486 



NA TURE 



yMarcli 20, 1884 



of the larger rivers, while house and temple building are 

 the subjects of frequent reference. The Japanese of the 

 present day appear to have inherited their habits of great 

 personal cleanliness from their early forefathers, for we 

 read more than once of bathing, and bathing-women arc 

 said to have been specially attached to an imperial infant. 

 Among the religious practices, too, was that of lustration. 

 A custom of the early Japanese, which is still found e.xist- 

 ing in the island of Hachijo, off the east coast, was that 

 of a woman before childbirth erecting with her own hands 

 ,1 one-roomed hut without windows, into which she was ex- 

 pected to retire and give birth to her child. In Hachijo 

 formerly a woman was driven out from the village under 

 these circumstances to a hut on the inountain side, which 

 she was not permitted to leave under any circumstances 

 whatever before the birth of the infant ; but in later times 

 the custom was so far relaxed that the hut was allowed to 

 be put up within the homestead. Each sovereign on his 

 accession, also, had a new palace erected for him ; but 

 these so-called " palaces" were nothing more than ordinary 

 wood huts. Although cave-dwellers are referred to in the 

 " Records," it appears that at the date to which the worlc 

 refers they had quite passed away. The principal food was 

 lish and the flesh of wild animals. Rice is mentioned in 

 such a manner that there can be no doubt of its cultiva- 

 tion from immemorial antiquity; sake, the native rice- 

 beer, is also referred to. In dress the mythical Japanese 

 appear to have reached a high level, and we find many 

 garments speciahsed, such as skirts, trousers, girdles, 

 veils, and hats ; while it is interesting to note that 

 although jewellery forms no part of the attire of the 

 modern Japanese, their ancestors adorned themselves 

 with necklaces, bracelets, and other articles formed from 

 stones considered precious. They appear to have had a 

 tolerably extensive accjuaintance with the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms, but the tea-plant was evidently not 

 yet introduced among them. Iron, which was used from 

 time immemorial, was the only metal they knew ; and 

 their acquaintance with colours was confined to black, 

 blue (including green), red, white, and piebald (of horses). 

 In the Japan of to-day the different degrees of relation- 

 ship are distinguished in much the same way as in 

 Europe, except that brothers and sisters, instead of 

 being considered as mutually related in the same manner, 

 are divided into two categories, elder and younger, in 

 accordance with the Chinese usage. But the ancient 

 Japanese had a complicated system of nomenclature, 

 which appears to have perplexed native commentators 

 themselves, the foundation of which was a subordination 

 of the younger to the elder born, modified by a sub- 

 ordination of the females to the males. A distinction 

 also appears to have been drawn between the chief and 

 secondary wives, and the wife is constantly spoken of as 

 "younger sister." It appears that consanguinity, how- 

 ever close, was no bar to marriage, as we hear of unions 

 with half-sisters, step-mothers, and aunts. When the 

 Chinese ethical code was imported, these gradually dis- 

 appeared, but not, it is said, without political troubles. 

 E.xogamy did not exist, and there appear to have been 

 no artificial impediments in the way of marriage. On 

 death the hut of the deceased was abandoned ; and there 

 was a tradition of an earlier custom of burying alive 

 some of the retainers in the neighbourhood of a 

 royal tomb. This is the only trace of human sacrifice 

 to be found in the records of the Japanese race, and 

 there is also a total absence of any trace of slavery. 

 They were unacquainted with any of the arts by which 

 their descendants are best known ; they had neither tea, 

 fans, lacquer, or porcelain. They knew nothing of 

 vehicles, money, or the computation of time. They were 

 ignorant of writing, and of course had no books. 



This brings us to another interesting part of the subject, 

 viz. the antiquity claimed by native writers for their 

 monarchy, and the reliability of their early chronology. 



There is no break in their history between the fabulous 

 and the real, and the continuity of their mythology and 

 history is a tenet of the native commentators. They hold 

 the age of the gods to have ceased and that of their 

 human kings to have commenced at an era correspond- 

 ing with 660 !!.c., and the then ruler of Japan is claimed 

 as the first of an unbroken line of sovereigns extending 

 down to the Mikado of to-day. All the earlier European 

 writers on Japan liave accepted 660 is.c. as the com- 

 mencement of historical Japan; the Mikado himself has 

 claimed this long descent ; frequently in official publica- 

 tions we find this accepted as the Japanese year i.' In 

 native chronologies we find the names of a series of 

 Emperors who have reigned from that time. This an- 

 tiquity, though as yesterday compared to that of the 

 Chinese, is highly respectable if correct, but unfortu- 

 nately there is nothing whatever to support it. For, in 

 the words of Mr. Chamberlain, this era, this accession of 

 the first emperor, "is confidently placed thirteen or four- 

 teen centuries before the first history which records it was 

 written, nine centuries before (at the earliest computa- 

 tion) the art of writing v/as introiuced into the country, 

 and on the sole authority of books teeming with miracu- 

 lous legends.' ' Another scholar, who made the chronology 

 of Japan a special study, and who has published a valuable 

 monograph on that subject, the late Mr. Bramsen, does 

 not scruple to say that " the whole system of fictitious 

 dates applied in the first histories of Japan is one of the 

 greatest literary fi'auds ever perpetrated, from which we 

 may infer how little trust can be placed in the early 

 Japanese historical works." In short it appears that, for 

 all historical purposes, Japan is a newer country than 

 England by several centuries. Another proposition for 

 which native scholars have always strenuously contended 

 will also have to be abandoned. It is usual to say that 

 early Japanese civilisation was a purely indigenous pro- 

 duct, and that even a certain form of writing called 

 "letters of the Divine Age" existed long before there 

 was any contact with China. European scholars have 

 always been doubtful about this divine alphabet, and it 

 is now beyond doubt that they are the invention, or 

 adaptation from Corea, of a later age ; but it is also 

 certain from these "Records'' that, "at the very earliest 

 period to which the twilight of legend stretches back, 

 Chinese influence had already begun to make itself felt in 

 these islands, communicating to the inhabitants both 

 implements and ideas." It would occupy too much 

 space here to exhibit the evidences of this. One must 

 suffice. " Curved jewels," OTc(§'ci/(i'«rJ as they are called, 

 figure largely in the Japanese mythology as ornaments of 

 the early Japanese. These are generally made of jade, 

 or a jade-like stone, and Prof Milne shows that no such 

 mineral has ever been discovered in Japan. Further 

 proofs of Chinese influence are found in the nature of 

 the myths, the existence of the intoxicant sak:!, the lan- 

 guage, &c. The religion of the early Japanese appears 

 to have been merely "a bundle of miscellaneous super- 

 stitions," not an organised system. We find no body of 

 dogmas, or code of morals, authoritatively enforced by a 

 sacred book. The gods of their mythology were of 

 course the object of worship ; conciliatory offerings of a 

 miscellaneous kind were made to them. Purificition by 

 water is the sacred rite of which we hear m jst. Trial by 

 hot water also existed ; compacts, too, resembling our 

 oaths, were entered into with a god. Priests are men- 

 tioned, but the impression conveyed is that in early times 

 they did not exist as a separate class. In his " History 



' In an interview with the Japanese Minister in LonJon, published in the 

 Pall Malt Gazette of February 26. His E.-icellency is reported to have 

 attrbuted the ardent attachment of the Japanese to his country to two facts, 

 one ihat Japan has been unconju^red for 2530 years, the other that for the 

 samep5ri)d it has been gjverneJ by the sane dymsty. "No other State 

 can point to such a record," said Mr. Mori, " aad it is but natural that w; 

 should fee! a pride in our country," &c., &c I'he Minister, as will be 

 seen, would have to deduct nearly fifteen hundred years from his major 

 premiss befire he tou:hed the solid ground of fact. 



