544 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1907. 
diameter, and stand by the hundreds or thousands in rows one above 
the other on the imperial graves. Their purpose is not known. It 
can, as Gowland says, hardly be to protect the mound from erosion 
by the weather, on account of their position, and it is also improbable 
that they were set 
up or laid there as 
a substitute for lv- 
ing servants buried 
with the illustrious 
dead. On the other 
hand, we may as- 
sume that the less 
frequent so-called 
Tsutshi-nigyo (that 
is, earth figures of 
men) found with 
the cylinders served 
that purpose. As 
in almost all half 
barbaric ancient 
countries, servants 
and slaves or war 
captives were killed 
at the tomb of a 
prince in Japan in 
order to serve him 
in the next world. 
In Japan this hu- 
man sacrifice took 
the terrible form 
of burying the vic- 
tim in the earth up 
to the breast, caus- 
ing a_ lingering 
death from hunger 
and thirst or suffo- 
cation. An emperor 
is said to have been 
touched by the cries 
Fig. 11.—Terra cotta figure with armor from the grave mound and eroans of these 
of a prince. After Tsuboi: Kokogaku. unfortunates, which 
lasted several days and nights, and therefore, on the advice of a 
famous official, he issued an edict that in the future the human sacri- 
fices should be stopped and the servants replaced by clay figures which 
were buried in the tumuli. Probably this was, as in so many other 
ee 
