An Introduction to the History of Japan. Katsuro Hara

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СКАЧАТЬ there are certain items in our history to the natural interpretation of which any solution of all the ethnological problems must conform; and among those items the following are the most important.

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

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

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

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

      All the four items mentioned above ought by all means to be interpreted adequately and naturally, whatever standpoint one may take in solving ethnological questions concerning the Japanese. The hypothesis that the bulk of our forefathers might have been immigrants from northeastern Asia, is, as already said before, by itself nothing but an assertion, supported mainly by the form of certain prehistoric pottery, which may possibly be interpreted otherwise, perhaps disadvantageously, too, for the assertion. We may accept the hypothesis as probable, taking into consideration the proximity of the supposed home of our ancestors to Japan. But it avails us not at all in interpreting the points which I have enumerated above. On the contrary, if we concur with the supposition that the ruling class, also, of the Japanese has its original home in the northeastern part of the Asiatic continent like the bulk of the race, then the interpretation of the aforesaid items would become more difficult. It is true that those who would like to derive the origin of the Japanese from northeastern Asia, do not absolutely deny the existence of a certain tropical element in the final formation of the Japanese race, but generally they think СКАЧАТЬ