An Introduction to the History of Japan. Katsuro Hara

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СКАЧАТЬ house stood. Agricultural products thus raised could perhaps not cover all the demands of his family for subsistence. But, on the other hand, that all the victuals they required were supplied by barter or by distribution on the part of the chieftain of the respective group is hardly to be imagined.

      A group pursuing the same occupation was of course not the only one allowed to pursue it, nor was their habitation limited to one special locality. In other words, there were many groups which were engaged in the same occupation, and those groups had their residence in different provinces. It is not clear whether all the groups pursuing the same craft were under the jurisdiction of a common chieftain. The fact is certain, however, that many groups engaged in the same craft often had a common chieftain, notwithstanding their occupying different localities. The chieftain of a group was sometimes of the same blood as the members of the group, as in the case where the group consisted of homogeneous immigrants. The chieftains of immigrant craft-groups, the number of which was very much limited in this country, belonged to this category. Sometimes, however, the chieftain of such a craft-group was not of the same stock as the members of the group under him, though the latter might be of homogeneous blood. This was especially the case when a group was that of arms-bearers composed of Ainu or Haito. These valiant people were enlisted into a homogeneous company, but they were put under the direction of some trustworthy leader, who was of the same racial origin as the imperial family or who belonged to a race subjected to the imperial rule long before. Lastly, in the case where a group was a memorial institution, it is probable that the chieftain was nominated by the emperor without regard to his blood relationship to the members of the group under him.

      Summing up what is stated above at length, there were two kinds of seigneurs who were immediately under the sovereignty of the Emperor; the one was the landlord, and the other was the group-chieftain. It is a matter of course that the former was at the same time the chieftain of the serfs who peopled the land of which he was the lord, while the latter was the lord de facto of the land inhabited by himself and his clients, so that there was virtually very little difference between them. As regards their rights over the land and the people under their power it was equally absolute in both cases. The principal difference was that the right of the former rested essentially on his being the lord of the land, and that of the latter on his being the chieftain of the people. How did such a difference come into existence?

      The fact that there were many landlords who were not of the same stock as the imperial family, might be regarded as a proof that they were descendants of the chiefs who held their lands prior to the coming over of the Japanese, or, more strictly, before the immigration of the predominant stock. They acquiesced afterwards in, or were subjected to, the rule of the Japanese, but the relation between the Emperor and these landlords was of a personal nature, and the right of the latter over their own land remained unchanged. Later on many members of the imperial family were sent out to explore new lands at the expense of the Ainu, and they generally installed themselves as masters of the land which they had conquered. These new landlords assumed, as was natural, the same power as that which was possessed by the older landlords mentioned above. The power of the imperial family was thus extended into a wider sphere by the increase in the number of the landlords of the blood royal, but at the same time the power of the Emperor himself was in danger of being weakened by the overgrowth of the branches of the Imperial family.

      As to the chieftains of groups, they must have been of later origin than the landlords, for to be a virtual possessor of land only as the consequence of being chieftain of the people who happened to occupy the land shows that the relation between the people and the land inhabited by them was the result of some historical development. Moreover, the grouping of people according to their handicrafts must be a step far advanced beyond the pristine crowding together of people of promiscuous callings. It is also an important fact which should be taken into consideration here again that the greater part of the craft-groups consisted of immigrants. From all these data we may safely enough assume that the chieftains who were at first placed at the head of a certain group of people perhaps came over to this country simultaneously with the predominant stock, or came from the same home at a time not very far distant from that of the migration of the predominant stock itself, and that they distinguished themselves by their fidelity to the emperor; in short, these chieftains might have been mostly of the same racial origin as the imperial family, except in the case of groups formed by peninsular immigrants of later date. The increasing organisation of such groups, therefore, must have led to the aggrandizement of the power of the imperial family; but there was, of course, the same fear of a relaxation of the blood-ties between the emperor and the chieftains akin in blood to him.

      Such are the general facts relating to the social and political life of Japan before the seventh century. If its development had continued on the lines described above, the ultimate result would have been the division of the country among a large number of petty chieftains, heterogeneous in blood and in the nature of the power which they wielded, and with very relaxed ties between themselves and the emperor. We can observe a similar state of things even today among several uncivilised tribes, for example, among the natives of Formosa and in many South Sea Islands. Japan, however, was not destined to the same fate. How then did it come to be consolidated?

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