THE ANCIENT BURIAL MOUND!-; OF JAPAN. 513 



with stones. Probably all were provided with either stone or clay 

 coffins, but now only fragments of these remain. PI. xxxiv shows the 

 remains of the coffin just referred to. Usually the coffins are placed at 

 the back of the caves, raised on a shelf a few inches from the tloor. 



The caves vary greatly in size, but they never reach very large pro- 

 portions. Perhaps they average 5 feet in height and 6 to 10 feet 

 S(piare. They contain no remains whatever except the fragments of 

 coffins. If they ever did enclose articles of pottery or treasure interred 

 with the dead, the vandalism of the peasants has robbed every one of 

 them. I have crawled on hands and knees into many of these gloomy 

 recesses, inhabited by bats which tly unpleasantly near one's face, and 

 searched by the light of a candle for what might be found, but with no 

 further reward. I well remember one occasion when Mr. Gowlandand 

 I were long entombed in the close, damp atmosphere of a cave, not far 

 from Kokubu. We projjosed to photograph the interior with the flash- 

 light. To place our two cameras at the mouth of the cave required 

 several hours of hard digging with hammer and knife, and the contor- 

 tions required in focusing were too Avonderful for description. We 

 focused on a burning candle held at different j)oints to (uitline the field 

 of view. Finally the light flashed ; and if the spirit of the departed 

 ancient still hovered around its tomb, as the people believe, and if it 

 had progressed far enough in the transcendant thought of the western 

 world to grasp the fantastic idea of a bodily rising from the dust, I 

 think it must have believed the resurrection day had come. 



The most we can say of the caves is, that they are numerous in some 

 sections, that they Avere used oidy for burial, and that i)robably they 

 preceded in time the rock-built dolmens. Xo date can be assigned to 

 them. There is not a vestige of a skeleton, not a line of inscription, 

 nothing but the soft, half-decomposed rock remaining, to bear witness 

 of the veneration bestowed upon the dead in ages past. The great 

 question presented now for the ethnologist to vsolve concerns the origin 

 of the custom of cave-burial among the Japanese. 



The God Take-mika-dzuchi was famous for his desperate combats 

 with demons. On the island of Kasliima there is a mound known as 

 0)ti-(hi(la — demon mound. It is said that the God killed a devil tliere 

 and buried him, heaping the earth above him. This was before the 

 time of Jimmu Tenno. Such a mound doubtless represents the earliest 

 form of burial among the Japanese.* Examples of such simple mounds, 

 averaging about 4 to S feet in height, are numerous in the country. 

 Sucl\ is the character of the traditional mound of the first emperor, 

 dating from the seventh century b. c. 



* H. Von Siebold has described a siTjalJ monnd 8 feet in height and about 20 feet 

 in circnniference; without any coffin, in which six coins were found, two of which 

 wei-e recognized, the first as from thci time of Sliofu Genipo, 1004 B. c, the second 

 of Seiso Gempo, 961 B. G. Tin? im}>()rt;mce of this hnd is easily overestimated, and 

 ft cannot Ijeiegarded an very significant of the fige pf the mounds. 



SM 91. PT 2-.^^;3;> 



