A History of the Japanese People Part 7

The workmans.h.i.+p of these weapons and armour is excellent: it shows an advanced stage of manufacturing skill. This characteristic is even more remarkable in the case of horse-trappings. The saddle and stirrups, the bridle and bit, are practically the same as those that were used in modern times, even a protective toe-piece for the stirrup being present. A close resemblance is observable between the ring stirrups of old j.a.pan and those of mediaeval Europe, and a much closer affinity is shown by the bits, which had cheek-pieces and were usually jointed in the centre precisely like a variety common in Europe; metal pendants, garnished with silver and gold and carrying globular jingle-bells in their embossed edges, served for horse decoration. These facts are learned, not from independent relics alone, but also from terracotta steeds found in the tumuli and moulded so as to show all their trappings.

Other kinds of expert iron-work have also survived; as chains, rings and, buckles, which differ little from corresponding objects in Europe at the present day; and the same is true of nails, handles, hinges, and other fittings. Tools used in working metal are rarely found, a fact easily accounted for when we remember that such objects would naturally be excluded from sepulchres.

There is another important relic which shows that the Yamato were "indebted to China for the best specimens of their decorative art."

This is a round bronze mirror, of which much is heard in early j.a.panese annals from the time of Izanagi downwards. In China the art of working in bronze was known and practised during twenty centuries prior to the Christian era; but although j.a.pan seems to have possessed the knowledge at the outset of the dolmen epoch, (circ. 600 B.C.), she had no copper mine of her own until thirteen centuries later, and was obliged to rely on Korea for occasional supplies. This must have injuriously affected her progress in the art of bronze casting.

Nevertheless, in almost all the dolmens and later tombs mirrors of bronze were placed. This custom came into vogue in China at an early date, the mirror being regarded as an amulet against decay or a symbol of virtue. That j.a.pan borrowed the idea from her neighbour can scarcely be doubted. She certainly procured many Chinese mirrors, which are easily distinguished by finely executed and beautiful decorative designs in low relief on their backs; whereas her own mirrors--occasionally of iron--did not show equal skill of technique or ornamentation. Comparative roughness distinguished them, and they had often a garniture of jingle-bells (suzu) cast around the rim, a feature not found in Chinese mirrors. They were, in fact, an inferior copy of a Chinese prototype, the kins.h.i.+p of the two being further attested by the common use of the dragon as a decorative motive.

Bronze vases and bowls, simple or covered, are occasionally found in the Yamato sepulchres. Sometimes they are gilt, and in no case do their shapes differentiate them from Chinese or modern j.a.panese models.

It might be supposed that in the field of personal ornament some special features peculiar to the Yamato civilization should present themselves. There is none. Bronze or copper bracelets,* closed or open and generally gilt, recall the Chinese bangle precisely, except when they are cast with a garniture of suzu. In fact, the suzu (jingle-bell) seems to be one of the few objects purely of Yamato origin. It was usually globular, having its surface divided into eight parts, and it served not only as part of a bangle and as a pendant for horse-trappings but also as a post-bell (ekirei), which, when carried by n.o.bles and officials, indicated their right to requisition horses for travelling purposes.

*Jasper also was employed for making bracelets, and there is some evidence that sh.e.l.ls were similarly used.

To another object interest attaches because of its wide use in western Asia and among the Celtic peoples of Europe. This is the penannular (or open) ring. In Europe, it was usually of solid gold or silver, but in j.a.pan, where these metals were very scarce in early days, copper, plated with beaten gold or silver, was the material generally employed. Sometimes these rings were hollow and sometimes, but very rarely, flattened. The smaller ones seem to have served as earrings, worn either plain or with pendants.

Prominent among personal ornaments were magatama (curved jewels) and kudatama (cylindrical jewels). It is generally supposed that the magatama represented a tiger's claw, which is known to have been regarded by the Koreans as an amulet. But the ornament may also have taken its comma-like shape from the Yo and the Yin, the positive and the negative principles which by Chinese cosmographists were accounted the great primordial factors, and which occupy a prominent place in j.a.panese decorative art as the tomoye.* The cylindrical jewels evidently owed their shape to facility for stringing into necklaces or chaplets. The Chronicles and the Records alike show that these jewels, especially the magatama, acted an important part in some remarkable scenes in the mythological age.** Moreover, a sword, a mirror, and a magatama, may be called the regalia of j.a.pan. But these jewels afford little aid in identifying the Yamato. Some of them--those of jade, chrysoprase, and nephrite***--must have been imported, these minerals never having been found in j.a.pan. But the latter fact, though it may be held to confirm the continental origin of the Yamato, gives no indication as to the part of Asia whence they emigrated.

*Professor Takas.h.i.+ma has found magatama among the relics of the primitive culture, but that is probably the result of imitation.

**The G.o.ddess of the Sun, when awaiting the encounter with Susanoo, twisted a complete string, eight feet long, with five hundred magatama. Lesser Kami were created by manipulating the jewels. When Amaterasu retired into a cave, magatama were hung from the branches of a sakaki tree to a.s.sist in enticing her out. Several other reverential allusions are made to the jewels in later times.

***The jewels were of jasper, agate, chalcedony, serpentine, nephrite, steat.i.te, quartz, crystal, gla.s.s, jade (white and green), and chrysoprase. Mention is also made of rakan, but the meaning of the term is obscure. Probably it was a variety of jade.

YAMATO POTTERY

The pottery found in the Yamato tombs is somewhat more instructive than the personal ornaments. It seems to have been specially manufactured, or at any rate selected, for purposes of sepulture, and it evidently retained its shape and character from very remote if not from prehistoric times. Known in j.a.pan as iwaibe (sacred utensils), it resembles the pottery of Korea so closely that ident.i.ty has been affirmed by some archaeologists and imitation by others. It has comparatively fine paste--taking the primitive pottery as standard--is hard, uniformly baked, has a metallic ring, varies in colour from dark brown to light gray, is always turned on the wheel, has only accidental glaze, and is decorated in a simple, restrained manner with conventionalized designs. The shapes of the various vessels present no marked deviation from Chinese or Korean models, except that, the tazzas and occasionally other utensils are sometimes pierced in triangular, quadrilateral, and circular patterns, to which various meanings more or less fanciful have been a.s.signed.

There is, however, one curious form of iwaibe which does not appear to have any counterpart in China or Korea. It is a large jar, or tazza, having several small jars moulded around its shoulder,* these small jars being sometimes interspersed with, and sometimes wholly replaced by, figures of animals.** It is necessary to go to the Etruscan "black ware" to find a parallel to this most inartistic kind of ornamentation.

*This style of ornamentation was called komochi (child-bearing), the small jars being regarded as children of the large.

**Mr. Wakabayas.h.i.+, a j.a.panese archaeologist, has enumerated seven varieties of figures thus formed on vases: horses, deer, wild boars, dogs, birds, tortoises; and human beings.

With regard to the general decorative methods of the iwaibe potters, it is noticeable, first, that apparent impressions of textiles are found (they are seldom actual imprints, being usually imitations of such), and, secondly, that simple line decoration replaces the rude pictorial representations of a primitive culture and suggests propagation from a centre of more ancient and stable civilization than that of the Yamato hordes: from China, perhaps from Korea--who knows? As for the terracotta figures of human beings and sometimes of animals found in connexion with Yamato sepulchres, they convey little information about the racial problem.* The idea of subst.i.tuting such figures for the human beings originally obliged to follow the dead to the grave seems to have come from China, and thus const.i.tutes another evidence of intercourse, at least, between the two countries from very ancient times.

*Chinese archaic wine-pots of bronze sometimes have on the lid figures of human beings and animals, but these served a useful purpose.

It has been remarked that "the faces seen on these images by no means present a typical Mongolian type; on the contrary, they might easily pa.s.s for European faces, and they prompt the query whether the Yamato were not allied to the Caucasian race." Further, "the national vestiges of the Yamato convey an impression of kins.h.i.+p to the civilization which we are accustomed to regard as our own, for their intimate familiarity with the uses of swords, armour, horse-gear, and so forth brings us into sympathetic relation to their civilization."

[Munro.]

SUMMARY

It will be seen from the above that archaeology, while it discloses to us the manners and customs of the ancient inhabitants of j.a.pan, does not afford material for clearly differentiating more than three cultures: namely, the neolithic culture of the Yemis.h.i.+; the iron culture of the Yamato, and the intermediate bronze culture of a race not yet identified. There are no archaeological traces of the existence of the k.u.maso or the Tsuchi-gumo, and however probable it may seem, in view of the accessibility of j.a.pan from the mainland, not only while she formed part of the latter but even after the two had become separate, that several races co-existed with the Yemis.h.i.+ and that a very mixed population carried on the neolithic culture, there is no tangible evidence that such was the case. Further, the indications furnished by mythology that the Yamato were intellectually in touch with central, if not with western Asia, are re-enforced by archaeological suggestions of a civilization and even of physical traits cognate with the Caucasian.

ENGRAVING: DRUM AND MASK

ENGRAVING: "NO" MASKS

CHAPTER VII

LANGUAGE AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

LANGUAGE

HOWEVER numerous may have been the races that contributed originally to people j.a.pan, the languages now spoken there are two only, Ainu and j.a.panese. They are altogether independent tongues. The former undoubtedly was the language of the Yemis.h.i.+; the latter, that of the Yamato. From north to south all sections of the j.a.panese nation--the Ainu of course excepted--use practically the same speech. Varieties of local dialects exist, but they show no traits of survival from different languages. On the contrary, in few countries of j.a.pan's magnitude does corresponding uniformity of speech prevail from end to end of the realm. It cannot reasonably be a.s.sumed that, during a period of some twenty-five centuries and in the face of steady extermination, the Yemis.h.i.+ preserved their language quite distinct from that of their conquerors, whereas the various languages spoken by the other races peopling the island were fused into a whole so h.o.m.ogeneous as to defy all attempts at differentiation. The more credible alternative is that from time immemorial the main elements of the j.a.panese nation belonged to the same race, and whatever they received from abroad by way of immigration became completely absorbed and a.s.similated in the course of centuries.

No diligent attempt has yet been made to trace the connexion--if any exist--between the Ainu tongue and the languages of northeastern Asia, but geology, history, and archaeology suffice to indicate that the Yemis.h.i.+ reached j.a.pan at the outset from Siberia. The testimony of these three sources is by no means so explicit in the case of the Yamato, and we have to consider whether the language itself does not furnish some better guide. "Excepting the twin sister tongue spoken in the Ryukyu Islands," writes Professor Chamberlain, "the j.a.panese language has no kindred, and its cla.s.sification under any of the recognized linguistic families remains doubtful. In structure, though not to any appreciable extent in vocabulary, it closely resembles Korean, and both it and Korean may possibly be related to Mongol and to Manchu, and might therefore lay claim to be included in the so-called 'Altaic group' In any case, j.a.panese is what philologists call an agglutinative tongue; that is to say, it builds up its words and grammatical forms by means of suffixes loosely soldered to the root or stem, which is invariable."

This, written in 1905, has been supplemented by the ampler researches of Professor S. Kanazawa, who adduces such striking evidences of similarity between the languages of j.a.pan and Korea that one is almost compelled to admit the original ident.i.ty of the two. There are no such affinities between j.a.panese and Chinese. j.a.pan has borrowed largely, very largely, from China. It could scarcely have been otherwise. For whereas the j.a.panese language in its original form--a form which differs almost as much from its modern offspring as does Italian from Latin--has little capacity for expansion, Chinese has the most potential of all known tongues in that respect. Chinese may be said to consist of a vast number of monosyllables, each expressed by a different ideograph, each having a distinct significance, and each capable of combination and permutation with one or more of the others, by which combinations and permutations disyllabic and trisyllabic words are obtained representing every conceivable shade of meaning.

It is owing to this wonderful elasticity that j.a.pan, when suddenly confronted by foreign arts and sciences, soon succeeded in building up for herself a vocabulary containing all the new terms, and containing them in self-explaining forms. Thus "railway" is expressed by tetsu-do, which consists of the two monosyllables tetsu (iron) and do (way); "chemistry" by kagaku, or the learning (gaku) of changes (ka); "torpedo" by suirai, or water (sui) thunder (rai); and each of the component monosylables being written with an ideograph which conveys its own meaning, the student has a term not only appropriate but also instructive. Hundreds of such words have been manufactured in j.a.pan during the past half-century to equip men for the study of Western learning, and the same process, though on a very much smaller scale, had been going on continuously for many centuries, so that the j.a.panese language has come to embody a very large number of Chinese words, though they are not p.r.o.nounced as the Chinese p.r.o.nounce the corresponding ideographs.

Yet in spite of this intimate relation, re-enforced as it is by a common script, the two languages remain radically distinct; whereas between j.a.panese and Korean the resemblance of structure and accidence amounts almost to ident.i.ty. j.a.panese philologists allege that no affinity can be traced between their language and the tongues of the Malay, the South Sea islanders, the natives of America and Africa, or the Eskimo, whereas they do find that their language bears a distinct resemblance to Manchu, Persian, and Turkish. Some go so far as to a.s.sert that Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit are nearer to j.a.panese than they are to any European language. These questions await fuller investigation.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RACES

The j.a.panese are of distinctly small stature. The average height of the man is 160 centimetres (5 feet 3.5 inches) and that of the woman 147 centimetres (4 feet 10 inches). They are thus smaller than any European race, the only Occidentals over whom they possess an advantage in this respect being the inhabitants of two Italian provinces. [Baelz.] Their neighbours, the Chinese and the Koreans, are taller, the average height of the northern Chinese being 168 centimetres (5 feet 7 inches), and that of the Koreans 164 centimetres (5 feet 5.5 inches). Nevertheless, Professor Dr. Baelz, the most eminent authority on this subject, avers that "the three great nations of eastern Asia are essentially of the same race," and that observers who consider them to be distinct "have been misled by external appearances." He adds: "Having made a special study of the race question in eastern Asia, I can a.s.sert that comity of race in general is clearly proved by the anatomical qualities of the body. In any case the difference between them is much smaller than that between the inhabitants of northern and southern Europe."

The marked differences in height, noted above, do not invalidate this dictum: they show merely that the Asiatic yellow race has several subdivisions. Among these subdivisions the more important are the Manchu-Korean type, the Mongol proper, the Malay, and the Ainu. To the first, namely the Manchu-Korean, which predominates in north China and in Korea, Baelz a.s.signs the higher cla.s.ses in j.a.pan; that is to say, the men regarded as descendants of the Yamato. They have "slender, elegant and often tall figures, elongated faces with not very prominent cheek-bones, more or less slanting eyes, aquiline noses, large upper teeth, receding chins, long slender necks, narrow chests, long trunks, thin limbs, and often long fingers, while the hair on the face and body is scarce." Dr. Munro, however, another eminent authority, holds that, "judging from the Caucasian and often Semitic physiognomy seen in the aristocratic type of j.a.panese, the Yamato were mainly of Caucasic, perhaps Iranian, origin. These were the warriors, the conquerors of j.a.pan, and afterwards the aristocracy, modified to some extent by mingling with a Mongoloid rank and file, and by a considerable addition of Ainu." He remarks that a white skin was the ideal of the Yamato, as is proved by their ancient poetry.

As for the Mongol-proper type, which is seen in the lower cla.s.ses and even then not very frequently, its representative is squarely built, and has prominent cheek-bones, oblique eyes, a more or less flat nose with a large mouth. The Malay type is much commoner. Its characteristics are small stature, good and sometimes square build, a face round or angular, prominent cheek-bones, large horizontal eyes, a weak chin, a short neck, broad well-developed chest, short legs, and small delicate hands. As for the Ainu type, Dr. Baelz finds it astonis.h.i.+ng that they have left so little trace in the j.a.panese nation. "Yet those who have studied the pure Ainu closely will observe, particularly in the northern provinces, a not insignificant number of individuals bearing the marks of Ainu blood. The most important marks are: a short, thickly set body; prominent bones with bushy hair, round deep-set eyes with long divergent lashes, a straight nose, and a large quant.i.ty of hair on the face and body all qualities which bring the Ainu much nearer to the European than to the j.a.panese proper."

GENERAL PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

In addition to physical characteristics which indicate distinctions of race among the inhabitants of j.a.pan, there are peculiarities common to a majority of the nation at large. One of these is an abnormally large head. In the typical European the height of the head is less than one-seventh of the stature and in Englishmen it is often one-eighth. In the j.a.panese is it appreciably more than one-seventh.

Something of this may be attributed to smallness of stature, but such an explanation is only partial.

Shortness of legs in relation to the trunk is another marked feature.

"Long or short legs are mainly racial in origin. Thus, in Europe, the northern, or Teutonic race--namely Anglo-Saxons, North Germans, Swedes, and Danes--are tail; long-legged, and small-headed, while the Alpine, or central European race are short of stature, have short legs and large heads with short necks, thus resembling the Mongolian race in general, with which it was probably originally connected."

[Baelz.]

In the j.a.panese face, too, there are some striking points. The first is in the osseous cavity of the eyeball and in the skin round the eye. "The socket of the j.a.panese eye is comparatively small and shallow, and the osseous ridges at the brows being little marked, the eye is less deeply set than in the European. Seen in profile, forehead and upper lid often form one unbroken line." Then "the shape of the eye proper, as modelled by the lids, shows a most striking difference between the European and the Mongolian races; the open eye being almost invariably horizontal in the former but very often oblique in the latter on account of the higher level of the outer corner. But even apart from obliqueness the shape of the corner is peculiar in the Mongolian eye. The inner corner is partly or entirely covered by a fold of the upper lid continuing more or less into the lower lid. This fold, which has been called the Mongolian fold, often also covers the whole free rim of the upper lid, so that the insertion of the eyelashes is hidden. When the fold takes an upward direction towards the outer corner, the latter is a good deal higher than the inner corner, and the result is the obliqueness mentioned above. The eyelashes are shorter and spa.r.s.er than in the European, and whereas in the European the lashes of the upper and the lower lid diverge, so that their free ends are farther distant than their roots, in the j.a.panese eye they converge, the free ends being nearer together than the insertions. Then again in the lower cla.s.s the cheek-bones are large and prominent, making the face look flat and broad, while in the higher cla.s.ses narrow and elongated faces are quite common. Finally, the j.a.panese is less hairy than the European, and the hair of the beard is usually straight." [Baelz.]

VIEWS OF j.a.pANESE ETHNOLOGISTS

It may well be supposed that the problem of their nation's origin has occupied much attention among the j.a.panese, and that their ethnologists have arrived at more or less definite conclusions. The outlines of their ideas are that one of the great waves of emigration which, in a remote age, emerged from the cradle of the human race in central Asia, made its way eastward with a constantly expanding front, and, sweeping up the Tarim basin, emerged in the region of the Yellow River and in Manchuria. These wanderers, being an agricultural, not a maritime, race, did not contribute much to the peopling of the oversea islands of j.a.pan. But in a later--or an earlier--era, another exodus took place from the interior of Asia. It turned in a southerly direction through India, and coasting along the southern seaboard, reached the southeastern region of China; whence, using as stepping-stones the chain of islands that festoon eastern Asia, it made its way ultimately to Korea and j.a.pan.

Anterior to both of these movements another race, the neolithic Yemis.h.i.+ of the sh.e.l.l-heaps, had pushed down from the northeastern regions of Korea or from the Amur valley, and peopled the northern half of j.a.pan. The Korean peninsula, known in Chinese records as Han, appears in the form of three kingdoms at the earliest date of its historical mention: they were Sin-Han and Pyon-Han on the east and Ma-Han on the West. The northeastern portion, from the present Won-san to Vladivostok, bore the name of Yoso, which is supposed to have been the original of Yezo, the Yoso region thus const.i.tuting the cradle of the Yemis.h.i.+ race.

j.a.panese ethnologists interpret the ancient annals as pointing to very close intercourse between j.a.pan and Korea in early days,* and regard this as confirming the theory stated above as to the provenance of the Yamato race. Connexion with the colonists of northern China was soon established via Manchuria, and this fact may account for some of the similarities between the civilization as well as the legends of the Yamato and those of Europe, since there is evidence that the Greeks and Romans had some hazy knowledge of China, and that the Chinese had a similarly vague knowledge of the Roman Empire,** possibly through commercial relations in the second century B.C.

*The annals state of Princes Mikeno and Inahi, elder brothers of Prince Iware (afterwards Jimmu Tenno). that the former "crossed over to the Eternal Land" (Tokoyo-no-kuni) and the latter went down to the sea plain, it being his deceased mother's land. j.a.panese archaeologists identify "mother's land" as s.h.i.+ragi in Korea, and Tokoyo-no-kuni as the western country where the sun sets, namely China. They further point out that Susanoo with his son, Itakeru, went to s.h.i.+ragi and lived at Sos.h.i.+-mori, for which reason Susanoo's posthumous t.i.tle was Gozu Tenno, gozu being the j.a.panese equivalent for the Korean sos.h.i.+-mori (ox head). Susanoo is also quoted as saying, "there are gold and silver in Koma and it were well that there should be a floating treasury;"* so he built a vessel of pine and camphor-wood to export these treasures to j.a.pan. The "Korea" here spoken of is the present Kimhai in Kyongsan-do. It is further recorded that Susanoo lived for a time at k.u.manari-mine, which is the present Kongju. Again, a j.a.panese book, compiled in the tenth century A.D., enumerates six shrines in the province of Izumo which were called Kara-kuni Itate Jinja, or shrine of Itakeru of Korea. A much abler work, Izuma Fudoki, speaks of Cape Kitsuki in Izumo as a place where cotton-stuffs were imported from s.h.i.+ragi by Omitsu, son of Susanoo. There are other evidences to the same effect, and taken in conjunction with the remarkable similarity of the Korean and j.a.panese languages, these facts are held to warrant the conclusion that the most important element of the j.a.panese nation came via Korea, its Far Eastern colony being the ultima thule of its long wanderings from central Asia.

**See Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Vol. 6, p. 189 b.

The first mention of j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan were at any time subject to Yen is highly improbable, but that they were tributaries is not unlikely. In other words, intercourse between j.a.pan and northern China was established in remote times via the Korean peninsula, and people from j.a.pan, travelling by this route, carried presents to the Court of Yen, a procedure which, in Chinese eyes const.i.tuted 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 a.s.signed by j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese name for Korea.