His.114-1. Early Japan I

East/Southeast Asia
HISTORY 114
JAPANESE CIVILIZATION
Early History and Culture I
Michael D. Berdine, Ph.D. Pima Community College Tucson, Arizona
Japanese Civilization
Early History and Culture Japan first mentioned in Chinese histories in 57 C.E., where it is referred to as "Wa." Chinese historians tell of a land divided into a hundred or so separate tribal communities, without writing or political cohesion. The Japanese do not start writing their own histories until around 600 C.E,
Early History and Culture Their historical writing culminates in c.700 C.E. in the massive chronicles
The Record of Ancient Matters Chronicles of Japan.
These chronicles tell a legendary history of Japan, where the people of Japan originate from the gods themselves.
Early History and Culture The Japanese are late-comers in Asian history. Preceding their unification in the latter half of the first millennium C.E. was a long period of migration and settlement. The history of ancient Japan was driven by outside influences.
Early History and Culture The first involved the settlement of Japan by a group of peoples from the Korean peninsula in the third century B.C.E. Overnight they transformed the stone-age culture of Japan into an agricultural and metal-working culture. These early immigrants are ultimately the origin of Japanese language and culture.
Early History and Culture
The second great push in Japanese history was contact with China from 200 C.E. on. From the Chinese, who demanded Japan be a tribute state to China, Japan adopted its government, Buddhism, and writing. While Japanese culture ultimately derives from the immigrants of the third century BC, the bulk of Japanese culture is forged from Chinese materials
This fact will drive a cultural revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, as scholars attempt to reclaim original Japanese culture from its Chinese origins. Geography is the most important aspect of Japanese culture, affecting everything. Japan is a series of islandsthe group consists of over 3000 islands of which 600 are inhabited.
Japan
The four main islands, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido dominate Japanese history. The largest island is Honshu, but the overall geographical area of the inhabited islands is less than California. The climate is pleasantly moderate, for the islands lie in the path of the Black Current which flows north from the tropics.
All the islands are mountainous and subject to a variety of natural disasters, especially earthquakes and tsunamis. The mountainous terrain leaves its mark on Japanese culture. The mountains provide natural and difficult barriers; thus, political life in Japan is centered around regional rather than national governments.
The earliest flowering of Japanese history took place in the low-lying plains on the island of Honshu. Here is the Yamato plain in the southa region that gave its name to the first "official" name for Japan, Yamato. There the very first Japanese kingdom arose and provided the basis of future Japanese civilizations.
Early History and Culture Japan as a series of islands has always been isolated from the mainland from about 10,000 B.C.E. to the present day. For this reason, the original inhabitants managed to hold on to stone-age life long after the regions to the west had urbanized. This island status has also protected Japan from foreign invasions.
Only twice in Japanese history has the island been successfully overrun by foreigners:
in the third century BC by the wave of immigrations from the Korean peninsula, and in 1945 by the United States.
The areas of Japan which have shown the most cultural change are those, as you might imagine, that are closest to the mainland of Asia.
The southern island of Kyushu and the southwestern peninsula of Honshu lie close to the Korean peninsula. It is in this region the Japanese first immigrated into Japan in the third century B.C.E, It was in this region the first state in Japan was established: the Yamato State on the Yamato peninsula.
Early History and Culture - Jomon Despite the late arrival of Japan into written history, its beginnings go back 10,000 years. The original Japanese were a mysterious people, who would eventually produce a unique and vital culture, the Jomon. Although the Japanese do not settle Japan until the 3rd century B.C.E., humans had lived in Japan from about 30,000 B.C.E.
Japan
Early History and Culture - Jomon
Japan was not always an island. During the Ice Age, it was connected to the Korean peninsula by means of a land bridge. All four main Japanese islands were once connected, and
the southern island of Kyushu was connected to the Korean peninsula the northern island of Hokkaido was connected to Siberia.
Stone Age humans crossed this land bridge in much the same way they crossed the Bering land bridge into the Americas. We can date these humans back to around 30,000 B.C.E. from the flint tools they left behind. Around 10,000 B.C.E., these original inhabitants developed a unique culture which lasted for several thousand years: the Jomon culture.
Jomon means "cord pattern," for these people designed cord patterns on their potterythe oldest of its kind in human history. They were a hunting, gathering, and fishing society that lived in very small tribal groups. In addition to making pottery, they also fashioned mysterious figurines that appear to be female. (An ancient goddess worship?)
Early History and Culture - Yayoi The Jomon culture thrived in Japan from the 11th century to the 3rd century B.C.E. At this time, it was displaced by a wave of immigrants from the mainland, the Yayoi, from the north of China. These peoples pushed into Korea and displaced indigenous populations.
Early History and Culture - Yayoi Eventually, they were displaced by a new wave of immigrations from northern China and a large number of them crossed over into the Japanese islands. For this reason, the languages of the area north of China, the language of Korea, and Japanese are all in the same family of languages according to most linguists.
Early History and Culture - Yayoi
Mongolian (spoken in the area north of China) is also part of this language family. As the Mongolians conquered the world far to the west, the language family to which Japanese belongs is spoken across a geographical region from Japan to Europe. The westernmost language in this family is Magyar, spoken in Hungary, and the easternmost language in this family is Japanese.
The Yayoi brought with them agriculture, the working of bronze and iron, and a new religion. The latter would eventually develop into Shinto (not given the name until much later). While we don't know what these immigrations did to the indigenous peoples, but according to one theory, widely accepted in Japan, the waves of Yayoi immigrants were very small.
While they brought new technologies with them, they were nevertheless assimilated into the native Jomon culture. Accordingly, Japanese culture, particularly as it is represented by the Shinto religion, is very ancient and indigenous Japan. Western historians believe the Yayoi displaced the indigenous Jomon and thus ended their culture permanently.
Early History and Culture - Yayoi Thus, the Yayoi displaced the indigenous language, social patterns, and religion of the original inhabitants. In this view, Japanese culture is a foreign import deriving ultimately from the north of China and ancient Korea This view is not popular among the modern Japanese.
Whatever the origins of Japanese culture, the Japanese language, social structure, and religion can be dated no farther back than the Yayoi. So for all practical purposes, the Yayoi are a new beginning in Japanese culture. The transition was dramatic, far surpassing even the transition represented by the industrial revolution.
Japanese culture changed overnight with these new immigrants; eight thousand years of cultural placidity was dramatically hoisted into the agricultural age. The Yayoi lived in clans called uji , headed by a single patriarchal figure who served as both a warchief and as a priest. Each clan was associated with a single god for which the head of the clan was responsible.
Early History and Culture - Yayoi All the ceremonies associated with that god were headed or performed by the head of the clan. These gods, called kami, represented forces of nature or any other wondrous aspect of the world. The Yayoi, we believe, also had accounts of the creation of the world by gods.
When one uji conquered another, it absorbed its god into its own religious practices. In this way, the Yayoi slowly developed a complex pantheon of kami that represented in their hierarchy the hierarchy of the uji. The Yayoi lived primitively; they had no system of writing or money; they dressed largely in clothes made from hemp or bark.
Early History and Culture - Yayoi Marriages were frequently polygamous, but women held a fairly prominent place in the society of the uji . It is probable that women even served as clan-heads or priests. Support for this possibility comes from the Chinese histories that first discuss the Japanese.
Early History and Culture - Yayoi The relationships between the uji were complex. Slowly, territorial conflict gradually produced what came close to small states. The first Japanese state, however, would be built on the Yamato peninsula, the area into which Chinese influence began to flow in 200 C.E.
Early History and Culture - Kofun
The Yamato peninsula (the southwestern part Honshu) is historically the region through which mainland cultural influences passed into Japan. Beginning in 300 C.E., a new culture arose from Yayoi culture in the area around Nara and Osaka in the south of Honshu. This culture built giant tomb mounds, called kofun, many of which still exist, patterned after a similar practice in Korea.
Early History and Culture - Kofun
These people derive their name from these tomb mounds: the Kofun. For two hundred years, these tombs were filled with objects that normally filled Yayoi tombs, such as mirrors and jewels. Around 500 C.E., these tombs were filled with armor and weapons; thus, a new wave of cultural influence had passed over from Korea into Japan.
Early History and Culture - Yamato The earliest Japanese state we know of was ruled over by Yamato "great kings of the Yamato state, approximately 500 C.E. During this time a new wave of Korean cultural influence passed through southern Japan, was really a loose hegemony. Yamato is the plain around Osaka; it is the richest agricultural region in Japan.
Early History and Culture - Yamato
The Yamato kings located their capital at Naniwa (modern day Osaka), and held hegemony over surrounding aristocracies that made them powerful and wealthy. They built for themselves magnificent tombmounds, representing the wealth and power of the Yamato king. The keyhole-shaped tomb-mound of Nintoku is longer than five football fields and has twice the volume of the Great Pyramid of Cheops.
The Yamato court was based on Korean models, with the titles given to the court and regional aristocrats drawn from Korean titles. As in Yayoi Japan, the basic social unit was the uji; what had been added was an aristocracy based on military readiness. This military aristocracy would remain the single most powerful group in Japanese history until the Meiji restoration in 1868.
Early History and Culture - Yamato The various aristocratic families did not live peacefully together. The Yamato court witnessed constant struggles among the aristocratic families for power. During this period, Japan had a presence on the Korean peninsula itself, and Korea was in its most dynamic cultural and political period.
Ancient Korea
The peninsula itself was divided into three great kingdoms: Koguryo in the north, Paekche in the east, and Silla in the west. Paekche, understanding the strategic importance of Japan and entered into alliance with the Yamato state. This connection between the Yamato court and Paekche is culturally one of the most important events of early Japanese history.
Koguryo
Silla
Paekche
Japan
The Paekche court sent to Japan Korean craftspeople: potters, metal workers, artists, and so on. They also imported Chinese culture; in the 5th or 6th century, the Koreans imported Chinese writing in order to record Japanese names. In 513, the Paekche court sent a Confucian scholar to the Yamato court.
In 552, the Paekche sent an image of Buddha, some Buddhist scriptures, and a Buddhist representative. These three imports - writing, Confucianism, and Buddhism - would profoundly transform Japanese culture as the Yayoi immigrations. The most important period in early Japan occurs during the reign of Empress Suiko, who ruled from 592 to 628 C.E.
In the latter years of the 500's, the alliance between Paekche and the Yamato state broke down. This eventually led to the loss of Japanese holdings on the Korean peninsula. Waves of Koreans migrated to Japan, and the powerful military aristocracies of the Yamato state began to resist the Yamato hegemony.
The Yamato court responded to these problems by adopting a Chinese-style government. In the early 7th seventh century, they sent envoys to China in order to study Chinese government, society, and philosophy. At home, they reorganized the court along the Chinese model, sponsored Buddhism, and adopted the Chinese calendar.
Prince Shotoku and advisors
All of these changes were administered by Prince Shotoku (Shotoku Taishi 573-621 C.E.), who was the regent of the Yamato court during the reign of Empress Suiko. His most important contribution, however, was the writing and adoption of a Chinese-style constitution in 604 C.E.. The Seventeen Article Constitution (Kenpo Jushichijo) was the earliest piece of Japanese writing.
It also formed the overall philosophic basis of Japanese government through much of Japanese history. This constitution is firmly based on Confucian principles (although it has a number of Buddhist elements). It states the Confucian belief that the universe is composed of three realms, Heaven, Man, and Earth.
It held that the Emperor is placed in authority by the will of Heaven in order to guarantee the welfare of his subjects. The "great king" of earlier Japanese history would be replaced by the Tenno, or "Heavenly Emperor." The Seventeen Article Constitution stressed the Confucian virtues of harmony, regularity, and the importance of the moral development of government officials.
Early History and Culture - Yamato Shotoku, however, was also a devout Buddhist. The second article of the constitution specifically enjoins the ruler to value the Three Treasures of Buddhism. The overall Constitution, however, is overwhelmingly Confucian.
The constitution was followed by a coup against the ruling Soga clan, from which Shotoku was derived. The new emperor, Kotoku Tenno (645-655), began a reform movement that ended in the Taika Reform Edicts in 645 C.E. These edicts were written and sponsored by Confucian scholars in the Yamato court and essentially founded the Japanese imperial system.
The ruler was no longer a clan leader, but Emperor that ruled by the Decree of Heaven and exercised absolute authority. Japan would no longer be a set of separate states, but provinces of the Emperor to be ruled by a centralized bureaucracy. The Reform Edicts demanded that all government officials undergo stringent reform and demonstrate some level of moral and bureaucratic competency.
Early History and Culture - Yamato Japan, however, was still largely a Neolithic culture; it would take centuries for the ideal of the Chinese style emperor to take root.

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