796 PRIMEVAL JAPANESE. 



away in the northeast a race of highly-civilized men, who had origi- 

 nally come from ])eyond the sea in ships, were settled in the province 

 of Yamato, holding- undisputed sway. To the conquest of these colo- 

 nists Jimmii, who then ruled the southern immigrants, set out on a 

 campaign which lasted fifteen years 'and ended, after some tierce light- 

 ing, in the Yamato ruler's acknowledging their consanguinity with the 

 invader and abdicating in his favor. 



^^^l(^tiler Jinunu's story be purely a figment of later-day imagina- 

 tion, or whether it consists of poetically eni])ellislied facts, there can 

 be no question about its interest, since it shows the kind of hero that 

 subsequent generations were disposed to picture as the founder of the 

 sacred dynasty, the chief of the Japanese race. The 3^oungest of four 

 sons, he was nevertheless selected by his "divine" father to succeed 

 to the rulership of the little colony of immigrants then settled in 

 Kiubhiu, and his elder brothers obediently recognized this right of 

 choice. He was not then called "Jimmu;" that is his posthunms 

 name. Sanu, or Hiko Hohodemi, was his appellation, and he is repre- 

 sented in the light of a kind of viking. Learning of Yamato and its 

 rulers from a traveler who \dsited Kiushiu, he embarked all his avail- 

 al)le forces in war vessels and set out upon a tour of aggression. 

 Creeping along the eastern shore of Kiushiu, and finally entering the 

 lidand Sea, the adventurers fought their way from point to pointy 

 landing sometimes to do battle with native tribes, sometimes to con- 

 struct new war junks, until, after fifteen years of fighting and wan- 

 dering, they finally emerged from the northern end of the Inland Sea 

 and established themselves in Yamato, destined to be thenceforth the 

 imperial province of Japan. In this long series of campaigns the 

 chieftain lost his three brothers. One fell in fight; two threw them- 

 selves into the sea to calm a tempest that threatened to destro}^ the 

 flotilla. Such are the deaths that Japanese in all ages have regarded 

 as ideal exits from this mortal scene — deaths ])y the sword and deaths 

 of loyal self-sacrifice. To the leader himself, after his decease, the 

 posthumous name of Jimmu, or "the man of divine bravery," was 

 given, t^^pifying the honor that has always attached to the professfon 

 of arms in Japan. The distance from this primitive viking's starting 

 point to the place where he established his capital and consummated 

 his career of conquest can easily be traversed by a modern steamer in 

 twice as many hours as the number of years devoted by Jimmu and 

 his followers to the task. That the craft in which they traveled were 

 of the most inetficient type may be gathered from the fact that tlie 

 N'iking's progress eastward w^ould have been finally interrupted by the 

 narrow strip of water dividing Kiushiu from the main island of Japan 

 had not a fisherman seated on a turtle emboldened him to strike sea- 

 ward. Thenceforth the turtle assumed a leading place in the mythol- 

 ^ST of Japan — the type of longevit}^, the messenger of the marine 



