560 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



plex characterising the Japanese Early Iron Age. That it, too, was 

 derived from Korea is indicated, among other signs, by the entire 

 absence in Japan of the water buifalo, the plow animal par excellence 

 in the irrigated rice culture of China, and the use in its stead of a 

 bullock of identical breed with that of the neighboring peninsula. 



Such a revolution in the economic life of a people as that 

 implied by a change fi-om a hoe to a plow culture has naturally its 

 social aspects also. In hoe culture it is almost invariably the 

 women who do the planting, while the men fish and hunt. No one 

 exchanges the excitement and activity incident to the career of a 

 hunter or a deep-sea fisherman for the monotonous drudgery that 

 falls to the plowman's lot save under strong compulsion of some 

 sort. In other words, the bringing about of such a change almost 

 necessarily implies the relationship of master and serf. That such 

 a system obtained in the Japan of the Early Iron Age, we have 

 abundant evidence.^^ This fact affords additional presumption of 

 conquest of some sort, whether from without or from within. 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FROM CHINESE RECORDS 



For such historical evidence as exists regarding this phase of 

 Japan's cultural development we are still forced to rely almost 

 wholly on the Chinese records. Writing seems to have been applied 

 in Korea to the keeping of annals only toward the close of the 

 fourth century of our era, and in Japan somewhat later still, so that 

 what is told regarding earlier periods must rest solely upon oral 

 tradition and legend.^® 



The histories of the Later Han and the Wei dynasties of China 

 inform us that for a period of TO or 80 years, ending about 

 the close of the second century, the people of western Japan — from 

 what cause, is not stated — were in great turmoil, the disturbances 

 ending only with the rise of a powerful queen (almost certainly the 

 "empress" Jingo Kogo of Japanese legend) who by her command 

 of magic extended her authority far and wide over the various tribes 

 of the Wo.-° She had, the accounts go on to sa}^, no husband, but 

 was assisted in governing by her brother — apparently an only partly 



^ On this see, e. g., Hara, op. cit., pp. 80 et scq. 



"^ Maurice Couraiit, Stfele cbinoise du royaumo de Ko Kou Rye, Journ. Asiatiquo, Ser. 

 9, vol. 11, 1808. pp. 210-2.38, states (pp. 223 ct seq.)'tlKit writing became habitually used 

 in western Korea in the last quarter of the fourth cc^utury. W. G. Aston, Trans. Asiatic 

 Soc. of Japan, vol. IG, 1888, p. 46, thinks Chinese writing (there is of course no ques- 

 tion of any other) was diffused in the various Korean kingdoms in the last half of the 

 same century. C. E. Maitre, op. cit., p. 584, says writing was definitely introduced into 

 Japan from Korea at the beginning of the fifth century. 



'"See Murdoch, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 36 et seq. 



