562 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



also, of course, descendants of the Sun Goddess and therefore god- 

 kings in their own persons. 



It was during this same period of her Early Iron Age that Japan 

 received, through Korea but eventually from China, two fresh cul- 

 tural acquisitions, whose importance it would be difficult to exag- 

 gerate. These were the Buddhist faith and the art of writing. The 

 story of the way in which these additional factors in the national 

 life came to be introduced can not be gone into here. But it will 

 readily be seen how very great must have been their influence as imi- 

 fying and civilizing agents among a congeries of tribes d^velling 

 upon a relatively Ioav culture plane and ruled over by a turbulent, 

 disunited, and illiterate aristocracy which had as yet learned to pay 

 but small respect to the authority of the central government. 



EXTENSION OF JAPANESE OCCUPATION OF THE MAIN ISLAND 



The fact that bronze implements have been found only to the west- 

 ward of the Lake Biwa region would suggest that the Mongoloid 

 advance at the expense of the Ainu got no farther than that point 

 until after the introduction of iron. It is possible, however, that even 

 during the Xeolithic period independent bands of the invaders may 

 have cruised in canoes farther eastward, planting settlements along 

 the coast but leaving the central mountain ranges in the hands of 

 the aboriginal population. "We know that it was by this method of 

 coastwise advance in large fleets of war boats that the Japanese 

 effected the conquest of much of the northern part of the main island 

 in the full light of the historical period, during the seventh and 

 eighth centuries, and it must have been by a similar process that they 

 acquired a lodgment in the islands in the first place.^^ At all events, 

 there is some evidence, slight though it be and mainly of a legendary 

 character, that the coastal plains as far east as Tokyo Bay were 

 already occupied by settlements of peoples akin to but independent 

 of the Yamato when the latter established their supremacy there. 

 The Yamato-dake storj'^, for example, pure myth though it be in the 

 main,^^ suggests this ; for in it that hero appears as warring against 

 peoples kindred to his own until he passes the mouth of ToItn'o Bay 

 (traveling by sea, be it noted) ; it is only bej'ond tliat point that he is 

 represented as coming in contact with the Ainu. 



It seems certain, at any rate, that the efforts of the Yamato to 

 extend their authority over eastern Japan began very soon after their 

 occupation of the Lake Biwa region. For the Japanese annals, just 

 now beginning to have some slight historical value, mention a defeat 



=^ Regarding these boat c.xpetlitioiis, see Aston, Nihongi, vol. 2, pp. 252 and 2G3 ; also, 

 Ilara, op. c-it., p. 110. 



''For the Yamato-dakf myth see .\ston, Niliongi, vol. 1, pp. 200 ct seq., 1?. II. Cham- 

 berlain, Ko-jikl, pp. 201 and 205 et seq. 



