Japan: History and Culture from Classical to Cool

By Nancy K. Stalker

Japan: History and Culture from Classical to Cool provides a historical account of Japan’s elite and popular cultures from premodern to modern periods. Drawing on the most up-to-date scholarship across numerous disciplines, Nancy K. Stalker presents the key historical themes, cultural trends, and religious developments throughout Japanese history. Focusing on everyday life and ordinary consumption, this is the first textbook of its kind to explore both imperial and colonial culture and offer expanded content on issues pertaining to gender and sexuality. Organized into fourteen chronological and thematic chapters, this text explores some of the most notable and engaging aspects of Japanese life and is well suited for undergraduate classroom use.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Aug 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9780520962835

Nancy K. Stalker

Nancy K. Stalker is the Soshitsu Sen XV Distinguished Professor of Traditional Japanese Culture and History in the Department of History at the University of Hawai?i at Manoa. She is the author of Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburo, Oomoto, and the Rise of a New Religion in Imperial Japan and the editor of Devouring Japan: Global Perspectives on Japanese Culinary Identity.

Book preview

Japan

A

BOOK

The Philip E. Lilienthal imprint honors special books in commemoration of a man whose work at University of California Press from 1954 to 1979 was marked by dedication to young authors and to high standards in the field of Asian Studies. Friends, family, authors, and foundations have together endowed the Lilienthal Fund, which enables UC Press to publish under this imprint selected books in a way that reflects the taste and judgment of a great and beloved editor.

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Philip E. Lilienthal Imprint in Asian Studies, established by a major gift from Sally Lilienthal.

Japan

History and Culture from Classical to Cool

NANCY K. STALKER

UC Logo

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

University of California Press

Oakland, California

© 2018 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stalker, Nancy K., author.

Title: Japan : history and culture from classical to cool / Nancy K. Stalker.

Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2017058048 (print) | LCCN 2017060303 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520962835 (eBook) | ISBN 9780520287778 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Japan—History.

Classification: LCC DS806 (ebook) | LCC DS806 .S83 2018 (print) | DDC 952—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017058048

Manufactured in the United States of America

25  24  23  22  21  20  19  18

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

Contents

Preface

1. EARLY JAPAN

2. FORGING A CENTRALIZED STATE (550–794)

3. THE RULE OF TASTE: LIVES OF HEIAN ARISTOCRATS (794–1185)

4. THE RISE AND RULE OF THE WARRIOR CLASS (12TH–15TH CENTURIES)

5. DISINTEGRATION AND REUNIFICATION (1460S–EARLY 1600S)

6. MAINTAINING CONTROL: TOKUGAWA OFFICIAL CULTURE (1603–1850S)

7. EDO POPULAR CULTURE: THE FLOATING WORLD AND BEYOND (LATE 17TH TO MID-19TH CENTURIES)

8. FACING AND EMBRACING THE WEST (1850S–1900S)

9. MODERNITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS (1900S–1930S)

10. CULTURES OF EMPIRE AND WAR (1900S–1940S)

11. DEFEAT AND RECONSTRUCTION (1945–1970S)

12. COOL JAPAN AS CULTURAL SUPERPOWER (1980S–2010S)

Notes

Index

Preface

While at the University of Texas at Austin, I taught a course called Introduction to Japan for over a dozen years. It is a gateway class, intended to entice students into deeper studies by providing a survey of a millennium’s worth of Japan’s cultural, social, and political highlights. Searching for a textbook for the course brought the story of Goldilocks to mind—this one focused too much on elite and premodern culture or was too expensive, that one minimized gender or religious matters or lacked illustrations—but unlike the girl in the fairy tale, I have never found one that was just right. The opportunity to present my own version of Japan arose when Reed Malcolm at the University of California Press, at the suggestion of Professor Peter Duus, invited me to submit a proposal for an introductory textbook on Japanese history and culture. I am deeply grateful to Reed, Zuha Khan, and other members of the UC Press staff for their support of this project.

I had several goals for the text. As a historian, I knew that providing a basic historical narrative was important for helping students understand the context of cultural developments and see important continuities and discontinuities over time. I would devote significant attention to the visual and literary arts and to material culture, because aesthetics and tradition occupy a central role in modern Japanese national identity, to a degree seemingly unparalleled among the world’s wealthiest nations. I would also occasionally attempt to relate problems of the past to present situations, as students tend to relate well to contemporary examples. While an introductory text can never be truly comprehensive, the development of colonies under the Japanese empire, everyday consumer culture, religious modernity, gender norms, and cultures of protest would receive some of the coverage they warranted. Postwar and contemporary art and popular culture would not be relegated to a brief afterthought. The resulting work admittedly reflects my own biases, but it also addresses areas that, I have found, most fully engage students.

The chapters are arranged both chronologically and thematically, resulting in some historical overlap. Thus, chapters 6 and 7 both cover the Edo period (1600s to mid-1800s), but chapter 6 addresses the Tokugawa shogunate’s systems of governance, along with intellectual and religious developments of the era, while chapter 7 is focused on the flourishing of new forms of urban culture. Similarly, chapters 9 and 10 both address the first four decades of the twentieth century, with the former devoted to discussion of domestic modernity and the latter focused on Japan’s expansion abroad as an imperial power.

At the conclusion of each chapter, I’ve provided a list of ten to twelve suggestions for further reading, which does not begin to include all the works I have drawn upon in writing this book. Instead, these sections provide readers an eclectic combination of classic works and cutting-edge scholarship. Each is followed by a brief selection of recommended films, including features, documentaries, and animated works. These lists, too, are idiosyncratic, reflecting available works on the period (more scarce for pre-Heian eras) along with my own preferences.

I am indebted to numerous experts in diverse fields of Japanese studies, on whose scholarship this text is based, and to several thoughtful reviewers who provided important insights and corrections. Any remaining errors and omissions are my responsibility alone.

NOTES ON CONVENTIONS

Names are provided in Japanese order, with family name preceding given name. Many names in the earlier chapters include the possessive pronoun no, such as Sugawara no Michizane, meaning Michizane of the Sugawara family.

Macrons are used to indicate a drawn-out vowel sound in the pronunciation of some Japanese names and terms, such as Prince Shōtoku, the Ryūkyū Islands, or wartime tokkōtai attack squads. In names of the main islands and major cities, however, and in words that have become familiar in English—such as shogun, Shinto, and daimyo—macrons have been omitted.

1

Early Japan

GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE

Japan is an archipelago that consists of four large islands and over six thousand smaller islands, mostly uninhabited. Together, the islands are roughly the size of California or Italy. The four main islands, from north to south, are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Among the smaller islands, Okinawa, in the Ryūkyū chain to the south, and Sado, off the coast of northern Honshu, are two of the most populous. For this island nation, proximity to the seas has strongly influenced culture and society, as an important source of food, a factor in influencing climate, and a barrier to easy contact with nearby countries. The distance to China is five hundred miles, while the closest nation, Korea, is 125 miles away. If Japan were located farther from these Asian nations, it might not have absorbed Chinese civilizational influences, such as the writing system, Buddhism, and Confucianism, which were transmitted to Japan through migrants from the Korean Peninsula. If it were closer to the powerful Chinese empire, it might not have developed its own distinctive language and material culture.

Mountains cover about 80 percent of Japan’s land surface and are surprisingly heavily forested. These mountains include many volcanoes, both dormant and active, so thermal hot springs are abundant and earthquakes occur frequently, up to one thousand tremors per year. Mount Fuji—Japan’s tallest mountain, at 12,388 feet—is a volcano that last erupted in the eighteenth century. It was particularly active from the eighth to twelfth centuries, when it was perceived as an angry deity, but today represents an important and scenic symbol of national identity. Only about one-quarter of Japan’s land is considered habitable, and settlement is concentrated densely along the coastlines of the Pacific Ocean, Japan Sea, and Inland Sea, in river valleys, and on the occasional plains, most notably the Kanto plain in northeastern Honshu, where Tokyo is located, and the Kinai plain in central Japan, where the cities of Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka are located. Today, over three-quarters of the population live in crowded urban areas in these places, while rural regions are much less densely populated. Before modern transportation, travel was difficult in the mountainous land, giving rise to distinctive regional differences in dialects, lifestyles, produce, and animal life.

MAP 1. Regions and prefectures of Japan.

MAP 2. Population density by prefecture, Japan (number per square kilometer).

Climate varies along the extensive archipelago, ranging from the harsh, snowy winters in the north and along the northwest coast of Honshu to the mild winters and subtropical summers of Okinawa. The capital city, Tokyo, is at roughly the same latitude as Los Angeles. Summers there are hot and humid, with a rainy season in June and July. Typhoons bring violent, destructive rainstorms to the islands beginning in September. The most pleasant seasons are the spring and fall, when many venture out to view blossoming cherry trees or colorful maple foliage. Such distinctive seasonal changes have been celebrated in Japanese arts and poetry for centuries.

PREHISTORIC JAPAN

Who were the ancestors of the Japanese? What were their origins, and when did they begin to inhabit the islands that we call Japan? The earliest inhabitants were likely from the Pacific islands or Southeast Asia, but there are no written records of these distant ancestors. The earliest Japanese chronicles, the Kojiki (Record of ancient matters) and Nihon shoki (Chronicles of Japan, also known as Nihongi), tell of the mythological origins of the islands but were written much later, in the early eighth century, and are unreliable sources for much early history. In order to investigate the sources of prehistoric Japanese culture, we must therefore rely on the findings of archaeologists. Archaeology is an extremely popular field of study in Japan, because of the thousands of readily accessible archaeological sites throughout the nation. Excavations indicate that the archipelago has been inhabited for about fifty thousand years and that a rich Paleolithic culture existed in the islands.

Japan’s prehistoric era, before the existence of local written records, is generally divided into four phases: Paleolithic, from approximately 35,000 to 15,000 B.P.; Jōmon, from approximately 15,000 B.P. to 900 B.C.E.; Yayoi, from 900 B.C.E. to 250 C.E.; and Kofun, from 250 C.E. to 600 C.E. Each phase has distinguishing characteristics, yet there are also strong continuities running through these eras. Over many thousands of years, there were gradual transitions from Paleolithic (or Old Stone Age) culture to the pottery-making, hunting, and gathering culture of the Jōmon era; to the metal use and agriculture of the Yayoi; and finally to an era characterized by enormous burial mounds, called kofun, which indicate that local rulers possessed the power to draft tens of thousands of laborers to build such monuments. It is important to remember that these eras are not clearly distinct. There was significant overlap between the periods—techniques for making ceramics and salt and for building structures, initiated in the Jōmon period, persisted long after the introduction of metal and advanced agricultural technologies in the Yayoi period.

Until the 1990s, archaeologists generally believed that Japan’s modern inhabitants were largely descended from Jōmon stock. Now, however, DNA evidence from skulls and teeth has convinced most that the Japanese population has a dual structure, including both the ancestors of the Jōmon, who came from the south, and a later wave of immigrants with different characteristics who intermingled with the Jōmon during the Yayoi era. Most modern Japanese are genetically closer to the later immigrants, but characteristics of Jōmon people can still be seen among Okinawans and Ainu, the indigenous residents of Hokkaido.

JŌMON-ERA DEVELOPMENTS

Some time around 15,000 B.C.E., the inhabitants of the northern and eastern sections of the archipelago mastered the techniques of coiling clay to form vessels and figurines, then baking their work in open fires in order to harden it. The resulting pottery allowed the people of the Jōmon era to cook food more easily, to store food they had gathered, and to live farther from immediate sources of water. They could make salt by boiling seawater in the pots, allowing preservation of foods. The Jōmon period is very long—over ten thousand years—so there is a great deal of variety in the shapes and decorative markings among the pots; they differed over time and by region. From the prehistoric era to contemporary society, ceramics have remained an important aspect of Japanese art and culture.

The period takes its name from the distinctive earthenware pottery produced throughout the period. The word jōmon means cord-mark; many pieces of pottery were decorated with patterns made by pressing cords or branches into the soft clay before firing. Jōmon pottery is generally classified by age: Incipient, Early, Middle, and Late. Incipient pots are the earliest clearly dated pottery found so far in the world, dating from around 11,000 to 5000 B.C.E. They typically have rounded or pointy bottoms, and archaeologists believe they were mainly used for cooking outdoors, with stones or sand to keep the vessel upright. By the Early Jōmon period (5500–3500 B.C.E.), flat-bottomed pots had become customary, which suggests that they were now being used more indoors, set on floors. Different styles of ornamentation are found in different regions. In northeast Honshu and Hokkaido, cord markings are common, whereas in Kyushu a herringbone style of decoration was dominant. Middle Jōmon pottery is especially striking. Many vessels have wild, abstract, decorative shapes, suggesting things like leaping flames or snakes heads. These pots were not standardized—each was a unique work of creative art. Archaeologists believe that the imaginative design of the pots indicates they were used for ritual as well as functional purposes. In the Late Jōmon period (2500–1500 B.C.E.), pots with thinner walls were made in a greater variety of shapes and sizes.

FIGURE 1. Middle Jōmon pot, British Museum. Photo by Morio, via Wikimedia Commons

Much of what we know about Jōmon society, including the pottery, comes from the excavation of garbage mounds, or middens. Huge mounds of shells near settlement areas preserved remains of the diet, daily life, and burial practices. The high calcium and alkaline content of shell middens slowed decay, allowing archaeologists to examine food remnants, tools, and other evidence of Jōmon society. The mounds indicate that the people survived through a hunting-and-gathering lifestyle—living on nuts, fruit, roots, fish, shellfish, and animal flesh. Shell mounds contain deer, boar, and bear bones; the bones and shells of dozens of different kinds of fish and shellfish; stone and wooden tools; bows and arrowheads; fishhooks and harpoon heads; oars and net fragments; and personal ornaments like lacquered hair combs and shell earrings. American zoologist Edward Sylvester Morse first discovered the shell mounds in 1877. Morse had been hired by the new Meiji government to help modernize the education system and spied a large mound while looking out a window on a train between Yokohama and Tokyo. In September 2016 the world’s oldest fishhooks, around twenty-three thousand years old and made from the shells of sea snails, were found in a cave in the Okinawan islands.

Archaeological excavations have uncovered semipermanent settlements, consisting of a small cluster of pit dwellings, with floors dug well below ground level and hearths in the center, each housing five or six people. Sometimes these clusters also contained a large ring of tall stones, which may have been used for village rituals related to hunting or fishing. Jōmon communities probably tried to be self-sufficient, but there is evidence of trade: salt from coastal regions has been found in mountain settlements, and obsidian and stone from the mountains, used for tools, have been found at coastal locations. They also engaged in simple, small-scale farming, probably using slash-and-burn techniques to raise beans, melons, and grains like barley and millet.

Graves were small and simple holes into which bodies were inserted. Dwellings and gravesites in the settlements appear to be undifferentiated, leading scholars to suggest that Jōmon society did not make social distinctions according to class or wealth. They theorize that there was simply not enough surplus food to support elites who did not perform labor.

Among the most striking artifacts from the Jōmon period are stone and clay figurines, known as dogū. These become increasingly elaborate in the northeastern part of the country during Middle and Late Jōmon. The clearly anthropomorphic dogū are characterized by bulging eyes, sometimes called coffee-bean eyes or goggle eyes because they resemble the snow goggles used by northern peoples. Some appear to be pregnant females with prominent breasts, and others seem to be intentionally broken. Archaeologists have suggested that healers used the figurines in rituals to facilitate childbirth or to cure injuries or diseases.

FIGURE 2. Late Jōmon dogū , Tokyo National Museum. Photo by Rc 13, via Wikimedia Commons.

YAYOI DEVELOPMENTS

The introduction and diffusion of organized agriculture and other technologies enhanced the daily life of the inhabitants of the islands. Wet rice cultivation, metal technologies, weaving, and new pottery techniques greatly improved the material quality of life. The Yayoi period is named for the area in present-day Tokyo where a new style of pottery, less earthy and organic than Jōmon pots and characterized by smooth lines and surfaces, was first found. Yayoi people had apparently begun using a potter’s wheel and advanced firing techniques to produce vessels of greater delicacy, more elegant and more carefully finished than those of the Jōmon era. While Jōmon pots emphasized flamboyant decoration, Yayoi pottery focused on form and function. Many had no decoration at all; others had simple geometric designs. They demonstrate that pots were being specialized for different uses, including cooking, storage, and ritual offerings. Pottery was also used in burial rituals. Large jars, which could only have been made by specialist potters, were set mouth to mouth, for use in human burial. Other methods of burial also existed, including stone coffins and rectangular mounds, the precursors of the great tombs of the fourth and fifth centuries. In contrast with Jōmon gravesites, which demonstrate little social distinction in burial, Yayoi grave goods—including bronze mirrors, semiprecious beads, personal ornaments, and weapons—seem to indicate evidence of social rank.

The introduction of wet rice cultivation had far-reaching social implications, requiring a coordination of labor that set a pattern that continues to influence Japanese rural life and culture today. Farmers in China had grown rice since at least 5000 B.C.E., and farmers on the Korean Peninsula since around 1500 B.C.E. Migrants or traders from the Asian continent likely carried the crop to western Japan. The earliest rice-growing sites were swampy natural wetlands. Seed was broadcast over these sites, and the farmers relied on rainfall for a successful crop. Over time, rice farming became more systematic. Farmers began constructing paddy fields, which they flooded using artificial irrigation channels. They raised seedlings separately and transplanted them into these fields in careful rows to better manage weed control. They created specialized tools such as wooden rakes, iron hoes and shovels, mortars and pestles for pounding rice, and stone axes and reaping knives. As control over irrigation improved, rice sites and settlements were constructed at higher elevations. Paddy cultivation was labor intensive, requiring cooperative efforts to prepare fields, organize irrigation, and harvest the crop. But rice was a worthwhile crop, rich in calories and capable of sustaining larger populations than gathered foodstuffs. Because of the demands of intensive agriculture, the Japanese formed permanent farming communities in the lowlands. From that time forward, rice became a main staple of the economy, although other grains, such as millet and buckwheat, played a larger role in rural daily diets until the twentieth century.

One can visit several restored Yayoi village sites in Japan. Among the best-known is an excavation site called Toro in Shizuoka prefecture, discovered in 1943. The village is on low ground near the mouth of a river and contains twelve dwellings and two storehouses to the north, rice fields to the south, and evidence of elaborate irrigation and drainage systems. Like Jōmon dwellings, the houses had thatched roofs supported by four heavy posts, sunken floors, and hearths in the center of the dwelling. They are oval in shape, with around 160 square feet of floor space. Some food was stored in jars, but by mid-Yayoi, special wooden storehouses with floors raised a few feet off the ground were constructed to protect crops from insects, rodents, and rot. Many well-preserved artifacts of village life are on display at the Toro museum. The raised storehouse, an important building for the community, was represented in clay figures and in designs of early bronze bells. It later became a motif in shrine and palace architecture.

Metallurgy also enriched social and aesthetic aspects of life. Japan began using iron and bronze around 300 B.C.E. Both metals had been employed for a long time in China and Korea, and migrants brought the technologies together to Japan. All iron, copper, and tin used in the era were imported from the Asian continent. Iron, forged on anvils, was more utilitarian, used for tools and practical weapons. Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, was cast in molds for swords, mirrors, and bells known as dōtaku, usually as ritual symbols of power. The bells were initially copied from continental models, but as the Japanese improved casting techniques, the bells grew larger and had more intricate designs. Later models featured extensive decoration and such thin walls that they probably didn’t actually function as bells, but as symbols of allegiance to some political authority. This theory is supported by the fact that bells made from the same mold have been found at widely scattered sites.

The increase in the quality and number of weapons made possible by metallurgy brought a sharp increase in warfare, as armies under local chieftains battled to extend or consolidate control over larger territorial units. By the end of the Yayoi period, we can discern stratified communities, with the gravesites of chieftains and their families demarcated from ordinary cemeteries and containing caches of mirrors, jewels, swords, spears, and bells from different parts of Japan. Some of the bodies buried at the elite gravesites wore armbands that restricted the size of their biceps, symbolizing their status as rulers rather than ordinary manual laborers.

FIGURE 3. Yayoi-era dōtaku bronze bell, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund 1918 (18.68). Source: ARTstor Images for Academic Publishing.

THE ERA OF GREAT TOMB MOUNDS

The innovations introduced in Yayoi-period agriculture, metallurgy, pottery, and burial practices continued to spread and evolve over the next few centuries. While new technologies enabled greater surplus in society, daily life for ordinary villagers did not experience radical changes, although the rulers grew steadily wealthier and more powerful. From the third to seventh centuries, they built increasingly elaborate kofun that became a defining characteristic of the era. Around ten thousand such tombs have been found, often in clusters in northern Kyushu, along the coasts of the Inland Sea and Japan Sea, and especially in the Kinai plain. The largest tomb mounds are found in the Nara basin at the eastern end of the Inland Sea, known as the Yamato region.

The earliest tombs were built into the side of an existing hill. Later large tombs consisted of extensive mounds built over stone burial chambers, entered from the side through stone passageways. Shapes varied from round to square to combinations of both. The most characteristic were keyhole-shaped tombs with a square front and round back, recalling the shape of dōtaku bells. Massive keyhole tombs surrounded by moats were built during the fourth and fifth centuries. The Nintoku tomb, outside the city of Osaka, is the most famous, considered a great monument that rivals the pyramids in terms of the amount of resources and labor needed for its construction. There are no verifiable accounts of the ruler Nintoku, but the Nihon shoki claims that his reign lasted ninety years. Nintoku’s tomb is over 1,600 feet long and nearly 115 feet high. Surrounded by three moats, it covers more than eighty acres. The tomb features stone burial chambers with painted walls containing inscribed sarcophagi and precious grave goods.

One distinctive art form of the Kofun period is known as haniwa, or rings of clay. Clay cylinders, three to four feet in height, were modeled into figures of humans, animals, and objects and placed on the slopes of the mounds. Their initial purpose may have been to keep the mounds in place, but they evolved into a rich art form that expressed many aspects of daily life of the era. Haniwa include figures of young warriors, old men, priestesses, mothers with children, horses, boats, and storehouses. Many have a charming quality of openness and candor. At some tombs, the haniwa seem to be laid out in ritual order, as if they were a procession to welcome the dead and surround them with familiar people and objects. The thousands of haniwa needed for a large tomb like Nintoku’s were likely made by specialized craftspeople. The Nihon shoki claims that in earlier times, attendants were buried alive with deceased rulers and that Suinin—another legendary king, said to have reigned from 29 B.C.E. to 70 C.E.—prohibited this practice, substituting the clay images for live people.

FIGURE 4. Kofun-era haniwa warrior, Tokyo National Museum. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Unfortunately, we cannot see the Nintoku tomb or others connected to the imperial family because they are under the control of Japan’s Imperial Household Agency, which severely restricts access and prohibits excavation. The reasons for these restrictions lie in current politics and international relations. The grave goods of many tombs contain evidence of a horse-riding culture, including stirrups, saddle decorations, and the bones of horses. The obvious existence of a horse-riding aristocracy gave rise to the theory that Japan was invaded by a horse-riding people from the Korean Peninsula during the fourth century. Official acceptance of this theory would mean acknowledgment that the ancestors of the imperial house were from Korea, a former colony and current rival, and this is unacceptable to the Imperial Household Agency and conservative politicians and bureaucrats. In 2001, however, Emperor Akihito publicly acknowledged that the mother of Emperor Kanmu (737–806) was Korean.

It is misleading to think of Japan and Korea in the Kofun era as separate, rival entities with fixed boundaries. Within East Asia, China was considered the source of civilization and models of governance. Chinese philosophy and material culture generally reached Japan via the Korean Peninsula, which was divided into three kingdoms in 400 C.E.: Silla, Paekche, and Koguryō. In addition, there was a cluster of confederated small states, known as Kaya or Mimana, at the southern tip of the peninsula, dominated by migrants from Japan. There was steady, fluid migration from China to the Korean Peninsula to the archipelago, which was critical for Japan’s economic, social, and political development. Migrants of many classes and with many different skill sets arrived in Japan from Korea. Legends describe how the scholar Wani was sent by the king of Paekche in 405 to introduce the Chinese writing system to the Japanese court. Wani’s descendants became a caste of official court scribes. Many of the powerful Japanese clans, or uji, had close ties to the Asian continent and brought over new industries or technologies, such as sophisticated iron work that allowed the fabrication of body armor, better spears and pikes, and nonporous stoneware fired in closed kilns. Hereditary occupational groups attached to uji clans, known as be, often consisted of immigrants and served in diverse positions, including scribes, diplomats, horse grooms, silk weavers, papermakers, weavers, and potters. Elite uji clans with strong ties to the peninsula, such as the Soga, maintained practices that originated in Korean kingdoms. Soga-commissioned temples and palaces imitated Paekche style. Fragments of murals and paintings from the seventh century depict the Japanese court in Koguryō-style dress.

MAP 3. Ancient kingdoms of East Asia.

YAMATO SOCIETY

There are no written Japanese chronicles from the Kofun period, but the number, size, and distribution of the tombs, along with other artifacts found during excavations and legendary accounts, have led scholars to surmise that society was organized in states of different sizes and strengths, controlled by chieftains of local uji clans. These clans were part of a larger confederation dominated by a dynasty based in the Yamato region, whose descendants became the Japanese imperial family. The Yamato rulers—who claimed descent from Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess—distributed goods such as bronze mirrors, swords, and bells, many from China or Korea, to uji chieftains who submitted to Yamato power. Allied chieftains also built themselves Yamato-style tomb mounds that contained the gifts bestowed by the central regime. The uji clans that submitted to Yamato rule were allowed to continue ritual worship of their own local deities and ancestors, but they were considered subordinate to Amaterasu.

Chinese dynastic official histories, an important source of written information about Japan before the sixth century, help confirm this account. Envoys from China traveled to Japan, identified as the kingdom of Wa, as part of efforts to record the conditions in nearby barbarian lands. These histories provide information on both political configurations in the archipelago and the practices and beliefs of the people of Wa. Envoys noted details of everyday Wa life, for instance that people subsisted on raw vegetables, ate with their fingers, and went barefoot. They remarked on Wa devotion to purity and cleanliness and their reverence for mountains. The accounts noted that, although Wa men often had more than one wife, there was a lack of distinction in male and female deportment. Many such observations likely stemmed from visible differences with Chinese norms. Accounts also noted religious and ritual practices, such as divination through reading the cracks in heated animal bones, and death practices that included mourners’ abstention from meat and the covering of graves with dirt mounds.

In the first Chinese accounts, from around the first century, Japan is described as a land with more than a hundred tribal communities. Some tribes sent emissaries to China to obtain recognition of their supremacy over other tribal communities. The first detailed account was written in 297 for the Wei dynasty (220–65). Some of the most intriguing passages of the Wei chronicles address a queen named Pimiko (or Himiko) who ruled a kingdom called Yamatai. Pimiko used shamanic powers to unite and rule thirty warring clans. She was unmarried and lived in a heavily guarded palace, served by a thousand female attendants. She rarely appeared in public; her younger brother communicated her orders to others. In 238, Pimiko sent an embassy to the court of the Chinese emperor to deliver a tribute of four male slaves and six female slaves, together with two pieces of cloth with designs, each twenty feet in length.¹ In turn, she was officially recognized as Queen of Wa, Friendly to Wei and presented with a golden seal. When Pimiko died, she was interred in a great mound and more than one hundred attendants were reportedly sacrificed and buried with her. Following her death, she was succeeded by a king, but he was unable to maintain peace, so a thirteen-year-old relative of Pimiko, a girl named Iyo, was appointed ruler instead.

The first Japanese historical chronicles mention neither Pimiko nor Yamatai, and the location of the kingdom has been a topic of hot debate among historians. Some believe that Yamatai was located in northern Kyushu, others in the Kinai region. The Japanese histories, written many centuries later with the objective of rationalizing and promoting Yamato rulers, may have omitted Pimiko because she was outside of the Yamato lineage that eventually succeeded in extending control over the islands.

Pimiko’s story highlights important aspects of political leadership in early Japan. An ancient word for government, matsurigoto, reflects that leaders were equally responsible for political rule and religious worship, and that they should obey the will of the gods in matters of state. Important responsibilities for rulers such as Pimiko included communicating with deities of the community, often through divination or spirit possession, and conducting rituals to worship or pacify those deities. Shamans who possessed these abilities were usually female, so rulers were often women. In many cases, they ruled in a pair with a male, usually either their husband or a male relative. The female ruler was generally responsible for ritual aspects of governance, while the male handled statecraft. Later empresses such as Suiko (554–628), Jitō (645–703), and Kōken (718–70) also followed this pattern. If the ruling pair was not husband and wife, the female was generally senior to her partner. Such gendered ruler pairs were also found in Silla and in China. Gender complementarity is also apparent in Japan’s mythology, in couples such as Izanagi and Izanami, the progenitors of the Japanese islands. Beginning in the eighth century, however, women were rarely appointed to serve as monarch, because of increasing emphasis on Confucianism and Chinese models of statecraft, along with other factors.

Another Chinese account of conditions in Japan, written in 513, highlights interactions between Wa and neighboring kingdoms on the Asian continent. It describes how four different Wa rulers sought permission by the Chinese court for control of territories on the Korean Peninsula, as well as over Wa. One king, known as Bu (or Nu), asked for recognition to lead an army into the Korean kingdom of Koguryō. The Chinese emperor passed an edict naming Bu King of Wa and Generalissimo Who Maintains Peace in the East Commanding with Battle-Ax All Military Affairs in the Six Countries of Wa, Silla, Imna, Kala, Jinhan, and Mokhan and gave him a golden seal that named him King Nu of Wa, vassal of Han. In 1784 an elaborately carved seal with this inscription was found in northern Kyushu but was initially considered a forgery. Experts now believe it is actually the seal described in the Chinese account.

RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS: SHINTO—THE WAY OF THE KAMI

Both archaeological evidence and the Chinese accounts testify to the importance of religious rituals in prehistoric Japan. The indigenous religion of Japan is known today as Shinto, or the Way of the Kami. The word Shinto came into use to distinguish indigenous beliefs from Buddhism, officially introduced to Japan in the sixth century. Shinto has no founder, no official sacred scriptures in the strict sense, and no fixed dogmas. It is a polytheistic and animistic faith intended to mediate relationships between humans and kami, or divinities. Kami are very different from the conceptions of God shared by many monotheistic faiths. For one, they can take many forms. Humans who were powerful in life are often considered kami after their deaths. Some kami represent formidable forces of nature, such as storms or earthquakes; others are associated with elements of the landscape, such as mountains, waterfalls, or trees. Unlike most gods of monotheistic faiths, kami are not transcendent, omnipotent, or omniscient. Furthermore, kami are not perfect—they make mistakes and behave badly. There is no absolute separation between kami and humankind; they inhabit the same natural world that we do, and feel and think in the same ways that we do. Over the course of centuries, under the influence of imported religions such as Buddhism and Taoism, the Japanese began to consider kami as anthropomorphic spirits, with names, lineages, and human characteristics and authority.

Amaterasu, purportedly the ancestress of the imperial family, is enshrined at Ise Grand Shrine, Shinto’s holiest and most important shrine, established in the fourth century. The high priest or priestess of the shrine must be a member the Japanese imperial family. Every twenty years, the two main buildings of the shrine are reconstructed according to blueprints over a thousand years old, and the old shrine buildings are dismantled. The reconstruction is exorbitantly expensive, requiring specially raised timbers and eight years of preparation. The most recent reconstruction, the sixty-second iteration, was begun in 2013.

Japan’s second most sacred shrine, the Izumo Grand Shrine, is its oldest and is dedicated to the kami Ōkuninushi. The chief priests of Izumo are also said to be descendants of the gods, tracing their lineage to a son of Amaterasu. The mythological account of Izumo’s establishment reflects the state-building efforts of the ruling Yamato clan, who sought to subdue and control local chieftains but allowed them to maintain their local kami, who would be subordinated to Amaterasu in a hierarchy of divinities. According to mythological accounts, Ōkuninushi was a gifted chieftain who had united many neighboring lands, building a strong polity. Amaterasu wanted him to turn control of these lands over to her and sent her son Amenohohi to deliver this message, but Amenohohi was impressed by Ōkuninushi’s talents and decided to serve him instead. Many years of struggle between Amaterasu and Ōkuninushi ensued, but the Sun Goddess prevailed in the end. She promised him a shrine that reached all the way to heaven, which would be maintained by the descendants of Amenohohi. When originally constructed (date unknown), Izumo was the largest wooden structure in Japan, believed to host an annual gathering of millions of Shinto kami. Around 1200, however, the main building was significantly reduced in size.

Rather than doctrine or individual belief, Shinto religious life is focused on rituals and seasonal festivals (matsuri) dedicated to kami enshrined at each locality. While there is little dogma, two interrelated values, sincerity (magokoro) and purity (seijō), are very important. One must demonstrate these characteristics in order to attract the attention and favor of the kami. Sincerity entails doing one’s best in life, including in one’s work and in relationships with others. Purification, both physical and spiritual, is needed to achieve this sincerity. Certain conditions, including death, illness, sin, and misfortune, create ritual impurities that must be cleansed before approaching the kami. The practice of reconstructing Ise Grand Shrine every twenty years reflects this Shinto preference for purity and cleanliness, as well as its abhorrence of decay and pollution.

Rites of purification include cleansing agents like water, salt, and paper. Before entering sacred grounds, visitors must rinse their hands and mouths with water. Standing under a waterfall or bathing in the sea or at the mouth of a river are considered particularly powerful cleansing rituals. Salt is used to purify the land in groundbreaking ceremonies or before moving into a new home. Sumo wrestlers throw salt before entering the ring, considered a sacred space. After returning from a funeral, people sprinkle themselves with salt to counter pollution from death. Paper is used in zigzag streamers (shide) on sacred ropes (shimenawa) that demarcate sacred sites and on special wands (gohei) that Shinto priests wave over people or objects as a form of blessing. All such rites remain very common in contemporary Japanese life.

SHINTO MYTHOLOGY

Shinto mythology is recorded in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, which were compiled from oral traditions in the early eighth century by order of Emperor Gemmei. One reason for creating the chronicles was to enhance the legitimacy of the Yamato clan’s claim to the throne by documenting its divine lineage. Around the seventh century, the Japanese adopted the use of the Chinese title Emperor (Tennō) for the monarch, rather than King (Ō or Okimi), a title also used by some uji chieftains. The core of the mythology consists of tales about Amaterasu and how her direct descendants unified the Japanese people under their authority. The Kojiki describes the creation of the world and birth of the kami and provides the lineages of the noble families. The Nihon shoki also explains the origin of kami, but it is mainly concerned with historical events in the establishment of the Yamato kingdom and extends through events of the eighth century. It is considered a relatively reliable historical source from about 660 forward. Highlights from the myths given below demonstrate Shinto values, such as the need for purification and abhorrence of death and pollution.

In the myth of creation, the first gods summoned two divine beings into existence, the male Izanagi and the female Izanami, and charged them with creating the first land. Standing on the bridge between heaven and earth, the pair churned the sea below using a spear decorated with jewels. When drops of water fell from the spear, they formed an island. The couple descended to the island and began a mating ritual that involved walking in opposite directions around a large pillar. In their first attempt, Izanami spoke first in greeting, but this displeased Izanagi, who claimed that, as a man, he should be first to speak, and he ordered that they circumambulate the pillar again. This time he spoke first, inquiring:

In the body is there aught formed?

She answered and said, In my body there is a place which is the source of femininity.

The male deity said, In my body again there is a place which is the source of masculinity. I wish to unite this source-place of my body to the source-place of thy body. Hereupon the male and female first became united as husband and wife.²

The two children born of their first consummation, however, were deformed and could not be considered proper gods, so they were put into a boat and set out to sea. Izanagi and Izanami mated again and gave birth to the islands of Japan and various kami, but Izanami died giving birth to the kami of fire.

The grieving Izanagi journeyed to the land of the dead, covered in eternal darkness, to ask his wife to return. He found Izanami but could not see her in the deep black shadows. She told her husband that since she had already eaten the food of the underworld, she could no longer return to the land of the living, but Izanagi refused to depart. He took out the wooden comb that bound his long hair and set it alight to see his beloved but was horrified to discover that his wife was now a maggot-ridden, rotting corpse. Screaming in terror, he began running back to the land of the living. Izanami, insulted and angered by his reaction, pursued him, accompanied by other hags of the underworld. Izanagi hurled objects behind him to slow their advance: his headdress became a bunch of grapes that the pursuers paused to consume, his comb became an obstructive clump of bamboo. He urinated against a tree, creating a river that blocked their path. Finally, he reached the entrance to the underworld and pushed a large boulder across the cavern’s mouth to seal in his pursuers.

Wishing to purify himself after his descent to the underworld, Izanagi undressed to bathe. As he removed adornments from his body, each item that dropped to the ground transformed into a kami. More powerful deities came into being when he entered the water to wash himself. When he washed his face, the most important were created: the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, was born from his left eye; the Moon God, Tsukuyomi, from his right eye; and the God of Storms, Susanoo, from his nose. Izanagi divided the world between them: Amaterasu would control the heavens, Tsukuyomi the moon and the night, and Susanoo the seas.

One day the siblings Amaterasu and Susanoo engaged in a competition to see who could produce the most offspring using a possession of the other. Amaterasu used Susanoo’s sword to make three women, while Susanoo made five men from Amaterasu’s necklace. Both declared victory, Amaterasu insisting that she had won because her necklace had produced the greater number. Her claim drove Susanoo into a rage and he began a campaign of malicious acts against his sister. He smashed the walls of her carefully constructed rice paddies and secretly defecated in her palace in order to defile it. Finally, he threw a dead pony, an animal sacred to Amaterasu, into her weaving hall. Angry and frightened, she fled and hid in a cave. As the Sun Goddess disappeared, darkness covered the world. All of the kami tried to coax her out but she ignored them, so they devised a plan to lure her out. First, they placed a large bronze mirror and hung a jewel in a tree facing the cave. Then the female kami Ame-no-Uzume began to perform a bawdy striptease atop an overturned washtub, prompting roars of laughter from the other kami. Amaterasu became curious and peeked outside, allowing a ray of light to escape from the cave and reflect in the mirror, leaving her dazzled. A strong male kami then quickly pulled her from the cave, returning light to the world, and the mouth of the cave was sealed with a sacred rope.

Susanoo, exiled from heaven for his naughty deeds, traveled to the land of Izumo, where he encountered an old man and his wife sobbing beside their daughter. The couple explained that they originally had eight daughters, and the others had been devoured one by one, each year, by a terrible dragon with eight heads. Their daughter Kushinada was the last of the eight. Susanoo offered his assistance in return for the beautiful girl’s hand in marriage. The parents accepted, and Susanoo transformed Kushinada into a comb and hid her safely in his hair. He built a large fence with eight small entrances around the house and placed an open cask of sake before each of the entrance gates. When the dragon arrived, he found his way blocked by the fence. He smelled the sake, which he loved, but the fence stood in the way. If he simply smashed the fence down, it would knock over the sake; if he used his fiery breath to burn the fence, the sake would evaporate. The only solution was to stick each of his eight heads through a gate. At last, he could begin to drink. As he finished the casks, Susanoo launched his attack on the drunken beast, decapitating each of the heads in turn. When he began to dismember the dragon’s carcass, he found a magical sword in the tail, which he presented to Amaterasu and which became one of the three sacred imperial treasures, the others being the jewel (called a magatama) and bronze mirror that were used to lure her out of the rock cave.

Amaterasu ordered her grandson Ninigi to descend from the heavens and rule the earth. She gave him the three sacred treasures, which each represented virtues required by rulers, to help in his task: the sword symbolized courage; the mirror, wisdom; and the jewel, compassion. Ninigi and several companions descended to the earth, where he built a large following. According to legend, his great-grandson Jimmu became the first emperor, born in 711 B.C.E. and dying at age 126 in 585 B.C.E. There are no reliable historical records to confirm Jimmu’s existence, and it is not until the eighth-century reign of Emperor Kammu, reportedly the fiftieth ruler of the Yamato dynasty, that verifiable records are available.

The legends about Japan’s origins recounted in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki are strikingly different from the founding myths of China in the Confucian Book of Documents (also known as Classic of History), which depicts human sage-kings who wield