time to presuppose that the Chinese never came into close contact with the forefathers of the Japanese while the latter were sojourning on the Asiatic continent. It is not, of course, impossible to suppose that the ancestors of the greater part of the Japanese came over into this country without touching China anywhere, because they might have come from eastern Siberia, northern Manchuria, or some other quarter, narrowly avoiding coming into contact with the Chinese, though, actually, it is not a very easy matter to imagine such a case.

Let us, then, drop all idea of the Chinese, and suppose that that race can be put aside in our consideration of the prehistoric Japanese without glaring unnaturalness. Still the question remains unsettled, whether the bulk of our ancestors from the continent contained within it the ruling class, who gave a unity to the heterogeneous population of this Island Empire. One would say that a certain stock among many, who had their abode in northeastern Asia, might have become predominant over the kindred people of various stocks settled previously in Japan. And the cause of the predominance may be supposed to have been a decided advance in civilisation on the part of the chosen stock. That is to say, the tribe in question might have been already in the iron age with respect to its civilisation, while other tribes were still lingering in the neolithic age. But in order to sustain this supposition, it is necessary to premise another assumption that the predominant stock was comparatively late in coming over to Japan, and that it had already attained the civilisation of the iron age before its immigration into Japan while the other inferior tribes remained at a standstill in their civilisation after settling in our country. Such an assertion, however, cannot be deemed probable without admitting that there was a considerable interruption of communication between Japan and the Asiatic continent before the immigration of the predominant stock. Otherwise it would be very difficult to entertain the idea that the civilisation of northeastern Asia could remain alien to the inhabitants of Japan for so long a time as to cause a wide difference in language, manners and customs, and so on, between the peoples on the two opposite shores of the Sea of Japan.

Besides, to suppose that the forefathers of the greater portion of the Japanese people were immigrants from northeastern Asia, is, by itself, nothing but a hypothesis, supported by a few remains only, which can be interpreted in more than one way. To go one step farther, and assume that the ruling class of the Japanese too came over from the continental shore of the Sea of Japan is another matter, too uncertain to be readily accepted. Whatever degree of probability there may be in these assertions, there are certain items in our history to the natural interpretation of which any solution of all the ethnological problems must conform; and among those items the following are the most important.

The first to be considered is the style of the Japanese building, especially the style of the Shinto shrines and of the dancing halls frequently attached to them. The architectural style of the ordinary Japanese house has undergone many successive changes during the long course of its history, so that its primitive form is now, to a great extent, lost. For instance, the tatami, a thick mat, which covers the floor of a Japanese room and is now one of the most remarkable characteristics of Japanese household fittings, is a comparatively modern invention, only planks having been originally used as the material for flooring. Buddhistic influences too can be traced distinctly in a certain turn of construction copied from China, first in building Buddhistic temples and then widely adopted in building ordinary dwelling-houses. In some essential points, however, there are several traits which cannot be ascribed either to an imitation of any continental style or to the result of a gradual adaptation to the climate. Any one can easily see that the ordinary Japanese house may be good for summer and for southern Japan, but not for winter, especially for the rigid winter of northern Japan. How did such a style come into being? If it had been brought from the northeast of the Asiatic continent by the ancient immigrants from those quarters, it should have been a style more adapted to the rigid climate of northern Japan, than we find it is. On the other hand, if it were an outcome of a natural development on the Japanese soil, it should have been one more adapted to the climate, as suitable for the winter as for the summer. Does it not amount almost to an absurdity, that the Japanese should still be following this ancient style of architecture in building their houses in Manchuria and Saghalen? Why do they cling to it so tenaciously? One would say, perhaps, that the architectural form of the ordinary Japanese house has undergone changes from various causes, so that one cannot fairly draw absolutely correct conclusions about the primitive dwellings of the ancient Japanese from its present condition. If that be so, let us take the style of the Shinto buildings into consideration. If it can be thought, with reason, that the Shinto building still best retains some of the characteristics of the primitive Japanese house, then the thatched roof of a peculiar construction with projecting beams at both ends of the ridge-pole, together with a highly elevated floor, the space between which and the ground serves sometimes as a cellar, cannot but suggest the existence of a certain relation between the primitive houses of Japan and those of the tropical regions lying to the south of Asia, such as the Dutch East Indian Archipelago and the Philippine Islands, or the southeastern coast of the Asiatic continent.

The next point not to be neglected is rice as the staple food of the Japanese. Everybody knows that rice is a daily food stuff not only of the Japanese, but of the Chinese and many other Asiatic peoples. In the case of the inhabitants of northern China, however, other kinds of cereals are eaten as well as rice, as a natural consequence of the scanty production of the latter in those regions. And it is worthy of notice that even in southern China this cereal is eaten not as is customary in our country. There they eat rice as well as meat, or rather more meat than rice, while here in Japan meat and fish are mere ancillary foods, rice being the chief article of diet. What is the cause of this difference in the use of rice? Is Japan specially adapted for the production of this grain? Southern Japan of course is not unfit for the cultivation of the plant, viewed from the point of soil and warm climate only. But even there the rice crop is very uncertain on account of the September typhoons, which annually bring new wrinkles of anxious care on the weatherbeaten faces of our farmers. So a fortiori rice does not conform to the climate of northern Japan, where the frost arrives often very early and the whole crop is thereby damaged, except a few precocious varieties. This explains the reason, why there have been repeated famines in that region, occurring so frequently that it can be said to be an almost chronic phenomenon. By the choice of this uncertain kind of crop as the principal food stuff, the Japanese have been obliged to acquiesce in a comparatively enhanced cost of living, which is a great drawback to the unfettered activity of any individual or nation. This is especially true of recent times, since the growth of the population has been constantly forging ahead in comparison with the increase of the annual production of rice. The tardiness of the progress of civilisation in Japanese history may, perhaps, be partly attributed to this fact. Then why did our forefathers prefer rice to other kinds of cereals, in spite of the uncertainty of its harvests? Was it really a choice made in Japan? If the choice was first made in this country, then the unwisdom of the choice and of the choosers is now very patent. On the other hand, to suppose that this choice was made by our ancestors in northeastern Asia during their sojourn in those regions is hardly possible. Moreover, the general use of rice in Japan has been constantly increasing. In old times the use of it was not so common among all classes of the people, though now it can be found everywhere in Japan. This fact also leads us to doubt the assumption that the cultivation of rice was initiated in Japan, or that it was brought by our ancestors from their supposed continental home in northeastern Asia.

What thirdly claims our attention is the magatama, a kind of green bead, varying in size. It is one of the few ornaments peculiar to the ancient Japanese, though it does not seem probable that its material was naturally produced in our country. Without doubt our ancestors were very fond of this kind of bijouterie. It has been excavated in great numbers from old tombs, throughout the whole of historic Japan, and the sepulchral existence of the magatama is now generally admitted by most Japanologists as an unmistakable token of a former settlement of the Japanese. It must, however, be remarked that, on the Asiatic continent, magatama are found in southern Korea only, the region which once formed a part of the Japanese Empire. Surely it should have been discovered in northern Korea and on the Siberian coast of the Sea of Japan also, if our forefathers, inclusive of the ruling class, came over from northeastern Asia. It is very curious that nothing of the kind has been discovered as yet in those supposed original homes of the Japanese.

The last item we must mention here is the misogi. The misogi is an old religious custom of lustration by bathing in cold water. In a legend of our mythical age, there is an account of this antique ritual performed by two ancestral deities in a river in Kyushu, and this ritual has come down to our day, of course with some modifications. The custom of actually bathing in the water was afterward superseded by the throwing of effigies into a river, in the annual ceremony of praying publicly to deities. In medieval Japan this usage continued to be practised at a riverside in the summer; but it is almost extinct nowadays. On the other hand, not as a public ceremony, but as a method of individual self-purification, this custom of lustration is still practised by many pious persons. Almost entirely naked, even in the winter of northern Japan, they pour on themselves several bucketfuls of cold water, and thus purify themselves from head to foot, in order to attest a very special devotion to the deities to whom they pray. This custom of bathing with its religious signification is something that cannot find its likeness anywhere else, either in northeastern Asia, or in China, or in Korea. Whence, then, did the ancient Japanese get this unique custom? Would it not be natural to suppose the custom of bathing, including its religious use, to have originated in some quarter of the torrid regions of the earth than to speak of it as initiated in the frigid zone?

All the four items mentioned above ought by all means to be interpreted adequately and naturally, whatever standpoint one may take in solving ethnological questions concerning the Japanese. The hypothesis that the bulk of our forefathers might have been immigrants from northeastern Asia, is, as already said before, by itself nothing but an assertion, supported mainly by the form of certain prehistoric pottery, which may possibly be interpreted otherwise, perhaps disadvantageously, too, for the assertion. We may accept the hypothesis as probable, taking into consideration the proximity of the supposed home of our ancestors to Japan. But it avails us not at all in interpreting the points which I have enumerated above. On the contrary, if we concur with the supposition that the ruling class, also, of the Japanese has its original home in the northeastern part of the Asiatic continent like the bulk of the race, then the interpretation of the aforesaid items would become more difficult. It is true that those who would like to derive the origin of the Japanese from northeastern Asia, do not absolutely deny the existence of a certain tropical element in the final formation of the Japanese race, but generally they think that the element must have been very insignificant. They would never go so far as to look to the element for the bulk of our forefathers or for the ancestors of the ruling class. If the tropical element be as insignificant as they suppose, then we should be naturally induced to imagine that those customs alien in their essential nature to the soil and climate of Japan were imported by those immigrants from the tropical South who, insignificant, not only in number, but also in influence, have, notwithstanding, taken a firm root in the historical and social life of the Japanese, struggling against the opposition of overwhelming odds, far more numerous, civilised, and powerful, an utterly impossible hypothesis. How then, did such an incongruous idea with its fatal conclusions come to be entertained by scholars? Because they have too great a faith in the power of civilisation, so-called, to decide the rise and fall of races in the primitive age.

Those who would uphold the assumption of the northern origin of the Japanese, or at least of its ruling class, tacitly presuppose that the northeastern Asiatics of the prehistoric age were several steps ahead of the contemporary tropical peoples in the progress of civilisation, or at least that one of the many tribes of northeastern Asia was far superior to its neighbours as regards civilisation. Otherwise they think that a certain stock of people, which afterwards became the ruling class in Japan, had attained already the civilisation of the iron age while they were still on the continent, so that when they came over to Japan they would have been far more advanced than the people who had settled in Japan before them. Though it is but a conjecture, it is good so far as it goes. To deduce the domination over alien races simply from the superiority of the civilisation must be another thing. Even in modern times, sheer valour often tells more than superiority of arms in deciding the fate of battles. This must have been even more true in early ages. The empire of Rome was broken asunder by the semi-civilised Germans. In the East, China was repeatedly overrun by nomadic tribes far inferior to the Chinese in civilisation. What is true in this respect in historic times, must be particularly true in prehistoric ages. It is too superficial to think that a tribe in the stage of the iron age must necessarily conquer in fighting against other tribes knowing and using stone weapons only. In those ages it is strength, ferocity, courage, which tell decidedly more in fighting than any weapon. We need not therefore take much account of the state of civilisation among different primitive tribes in determining the origin of the Japanese race.

On the other hand, we are in no wise bound to minimise the significance of the tropical element, in number as well as in influence, as regards the formation of the Japanese people. The remarkable differences in distance make it very natural to suppose that the immigrants from the tropical regions might have been less numerous than those from the north. Still it is not utterly improbable that a pretty substantial number of the Southerners might have come over into Japan, drifted over not only by the current but by the wind also, sometimes in groups, sometimes sporadically, and that they could subdue the inhabitants by force of martial courage yet unenervated and not by that of a superior civilisation only. The main difficulty in establishing this assertion lies in the fact that it is not quite certain whether they were really brave and heroic enough to achieve such a conquest. As to the linguistic consideration which is the favourite resort of many ethnologists it can be said that it is not more harmful to the one hypothesis than it is advantageous to the other. It is quite needless to argue that there is little sign of the existence of any linguistic affinity between the language of Japan and those of the tropical lands, except in a few words. This lack of linguistic affinity, however, can be explained away, while maintaining the importance of the ancient immigrants from the South, by considering that the ancestors of the ruling class, having been inferior as regards civilisation to the other stock or stocks of people whom they found already settled prior to them in Japan, and having been perhaps inferior in number also, gradually lost not only their language but many of their racial characteristics as well. Similar examples may be found in abundance in the history of Europe, the Normans in Sicily, and the Goths in Italy being among the most conspicuous. It is not impossible to suppose the like process to have taken place in Japan also.