-Caveat Lector-
The history and culture of Japan PARALLEL the history and culture of
Western Europe in many ways.
"Japan" as we know it is no older than the beginnings of "European"
civilization, as distinct from the western provinces of the Roman Empire
before the fall of Rome.
The "samurai" tradition and "bushido" (its code of honor) evolved
historically side by side with the European tradition of chivalry.
The so-called culture of "Japan," indeed, was merely an updated
synthesis of "imperial" Chinese culture and later, more spiritual Buddhist
values -- just as Western European culture was born from the synthesis of
older Greco-Roman socio-political foundations and a new spiritual faith
imported from the Near East, Christianity.
The "history" of Western Europe is actually only the family histories of
its "nobles," aristocrats (blueblood heads of state, at the top) defined
primarily by their ability to raise and command armies to defend their
territorial property -- in short, a MILITARY nobility. Likewise with the
history of Japan.
And just as with us today --remembering that the foundations of modern
industrial capitalism were first erected and promoted by the British lesser
nobility of the Royal Society circa 1600-- the political "nobility" of
present-day Japan is a MERCANTILE aristocracy, linear descendants of the
"samurai" (independent-minded "knights") rather than born into "royalty" (or
the "imperial" bloodline) ...
When East and West collided in the mid-19th Century, the folk-heroes of
the Wild West had much in common with the "Ronin," the samurai of a decadent
Empire ...
______________________________
The Yamato State
A chapter in the learning module "Ancient Japan,"
"Yamato Japan" outlines the development of the Yamato state
through the Asuka and Hakuho periods
by Richard Hooker, 10/27/96
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCJAPAN/
The Yamato peninsula, on the southwesternmost portion of the
island of Honshu, has historically been the region through which
cultural influence from the mainland has passed into Japan.
Beginning in 300 A.D., a new culture distinguished itself 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; these tomb mounds were patterned after
a similar practice in Korea. It is from these tomb mounds that
these people derive their name: the _Kofun_. For two hundred
years, these tombs were filled with objects that normally filled
Yayoi tombs, such as mirrors and jewels. But beginning in 500
A.D., these tombs were filled with armor and weapons. So we know
that around this time, a new wave of cultural influence had
passed over from Korea into Japan.
The earliest Japanese state we know of was ruled over by
Yamato "great kings"; the Yamato state, which the Japanese
chronicles date to 500 A.D., that is, the time when 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. The Yamato kings
located their capital at Naniwa (modern day Osaka) and enjoyed a
hegemony over the surrounding aristocracies that made them
powerful and wealthy. They built for themselves magnificent
tomb-mounds; like all monumental architecture, these tombs
represented 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.
According to the Japanese chronicles, the court of the
Yamato kings was based on Korean models for the titles given to
the court and regional aristocrats were 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. 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. Korea was in its most dynamic cultural and
political period; the peninsula itself was divided into three
great kingdoms: Koguryo in the north, Paekche in the east, and
Silla in the west. Paekche understood the strategic importance of
Japan and so 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. For the
Paekche court sent to Japan Korean craftspeople: potters, metal
workers, artists, and so on. But they also imported Chinese
culture. In the fifth or sixth 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 transform Japanese
culture as profoundly as the Yayoi immigrations had done.
The most important period in early Japan occurs during the
reign of Empress Suiko, who ruled from 592 to 628 A.D. 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, to make matters worse, 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 years of the 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. All of these changes were
adminstered by Prince Shotoku (in Japanese, _Shotoku Taishi_,
573-621) 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
A.D. The "Seventeen Article Constitution"(in Japanese, _Kenpo
Jushichijo_) was the earliest piece of Japanese writing and
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, and 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.
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 an energetic reform movement that
culminated in the "Taika Reform Edicts" in 645 A.D. 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 an EMPEROR who 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. Japan, however, was still largely a Neolithic
culture; it would take centuries for the ideal of the Chinese
style emperor to take root.
============================================================
JAPANESE ORIGINS:
Yayoi and Jomon
A chapter in the learning module "Ancient Japan,"
"Yayoi" describes the prehistory of Japan
including the major Jomon periods and the agricultural and iron
revolution introduced by the Yayoi.
by Richard Hooker, 10/27/96
Prehistoric Japan
Although the Japanese do not settle Japan until the third
century B.C., humans had lived in Japan from about 30,000 B.C.
For Japan was not always an island. During the Ice Ages, it was
connected to the Korean peninsula by means of a land bridge. All
four main Japanese islands were connected, and the southern
island of Kyushu was connected to the Korean peninsula while 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. from the flint tools that they
left behind.
Then around 10,000 B.C., these original inhabitants
developed a unique culture which lasted for several thousand
years: the _Jomon_ culture. As with all preliterate people, all
we know of them comes from fragments of artifacts and the
imaginative guessing of anthropologists and archaeologists. Jomon
means "cord pattern," for these people designed cord patterns on
their pottery -- the oldest of its kind in human history.
Pottery, however, is a characteristic of Neolithic peoples; the
Jomon, however, were Mesolithic peoples (Middle Stone Age). All
the evidence shows that they were a hunting, gathering, and
fishing society that lived in very small tribal groups. But in
addition to making pottery, they also fashioned mysterious
figurines that appear to be female. An ancient goddess worship?
We divide the Jomon into six separate eras -- ten thousand
years, after all, is a long time and even preliterate cultures
change dramatically over time. These eras are the Incipient,
Initial, Early, Middle, Late, and Final Jomon periods.
The "Incipient Jomon," which is dated from about 10,500 B.C.
to 8,000 B.C. has left us only pottery fragments. These pottery
fragments were made by a people living in the Kanto plain on the
eastern side of Honshu, the plain on which Tokyo is located. We
have little idea what these fragments looked like when they were
actually in one piece, but we believe that they were very small,
rounded pots.
The Incipient Jomon pots are a major challenge to
understanding human cultures, for they represent the very first
ceramics in human history, predating Mesopotamian ceramics by
over two thousand years. The standard anthropological line on the
development of human arts asserts that pottery-making developed
after agriculture and is characteristic of a more sedentary
culture. The Incipient Jomon, however, were hunter-gatherers who
lived in nomadic small groups. Yet they developed the art of
pottery long before agriculture was introduced into Japan -- in
fact, the Incipient Jomon invented pottery-making long before ANY
human was introduced to agriculture. The Incipient Jomon, then,
demonstrate that pottery-making is a human technology independent
and distinct from agriculture.
The "Initial Jomon," which lasted from 8,000 B.C. to 5,000
B.C. is distinguished by the fact that we have pretty complete
pots (isn't archaeology exciting?) that were used to boil food.
Like the fragments from the Initial Jomon, these aren't just
plain old pots, but are inticrately decorated in the "cord-like"
structure that characterizes Jomon.
The "Early Jomon," from 5000 to 2500 B.C., corresponds to
the single most interesting couple thousand years in human
history. At the end of the last ice age, around 14,500 years
ago, the world began to slowly warm. Between 5000 and 2500 B.C.,
the world reached its warmest in the millenia following the ice
age -- during this period, the average global temperature was
about four to six degrees farenheit higher than it is today.
Never again would the world be as warm as it was in these two
centuries. Here's the exciting thing: corresponding the steady
warming of the earth was the development of agriculture, the
single most important technological invention of human beings.
Corresponding the warmest period since the last ice age were
tremendous innovations in human habitation. It was in this
period that human beings all over the world began to live in a
more sedentary manner -- at the beginning of this period, human
beings begin to live in substantially sized villages; towards the
end of this period, the very first human cities appear. The
Jomon were no exception to this world-wide phenomenon. Completely
cut off from all other humans, the Jomon also began to live in
large villages in a settled lifestyle. These villages consisted
of large pit-houses; the floors of these houses are about a foot
below ground level. It seems they lived in extended family
groups. The Jomon also developed their pottery work even
further: they began to fashion figurines. It's not clear what
they are, animal or human, but they are the first Japanese
sculptural art.
In the "Middle Jomon," from 2500-1500 B.C., the Jomon
migrated from the Kanto plain into the surrounding mountainside.
While the Old Kingdom Egyptians were building pyramids, the
Yellow River kings developing the first centralized states in
China, and the Sumerians building the very first urban centers,
the Jomon, who had no awareness of people off their island, began
to live in very large villages and developed very simple
agriculture or proto-agriculture. They were no longer
hunter-gatherers, but rather a skilled and settled people that
developed increasingly sophisticated artwork with magnificent
decorations. Their figurines now distinguish between animals and
humans, and their human figurines have tantalizing but perplexing
gestures whose meaning is now lost to us.
The "Late" (1500-1000) and "Final" (1000-300) Jomon
corresponded to the neoglaciation stage in modern climactic
history. The world cooled noticeably (colder than today), and
the Jomon migrated back down to the Kanto plain. At this point,
the Jomon developed an identifiable religion -- they produce a
remarkable number of figurines and stone circles constructed
outside the main villages begin to appear. The figurines they
produce are largely heavy female figurines which suggests that
the Jomon religion was a goddess religion.
Yayoi
The Jomon culture, in essence a Mesolithic culture (although
they display Neolithic traits, such as pottery-making), thrived
in Japan from the eleventh century to the third century B.C.,
when it was displaced by a wave of immigrants from the mainland.
These were the Yayoi, and their origins lay in the north of
China. Northern China was originally a temperate and lush place
full of forests, streams, and rainfall. It began to dry out,
however, a few thousand years before the common era. This
dessication, which eventually produced one of the largest deserts
in the world, the Gobi, drove the original inhabitants south and
east. These peoples pushed into Korea and displaced indigenous
populations. Eventually, these new settlers 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. Because Mongolian (spoken
in the area north of China) is also part of this language family
and because the Mongolians conquered the world far to the west,
this means that 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 which would eventually
develop into Shinto (which wasn't given this name until much,
much later). While we don't know what these immigrations did to
the indigenous peoples, there are several possibilities.
According to one theory, which is 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. By this account, Japanese
culture, particularly as it is represented by the Shinto
religion, is very ancient and indigenous Japan. Some Japanese
believe that the Jomon spoke an "Austronesian" language -- which
is to say, the Jomon were more closely related to south Pacific
islanders and that Japanese is still largely a Pacific island
language. In the West, historians believe that the Yayoi
displaced the indigenous Jomon and thus ended their culture
permanently. 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, a view that
is not popular among the modern Japanese.
Whatever the origins of Japanese culture, it is clear that
the Japanese language, social structure, and religion can be
dated no farther back in Japan than the Yayoi immigrants. 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_. The clans were headed
by a single patriarchal figure who served as both a war-chief and
as a priest. Each clan was associated with a single god which
the head of the clan was responsible for; 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.
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.
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 AD.
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
