512 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1X91. 



Tenno "the inliabitauts were still pluuged in barbarism and mostly 

 lived in caA^erns." (Klaproth.) 



Prof. Milne has brought together many allusions to the early eave 

 dwellings* of Japan taken from native writers, but all of these may as 

 readily have reference to the aborigines as to the Jai)anese themselves, 

 and it seems to me with greater probability. 



The Chinese character which is translated " cave" means " apartment," 

 or " a cave or pit dug into the earth." It is uncertain what kind of 

 dwellings or caves are thus designated. Some chambers were built with 

 stones and may have been the dolmens which will soon be described ; 

 others were made of turf and recall the dwelliu gs of the Kuriles. While 

 much of this uncertainty is due to the use of an ambiguous Chinese char- 

 acter in writing, the examination of the true caves, natural and artificial, 

 in dicates that if ever the Japanese were cave-dwellers it was before they 

 migrated to Japan. 



The observations here brought together are the result of considerable 

 travel and intimate association with Mr. W. Gowland, formerly chem- 

 ist of the Imperial mint at Osaka. Mr. Gowland has spent several 

 years in the study of the Japanese mounds, and he is the only person 

 who possesses sufficient accurate and valuable information ujion the 

 subject to preiDare a comprehensive monograph. It is to be hoped that 

 the results of his years of labor and observation will be published. His 

 fine collection of relics from the tombs, now in the British Museum, is 

 unique and of great value. It can never be duplicated. Many a day 

 we have tramped together on the rough mountain sides, searching for 

 tombs or sepulchral caves, and at evening compared notes and re- 

 counted experiences in Japanese hotels. I recall the cozy comfort of 

 those neat matted floors, the bronze hibdchi with its steaming kettle, 

 the savory and unsavory dinners, both varieties of which are furnished 

 in Yamato, and many other incidents familiar to the traveler in the in- 

 terior of Japan. 



Several distinct methods of burial have i)revailed in Japan at differ- 

 ent periods. These may be distinguished as follows : 



(1) Burial in artificial caves. 



(2) Burial in simple mounds of earth. 



(3) Burial in mounds with rock chambers or dolmens. 



(4) Burial in double mounds or imperial tumuli. 



The chronological sequence of these different modes of burial is largely 

 a matter of speculati<m. Among the earliest was interment in artifi- 

 cial rock caves. Such caves are quite numerous in various provinces. 

 In PI. XXXIII we have a view of four such caves in Kawachi. The fronts 

 are crumbling a-way and we look directly upon what were originally 

 the dark interiors. The largest of this group shows the remains of a 

 stone coffin cut from the rock in situ. Originally the caves were en- 

 tered through small apertures, which were doubtless at one time closed 



Trans. Asiatic Soc. uf Japau, vili. 



