menu_book Chapter 3

CHAPTER III. LIFE AND WAYS IN ANCIENT JAPAN The life and laws and ways of the Japanese have seen less change since the time of the first Mikados than that of most lands, though in all the East there has been far less change from age to age than has come in the same length of time to Europe and all lands of the West. In the first place, the Japanese got a good start. They were far less rude as a race than most of the tribes in that part of Asia,

and so have had less to learn than they. Two, at least, of their first Mikados were great men, who thought out wise plans by which they built up a strong realm, whose many parts were bound into one great whole by firm ties. One man ruled them all.

He was the head of their state as well as their faith, and was a son of the holy race which had been sent from on high to rule them and take care of their realm. But with all this, if the Japanese had made friends with and learned the thoughts and plans of the men of other lands, they could not have kept so firm in their own way, and it is due to that more than aught else that their realm was not split up and torn by bad home wars, and that in the long lapse of years, when great ills

fell on the lands west of Japan, and vast changes of all sorts shook near all the rest of the earth, this realm of sea isles kept on in her own way and grew more large and more strong, age by age, with not more than three or four such great changes as Russia, France, and Prussia had all the time in the course of near a score of centuries. Jimmu had found these isles a realm most fair to see. In the east and north its moors lay in long tracks of grass and reeds

and bamboo cane, where wild beasts dwelt and gave the sports of the chase to the wild men of the soil. Its steep hills and its calm dells were grand and fair, and sometimes set thick with trees and green with grass or grown with wild flowers. Its men dwelt in small huts that stood in groups. They had no tame beasts. Their ways of life were rude and wild. They could fish and hunt, but they did not know how to do much else. In the course of time they learned to till their ground,

for the race of Jimu knew how to raise crops and work ores which were found to lie in the earth of these isles. The men soon learned to dig for them and then to work them and their wives learned how to weave and to spin and then some of the men bought and sold the fruits of the soil

and the goods that were made And so trade grew, and with that all learned to put forth their strength to raise more and more each year, or to push on and make something more fine than had been yet tried. And so arts grew, and science and air long the folks who dwelt near the Mikado's court, or in or near the large towns, had quite left off their old rude ways and were like a new race. Like all wild men, the first Japanese thought that anyone who was so brave and so great

that he could lead in wars and win in large fights must be a god. And so when Jimmu beat the tribes of the south and some of the strong Anos, and then set up his realm in the midst of them, and made himself chief lord of the Seagirt Isles, it was not hard for him to make the tribes whom he had overcome

think he had been sent from on high and that he had full rights to rule them. If he was a god, so were his sons and all the children of his line. From this grew the first Japanese faith, which is known as the Shinto. It is yet one of the chief faiths of the land, and those who hold to it still think that the Mikado is the son of the great sun goddess,

who is at the head of all that they pray to. But there is more than one god in Shintu. Those who hold to it think that all their great men who have fought in all the wars of the realm are gods. they bow down and pray to their sires as well as their kings to their wise men and all who have done great work of any kind for japan

while more high than all these they hold the sun or light which they look on as a goddess and fire and most of the forces of nature that is rain and wind and all those things without which all that now has life on the earth would die. Each fief, each town, all parts of the land

have their own saints or kami, and the whole realm is now set thick with shrines, and there seems no end to the gods and half-gods of the Shintu. But at first the folks did not have all these wayside shrines that now dot the whole land.

The first men met on the hilltop on the banks of the streams and in the woods to lay fruits, fish, and game on a rude shrine of stone or earth and give them to their gods in thanks for what they had had or when they would pray for what they were in want of.

They still have no idols, but they had priests in those days as now who wore white robes, made themselves clean in the bath, and took no food, ere they laid these gifts of men on the shrines of the gods. The first law of this old faith is that those who hold to it must be clean and pure. The priests have to bathe a great deal, and to put on clean clothes,

ere they go to pray, or to their holy work, and all who walk in it are bound to keep themselves from all that is not thought to be pure and clean. At first none but the Mikado had a shrine to the sun goddess, but ere long a few were set up to her in the towns, or where a few farm folks dwelt in a group of huts, and at last there came to be a great many to her. Then there were temples, but it was a long time ere the wayside shrines that one now sees in all parts of the land

were set up in the woods or on the roads through the hills or tracks of farmlands. Twice a year, in the sixth and twelfth months, the folks of the old times met on the banks of a stream, and there had a great Shintu rite. It was the time when all the realm could be made clean of its sins and its wrong ways, when men could bathe in the stream and pray and be pure.

The odes that were made up to be sung to the gods at these rites were the first that are known to have been made in the Japanese tongue. The form of prayer that they then had is still in use by those who hold the Shintu faith. But this and the odes were not kept in writing. The Japanese of that day did not know how to write in any way, not even by signs.

Men taught their sons what they knew, and so for a long, long time all the history laws, tales and odes, or any sort of verse of the Japanese were kept in the minds of a few who passed them from sire to son till someone thought of a way to write them down. Most of the world has learnt to draw and paint and to make statues and has got most all of this kind of art from Greece, but the art of the Japanese is all their own. It was born in them and is not like that of any other folks in the world.

From the first they have known how to do their work in metals and in China, which is more fine than the men of any other land have made or can make. But the world of the West had known the fine arts for a long time ere the Japanese seemed to have thought that they could make copies of men and beasts in clay or wood, or that they could draw or paint scenes of their folks, their life, and their land. When they did wake to this, it was in the reign of Sujin, or his son,

and was near the time that Christ came to live on earth. There was a custom in the land that when a lord or great man died, his wife and one or two servants should die and be put in the grave with him. The son of Sujin tried to put a stop to this hard right and did check it, but not quite. In a few years after he sent out word to have it done no more, the empress died, and the folks of the land would have felt that it was not at all right to put her in the grave alone, but one of

the men of the court who had made some figures of clay was able to have these put in the place of the real bodies. The Mikado was glad to hail this new plan. He would raise the man who made the figures to a high place and gave him the name of Haji, which means one who knows the art by which clay images are made. That put an end to the law that one man should die to be put in the grave with someone else, and it was the birth of fine art in Japan. But it was a long time ere the folks

of that land did any more than rude work of this kind. There is no place in the world where men can do such fine work as the Japanese have long done in their use of metals in China and lacquer wear, and in the way they weave silks and make it up in clothes. But for a long time they did not do much in the fine arts that are best known to the West. In time they learned how to carve figures as well as to form them out of clay, and they draw men and beasts with a more free and true hand

than the artists of Europe have. But they have had to learn how to draw outdoor scenes so as to make them look right in the last few years, and they did not know at all how to paint in oils. But they used their own colors with as much if not more skill than the best painters of old times or late years. In the days of long ago, the first Japanese dwelt in small huts which they made for themselves. To build them they stuck the poles of young trees with the bark still on them straight

up in the ground, and across them bound more poles with a sort of rope made of vines or a rush that grew wild in pools nearby. This made the frame on which they put walls made of mats of grass, of bows or of rush, while on the bamboo framework of the peak roof they put a thick thatch which was of grass. The floors were of hard earth, while doors and windows were holes over which mats were sometimes hung. They were most plain in all ways, and in that they were like the Mikado's

own home, for though this had more size than the huts of the folks, it was in old times as now a plain house with naught in it for show. For a long time it was no more fine or grand than those of his lords, and but for its size and that it stood a bit more high, you could not have told it from a temple or from the homes of most any of the high-class folks of the Japanese realm. Since it was the place where dwelt a man who was thought to be half a god, it was much

like a temple, and as is still the rule with the Shinto, all that has any part with that faith has no need to make a show of wealth or pomp. So in his life, his home, his dress, and all else the Mikado was most plain. The shrines of the Shintu faith of today are built on the same plan as the huts of these first men of the realm, and the homes one now sees there are on the same plan too,

though they are built with more size and more taste and have some good changes. The dress of those old times was made of the skins of wild beasts and a coarse stuff that they wove of straw, grass, bark, and the fiber of the palm tree. For a long time the folks knew not of the silks and the cotton goods that are now worn so much in Japan.

Their dress was scant and plain. some of the time they wore a long cloak with a belt with leggings and sandals of straw. As that was about all they had for a full suit, there were, of course, times when less than that was worn. Their chief work was to hunt and fish, and their food was the flesh of deer or bears, and most all the beasts that were wild in the woods, while they also had much fish and the

roots of plants. It was a long time ere the faith of Buddha was brought into the land to teach them that it was not right for them to eat the flesh of beasts. But when that time did come, they were taught to plant grain and use that for food. From the first, fish has been the chief food of the Japanese, and that is why most of the folks have made their homes and their towns on the line of streams and near the sea. The good work that Sujin began when he led his men to work their

fields and raise all the fine crops they could, has been kept up in all the time since. And now, in the tracks where folks live, through all the length and breadth of those fair isles, there is scarce an inch of ground that is good or could be made so, that has not been put to the very best use for crops. If you should go to Japan to the farmlands, you would see miles of hills and vales whose sides are made into stages, like tall pairs of broad stairs for rice fields.

You would see tracts of good, rich ground with a vast network of tanks and water way spread through them and broad tracts of green flatlands with not a fence on them, nor any beast, wild or tame, to harm them. In all this you would see what two thousand years of hard toil and great care has done to make the land do its very best to bear rich fruits and great crops. Jimmu and his sons did not mean to let any part of the realm he had won from the first men of the isles slip from

their hands. So a plan was soon made to hold it all in the sway of the great Lord. This plan was to mark off the land in sort of states or fiefs, each of which was put in the charge of a prince or chief who was to take care that his folks did not break from the Mikado and at the same time look out for their good in all the ways that the Mikado should think best. Sometimes these head men were lords of the Mikado's own tribe, and sometimes they were chiefs of the tribes that

Jimmu had found in the land. All of them were like small kings in their own fiefs. They had their lands and their men, and no one but the Mikado was over them. To him they had to pay a tax, and to him they had to bow as their great lord. Some of the Eino chiefs did not quite like to own the sway of the Mikado, and the history of the first years of the Japanese empire is full of tales of how now one,

now more, broke out in vain trials to throw off the yoke. The space of land between Lake Biva and the bays of Ozaka and Awari was known as the Kenai, or Five Home States, and were the Mikado's own fiefs in his sole rule. The folks of these lands were bound to him by firm, strong ties, but in Shikoku and Kiyushiu, of the South Isles, and the tribes that dwelt in the far west, north, and east,

were not yet quite put down. These fiefs were held by their own chiefs, who were on good terms with the Mikado and paid court to him as their suzerain or head chief. When they got in feuds with each other,

they would agree to take the case to him and bide by what he said. For he was so strong at arms, and his realm took up so much of the best part of the isles, that they would have had to look on him as their grand chief anyway. But more than that, they all felt that he had come from heaven, and so there was no one above him to whom they could go. So he held his rank, and when word came from him the tribes would hear and heed his voice, though they might be in the midst

of one of their worst feuds. End of chapter 3