An Introduction to the History of Japan. Katsuro Hara

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СКАЧАТЬ out some article therefrom unhurt, is said to have been practised by the people of Hai-nan too. To believe hastily, however, in a racial connection between the Japanese and the inhabitants of Hai-nan is a very dangerous matter. Another fact that cannot be overlooked in the Chinese narratives is a passage concerning the continual warfare in Japan, though only a short description of it is given in them.

      In the preceding chapter I have spoken about the heterogeneity of the Japanese as a race. Among the various racial factors, however, none was able to keep for a long time its racial independence and separateness from the bulk of the Japanese except the Ainu. Other minor factors were lost in the chaotic concourse of races or swallowed up in the midst of the most powerful element. Even the Kumaso, who were once the strongest element in the island of Kyushu, succumbed to the arms of the Japanese not long after the peninsular expedition of the Empress Jingu. The Ainu, too, intermingled with the dominant race wherever circumstances were favourable to such a union. Having been the predecessors of the Japanese, however, in the order of settling in this country, and having moreover been the next most powerful race to it, the Ainu only have been able to retain their racial entity, though continuously decreasing in numbers, up to the present time.

      In the long history of the antagonism between the Japanese and the Ainu, which covers more than a thousand years, the Ainu were on the whole the losing party, retreating before the Japanese. Surely, however, they must have made a stubborn resistance now and then. That they formerly occupied the island of Kyushu, we know from the archæological remains. But, from reliable historical records, we cannot know anything certain about the race, until the time when they are to be found fighting against the Japanese in the northern part of Hon-to. Still it is beyond doubt, that there must have been not a few intervening phases, and one of the phases, which is important, coincides with the period when the visit of the Chinese officials took place.

      Most of the countries of the world may be divided into two or more parts, the people of each of which differ from those of the others in mental and physical traits. Boundary lines in this case generally conform to the geographical features of the land, but not necessarily so always. If we have to draw lines dividing the island of Hon-to in accordance with linguistic considerations, it is more natural to divide it first into two rather than into three or more parts, and the dividing line here is not the most conspicuous geographical boundary. The line begins on the north at a spot near Nutari, on the Sea of Japan, a little eastward of the city of Niigata in the province of Yechigo, and after running vertically southward, on the whole keeping to the meridian of 139° ⅓ E. till it reaches the southern boundary of the province, it turns abruptly to the west along the boundary between Yechigo and Shinano, which lies nearly on the latitude 36° ⅚ N.; and then it runs again toward the south along the western boundary of the provinces Shinano and Tôtômi, which is almost identical with the meridian 137° ½ E. This is of course an average line drawn from several linguistic considerations, such as accentuation, dialectic peculiarities and the like, but at the same time, besides the linguistic differences there are other kinds noticeable on both sides of the line. It would not therefore be very wide of the mark, if we adopt this line as a boundary dividing Hon-to with regard to the difference in the standard of the civilisation in general. No other line drawn on the map of Japan can divide it in such a way as to make one part so distinctly different from the other. If the reader will glance at the map, he can easily see that the line does not well agree with the geographical features, especially in those parts running vertically southward. No insurmountable natural barrier can be found, particularly on the Pacific coast. Consequently the best interpretation of the boundary line must come not from geography, but from history.

      Not only in the case of Japan, but in Western countries too, broad rivers or big mountain chains do not necessarily form the lines of internal and external division. The great Balkan range could not hinder the Bulgarians of East Roumelia from uniting with their brethren to the north of the mountain. The Rhine, the most historic river in the world, has never in reality been made a boundary between France and Germany which could last for long, and the antagonism of the two countries, which has continued for many centuries, is the result of the earnest but hardly realisable desire on both sides to make the river a perpetual boundary. More than that, even inside Germany the Rhine joins rather than divides the regions on both sides of it.

      Take again for example the boundary between England and Scotland. If we follow merely the geographical conditions, we may shift the boundary line a little northward, or perhaps southward too, with better or at least equal reason. In order to account for the present boundary, we cannot but look back into the history of the district, from the age of the Picts and Britons downward. If it had been a dividing line of shorter duration dating only from the Middle Ages, it would not have been able to maintain itself so long, and the differences of not only dialects but of temperament and various mental characteristics would not have been so decisive.

      We have no Picts-wall, no limes in our country, but the boundary line delineated above divides Japan into two parts, the one different from the other in various ways, more remarkably than could be effected by drawing any other boundary line elsewhere. Then where lies the reason which makes the Ainu line so significant? It must be attributed to the fact that the line stood for many centuries as a frontier of the Japanese against the Ainu. In other words, the Ainu must have made the most stubborn resistance on this line against the advancing Japanese. Japan had to become organised and consolidated in a great measure, so as to be called a well-defined entity, before the Japanese could penetrate beyond the line to the east and north. The exploration of Northern Japan is the result of this penetration and of the infiltration of the civilisation which had come into being in the already compact south. Thus the difference between the two parts grew to be a clearly perceptible one. In some respects it can be well compared to the difference between Cape Colony and the two states, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, which were formed by the emigrants from the former.

      The fortress of Nutari had been for a long time the outpost of the Japanese against the Ainu on the side of the Sea of Japan. With this fortress as a pivot the boundary line gradually turned toward the north, pushed forward by the arms of the Japanese. The movement must have been made at a very unequal pace in different ages, and where the progress was very slow or stopped short and could not go on for a long time, there we may draw another boundary line, thus marking several successive stages. Politically to efface the significance of these lines was thought to be necessary for the unification of the Empire by the Emperors and their ministers in successive ages, and in that respect more than enough has been achieved by them. Apart from political considerations, however, those lines, which mark the boundaries in successive phases, are almost perceptible to this day. And none of those lines is so full of meaning as the one which I have emphasised above. At first sight it would seem strange that while the fortress of Nutari remained stationary as an outpost for a very long time, there cannot be found any corresponding spot on the Pacific side east of the line. But the difficulty may be cleared away easily, if one thinks of the fact that the line was moved on more swiftly to the right than to the left where the fort Nutari was situated.

      In the first half of the third century after Christ the Japanese were still fighting on the line against the Ainu. And the time when the Chinese officials came over to this country falls in the same period. In the description given in the San-kuo-chih the names of about thirty provinces under the suzerainty of the court of Yamato are mentioned, to identify all of which with modern names is a very difficult and practically a hopeless task. But this much is certain, that none of them could have denoted a province east of the line. Moreover, we can tell from a passage in the same work that the war with the Ainu at that time had been a very serious one for our ancestors, for it is stated that the course of the war was reported to the Chinese official stationed in the peninsular province by the Japanese ambassador despatched there.

      Turning to the southwestern part of Japan, it cannot be said that the whole island of Kyushu was already at the disposal of the Emperor of that time. In the region which roughly corresponds with the province of Higo, a tribe called the Kumaso defied the imperial power, and continued to do so to an age later than the period of which I have just spoken. It was perhaps not earlier СКАЧАТЬ