Ex Libris [ C. K. OGDEN ADMIRAL H. TOGO STEPS IN THE PROGRESS OF A GREAT PEOPLE BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D., L.H.D. FORMERLY OF THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY OF JAPAN AUTHOR OF "THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE," "JAPAN IN HISTORY, FOLK-LORE, AND ART," ETC., AND " COREA, THE HERMIT NATION" "RACE IS THE KEY TO HISTORY" LONDON GEORGE G. HARRAP & COMPANY 15 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN Annex DS IN ADMIRATION OF JAPAN'S TRIUMPHS IN PEACE (GREATER EVEN THAN THOSE IN WAR) THE AUTHOR (IN THE WORDS OF THE CIVIL ADMINISTRATOR OF FORMOSA) GIVES "THANKS TO THE GREAT GUARDIAN SPIRIT WHO THROUGH UNBROKEN AGES HAS CONTINUALLY GUIDED HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR AND EACH ONE OF HIS IMPERIAL ANCESTORS " AS WELL AS OUR OWN SAVAGE FOREFATHERS, OUR MEDLEVAL SEERS, AND OUR MODERN LEADERS INTO THIS TWENTIETH CENTURY, SO AUSPICIOUS FOR THE COMING UNION AND RECONCILIATION OF ORIENT AND OCCIDENT IN WHICH JAPAN, AMERICA, AND GREAT BRITAIN ARE TO BEAR A NOBLE PART PREFACE IT is a pleasing duty to acknowledge my vast and continual debt during forty years to those who mined the ore and furnished the raw materials of scholarship, out of which I have coined some of the newer opinions I send forth herewith for circulation. Since I have dealt much with origins, I am most indebted to native Japanese scholars who have co- operated with me, and to those pioneers who not only opened the treasures of the native literature, but with critical and comparative skill have appraised its worth — Messrs. Satow, Aston, and Chamberlain. The Records (Kojiki) and the Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan), written in the first quarter of the eighth century, have been constantly by me. To the Rev. John Batchelor, who has made the realm of Ainu scholarship his own, and to the writers in English and German for the Asiatic Societies of Japan, I am deeply indebted. Other authorities, — linguists, archaeologists, ethnologists, investiga- tors,—to whom I am obligated, are mentioned in the text, and to these and to any that may be un- named, I am profoundly grateful. In the pronunciation of Japanese names and words, — of which I have used as few as possible, — the Continental or Italian system of vowel sounds is used. Every vowel and consonant is sounded, yiii PREFACE g being hard. There is virtually no accent, nor need there be any, when each vocable receives proper attention. a as in far ai as in aisle e " " men ei " " weigh i " " pin au as ou in trout o " " bone a flat not used u " • " truth As this book treats of the young Japanese nation, it has nothing to say about "gods," in which the author has no belief, and of which he knows noth- ing. Nor does it deal much with figureheads or impersonalities of any sort, but only with human beings who, in their long struggle upward, have been led, as my faith is, of God. As He had an " Old " testament with the Hebrews, and also with our savage forefathers, so with the children of Nip- pon has He made a covenant. The " Old " is be- coming the "New," and the spirit of the Master who came " not to destroy but to fulfill " is conquer- ing, slowly but surely, the brutish savagery that masks itself under " civilization " and " Christianity " as well as intrenched "paganism." In the potencies of blood, inheritances, geographical situation, and advantages in the age and the ages, the Japanese people seem to me to have, above every other nation on earth, the power to become the true middle term in the surely coming union and reconciliation of the Orient and the Occident ; and this, I have tried to show in this work. W. E. G. ITHACA, July, 1907. CONTENTS PREHISTORIC NIPPON PAOK INTRODUCTION ; . . 1 The White Race and the First Inhabitants. The Japanese a Mixed People made up of Several Races, the Basic Stock being a White Race and speaking an Aryan Tongue. What the Soil, Language, and Re- searches of the Past Fifty Years and especially of the Opening of the Twentieth Century Reveal. CHASTE E I. THE ARYAN WHITE RACE IN THE ARCHI- PELAGO 16 II. THE MALAY ELEMENT IN JAPAN ... 30 III. THE IDZUMO CYCLE OF LEGENDS ... 48 I~V. THE YAMATO PEOPLE AND MIKADOISM . . 63 V. YAMATO DAMASHII . . . . .75 VI. STONE AGE AND IRON AGE . . . . .90 VII. THE HIGHEST AND THE LOWEST « . . 101 JAPAN IN THE LIGHT OF RECORDS VIII. THE ARYAN RELIGION . . . . . . 119 IX. THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF A.D. 645 . . 133 X. THE FIRST NEW JAPAN 146 XI. CHURCH AND STATE 159 XII. WOMAN THE CONSERVATOR . . . . 167 XIII. IMPERIALISM, EXPANSION, AND FEUDALISM . 180 ix CONTENTS CHAPTER XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. THE JAPANESE A NATION ONE PEOPLE : Two CAPITALS JAPAN REJECTS MONGOLISM . JAPAN AS A DARK AND BLOODY GROUND THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY THE SELF-ISOLATED HERMIT NATION . BUSHIDO IN REVELATION PAGE 195 207 221 238 257 271 MODERN OCCIDENTAL INFLUENCES XX. THE NATIVE INTELLECT FERTILIZED . . 285 XXI. THE RUSSIAN MENACE IN THE NORTH . 296 XXII. DIPLOMACY AND COMMOTION .... 310 XXIII. THE NEW GOVERNMENT AND THE NEW JAPAN 326 XXIV. FOREIGN SERVANTS AND HELPERS . . 334 JAPAN AMONG THE NATIONS XXV. THE NEW NATIONAL ARMY AND NAVY . 347 XXVI. PANOPLIED JAPAN. A PUBLIC SCHOOL ARMY 358 XXVII. THE WAR WITH RUSSIA. A FOOTHOLD ON THE CONTINENT . . . . . . . 370 XXVIII. A WORLD POWER. AMBITIONS, BURDENS, PROBLEMS 383 XXIX. SECOND TO NONE 394 401 ILLUSTRATIONS ADMIRAL H. TOGO Frontispiece PACING PAGE OUR ARYAN KINSMEN IN JAPAN. AINU SUBJECTS OF THE MIKADO 10 OF THE FIRST FAMILIES IN JAPAN. AINU FATHER AND SON 26 TATTOOED LETTER CARRIER, 1870 42 THE ROCKY COAST, AT MISAKI, BELOW SATSUMA . 60 STUDENTS IN THE WOMAN'S UNIVERSITY IN TOKIO . 88 MOUNTAIN VILLAGE TEA-HOUSE 94 GENERAL KUROKI 116 PAGODA OF THE MONASTERY OF HORIUJI, FOUNDED 607 A.D 128 CROWN PRINCESS SADA AND CROWN PRINCE YOSHIHITO 152 POPULAR BUDDHISM IN JAPAN'S APPEALING LAND- SCAPE 218 CASTLE OF Nuo ; PLACE OF THE CHARTER OATH, 1868 254 MEMORIAL LANTERNS PRESENTED BY VASSAL DAIMIOS AT THE TOMBS OF THE SHOGUNS .... 266 THE FIRST TELEGRAPH IN JAPAN, 1871 .... 312 THE YEDO SHOGUN AND HIS WIFE IN TREATY DAYS . 316 NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL EXPOSITION AT OSAKA, 1904 . 322 AMERICAN COLLEGE (GERMAN REFORMED CHURCH) IN SENDAI 342 IN THE HIGHER TECHNICAL SCHOOL, TOKIO . . , 346 xii ILLUSTRATIONS BMB THE FIRST NATIONAL CEMETERY AT NAGASAKI . . 356 ONE OF THE RED CROSS HOSPITAL SHIPS OF JAPAN . 364 FOUNDERS OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN JAPAN . . 388 SANNOMIYA, COURT CHAMBERLAIN. GENERAL Ko- DAMA, CHIEF OF STAFF 396 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION INTRODUCTION THE WHITE RACE AND THE FIRST INHABITANTS THE islands of Nippon have been long populated, but the Japanese are a young nation. Their savage ancestors "came out of the woods" when ours did. The archipelago was first of all inhabited by a race common to both Europe and Asia. White men, belonging to the great Aryan family and speaking a language akin to the Indo-Germanic tongues, were the first "Japanese," who are a composite, and not a pure "Mongolian" race. Their inheritance of blood and temperament partakes of the potencies of both Europe and Asia. Words are winged. They fly through the ages, yet they abide with ever renewing life. In Japan, the primordial names left ages ago on mountain and river, promontory and island, hill and slope, remain to make unexpected revelation. They show that the ancestors of the Ainu — an Aryan people — who now dwell only in the northern islands, once lived all over the archipelago. No attempt was made to ex- press these names in writing until the eighth century of our era. Then, in most misleading Chinese charac- 1 2 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION ters, purposely intended to drop the native vocables into oblivion, the new names were made official. Nevertheless, despite mistranslations, confusing as- sociations, popular pronunciation according to the written ideograph, the aboriginal meaning and often the primitive form can be regained. These tell interesting stories. Most names of places held most sacred in Japanese history are Aryan. Meaningless in the spoken tongue and absurd in the Chinese ideograms long ago plastered over them, they talk truth and beauty when recovered. Ainu epithets reveal common sense and manifest natural appropriateness when read and interpreted from aboriginal man's point of view. Names of the conquered chiefs and places found in the Kojiki, or oldest Records, written A.D. 712, are often trans- parently Ainu. The absurdly long names of the gods sprinkled on its pages are manifestly attempts at folk-etymology, in explanation of Ainu places and hero names — a process with many analogies in America. Even when scribes, who first applied writing to geography, used their pens, they set down what they heard by means of Chinese characters, which were then used phonetically, for sound and not for sense. Afterwards these ideographs were too often taken at their true significance, thus introduc- ing a second system of false derivation, a new mythol- ogy or disease of language, and a threefold confusion in history. Hence the enormous fungus growth of mythology to explain what becomes clear in Ainu WHITE RACE AND THE FIRST INHABITANTS 3 speech. For example, such names as Yamato, which to the eye means mountain gate, is Ainu for chestnut pond, or the pond among the chestnut trees. Fuji Yama is named from the Ainu goddess of fire. Even Satsuma is an Ainu word. Hakodate, which seems to mean box fort, has another meaning. Yedo, or bay door in the Chinese script, is in Ainu the herby place, or where a certain herb grows plentifully. The aboriginal people, of whom the Ainu are descendants, speak a tongue which is not Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or Malay, but Aryan. Thirty- five years ago, I recognized Ainu names on the moun- tains and rivers. In 1871, while living at Fukui, Echizen, in the far interior, seeing no white man for many months, I was surprised to note in the people so many physical evidences, as I thought, of descent from Iranian, Caucasian, or Aryan ancestry. The types of countenance, the lightness of the skin, the hair, eyes, and cuticle of the babies and little folk, and especially the workings of the adult mind, led me to conclude that the Japanese were not a pure Mongolian race. In studying the local history of Koshi, as this part of Japan was anciently called, I was struck with such names as Ebisu Minato (Ainu harbor), and astonished at the results of analysis of those which made nonsense when translated by the Chinese characters in which they were written. This opened my eyes. Examining the geography of the northern end of the main island, I was convinced that the originals of many names were Ainu. As this 4 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION method of research had, in America, helped in the study of Iroquois and Algonquin localities, I thought it might in Japan afford a clew to the question as to who first inhabited the archipelago of Dai Nippon. As I read Japanese history, I came to believe that these straight-eyed aborigines were, along with the Yamato and other races, ancestors of the present Japanese. In the Caucasian type of face seen all around me, I was strengthened in my notions. In reading of the Yezo Ainu and in talking with my fellow-Americans who had been among them, I recognized in the Eta muro, the straw boots, the snowshoes of Echizen, and in certain superstitions, notably about the river- monster, Kappa, what seemed to be Ainu survivals. Living in Tokio from 1872 to 1874, seeing and studying minutely the members of the Ainu colony of adult males, women, and student lads, dwelling for a time in the capital, my opinions were confirmed. I found close relationships between the old pure non- Mongolian Japanese language and the Ainu speech. I never suspected for a moment, however, that in my lifetime indubitable proofs would be forthcoming that the Ainu language belonged in the Aryan family. There was at that time, however, nothing but scanty Ainu vocabularies accessible, which, beside the rich grammar and dictionary of the Rev. John Batchelor, of 1905, are as sand grains to a mountain. I wrote out my conclusions in 1874, and these were printed in "The Mikado's Empire," issued August 6, 1876. In Chapter II, on "The Aborigines," I WHITE RACE AND THE FIRST INHABITANTS 5 stated (p. 29) that "Further proofs of the general habitation of Hondo by the Ainos appear in the geographical names which linger upon the mountains and rivers. These names, musical in sound, and pos- sessing in their significance a rude grandeur, have embalmed the life of a past race," as Iroquois and Algonquin names "echo the ancient glories of the well-nigh extinct aborigines of America." I also called attention to the two types of faces seen in Japan. In the Preface, I stated my belief that "the basic stock of the Japanese people is Aino ; and that in this fact lies the root of the marvellous difference in the psychology of the Japanese and their neighbors the Chinese." In a word, "Race is the key to his- tory." By "basic stock" I mean the oldest race known in the islands. The discussion of this subject, with all its limitations, will be found in Chapter II. It was Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, with all his wealth of learning and research, who wrought out this subject more fully. In 1887 he published that illuminating book, "The Language, Mythology, and Geographical Nomenclature of Japan, Viewed in the Light of Aino Studies." Rev. John Batchelor, who began Christian work among the Yezo folk in 1879, has demonstrated that the Ainu language is Aryan, with the marks common to the speech of the six great Aryan peoples, Latin and Greek, Teuton and Celt, Slav and Hindu. With personal pronouns, passive voice, case endings, and an absence of honorifics, its features are clearly discerned. 6 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION The Ainu regard themselves as of a different stock from the rest of their fellow-subjects of the Mikado. They speak of their conquerors as " men of a differ- ent class of eye-socket," and call them "Siamese." Their own name for themselves is Ainu or men. For ages, "Yezo" meant not an island, but all the main island east of Omi inhabited by the Ainu. "Yezo" signified what our own Housatonic (Dutch, Woesten Hoek) means, that is, The Land of the Savages. For a thousand years or more the frontier line of the Mikado's empire was being gradually pushed north- ward. "Yezo," meaning an island, is a modern word wholly of European use and origin. Yezo, Yebisu, and Yemishi, or Ezo, Ebisu, and Emishi, are one and the same term, meaning barba- rians or savages, found in the eighth century and later writings of the Japanese, and in common use, until all the Ainu on the main island had been absorbed. By intermarriage, and living under the same political, social, legal, and religious forces, the conquered Ainu of Hondo were lost in the mass of the Japanese people. To this secular process, the most ancient as well as modern documents, archaeology, place names and dialects bear witness. How terrible were the means used, how age-long was the method of making the Ainu and all other subjects of the Mikado uniform in life, food, clothing, coif, manners, etiquette, facial gestures, use of breath, hands, and graduated language, and expressions in presence of superiors, is shown in the records and is mirrored in the language WHITE RACE AND THE FIRST INHABITANTS 7 and literature. Sumptuary, economical, and religious unity were secured first of all by the sword. The results were vividly visible to me as I lived in feudal- ism. They are most powerfully set forth by the late Lafcadio Hearn, in his "Japan: an Interpretation." He wrote largely from hearsay and books. I saw feudal society as it was, yes, even in phases of life and death in the Japanese feudal world, now forever passed away. The remnants of unconquered and unabsorbed Ainu people, on Yezo island, with the very few that were driven across the straits of Tsugaru, were left and nearly forgotten on the island we now call Yezo, which the Japanese never colonized or cared much about until the seventeenth century, and of whose very outline, as that of Saghalien, they were of old ignorant. The knowledge of their frontier and the consolidation of their empire came to them very late, and then chiefly under the pressure of the Russian menace. Left for eight hundred years beyond the pale of the civilizing and refining influences enjoyed by the Japanese, the Ainu remained savage and uncivilized. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by the aid of firearms and firewater subdued, disarmed, crushed, without any object to unite them, they became a cowed, divided, and broken-spirited people. To-day the annual immigration of Japanese into the island of Yezo, in some years, exceeds the total number of Ainu, who are being crowded out of hunting grounds 8 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION and the area of fisheries. No longer under the hardy discipline of resistance and war, their game disap- pearing and the hunter's life exchanged for sedentary habits, they have become like the "blanket Indians'' on the reservations of to-day, or the beggars at the railway stations, as compared with the fierce warriors led by Pontiac or Tecumseh. Once they could make Japanese tremble and many were their victories in war. Differences in the daily details of life and physical environment made of the savage Yezo Ainu and the Ainu-Japanese two different "races," whose mixed offspring degenerate and become sterile. House life, hot baths, daily cleanliness, agriculture, schools, religion, art, culture, vigorous mental and political discipline, all the ennobling influences of a high civilization were for the men below the straits of Tsugaru, the Southern or Ainu-Japanese. Dirt, ignorance, savagery, a hunter's life in the stone age, remained for the neglected Ainu of the Hokkaido or northern islands. Race-hatred, nursery superstitions, religious and local prejudices completed the separation, and a new name coined in contempt deepened the abyss by adding a bitter stigma to Ainu reputation. In Japanese mouths they were called Aino (Ai-no-ko), bastard of man and brute, a term as offensive to the Ainu as is the vulgar objurgation of a female dog's "son" heard among us. Some color was lent to this popular notion, because the Ainu culture was that of man and dog. The Yamato people, in close WHITE RACE AND THE FIRST INHABITANTS 9 connection with the continent, had horses and cattle. Though horses are now common in Yezo, the dog was the only animal domesticated by the Ainu. This faithful brute is taught not only to hunt bear and deer, but on land to watch on the shore for the in- coming salmon, to rush into the water, drive the fish into shallows, bite off the salmon's head and leave its body at his master's feet. In modern days, with the reckless slaughter of the deer and the extinc- tion of the bear by the amateur with breech loader, the Ainu hunter-life is nearly over. Being a "ward" of the Government, he is being crowded out by the Japanese settlers in Yezo. Nevertheless this con- tempt for the Ainu and for his alleged mental inferior- ity, as if it were ancient and inherent, reminds the American of the southern black servants' contempt for "poor white trash" and "crackers." The Ainu had no metals and knew not how to get or work them. Their folklore shows that they made pottery, and also that in very ancient times they were cannibals. The Southrons or conquerors excelled at forge and anvil. Excavations made in the myriad shell heaps, from Satsuma to the Kuriles, show that metals were unknown to these Aryans. In the thou- sands of tumuli, and of dolmens or stone chambers of the conquering race of pre-Mongolian Nippon, wrought metal, tools, weapons, and ornaments of iron, silver, copper, and gold abound. Anything superfine, even a tree or textile, is expressed in Ainu by the term "metal." . 10 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Wash and scrub the unwashed and odorous Ainu, and you hardly recognize them. They become " white folks" at once. I found the Ainu students in Tokio, after the application of soap and water, were genuine white men, looking exactly like fresh arrivals at Ellis Island, New York City. Kinsmen they may be of the cave men of Europe, or of those whose bones lie in the British barrows, whom Isaac Taylor identifies with the primitive Aryan. Nevertheless, in the working of their minds, in apprehension of our ways and thoughts, and needs of daily life (though not in abstract science), as American and British travellers in our day and generation tell us, they are decidedly Aryan, more so than the smarter Japanese. Mr. Archibald Gowan Campbell, in 1898, besides remarking on their fine physique, says of the Ainu, "they have a distinct bias for veracity and will frequently tell the truth to their own disadvantage," and that both sexes are devoid of the insatiable curios- ity of the Japanese; that many Ainu are distinctly handsome, and the children are singularly European in their ways, that the Ainu intelligence is limited, but it seems to be of the same kind as our own and not of the Asiatic order; that an Ainu readily under- stands European signs, while a Japanese invariably gets them upside down; that it is easier to make a novel request to an Ainu than to a Japanese, owing to the simplicity of the one and the conventionality of the other. Under Christianity both the cuticle and the tongue WHITE RACE AND THE FIRST INHABITANTS 11 of the Ainu become clean. The mind harbors fewer of the images of words and things vile that are com- mon to savagery everywhere and which are so start- lingly photographed in the primitive documents of Japan, in which are probably many Ainu episodes supposed to be "Japanese." A Christian Ainu is verily a new being physically, who anywhere in Europe or America might pass as a gentleman to the manor born. Many of them have striking, often pleasing and attractive faces, with finely chiselled features. Some are florid in countenance, tall in stature, with soft brown eyes and reddish hair. Invariably they have gentle manners, but the old savage can rise and his temper flame. For the most part these Aryan- speaking folk are taller than the Japanese, while far more muscular and sturdy in endurance. They walk, turning the toes out, and not in, as do Japanese and Indians. They have perfectly straight eyes horizontally set, with noses that equal in protrusion and mouths that rival in breadth, those of their Aryan cousins elsewhere. They have invariably what men of pure Mongolian stock lack — luxuriant beards and mustaches, as well as plenty of hair on their heads, when free from scalp disease. It is this characteristic which has given them the factitious reputation of excessive hairiness. From very ancient times, as for example, when wrecked A.D. 310 on the coast of China, and when taken by the Mikado's envoys, A.D. 659, as curiosities to the Chinese Emperor's Court, this feature was noted. 12 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION The Chinese and the Japanese, in whom Mongolian blood predominates, have, for the most part, smooth faces or a few stringy hairs on the upper lip and chin, visible indeed, but not luxurious. On the Japanese head, however, the hair grows more thickly than on the Ainu. It is also true that occasionally an Ainu is found on whose body and limbs there is a growth of hair that would make him a special object of attention to foreigners, especially of those who rarely ever see nudity on a large scale. Among foreign people, who in Yezo have seen the numerous half- breeds supposed to be pure Ainu, and even the natives in their wilds, there is no subject on which there is more difference of opinion than that of Ainu hirsute- ness. Certain authors have in book-title, text, and picture frightfully exaggerated Ainu hairiness. My own observation agrees with that of those who have seen the largest number of Ainu. I consider that their alleged excessive hairiness, as compared with the Occidental standard, is a fable. The first full description of the Ainu by M. Rollin, who was with La Perouse in 1787, has been constantly copied and is now with some people almost an article of religion. Few book-writers have ever seen a regiment of men taking their swim. Having myself studied scores of Ainu, and, during our Civil War, when myself a soldier, seen a brigade of men in the United States Army in a state of nudity, I do not believe the Ainu are especially hairy except on the face and head. Many white men are much hairier than the typical WHITE RACE AND THE FIRST INHABITANTS 13 Ainu. The enormous size of the mustaches of these adult men, who never shave, has given rise to the development of a ritual for drinking their sake", or their millet beer, in which "the mustache lifter" plays a great part. Savage life, in its general features, is much the same all over the world. In studying the Ainu, we see mirrored the habits of our primitive fathers in the woods and swamps of northern Europe in the days when Caesar met a man who had been travelling for two months in the unbroken forest. The Ainu of to-day live in huts. In hunting, fishing, drinking, and daily habits, in their worship of the bear, in their use of fetiches and methods of propitiating the Un- known Mystery, in the decoration of their homes with the skulls of animals slain in the chase, in their feel- ings, ambitions, and grade of culture, they are almost exactly the counterpart of our own ancestors, in cave and swamp, not indeed as idealized on the canvas of Piloty, as when Hermann returns from victory or Thusnelda walks at Rome in the triumph of Ger- manicus, but as they were in reality. In at least one physical characteristic, the Ainu approach the cave- men, that is, in the flattening of the shin bone. Other points of resemblance to their relatives in Europe may be noted in the manuals of ethnology. That "the Japanese realm was once an Ainu realm" is the verdict of Professor Koganei of Tokio, where is the great museum of Ebisu relics. These Aryans have left not only their names on the haunts of their 14 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION forefathers, but all over Japan are found their shell heaps and kitchen refuse. Primitive man was fond of oysters and clams. Over four thousand old sites of prehistoric restaurants have been located by native and foreign archaeologists. As early as 715 A.D., these shell heaps, kaidzuka, are mentioned in writing by the southern conquerors. The pioneer farmers, a thousand years ago, scattered over the soil or made lime of these accumulations, the origin of which they did not understand. Hence these shell mounds are relatively so much rarer on the old and long-tilled land, while numerous in the newer East and North, in which region Ainu words are still common in the dialects. At the northern tip of Hondo, the pure-blooded Ainu were still living until late in the eighteenth century. In later days these shell mounds were vulgarly supposed to have been in giants' houses or were explained as old sea beaches. Myths are easier to make than science. Fairy tales are more agreeable than plain facts. The most striking relics were later explained according to Chinese myth, as coming from the thunder god who sits on the clouds and beats his drum. Hence the Japanese word raifu, or thunder-axe. Human nature in Nippon, exactly like that of our own, interprets oddities on the plan so long pursued elsewhere. In Iroquois legend, the gods destroyed the mastodons with thunderbolts, and much the same explanations of cause and effect were given throughout Europe. Thus while "Japan is a museum of Asiatic civiliza- tion," possibly able even "to mirror the whole of the Asiatic consciousness," and is "the real repository of the trust of Asiatic thought and culture," she has also in her double inheritance that which links her to Europe and the "white" race. It is more, than poetic sentiment to affirm that " One ruddy drop of manly blood The surging seas outweighs," and that not the least drop in the Japanese composite is that of the Ainu blood. In Kano Hogai's picture of Kuanon, conceived as the Universe Mother, the water of creation, dropped from the crystal vase held in her hand, becomes in each drop a babe. So in the ultimate results of Japan's long story, each Ainu "atom's force Moves the light-poised universe." CHAPTER I THE ARYAN WHITE RACE IN THE ARCHIPELAGO THE story of the island people now called the Japanese may be divided into two parts. One era belongs to the prehistoric seon; that is, in the night of time. The other begins with written history. The one is concerned with ethnic origins, the other with nation building. The first suggests beginnings on sparsely populated islands, telling how the archi- pelago was peopled first by savages, and secondly by barbarians with arts and taste. In the written story we see a stream of human culture borne by people who came from old seats of civilization and built up the State. One set of men, the white Aryans, was cut off from culture, and remained savage. The other set, already semi-civilized, was successively reenforced from the continent. Situated on the great ocean highway of the Kuro Shiwo, or Black Current, in the path of the waifs and strays, borne up from the tropics, along the whole waterway from Lombok to Alaska, these Islands of the Sunrise have never lacked potential settlers. Along the whole way of this natural ocean route are lighthouses furnished by the volcanoes at night, 16 ARYAN WHITE RACE IN THE ARCHIPELAGO 17 landmarks clearly visible by day, and shallows with food always within reach. In repossessing, since 1895, Formosa, with its copper-colored aborigines, and since 1869 the Riu Kiu (Loo Choo) islands, which stretch like the cross-pieces of a long rope-ladder, the Japanese are simply repatriating their kinsmen and reoccupying the dwelling-places of their Malay ancestors. In concentrating all the Ainu of the Hokkaido in Yezo island, they are showing kind- ness to their Aryan forebears. To sum up, then, we have first the movement of natural immigrants, compelled by storm and current, as distinct from civilized men. Over against this movement, but much later, are the immigrations from the continent, but whether the prehistoric peoples who reached Nip- pon were Accadian, Semitic, Aryan, Turkish, or Tartar, no man as yet knows. Certainly they were not Chinese or Koreans. Before the dawn of history and letters, the Indonesian and Conti- nental races had fused, and we see in the Kojiki, not the pure mythology or simple traditions of a single race, but a composite of traditions and fairy tales. Not until after the fourth century did argosies of religions, philosophies, arts, and sciences, borne on the stream of the human mind from old seats of culture, reach Nippon's shores. Then did the "Mon- golian" elements of civilization, Korean and Chi- nese, but infused with the thoughts of India, over- whelm and almost bury what was ancient in Japan, 18 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION leading the average Occidental to imagine the Jap- anese are " Mongolians." From the North also, where Saghalien almost touches the continent, have come men whose descendants are Japanese. Thus from the South, the West, and the North, the Sun Land in early ages received her children. In the sixteenth century, when the secrets of the Far Orient were opened to Europe, influences entered to alarm rather than please the rulers of Nippon. The organism, like a sensitive plant, infolded. Fear- ing further menace, Japan isolated herself during two centuries and became as Thornrose. Finally, when steam had made the ocean an easy highway, science and invention, printing, steam, and electricity opened their gift-laden hands, and the Anglo-Saxon nations had appeared on the shores facing the long inviolable island realm, Japan reopened her doors and became the new link between China and the American Re- public. Later, by an unexpected unfolding of power she rose as the intermediary between the Orient and the Occident. Her blended Aryan and Mongol in- heritance fitted her to absorb the new civilization. As she had made synthesis of India religion and Chinese thought, so was she enabled again, in the nineteenth as in the sixth century, to assimilate new ideas and forces. With as yet unsuspected reserves of power, will she meet the emergencies yet to come. There is nothing surprising in her modern life, which is an evolution of inner powers stimulated by Occi- dental intellect and forces. ARYAN WHITE RACE IN THE ARCHIPELAGO 19 Thrice born has been Dai Nippon. Her initial consciousness came to her in the glow of missionary Buddhism and in the time of China's Golden Age. Her renaissance occurred when the highest mastery had been won by the race over the forces of nature. Her third avatar came after Mukden and Portsmouth. In 1905 a supreme struggle for life opened a new world of experience, giving her a fresh outlook. Hers was then the assurance that there was in herself no inherent inferiority to Europe. Indeed, why should the Japanese fear the kinsmen of their own ancestors ? Nay, why should they not enter into full brotherhood and joyful alliance with them? No other nation is so fitted to welcome the new, without losing the old, as is Japan. Many and mighty have been the invasions, in- trusions, and immigrations of blood and of ideas into Japan, which is, in a certain sense, the residuum of all Asia. Phoenicia and Greece, Persia and India, Thibet, China, and Korea, the Malay and the Indo- nesian world have made of Japan an enriched and oft-fertilized country. The Japanese are used to novelties and they are trained to test the worth of newcomers, Hindu, Chinese, Iberian, British, Russian, or Yankee. Even in the tremendous onslaught of Occidental influences since the days of Xavier and the Iberians, and of Perry and Harris, she has had pro- longed experience in proving all things and holding fast that which is good. To find the real Japan, which existed prior to the 20 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Chinese irruption, is like seeking for Herculaneum and Pompeii. Since the old culture previous to the sixth century lies as though buried under a volcano shower of ashes, we must dig a shaft in order to bring to the surface the buried treasure. To begin with, we must set aside almost wholly the mass of early Euro- pean books on Japan, besides nine-tenths of the great bulk of modern publications. The mountain heaps of copyists' material is practically worthless for science; for, even at its best, we have what has been decanted or dumped from uncritical Japanese books, and the legends and mythology, which natives, more patriotic than judicially minded, accept as history. As matter of fact, the translations, critical com- mentary, and researches of the English scholars of the Meiji era, Satow, Aston, Chamberlain, Brinkley, Dickins, and others, supplemented by the Germans, have made obsolete most of the old European learn- ing about Japan. The mediaeval Japanese, having no historic sense, had a genius for destroying truth in history. The Chinese characters, which the first scribes scattered over aboriginal names of land- marks, were like salt on living herbs, killing the primitive forms. One must receive with the great- est caution the early written Japanese statements, which were late enough; for, in their method and spirit, they are like the Islamizing of these old Indian, Persian, and Arabian stories gathered under the title of The Arabian Nights' Entertainments. In ARYAN WHITE RACE IN THE ARCHIPELAGO 21 these, Mahometan orthodoxy has dyed with its colors, shaped with its own forms, and clothed with its own garments the characters in the tales that were old before Mahomet was born. In the Enter- tainments, everybody speaks according to the Koran. So over all the early annals of Japan the sword of conquest has been laid and the shadow of Mikadoism has been cast. Everything is said or done accord- ing to Shinto, or is in statement made to conform to Chinese rhetoric. The "ages eternal," read in the first clause of the modern constitution, reduce every- thing to the level of political orthodoxy, to doubt which is to be officially damned. To extract reality out of even the primitive Records and Chronicles to learn the truth about pre-Mongolian Japan, is much like attempting to decipher a palimpsest. Nevertheless there is much unconscious and unin- tended truth that is discoverable on the blotting pad. Language and archaeology furnish truth which manu- factured dogma, duly minted and stamped like coin, cannot overthrow. Much indeed was borrowed by the islanders from China. Possibly even those who, landing in the south a thousand years before the Christian era, drove the Ainu northward, may have been from Continental regions, in what was later known as China. One who overcredits the Japanese with originality had better not study Chinese history or literature. If he does, he will find words, phrases, ideas, inventions, and institutions which the islanders 22 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION have imported and copied, often claiming them as indigenous and original. In the Records and Chroni- cles, in rhetoric but not in reality, we have references to things as existing in Japan, when unknown even in China until centuries later; so retroactive were the native scribes, who raised against the clouds of their pride and imagination the gigantic Brocken spectre of their tiny country. Yet it is easy to exaggerate this part played by the Chinese as creditors, as we think some scholars have done. For the tendency among most closet writers is to make history wholly from documents. This letter-bondage to books and literature, failing to take into account what archaeology and other aids and checks can offer, is largely responsible for the popular view of Japan's history, and especially her ancient history, as held in the Occident. We have a similar example even in the United States, whose story thus far has been told in print chiefly by men who, with only a knowledge of the English language, in the current of British tradition, and having access to mighty stores of books, have ignored Continental influences in the making of the American common- wealth, often following prejudice and fancy rather than fact. In reading the Records or Chronicles, we must continually check their statements of chro- nology by references to Chinese and Korean sources and even their narratives by archaeology and the testimony of language. It is as true of history as it is of linguistics. If "he ARYAN WHITE RACE IN THE ARCHIPELAGO 23 who would learn a language must try to lisp in it," so also must one go beneath the dignity of official history, compiled in the palace, to those realities of human development, which the relics of primitive culture teach us. As Rembrandt repudiated the tradition of painting the Christ and the Apostles as plutocrats, senators, lords spiritual and temporal, and painted man, woman, the Lord, and his disciples as they were, so we must not fear the truth in talking of those early peoples who have formed the composite Japanese, joining neither their flatterers nor detract- ors. The work is worth the labor, for the Japan of to-day is in a large sense the epitome and residuary legatee of all Asia. To know Japan is to open avenues into all Asian history. The gateway into the past of Asia and the rudder of her future is Japan. Unfortunately for the average Japanese and nearly all foreign books, they give only the Yamato or cen- tral theory of Japanese history, that on which Mika- doism is founded, and which furnishes the political basis of the modern constitution. Our purpose is to sketch the early story of Japan from the Ainu or aboriginal side, and to make generous use of what is called the frontier theory. We shall go on the other side of the looking-glass, asking not only what the "gods" and the divine regalia tell us, but also what the shell heaps and the dolmens, the pre-ancient names on the landscape, the physiology and the physiognomy of the people, their mental and moral traits, and the living natives unconsciously reveal. 24 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Japanese history, as we read it after some years of scrutiny, is wholly normal and human. It belongs neither to the chimney of Santa Glaus, nor to the nursery's fairyland. Its story of conquest is parallel with the occupation of India by the Aryan Hindu, of China by the primitive conquering race, with the development of our own savage ancestry of northern Europe, and with the overrunning of the North American continent by white men from Europe. The Japanese are neither prodigies, nor paragons, nor mere imitators. The same natural forces, operating from without, the same appetites and passions work- ing within, the same class of influences, mental, moral, and spiritual, arising from native, but vastly more from the imported cultures, have made the Japanese what they are. There is no necessary distinction between the Oriental and Occidental, the brown man and the white man. That the "yellow brain," and the Japanese heart are ultimately different from those of the Yankee or the Briton, is the notion of tradition, not the fact of science. The Japanese is not a fatalist, or a prodigy, or an Edenic creature. The "Jap" is in human nature no more, no less than the Yank, the Brit, the Germ, and the Gaul, and he has as much right to serious attention and the benefit of truth stripped of its nursery garb, as has the Euro- pean. In all those arts and representations which depend for their motive and existence upon contrast and carefully manipulated differences, as in fiction, paint- ARYAN WHITE RACE IN THE ARCHIPELAGO 25 ing, the drama, and caricature, and thus, in so far, upon subjectivity, distortion, and exaggeration, the old terms Occident, Orient, yellow, brown, and the full portfolio of adjectives will be considered neces- sary. Alas for these people, when "the gods" dis- appear from human speech and imagination ! To the eye of science these words and notions are already waxing old and are ready to vanish away. Race- hatred and animal passions, cuticular repulsions and pride of race, religion, and inheritance will long keep up the idea and consider its maintenance as precious orthodoxy that the Japanese are "Mongolian," "Oriental," "tricky," "treacherous," and in every way different from the noble Anglo-Saxon and the proud European. Yet truth is mighty and must prevail. In this spirit, seeking truth only, we see no reason for not giving a fair share of attention to the retarded races and classes in the Mikado's empire. It is to the undying glory of the Meiji Government that it has not only enfranchised the former pariahs and outcasts, but defended and elevated the Ainu — the primitive race of white men, savages whose Aryan speech is kindred to our own and whose lineaments show that their ancestors and ours were near relatives. Thus history, linguistics, and archaeology reveal our kinship to the Japanese, who are neither a pure Mon- golian, nor a pure Malay race. The Aryan-speaking white race in Japan, whose modern representative is the Ainu, is to be studied 26 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION not only in Yezo. In the names he has left on the landmarks, in deposits of -refuse in the soil, in his own language, folklore, and traditions, his history is recoverable. In the Japanese writings his record is clear. It may be reasonably concluded that the Ainu have dwelt on the soil of the islands during three thousand years, the last two thousand of which were spent in struggle against the advancing Yamato men and culture. Yet it cannot be said, as was affirmed in 1906 by a hostile critic of the Japanese in Korea, that "the Japanese eliminated the Ainu," as it is charged he will do in Korea. Instead of elimination, there was absorption. The Yamato man inter- married with the Ainu and to-day the white man's blood is in the Japanese, for the better working of his own brain, the improvement of his own potencies, and the beautifying of his own physiognomy. The Aryan features in the Japanese body and mind are plainly discernible, and in thousands of typical instances they are striking. Apart from agriculture and the civilization of Japan and looking only to the shell heaps, we discern prog- ress even in the evolution of the white savage Ainu. The great Edinburgh archaeologist, N. Gordon Munro, writes at the end of his "Primitive Culture in Japan " : "The contents of the stone age is an excelsior; in the twilight of receding time, we discern the foot- prints of ascending humanity." The Ainu living in the southwestern part of Nippon ARYAN WHITE RACE IN THE ARCHIPELAGO 27 were driven out, subdued, or absorbed in various movements of population. In the ancient legends, reduced to writing, over a thousand years after the events described, the chief characters are seen in the same haze that surrounds people in fairy tales. The stories about them, which we read in the Records and Chronicles, are not opposed to truth, but only to fact. The dates assigned are indeed arbitrarily imagined or pushed back into antiquity, and hence are nearly worthless for chronology, yet they afford abundant data to the student of manners, customs, and institutions. All through the history written between the eighth and the seventeenth centuries, these Aryan-speaking savages appear, even hi the picture painted by their enemies, not as cowards, but as heroes. They put up a stiff fight against the invaders during two thousand years. They were brave warriors fighting for what they considered their own and their native land. Pere Aloisius Froes wrote from Kioto, March 1, 1565, of the Ainu as being "bold in war, and much feared by the Japanese." Probably the oldest bit of litera- ture in the language of Nippon affords proof positive of their reputation among their conquerors. It is a war song ascribed to Jimmu after one of his first victories over the Ainu, obtained, be it noticed, not by fair fight, but through stratagem and treachery. It is highly probable that the songs and poems in the Kojiki existed long before the composition of the book (that is, 712 A.D.), furnishing the real nucleus 28 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION around which the narratives grew. Certainly the prose seems in many cases to have been written up to the poetry. This primitive ditty declares that one Ainu, accord- ing to reputation, is a match for one hundred of his enemies. In his march eastward, Jimmu routed several bands of savages, but they had made such lively resistance that when he came to the village of Osaka, in Yamato (not the later big city), he resorted to trickery. He made one of the common muro, or pit dwellings, still occupied by Ainu and formerly by the Eta. He then invited the Ainu or Yemishi to a banquet, supplying them with plenty of rice beer, or sake. Now, to this day, firewater is the undoing of these "Japanese Indians," as Marshal Yamagata, when crossing the American continent in 1896, called them. Next to bear hunting, the Ainu's passion is for alcoholic liquor. When his guests were well drunk, having previously arranged his assassins, Jimmu gave a preconcerted signal. Thereupon the captain of the band struck up a song. The traitors drew their weapons and stabbed their drunken guests, slaughtering them to the last man — "so that there were no eaters left." The delighted victors looked up to heaven and laughed. The song they made runs thus : — " Though folk say, That one Yemishi is a match for one hundred men, They do not so much as resist." ARYAN WHITE RACE IN THE ARCHIPELAGO 29 Even down to the eighth century, the soldiers were accustomed to sing this ditty and then laugh heartily. During the thousand-years' war, continuing even until the Russian menace, the Southrons won as much by stratagem as by open battle. Another rude ditty, in which Jimmu gloated over his smart trick, is ascribed to him and reads as follows : — " Ho ! Now is the time ! Ha! Ha! Pshaw! Even now, my boys ! Even now, my boys ! " Later on, it is recorded (in imitation of the pom- pous Chinese style of historiography borrowed centuries afterwards) that the "rebels" in the five "Home Provinces" had yielded, but the savage tribes outside the sea were still active. "Let the generals of the four roads now make haste to set out," ran the order. A few months later, quiet was reported. CHAPTER II THE MALAY ELEMENT IN JAPAN ON the great drift of humanity borne to the Nippon archipelago by the Black Tide (Kuro Shiwo), which the solar heat of the tropics forces northward, came those elements from the Southern Oceanic region called Insulinde, Idonesia, Island India, or the Malay world, that are traceable in the Japanese ethnic composite and social organism. Those most familiar with the races, the Mongol or Aryan and the Malay, now so differentiated, consider that in the Nippon composite the Malay strain predominates. Of some kinship, near or remote, between the Nippon islanders and the peoples of peninsular Asia, there can be no question. Outward resemblances and mental phenomena are too close to doubt that, in varying degrees, indeed, the islanders and southern continentals have common inheritances in blood, physical and mental traits, traditions, mythology, superstitions, and customs. The average Japanese physique does not closely resemble the human type of northern Continental Asia. A thousand Chinese or Koreans picked up at random would equal in stature an average thousand 30 THE MALAY ELEMENT IN JAPAN 31 Europeans or Americans. The Manchurians might surpass them. A thousand Japanese fall decidedly below both the Occidental and the Continental Asian average. In the short legs, low stature, delicate lirnbs of the Japanese, we recognize the Malay even more than the Mongol. The Emperor Mutsuhito shows in his countenance the Malay type. The Japanese dwelling-house never had its origin in China. In its evolution it is a Malay structure, modified by Ainu inheritances and the material and example found in the soil. It is not earth-floored as in India, or brick or stone bottomed as among the Chinese and Koreans. It is built on posts, and the floor, raised above ground, is mat-covered. Light and frail in structure, it is developed from a type prevalent in a tropical or subtropical region. In general idea, it is the Malay house, made of wood, cane, paper, and matting. In details it is an evolu- tion from Ainu originals. China and Korea are the lands of stone and brick dwellings. Japan builds with the reeds, grass, bam- boo, and forest trees. Almost all her architecture is impermanent and perishable. Even her stone work is but imitation of carpentry. Her noblest perma- nent edifices are Buddhist, their motive having been brought from India or China. The simplicity of the pagoda and earlier religious structures, as at Nara, suggests Hindu thought or Chinese edifices developed from the bamboo. The later luxuriance of Nikko and Shiba consists mainly of multiplicity 32 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION of detail, the elaboration of carpentry, and over- decoration. The Shinto temple is not suggested by a tent, a bamboo stem, or a pagoda. It is but the evolution of the primitive hut of cane and straw. As in Ma- lay lands, the rafters are crossed at the ends. The transverse pieces, set at right angles across the roof- tree, now become logs, or beams, and often resplen- dent with the golden Imperial chrysanthemum, are but the developed sticks and withes along the ridge- pole of the original structure. At Ise — Mecca of gods and men — the edifices, precious but evanescent, are torn down and renewed every twenty years. The typical Japanese house has many things about it to suggest a Malay original. Its prototype was in the South and not in the North. Its simplicit)^, lightness, cleanliness, its general air of all outdoors brought under a roof, its lack of aids to privacy, tell of the tropical hut in the far South, and not of the felt tent of the Mongol or the brick house of China. Indeed, in early ages, as the old literature, especially in the touching love story of the Maiden of Unahi, shows, some of the islanders were lake-dwellers. Others had habitations raised considerably above the ground, like the Ainu storehouses of to-day. In the matter of heating, there is no sign in the Japanese house of the kang, or system of flues, for the warming of the living and sleeping rooms, so universal in Chinese lands and notably in Korea. For bodily warmth, the Japanese, as the cold strength- THE MALAY ELEMENT IN JAPAN 33 ens, puts on a new stratum of garments. He removes the chill indoors and warms his hands over a brazier of charcoal. In the kitchen there is no oven or stove, set up first for cooking and then for utilization of heat by means of flues for chamber warmth, with chim- neys at the other end of the house, as in Korea. In the Japanese house, only a gable or roof-hole lets out the smoke. Japan, despite the story of Nintoku and the European associations with house smoke, is not a land of chimneys but only of gable-holes or kitchen- vents. Innumerable are the references to these in Japanese literature and in Ainu folksongs. Indeed, the general scope in the Manyo poems and in Ainu lore as to things domestic is much the same. Not a little poetry, legend, and ritual tell of these exits made by man for smoke but utilized by birds, that in flying might defile food. Prayer for ceremonial purity was in view of a possible "calamity from a god on high." Even the soot that first forms and the creosote that varnishes rafters and roof, in the Ainu as in the pre-ancient hut of Yamato, furnished theme for poetry. Again in contrast to Chinese fashion, the Japanese sit on the floor. China is a land of chairs. Both the Middle Kingdom and the pupil nations elevate their bodies when sedentary, but Ainu and Japanese utilize their heels. The Chinese always employed raised devices. The Japanese method for ages has been nature's own. As in the chairless southern islands, they made use of matting. In the normal 34 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION house in Nippon, as in Ainu homes, were mats only. Beginning in childhood when the bones are soft, the natives were able to make of the space between knee and instep one level line. In this position, without falling asleep at the wrong end, they could be comfortable for hours. This also is the true Malay as well as Ainu style, though the latter often cross their legs. The only raised devices used for dignified repose were the general's war campstool, the bonze's sedilla for meditation, the abbot's cathedra, the chairs used at funerals, the Mikado's mat throne, and the Shogun's imitation of it, both only four inches high. When Commodore Perry in 1853 came to Kurihama to deliver President Millard Fillmore's letter and the Yedo Authorities knew from the Dutch interpreters that their guest must sit, they made requisition on the nearest Buddhist temple for two or more funeral chairs, in which the portly Commodore deposited his bulk in correct style. Later visitors in Japanese houses, in trying to utilize their heels as chair bottoms, were promptly compelled, in order to secure proper circulation of the blood and avoid paralysis, to stretch out their legs impolitely. Since the introduction of chairs into public schools, homes, railway cars, — and the author was the first to introduce the American rocking-chair into the old Ainul land of Koshi, or Echizen, — the legs of the Japanese have lengthened in one generation over THE MALAY ELEMENT IN JAPAN 35 a half inch. The measurements of a million men measured for the army between 1871 and 1907 prove this fact — doubted and scouted when first announced by the writer in The Nation of New York — but true beyond a doubt. In 1892, of 348,347 men put under the tape, 10.06 per cent were 5.4 shaku (foot of ten inches and over) and 20.17 were below 5.0 shaku. In 1902, of 431,093 conscripts examined, 12.67 were over 5.4 shaku, and 16.20 were below 5.0 shaku. The Japanese are becoming taller and soon will reach the Ainu standard of height. Note the Japanese carpenter in planning and erecting a house. As with the Ainu hut-builder, the roof is a structure by itself, and is made and joined together first. It is then elevated to the desired height — "a survival, possibly, of the time when the roof was, constructively, the house." Most of the ceremonies at the completion of a roof and of the house proper are with Ainu and Japanese builders virtually the same. Study first an Ainu hut and then a Japanese house, and we see an advanced evolution. Instead of the floor of hard or pounded earth in the primitive hut, there is a raised platform, on which are sewed mats made of rice straw and covered with fine smooth sedge. These, of rigid proportions in their three dimensions, are spread as on a chessboard, and a room is measured by the number of mats in it. The rush mats of the Ainu hut have become the sewed and 36 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION padded tatami of the civilized home set on a hidden wooden floor. The Ainu fireplace, in the centre of the floor, survives in the Japanese peasant's lowly hut in almost unchanged form, but in the house of the well-to-do we see it in the kotatsu used for personal warmth only of the sleeping or sitting room. Under the middle tatami, or little square trap-mat, one will find facilities for comfort, as told in "The Mikado's Empire," p. 414. In Ainu, "daily bread" means fish. In Japanese households the god of daily food, represented by the idol Ebisu (who may be an Ebisu or Ainu, despite the proposed derivation from the verb ebi, to smile), holds a fishing pole in his hand and has a tai, or sea- bream, under his arm. This ancient Ainu Kamui, or kami, unknown either to early Buddhism or Shinto, and not in the pantheon until the twelfth century, is a genuine growth of the aboriginal soil. Ebisu, or Yebisu, is one, and the only native one, of the seven gods or patrons of happiness, and is found in thousands of houses. He is probably one of the myriad inheritances from Ainu ancestry and the Ainu aeon. In building the Japanese house, which is Malay and Ainu, rather than Chinese, the native carpenter still follows southern traditions. Light and flimsy is the house frame, but it supports the heaviest tree-trunk timbers in the roof structure. Weight is placed at the top as a provision against earthquakes, so that THE MALAY ELEMENT IN JAPAN 37 the shaking of the house will come after the earth's oscillations are over. Like his fellow-Malay crafts- men, the Nippon daiku uses no struts or diagonal supports. His kura, or fireproof storehouse, made of heavy timbers, thickly armored with mud and coated with gypsum enamel, is a Malay affair with a (modern) Malay name, gadang, or "go-down," as the foreigners say. In its equipment and anchor, a Japanese sailing vessel is of Malay rather than of Chinese origin. In its lightness and grace, it appears to be developed from the prahu rather than the junk. In the making of the ancient canoes by hollowing out trees, or rather the two halves of one tree, and then making, not a dugout from a single log, but by joining together the two hollowed-out halves, either longwise or sidewise, the Nipponese did not follow Continental but rather southern models. The Chinese and their neighbors are famous for headgear. Korea is the land of hats, with a luxuri- ous language of cap, toque, helmet, and hair-net. The Japanese are a hatless nation. Following the customs of their distant ancestors, they wear "roofs," or large round chip protections against rain and sunstroke, but in old days usually a fan and a top- knot sufficed the average Nipponese. At Court they wore caps — borrowed from China — to denote rank, but the commoners wore southern headgear. The pilgrim bound up his head. The soldier donned the metal helmet. The civil officer perched a boat- 38 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION shaped structure of lacquered paper on his cranium to denote rank, the Court noble or kuge wore a skull- cap, and the Mikado had a sheet of gold, set up like a sail, instead of a feather, but the true hat was unknown in old Japan. In headgear, or the lack of it, the early Japanese followed fashions prevalent in the southern islands of cane and broad leaves. In the middle ages, as defensive armor developed, the soldier shaved his forehead to keep his hair out of his eyes in battle, and pomatumed his hair into a percussion gun hammer-shaped topknot that rested within the slit made in his helmet's buckskin lining. In time all classes followed this fashion. In probably most, if not all, other developments the Continental fashions were avoided, and the ancestral Malay traditions followed. The women wore only their own glossy hair, duly coifed according to their vir- ginity, wifehood, widowhood, or retirement from matrimonial possibilities. Except the imperial or noble lady's special hair or head badge of rank, the bride's floss silk cap, the lady's winter covering of silk for face and head, the pilgrim's wrap and "roof," and the working girl's kerchief, the Japanese women of old knew nothing of true hats or bonnets. In China a cap for the women, in Japan a kerchief ! In our day, indeed, the Japanese seem to be a nation of people living between felt and leather, modern hats and shoes, with the old-time garb in between unchanged, but anciently they went bare- headed and barefooted, or wore only "roofs" or THE MALAY ELEMENT IN JAPAN 39 clogs. Japanese footgear is not Chinese, rather Ma- lay. The Chinese wear a true shoe. The Japanese clog or sandal divides by its thong the "foot thumb" and the toes. In the amazing prehensile power of his big toe, in his capacity, rivalling that of the monkey, to use from babyhood his arms and hands in a wonderful variety of ways, to climb, grip, play the acrobat (as seen, for example, in the sailors and firemen) to practise ju-jutsu, the Japanese shows his Malay, not his Mongol inheritance. The Japanese woman, the great conservative, and therefore most likely to keep ancestral traits, is almost wholly Malay in her make-up and therein radically different from the Chinese. Kissing is not practised in eastern Asia. It is a lost art, if indeed it was ever known, but the painting, and especially the gilding, of the lower lips is of southern and insular, not of Continental origin. The geisha, the oiran, the ordinary peasant girl, and the lady in old Japan, painted or gilded the lower lip, even as do certain tribes of Island India. Married women blackened their teeth. So also did the kuge, or Kioto noble, who in luxurious effeminacy imitated his lady friends. This dyeing of the teeth is a Malay custom, and probably in its origin is allied to or derived from the reddish discoloration of the teeth by betel chewing. As a sign of her wifehood and as protection against the lustful conqueror, the Ainu woman tattooed in mustache-shape the space around her mouth. The ancient sword customs in Japan seem but 40 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION replicas of Malay originals. The worship of the sword, which was often deified, and especially the laying up of a sword of fame in a renowned shrine, is a well-known Malay custom. This ceremony is mentioned repeatedly in the Chronicles, notably when Yamato Dake went east to conquer the Ainu. As late as 1870 such a method of statecraft was in vogue. The Satsuma clan — that fierce, powerful, and brainy body of men, in whom is so much both of Malay and Ainu or Aryan blood, and which has so often run amuck in Japanese history — had, after bearing the brunt of the civil war, sulked and gone away to their far southern home, in which the Ama people had made landfall from the skies. The handful of young men holding the young Emperor in Tokio, then newly named, were left without revenue and without sol- diers. How to get back their late compatriotic allies was the problem. The device of sword dedication was hit upon. The Emperor sent two of his ablest men, Iwakura and Okubo, as envoys, who deposited a sword at the shrine of the "god" Shokoku Daimiojin, which was the posthumous name of the kinsman of the living and powerful daimio of Satsuma, Shimadzu Saburo. The clan was reconciled and brought back to obedi- ence by this decidedly Malay-Japanese stroke of policy. Besides enshrining the sword of repute, the Mikado took an oath "to exalt the destinies of the State." Traditional custom made this consecration of a sword a master-move on the chessboard of THE MALAY ELEMENT IN JAPAN 41 State, especially when it was accompanied by the invitation to Satsuma to begin the new navy and the national army by furnishing four regiments of in- fantry, and thus prospectively to raise from their own clan most of the now famous colonels, generals, and admirals. The original of the Japanese sword, about which a voluminous body of literature, poetry, sentiment, and traditions has gathered, is not to be found in the cleavers, choppers, and clumsy blades of Continental Asia, but rather in the graceful Malay kriss — a flash of lightning in steel. Whether straight, curved, or zigzag, the Malay kriss is slight, strong, steel- edged, well-tempered, and often superbly and elabo- rately wrought with emblem and ornamentation on the flat of the blade — an original model which the Japanese have followed. The most characteristic part of the furniture of the Japanese weapon is its scabbard, which has for its material not hide or metal, but wood. In the beginning of things, this was purposely so made, so as to use the sword suddenly, sheathed or unsheathed, for attack or defence. Here we have but the evolution of the Malay case of wood or cane, which only slightly covers or holds the steel bolo or kriss. In some cases, the bivalve sheath, or two wooden halves of the scabbard, are merely tied together with withes, which fall apart when the blow is struck quickly without drawing or uncovering. Terrific speed in use has ever been the trait of the swordsmen of Nippon. 42 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION The rapidity of use, the suddenness of attack in the old ronin days when we aliens in the land knew what to expect from the assassin, and the lightning- like stroke — often from behind — was suggestive, as are frequent modern instances, of the Malay run- ning amuck. When in the snowstorm of March 25, 1860, the train of Lord li, premier of Yedo, was attacked with- out a second's notice, the defenders met lightning with lightning. They fought with unsheathed swords, until the split wood of their scabbards allowed the edged weapons to be worthy of the courage and muscle opposed to them. The almost universal custom of tattooing, instead of branding, which was Chinese, suggests Malay or southern origin. At first, in some known cases, a special design serving as the mark of a criminal of rank, this indelible picture-making on the skin became quite general among the lower classes. I read first on human hide many a " color print," and studied the Ukio-ye, or "passing world" phase of art on walking picture galleries. I made my initial acquaintance with many heroes and heroines of fairyland and popular actors by recognizing their lineaments and experiences on the backs of my jin-riki-sha men. One of the most striking war customs of the Nip- ponese was derived from their ancestral Indonese habit of head-hunting. This was and is so common among the southern islanders, that the Japanese TATTOOED LETTER CARRIER, 1870 THE MALAY ELEMENT IN JAPAN 43 in Formosa since 1895 have found it extremely difficult to extirpate the custom. Collection of heads after a battle was the regular course of procedure in Japanese warfare until 1868. Reports were duly made and the official counts recorded. The heads of officers, or of those prominent among the Ainu, "the rebels," "the savages," or "the Koreans," were strung up. on lines of rope, each properly ticketed with the name of the former possessor. The inspec- tion of these furnished some of "the stern joy which warriors feel in foemen" that have felt their might. Many noble families, like that of Arai Hakuseki (1656-1725), for example, owe their elevation to an ancestor who "in some battle had taken a good head." In the Korean campaign of 1592-1598, it was not possible, on account of bulk and lack of antiseptic provision, to transport all the heads of the slain Koreans ; so ears and noses — several myriads — were cut off, pickled, and sent over to Japan. Duly inscribed with Sanskrit, the mimi-dzuka, or Ear- Tomb, is still to be seen on its mound in Kioto. Japanese polo, or dakiu, which has not one or two, but scores of balls to be knocked out, is but an evolutionary expression in peaceful time of head- hunting. The fascinating game, in savage sociol- ogy, of securing a certain number of human noddles before one can get a wife or a warrior's reputation, is reproduced on horseback. In the twelfth century, Yoritomo (1147-1199), in order to keep his soldier braves busy and in training during the relaxing times 44 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION of peace, ordained deer and boar hunts on the moun- tains. Such exercises in that day, when war meant chiefly the display of personal prowess, and scientific formations were practically unknown, served in lieu of drills. Yoritomo went further and organized polo, — the balls to represent in peace time the heads of enemies. In the evolution of the game, the reds represented the Heike and the whites the Genji. Whatever suggestions came from Persia or the West, dakiu among the Japanese was a traditional reproduction, first of the head-hunting of their Malay ancestors and then of the Minamoto and Taira struggles, with their red and white insignia. It certainly acted to some extent, at least, as a prevent- ive to the tendency of turbulent sword-wearers to cut off each other's heads. Was this Malay invasion, or infusion, which is said to give the reddish tint to the Japanese complexion, manifold ? In the southern drift of humanity brought northward on Nippon shores, were there also various other stocks, such as Negrito, Oceanic, Mongol, or Ingorott, in addition to nobler strains from Malaysia ? The known data do not yet permit us to speak with certainty. In agricultural and war customs, in per- sonal adornment of the human body and in house and dwelling, in the art, pottery, and relics of Nippon, we discern Malay originals, yes, even Negrito traces. Even in Buddhist art we find negroid features. Was this idea, so far as it is embodied in art, imported from India, where the fair Aryans, including the THE MALAY ELEMENT IN JAPAN 45 Shaka clan, had subdued the dark-skinned natives? Are the negroid features of some of the Buddhas the expression of hope and inheritance of salvation through Buddha, of the black Japanese, if there be any such? Have we here an analogy to St. Bar- tholomew the Moor, or Simon of Gyrene, in Christian art? In the conjectural and unscientific identification of the Eta with "curly-haired negroids" I have no faith, nor do I believe that the Negrito element entered to any great extent into the Japanese composite. What of the traditional race of pigmies, said to have preceded the Ainu? I do not accept the theory of the pits, or so-called pit-dwellings found in Yezo and other parts of Japan, as trustworthy evidence of the existence, before the Ainu, of a race of dwarfs called Kobito, or Koropok- guru, as some writers have argued. Some of the Hokkaido natives still use pit-dwellings for warmth in winter, and abandon them as summer comes. This most archaic type of human habitations in Japan is still in use by the people who were pariahs or Eta until 1871. We read of the existence of these muro, that is, the Ainu dwellings in pits, or artificial caves, in the earliest records, of their being dug, of steps leading down into them, of their doors open- ing inwards, of their raised platforms for sleeping, of their thatched roofs, and of their wooden frames lashed together with creeping vines. Sometimes these muro, which were used by people of high or low 46 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION condition alike, were large enough to hold scores of persons at once. Small muro were used as ice houses. In modern days a muro is a chamber, pit, vat, vault, ordinary apartment underground, or room of any sort, or a gardener's forcing-bed. Japanese, Koreans, and Ainu are pit-dwellers on occasions and in time of need. On a large scale in Manchuria, the Mikado's army made muro, or underground "dug- outs," roofed with millet stalk piled with earth, dur- ing the winter of 1905-1906. In Japan the people who work in straw and leather use muro, or pit- dwellings, from October until March or April, and some employ them as workshops all the year round, the damp warmth of these cellars being supposed to facilitate the manipulation of their materials. Dug freshly each autumn, the muro is apart from the main house, usually to the depth of one and a half to two feet, with a passage leading out, the upheaved dirt forming a sort of low wall. The inner surface of this embankment a foot or more from the side of the pit, forms a ledge serving as shelf or table; From this embankment, the poles used to make the roof frame run up to the ridge-pole, being bound by straw in two layers, with a stratum of earth laid in between, like a sandwich, to keep in the warmth. The window is of paper stretched on a wooden lattice. Usually a storm screen, or gable, is added afterwards to protect the flimsy lights from rain or snow. The entrance has a bit of coarse matting to shield it, and inside is a ladder of poles with one or two rundles. THE MALAY ELEMENT IN JAPAN 47 The apartment thus made is a single one, with mats below on the floor and sides. Although the height from floor to rafter is six feet or over, there is not much room for walking upright because of the sloping roof sides. In some old Eta houses there is an earthen-floored chamber below the level of the outside ground (and I saw many of this sort of dwellings in Koshi), to which a low window supplied heat and light. Munro, of whose descriptive language we have made use, who looks on the Ainu story of the little folks as "inference myths, like the elves and pigmies of Europe," derives the word muro, now a Japanese word, from the Ainu mu, to slant, and ro, a syllable applied to some part of the hut, such as hearth, or end of the fireplace. Evidently the modern and the ancient Eta muro had an Ainu original. In a word, here in the Ainu and Eta "shack," as seen noticeably in its ridge-pole and cross-ties, we may have also the original and motive of Shinto temple architecture, modified by Malay thought and custom. CHAPTER III THE IDZUMO CYCLE OF LEGENDS WITHOUT doubt the Ainu, a white race of people, speaking an Aryan tongue, once inhabited all Japan. When the scribes wrote their annals, he was "the Canaanite then in the land" to the elect people who came down from Heaven. The oldest mountain, river, and place names confirm the written records as to these facts. Even when conquered, the Ainu remained numerously on the soil as concubines, serfs, slaves, and servants, or honored citizens, blending their blood and race traits with those of the con- querors. So the records tell us, so the Japanese mind and face show to-day. But who and what were these men who, besides subduing aborigines, Ainu, Malay, and others, were for many centuries ignorant of such countries as those we call Korea and China ? It is not certain that sail- boats, or vessels having other motors than oars, were known until well into the Christian era. The Manyo poems suggest this. Who, then, were the conquerors of the Ainu ? Were they Semitic, Tartar, Malay, old Chinese, or Northern Asiatic people who had moved through Korea to the islands? 48 THE IDZUMO CYCLE OF LEGENDS 49 No data yet accessible can satisfactorily answer this question. From the combination of written traditions and the evidences of archaeology, we can at least form in our minds a picture of externals and learn what were the opinions current in Yamato (which was known in China in the third century) when Continental writing came into use and books made their appearance. By that time, all memory of their former ancestral seats, both in the southern Pacific or in the river valleys or highlands of Asia, had been lost. Yamato, the land dwelt in, is fairy- land on which the sun shines, while the blue Plain of Heaven is just above. Little or nothing of the Continent is suggested. The fusion of Malay or oceanic folk and the people from a far-off land with the Yamato community, is reflected in the Kojiki, or Records, which tell the beginnings of the Japanese nation, for here we find at once a mixture both of races and mythologies in at least two, or more probably three, cycles or strata of stories. Some of the narratives are already colored or modified by Chinese ideas that had done their work before documents existed. Perhaps there may have been two great migrations from Asia of the same race at different epochs. We see one tribe or house, that of Yamato, becoming paramount in the archi- pelago and very busy in effacing all evidences of former rule or government. These people are seen establishing with the sword the same doctrine as that set forth in the first clause which opens the constitu- 50 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION tion of 1889 — "The Empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken from ages eternal." No people in all the world have excelled or can excel the Japanese in manufacturing history to order, and in this art theirs are quite equal to other lords spiritual and temporal, the sovereigns of the state and other high churches of Europe and elsewhere, in falsifying or "harmonizing" facts. Glancing at the traditions and the different collec- tions duly manipulated and finally set forth, in two contrasting styles, in the Kojiki, or Records, and the Nihongi, or Chronicles, we read a story of cosmic evolution. Matter precedes mind. As humanity and sex are evolved, the myths show themselves to be transparently phallic. Izanagi and Izanami are creator and creatrix. The names of the beings intermediate between mud and mind, as well as not a few in the later fairy tales, seem to be only popular attempts at making aboriginal place-names yield a good story to explain their oddity. Their notable three offspring are Sky-Shine, the Moon god, and the impetuous Male, or sun, moon, and sea. The ancestors of the lords paramount in Nippon come from Ama, or the High Plain of Heaven, but many of the Kami, that is, superior gods or beings, are begotten out of muck and filth. Throughout, the difference between gods and men seems to consist chiefly of grades in cleanliness. The heavenly beings wash themselves often; the earthly creatures are negligent of ablu- THE IDZUMO CYCLE OF LEGENDS 51 tions. In a word, we note in the beginning the same difference which exists between the modern men of baths and towels, the normal Japanese of to-day, and the Ainu, who in a state of nature wash neither their dishes nor their bodies, and whose persons and habitations are redolent afar. The stories of glisten- ing maidens and of goddesses whose bodies are lus- trous, even through their garments, are those to whom cleanliness is habitual. Perhaps the High Plain of Heaven, or Ama, was nothing more than Yamato, the earth, or Ainu land, and the earthly deities mostly Ainu. Susa-no-o, the mischievous brother, like a pure Ainu, wore a beard that descended to his bosom, and he cried and bawled like other Ainu described in the annals. To-day his chief temple is at Idzumo, which Mr. Okakura de- clares is the shrine of the descendants of the Storm God, "who were sovereigns of Japan, before the descent of the grandson of the Sun-Goddess on the country." Native artists represent most of the early gods as bearded and hairy-faced. The shining Lady of Ama (Ama Terasu, Heaven- Illuminating Deity, or Sun-Goddess) and the Im- petuous Male have a quarrel. This arises out of a frontier situation and the reclaiming of land from the primeval forest conditions. The causes seem to be that she has three rice fields which are level, fertile, and convenient to the village; while those of the Impetuous Male are full of stumps, easily overflowed by the river, and liable to drought. The jealous 52 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION wretch, like the true Ainu mirrored in the histories, knocks away his sister's troughs and pipes, breaks the divisions, and makes horses lie down on her fields. To cap the climax of mischief, he skins a piebald nag while still alive, and making a hole in the roof throws the reeking hide over his sister's loom. Angry and sullen, Sky-Shine hides herself in a cave. Then the universe is in darkness and all ani- mated nature is in misery. How to get her out and have the world once more illuminated is the problem, for there are many bad elements of society ready to make trouble in the darkness. A great village assembly, or in the myth-maker's phrase, "eight hundred myriad gods," meet in the dry river bed. After divination, with a deer's leg bone over a fire of cherry bark, they invent tools, make bellows and forges, and fashion jewellery, musical instruments, and a mirror. In a word, to arouse the Ama lady's curiosity, they get up an industrial exposition of inventions, and here we have the picture of a brainy people hard at work to solve a problem. They bring together crowing cocks and blackbirds, and put a brawny arid athletic fellow in front of the rocky door to pull it away when set ajar from within. The theatre being all ready, the performance begins. Uzume, the "Heavenly Alarming Female," that is, the indiscreet ballet dancer of Ama, fantastically arrayed, began to dance on a sounding board in a way to please the "bald-headed row, "shaking mean- THE IDZUMO CYCLE OF LEGENDS 53 while her sistrum and posy. As the fun grew fast and furious, she loosened her garments beyond the bounds of modesty. The song which she sung was much like our children's counting-out game — "one, two, three, out goes she" — for in it one can hear the Japanese numbers from one to ten. Her person being thus ex- posed, the Ama men laughed as hilariously as men to- day do in a music hall at similar immodesties, or, in myth talk, "the Plain of High Heaven shook and the eight hundred myriad deities laughed together." Thereupon, consumed with curiosity to know what was going on, Sky-Shine, now the cave lady, peeped forth. At once the athlete seized the rock door. Her countenance beamed, and all the world was light-faced again. The village assembly, or council of gods, voted first to torture, then to banish, the scape-goat who had caused the mischief. In this primitive ancestral village gathering, we have an epitome of early economic history and the origin of arithmetic given in the myth-makers' way. Perhaps, also, he is accounting for an eclipse of the sun. He antedates the Chinese notion as seen in the flag of China, of a dragon devouring the luminary. The myth details also the origin of the religious, use- ful, and decorative arts and the supremacy of an able woman in Ama land. These inventors and promoters of light and civilization were afterwards rewarded by being sent on a colonizing and civilizing mission to the earth. That is, from the Plain of High Heaven, they were to go down to Japan. 54 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Nevertheless, in that cyclopaedia of myths, the com- posite Kojiki, the Lady Sky-Shine soon retires into the background. In the forefront of the first Japanese fairy-book, we have the Impetuous Male, not ruling the sea, but doing many wonderful things on earth, some of them useful and beneficent. He slays an eight-headed dragon, after making it drunk with eight tubs of sake. Then out of its tail he digs a mighty sword, which was duly laid up in a shrine to be worshipped. He goes to the land of Idzumo and builds a palace. He talks with the hare and mouse of his visit to Hades, or the Land of Roots, of his love affairs, of his winning a trick over his eighty (that is, many) brothers, of how he made up his quarrels with his sister, and of his amazing number of descendants, most of whom seem to have Ainu names. Perhaps he was an Ainu himself. His be- havior was much like that of a savage and a hunter that hates agriculture. Making allowance for primi- tive language and conditions, the fairy-tales told of Susa-no-o remind one of what the Indians did to our great-grandfathers' farms and sawmills. For ages in early Japan, animal dances, represent- ing the lion, dragon, monkey, deer, boar, bear, butter- fly, the actions of Susa-no-o, Uzume, and other charac- ters in the Records were common. The Kagura and matsuri capers still hold their own for the vulgar, while in stately evolution for the cultured have proceeded the classic No opera and the sacred dances. When the lady of Ama reappears in the Records, THE IDZUMO CYCLE OF LEGENDS 55 we have verily a new country. It is a hop, skip, and jump from Idzumo to Satsuma and thence to Yamato, hundreds of miles apart. The names of the lady's companions are all very agricultural, and the scenery is that of a rich farming region. The land which she chooses to give her august child is the Luxuriant Reed Plain, the Land of Fresh Rice Ears of a Thousand Autumns, a realm of reedy moors and fertile rice- fields. Looking down from Ama over the landscape — probably at that time the scene of the quarrels, in alternate raid and reprisal, of tillers of the soil and of Ainu hunters, who liked farms no more than red Indians in America did — was seen to be in uproar, or, as the Records suggest, heard to be so by a god famous for his big ears. Coming again to the High Plain of Ama, this listener informs the lady who rules. Now and henceforth we have a gentleman's name joined to that of the Ama lady, making a firm instead of a single ruler. The High August Producing Wondrous Deity, who was probably some famous farmer, is her fellow-worker. The two summoned another great democratic assembly, and this time in the centre of the village, or in mythic language, "the eighty myriads of gods in the high market-place of Heaven." Again they called on the brainy orator, some Red Jacket or Corn Planter, named the Thought Includer, who could take the sense of the majority and express it clearly. Him they ordered to cogitate a plan by which the earthly deities in the land, that 56 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION is, Idzumo, could be subdued. After agreeing upon what messenger or deity should be sent, the dis- appointing results may be summed up as follows : — The first, whom we shall call Lord Nozoo (for no one can explain his name) curried favor with the mas- ter of the land and made no report for three years. The second envoy, a young prince of Ama, proved to be even worse. He was so naughty that the record gives him no title. Well equipped with "Heavenly" bow and arrows he went down, only to fall victim to a pretty woman's wiles and to marry her. Her name was Princess Under Shine. Like many of the goddesses of this story, her body was glistening and beautiful, even from beneath her garments, which were probably not numerous or very opaque. Per- haps, unlike the natives of that time and the Ainu of to-day, she was exceptional in the fact that she bathed. Moreover, the envoy liked the country and people so well that he plotted to get possession of the land for himself. So for eight years the Ama folk waited in vain for tidings. Assembly No. 3 voted that an envoy, a pheasant, or a nameless female, should be sent to find out why the second envoy delayed. Flying down from Ama, the Crying Female perched (as in many another fairy-tale) on a katsura, or a cassia tree, in front of the prince's gate and gave him the message. Then the Ama Spy Woman, not liking the bird's cry, urged the Prince that it be shot to death. The arrow, after transfixing the pheasant, went up into the THE IDZUMO CYCLE OF LEGENDS 57 heaven-country only to fall alongside of Sky-Shine and her companion. He at once shot back the bloody shaft so that it hit the Prince, sleeping on his couch below, and he died. Hence the proverb, "Beware of a returning arrow." As the pheasant did not go back, another proverb speaks of "The pheasant as sole messenger." Princess Under Shine was now a widow, and her wailings were heard up in the High Plain of Heaven. Then followed a scene as pitiful, as real, as instruc- tive, as powerful to test the value of what solemn savants in Europe, lacking all the sense of humor, have taken for serious history, as our own nursery story, "Who killed Cock Robin," with all its pretty questions and answers. The Kojiki gives a full list of the birds and brutes, as well as human beings, who served at the funeral. Out of Ama, down to Princess Under Shine's earthly domain came the Prince's father and the wife and the children he had left behind — for marriage among the gods was usually a loose and miscellaneous affair. They got ready for a lively wake, which should pro- vide plenty of fun. While the stone dolmen was not yet built, a mourning house was provided in which the corpse should be kept until buried. It was so in the Old Japan, as it often is in the New, that a man frequently died in actual fact long before he was officially defunct. In the old days a corpse was sometimes kept three years, in order to maintain a legal fiction. 58 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION As chief fellow-mourners, the river wild goose that came with rice, the kingfisher that bought fish, and the sparrow that pounded and cooked the rice, were invited. With the pheasant as chief weeper they wept, wailed, and sang for eight days. When the first widow's brother, who had come down from Ama, presented himself to condole, he looked so much like his dead brother-in-law, that the sorrow- ing father mistakenly cried out, "My child is not dead, No," and clung to the visitor's hands and feet. Thereupon the angry and not at all flattered "deity" answered, " It was only because he was my dear friend that I came to condole. Why should I be likened to an unclean dead person?" Drawing his sword of ten hand-breadths and named Leaf Mower, he cut down the straw shack that served as a mourning house, kicked the pieces away, and strode off. There- upon his widowed sister sang a song in praise of her brother's shining jewels, with which the heavenly dandy was richly arrayed. The Heavenly Alarming Female, Uzume, is sent to amuse the long-nosed deity Saruto who dwelt at the eight cross-roads of Heaven, and to overcome him by her sheer impudence and immodesty. Of course, she was successful in her usual way. "So this was the origin of the Male and female Lords of Sarume" is the genealogist's note. The Sarume men and women performed the Monkey dances, out of which and others later grew the Kagura village comedy and the No, or classic opera rich in Buddhist ideas. THE IDZUMO CYCLE OF LEGENDS 59 By another vote and formal assembly in Ama it was resolved to send down the Brave-Awful-Possess- ing-Alale-Deity. After wonderful achievements on the sea and in Idzumo, he reascended to the High Plain and reported that he had subdued and pacified the Central Land of Reed Plains. Skill as well as valor being necessary to subdue the land, the colony or expedition from Ama was organ- ized on an industrial basis, and in the inventory of what went down to the earth we have lists of tools as well as of men. Though draped in the garb of a fairy tale, with mountains of pompous titles and acres of honorifics, these mechanic gods seem to have been real pioneers of civilization. The host led by Ninigi, grandson of Sky-Shine, descended from Ama to alight, not in Idzumo but hundreds of miles away — so erratic is legend — on Kirishima, in the Satsuma region, a mountain in Hiuga, or perhaps on Takachiho (after which a famous war-vessel, one of Admiral Togo's, is named). But how did these people from Ama come? Was it by boat from some high land afar and over the sea where earth and sky meet ? In any event, Kirishima is one of the mountains of the world linked to the universal divine legend. This is the strong point in the Kojiki, its geography. Outside of the High Plain of Heaven, the landscapes and coast-lines are recognizable. The breaks in the narrative are not in time, but in space. The chronicler is correct and even villainously accurate. Was 60 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION not his scheme all made of a piece, in A.D. 712 and again in 720, in Yamato ? There is talk of bows, swords, and arrows, and of round eyes and sharp slit eyes — which suggests the Ainu's observation as to differing eye-sockets, and perhaps the first guides of the newcomers were Ainu. On their arrival upon earth, the leader, Ninigi, noticed that "this place is opposite to the land of Korea, a land whereon the morning sun shines straight, a land which the evening sunlight illumines." So they built their leader a house. House and temple in the early days of Shinto, like house and church edi- fice in primitive Christian times, were one and the same. In the lofty rhetoric of mythology, they "made stout the lowest pillars on the nethermost rock bottom and made high the cross-beams to the Plain of High Heaven and dwelt there." More fairy tales follow. Uzume, whose immodest capers come often in evidence, got all the fishes together, "things broad of fin and things narrow of fin," and asked them "will ye respectfully serve the august son of the Heavenly Deities?" All the fishes answered properly, but the awabi, or beche-de-mer, said nothing. "Ah, this mouth is the mouth that gives no reply." Thereupon with her small string sword, she slit the creature's mouth. So at the present day the awabi has a slit mouth. Another story is of two princesses, the one named "Blossoming Brilliantly Like the Flowers of the Trees," and the other "Long as the Rocks." The THE IDZUMO CYCLE OF LEGENDS 61 father of the maidens, Deity-Great-Mountain-Pos- sessor, sent both his daughters, with abundant dowry for each, to the new conqueror Ninigi. But, as the older sister was ugly, Ninigi sent her back to her father, who was ashamed, and explained to the prince that he had sent both his daughters in order that Lord Ninigi should secure both beauty and permanence. Or in myth-talk, that the august off- spring of the gods might, "though the snow fall and the wind blow, live eternally, immovable, like the enduring rocks and also live flourishingly like unto the flowering of the trees. To insure this I offered them both, but owing to thy sending one back, the offspring of the gods shall be as frail as the flowers of the trees." For this reason, down to the present day, even the Mikados do not live long. In due time, the newly wedded princess became a mother. Retiring into the birth-hut, she set it on fire. There were born in the flames three sons, named Fire Glow, Fire Flame, and Fire Fade. One was a fisherman, another a hunter. On exchanging their craft and tools, the hunter had no luck and lost the fish-hook. To get the original, tfre owner went down to the "palace built like fish scales of the Deity-Ocean-Possessor" where the cassia tree grows. Winning the Sea-King's Daughter to wife, he stayed three years. On telling his father-in-law the story of the lost fish-hook, all the fish were summoned, but "only the Red Woman had a sore mouth." The fish-hook was discovered in the tai, or red sea- 62 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION bream's mouth. When duly washed, the hook was given back to the owner. The Sea-King advised the Prince how to act toward his brother, and presented to him also the two jewels of the Ebbing and the Flowing Tide. Then summoning all the sea-monsters, the King of the Underworld invited one of them to escort their guest, and on its back the Prince rode home. The Princess asked him to make a birth-hut on the shore and meet her there when she would come to earth. In the "duel of wits" between the brothers, as foretold, the jewels were found to work wonders, making flood or dry land, and causing to drown or to save when the savage elder brother, Fire Glow, first attacked and then submitted to Fire Fade. Some one sees in this a flood myth worthy of scrutiny. The Ainu in their folklore have a deluge. A child was born of the Sea-King's Daughter to Prince Fire Fade in the birth-hut roofed with cormo- rant feathers. After delivery, the mother turned into a dragon and slipped back into the ocean. There are those who see in this oceanic myth a Malay, others a Chinese, origin. Who shall decide? Then in the palace at Takachiho, Prince Fire Fade lived five hundred and eighty years. CHAPTER IV THE YAMATO PEOPLE AND MIKADOISM HAVING, in the Kojiki, reached something like a date or time mark, at the birth of the dragon-born child and his residence for nearly six centuries in one place, we encounter also what looks like history. The dragon mother's son (whose name Jimmu was officially given him in the days of writing, fourteen hundred years afterwards) married his aunt, Jewel- Good-Princess. In the prehistoric period, marriage meant cohabitation and nothing more. A wedding was simply the public acknowledgment of what already secretly existed. Men married their sisters and aunts, or any of their female relatives, for the institution of the family was not known and true ancestor-worship was as yet unheard of. Of the four children born of Jimmu and his aunt — all named after rice or food — two went to sea, and the two others moved eastward. These latter met the natives, and being entertained stayed in one place one year, in another seven, and in another eight years. Taking ship and securing a pilot, who came to them riding on the carapace of a tortoise, and 63 64 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION who knew the sea-path, they came to Naniwa, or Osaka, whence the name of Admiral Togo's cruiser. The river-mouth has for ages been famous for its "flowery" or treacherous waves breaking over the bar. Here, on April 12, 1867, Rear-Admiral Henry H. Bell, U.S.N., was drowned. Here, to-day, millions of dollars are being spent to make life and property safe. After various other adventures, in which figure various earthly deities, savages, swords, gods with bushy tails, bears, golden kites (birds), crows eight feet long, "a person pushing the cliffs apart," earth spiders (or earth hiders), and cave-dwellers, the con- queror passed the river Yoshino (after which the modern steel warship is named). Having thus subdued the savage people and extirpated the unsub- missive folk, he dwelt at the palace on the Evergreen Oak Plain (Kashiwabara), near Unebi (a hill in Ya- mato), and ruled the land. Jimmu married also a Satsuma princess. After one hundred and thirty- seven years of life, he was buried in a dolmen on Mount Unebi. In the official language, penned fourteen hundred years later, Jimmu "ascended the throne" and founded the Japanese Empire and the dynasty of Mikados, described in 1889 as "unbroken from ages eternal." His alleged burial-place is now decorated in imposing but in most inharmonious and anach- ronistic modern style, and here offerings are made annually according to the Shinto ritual. THE YAMATO PEOPLE AND MIKADOISM 65 Following Jimmu in the list are sixteen Mikados. The average age of the first seventeen in "the divine chain" is ninety-six, according to the Kojiki, or over one hundred years, if we accept the elastic time- measures of the Chronicles. The deposed ruler of Idzumo, known as the Great Deity of Miwa, is still in evidence ; but henceforth the centre of myth and activity is Yamato, a new place in the story. Thereafter the pages of the Records are stuffed with genealogies, made over a thousand years later, when clannism was the theory, or fiction, of government, and these fill up the blank of five hundred years. In the eighth century, "everybody that was anybody " wanted to connect his pedigree with that of the "gods." Various strings of narratives are beaded with epi- sodes that delight children, but as there was no censor of morals in primitive days, the mosaic of legend is cemented together with the most indecent stories, which reflect accurately the primitive mind, which, ethically, was on an Ainu level. Morals had emerged from the horde, but not from the group. Near the time of the Christian era, perhaps, appears Su-jin (B.C. 97-30). Lively incidents show that the Idzumo region and rulers were thoroughly pacified, that the quarrels within the Imperial clan were many, that morals were excessively rudimentary, and that the Mikado was thoroughly unmoral, having no care or oversight of the ethics of his people, and that the importation of the orange from "the Eternal Land" 66 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION — the Riu Kill Islands, or Korea — was a highly appreciated event. It is now time to look at other historical evidences besides those of late writings. We therefore turn from the Records and Chronicles to the landscape of Japan, which in the old classic localities is rich- in monuments and remains of manual industry. In the age before writing, potters, metal-workers, weav- ers, and decorators were active in furnishing the homes of the dead. These show, as against the contents of the shell-heaps of the white Aryan Ainu, a civilization much more highly advanced. They reveal the divine touch of art and reflect the love of beauty inherent in the islanders, even before the dawn of letters. The soul of Nippon is in art. Whatever be the origin of the aesthetic instincts of the Yamato race, these early men proved themselves as gentle in the arts of peace as they were fierce in war. The exquisite finish given to their industrial and decorative art, so notable in our modern days, is equally characteris- tic of those tumuli and dolmens, whose full story is lost in ages unwritten. Tenderness, romanticism, appreciation of the lovely in nature, love of bodily purity, characterize the men of that dolmen age, the boundaries of which are roughly from 400 B.C. to 700 A.D. Ritual cleanliness was their holiness, de- filement their sin. The artistic mind and touch of the workmen, who clothed their chief in life and furnished his chamber of glory in death, are hinted THE YAMATO PEOPLE AND MIKADOISM 67 at in the shreds and fragments of textiles and em- broidery, and the tasteful arrangement of the perish- able fabrics. On the equipment, implements, and utensils of stone, metal, wood, and clay — all im- perishable materials — the stamp of the beauty-lov- ing lapidary and artist is manifest. In all, even thus early, we discern the canons of moderation and the horror of the too much, which in the Japanese genius is akin to that of the Greek. Between the overloading of decorative art in India and the monotonous gran- deur of China, there is in unlettered but art-loving Nippon the same difference as that shadowed forth in their sword idea. The Island Country of the Slender Sword had already a genius differentiated from that in any civilization on the continent. To the closer examination of the early homes of the great dead in the fondly named Country Between Heaven and Earth, we shall now proceed. In early ages of humanity, the dead are more than the living, and their ideas rule. The noblest art and architecture are devoted to glorify those who rule from their dust. The mass of the Japanese people is still swayed, not by science, but by the cemetery. Even among the educated, the "spirits of ancestors" are more powerful in their minds than the dimly apprehended Creator. In early ages the hold of the dead on the living was far stronger. The first mortuary structures reared over the corpses of Nippon's great men were simple mounds, but beginning probably about 200 B.C. a highly specialized 68 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION form of stone chamber came into fashion. These new structures consisted usually of two tumuli, one round, the other triangular. Into that made in the form of a circle, the apex of the triangle enters and the two merge into one structure. Many of them hold well-shaped stone or terra-cotta coffins. Of the dolmens there are four types, classified according to their forms of galleries and chambers. Some of these are noble specimens of megalithic masonry. I have seen only a few, but Mr. Gowland, who has contributed papers to the Japan Society of London, examined 406, and measured or sketched 140 of these dolmens, and Mr. Satow has written of them in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. They are photographed in Mr. Romyn Hitchcock's pamphlet on the "Ancient Burial Mounds of Japan." Mr. Okakura, in his book of revelation, entitled "Ideals of the East," points out the relation of the dolmens to the original stupa of India, sug- gestive as the prototype of the lingam. He considers that the influence of the Continental art of the Han period in China, 202 B.C. to 220 A.D., is very pro- nounced and discernible in early Japan. Syn- chronous with these rock chambers, which were built usually of unhewn stone, were the artificial caves cut in the hillsides for the same purpose. The immigrants who built the dolmens had evi- dently passed out of the stone age before leav- ing their ancestral seats. We can hardly as yet say there was a distinct bronze age in Japan. Only in THE YAMATO PEOPLE AND MIKADOISM 69 the southwest are bronze swords, moulds for casting, and other bronze relics found. Large numbers of the prehistoric mounds have long ago been levelled by the cultivator. Even through some of the sites of alleged Imperial tombs, roads have been cut, or on them cabbages are raised, and houses and villages built. When a dolmen is found, it is usually the lone survivor of a score or more that previously existed. The general fate and condition of these archaic monuments remind one of the Iroquois Indian mounds in the lake region of Central New York, or of the hunebedden of Drenthe, or the terpen of Friesland which I have many times visited, the last time in 1906. All of these have yielded such rich harvests of the relics of several ages, races, and conditions of culture. Of the terpen, once supposed to number but a hundred or so, over six hundred have been located in Friesland by the man of science or the tax-collector. Indian mounds, dolmen, and terpen throw strong light on early life and origins of civilization, when conditions were much the same. Like the moraines that tell of glaciers that have long disappeared, the dolmens in Nippon show as on a map the march of the Yamato men and culture and the course of conquest, especially against the Ainu northward. While the wild forest and mountain tracts were held by the Aryan aborigines, the open and lower lands, more suitable for agriculture, were won by the settlers who tilled the earth. The distribution of 70 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION the mounds and dolmens seems to show also that various independent clans of the same race, having like weapons, religion, and customs, lived on the islands, but were separated from each other by wide stretches of country in which no dolmens exist. Until the eighth century, Hondo, the main island, was only partly occupied and the country sparsely inhabited. The dolmens are usually found in groups of from twenty to eighty. The usual situation is on the crest or slope of the lower hills or uplands, from which wide views may be obtained. Most of them, except in lyo, in the Four-Country Island of Shikoku, have a southern aspect. "Bury me in the sunlight" may have been an early and frequent request. These rude, unhewn stones tell of the age before writing. No inscriptions, and no time mark, except in relics found, exist, for clocks, almanacs, and letters were not yet. They also enlighten us as to the migra- tory nature of the Court and the ease and frequency of the Imperial Capital's removal. Some sixty of these seats of government are known. The copious records in the Chronicles tell of the first building and use of those misasagi, or Imperial tombs, in the Yamato region, which were within the ken of Court historiographers, but say nothing of those in other parts of Japan, which were outside the orthodox political scope and animus of official history. For a full and truthful summary of all the facts, these eighth-century writings are no more trustworthy THE YAMATO PEOPLE AND MIKADOISM 71 than are those of later date. Even modern Japanese documents ignore much of the details of truth most desired by outsiders. Let us see further as to what these stone dolmens tell. Oversight, even of the mounds recognized as " Im- perial," has been intermittent, — centuries of care alternating with centuries of neglect. During the long civil wars of the middle ages, many were lost by being given to the plough. Only in the Meiji period has any serious attention, practical, political, or archa3ological, been given to the misasagi. Few are now recognized as Imperial, and perhaps only the traditions concerning the larger ones are fairly trustworthy. These grand monuments, antedating writing, spell- ing, Chinese influence, State, Church, or political dogma, tell another interesting story. They reveal the variety of elements in the Japanese ethnic com- posite, and the many sovereignties that existed before conquest made e pluribus unum. Large mounds, of a form equally imposing with those of Yamato, are found in the districts very far away from those of the recognized emperors. In a word, in the aeon of dolmens there were chiefs who were regarded as equals of the head of the central ruling family in Yamato. Long settlement of men in Kiushiu, at least as mound-builders, preceded the age of mega- lithic architecture. Sometimes the erection of these mausoleums was begun even before the decease of the expected occu- 72 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION pant. As with the pyramids of Egypt, there was rivalry also, with riots, destruction, bloodshed, and effacement by the victorious party of the competing builder. A notable example was that of Soga, slain A.D. 645, the head of the clan that ruled Nippon and overawed the Mikado. He rode into power on the wave of the incoming Aryan religion. He called himself the Yemshi (Ainu) Soga, and championed the cause of the Ainu or Eastlanders. In reading of other similar episodes of proud rivals, one is reminded of the art-besotted ecclesiastics in Browning's poem, " The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church." All the dolmens, from the rudest to the grandest, belong in the iron age, which came long past the era of stone and bronze. In them we find the wants of the warrior in the future world well supplied. Out of the carefully sifted "knee-deep dust that once was man," have been picked swords, spears, helmets, armor, arrow-heads, saddle pommels, metal horse- trappings, bits, buckles, rings, stirrup irons, "bugle" beads and crescent-shaped jewels, of crystal, soap- stone, steatite, jasper, agate, chalcedony, chryso- phrasus, nephrite or jade, — in short, of as many materials in mineral as cover the walls of the New Jerusalem. Silver and copper-gilt metal-work, orna- mented with punch and graven work, abound — prophecy of Japan's triumphs of art that now de- light the world. One who studies carefully the speci- mens of iron weapons and metallic decoration found in these dolmens need not wonder that, after a mil- THE YAMATO PEOPLE AND MIKADOISM 73 lennium and a half of skill in working metals, the Japanese are able to build and equip battleships. The pottery, usually gray and wrought on a wheel, is decorated with etched markings. In every case the dolmen pottery and objects differ from those found in the shell-heaps from one end of the Japanese island to the other. The unity of style, structure, and relics suggest that the fusion of races (Malay and Semitic ?) had been com- pleted, and that one culture dominated the situation. Most striking of all the dolmen relics are the terra- cotta figures of human shape and also the clay effigies of horses, some few of which are now found in the Tokio and British museums. The story of these clay substitutes for the human sacrifices, which continued as late as A.D. 247, and the institution of the potters' guild in honor of the first makers of them, as related in the Chronicles, has been told in "The Mikado's Empire," p. 92. The Imperial order was to " Summon up from the land of Idzumo a hundred men of the clay-workers' Be," or guild. The haniwa, or clay images, took the place of groaning and starving human beings buried to their necks in the earth, and liable to be eaten alive by birds and beasts of prey. History and archaeology here join hands in testimony of interesting stages of culture, and of a great reform in the interest of humanity. What is most striking about these figurines is the utter absence of "Mongolian" features. They seem to be Aryan or Semitic. From those lips, what 74 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION speech issued ? An answer to this question negatives the idea of an exclusive Mongolian origin of the people now called the Japanese. Judged alone by their most ancient language roots, the Yamato people belong to the Semitic race. The characteristic feature of the tongue spoken from Ethiopia to Phrenicia and from Assyria to the Medi- terranean is the triliteral verb. This seems to be the marked trait of the stem-words spoken in pre- Mongolian Japan. In the Japan Evangelist, Tokio, October, 1906, Dr. David Thompson has wrought out this contention in scholarly fashion. Any one analytically familiar with the vocabulary of modern Japan recognizes at once how amazingly rich it is in words borrowed from the Chinese, many of them made into verbs by the addition of sum — to do or make. These Chinese words far outnumber, possibly twice or thrice, all the words in the primitive vocabulary. The elements of pure old Japanese are excessively few. Yet these elements easily dominate the mighty mass of Chinese vocables. The "hooks and eyes" of speech, the particles controlling the syntax, are native. The whole national story is mirrored in Japan's language. Even in the latest year of the world's history, Yamato Damashii still reigns, doubly showing "the unassailable original destiny." Despite the Mongolian flood, "the rock of race-pride and organic union has stood firm through- out the ages." Was this original rock Aramaic? Can the early Japanese claim kindred with Assyria? CHAPTER V YAMATO DAMASHII "YAMATO DAMASHII" (the spirit of unconquerable Japan) is as often on Japanese lips as are similar words of boasting, determination, or inspiration in British or American mouths. Set in the framework of their own historic associations, "The Spirit of 76," "Eng- lish fair play," " Nederlandsch bloed," suggest ade- quate analogy. National hymns or music, historic mottoes, war-cries, or single words thus focus memories and inheritances to the stirring of emotions and as levers to action, and so help us to enter into the mind and heart of the Japanese when he utters these words. As first spoken, Yamato Damashii denoted the language, literature, wit, or ways of Yamato as opposed to those foreign or imported from China, but this use of the words has long been obsolete. The second meaning refers to the spirit and temper of (highly idealized) Yamato ancestors. Their keen swords conquered the land. In simple life and in lofty purpose, they handed down their inheritances from ' ' the gods. ' ' In this holy land of the archipelago, most of the early capitals had their site. 76 76 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Yet "above all nations is humanity." Yamato, like Yamashiro, is an Ainu aboriginal name, and the fluctuating Chinese characters with which it is written before A.D. 737 were changed after that date. In time it was known in China and is mentioned by the later Han historians (A.D. 25-220). The pronunciation of the Chinese character is Wa-shu. During Ashikaga days (1338-1573) Yamato was the fief of the Hata- keyama family, and under the Tokugawas (1604-1868) seven daimios occupied its seven divisions. Jimmu coming there drove out or enslaved the Ainu, and made it his seat of rule. The Chronicles tell us how it got its name on the (shamefully accurate) date, "31st year, Summer, fourth month first day (630 B.C.)." The Imperial Palanquin (impersonal for Emperor) made a circuit in the course of which the Emperor ascended the hill Waki Kamu no Hatsuma. Here, having viewed the land on all sides, he said: "Oh! what a beautiful country we have become possessed of ! Though a blessed land of inner tree fibre [paper mulberry for weaving cloth out of], yet it resembles a dragon-fly licking its hinder parts. From this it first received the name Akitsu-Shima " (Island of the Dragon-fly). The modern word akitsu means a dragon-fly, and Japan is by excellence the land of these tiny dragons of the air, which Occidental superstition calls "devil's darning-needles" or "mosquito hawks." In manifold forms of symbolism, art, in poetry, rhetoric, and allusion, Japan is The Island of the Dragon-fly. Yet YAMATO DAMASHII 77 the original meaning of Akitsushima is "the region of harvests," and has nothing to do with akitsu, or tombo, the dragon-fly. The insect is often seen with its tail touching its mouth in the form of a circle, and the land of Yamato is surrounded by a ring of mountains. From a very little area of land and a tiny rill of legend have grown a world of associations and a flood of traditions. A majority of the modern steel battleships have received their inspiring names from the mountains, rivers, places, or landmarks in this ancestral region. The potencies in the word Yamato and the emotions evoked by mention of its name are outside of the world of science and belong to the domain of sentiment. The Japanese are a very sentimental people, as emotional as they are practical. Old names are among the deepest things in the Japanese heart. Hence it is fitting that we should glance at the Yamato language and music, the one the photograph of the early mind of Japan, and the other the vehicle of her richest human feeling. Whatever be the still unbroken secret of race- origin, the old language of Nippon has a plastic power and richness of particles far beyond the Chinese; though, despite all that patriotism may boast, it has not one-tenth the power of expressing human thought and feeling possessed by the Aryan and Semitic tongues. "All concords dependent upon gender, number, person, and case are wholly absent." In this respect, it is even below the potency of Ainu speech. 78 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Nevertheless, even as in music, the Japanese, though with limited diatonic scale, excel in tonality, so their poetry has a peculiar charm depending not on full or definite statement, but on its suggestive- ness. In this respect it probably excels all poetry in the world. Furthermore, form and decoration mean more to the lover of Japanese poetry than does the context. Intensely rich in symbolism and able to move to the depths those familiar with the text, it is often a sealed book to the dull-witted alien, even when translated by a master spirit or a poet. Afflu- ent in vowels it makes rich music to the ear, especially when on the thought or allusion floats the perfume of a thousand years of happy association. Almost the sole repository of the primitive tongue is the native poetry, the stream of which, flowing out from the Ainu age, is probably two thousand years old. Wonderfully preserved is the pristine purity of old Yamato speech. Like the crystal, which in forma- tion resists and expels foreign substances, it refuses adulteration. There is no admixture of Chinese vocables, and the grammar has repelled all intrusions of foreign principles. The soul of Japan as expressed in her Yamato kotoba, or words, is unspotted. The three great monuments of the primitive lan- guage are the Kojiki, or Records, the Manyoshiu (thou- sand leaves), or poetry on the ancient model, and the Monogatari, or mediseval romances, diaries, and works on philology, and grammar. These last admit a few Chinese words, but maintain the ancient grammar. YAMATO DAMASHII 79 The ancient poems have been literally translated by Mr. F. V. Dickins and freely into English verse by Basil Hall Chamberlain; and the Hiyaku Nin Isshiu (single songs from a hundred poets) by Mr. F. V. Dickins and Rev. Clay McCauley. The range of ideas is not 'great in the poems, but as a mirror of the ancient life they are invaluable. The Monogatari (thing-telling, i.e. romances), which were written mostly by women, have for clever- ness never been equalled, certainly not excelled, in Japan. They all antedate the twelfth century. As everywhere and in all ages, the normal woman in Japan is a true conservative. On her tongue lives the old sweet language. The splendid Taketori, Ise, Genji, Utsubo, and other Monogatari are un- matched. In his preface to " Primitive and Mediaeval Texts of Japan," Mr. F. V. Dickins insists that "the modern literature of Japan as such is nearly worthless. Not a line of power or beauty, it is scarcely too much to say, has been penned since the last Monogatari was written. Quite other is the case with old Japanese within its own limits. Those limits are set by its comparatively scanty vocabulary." The italics are ours. Mongolianism swamped Japanese originality and paralyzed thought at its beginning. Nor is the warning in vain against the "rapidly progressing sinicization of the Japanese [or un-Mongolian] tongue. It is becoming more and more incapable of rendering, so as to be understood fully by a Japanese not already 80 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION acquainted with some Western language, a single sentence not narrative or descriptive, of the literature properly so-called of the Occident." An apology may be found for such intellectual debauchery. The nineteenth century Japanese had the task set them of modernizing their country in one generation. Vital necessity — even the preservation of national existence, or at least unity — prompted them to adopt quickly the forces of Western civiliza- tion. For the duty confronting them what was their best literary vehicle ? How could they best write, record, and communicate their new thoughts and vast borrowings ? They may be pardoned for availing themselves of the nearly infinite resources of the Chinese ideo- graphs, which, by the way, are every whit as useful for writing English or German, as for Japanese. Just as we supply the "hooks and eyes of speech" to hold together our Latin and Greek vocabulary, so the Japanese add conjunctions and post-positions to help hold together and in shape their Chinese strait- jacket. Chinese script is copious and flexible enough to supply every demand of modern science. Never- theless the Japanese are debauching themselves in employing so much Chinese. Eminent patriots, indignant and alarmed at this steady Mongolization of their native tongue, are besieging the Department of Education in Tokio and clamoring for reform. The weight of the names on the formal petition of October, 1906, successor to YAMATO DAMASHII 81 the movement of 1871, must compel attention to the claim that the native language should be de-Mon- golized and developed according to its own genius. The un-Mongolian Japanese will do well to cast off 'the incubus of Chinese script and use Romaji (Roman letters). When it is a case of twenty-six phonetic signs as against eighty thousand ideographs, only tradition and usage can present arguments to the reason against innovation. So long as the authorities cling to Chinese writing they are deepening the abyss between scholasticism and the people, retarding the civilization of Japan, and hindering the cause of universal brotherhood. Roman script is in closer accord with Japanese genius and history than is the ideograph writing of China. Having glanced, with the cold and critical eye of the alien, at Yamato speech, while not insensible to its beauties, we may now approach the subject of "those exact coordinations, which the ear perceives as rhythm, tune, and tone-color, suggested to the ear by a series of musical sounds, the result [being] music." Not least among the arts introduced from India and China that were to stimulate, develop, and ex- press the emotions of the islanders, was that of music. What progress had already been made in the pre- Chinese ages, we have no means of knowing, though it is evident the art of making sound the interpreter of feeling was well advanced. Singing and dancing, from unmeasured time, have 82 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION been the most natural means of expressing the feel- ings both of sorrow and of joy, and the Records show their existence long before writing. The Japanese story opens with a dance. Poetry and song, music and the arts, went hand in hand. Legend, emerging out of mythology, tells us of the origin before the cave door of the fine arts and their instruments. Uzume, the first geisha, is the prototype of all Japan- ese musicians. The primitive age of Japanese music is pictured in the Kojiki as follows: "With profound "device and far-reaching thought, the Thought-Combiner at length gathered long-singing birds of the Eternal Land and made them utter their prolonged cry to one another," all of which means that two sets of roosters were set crowing long and loud, one to the other. Besides this orchestra of crowing cocks, Uzume, leader of the dance, made music by blowing through a bamboo, with holes pierced in it between the joints, while other deities kept time — exactly as the Ainu do to-day — with two pieces of wood which they struck together. Another celestial artisan made a sort of harp by placing six bows close together with the strings upward. These strings were made of the beard or necklace moss, which hangs from the branches of the pine on the high hills. Making a fiddle-bow of wire- grass and sedge, and holding the ends in his hands, his son drew across the six strings and made (koto) music. With bells and baton made of bamboo grass, Uzume, with head-dress of moss and with her sleeves YAMATO DAMASHII 83 duly bound up, directed the orchestra as she danced on the tub, or sounding-board. The words which she uttered, as the spirit of folly possessed her, now serve as the numerals one, two, three, four, five, etc., up to ten. Another interpretation of the words bids the gods look at the cave door and at Uzume's charms bared to the public. On this pretty myth is founded the Kagura, or "Comedy which makes the gods laugh," the village performance by strolling players which forever amuses the people. Furthermore, before the dawn of history the Nippon islanders joined music to the dance, and linked all their mythology, poetry, and history to music as the best interpretation of their emotions. When, therefore, new mechanical facilities were borrowed from China, or improved from native originals, there was not so much novelty as ree'n- forcement. The new orchestra, as developed, con- tained instruments of wind, string, and percussion. From the first Japanese music was to suffer limi- tation of growth in variety and composition, but by the law of compensation to gain in tonality. The fathers of Chinese philosophy had expressed the poetry of the cosmos and the mathematics of the universe chiefly in terms of five, there being the five points of space and of the compass (including the centre), five atmospheric influences, five roots of life or moral powers, five planets, five constituents of the human frame, etc., there must naturally be the five points of harmony forming the Chinese musical scale. This 84 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION meant leaving out two of the notes (the fourth and seventh) in the European scale. Mr. F. T. Piggott, in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan (Vol. XIX), declares that, speaking broadly, the Chinese scale, from which the Japanese is descended, is made by dividing the octave into twelve equal intervals, and so also is the Western scale. These intervals are called in Chinese ritsu; in the West, semitones. "The different scale of Japan if it exists, exists because different notes have been selected from those which have been selected in Europe to form its diatonic scale or basis of its musical composition. From the same chromatic scale, it is obviously possible to construct many different diatonic scales." The same author, basing his argument on the evi- dence which the tuning of the Yamato koto supplies, thinks that a diatonic scale almost certainly existed in China, which was identical in construction with the diatonic scale of the West, and that something remarkably like this scale existed in very early times in Japan. The repertoire of Japanese music is astonishingly large, though few foreigners have given serious study to that which so deeply moves the Japanese heart and mind. Nevertheless to despise or ignore these flowers of human genius in Japan is to fail in understanding the people who love and enjoy and are stirred by this music. Sympathy means inter- pretation. Why is it not as necessary to learn the YAMATO DAMASHII 85 secret of the power in the music of the Japanese as in their literature ? The author has been ridiculed because of his references to the Nihon Guai Shi or Unofficial History of Japan of Rai Sanyo (1780-1832), whose name, in company with those of Michizane and the other literary stars of the first magnitude in all ages and countries, he had caused to be incised on the western side of the granite walls of the Boston Public Library. One reason why this work of Rai is so true, and thus belongs to the literature of power, is that it was unofficial as against the official view held in Yedo castle. So, music is the true utterance of the human heart, here as elsewhere. Remembering that this book formed the political opinions of the men who in 1868 overthrew the old order and elevated the Mikado to supremacy, recalling the glow on the faces of the students who read it day and night, having seen strong men burst into tears over it, I felt what I wrote. So also, in the case of music and art, I speak earnestly and agree with Mr. Okakura in what he says. "Any history of Japanese art-ideals is then almost an impossibility so long as the Western world remains so unaware of the varied environment and interrelated social phenomena into which that art is set as it were a jewel." The special forms of musical drama, or, we might say, comic opera, are called usually after their in- ventor. Many classes of popular songs, illustrating almost every phase of social condition, age, and sex, 86 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION float and sink in the waves of popularity : songs for the rich man and the poor man, for the moonlight dance of peasants on the seashore, for the maids at salt- making or tea-picking, for the girl's battledore and shuttlecock, for the planting of the rice, for the laboring maids at pestle and mortar, for the workmen and sailors, and amazingly numerous and rich is the mass of tradition concerning the standard favorites. During those years of political and social upheaval, with daily novelties and innovations from 1870 to 1874, I made a collection of fresh street-songs which amusingly hit off the fashions, shed light on popular notions, and interpreted, as in a magic mirror, what was behind the opaque screen that hides from the alien so much native thought and emotion. In general it may be said that the Japanese are a musical people, whether our ears enjoy their vocal and instru- mental performances or not. Music is something else than a product of the schools. Having attended some of the monastery recitals, the concerts of the Mikado's band, the No, or classic operatic performances, made brilliant to the eye by pantomime in highest art beside superb dresses of gold and silver, I am sure that music nobly interprets the native mind and history. At several occasions, at concerts given by the tonsured musical brethren in the monastery in Fukui, I have, after hearing the same performance several times over, richly enjoyed certain portions. I have found a good deal of likeness between Japanese music and Wagner's, YAMATO DAMASHII 87 discovering at least the same end in view, — the inter- pretation of emotion. Not a few of the Japanese tunes can be played on the black keys of the piano. I am bound to confess, however, that there have been occa- sions when, like some of the other foreigners present, I preferred to be at one of those absolutely silent concerts, sometimes held in Shinto temples and one of which I saw. At these, there were skilled musicians and instruments, and the whole performance was gone through with in the brain. There was absolutely no sound whatsoever. For the widest range of the expression of emotion, the koto, with its amazing possibilities in the hands of an experienced player, is the favorite instrument. For war music and the rendition of battle passion, drum and cymbals are most employed. That the Japanese ear is, on the whole, probably better fitted than the Occidental's to enjoy the sounds in nature seems evident. It is no uncommon thing for a lover of evening and twilight sounds to go far away from the city streets into the solitudes of swamp and mountain, delighting his soul in the solos and con- certs of the frogs, the crickets, and the birds. In a word, the great orchestra of nature in Japan is highly appreciated by her sons and daughters. It is quite certain that the Occident is yet to be enriched by the treasures of tone which are to float to us on the medium of harmony. It is good for us to study Japanese and Oriental music, for thereby we can best understand the temperament of the 88 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION nation and learn how and why Japanese music expresses so well the emotions of the people out of whose heart it rolls. Throughout the centuries they have given great attention to music and have accu- mulated a rich store of melodious sound, creating the while a wonderful fabric of tonality. I doubt not that the Western world is yet to be surprised with a revelation of stored-up power. The Japanese masters, thoroughly acquainted with their own musical treas- ures, will doutbless, by means of our systems of nota- tion and musical translation, bear the keys which are yet to swing wide the doors of some of the old but as yet unopened treasure-chambers of Everlasting Great Japan. It cannot have escaped the attention of students of the age of Yamato Damashii that woman held relatively a much higher position than in the later ages when Mongolian and Chinese ideas prevailed. It is but a return to primitive feeling and customs when the modern Japanese, unshackling themselves from Chinese notions, borrow Germanic and Christian ideas to purify and exalt the ancient tradition. During the struggle with Russia the daughters of the land showed themselves worthy of the noblest inheritances of antiquity. From noble lady to peas- ant girl, all were heroines in courage, industry, and sacrifice. The high percentage of the attendance of girls at the public schools and Women's University in Tokio, and the splendid training given in the Christian kindergartens, elementary schools, and STUDENTS IN THE WOMAN'S UNIVERSITY IN TOKIO YAMATO DAMASHII 89 academies give grand promise of a generation of women who shall in graces and powers of mind and body surpass even their idealized ancestors. It may even come to pass that Japan's Golden Age will be located in the future. CHAPTER VI STONE AGE AND IRON AGE THE story of Cain and Abel — agriculturist and hunter, rover and sedentary man — is mirrored in the stone age and the iron age of Nippon, and in the thousand years' warfare between Yezo and Yamato. The two culture camps made a constantly changing frontier, moving ever northward. In the year alleged to be A.D. 95, but probably much later, orders were given to inquire into the geography of the east and north regions of the main island, with whose area and outline the Yamato poeple were not as yet acquainted. The explorer Sukune, returning from his travels in East land, made a report like that of Caleb. He spoke of the Country of the Sun Height "in the eastern wilds, where the people tie up their hair like mallets and tattoo their bodies. Fierce in temper their general name is Yemishi. Their land is wide and fertile. We should attack them and take them." In a word, Ainu land was Yezo and a rich food plain, later called Kuanto, on which Tokio now stands. Did the sight of Fuji stir Sukune's aesthetic sensibilities, or had not this volcano yet assumed its peerless form? 90 STONE AGE AND IRON AGE 91 Thirteen years later, "there was wide rebellion in the eastern wilds and the frontier was hi a state of tumult." This means most probably that some concerted movement of the Ainu, such as we think of as made by the Indians under King Phillip, Pon- tiac, or Tecumseh, was being organized to drive the Yamato men back. The problem from the Yamato side was geographic. It turned upon the question of frontal or flank attack. Should a wedge be driven into this primitive culture beyond the mountains lying at the thirty-sixth parallel clear across Hondo ? The Kuanto, or Tokio region, contains the largest and most fertile single area in Japan. The densest population of the Ainu, as the shell-heaps seem to indicate, was in Musashi. It was one of those fertile food plains, which in the Japanese story are ever the goal, and often the supreme purpose of war, as notably, in 1904, it was the vital object to secure rice- fields beyond sea. Whether should they advance through the passes into the tableland of Hida and Shinano, using this key to the position northward ; or, whether to move far eastward, and thence, by a flank movement, round the bases of the mountains and then over the plateau down and back to Yamato ? What should be the strategy and who the hero ? Now, unless the whole story be a sun myth, this decisive exploration, made in darkest Hondo, helped powerfully to decide the fate of the Aryan Ainu. Yamato Dake, or the Yamato brave, dealt a blow against Ainu culture comparable to the destruction 92 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION of the Iroquois Confederacy of the Six Nations, by General John Sullivan in 1779. The hero showed himself capable of coping with the Eastern, as already he had done with the Southern "rebels." This handsome young warrior disguised himself as a girl, and with a sword in his underclothing at- tended a high banquet given by a Kumaso chief. Fascinated by rosy cheeks and black eyes he took the supposed maiden by the hand, giving her a seat beside him, and plied his guest with drink. But Holophernes had his Judith. The lad at the right moment, when the brave was well drunk, stabbed him to death. The narrative, with the proper speeches, in pompous Chinese fashion duly set by the penmen of later cen- turies in each mouth, tells how the young warrior slew evil "deities." Then we are told how in A.D. 110 the emperor (with his mouth duly stuffed with speeches taken out of Chinese books) addressed his "ministers" concerning the turbulent "deities" that had sprung up in the East land and that the Yemishi had "rebelled to a man and frequently carry off the people." In plain English, the Ainu savages had made raids upon the agricultural settlers on the frontier and car- ried off the people as prisoners. All this is mirrored both in Shinto ritual and Ainu hero-tales. The Ainu chanters of song and tellers of legend still relate how their ancestors attacked the Japanese out- posts, killing the male adults, carrying off the women, and making slaves of the youth. STONE AGE AND IRON AGE 93 When the Yamato hero reached Suruga, the sav- ages, professing to submit, lured the invader into the long grass of the prairie. Then they set it on fire, hoping to burn their enemy. Quickly pulling out his materials, flint and steel or fire-drill, he kindled a counter flame. Then mowing away the near underbrush with his sword, he saved the lives of himself and followers. Thereafter he changed the name of his good blade, formerly called Clustering Clouds, to Grass Mower. In revenge, he caught some Ainu chiefs and burned them alive at the place long called Fire Port. Coming to the bay on which are now Tokio and Yokohama, and probably misled, as are Europeans in Colorado, by the clear atmosphere which annihilates distance, he looked over the Bay of Yedo. Speaking contemptuously of the "galloping water" so called, he said, "This is but a little sea, and one might even jump over it." On attempting to cross, however, a great storm arose, baffling his purpose. In order to appease the sea-god's wrath, one of his ladies, Tachi- bana, or the Princess Orange, leaped into the billows and drowned herself. At once a great calm followed. As true as a fairy tale is this story of the sacrificing woman. As fact, it is for the nursery. As truth, it is reality. The Japanese woman — it has taken long ages to produce her — has probably no superior on earth as mother, wife, daughter, companion, in those virtues which mean self-effacement and self- sacrifice. 94 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION On the opposite shore at Shimosa, the Ainu chiefs, who had at first expected to fight, changed their minds. Throwing away their bows and arrows, they waded into the waves, drew up the prince's boat on the beach, and submitted with prostrations. The hero graciously pardoned them and they served him. He passed through Hitachi to Kai, and thence through Musashi and Kodzuke. At the pass of Kusui, on the famous Nakasendo Road, he looked down over the great plain toward the ocean, and, thinking of his martyr lady, he sighed three times saying in remembrance of her, Adzuma (Alas, my wife !). Around this transparent product of mythology has grown a vast mass of legend, poetry, and senti- ment. When, in 1869, the modern Imperial Govern- ment was established on this great plain, the first iron-clad man-of-war (British, Confederate, American, and Japanese in turn) had its name changed from Stonewall to Adzuma. In Yezo waters, the steam ram compelled the surrender of the wooden ships of the rebels. The present Emperor's nephew, travelling in America in 1870, was known as Prince Adzuma. The name itself is probably Ainu, and the stories were told to explain its apparently Japanese form. Going himself into the high mountain land, Yamato Dake sent one of his captains by another road west- ward across the main island to Koshi, or the Echizen region, in order to learn the temper of the Ainu there. STONE AGE AND IRON AGE 95 On the Shinano plateau, where were "verdant summits piled up ten thousand fold so that for men with staff in hand, they are hard to ascend," the hero found evidences of Ainu industry and engineering. Precipitous cliffs were provided with flying bridges made of poles girt in the rocks, but "even with slackened rein the horse made no progress." Never- theless, bursting through the smoke and braving the mists, the prince crossed Oyama and nearly reached the summit of this famous mountain. So far, mortal man strenuous and persistent ! Now come more fairy tales and the "gods" emerge in beast form. A white deer, the mountain spirit, opposed the hero, who shook garlic in the deer's eye, killing it. Then a white dog appeared to lead the daring explorer down into Mino. Hitherto travellers over these heights had been made ill, but henceforth, by chewing garlic, or smearing it on their bodies, men, horses, and cattle were able to cross the mountain without suffering from the "god's" wither- ing breath. Another bout with a mountain "deity" took place on Ibuki, in Omi, where the god took the form of a ser- pent. The hero passed contemptuously over the snake in his path, thinking it only the god's messenger, but at once icy rain fell. Lost in the mist and gloom, he was nearly overcome. When, like a drunken man, he happily found a spring of water at which he drank, he recovered his senses. "Sit-Sober spring" was henceforth its name. 96 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Worn out by his labors, the hero fell ill, but con- tinued on to Ise. He found at the foot of a pine tree a sword he had left there a year before. At Nobo, he dedicated to the shrine, as slaves, some of the Ainu prisoners he had taken — probably following a thousand precedents and giving an example of thousands more in later history, since for a millennium or more, the majority of the "Japanese" people were either serfs or slaves. Then sending a message to his kami, or superior, he died at the age of thirty. Legend plays as many pranks with Yamato Dake's corpse as with the mountain deities. On the moor of Nobo a tomb was built to contain the body of this Napoleon of "the Japanese Alps." On its comple- tion a white bird flew out. Opening the stone coffin, nothing was seen but clothes. Following the white bird, it was seen to alight in Yamato. Here again another burial chamber was built, but again a white bird flew out. It rested this time in Furuchi, where a third sepulchre was built, when lo ! a white bird flew up to Heaven, so that only the hero's cap and gown were entombed. The people called these three structures the White Bird Tombs, and to perpetuate the fame of his services, the Mikado founded the guild of the brave. This threefold myth probably arose, as Mr. Aston tells us, from the fact that the white egret in Japan, as I have often noticed, makes the dolmen mounds his favorite resort, flying from one to another. The notices in the Records and Chronicles of the STONE AGE AND IRON AGE 97 Ainu however luxuriant with Chinese rhetoric, ex- press the current opinions in Yamato about these savages beyond the frontier, on the plains, and the reservations. To one who knows about the red men in North America, since Indian wars are over, and the reservation has come in place of raid and ambuscade, the story of these prehistoric Ainu reads like that of "Ogla Moga," or something that happened yesterday in Montana. For example, we are told that the Ainu savages, made slaves at the Nobo shrine, behaved so badly that the virgin priestess in charge refused to let them come near it. "They bawled day and night and were disrespectful in their goings out and comings in." So these noisy Ainu were sent up to the Imperial Court and the Mikado settled them in a new reservation at Mount Mimoro. Here they behaved no better. They cut down the trees on the moun- tain, bawled in the villages, and threatened the people. So after conference with his ministers, the Mikado ordered the Ainu out of the Home Provinces, giving them permission to settle where they pleased. "They were the ancestors of the present guild of Assistant- chiefs of the five provinces of Harima, Sanuki, lyo, Aki, and Awa." Here we have one of the first indica- tions in writing that the Ainu were not wholly driven away, or exterminated, but absorbed in the Japanese mass. This being but one of scores of such records, no proof could be stronger of the scattering of the Ainu among the Yamato people and their inclusion 98 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION as a vital factor in the making of the Japanese nation. The line of fifteen provinces north of the Tokaido, or Eastern Sea Road, and lying between the central mountain range which forms the backbone of Hondo, and the Pacific, is called the Eastern Mountain Road or Circuit. It is recorded that in A.D. 125, the Mikado made a tour thither, even to the provinces of Kadzusa and Awa beyond Yedo Bay. Near the village of Omura, in Kodzuke, are several ancient tumuli and dolmens with mortuary chambers. These are probably the tombs of the governors sent by the Mikado to keep order among the Ainu, partly pacified by Yamato Dake. Besides silver, copper, and stone, tube ("bugles") and curved jewels, weapons, and numerous terra-cotta pedestals, found in the fine dust of ages were clay effigies of human beings. These figures, which speak well for the art before the days of writing, show no "Mongolian," but only Ainu or Caucasian features. On the original contents of these and other mounds, the Records and Chronicles throw abundant light. In A.D. 125, as alleged in the Chronicles, Prince Hiko Sajima was appointed governor of the Eastern Moun- tain Circuit, but on his way he fell ill and died. The Ainu, w"ho had long grieved at his non-arrival, secretly stole his body and buried it "in the land of Kodzuke." Then the Mikado appointed the dead man's son to the absolute rule of the Yezo region. Reaching the new territory, the Ainu rose in revolt, but he put down the STONE AGE AND IRON AGE 99 insurrection. The native chiefs submitted with their heads on the ground, giving up all their lands. Be- tween vigorous decapitation and pardon, Yezo was for a long time free from trouble. "The prince's descendants are to this day in the Eastern Land." Again, in 367, the Ainu revolted in Kadzusa and slew Tamichi, who had been sent to quell them. They made raids against the Yamato people settled among them, and carried them off captives to their villages. They boldly broke open Tamichi's tomb, but when a great serpent with glaring eyes started up and thrust its fangs at them, they fled. Most of the Ainu who were bitten died. The Yamato men argued that "Tamichi at last had his revenge. How can it be said that the dead have no knowledge?" During these early centuries, it was a drain on the Yamato realm to furnish soldiers for Korea, and loyal Ainu were given employment in the Mikado's armies, even beyond sea. In 479, Oshiro, the Japan- ese Sir William Johnson, having five hundred Ainu soldiers under his command, arrived in Bingo on his way to Shinra. Afterwards these fellows, hearing of the Mikado's death, spoke one to another, saying, "The Emperor who controls our country is dead. The opportunity should not be lost." Then they rose in mutiny, but in the end all were put to death. The last notices of the Ainu in the First Book of the Chronicles is that of A.D. 483, when the Palace Guards (Hayato, swift men) and the Ainu rendered homage. The first notice in Book II is in A.D. 540. "The 100 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Palace Guards and the Yemishi, both bringing their people with them, came and rendered allegiance." During these early centuries, and until A.D. 663, when the Japanese were driven out of Korea by the Chinese and their Korean allies, in the great Tang invasion, there was continual going and coming between the archipelago and the peninsula. Of this, we have treated in "The Mikado's Empire" and "Corea, the Hermit Nation." It was an important step in the evolution of the Japanese when Korea was definitely eliminated as a colony or dependency from the problem of nation-making in the islands, and the Yamato people applied themselves with renewed energy to the full possession of their own domain, especially in the main island, Hondo, and to the still more important task of raising the masses out of savagery and barbarism into civilization. CHAPTER VII THE HIGHEST AND THE LOWEST THE Japanese are more or less of a puzzle to the people of those nations in which personality is more than institutions. When one reads of "the oldest line of rulers in the world" and of "a line of emperors unbroken for ages eternal," he expects to discover in this list scores of illustrious personages famous in history. Surely such a "River of Heaven" must be full of stars of the first magnitude. When he realizes that Mikadoism is the secret of Japanese unity, as of national development, the Institution being older than the State, he is still more puzzled to find that most bearers of the Imperial names were not suns, or stars, but shadows. Mere shades, nonentities of no personal importance, make up the greater bulk of those who bore these posthumous names. But why is this? Is it the effect of the political machinery that cramped individuality? The Chinese bind the feet of their women. Did the Japanese politicians constrict the brains of their rulers? Accuracy requires an affirmative answer. When one realizes the feeble sense of personality as shown in their language — which in this one respect is below 101 102 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION the Ainu standard — the mystery lessens. It then becomes clear that it is not so much the particular person who sat on the ancient mats or who sits on the modern throne, as it is the office or the descent incarnated in him, which the Japanese consider divine. The "spirits of the Mikado's ancestors" are the spirits of the nation — which some day will be written with one word and with the greatest of all Names. It is chiefly the Western world that knows the name of the Imperial person named Mutsuhito, who began his rule in A.D. 1867; for millions of his subjects in Japan hardly know his name, certainly do not use it, and rarely utter it. To future generations, he will be known as the Meiji Tenno. Modern Japanese do not employ the earthly, his- torical, and common-sense term Mikado, except perhaps in poetry. They use the sentimental title "Tenno," or "Tenshi" (theocrat, son or king with divine authority), which is a Chinese idea binding him and his ancestry with Heaven, thereby showing their slavish adherence to Mongolian notions. One native scholar protests against the use of "this obsolete and ambiguous word," Mikado, "in spite of its wide usage in foreign literature," but his reasons do but reveal the strength of our own argument. "It originally meant not only the sovereign but also his house, the Court, and even the State." Just so ! It would be hard to imagine the sentence quoted above to have been written by a native of Japan not edu- cated in Western lands. Let us trust that the modern THE HIGHEST AND THE LOWEST 103 term Emperor really means a person, with an indi- viduality and personality, and not merely the incarna- tion of an institution, as Mikado, or Place of Awe, certainly meant in mediaeval days. The mental associations of an American with the title "Emperor," because assumed in Hayti and ever lessening in prestige, are too comical to command respect. "Mi- kado" is ancient, solemn, unique, and supremely honorable. To call a Mikado of the prehistoric era an "Em- peror" is to project modern notions, with all the associations called up in an Occidental reader's mind, into barbarous ages and circumstances, that mislead as surely as does the application of the term sea to a pond, or king to Powhatan. It is only long after the advent of letters, that we can make com- parison with Charlemagne and contemporaries in Europe and Japan, with some degree of propriety and to the disadvantage of neither. The Mikado's realm before written annals was, as to area, an affair of Connecticut rather than of Texas proportions. Nearly fourteen centuries after Jimmu, the term Sumera Mikoto, or the August Unifier, was translated Supreme Majesty, and expressed in the two Chinese characters signifying Tenno, or Tenshi, a monarch ruling by the direct authority of Heaven — a Theocrat. The meaning, the animus, if one pleases, of our con- tention is manifest, when attention is called to the non- luminous spots in the shining line, showing how com- munal culture swamps personality. Like the silver 104 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION baldric across the sky of the god-land's story, emerging even out of the night of unrecorded time, is the list of six-score names in the line of " Emperors," yet most of it is nebulous. Even in nursery lore, fairy tale, national consciousness, or the average scholar's mem- ory, how few shine as fixed stars, or have an individ- uality which arrests attention like planets ! Of the first seventeen names that are names and nothing more, whose place in chronology is wholly uncertain, that of Jimmu is the only one which, even in tradi- tion, connotes a hero. The tenth and the eleventh, Suijin and Suinin (B.C. 97-A.D. 70), are believed to have been noted civilizers, the former building a shrine to Sky-Shine, appointing four generals to subdue the Ainu, and constructing canals, besides ordering taxes and a census ; while the latter erects the sacred edifice of Ise and substitutes terra-cotta figures in place of the ring of living beings at the dolmen tombs. Ojin (A.D. 270-310), Queen Jingu's offspring, miraculously borne by his mother during three years of Amazonian war, while still unborn, is deified as the god of war, but he was a peaceful shadow, and is great rather as the son of his mother. When deified by the bonzes as the incarnation of Hachiman, or the Buddha of the Eight Banners, he became the patron of the Minamoto clan, after a woman-Mikado had in 712 built a temple in his honor. Nintoku (313-399) has a fair name because of his long reign and benevolent interest in his subjects. In the time of the energetic Yuriaku (457-459) THE HIGHEST AND THE LOWEST 105 relations with Korea were active. Buretsu (499- 506), though only a boy, reigning from his tenth to his eighteenth year, was such a monster of lust and cruelty, that he was assassinated in the palace. His abominable doings, too foul to be spoken of, very probably gave arguments to the reformers for making the Mikado less of a person and more of an institution, and the throne more and more inaccessible, as was done in and after the revolution of A.D. 645. Then the many-hedged divinity was isolated by a thousand layers of non-conductive material from any shock of change, until the pivotal year 1868, which marked the end of an aeon. With Suiko (593-628), the vigorous champion of Buddhism, begins the list of women rulers, all of whom seem to have been fully equal to the average male occupant of the throne, while several of them were decidedly superior. Jito (687-696) was the patroness of agriculture and silver coinage. Another empress, who reigned twice, as Kogyoku (642-644), and as Sai- mei (655-661), built the first tiled palace, sent the gen- eral Abe against the Ainu of Koshi, and inaugurated the feast of bon, or All Souls. She died at the age of sixty-eight years at Asakura, when about to lead her armies to Korea. Gemmio (708-715), who blotted out the memory of Aryan and Ainu names by burying them under Chinese characters betokening luck, fixed the capital at Nara, ordered the composition of the Kojiki, or Records, and superintended the minting of copper money. Her successor, Gensho (715-723), 106 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION active patroness of arts, letters, and agriculture, secured the writing of the Nihongi, or Chronicles. Koken ' (749-759) was reigning when the returned scholar Kibi Dai j in, fresh from beyond seas, delighted the Court with superb specimens of the art, the music, and other wonders of China and India. These in- cluded lovely embroidery, the biwa or lute, and go. This absorbing game, resembling checkers, but more complicated, is so potent in fascinations, that, accord- ing to the proverb, it tempts a player to forget his father's funeral. Kibi taught even women to write letters with the kana, or syllabary, of which he was by tradition the inventor, so that the woman's epistolary style is as old as it is famous. Koken, to give an imposing proof of the status of Buddhism in her realm, assembled five thousand priests in one temple to chant the sacred books, built the great Buddha of Nara, and ordered the killing of domestic animals for food to cease, thus early in their history making the Japanese vegetarians in diet. Though she once shaved her head and retired to a nunnery, she emerged again in 765, as Shotoku, to fill the throne until 769, though with many difficulties to face. In her reign, in the far off East-land, the first temple at Nikko was built. All together this group of early empresses is noted for vigor, and every name in it shines out clearly. Inci- dentally, it is shown also that the position of woman was much higher in the Princess Country in Yamato days than after the entrance of Chinese ideas. It THE HIGHEST AND THE LOWEST 107 is certain that under their reign, the Japanese took some notable forward steps in national evolution. Most of the adult male Mikados, other than those we have named in the list, — for there were many puppet emperors, boys, or babies, mere tools of poli- ticians, — are known chiefly as ancestors of famous families and individuals, thus illustrating nature's revenge against a communal system that could not wholly repress personality. Such were Seiwa (859- 876) and Saga (810-823) , imperial fathers of the Minamoto and Taira. Others, whose names will appear on our later pages, emerge into clear view as the candidates of rival factions, as victims of plots or assassins, or, as in the case of the boy Antoku, became martyrs. Not until within the memory of living men is there a personality even remotely comparable, in human reality and freedom of action, to the Euro- pean sovereigns of the twentieth century. In the early Yamato days, the Mikado was a feudal ruler, or a clan chieftain, with limited influence and power. After the revolution of 645, he was virtually a prisoner in a gilded cage. Even yet, despite a modern Constitution, Diet, and Bureaucracy, the Mikado is, by tradition and compulsion, more of an institution than a person. He is the cryptogram of Japan's communal civilization. Future generations may see a change. Now that we have glanced at the highest personage and the most venerable, even preancient institution in Tei Koku Dai Nippon, or the Country Ruled by a 108 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Heaven-descended Dynasty, we can afford to look at humanity in the lowest stratum of Old Japan. "A man's a man for a' that," and some day the Japanese will so learn the lesson that its truth shall be manifest in their language, institutions, philosophy, and shine visibly even in their art. A beggar is a man, and an emperor is no more. Compared with humanity, Mikadoism, State churchism, thrones, and sceptres are ridiculous. In point of fact and Japan's own record, her own pariahs and outcasts sprang, like her princes and mikados, from Imperial blood. Since in the making of the nation the welfare of human beings is of more significance than gore and glory, and uplifted man- hood more than breast medals, we turn our attention to the origin and status of the late pariahs and to the abolition of caste, which made the Japanese a nation of true freemen. Far better than some of their creeds and theories is their record in breaking the chains of what was worse than slavery. The name of Mutsu- hito will go down in history with that of Czar Alex- ander and of Abraham Lincoln. When step by step and detail by detail the story of the civilization of Japan is examined in comparison with the eras of time and the same grades of progress with the civilization of the northern European nations, there is seen to be very little essential difference. The Japanese are a young nation, however far back in time their traditions may reach. They have all the faults and all the promise and potency of a young THE HIGHEST AND THE LOWEST 109 nation. We shall now look at the last new (and old) component, the " New Commoner," made so since 1871. When living in Japan I noticed particularly and became especially interested in outcast humanity, beggars, Eta, and hi-nin (not human). These beings were not in the census or counted in the population. All the horses and most of the dogs seemed to have a happier time in life than these specimens of the genus homo. On the Tokaido, on my way to Tokio, I first met these importunate beggars. They were diseased and clamorous. Wrapped in rags and matting, they slept under bridges and in odd shelters. The Eta dwelt in houses -and were fairly well-to-do. They lived at the town's end. Their occupations were in the handling, the tanning, and working of leather, the making of drums, harness, and the cobbling of footgear. They served in prisons and on execution grounds, attended to the removal of carcasses and corpses, and performed other unpleasant and defiling tasks. In face and figure, eyes and hair, they were in no way different from the Japanese around them. In Fukui, however, I found it difficult to get my students or other native friends to go with me through the Eta quarter. I was told that ordinarily no re- spectable citizen, after giving food or drink to an Eta, would ever touch a dish or cup thus defiled. Several hundred Eta lived in Fukui. Among the girls were pretty faces and figures, but except as strolling singers or players on the samisen, I never saw any of 110 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION these people in the temples or grounds, at the picnics, or public processions, or gatherings. It was in Fukui that the famous reformer Yokoi Heishiro, the William Lloyd Garrison of Japan, lived, who studied the condition of the Eta, pondered upon their elevation, proposed their enfranchise- ment, and finally lost his life as a martyr to the assassin's sword for championing the freedom of the Eta and the rights of conscience. In crossing the main island, besides the beggars under their dirty mats or clamoring for alms, I often saw on the Tokaido the legally non-human "clouds." These homeless men, cast out of society, were burden- bearers for travellers. Many were inveterate gam- blers. In several instances I saw them in the icy weather stark naked and shivering, having gambled away every stitch of clothing. Probably for this persistent vice not a few of the wretches had been run out of society. Before hiring them as palanquin- bearers, I bought rice, had it cooked, and saw it deposited inside their gullets, before trusting myself with them on the night journey. They started at a trot, occasionally stopping to light a fire of leaves and brush by the roadway to warm their hands and cuticle. Not a shred of clothing was visible on them, though they wrapped themselves in matting when not at work. In Tokio, apart from seeing them in their villages, I met again some Eta at their hereditary occupations within the great prison area. They served at or near THE HIGHEST AND THE LOWEST HI the blood pit, into which, during three centuries, probably ten thousand heads had fallen. Even as late as 1870, the average gentleman would have thought no more of cutting down one of this sort of legal nonentity than he would a dog. I used to see corpses of low-class men lying unburied on the highway, just as they fell under the blade of some drunken or bad-tempered Samurai. I have seen beggars allowed to drown in the presence of those who were well able to help them. The only answer or explanation to my inquiries, or remonstrances at allowing a human being to drown, was, "Oh, it's only a beggar." The numeral used in counting those people, who had no existence in law, was the same as that used for animals. It was difficult to get even a servant to stay in the room where an Eta woman, wounded in a fusillade at Kobe, was being treated by an English doctor. In a word, the Japanese fear of defilement overcame his sense of pity and even of humanity. This is an age-old trait. Even to this day it is the custom after a funeral to sprinkle "the blossom of the waves" (salt) over the mourners, in order to remove all sense of pollution. It has been asserted by those who ascribe a larger infusion than evidence permits of Nigrito blood in the Japanese composite, that these Eta were "curly- haired negroids," isolated and kept out of the nation on account of their foreign origin. Besides repeatedly asserting that the Japanese dark skin comes from negroid blood, they have attacked the claim made 112 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION by the writer that Mutsuhito's act in 1871 was as morally grand as Lincoln's and have even challenged the existence of the edict exalting the Eta and the hi-nin to citizenship. The text of this document, proclaimed October, 1871, to all the local authorities in the empire, which did for Japan what the ukase of Alexander the Liberator did for the serfs of Russia in 1861, and Lincoln's proclamation of 1863 for the negroes held in slavery, is as follows : — "The designation of Eta and hi-nin are abolished. Those who bore them are to be added to the general registers or the population, and their social position and methods of gaining a livelihood are to be identical with the rest of the people. As they have been entitled to immunity from land-tax and other burdens by immemorial custom, you will inquire how this may be reformed, and report to the board of Finance. (Signed) " Council of State." The daring man who in Kioto, in 1869, at cost of his life at the hands of assassins, first proposed in the Government Council the elevation of the Eta to citizenship was Yokoi Heishiro, formerly ethical teacher and adviser of my employer, the Lord of Echizen, and friend of the Mazzini of Japan, Hashi- moto Sanai. A mighty master of the Oyomei Philosophy, a reader of the New Testament (in the Chinese version), he sent his nephews to America — the first of a continuing host of students. His son THE HIGHEST AND THE LOWEST 113 is the brilliant editor, member of the Diet, and his- torian of the Russo-Japanese War. When war captains are less prominent, this maker of the New Japan will be better known and honored. How many outcasts were there in 1871, when they were lifted up to citizenship and given entrance into Japanese humanity, by being named in the registers, enrolled in the population, and the land on which they lived measured? From squatters they at once became taxpayers, and all the avenues of promotion were at once opened to them. They entered the schools, army, navy, and into lines of achievement and careers of promise. Their humanity was thus fully recognized before the law. Abraham Lincoln made the emancipation of slaves in the Southern Confederacy a military necessity. In what respect was the act of the American President morally greater than that of Mutsuhito in making the Eta and hi-nin human ? Very curiously the first envoys of the Japan whose citizens were all reckoned human met General Grant, "the first president of the free republic" that had no slaves, at Washington on March 4, 1872. What was the origin of these classes and what has since 1870 been their history ? Or, even more happily, have they, since His Gracious Majesty Mutsuhito freed and elevated them, had no history? Have they unnoticed, entering into a new earthly Nirvana, been lost felicitously in the mass of the Japanese people ? The total number of Eta when they were made 114 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION hei-min, and the "New Commoners," was over 200,000, and the total number of outcasts of all sorts was over 912,000, or nearly a million. I believe that there are no scientific grounds for supposing that the Eta or hi-nin were " curly-haired negroids," or "offskins" of any kind, or that they were extra-ethnic in origin. All tradition, even with its thousand discordant tongues, refers their origin to ancestors who were traitors, criminals, assassins, feeders of the Imperial falcons (Etori), of the guild of skinners and leather-workers, or Korean or Mongol prisoners; yet even where popular notions disagree, history has a unity. Let us look at its mirror in the Chronicles. When Buddhism, A.D. 552, came into Japan, a public sentiment was created against butchers, furnishers of flesh food, and all who handled corpses or their skins, or wrought in leather. Such persons would naturally soon fall under ban, and be reckoned as belonging to the service of the dead, and therefore hi-nin, or outside of society. Yet even before this time, we have what is probably the origin of the pariah caste, in the record dated A.D. 485, 5th month: "Karabukuro no Sukune, Lord (Kimi) of Mount Sasaki, who was implicated in the assassination of the Imperial Prince Oshiha, when about to be executed, bowed down his head to the ground, and his words expressed extreme sorrow. The Emperor could not bear to put him to death, so he added him to the misasagi guardians (or keepers THE HIGHEST AND THE LOWEST 115 of tombs or places of the dead), making him at the same time mountain warden (game keeper), and erasing his name from the census registers. He was then handed over to the jurisdiction of the village master of Yamabe." The italics are ours. Without accepting the date as exact, we have here in all probability the story of at least one of the ancestors of the outcast class. Uncounted in the census and otherwise outside the pale of humanity, these people were nevertheless under the jurisdiction of the local magistrates. Each of the imperial tombs or dolmens had from one to five houses of watchers allotted to it. Having seen these people at close range and in many parts of Japan, I could connote no extra-ethnic origin but a caste, which arose out of the political edicts and ecclesiastical bans in early days. They were descendants of traitors and criminals who were dropped out of the registers of population. Argu- ments for their origin drawn from early Buddhist art are not convincing. The typical Buddha, though apparently curly-headed, is meant to be pure Aryan in origin, and the facial type is not "negroid." In- deed, the hair is not all represented, nor could be. Buddha as a monk was shorn. The artist, in the supposed "curliness," shows the coiled snails of the legend which tells how these moist, cool mollusks, by crawling on the smooth cranium of the meditative sage, kept him from being sunstruck. The so-called "curly-headed" Buddha has also been confounded 116 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION with the demon of matted hair, which in far-away Africa furnished the original of the tar. baby in Brer Rabbit's story; the hare being an Asiatic "Brer," in Buddhist. legend, before being imported into Africa or across the Atlantic. There are 830 "curls," each nine inches high and eleven wide at the base, on the Dai Butsu, or Great Buddha at Kamakura. The elevation of the Japanese outcasts to citizenship was far more important a step in the evolution of the Japanese nation than, possibly, even the war with China, for the simple reason that it abolished caste forever. So long as such a thing existed, that some subjects of the Mikado, though of the same race, were beneath humanity, the grounds of the Japanese claim to social equality were preposterous. Freedom for one class meant progress for all. In business, many of the New Commoners have won notable success. Fortune attends the butchers, contractors, and shoe manufacturers. In the army none show nobler discipline or steadier valor than their sons. General Kuroki, whose hand I shook in New York in May, 1907, while bearing witness to the soldierly qualities of the conscripts of Eta descent, prophesies that the dislike of some who are comrades in the ranks to mess with them will pass away. Happily for quick solution of the problem there is no color line. There is nothing in the known history or physical or mental status of a descendant of an Eta that should exclude him from naturalization in any modern Christian nation. GKJTEKJLL KTTROKI THE HIGHEST AND THE LOWEST 117 Even yet, however, many people in Europe and America have not awakened to the situation. There are not even any "coolies" in Japan — in the sense of caste. All are free before the law. The poorest boy in the land may become Prime Minister. The Japanese Government will never make a treaty which excludes their people from equal rights and privi- leges with all nationalities, even of the most favored nation. No cabinet in Tokio could hold power a year that would consent to such a compact discrimi- nating against the Japanese. One by one, the rea- sonable barriers against the privilege of naturalization in other lands are being removed. The Japanese will command success in this, as in other fields of achieve- ment, by deserving it. To deny a Japanese naturali- zation in the United States savors of snobbery, and no rational argument against granting a gentleman from Japan the same privilege so freely accorded to Europeans of every grade and ethnic stock has yet been advanced. Although in this work, on "The Japanese Nation in Evolution," we have not hesitated to expose the facts of history and the whole truth concerning the Japanese, from gods to beggars, from Mikado to pariah, yet we do not forget the lowly origin of OUT own Indo-Germanic fathers in Europe. Slavery, serfdom, ignorance, illiteracy, the welter of savagery, barbarism, feudalism, were theirs; but they reached order, law, and freedom. They, too, rose out of mythology, superstition, nursery and fairy tales into 118 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION science, philosophy, reformed religion, and civilization. By comparison with Europe, there is little that need make a Japanese ashamed ; in his continuance in the path of enlightenment, duty, increasing purity in morals, life, religion, there is every hope of Japan becoming one of the greatest nations in all history. Not only her incomparable geographical situation, but her inheritances and her opportunity point to this triumph. Nevertheless, she is not yet perfect, and there is one thing needful. Neither a communal civilization, nor an imperfect sense of personality, nor a lack of discernment of the Unity that per- vades all can, in the long run, compete successfully with that civilization which is instinct with the fullest individual freedom, with a deep sense of the worth of humanity, and, above all, with a clear perception of One, or What, that is higher, even, than impersonal law. CHAPTER VIII THE ARYAN RELIGION THE living soul of Japan is her art. Understand- ing this, we know at once the religion and the joy of her children. The scholarly minority follows Confucius. The overwhelming majority in the na- tional household find consolation and hope in the Buddha. It is not our purpose in this brief chapter to set forth in detail the Aryan faith, called Buddhism, once the mightiest unifier of Asia, in either its lofty and abstruse form or in its lower and popular mani- festations. This we have essayed to do in the volume entitled "The Religions of Japan." Here we shall treat of the artistic and humanizing influences of Buddhism in the evolution of the Japanese people. No other element has been so potent in the making of the nation. Mikadoism rests on the sword ; Shinto is the national memory. Buddhism is the heart of Japan. The Japanese are more Aryan than Chinese. The great faith, according as it laid emphasis on the idea of the impersonal Divine and vision of the Eternal, or on the personal Divine as manifested in the human life of Sakya Muni, divided into the Northern and Southern schools, or the Greater and 119 120 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION the Lesser Vehicle. In the latter, the attainment of Nirvana, or freedom from passion, is the goal ; in the other, it is but a starting-point of a greater develop- ment. "Buddha commanded that his law should flow eastward," hence the course of his missionaries. Yet Buddhism, even as the Chinese received it, was not a defined and formulated creed, so much as it was a vast synthesis of Hindu thought received by a foreign consciousness. Mongolian China was fertilized by the Aryan brain and heart. Instead of its entrance being an isolated event, thousands of missionaries from India visited China and lived there, spreading the doctrines of Buddha by voice and by pen. In art, architecture, and translation, they made Buddha's laws of spiritual freedom known. Vast was the alteration in the landscape of the Middle Kingdom with rock sculpture, wall-painting, the inward glory of splendid temples, and the appealing wayside shrine. Then, in refluent waves, hundreds of Chinese youth went to India to study in the mother-land of the faith. Buddhism had reached the monastic stage when it came to Japan, to uplift a people already educated in love of beauty and sensitive to art influences. There were already Korean monks and nuns in Yamato previous to the golden image, the temple tapestries, and the mystic scriptures sent from Kudara in Korea, A.D. 552, which were shown in the Mikado's presence as part of the "tribute." THE ARYAN RELIGION 121 That date is the hinge of an aeon. The Mikado had not power to accept or reject. He was the patriarchal make-weight between the rival clans — Soga on the one hand, Manobe and Nakatomi on the other. He intrusted the gifts to Iname of Soga. Calamities visited the land. They were ascribed to the anger of the gods at the presence of an alien rival. In a riot of wrath, with fire and water, the enemies of Soga burned the sutras, and tossed the image into a pond. But the doctrine was fireproof. Iname's son, becoming prime minister, built temples, and his clan were staunch upholders of Buddhism. Nominations to the throne were made on the basis of creed, and in 593, after terrific factional struggles, in which a Mikado was assassinated, the empress Suiko mounted the throne. Her prime minister was the prince canonized as Shotoku, or Holy Goodness (572-621), who as pupil sat at the feet of Eji, a Korean monk. As scholar, commentator, preacher, lawgiver, artist, he fixed the faith in the hearts of the people, and made the worship of "Pitiless Fate" or "the Absolute" an inspiration. His code of laws, or rather moral precepts, issued in 60.4, in seventeen articles, was the first written " constitution ": known in the islands. Then at Asukar twelve miles south of Nara, — now a ruin overgrown with mulberry trees, — he built temples, and there bloomed in splendor the first exotics of Buddhist art. With the aid of a Soga nobLe, he. wrote two historical. works. As propagator 122 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION of Buddhism, Shotoku is one of the grandest figures in Japan's national evolution. He died when but forty-nine years old, but already there were in Japan 46 temples, 820 priests, and 560 nuns. It was Sho- toku who sent the first embassy to China and adopted the Chinese calendar. A few temples and statues remain at Asuka — famous in poetry from the silent ages past, but it is to Nara that we must hie, to enjoy the glorious art, which is rich in that intense refinement and purity such as only great religious feeling can produce. So vivifying was the touch of the Aryan intellect, as expressed in the cult of Buddha, that at once a great school of native sculpture sprang up, and a circle and succession of poets, led by Utomaro, sang. Artists in the joy of achievement made temple scenes of ravishing splendor, filled Yamato with beauty, and began to create that appealing landscape, which binds the native in rapturous loyalty to the very soil itself. In this wonderful Asian era, in the forelands of India, China, Korea, and Japan, mighty events stirred the nations, now one in the garden of Buddha- dom. China was unified in the brilliant Tang dynasty. Korea shook off the yoke of the island conqueror and became free. In Japan, the Mikado Tenchi (668- 671), who had slain Soga of Ainu name, and led in the revolution of 645, replaced clannism by establishing the throne in new power. In India, this was an age of science, which was to fertilize all the East. Buddhist THE ARYAN RELIGION 123 art became the vehicle of this new knowledge by ex- pressing the mastery of mind over matter in images of calm. At Lo Yang, the Chinese capital, three thousand Hindu monks and ten thousand families from India gathered, having among their students scores of young Japanese. With their own letters and alphabets as models, they taught the phonetic values of the Chinese ideographs, which, in modified forms and later evolution, meant alphabets for every written language in eastern Asia, not excepting Japan. Thus it came to pass that not long after, some of the women at Court, and even the common people throughout Mikado-land, were able to see their own speech in the writing of epistle, book, and proclama- tion. Tolerance and harmony in China were to bear fruit in Japan's national evolution. Many faiths, cults, and philosophies dwelt together in mutually fructify- ing nearness, during this Hinduizing of Chinese thought. Out of these conditions sprang a triple harvest of mind and feeling: first, that threefold religion of China composed of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, which makes unity in the mind of the average man in the Middle Kingdom; second, that trinity of doctrines, Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which is the ancestral faith, one and indivisible, of the Japanese peasants and city-folk; and third, that neo-Confucianism, synthesis of all previous Chinese thought, as modified by Taoism and Buddhism, which, in the twelfth century, was 124 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION wrought into shape by Chu-hi. This latter product of the Chinese mind has furnished the creed of gentle- men in China and in all her pupil nations. Happily, too, for Japan, the young men despatched from her shores were privileged to sit at the feet of such teachers as Gensho (Hiouen-Tsang), and to bathe their souls in the streams of science that flowed from India like a fertilizing flood. Monism, or complete harmony in union of mind and matter, was the goal sought. The whole universe was to be seen by the mind's eye of him who felt that in Lord Buddha all things consist. This Buddhist doctrine of the pleroma, when bodied forth in Japan as sculp- ture, took on almost Egyptian proportions and forms of calm. The sects which especially taught the new phases of northern Buddhism, or the great Vehicle, were the Hosso and Kegon. In their teachings, Buddha is the centre of the universe. This is the idea incorporated in the colossal images of Buddha in Japan. The various Daibutsu (Great Buddha) belong to one or other of the trinity of Law, Mercy, and Humanity. In place of the colossal rock sculptures of China, the unified genius of Japan expressed itself in those masses of bronze, compared to which, in size, the world knows no peer. Yet to the towering bronze statues it added a beauty superior to that known in either India or China. Nara reared the largest image, with a stature unmatched in the world. After being twice at the top melted in fire and repaired, in -a decadent age- nearly a thousand THE ARYAN RELIGION 125 years after its uprearing, we must not judge its pres- ent features too severely. It is the Roshana Buddha of Law as contrasted to the Buddha of Mercy. The new religion had an instant and powerful effect in giving solidity to Government. Coming in to alter the world view of things, to teach crema- tion instead of burial, to make of the hut a home, cooperating moreover with Chinese ideas of costume and etiquette, to show the beauty of order and the joy of permanency, Buddhism called a halt to the nomadic life. The old "itineracy seemed both out of date and out of joint with the times." A wonderful transformation of ideas, customs, and manners began in the Mikado-city. The men of peace, of letters, of religion, and of civil routine came in. The men of war, except those of the garrison and palace guards, went off to the frontier. This was the golden age of the costumer, the writing-master, the copier of the sutras, the professor, the lecturer, the artist, and the architect. The whole Court and society at the capital entered the new world of art, and rambled in the garden of Aryan doctrine. As in the nineteenth century, the wonders of the material civilization of the. Occident, and the world of har- nessed cosmic forces lured the Nipponese, so in the eighth century they entered the treasure house of art, enjoying the splendors of painting and carving, and the glory of costume. They soared into the ravishing world of Chinese philosophy and dogma, as well as of Aryan ethics and Hindu speculations. ....... ~~- 126 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION It was really a double wave, a flood of two civiliza- tions that rolled into Japan, swamping for a time at least all native originality and arresting the island evolution already a thousand years old. In the celestial glories of the visions of the Mahayana, the kindling genius of Japan revelled. Hundreds and thousands gathered under the trees in the gardens or halls, and in the new grand temples, to hear the doctrine expounded, or to listen to the reading of the sutras. Brilliant and learned teachers, fresh from China or Korea, entranced their auditors with truths for which the hungry had long waited. Among scores of such records, we can copy from the Chroni- cles but one or two. In A.D. 696, llth month, 10th day, "An Imperial order was given that the Kin- kwo-myo Sutra should be expounded, and that every year on the last day of the twelfth month, ten persons of a pure life should be made to enter religion." In A.D. 697, 6th month, 6th day, "An Imperial order was made that sutras should be read in the temples of the Home Provinces." As the empress Jito (A.D. 687-697) drew near her end, the ministers and public functionaries began to make native images of Buddha for the relief of the empress's illness. The very bulk of the new scriptures of Northern Buddhism, or The Larger Vehicle, was in itself imposing. A thousand years later, two carts were necessary to carry a copy of the Buddhist canon to the British Legation in Tokio. The copy presented THE ARYAN RELIGION 127 by the premier Iwakura reached London in many bulky boxes which to-day fill rods, poles, and perches of shelving. To copy out these works of origins, homilies, logia, the Lord Buddha's table talk, the writings of his disciples, the gorgeous rhetoric of the Saddharma Pundarika (Lotus of the Good Law), the florid fancies of Tibetans, and the fruits of Chinese scholasticism, was a task requiring hundreds of scribes. Daily with battalions of brush pens before the inkstones, with knees on the mat and elbow pads on their low tables, the penmen sat, doing their holy and educational work. Thus speak again the Chronicles. In A.D. 673, "In this [third] month scribes were brought together who began to copy out the Issaiko (Tripitaka) in the temple of Kahara." "Messengers were despatched in all directions to seek for the Issaiko." "A great feast of the Buddhist's fare was given at the Asuka temple, at which the Issaiko was read." At Fukui in 1871, 1 attended one of these religious conventions and popular festivals, which are still kept up, as described in "The Mikado's Empire," p. 538. This tremendous outburst of fresh zeal lasted many years. With many "persons of pure life," without distinction of age or sex "renouncing the world" and "entering religion," provision must be made for their housing and sustenance. They must eat and be clothed, while others must do manual 128 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION labor. Monasticism in Japan was like the sudden opening of a lotus when morning light unfolds its pink petals, and the dewdrops on its basin-leaves turn into gems. Beginning in Yamato, the monas- teries and nunneries spread over the country until, in their millennial march, they could be counted by the thousands. Keeping pace with temple and cloister were the tremendous activities of the Govern- ment and the empresses in propagating Buddhism among the people. Images, pagodas, mural paintings, were the permanent memorials, acting as pulpits for the constant preaching of the new doctrines. Millions of tokens in metal, on wood and paper, and pictures — the scripture for the illiterate — brought the new gospel into every home. Incredible seems the earnest- ness of these early missionaries. Asuka and Nara saw the era of masculine vigor in Buddhism, as compared with the feminine delicacy and sentimentalism of the later Kioto and Fujiwara period. Notwithstanding that Nara has shrunk to one-tenth of its former size, there are yet to-day temples, art monuments, sculpture, and paintings that thrill the student of art and religion. Bishop Phillips Brooks told me in Boston, on his return from Japan, after visiting most of the world's consecrated sites, that he had seen no holy place on earth which had so moved his soul as Nara. Here yet abides the Imperial Treasure House, built A.D. 756 in the en- closure of the Todaiji temple, which for over, a thou- sand years has escaped, fire, flood, war, and earthquake.. THE ARYAN RELIGION 129 Opened only by Imperial permission once in each reign, to certain persons of high rank, even mighty war lords, yes, even Yoritomo and lyeyasu, have submitted to this formality, and in awe they have gazed on a museum that for archaeological value has no counterpart in Asia. In Japan alone, after the Mongol flood in China and India, can historic wealth of Asiatic culture be studied through its treasured specimens. Here are the personal belongings of Shomu, who called himself "slave of the trinity" (Buddha, Law, and Church), and his consort Komio, which reveal the details of the daily life of twelve hundred years ago. At Nara is "the highest formal expression of the second Asiatic thought." It is one of the miracles of history, that in one of the smallest lands on earth should rise the largest bronze casting in the world. The great Roshana Buddha of Boundless Light at Nara rose into being under the enthusiasm of Giogi, the priest returned from China. He first interested the sovereign and his empress in the mighty enterprise. Then he travelled over the domain announcing the Imperial will that each peasant should add his handful of clay and wisp of grass. At the making of the mighty core and mould, court ladies carried clay for the model on their silken sleeves. After the successful casting came the release and cleansing of the figure to receive its final mantle of splendor, for when the mountain of bronze had been reared, twenty thousand pounds of gold were needed to cover it with a shining garment of 130 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION the precious metal. On the nimbus or halo, three hundred golden statues were hung. Happily for all, the Hindu monk, Bodhi, arrived from India in time for the ceremonies of inauguration. The next day Giogi, his life work completed, passed away into the Invisible. Over three centuries later, Yoritomo, founder of the new city in the East, was inspired by this master- piece of art to attempt the rearing of a similar image near the sparkling waves of the Pacific. The object-lessons of Nara, in the seven temples, vieing with each other in gorgeous splendor, were not lost on the nation at large. All over the land, the mining of copper and gold, the melting and pouring of the fiery flood of metal for permanent symbols, the rearing of temples, monasteries, and nunneries, revealed the amazing enthusiasm and activity that told mightily in artistic education and on social evolu- tion. Japanese history shows no other force com- parable to Buddhism for the welding into one nation of the various tribes of the archipelago. Yet even granting all honor and bestowing the full meed of credit upon Buddhism as a civilizer and nation-builder, we must not for a moment forget either the ethics or the literary power of the Chinese civili- zation. Nor should we fail to remember that the Chinese script, moulds of thought, and models of ex- pression formed the vehicle for the importation and propagation of the faith that was to lead captive for a thousand years the heart and mind of the Japanese. THE ARYAN RELIGION 131 This accident of borrowing Chinese writings and models — the latter to be invariable and persistently de-Chinesed in modifications numberless — was a mere matter of environment and geography. Had the early Nipponese come into contact with any manifestly superior civilization, as Assyrian, Egyptian, Roman, Greek, they would, as folk perennially eager for culture, have accepted it — to modify as we have done, to transform as they have done. The unchang- ing trait in a Japanese is to covet things better and ever to seek a more excellent way. He fears not to be inconsistent. He owns up when he sees himself wrong. In 1868, the whole nation made confession of faults, even to revolution. They are still on the stool of repentance, ever praying for the new mind. "We Japanese," wrote the brain of the Japanese army, the lamented General and Chief of Staff Kodama, only a fortnight before his death, to the writer, "do not fear criticism; we welcome it most searchingly, provided it is just." At the first presentation to them, the Japanese accepted an Aryan religion, Buddhism, and made it their own. A thousand years later, in the age of the papal dogma which set forth that half the world, Japan included, was the private property of the King of Spain, Christianity, in the garments of the Inquisi- tion, entered Japan. Its simple truths were wrapped in metaphysics grown in southern Europe. It is easy to see why the Japanese, after their first expe- rience of political Christianity, rejected and banned 132 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION "the accursed sect" for centuries; for, first of all, the Japanese are patriotic. In our day, reconsidering their past experiences, they are giving generous welcome to "the Jesus religion" in every manifesta- tion of it, whether Greek, Roman, or Reformed. So far as the religious emissaries from the Occident preach Christianity as something wholly new, and therefore destructive of the old inheritances of the Japanese, will be their failure. So far as they pro- claim it in the Master's spirit — "not to destroy, but to fulfil" — will their success be signal. CHAPTER IX THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OP A.D. 645 THE Soga clansmen were the virtual rulers of Japan during the most of the Asuka period (A.D. 570-645). They claimed descent from the Japanese Methusaleh, Takenouchi, whose age is variously given at 283, 306, and 390 years, the prime minister of Queen Jingu who in legend "invaded Korea." Hence they were a sort of hereditary ministers of foreign affairs. Naturally they inclined to things foreign as against the conservatives and sticklers for what was native. Hence, also, their partiality for Buddhism, the imported religion. They set up and dethroned mi- kados at their pleasure. Opposed to them in rivalry were the Monobe and Nakatomi clans. The four Sogas most famous were Iname (who died in 570), Umako, Emishi, and Iruka. During the reign, of the Mikado Jomei (629-641) Soga no Oho-omi was made Dai-Jin, or Prime Minister. Of his birth or origin, or the reason of his taking the personal name of Yemishi, or Ainu, and adding it to his clan name Soga, we know little. So unusual a proceeding makes it at least possible to believe that he may have been of Ainu origin, possibly 133 134 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION one of the many thousands of offspring of Ainu women by Yamato men. Or, perhaps, he took or got the name because he and his relatives and retainers, owning vast estates toward the sunrising, had much to do with the government of the Eastern Provinces. When the Prince Imperial died and no successor was as yet settled, this man of Ainu name wished to decide the matter of heirship on his own authority. Having previously sounded his nephew, he assembled the ministers of the Court at his house. The debate showed that they could not agree on an heir. After various intrigues and negotiations, too long to be detailed here, the imperial seal was offered to Prince Tamura, by Soga Emishi, the Dai j in, and on the 4th day, 1st month, A.D. 629, Prince Tamura assumed the Imperial dignity. During the process of this business of emperor- making, there was a great gathering of all the kins- men of the Soga house to build a dolmen for Shime no Oho-omi, but the work was interrupted. The huts were pulled down by one Mirise, who then retired to a Soga farm-house and would do no official duty. The Dai j in was angry and remonstrated with him as an elder brother would with a younger. Months and years passed by. Envoys with offer- ings from the Korean states came and went, and students were sent to and returned from China. Relations with Great Tang increased in importance. At Osaka, when the Chinese embassy arrived, twenty- six gayly decked boats with music went out to meet THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF A.D. 645 135 and welcome them. Then duly appointed officers escorted the visitors to the door of the Prime Minister's official residence. Others invited the strangers within and offered them the sacred sake, made from the rice grown on certain temple glebe lands. The "broom star," or comet, swept the skies and moved to the East. A lotus of auspicious omen, two flowers on a stalk, whitened in the pond. There was an eclipse of the sun. Rains, floods, a palace fire, are spoken of in the Chronicles, and the late drought and famine were doubtless attributed to the comet. A Buddhist priest, full of Chinese ideas of astronomy, won fame by explaining a meteor accord- ing to his new ideas. A great star had floated from East to West, and there was a sound like thunder. When the people were talking of the "noise of the star" and of " earth thunder, " he declared it to be the barking of the red celestial dog, Ama no Inu. As it flies along through heaven, it becomes a star of several tens of rods long and is swifter than the wind. The effigies of this imaginary beast still guard the temple portals in Japan. When again in the north- west a new luminary appeared, this Rev. Mr. Bin, whose authority was still good, declared it to be a brown star. When "the star entered the moon," troubles portended. These are samples of the literary matter which fills the Chronicles. Soga Emishi was virtual ruler. When Prince Ohomata would be a strict disciplinarian in Court etiquette with the dilatory ministers, and, following 136 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Chinese and Korean precedents, have them on duty at the palace an hour before daybreak, there to remain between the hours of the Hare and the Ser- pent, their coming and going regulated by means of a bell, the Daijin, Emishi Soga, vetoed the measure. A new palace was built, and also a pagoda of nine stories. Tribute-bearers from Korea and students and learned priests back from China came to the capital. The Mikado Jomei died A.D. 641, and the Empress Kogyoku ascended "the throne" — which meant a slightly raised piece of matting. Yemishi Soga was reappointed Daijin, while his son Hiruke "took into his own hands the reins of government, and his power was greater than his father's. Therefore thieves and robbers were in dread of him and things dropped on the highway were not picked up." At his own house Yemishi Soga entertained the Korean envoys, presenting them with a fine horse and twenty bars of iron. Anon the guests were amused with a display of wrestling. White sparrows were caught by the pages — a good omen. It being a time of drought, the sacrificial killing of horses and oxen before the Shinto shrines took place (the flesh being eaten by the peasants), changes of the site of the market-places were made, and prayers to the river- god were offered for rain, but all proved of no avail. The ebb and flow of popularity between the Indian and the native religion was now to be illustrated. The man of Ainu title was to ride into power on the wave of the Aryan religion. In the ministerial THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF A.D. 645 137 councils it was clear that the Buddhist doctrines were taking greater hold. The Dai j in recommended a ten-doku, or reading of the sutras, with repentance of sin, humiliation, and earnest prayers for rain. Two days afterwards, in the South Court of the Great Temple, the images of the Buddha and Bosatsu, or saints, and of the four Heavenly Kings were magnifi- cently adorned. A multitude of priests read large portions of the sutras. The Dai j in himself held a censer in his hand and, having burnt incense in it, offered prayer. But only a slight rain fell, and when there were no further emptyings of the clouds, the reading of the sutras was discontinued. The Buddhist style of rain-making having proved of no effect, the Chinese method was put into practice. The Mikado, proceeding to the river source, knelt down and prayed, worshipping toward the four quarters, and looking up to Heaven. "Straightway there was thunder and a great rain, which eventually fell for five days and plentifully bedewed the empire." Such practical results satisfied the people, even if it gave a check to Buddhism. Hereupon the peasantry throughout the empire cried with one voice, " Banzai," and said "An Emperor of Exceeding Virtue." Again the Empress commanded the Premier to build a new palace. It was to be begun in the latter part of the ninth month and completed not later than the twelfth month. The levy for workmen included the country between Aki and Totomi. Many thousand of the Ainu came to make sub- 138 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION mission. Besides entertaining them at Court, Soga, the Dai j in, brought them to his house and made personally kind inquiries of them. Perhaps they were his kinsmen, and he talked with them in their own tongue. His bodyguard of fifty soldiers, who attended him everywhere, amid jealous and hostile rivals, were very probably made up of Ainu men. By this time, the temptation to unfold the pinions of a towering ambition came to the Premier. He seemed determined to ride into power on the incom- ing wave of the new Aryan religion and with the help of Aryan men. His bringing so many Ainu to the capital was evidently with this purpose in view. Coming out boldly, he made assumptions of Imperial rank, erecting architectural monuments of his an- cestry. With a view to his own posthumous honor, he built his own ancestral temple at Taka-miya. He performed an eight-row dance, which, according to the Chinese ritual, was only proper to Imperial princes. In a song about adjusting garters and gird- ing up loins to wade a river in Yamato, he hinted at usurpation of the Throne. With Chinese-like mind, in preparation for his own sepulchre, even as the Mikado Nintoku had done, and on the pretext of not wanting to trouble other people after his death, "he levied all the people of the land as well as the serfs of the one hundred and eighty Be [or guilds] and constructed two tombs at Imaki." One was to be for his son Iruka. Prince Shotoku had left at his untimely death THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF A.D. 645 139 eight sons and six daughters, who, being persons of influence in this age of advancing Buddhism, were the objects of the ambitious Soga's jealousy. He assembled the serfs of the late Prince, and made them do forced labor on the precincts of the tomb he was proudly rearing for his own name. This high-handed act aroused the wrath of Sho- toku's daughter, the princess, who charged the Premier with wantonly usurping the Government. "In Heaven there are not two suns; in a State there cannot be two sovereigns. Why should he, at his own pleasure, employ in forced labor, all the people of the fief? . . . From this hour her hate began to gather." Unchecked in his career, the man who boasted an Ainu title, granted on his own private authority to his son Iruka, a purple cap which made him rank, as it were, with the Premier. This Iruka hated the princes, sons of Shotoku, who on account of their father's name, as well as of their own abilities, were gaining fame and prestige in the empire. Plotting to set them aside, he sent armed forces after them in their mountain retreats. Eventually the princes and their wives committed suicide by strangling The Premier chid his son for his severity, and warned him that now his own life was in danger. Still higher to Heaven rose the edifice of the Ainu- named man's ambition, and, seeing such prosperity, there was no lack of flatterers to feed the usurper's vanity with art and song. Among the lotuses in 140 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION the pond was one which bore two flowers on one stem. Thereupon an artist saw a happy omen of the con- tinuing prosperity of the Yemishi Soga. So with golden ink he made a picture of the wonder, and presented it before the sixteen-foot-high Buddha of the Great Hokoji. Furthermore the witches and wizards of the whole country, breaking off leafy branches and hanging them with tree fibre of the paper mulberry (in the manner of offerings to the gods) watched the time when the Dai j in was crossing a bridge. Then they vied with one another in addressing to him subtle interpretation of divine words. They were in great numbers so they could not be distinctly heard. "Old people said that this was a sign of changes." There was a change, and it came very soon after. Some might call it a "conflict" or "warfare" between "science" and "religion." Rather was it a "duel of wits," a collision of human ambitions. In any event, mutually hostile forces were incarnated in Soga no Emishi and the young prince who was one day to fill the throne and curb the power of both clans and nobles, giving to the Throne — so we shall write it, with a capital — new significance. There is never any real "conflict" or "warfare" between science and religion, any more than between science and chemistry, but to the end of time there will be friction and struggle between the human leaders who, in the name of either, hold power or wield influence. Soga no Yemishi was a man who THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF A.D. 645 141 knew the political advantage of holding to a conquer- ing creed. By this time, as we shall see, good men were pre- paring a double conspiracy to remove the Soga "boss" or tyrant. One motive arose out of their hatred of usurpation, the other was a determination that old abuses must cease, and the policy and type of civilization represented by a man of Ainu name, who doubtless counted on an Ainu following to back his plot and claims, must give way to reform and a better system of government. The reformers would do away with a state of things in which clan fights were chronic and the assassination of great men, even of emperors, not unusual. Yet the father and the son being ever on their guard were well forearmed. In 644 they built two houses on the Amagashi hill, the father's being called Upper Hill Palace Gate and the son's Valley Palace Gate. Both were strongly palisaded and had an armory near the gate. Provision for fire was made by water-tanks and scores of firemen's pole hooks. Armed guards, stout fellows, very probably Ainu, were employed to watch these fortified castles. The sons and daughters of the Soga family were styled princes and princesses. Another castle with a moat was built on the east side of Unebi. This is the mountain near which Jimmu's palace had been placed, around which are tombs of many mikados, and on which in 1889 a temple dedicated to Japan's first ruler was built. 142 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Soga's guard of fifty men were from Adzuma or the East, the Ainu region. The young men of various noble families came to his gate and waited on him. He called them his boys and spoke of himself as their father. In one case an entire clan, the Aiya, acted as retainers for the two families of father and son, ever ready at a moment's notice to put on their armor and grasp their weapons. Despite all his fortresses and guards, Iruka wore a sword day and night. Nevertheless, the schemers concocted a plan "to make him lay it aside." The date for the assassination of Iruka and the over- throw of the Soga ring was fixed for the 10th day of the 4th month, when the envoys of the three Korean kingdoms should present tribute to the Empress. Nakatomi Kamatari, chief of the Shinto religion and the future regent and founder of the Fujiwara family, who was counted as twenty-first in descent from one of the companions of Ninigi, who came down from Heaven, was "a man of upright and loyal char- acter and of a reforming disposition." He "was indignant with Soga no Iruka for breaking down the order of Prince and Vassal, and for cherishing evil designs upon the State." Associating with the princes of the Imperial line to discover a wise ruler, he fixed upon Naka no Oye (afterwards the Mikado Tenchi, who ruled 668-672), but for want of intimate relations with him had been unable to unfold his inner sentiments. Happening to be one of a foot- ball party, in which Naka no Oye played at the foot THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF A.D. 645 143 of a keyaki tree near the temple of Hokoji, he observed the Prince's leathern shoe fall off with the ball. Placing it on the palm of his hand, he knelt before the Prince and offered it to its owner. The Prince, also on his knees, respectfully received it. From this time forth they became mutual friends and told each other all their thoughts. There was no longer any concealment between them. To avert suspicion, the two conspirators took into their hands "yellow rolls" (Chinese books) and studied personally the doctrines of Chow and Con- fucius with the learned teacher Shoan, just returned from China. Thus they, at length, while on their way there and back, walking shoulder to shoulder, secretly prepared their plans. On all points they were agreed. On the day and hour appointed, all were assembled in the Great Hall of Audience, Kogioku the grand- daughter of Shotoku being Empress, and wholly under the influence of Soga. Prince Naka ordered the Twelve Gates to be shut, that none should come in or go out. Then calling the guards together, he promised them rewards. He had his own long spear, hidden but ready. Nakatomi and his people were on hand with bows and arrows. Other companions were in the plot, but Prince Naka, fearing for their nerve, seized a sword and struck down Iruka on head, neck, and leg. Before he was finally despatched by another assassin, Prince Naka pleaded with the Empress for vindication. She, unable to understand the meaning 144 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION of the bloody onset, retired. Prince Naka, who had fortified the temple of Hokoji, entered the edifice with the ministers, and prepared to defend it. When the body of Iruka was delivered to his father Yemishi, the Aiya clan, men in armor and with weapons, prepared to avenge their master's death. Prince Naka thereupon sent General Tokudai to explain matters to the "rebel" band. One of the latter, making a speech pointing out the danger of resistance and the certainty of swift execution of Yemishi Soga on the morrow, ungirded his sword, flung away his bow and went off, deserting the cause. "The rebel troops, moreover, following his example, dispersed and ran away." The Soga cause went up in smoke. "Yemishi Soga no Omi, when about to be executed, burnt the History of the Emperors, the History of the Country, and the objects of value." On the same day that they died, permission was given for the interment of the bodies of father and sons, not in misasagi, but in haka or common tombs. Great was the fall of the House of Soga. Kotoku, fellow-conspirator with Naka no Oye, succeeded at the age of forty-nine his sister to the throne, ruling from 645 to 654, and with the aid of Nakatomi Kamatari, founder of the Fujiwara family, began the inauguration of the new order of things and carried them far toward completion. This change in national policy was relatively as profound and as far-reaching as the palace revolution of 1868 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF A.D. 645 145 and the beginning of the second New Japan. Let us look further at this. Before A.D. 645, when only a small part — far less than half of the area even of modern seventeenth- century Japan — was under the dominion of the Yamato government, there were various sovereignties in the different islands and regions. The perpetual "uprisings," "rebellions," "conquests," clan feuds, negotiations, and military expeditions sent among the "Kumaso" in the south and west and the "Ye- mishi" in the East, show other domains or govern- ments, which after whole, or partial victories, or conquests, were merged into a rude feudalism, with the suzerain at Yamato, yet with constant oscillations of power. The revelations of archaeology, which concerns itself with the dolmens and tombs, that in other islands and regions are as noble in content and as significant in proportions as those in the Yamato region of Hondo, show this; and the pages of the Records and Chronicles tell no other story. No profuse employment of the term gods, or excessive fulsomeness of honorifics in later times, can conceal the facts which make up the truth. CHAPTER X THE FIRST NEW JAPAN THE destruction of the Soga clan in 645 was per- haps the occasion rather than the cause of a reform that gave Nippon a definitely organized government, and enabled the men of that age to lay the solid foun- dations of empire. With the aid of the political thought of China and its living model of order and power before their eyes, the Yamato men first recon- structed the Throne and Government, and then began the work of unifying all the tribes. In a word, their task was the making of a new nation. They thrust out the fiction of a patriarchal clan, in which public and private were hardly distinguishable terms, and in which the Mikado was so politically weak, and they built up a most powerful centralized bureaucracy, above which the Mikado was set as theoretically omnipotent. They were not able so to build and guard as to keep Court and Government separate, but they drew a sharp line between what was public and what was private. Then, with the dogmas and sanctions of religion and a mighty army of soldiers kept in activity both near and far, they built up the structure of a State based on the idea of conquest. 146 THE FIRST NEW JAPAN 147 In this new State there was a tremendous gulf fixed between the Throne and the People, the bureau- crats having virtually the real power. Swift was the movement. More rapidly even than in the last half of the nineteenth century did this evolution pro- ceed. In methods of thought, style, writing, and costumes, China's models were followed in every department of life. In the sudden creation of a new sentiment, Chinese political fashions seemed only logical and reasonable. A triple premiership, after the Chinese pattern ; the marking of chronology and the adoption of a State calendar — sure and supreme test of sovereignty in eastern Asia; the naming the first of the Year Periods; the organization and pro- tection of the Buddhist hierarchy, the fixing of the status of free subjects and slaves, the establishment of arsenals, the regulation of taxation and land allot- ment, the reform of popular customs as to marriage, burial, etc., the ordination of orders, ranks, caps, and the costumes of nobles, the making of a census ; the organization of a five-house system in the villages, and finally the creation of eight departments of Government, Imperial Household, rites and offices, nobles, interior, war, justice, treasury, — all within five years or so, shows the rapidity of reform. Notable was the political conception and the geographical division borrowed from China, of the Five Home provinces, or Imperial Region, and the outside provinces. These latter were governed by officers sent out from the capital. A system was 148 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION gradually elaborated for the making of roads, and of posts, where horses were kept for those on Govern- ment business, and of barriers and guard gates. Some of these latter, in strategic positions, in Ise, Mino, Echizen, etc., became famous in history. The officer on route displayed his bell token, which indicated by its shape and the number of bells on it, to how many horses he was entitled. In time, also, the boundaries of the provinces were fixed, and as in China, their governors were divided into four grades. Some of the prettiest of the Manyo poems were occasioned by departure on frontier service. This creation of a social abyss, dividing the common- wealth into official and non-official humanity, was one of the most profound and far-reaching, if not morally the most disastrous results of overcentraliza- tion and excess of bureaucracy. Such a separation created caste, the shackles which the people of twentieth-century Japan, after a social slavery of a thousand years, vainly strive at once to break. Nevertheless, time and education work wonders. The mind and habits which this artificial social bar- rier engendered suggested fox and geese, or wolves and sheep. Thus the New Japan started out, not with the idea of a true nation, but of a nation within a na- tion. Almost the only democratic principle vital in the realm was Buddhism, the great leveller and exalter. It seems almost comical to find the machinery of the mighty Middle Kingdom thus imported into tiny Japan. That a country like China, so different THE FIRST NEW JAPAN 149 in race, language, history, and development from Japan, should be able to secure so close an imitator argues strongly for the age and experience of the one and the youth and rudimentary knowledge of the other. It was a perilous policy to instal such mighty machinery in so small a plant. In theory, all the land belonged to the Mikado. Nominally the tilled land was divided among the people, that is, the peasantry, the rule (from China) being that "the profits arising from the hills and rivers, the jungles and marshes shall be shared in common by the Government and the people." This measure, seemingly so benevolent, was for the pur- pose of taxation. Fixed payments into the treasury, instead of vassal gifts, were now the rule. Never- theless, with such an enormous amount of forest and waste land yet to be cleared, there was in this very wealth, derived from conquest of the Ainu, an element destined to defeat the purpose of equal allotment, to aggrandize the rich, to create political bosses and bring in feudalism, which meant the sworded bully overawing alike the farmer, trader, and man of manual industry. The new system of government, nominally built on taxation, started out with exemption and privilege. All men above the eighth rank were free from tax. Even the sons of men of high rank were let off. As the sequel proved, so far from exemption satisfying them, these nobles became the most grasping holders and often sharers of land. Gradually the wealthy, 150 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION who won lands, especially in the way of lending money to poor farmers and then foreclosing mortgages, in- creased in power and numbers, while the poor and bankrupt multiplied. In the scramble for wealth the Buddhist monks followed, and the monasteries became often suddenly and startlingly rich. Reorganization of the State was now the order of the day, and the work of innovation went steadily on for over a century and a half. Its main features were a triple premiership, eight departments with numerous offices, an official calendar, organization and protection of the Buddhist community, ordination of a status of slaves and freemen, declaration of the right of petition, government of provinces, the settlement of ranks, orders, costumes, and etiquette, allotment of land, census, registry of the villagers, the grouping of the populace in units of five persons, the beginning of post or horse relays, provincial division of the country, and the erection of barriers and gates. In a word, there was a complete trans- formation of the social system of Japan through the introduction of Chinese institutions. The State was no longer identical with the Mikado. Instead of a tribal organization, a military institution with religious taxation supervened. It was true Chinese doctrine that since the people are cared for by the State, they must support and defend its interests. Instead of kinship, real or nominal, they were now in the eye of the Government as so many decimal or semi-decimal units. Henceforth the THE FIRST NEW JAPAN 151 Mikado is less a person than an institution. To use "a modern instance" for illustration, what took place in Yamato was akin to the rebuilding, both of the old foundation and the stump, of the Washington monu- ment by the Potomac, so long in arrested development. In theory, the base was destroyed even while it was enlarged, but the result was that the column was preserved and its apex elevated. In Japan fictitious hierarchy passed away or was ignored, but the Mikado was retained and exalted. Japan ceased to be a collection of tribal units and became a State. Never- theless, as yet there was no nation. In other words, when the revolution of 645, caused by the entrance of Chinese ideas, was over, there was an old Emperor in a new State, but with no organic connection between the two. Rather violent reform separated two incongruous factors, the Mikado and the organism. To cast a look ahead, we may say that as dual evolution progressed even the Mikado's old author- ity never, until our days, came back to him. Theo- retically Tenchi (668-671), who had killed Soga in 645, broke the power of the (Soga) clan nobles and established the Throne. In reality the Imperial authority was gradually usurped by high civil officers near his person, and these mostly of one, the Fujiwara, clan ; while the real authority of the State at large was seized by military clans, Taira and Minamoto, living at a distance from the capital. Otherwise stated, the destruction of the boundaries between Court and 152 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Government went on at the capital, harem and boudoir commanding equal influence with the Council, while on the frontiers the armor-clad man on horseback in time knew no authority but his own. The Fujiwara family was founded by the regent Nakatomi Kamatari (614-669), who had aided Tenchi in the revolution of 645. In 669 he fell ill. On his death-bed, the Mikado Tenchi gave him per- mission to use the name Fujiwara (wistaria meadow) for his descendants. No other family in Japan is so illustrious or has produced so many famous men and women, statesmen, soldiers, artists, poets, musicians, emperors, and empresses. From the seventh to the eleventh century they were the real rulers of Japan, the office of Premier becoming hereditary in the Fujiwara line. What must inevitably ensue ! The victorious military clansmen, having pacified the Ainu and frontier ruffians, must by and by return from field and camp. Tasting the luxury of the capital and envious of the spoils of office, they would supersede the civilian officers and assume the rule of the Empire. Then the Feudal System of Japan was to begin. At this process let us now look. A centre of light, utility, order, and civilization in the midst of unorganized and divided savagery was this petty little Yamato kingdom of 645 A.D. in which it seems absurd, except in prophecy and perspective, to speak of the Mikado-chief as "Emperor." It was not until A.D. 670 that the name Nippon was offi- THE FIRST NEW JAPAN 153 cially adopted and notified to Korea. The Land of Great Japan is spoken of in A.D. 673. The same Chinese doctrines and institutions that had given system and order to the Middle King- dom overweighted the tiny state with political machinery. For true equilibrium, extension by conquest and administration of the Ainu and outly- ing tribes was necessary. To this end the military force was organized to subdue by arms, while new dogmas of Mikadoism were forged to overawe the mind of the Aryan "barbarians," who still occupied northern Hondo. In older times all able-bodied men were soldiers, and the Mikado was war-chief and leader. Called on when needed, and the campaign over, the peasants returned to the field. But now as the "Emperor" became more and more of a sedentary ruler, absorbed in the burdens of etiquette, loving literary and artistic dalliance, a figurehead above many bureaus, he shrivelled into shadow. The work of the soldier became more and more that of a profession, and military business the monopoly of a class. As the stronger men were kept in permanent organizations, so the weaker were left at agriculture, to toil and be taxed. This chapter of decay in Mikadoism had a double page. As the distinction between civil and military became fixed, so at Court the ritual of Shinto was elaborated, which made of the State religion a political engine. The Mikado became more and more a deity 154 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION and was addressed as such. The theory that the Yamato men were Heaven-descended, and the "rebels" were earth-sprung, was hardened into dogma, to doubt which was death. Orthodoxy, religious, political, economic, was taught at the edge of the sword. No Inquisition in Europe was more terrible in its religious animus or more unquailing in its ulti- mate purpose to unify belief. Besides clothes and manners, the very expression of the face — "the Japanese smile" — were ordained by iron law. It is a silly notion of sentimentalists, ignorant of the history of Dai Nippon, that "Japan never perse- cuted"— no, not more than a thousand or fifteen hundred years. Religion was in the hereditary charge of the Nakatomi, while the civil offices were concentrated almost wholly in the Fujiwara family. With equal footstep, the military business advanced from precedent to fixed form, becoming a monopoly of the two clans, Taira and Minamoto (Gen and Hei, or Genji and Heike). In extending the sway of the Mikado over the mainland, islands, and waters of the Southwest, the Taira furnished the heroes. This family was founded in the eighth century, when a son of the Emperor's concubine became Lord High Chamberlain, and his grandson received the surname of Taira. Families never die out in communal Japan, even though blood and transmission of life fail, for the word is more than the fact and the name than the individual. Her people wonder why George Washington had no THE FIRST NEW JAPAN 155 descendants, and ask why he did not adopt a son. It would be vain for a Galton to attempt to make a study of the heredity of genius through true biometry. The Taira, like any other clan, having plenty of husbands for their daughters, adopted sons who had no Taira blood, and yet these were reckoned in the clan. What they did was the fashion of all the families. Perhaps appropriately, the Taira flourished and fell where they rose; that is, in the South. Toward the end of the twelfth century, they were annihilated after civil war in a great naval battle, in the regions where they had so often won glory. The monument of Kiyomori, their greatest name, is near Kobe. He was the David of his clan, both in rise to power from modest station, and in the spirit of his death- bed prayer, that the heads of his enemy, .laid on his tomb, would be a better decoration than sculpture, and more to be desired than prayers or liturgy. The severance of the agricultural and the military men corresponded with a similar assignment of func- tions at Court, the Nakatomi and Fujiwara monopo- lizing the civil functions, the former the religious and the latter the secular. They controlled also the throne by marrying their daughters and female relatives to the Mikado. By degrees the Fujiwara exercised administrative power in the Emperor's name, and appointed their brothers, sons, and male relatives to all the high offices, that of Regent (Kuam- baku, the bolt inside the gate) becoming hereditary in 156 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION their own family, and lasting until 1868 — as indeed, also, for twelve centuries, did most of the features of the Reform of 645. The Nakatomi held the offices of religion at a time when the Council of Gods and Men was higher even than the Great Council of State. These priestly politicians had charge of and recited the Norito rituals, so shaping Shinto that it became little more than an unmoral system of emotional patriotism on the one hand, and an engine of tremendous political power on the other, being especially a yoke upon the conquered Ainu and other barbarians, both as to custom and conscience. Undoubtedly Shinto helped to unify many tribes of varied ethnic origin into one nation. All the people were taught to reverence the Mikado as the Vice-gerent of the Heavenly Gods, while the cornucopia of Chinese rhetoric was emptied upon his head — "clouds," "dragons," the "sun," and various cosmic features or creatures being his verbal analogues. Possibly it was wise statecraft thus to exalt the Mikado religiously, in order that his personality being swallowed in the institution, he might the less wield political influence or power. Let not the cold- blooded alien analyst, or even the cool historical critic, needlessly ascribe evil motives to these ancient statesmen. Doubtless they thought they were doing what was best for the social organism, since some pre- vious Mikados of character had, by their personal THE FIRST NEW JAPAN 157 behavior, brought disaster upon the people, some of them committing crimes too horrible to relate, except for the learned and in a dead language. An increase of ability in a ruler of such power endangered the stability of the new structure, and these creators of Japanese orthodoxy early foresaw the danger of a certain Chinese dogma, which they had imported, and set on a pedestal. Some of the modern blatant and fire-eating Mikado- reverencers do not seem to think on these facts of history. There are those in Japan who show a sort of chau- vinism in religion and a tendency to minify the tre- mendous obligations of their country to influences from without. Such maintain that even after a thousand years or more, Buddhism wrought no real conversion. It has "on the whole remained the religion, so to say, of night and gloomy death, while Shintoism has always retained its firm hold on the popular mind as the cult ... of daylight and the living dead." Such typical modern Japanese declare also that "we can be upright and brave without the help of a creed with a God or deities at its other end." So much for feeling and opinion. As matter of unchallengeable fact, Buddhism was an unspeakably grand gift to the imagination of the Japanese, for it gave them the conception of a universe. The boun- daries of Shinto were those of Japan, and the flight of time was unmarked save by moons and seasons. 158 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Buddhism opened the gates of the eternal ages. From everlasting to everlasting and throughout all worlds was the vision offered by this worship of the Absolute. Too many Japanese still live in the nursery. CHAPTER XI CHURCH AND STATE THE "frontier theory," or that of the influence of external causes, applied to the religion of the Nippon- ese, shows a signal instance of the power of things outward to stimulate growth and perfect the organism. In their prehistoric state, it did not occur to the island- ers to formulate their ideas and beliefs. Conquerors and conquered were both at much the same level of culture, and probably the one borrowed as much as the other. The sudden entrance of an ethical system so highly developed as the Chinese, and a religion so elaborate as Buddhism, compelled adjust- ment and formulation in so simple a cult as the god- way. The Kami no michi, like almost everything else in the primitive tongue, even nouns and verbs being given a synonym, received the new name Shinto. In time, and under the stimulus of political pretext, rituals were developed, dogmas established, and worship regulated. By spiritual osmose, Shinto first absorbed, and then incorporated, much in the imported systems that had emanated from the great minds of China and India. The god-path, or tradition handed down from the 159 160 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION superiors, had little or nothing to do with ethics. All the words relating to marriage, and most of those which express decency, are Chinese. In Japanese mythology, one can quickly detect the difference between the native and the Chinese way of telling a story. Confucianism and Buddhism mightily enriched the native religion. When, later, Shinto, except by a very few thinkers, and in some old temples, was apparently absorbed, and for a thousand years for- gotten in Buddhism, or Riobu (mixed, or double- faced) Shinto, it is no wonder that European students mistook the nature and phenomena of the primitive faith of Japan. The Revival of Pure Shinto in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was mainly the work of a very few scholars, who enriched native literature, but hardly influenced the people. With the restoration of 1868, the primeval embers under the Government bellows blazed up as in a flicker. The war with Russia — a life-and-death struggle for national existence — focussed all patriotic feeling to the point of flame. Then the power of Shinto, as a reservoir of national tradition and sentiment, rather than the potency of a religion for individual souls, was revealed. Whatever Shinto may have become since the days of books and in the presence of historic religions, it is well to consider its evolution from the humblest beginnings, before the worship of nature was wedded to the dogma of the Mikado's sovereignty and his heavenly origin. Some such steps of development CHURCH AND STATE 161 as are noted below we can trace from the days when, between the notions of the Ainu and the Yamato folk, there was little difference, for both were on much the same levels of spiritual culture. In the days of the mounds and before the dolmens, the sacred place consisted of an enclosure of sakaki trees. The images of the gods were probably carved posts, and before them the simple offerings were made, prayer being as childlike and as restricted in expres- sion of wants as among savages everywhere. The powers of nature, sun, moon, and storm, were one after another deified. Mythology grew apace with apotheosis. Then genealogies were manufactured in order to link together the heavenly and the earthly. Before A.D. 645, the underlying idea of government was that it was a family affair, the Mikado being the head of a clan. The fiction prevailed that all were in some way related to the Mikado and the gods, heavenly or earthly. In these primeval days, before the later idea of Throne, conquest, and divinity of the Mikado had been thought of, and the whole elaborate ritual and machinery of the later mikadoism, as well as of true ancestor-worship were unknown, ethics were in germ only. The clan-chief or Mikado was as unmoral as was Tecumseh, who claimed the sun as his father and the earth as his mother. Then the festivals and the system did not centre in the Mikado, as they do now, for he was not responsible for the morals of his people. The Yamato clan-chief hunted, went to war, and was altogether as one among his 162 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION people, as was an Iroquois Indian chief. There was not a suggestion of his being other than a kami ; that is, a superior person, high in rank. Shinto, says Mr. Y. Okakura, consisted in a number of primitive rites, such as the recital of the liturgy, the offering of eatables to the departed spirits of deified ancestors, patriarchal, tribal, or national; that is, "nothing more than a form of ancestor-worship based on the central belief in the divine origin of the im- perial line." The essence of ritual Shinto was cleanliness, and its liturgy concerned purification. Thanksgiving, clean- liness, prayer, offerings, conformity to the accepted rule of communal life — these formed the staple of the primitive god-path ; that is, Shinto meant the tradition of the superiors in old time, which it was death to defy. It was the religion of all outdoors. "Monthly and yearly festivals are observed within the divine enclosure of a guardian god. . . . How different is this jovial feeling from that gloomy sensation, with which we approach a Buddhist temple, recalling death and the misery of life from every corner of its mysterious interior," writes Y. Okakura. Such a cult sufficed for simple hunters and fisher- men, and even when they had mastered the rudi- ments of agriculture, but were without formulated ambitions or definite programme of conquest. Heaven and earth were then very near. In the High Plain of Ama, the bright kami lived. Neither it nor they CHURCH AND STATE 163 were very far away. The highly abstract ideas of time and space were not yet formed in the primitive mind. But when a new state of society based on rice culture found itself alongside of an alien race con- sisting only of hunters, and the savages delighted in raids upon this agricultural community, breaking down sluices and field boundaries, trampling or root- ing up crops and defiling habitations, new thoughts arose and methods of defence were cogitated. All primitive lowly life is intensely religious, and its acts, sanctions, and methods of preservation mean orthodoxy, adherence to the divine legend, loyalty to the kami. When not content with reprisal the idea of conquest was conceived and its purpose determined, then dogma was formulated. Those who considered that they had a superior civilization as against savagery took a religious view of the necessities of the case. They considered that the gods were on their side. They must justify their warfare and conquest. Hence the evolution of the dogma that the con- quering race were originally from Heaven and that the Mikado was a descendant of Sky-Shine, now become the Sun-Goddess. Hence the creation of genealogies, the gathering of the scattered myths into one body, not only with all the indecent episodes (of whose flavor and appearance to modern minds, the first tellers and listeners were innocently oblivious), but also with the pedigrees which linked tribes, families, and guilds to the kami, or divine personages. Hence, also, the numerous and late interpolations in 164 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION the Records and Chronicles, which give ennobling status to certain persons or clans, because of their descent from the kami. In thus formulating nature worship and linking it to the Imperial family and undergirding the Throne, the god-way was transformed into a political engine, and superior dogma matched superior weapons. It was taught that the earlier mikados, led off by Jimmu, and those who subdued the land, were from Heaven, while the conquered, who must obey, were earth-born, and their kami or chiefs were at their best but earthly deities. When further the Mikado was separated from all but the highest functions, at once exalted and hidden in mystery, made invisible and unap- proachable and his previous functions relegated to bureaucracy, all the festivals and liturgies were made to centre in him. The old god-path or follow- ing in the ways of the kami became Shinto, the State religion, and it was made binding among the aboriginal people at the point of the sword. In thus affirming that Shinto was as surely propa- gated by the sword as was Islam, we remember that there was no book such as was offered as an alterna- tive to the scimitar, neither were there as yet the dazzling splendors of Aryan and Hindu religion which Buddhism brought, or the Confucian scheme of ethics which so charms the cultured mind. Nevertheless it is true that with the Yamato people for many centuries, conquest and the tenets of Shinto were only two sides of the same fact. The rituals which CHURCH AND STATE 165 one may study in Mr. Satow's translations show what were sin and offences, and what were holiness and life acceptable to the kami. In primitive Japan history and religion reflect each other. There were in these ante-Buddhist and pre-Chinese days, no such thing as ancestor-worship as it is and was understood in China. There was the deification and worship of remote ancestors, — of the clan or nation, — but not of the immediate progenitors of one's family ; nor indeed could there be, when family life was not yet organized. True ancestor-worship in Japan is a Chinese importation, as are the terms relating to marriage. Ancestor-worship in early Nippon meant worship of some far-off mythical an- cestor who was a deity — the very reverse of the theory and practice of ancestor-worship in China. Hence, those fruits of the differing systems in Dai Nippon and the Middle Kingdom that are visible to-day. In China there is an intense family life, but little or no patriotism, while yet race-pride is of the •strongest. In Japan the family tie is loose, the general status of organization of the family is but, slightly above that in the Homeric stage, while yet there is universal and burning patriotism. One can almost feel that all of the feeling inspired by the ancient Japanese spirit, Shinto, is summed up in the ode of Omi Okura, in A.D. 733, on the departure of an embassy to China. Mr. Chamberlain has given it in English verse, but Mr. Dickins translates it literally, thus : — 166 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION " From the God's own foretime hath run the ancient story How Heaven-shining Yamato hath been ever of lands the fairest, Of lands the most divine, in speech most em'nent Of all lands that under broad heaven lie — so have our fathers told us, And in this age we, before our own eyes see we, how true the tale is, And with our own souls know we how true the tale is." The delightful antinomies in human nature are finely illustrated in the writings of Shinto zealots, ancient poets and modern fire-swallowers who blaze at the idea of their divine rulers being common sinners in need of repentance. Hitomaro in A.D. 737 wrote : — " Japan is not a land where men need pray, For 'tis itself divine." This is exactly like the never-washing Ainu, who think we and the Japanese must be very dirty to wish to bathe often. The early ritualists of Shinto wrote out voluminous and prolix liturgies. The seventeenth-century revivalists of Pure Shinto argued that morals were invented by the Chinese, because they were an immoral people, while the Japanese being pure in heart and naturally perfect did not need codes of ethics. The whole nation claims divine ancestry. The gods being on earth, why raise prayers to Heaven? Shinto is the religion of fairy- land, yet grave professors, especially the "Jingoes" of Japan, are most vehemently zealous for its tenets. CHAPTER XII WOMAN THE CONSERVATOR THE progress of the race depends upon man. The conservation of what has been attained belongs to woman. If the positive advance of humanity de- pended upon the female portion of it, there would be few forward steps ; but, on the other hand, if we had to trust to the males to keep and fix what had been won, we should go backwards. Not only in love and the tender passions, but in the strong, deep common sense of humanity, woman is the great conservator. All history, including the Japanese, which is normal with that of the rest of the world, teaches that man is the maker of new paths, but that woman, in home, in society, in literature, and permanent social institu- tions, holds the gains. Especially in the matter of the capital, or Court residence, and with Buddhism, the mother of the Japanese home and of Japanese civilization, do we find woman's instinct signally shown. It was under the reign of the vigorous Empress Gemmio that the capital in A.D. 709 was fixed at Nara. Through seven reigns, or until A.D. 784, it remained the seat of government and of the pedagogic and propagative 167 168 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION centre of the new Aryan faith. Hitherto the mikados were nomads, and their wooden and straw huts were as movable as the habitations of prairie Indians. Death was the great compelled and a corpse the potent expeller. Provision having been made for sepulture in the dolmen, the torch was applied to the old palace, and the level waste of ashes was left for a more auspicious site. Horror of the dead and the unclean drove even the Imperial occupant away, and fire made pure the site once occupied. When, however, the richer and nobler religion and the higher civilization came in, hand in hand, woman's instinct saw the need of settled life, which even the episode of individual death need not disturb. In A.D. 794, another site was chosen for the Imperial city, which, though given various names, was popularly called the Miako or Kio. For over a millennium, Kioto re- mained the seat of the Mikados, though one cannot with accuracy say, of the Government, which moved to the once "far East," the Kuanto. Even to this day one sees as in a mirror the past history of Japan in customs preserved in modern days. The Ainu fetich of bone or feather, carefully preserved in many wrappings in the box near the sacred eastern window, is the prototype of the precious treasures, hidden and secret, kept in the Shinto shrine, under innumerable wrappings of silk and brocade. The relic has won a glory from its far-off origin. So the Ainu and the Yamato notions of taboo, fear of the dead, and dislike of living in the same place that WOMAN THE CONSERVATOR 169 had harbored a corpse, were much on the same level in both culture camps, and regard for the ghosts is still powerful in Japan. The movements from place to place, making scores of known capitals, was not surprising, but Buddhism more than anything else was responsible for settled conditions of Court life. Moreover, it soon became the zealous determi- nation to make the nation quickly and wholly Bud- dhist. It took possession of the Mikados, male and female. This purpose was carried out in a manner often more forcible than elegant, and at times more for the benefit of the bonzes than of the people, and the results wrought were not wholly in either paid toil or involuntary receptivity. Among hundreds of references in the Chronicles to the "forced labor" in behalf of this or that Imperial or Buddhistic service, we read many also like these : — "The Buddhist priest Kwansei was given a present of fifteen hiki of coarse silk, thirty bundles of floss silk, and fifty tan of cloth." In these days cloth and woven stuff, or its raw material, was as currency. "Thirty houses were granted as a sustenance fief to Bendo, a priest of the Great Temple of the Great Palace." In the chapters illustrating the growth of feudalism, we shall see how rapidly rich grew the religious houses and how in time political power was coveted and seized, so that while pure religion died of fatty degeneration, the people groaned under the double feudalization of helmet and cowl, baron and abbot 170 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION The New Japan of rapid growth — the name was officially notified to Korea in A.D. 670 — came early under feminine influence, both for weal and for woe. Incidentally it shows how highly these early Yamato folk estimated their women. Eight of the ten em- presses in the line of Mikados ruled between A.D. 593 and 769, the other two not coming on the stage of action until after the seventeenth century. Like the ancient Yamato straight sword, this influence was two-edged. Not only did female Mikados, while doing nobler things for humanity, make soft the life of effeminate men, but the abuse of what was possible under their reign, introduced the original sin of weakness into Japanese life and literature. In this hothouse of lovely feminine influences many growths, strange, odd, and curious, became visible, and were carefully reared, but the type of man cultivated was not that of the alert and strenuous sort, neither was it of finest fibre or noblest ideal. Moreover, there was introduced into life at the seat of government that element of the boudoir influences which blotted out the clear distinction between the Court and the Government — curse alike of old Yedo and modern Korea — against which both the Kamakura move- ment of 1184 and that of Tokio in 1868 were violent protests. The Constitution of 1889 banishes women forever from the Throne. How curious the contrast between the capital and the frontier ! In the one was the luxurious, art- loving circle of priests, scholars, public functionaries, WOMAN THE CONSERVATOR 171 cultivated and brilliant women, who became the mothers of literature and the nurses of belles-lettres, all headed by a Mikado becoming more and more a monk, and vanishing by slow evolution into an in- visible god. Outside the one City Royal, there was little to satisfy the man of taste, while far away on the battle line, in the east and north, was growing up a face of stalwart warriors. In time the spectre of a new and overshadowing capital and seat of real government in the Eastern wilds began to loom up against "the ninefold circle of flowers," but few could at first see the rising storm. The palace folk isolated the real Miako, making of it virtually a cloister and their Mikado a name and shadow, while near the Eastern Ocean shore, holding both sword and purse and keeping alive manly dis- cipline and strenuous achievement, the frontiersmen were to rear in the wilderness a city of a million souls. Kioto and Kamakura were to face each other in rivalry, and Throne and Camp be separated for nearly a millennium even from 1184 to 1868. For, while at first in holy zeal and glow of sincerity these retiring from the world devoted themselves to religion and their profession stood for reality, it was not long before human nature asserted itself. Poverty, sacrifice, abstinence, purity, there were at first, but all too soon retreat from the world meant lust, debauchery, hypocrisy, and wire-pulling. The abdicator of the Throne still pulled the wires. Ho-o, Lord of the Vow, or Cloistered Emperor, the term once 172 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION redolent of self-sacrifice and holiness, began to mean intermeddler and real ruler. The shorn head, with ear ever open to spies and alert for spoils to bestow on favorites, suggested the invisible spider in the hole lurking for victims, rather than the meditating devotee upon the unflecked lotus-flower of Nirvana. With many a man and woman, in or out of rank, monkery meant deviltry and nunhood unchastity. Bane and blessing for all time was left to Japan's inheritance by this era of a nominal "Contemptus Mundi." Moreover, the by-products of this professed retire- ment from the world were as detestable as they were noteworthy. Polygamy being an institution imperial as well as common, the Mikado's offspring soon be- came troublesomely numerous. How to provide for and employ or keep out of mischief these princely idlers grew to be a chronic problem. As long as the thoughts of these titled supernumeraries were absorbed in their pretty women, foot-ball, poetry, art, or the luxury of the capital, they did not prove very trouble- some. Except as centres of plots and the tools of intriguers, they were harmless ciphers. But when they went, as they often did, to the distant provinces and began to accumulate landed estates, or to set up domains that were virtually rivals to the Kioto gov- ernment, they were in the highest degree dangerous to the public welfare. The economic value of the Ainu land in the East lately opened to civilization became strikingly mani- fest in the eighth century. In the spring of A.D. 708, WOMAN THE CONSERVATOR 173 copper from Musashi, the first found in Nippon, was offered to the Empress Gemmio. In honor of this new gift to the nation, she named the year period of her reign (708-715) Wado; that is, Japanese copper. The copper mines of Adzuma, seemingly inexhaustible, have, during a millennium, furnished to Japan the metallic basis of her forests of metal images and statues, and even in our day the Ashiwo mines are among the richest in the world. Steadily the new Eastern Country developed. The Ainu both of Mutsu and Echigo revolted in 709, but after peace in 712, the great north land was divided into Mutsu and Dewa. In 713 new reads were opened in Mino and Shiriano and a manual or encyclopaedia of geog- raphy compiled. This book gave a description of all the villages, mountains, rivers, valleys, plains, trees, birds, and quadrupeds of Japan. Though no longer extant, this Government publica- tion revealed the process of history making and the obliteration of Aryan and Ainu names, in place of which new ones were officially given. The process did but follow precedents and continued the method for coming ages. The Japanese beat the Greeks in their passion for euphemism, while excelling the British who have erased the names of Dutch and other pioneers and explorers in favor of their own people. Every witness of disaster was banished, all unpleasant suggestions removed, and every ugly-looking name given oblivion, if possible, in the new Japan. The edict of the Empress commanded that good or lucky 174 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Chinese characters should be affixed to the names of all provinces, districts, and villages. In a word, these Yamato people first put their own language into a Chinese strait jacket and then proceeded to wipe out every Aryan or Ainu name, keeping up the process in both Yezo land and Yezo island even to the twen- tieth century, to the swamping of true history. Astonishing was the intellectual development of the Yamato people in the Hei-an era (794-1186), when in the new city the mental soil, enriched as by a Nile flood with the accumulated culture of India and China, gave forth more than seven years of plenty, and the new exotics burst into bloom of art and literature. The dual civilization, while having a rich material basis, was one in which the moral and spiritual elements at first dominated. Within a century, we have notable additions to the catalogue of things for use and comfort. Copper was mined abundantly. Besides coins of gold and silver, we read of the emission in A.D. 796, 818, 835, 848, 859, 870, 889, 907, 958, of copper "cash," each mintage bearing a new legend for the people. These entries speak volumes for the extension of trade and the arts of peace, and lively traffic opened to the East Land. The introduction of cotton, of tea, of water-mills, and of various other devices of man and products of nature, were also within this era. The composition of books on the Chinese model — for it was to be left to the women in later days to produce true Japanese literature in belles-lettres — WOMAN THE CONSERVATOR 175 proceeded apace with advance in material improve- ment. Great monuments of law and learning mark the eighth and ninth centuries. Stimulated by the noble Chinese models, perennial in the Confucian and Mencian classics, and by the living literature of the Sung and Tang age, the Yamato men employed their pens first at history and jurisprudence. In 809, as tradition avers, the hirakana, or running script, was invented by Kobo. More probably this system of handwriting was not the work of one man, or of sudden, but rather of gradual evolution. Parts of certain ideographs, easily adapted for rapid and connected penmanship in the "grass character" style, were selected and used for a syllabary. All the ways of making human speech visible are three, comprised in the ideogram or logogram, in the syllable, or the phonetic sign, — that is, in the writing of ideas or words, — of compound sounds or of single vocables, and these three are found in China, Japan, and Korea, each country excelling in a single kind. While Korea has a true alphabet, Japan has a sylla- bary. Hence it is impossible for Japanese to write foreign names or words correctly, with neither defi- ciency nor plethora. Hence, also, a knowledge of the spoken language of China to one in Japan, or vice versa, of Japan in China, is of no value whatever, though with pen and pencil, the educated of the three countries, or of all Chinese Asia, can communi- cate freely. The later schools of art were those of the early 176 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Chinese style (1351 to 1758); the modern Chinese school (1732-1832); the realistic or vulgar school which began with Iwasa about 1595, but developed in the eighteenth century to amazing proportions, culminating in Hokusai (1760-1849) and his pupils. Yet with this primal outflowering in the Hei-an era of the national genius in art and learning, there was needed interpretation, and the new phases of intellect and feeling found this in woman's genius. Men had expressed political and social custom in law codes. They had striven to tell the story of human action and set it in the form of the literature of knowledge and erudition. The interpreters who came with a lighter touch and deeper intuition, and who in the vernacular idiom gave true expression of the spirit of the age, were of the other sex. The males were learned, but stilted or ponderous. Woman's wit changed the situation and gave to the little world of Yamato its belles-lettres. Diaries, novels, pictures of life and manners in vigorous prose flowed from the pen of the women who created the literary lan- guage of Japan. This literary triumph was not the first, the last, or the greatest of woman's achievements in Japan. The historic page is rich in tableaux of her heroism, sacrifice, wit, and wisdom. In humbling, even de- grading her in later days, the Japanese were decided Mongolian. One of the first and best of those who made the "woman's style" — which many a masculine author WOMAN THE CONSERVATOR 177 imitated, in order to secure popularity for his com- position — was Murasaki Shikibu, who died A.D. 992. She wrote the romance of Prince Genji and his amours (Genji Monogatari) with its minute details of daily life in the palace. Rich in local color, brilliant in description, photographically true to the ruling ideas and customs of the age in a very refined and very corrupt Court, this romance is without peer and its diction is the standard of pure Japanese in the mediaeval age. This era (800-1186) is that of polite literature in Japanese, as distinct from the works of erudition in the Chinese character and style. To resume our thread of narration in order of time, we note the production of law-books and manuals of history in almost regular alternation. In A.D. 820 and 833 appear collections of laws. The adoption of the Chinese calendar shows that mathematicians and astronomers are at work. In 871 a legislative manual is completed. A college of learned men produce the historical library known as the Six National Records, and on the basis of these original writings, Michizane compiled a work more popular in character, in two hundred of the pamphlet-like volumes so common in Japan. In 905 an anthology of verse appeared. The years 907, 914, and 927 are notable for books on jurisprudence which are still famous. This part of the Hei-an age, from the sixth to the tenth century, is especially the era of Chinese learning. In the same century, and almost parallel with the literary movement, progress was made in the art of 178 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION painting. Michizane is reckoned among artists as well as among authors, but to Kanaoka, who flour- ished about A.D. 880, is awarded the honor of being called first among the great painters of the Yamato School. Four or five of his pieces which still remain are accounted authentic. Other famous men of the brush and palette were Kintada, A.D. 950; Kimmochi, 980; Hirotake, and five others before the fourteenth century, who are considered the primitives or pioneers of Japanese art. The true Yamato line of painters which begins with Motomitsu, pupil of Kanaoki, about A.D. 1000, was destined to enjoy eight centuries of glory and fame. This succession, including the names of nearly fifty famous men, is usually classified in five divisions, in order of time; the products of the Tosa artists (1230-1700 +) being perhaps the most brilliant and vigorous. The Tosa school is remarkable for its lavish use of gold and splendor of color. The Hei-an era is the golden age of Japan in more than one sense. One must read the Manyo poems to enter into the feelings of the lovers of luxury and literary dalliance in the City Royal. Scores of dainty stanzas were written to friends on the distant frontier, in Ainu land, or for bon voyage to departing governors. The Tosa Nikki is one of many delightful diaries of travel which picture the methods of travel and reveal the heart pain of those who must needs be absent from dear Kioto. Their fine style has proved the salt of preservation, for age does not in their case WOMAN THE CONSERVATOR 179 wither. They are still among the fresh flowers of literature. Against the sentimentalism of the Fujiwara period, before the rise of manliness, stalwart ideals, epic poetry, and music of the Kamakura period, there were voices raised against the nepotism, political and social corruption and effeminacy of the Court and the ring of politicians who dominated it. One of these was Michizane (845-903), who plead for more manli- ness and independence in the Emperors, development of the Japanese genius, and abolition of the custom of sending embassies periodically to China. The story of calumny, disgrace, and banishment is one that points to the moral of the perils to "the scholar in politics" as against the "practical politician." His name shines brightly as the patron of letters, as the ancestor of various daimios, and the model and patron of school children. His fame is secure. Incised on granite on the walls of one of the noblest library edifices in America, "built for the people," Michizane's name holds its place of honor worthily with the world's torch-bearers. CHAPTER XIII IMPERIALISM, EXPANSION, AND FEUDALISM FOR centuries, like China or the Roman Empire, Yamato was the Central State among many vassals, or dependencies, in oscillations, alternately of civili- zation and relaxing of mikadoal power. Gradually the once independent sovereignties of Idzumo, Tsu- kushi, Koshi, and the East were merged in the one Central State of Dai Nippon. The movement of population from Kiushiu toward the fertile food plain of Yamato, personified in the legend of Jimmu, was probably owing to pressure of incomers from the Continent, or by overgrowth in numbers of aboriginal settlers. In any event, long after the sixth century, large portions of the south and southwest remained to be brought under the Mikado's sway or to be settled. As population in- creased the waste land was to be reclaimed. Up to historic times there were but villages on the sites now covered by large cities, and only hamlets or clearings where towns are to-day seen. Except Kioto, and a seaport or two, cities were not known until the twelfth century. Not all the business in boats or on the water was 180 IMPERIALISM, EXPANSION, AND FEUDALISM 181 done by the honest sailor or fisherman. Piratical raids were frequent, and the vikings of the ocean coast and inland seas were predatory or disorderly for centuries, winning a bad name on the Continent. The early name of the tribes in Kiushiu was Ku- maso, or the bear men, but this term came to be generally used of any of the southern people who so often "rebelled" and "did not bring tribute" to Yamato. To the Taira warriors, from the ninth century, was assigned the general task of quieting all the south- west, both on land and water, and for many genera- tions they gave themselves loyally to this work with valor and zeal. We shaU now take up again the story of the con- quest and absorption of the East and North. In 581 the Ainu showed hostility on the frontier. "Sending for their chiefs, the Mikado reminded them that, as in his predecessor's reign, the sword for those who were hostile and forgiveness for the repentant was still the rule." Ringleaders would certainly be decapitated. » Filled with fear and awe, Ayakasu and others went down into the middle stream of the Hatsuse (after which Admiral Togo's great battleship was named). Facing Mount Mimoro, where the Ainu had first been settled, and then for bad behavior ousted, they rinsed out their mouths with the river water as a purifying ceremony. Then they took this oath : "We Yemishi promise that from this time forward, we, our children, 182 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION and our children's children of our body eighty times continued, will serve the Celestial Gate [Mikado] with sincerity of heart. If we break this oath, may all the gods of Heaven and Earth and also the spirits of the Emperors destroy our race." Were these the same Ainu, or others in the great northern wilds, who in A.D. 637 again made outbreak? They "rebelled and did not come to court." When the Mikado's general and his forces were sent against them, the Ainu defeated them and drove them back- ward into a fortress. "The beaten soldier fears even the tops of the tall grass." One by one, the de- moralized warriors slipped away, leaving the strong- hold nearly empty, though the besieging Ainu did not know this. There were several tens of women in the garrison, and these saved the day. The annalist puts a superb speech in the mouth of the brave wife who cheered and upbraided her hus- band, making him drink a cup of sake to fire his courage. Girding on her lord's sword and marshalling the women, she strung ten bows and bade her sisters twang them noisily, so that the Ainu, still thinking their enemy strong, gradually withdrew. Thereupon the general seized a weapon and showed fight. The Mikado's soldiers returned from their hiding-places, reformed ranks, and attacked the Ainu, "taking every one prisoners." Probably a barrow of heads, — one of scores in Japan, — then and there cut off, marks the spot. The name of the heroic woman remains in oblivion. IMPERIALISM, EXPANSION, AND FEUDALISM 183 On the other side of the mountains, in the Koshi or Echizen regions, we hear less of bloody righting and more of successful pacific measures. In A.D. 642 it is recorded that several thousand Ainu, or Yemishi, made their submission. Three weeks later the Gov- ernor-General Soga entertained the Yemishi in his house and personally made kind inquiries after their welfare. This Soga was a Court officer skilful in dealing with various races. In these seventh-century days Yamato's problem was one of absorbing several races, native and foreign, and the governor had the oversight of immigration, from various "frontier states," and from Korea especially. He attended also to allotment of lands, and to the Ainu who served as temple serfs or in the public granaries, and was apparently one of the most efficient commissioners of emigration. The Ainu were not exterminated or driven away. They were absorbed in the Japanese mass. As progress was steadily made in advancing the frontier of civilization northwards, some of the Ainu chiefs were ennobled. There were in 655 at the Court ninety-nine Northern and ninety-five Eastern Ye- mishi. One hundred and fifty tribute-bearers from Korea were also entertained. Caps of honor, of two grades in each case, were bestowed on Yemishi who had come from places in Mutsu, which then compre- hended all of the eastern part of Hondo north of the thirty-seventh parallel. Evidently these Ainu were as tickled as were the 184 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Iroquois Indians in Sir William Johnson's day at getting laced hats or scarlet coats, gay with brass buttons, or when prairie red men see the Great Father at Washington; for a few weeks later crowds of Ainu offered homage and came to Court with presents for the Empress. This lady lived under the new tiled roof of Asuka. A roof made of hard kera- mic material, besides being new in Yamato, was a sight for gods, men, and savages. In 658 it was determined to reach even the Ainu of the northern island which is now called Yezo. Per- haps the main idea in view was to circumnavigate the northern extremity of Hondo and map its coast- line. "A fleet of 180 ships," or oared junks, was pre- pared and put under command of Abe no Omi. In the district of Kita, the Ainu yielded their sub- mission. In the bay of Aita "the ships were drawn up in the order of battle." Then Omuka, an Ainu chief, declared that his people's bows and arrows were not for war against the Mikado's forces, but for the provision of food in hunting. Thereupon he made proper submission. The speech put in his mouth by the author of the Chronicles suggests Buddhistic no- tions and the presence of a Buddhist priest as sec- retary to the expedition. Omuka was granted rank, and local governors were appointed. Later Ainus of the "Island of the Ferry," now called Yezo, were invited to a great feast and then sent home. The "captive population," thus newly included IMPERIALISM, EXPANSION, AND FEUDALISM 185 in the Mikado's domain and henceforth to be part of the Japanese people, were not forgotten by the sovereign lady in Asuka. When autumn leaves were falling, more than two hundred Yemishi came to Court with presents for the Empress. The enter- tainment largess was on a more liberal scale than usual. Besides rank conferred, gifts of banners, drums, armor, and weapons were made and registers of the new population were appointed. There were lively times in the new capital. About this time the Empress sent two young Buddhist priests on a Korean ship to China, to study under the great Doctor of Divinity, Hsuang-tsang, of whose travels, pilgrimages to India, and life Stanis- laus Julien has written so fascinatingly. After seven- teen years spent among the Hindus, he returned A.D. 645, bringing back over six hundred volumes of Buddhist scriptures and numerous relics. These were the glorious days of the Aryan faith, and Japan was to be blessed as being in the garden of the Lord Buddha. Other visits of the distant Ainu to the capital and their good friend are recorded. In the same Imperial lady's reign, a great architectural curiosity was visible when these men with hairy beard and mustaches came again .in the presence of the Empress. In Roman Catholic Europe we have a Bethlehem, a Calvary, or a Gethsemane, in wood or stone. So in the lands of Buddhadom in many places is a Mount Sumi, or, in Sanskrit, Sumeri. According to the 186 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Buddhist system, it is the central mountain of the Universe and the support of the tiers of Heaven. One of these educational models having just been built on the slope of the river bank near the capital, "the Yemishi of Michinoku and the Koshi [the Echizen and Sendai region] were entertained." At this time, also, the mariner's compass was being made in Japan. Long known and used by land travellers in China, and later, as recorded in A.D. 1122, on a voyage to Korea, the Japanese Buddhist priest Chiyu, in A.D. 658, made one of these "south-pointing chariots." Who knows but this may have been used by "Hirafu, warden of the land of Koshi," who made an expedition to far-off insular Yezo to drive away some Manchius who had settled there. The successful hero brought back to the Mikado two live white or polar bears, which animal may then have been plentiful in Yezo island, which, in geology, flora, and fauna, is a continent different from Hondo. It would be tedious to quote from the Chronicles all the numerous notices of the Yemishi, or Ainu, or to tell of their various uprisings and the expeditions sent against them, or to point out in detail the facts that the dialects of northern Japan and the geographi- cal names bear record of the steadily advancing frontier. These notices on the historic page prove, withal, that the white Aryan Ainu were not driven away, or across to Yezo island, but were absorbed in the Japanese nation. After the last great battle near Morioka, Tamura (758-811) built in 802 the IMPERIALISM, EXPANSION, AND FEUDALISM 187 famous castle of Izawa, in Mutsu, which for a long time was the military headquarters in the far North. Japan's military system and even its feudalism had their origin and conditions of development in the activities of the Ainu. Even the awe-compelling title of Sei-i-tai-shogun, or Barbarian-quelling Great General, granted to Tamura, A.D. 801, and to Yori- tomo in 1192, finds its elements in the previous his- tory of Ainu resistance to the conqueror. Without the Ainu, there would have been no Tycoon, such as is known by title in the Perry treaty of 1854. At first the military commander sent to put down insur- rections, or raids over the border, was called a sho- gun. To this the term sei-i, or barbarian-queller, was added. Some of the early generals were called Sei-Yezo Shogun, or General for the Conquest of Yezo, or Ainu, and Tamura was nominated General for the Conquest of the East. When the Imperial army held the extreme northern end of Hondo, there was established a military prefecture (Chinjufu) at Izawa, in which there was a general, an inspector, and many subalterns. When Yoritomo obtained his grand title, the far northern military prefecture was suppressed as no longer necessary. In 1336 the title with its offices and income was reestablished, but under the Ashikaga it was finally abolished, though the shogunate existed until 1868, when title, rank, income, and appurtenances disappeared forever. To-day the word chinjufu means a maritime prefecture, of which there are four in Japan, with 188 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION navy-yards, dry-dock, and arsenals at Yokoska, Kure, Sasebo, and Maidzura. According to the old theory, prior to 645, all sub- jects of the Mikado must serve when necessary in the field, and commanders were expected to go afar; but under the new regime, the allurements of luxury in the City Royal were too great for the courtiers. The civilians at Nara or Kioto, dallying with art, poetry, Chinese philosophy, and Aryan "varieties of religious experience," withal ever alert for office and revenue, were only too ready to confer the title of General or Shogun upon the men of the Taira or Minamoto clans, who would do the rough work of war. Gradually these warrior chiefs, living in armor and helmet, became better known, both to the sub- jugated people and to those in settled life far from the capital, than even the Son of Heaven himself, or his civil governors. Every great military man had his regular followers. As the revels of peace and luxury increased in Kioto, both sword and sceptre were wielded by strong men on the frontier and in the provinces. The plan of the Fujiwara regents to keep soldiers from serving either Heike or Genji failed ignominiously. Then an expedient of despair was tried. The Whites and Reds were set against each other. The usual result of playing with fire followed. Civil government was swallowed up in the flames of feudal war. Besides weakness at the Court centre there were flagrant instances of rank injustice, with dishonesty IMPERIALISM, EXPANSION, AND FEUDALISM 189 and "graft," rural, urban, and all the way through. When disorder and rapine broke out in any quarter of the East and North, the Genji were called upon to put down the Ainu and other "rebels" and restore order. This cost time, toil, money, and blood, but when the warriors applied to the Court for reward and reimbursements, their claims were ignored. All attempts to reach the Emperor's ear and obtain justice failed, because the regent, who was a Fuji- wara, opened all petitions, rejecting those he would. Honors or rank were not for the brave, but only for courtiers; the distant or the absent being always reckoned in the wrong. No "mere soldier" could have audience with the Emperor. There was but one thing to do when money was scarce and land was plenty. In self-defence the warrior leaders made grants of the conquered land to their followers, who considered themselves owners and well able, in case of dispute, to back their titles with their swords. The economic situation helped powerfully to de- velop a political system based on land. There was nothing else with which to pay the soldiers. The telltale etymology of the names, metals, alloys, and coins of Old Japan show how largely the islanders were at first indebted to China, after they had learned what coinage and metal currency were. Native silver was found in 674, but copper does not seem to have been mined until after the Kojiki was written. In 713 iron, and in 749 gold were discovered by 190 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Korean or Chinese prospectors. It is evident that one of the most potent factors in developing and settling the wild North and East was the wealth of these districts in metals. Land when conquered was easy to distribute, and the pacified inhabitants were utilized to "reclaim" it — for the new owner and the tax-gatherer. Other causes wrought toward the complete feu- dalization of Japan. The sudden transformation of the Yamato tribesmen into a bureaucracy, coupled with the fact that His Majesty was allowed a dozen wives, created an enormous number of aspiring office- seekers. The multitudinous Imperial offspring must, of course, become princes, for whom employment had to be found. The capital not sufficing, these personages were sent as civil functionaries into the districts under law, and into the conquered territories of the Ainu as fast as pacified. But with the dis- tinction of the Inner Country and the Outer Regions, there grew up a sharp contrast between the luxurious idleness at Court and life on the frontier amid the hard-working peasantry. This contrast is reflected in the poetry, prose, literature, art, and proverbs of an aeon. To support the aristocracy in Kioto the peasants were taxed to the last degree, while the nobles who had been brought up in the capital and sent as office-holders into the wild country, made it the one aim of their lives to secure land and revenue quickly. Their intent was usually to get back as soon as possible to the poetry and art, the splendid temples, IMPERIALISM, EXPANSION, AND FEUDALISM 191 the amatory intrigues, and the elegant society of the capital. The military were not the only masters of the soil. The civil servants of the Crown, having noble blood and titles, some of them even princes, became expert in the seizing of land, owning vast estates. To get land-rich, one had only to improve waste territory. These promoters of personal pelf were very keen to take advantage of the laws made from time to time to the detriment of the poor farmer. The land- holders isolated their outholdings, surrounding them with lines of demarcation in the shape of hill or valley, access to which the peasants were forbidden. Various imperial edicts were issued to mitigate this evil, but they were not enforced. The case of the peasants was aggravated by grants of lands made in every province to noblemen, who were favorites of the Emperor, or to his women, or nobles, as well as to popular priests, or to temples renowned for their eloquent bonzes or the miracle-working power of their images. Soon the difference between the peasant cultivator and the country gentleman was clearly marked. While the edicts nominally restricted the nobleman and encouraged the commoner to re- claim land, it became impossible to enforce the laws against the men of great estate. The simple reason was this, that these large land-owners, or their immediate relatives or agents, were in high office in Kioto, and as the great men, so called, became more numerous in the district, the hands of the local 192 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION governor were paralyzed. Unless a peasant was quick to fulfil the letter of the law, the land agents would seize his claim, taking even the waste land which he might already have begun to improve. What all this meant in detailed misery to the common people may best be understood by us through familiarity with the story of Ireland. In the condition of contemporary Korea, we may find an even closer analogue. A few hundred noblemen in Seoul virtually own the whole country. So in A.D. 986 the clanhead of the Fujiwara controlled over two hundred houses of independent families. These were represented by a province officer and were strong enough to defy the local governors. From the first establishment of Buddhism, also, the temples had been endowed with land, so that many of them, even before the reform of 645, had great estates. In 747 one of them held five thousand acres of land, which formed but a single item of its immense wealth. Other temples were measurably gifted like this one. Pretty soon these temple corporations, or sects, employed private detectives, or armed guards, whom they could summon from the provinces for the pro- tection of their property. This occasional employ- ment of clerical militia, or lay mercenaries, grew into a regular system. When feud and bloodshed broke out in the capital, each great temple summoned trusty warriors to mount guard over its property. In the later centuries, from the twelfth to the fifteenth, IMPERIALISM, EXPANSION, AND FEUDALISM 193 there were thousands of men in armor at the beck and call of the abbots, who were themselves skilled generals. More than once the priests overawed the Throne. Until, in 1565, Nobunaga drew on the mailed gauntlet, and unsheathed his sword to humble Japanese clericalism forever, the bonzes held with the barons the balance of power. It is needless to point out that while private estates were increasing enormously, the official figures on which taxation was based steadily dwindled. The lands termed "not arable" grew in alarming ratio; the census showing fewer and fewer men and many women in the taxable families. Thus the burden increased upon the peasants, making them gladly ready for some change that promised to improve their lot. One district, which in A.D. 660 could furnish 20,000 soldiers, returned as its taxable popu- lation, in 765, only 1900 names, and in the tenth cen- tury, every taxable person had disappeared. Other striking instances are cited by Asakawa. The same memorialist, who gives in detail this extreme case, argued that out of 300,000 taxable people living outside the Home Provinces, not more than 100,000 were being actually taxed. The great men who controlled the central govern- ments were really the workers of disorder and anarchy in the district provinces by evicting the people and absorbing their lands. What hope was there of good government or what chance of arresting the disastrous evil ? In such a state of affairs laws passed 194 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION to encourage the cultivation of land to secure revenue from taxes were vain, and the power of the local governors steadily dwindled. Great men at the top of the Kioto bureaucracy continually pressed the local officers to enforce the law against the evils, of which they themselves were the fons et origo. The house of Nippon was divided against itself. CHAPTER XIV ONE PEOPLE: TWO CAPITALS A PROPER treatment of the origin and development, causes, and phenomena of the feudal system in Japan, which grew up utterly uninfluenced by Europe, and which gave the nation its political training for signal successes in the twentieth century, would require volumes; but the general review here proposed may not be without interest to the student of history. I believe myself to be the only surviving foreigner who dwelt within a feudal fief, in a feudal city, and within a daimio's castle, beholding and studying the workings of the Japanese feudal system while it was yet a living institution. During the centuries when the luxury-loving nobles in the capital dallied with art and poetry, men of shrewd mind and keen spirit, by living in the provinces and on the frontier, steadily secured control both of the military and civil forces and finally of the land itself. This process went on until the twelfth cen- tury, when the time was ripe for these men to stand forth, and seize "the whole earth," which, in theory, belonged to the Emperor. Thus would they reduce the Fujiwara and civil officers at the Court to poverty, 195 196 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION allowing them only their pride with the mere sem- blance of rule, while they themselves, holding the purse and the sword, should dictate under decent forms, of course, what should be done. Yet this was not the work of a day, and it is well to inquire who these men of brains and brawn, destined to bring in the new era, were. It was from those whose business it was to samurau, or serve the emperor — whence the name samurai — in the Six Guards garrison at Kioto, or who, having been pages in the palaces, had learned court craft, that the men of the epic age of Kamakura were recruited. For the most part, these men for the new time, scorning the luxury in the City Royal and seeing their opportunity, returned to their native districts and remaining there obtained influence and power. Gradually, in spite of either military or civil superiors, they became masters of the situation. With armor, horses, and plenty of followers, they could snap their fingers at regularly constituted authority. Furthermore, they were a necessity to commanders charged with the Emperor's com- mission to "chastise the rebels." An arduous cam- paign in some distant province being ordered, what was the procedure ? The general in command, being in want of soldiers, could not wait for an army on paper to become mov- ing battalions. He summoned at once these so-called warriors, ever instantly ready, and found himself immediately furnished. Thus in the course of ONE PEOPLE : TWO CAPITALS 197 centuries, the relation of great name (daimio) and retainer, or lord and vassal, became permanent. The warrior was a distinct product of his era, developing a dress, coiffure, and customs entirely his own. To keep the hair out of his eyes he shaved his temples and midscalp, and tied and pomatumed his queue until it lay in a gun-hammer and ramrod style on his noddle, his topknot fitting into a slit made inside the buckskin lining of his helmet, thus holding it snug. Of his swords, one for battle and one for him- self in defeat, poets sang, and he saluted his shining blade as his soul. For him alone was the privilege of hara-kiri, if he were criminal or beaten. The commoner must suffer decapitation on the common execution ground. The samurai code of life, noble indeed on its best-known side, was ferocious and brutal on its reverse. Bushido, now seen only in perspective and rhetoric, is iridian in its sunset glow. Long before the old system was visibly tottering, the new one was born. Before the tenth century all military power had slipped away from the Court. The civil officers in Kioto might look with contempt on these "low soldiers," for in mediaeval Japan there was the same abyss that has so long yawned in China between the civilian and the military mandarin. Nevertheless in time a complete transformation took place, the soldier becoming both gentleman and scholar. The sword and pen, arms and letters, be- came incarnated in that typical product of Japan, unknown elsewhere in Asia, the samurai. Japan 198 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION beat Russia in 1906 by virtually giving to her peasants a military title of nobility, which changed commoners into samurai, largely with the aid of a national public school system. During this evolution of centuries, even to the present moment, no aspirant for honors or power, civil or military, ever attempted to seize the Throne. What paralyzed every bold traitor's hand and nerved the arm of each loyal subject to kill the usurper, was the universal belief in the Mikado's descent in an unbroken line from the gods who created and ruled over Japan. The shogun or general must be ap- pointed by the Emperor, who was the fountain of all rank and order. To claim legality, the military leader must always hold the Emperor's commission to chas- tise those against whom he fought, who were styled choteki, or rebels. Nevertheless, although the most victorious shogun might possess the whole military power of the coun- try, he was not, when at the Court, the first of His Majesty's subjects. He could never, by reason of his office alone, claim the right of a face-to-face inter- view with the Emperor; nor was this rule ever vio- lated in form, whatever might be the facts. The logical result of such a system of political orthodoxy, which kept the Throne inviolate, is seen throughout all Japanese history, even to the nine- teenth century. To clothe his acts with legality, the general must make out his own as the loyal side. In order to brand his enemies as choteki, or rebels ONE PEOPLE : TWO CAPITALS 199 against the Court, he must possess or control the Imperial person. This gave him ten points of the law, or, as the Chinese say, eleven-tenths of the whole thing. During several centuries, the Mikados of Japan were virtually prisoners in the cage, the door of which was shut or opened by bold adventurers using a puppet's or a woman's hand. By the eleventh century, the frontier wars over, the military clan leaders came to live in Kioto and were soon equal in power to the palace clique, but in 1159, in a fight before the palace between the par- tisans of rival claimants to the Throne, and in the sequel (detailed in "The Mikado's Empire") the Taira under Kiyomori were victorious and the Minamoto were slain or banished. The soldier invaded the palace. Until his death in 1181, Kiyomori (1118- 1181) ruled the Throne and Empire, married his daughters to the Mikados whom he virtually ap- pointed, moved the capital to Fukuwara, and in- dulged in shameless nepotism. The Taira men held sixty lucrative offices at Court, and their rich domains were in thirty provinces. Kiyomori, with dying breath, asked that the head of Yoritomo, a young Minamoto partisan (1147- 1199), banished to the East and living at Kama- kura, be laid on his tomb. To condense into a sen- tence the substance of a vast mass of history, legend, art, literature, and the drama, this same Yoritomo, on hearing of Kiyomori's death, at once summoned the retainers of his ancestors to destroy the Kioto 200 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION bureaucracy. He sent his kinsman Yoshinaka, soon to be called the Morning-sun General, on account of his rapid victories, and he entered Kioto in triumph. His own beautiful concubine, Tomoye, followed her lord in battle, sheathed in armor and riding a swift horse. The long night of exile and defeat broke, and the day of the Minamoto dawned with unexpected splendor. Sudden authority, however, seemed to turn Yoshinaka's head, and Yoritomo deposed him. Yoshitsune, Yoritomo's brother, led the host which, in 1184, destroyed the fortified palace at Fukuwara, and pursued the foe southward. In the fourth month of 1185, in a great naval battle with 500 war- junks under the red and 700 under the white flag, the Taira were annihilated. Kiyomori's widow, taking the boy-Emperor Antoku, leaped into the sea. To-day an obelisk reared on a low rock, wave- lashed and cormorant-haunted, tells of death far from the Throne, and the victory of the white flag in an incarnadined sea. The peasants and fishermen still see ghostly armies rising out of the deep, while the crabs, with peculiar black dorsal markings, are looked upon as the wraiths of the Taira host. The human survivors are the "ten lost tribes" of the Japanese Israel, having been "found" in various secluded parts of Japan, as referred to in Adams's "History of Japan" (pp. 36, 37). Now begins the dual system of government and the formulation of the feudal system. At Kamakura ONE PEOPLE : TWO CAPITALS 201 Yoritomo gathered the official records, tax-rolls, and land-titles. He set up a Council of State and tribu- nals, which soon brought order in the empire and dis- pensed justice to all the people. His first problem was the limitation of armaments. He gave notice that "in all matters concerning the military class, the wishes of the cloistered Emperor should be obeyed," and petitioned the reigning Mikado to allow him to apportion rewards and to "prohibit the priests from wearing arms." He prayed the Em- peror that five men of his own family name might be made military governors in as many provinces. This petition was granted. The Yezo Daikwan had charge of all the Ainu and affairs in the far north. The functionary representing the shogun dwelt at Tsugaru and guarded against raids from Yezo island, which in later time was occupied at Matsumae by a garrison. The result of Yoritomo's programme was twofold. Japan had a strong administration, and great power was thrown into the hands of Yoritomo, who was thus enabled to cloak his own ambitions under the forms of law. The East land was kept in order under his own hand. He and his astute father-in-law Ho jo further elaborated a plan for. tranquillizing the whole empire. Under the idea that this was a measure provisionally taken with a view to the quick restora- tion of order after war, due confirmation was made at Kioto. But with Yoritomo the plan was meant to be a fixture. His idea was to establish in each 202 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION province, along with the civil governor, a " Protector, " and in each district a jito, or military assistant. The Protector was to receive as his salary one-fiftieth of the assessed yield of the land, to reside at the pro- visional capital, and have joint authority in all matters of administration. In the smaller districts not under the jurisdiction of the civilian government, the Jito, also a military man, had entire charge, and land was set apart for the support of his soldiers. Yoritomo also asked for authority to levy a new tax, not only in the Inner Country, but in the four western and southern circuits, for the maintenance of troops. He meekly requested that he should be allowed to reward his relatives the Minamoto, who had done meritorious service, by appointing them to be the military governors, and that they should be under his own immediate orders. This also was granted by Imperial decree. This was the pivotal event in the rise of the feudal system in Japan, for it ended the Theocratic or Im- perial period of Japanese history. To foreshorten a long perspective, we have only to say that in course of time these military governors became real province rulers, obtaining the whole authority and expelling the civilians. The military magistrates of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries became the progenitors of the great daimios, such as those of Satsuma, Choshiu, Echizen, Sendai, and others whose names appear so notably as factors all through the following cen- turies and until within the last decade. To-day their ONE PEOPLE : TWO CAPITALS 203 successors, who are for the most part their former retainers or servants, are high in the nobility of Japan of the Meiji era, whose government is yet, in the main, a military oligarchy. In 1192 Yoritomo was, by Imperial decree, ap- pointed Barbarian-Subduing-Great General, in which event and title the elements of previous events and titles were concentrated. The Ainu were not now in view, except those on the northern islands, for the Hondo Ainu for the most part had been absorbed in the nation. After enjoying the military power and virtual sovereignty of the empire during fifteen years, he died in 1198, at the age of fifty-three. Yoritomo's real intentions were cloaked by his outward conformity to law and tradition. When men of brains and affairs recognized in him the man of the hour, they left Kioto and came to him, bring- ing the records of the departments. As iron filings to a magnet, the weaker ones and those who longed for order were drawn to the mighty man at Kamakura. At his tomb, the visiting scholar of to-day finds food for thought and sees that power once given is hard to take away. What was considered a tem- porary expedient remained permanent during seven centuries, until, in our time, after war and usurpa- tion, the national problem has been solved by a union of the Throne and people, both representing government and nationality. It is only within the last few years that the Japanese have been a nation, in something like the full meaning of the term, and 204 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION a Japanese Empire, in the same sense that there is a British, a Russian, or a German Empire, has existed. This cloaking of personal ambition under the guise of law reveals also a fatal weakness discernible in all Japanese history. The philosopher and the theologian find the cause in a feeble sense of personality, charac- teristic of those nations whose mind runs to pan- theism. Whatever the philosophy may be, we note in their language, literature, and art, an effacement of the personal nature of the "Power, not ourselves, that works for righteousness," and the reduction of the idea of a conscious Being to that of a bundle of laws and forces. The forms and the reality of things are very different, making much of their so-called history worthless, and compelling us always to look under the figure-head for the wire-puller and under the surface phenomena for the true inwardness. Before the Moloch of institutions, names and ap- pearances, man as man, and truth for truth's sake, are sacrificed. Yoritomo was Japan's Jeroboam in more senses than one. He, too, "quickly realized that it was nec- essary for his position to establish a strong counter- attraction" to both Nara and Kioto. The man of war must be an ecclesiastic also. An image of Great Buddha must arise in Kamakura to the honor of the faith and as a magnet to draw pilgrims. After par- ticipating in the dedication of the restored temple of the Nara Dai Butsu, he solemnly resolved to rear a similar object of worship in his capital. A fall from ONE PEOPLE : TWO CAPITALS 205 his horse causing death postponed the project, but woman's devotion made reality of Yoritomo's hope. Itano, a lady of the shogunal court, began subscrip- tions and persevered until, in the autumn of 1252, the mighty image, one of the largest in the world, was cast. Fifty feet high, it now remains in rain and sunlight, a noble work of art. When first enshrined, and before the ocean floods swept away the roof and sixty-three lordly columns, it was set within a tem- ple nearly five hundred feet square. Other grand temples, monasteries, libraries, the triumphs of artists, and the presence of scholars made this city of military vice-royalty the wonder of Japan. It was a time of increasing religious fervor and of "the new-born enthusiasm of individual consciousness." Portrait statues came into vogue. The terrors of justice in the world to come were vividly depicted. In a word, there was reaction from both mere scho- lasticism and effeminacy. Less esoteric, Buddhism was henceforth to be the religion of the people; for life, though still dominated by the sword, was vastly more democratic in tone than when Kioto had no rival. "He who pleads the people's cause" might well be the meaning of the Japanese Jeroboam's name, for government was now in the hands of plain and practical men. Kamakura, which in its pinnacle of glory may have contained a million souls, focussed the new heroic life of Japan. Henceforth, until 1868, it is the Camp and not the Throne that is the real Government of Japan. The 206 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION period is variously called that of the dominion of the military classes, or the rule of the Bushi, or sworded samurai — in distinction from that of the Kuge or Court nobles, or Bakufu, Tent, or Curtain Govern- ment; for the general and "man on horseback," the ever armed man, now rules. Japan's greatest danger is even yet, in this twen- tieth century, from her military men, who, under the plea of "necessity," "danger," or "the glory of Japan beyond seas," may exalt the sword as the sacred emblem of the nation, when wise and constructive statesmanship and a deeper sense of the real needs of the people and the worth of life are what will make Japan truly great and unshakable forever. CHAPTER XV JAPAN REJECTS MONGOLISM BRIEF was the rule of the Taira, and almost as short was the dominion of the Minamoto — both of them based on the sword, which they took up and by which their line perished. When Yoritomo died, the proverb was fulfilled, "the great general has no son, " or more literally "no seed to the great man." His two boys were weak characters, vicious and self- willed, or given to luxury, verse-making, dog-fight- ing, and foot-ball, so that the real administrator of affairs was Yoritomo's father-in-law. Yoritomo had married Masago, the daughter of Ho jo Tokimasa. The family was descended from Taira Sadamori who slew the traitor Masakado, and took its name from Hojo, a town in Idzu. In 1219 the Minamoto line came to an end through violence ; that is, assassination. Yoritomo's widow during her long lifetime was a real power in government. Though she had shorn off her hair after taking the vows of Buddhist sisterhood, she was called the "nun shogun," because of her influence. During seven generations (1200-1333), the power wielded at Kamakura by the Hojo regents was 207 208 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION virtually coextensive with the boundaries of the empire. These Shikken, or power-holders, took neither the title, nor pretended to hold the office, of shogun, there being no necessity that they should. The age-old vice of having a dummy Emperor on the throne in Kioto, while crafty and able men moved the wires, had spread like an infectious disease to Kamakura. Content with the reality of power, the Ho jo men, in theory vassals of vassals, dictated to the Throne. They sent regularly to Kioto for babies, boys, and puppets who were called Shoguns, but when any of these attempted to govern, they were deposed and sent home. One received his return ticket and transportation in a palanquin, with his heels tied together and head downward. Such things were possible because Japan had no external rivals or enemies to force unity in gov- ernment. The Mikado as the nation's Unifier had become a shadow. The Ho jo soon drifted into tyranny. They de- posed Mikados and banished them to suit their pleasure. They confiscated the estates of those who opposed them, in one case three thousand fiefs at a time. They scattered the members of the Imperial family, and divided the property acquired by seizure among their own retainers, thus increasing the resources and dignities of this regent family, though their chief took none for himself. It is unquestionable that some of the Ho jo men were among the ablest of Japan's statesmen, and that JAPAN REJECTS MONGOLISM 209 the period of their rule was the first one of really national prosperity. In the spirit of a true law- giver, Yasutoki, the third of the line, gave up the first fifteen days of every month to judicature. He hung a bell in front of the Record Office, which, when struck by a suppliant, brought immediate atten- tion to the petition of complaint. After some years' experience of this work, and familiar with the legis- lative needs of his time, Yasutoki drew up the famous code for samurai, at which we shall glance again. It begins with religious and ends with legal procedure. Yasutoki governed wisely, and eschewed land and titles. Another, Tokimune, was active in repulsing on land and sea the great Mongol Armada of Kublai Khan. Japanese history is, in the main, a story of the rise and fall of families that come into notice through the talents of great leaders, and then pass into obscurity because of the weakness of the later successors. Art, fiction, and the drama, even religion, follow in reflecting history, thus aiding to secure the astonish- ing unity and perfect nationality of the Japanese. We shall now glance at that train of events which in historic perspective are seen to be the first great external forces awakening national spirit and com- pelling unity — the Mongol invasions. The words, Mongol and Mongolian, which are now so loosely and inaccurately used concerning the Japanese, were not known to the languages of Europe until the great irruption of the hordes from Mongolia, in the thir- 210 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION teenth century, changed the face of the world, among other effects giving to the Slavic race its rich infusion of Mongolian blood. The Mongols broke the unity of Asia which Bud- dhism had created. The great outburst swept over China and India, severing the Hindu from the Chinese. Henceforth, an abyss of separation and estrangement, where had been a common faith and an interchange of thought with mutual benefit, yawned between the two seats of culture. In India the Mongols, called Moguls, adopted the Semitic faith of Islam, carrying it with all the ardor of new converts to persecution and fanaticism. Buddhism, driven from the land of its birth, took refuge in Ceylon. The culture of Tang, crushed out in China, found beyond seas a haven in Japan. The face of Asia was changed. Buddhism had brought Japan into harmony with the great centres of civilization and with Aryan ideals and Chinese order; for the religion of Shaka Muni was born in an Aryan heart. After seven hundred years of peaceful and beneficent relations with the Middle Kingdom, the links of blessing were broken and the ancient friendships forgotten between the island nation and her great teacher. Militant Mongolian- ism cut off the archipelago from the Treasure Land of the West. Even the memories of ancient benefits lapsed. It was after the insult of attempted invasion by the Mongols, who ruled China and made Korea their base of operations against the Sun Land, that the long dark story of Japanese sea-rovers, reprisal, JAPAN REJECTS MONGOLISM 211 piracy, and the desolation of the Chinese coasts, from Tartary to Formosa, begins. The very name of Wo-jin (Japanese) became a terror both in the nursery and the temple litanies, to be revived in Imperial proclamations from Peking in 1894. In the shore lands of eastern Asia the petitions put up for protection against the vengeful and ferocious islanders were like those in contemporary Europe — "From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord, deliver us." It was an echo of Dai Nippon's unfavorable mediaeval reputation, when, as with the howl of a tigress, the Chinese Empress called on her braves "to root the Wo-jin out of their lairs." Before his death, in 1217, Genghis Khan had unified the tribes of the desert. Then the horde, leaving grass land, divided into three parts. Horse and man being almost as one animal, these mediaeval centaurs clattered into Afghanistan, Russia, and China. From 1237 till near the end of the fifteenth century clouds of horsemen from mysterious Asia occupied Russia, holding the people in vassalage. The blood of the Mongol was mingled with that of the Slav. In China, the Mongol or Yuan dynasty lasted from 1280, when the grandson of Genghis, Kublai Khan, was actually seated on the throne, down to 1341. Then the Vene- tian Polos, Marco and two uncles, were among his servants and advisers. Italian ideas bloomed in China. European war-engines helped to victory on deck and in camp. Having overrun Korea, the Mongol Emperor in 212 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION 1268 sent letters to Kamakura, demanding tribute and homage. Hojo Tokimune was the actual ruler of the country, but neither he nor his counsellors had any idea of making Mongolians of the Japanese. He rejected the demands of the envoys and dismissed them in disgrace. Three more embassies crossed the sea, but in each case the answer was the same. The next orders from Peking arrived in 1274, in the form of a fleet o'f one hundred and fifty vessels of war. These were equipped with Italian cannon and engines of war. Significantly, perhaps, Japan's modern field artillery is on the models brought from the same country, their first instructors in the Meiji era being Italians. The Mongols ravaged the island of Tsushima and then attempted to land on the coast, but the natives made such a vigorous resistance, in spite of the fire- arms of the foreigners, that the invaders were kept at bay and their general killed. Nevertheless, "the horse-flesh eaters" might have succeeded, had it not been for a mighty tempest which arose and destroyed almost their entire fleet. In 1276 Kublai renewed his offensive propositions, but this time the sword was the only answer, and the envoy's head was cut off. Again, in 1279, when two more messengers arrived, they likewise were decapitated by Hojo's orders. Tokimune now gave notice that all tfce western provinces should prepare for a mighty invasion. In June, 1281, the great Armada, containing in all JAPAN REJECTS MONGOLISM 213 100,000 Mongols and 100,000 Koreans, appeared off the island at Iki, whose inhabitants were slaughtered. The Mongols, who were more at home on horseback than on deck, then proceeded to the mainland, there to meet with a stubborn resistance. Disembarking at Hizen, a week of battles ensued, their artillery causing great losses among the Japanese. But again the breath of God, the "divine wind," came to the aid of the Japanese. The mighty Armada was dispersed and thousands of soldiers were drowned. Others, in the shattered ships, found themselves sur- rounded by small boats manned by brave patriots. With enormously long poles, hooked at the ends with iron, the Japanese dragged off the Mongols into the sea. Or they boarded the ships to engage in hand-to- hand sword fights in which the keen blades of the islanders proved their edge and temper. When wielded by desperate and skilful hands, the sword seemed to be a part of the warrior himself. The sur- vivors, seeking refuge on islands, were pursued, captured, and beheaded. It is said that but three survivors reached China with news of the disaster. It was this same "breath of God," the "divine wind," for which the Japanese prayed when Perry's squadron in 1853 made apparition, but the times had changed and the spirit of the aliens was not the same. The same petitions arose to Heaven in 1905. After the victory, according to the proverb, wise Tokimune knotted the cords of his helmet, and con- tinued to fortify the ports. Never before did national 214 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION feeling, as distinct from local pride or loyalty, rise so high. Thousands to whom such a conception had hardly come were thrilled with new hopes and fears and put up prayer for the whole nation. It was a time of deep religious feeling. Throughout succeed- ing centuries the devout patriots saw in this repulse of the Mongols one of the interpositions of Divine Providence in behalf of Japan. On the other hand, Kublai Khan began preparations for a new expedition, which, however, never set sail. Having definitely rejected Mongolianism, Japan keeps on the pages of her history the record of a single invasion of her soil, and that repelled. This was the first "battle of the Sea of Japan." Significantly enough in the same waters, the semi-Mongol Russians, in the armada under the gallant Rojesventsky, in 1905, were checked by Admiral Togo. Thus the straits of Tsushima witnessed two grand naval victories in defence of Dai Nippon. Tokimune did not long survive the national tri- umph, which was due in great part to his energy, but died at the age of thirty-four. Nevertheless his posthumous honors are great. Unforgotten as the first great asserter of Japan's sovereignty against a foreign invader, he was, in 1905, by an Imperial decree, exalted to the second degree of the first rank of nobility in Japan's peerage. At the great festival held at Kamakura, April 4, 1905, the leading Gen- erals, victors at Mukden, and again in 1906, the Admirals, fresh from the battle of the Sea of Japan, JAPAN REJECTS MONGOLISM 215 were present to do honor to one whose memory had inspired them to so vigorous a defence of the Father- land. This event — the rejection by the Japanese of what seemed a proposal to revert from civilization to barbarism — may be reckoned as the greatest in the development of national consciousness, until the advent of Perry's expedition. The value of the ex- perience in rejecting Mongolism cannot be over- estimated. Before this time, no outward occurrence had so made the various tribes and clans realize that they were a nation. Foreign menace and pressure were as hammers beating parts into a whole. Other results, besides a sense of danger, unity of effort, and closer nationalization resulted. In the rebound of national feeling, there was a revival of sensitiveness to the Unseen which manifested itself in a determination to keep intact the religious culture borrowed from China and India. The Mongols in China tried to crush out Buddhism. In India they persecuted Hinduism. Okakura, in his "Ideals of the East," points out that both of these great coun- tries received a mental shock and underwent a pro- found anguish of spirit from which their peoples have never wholly recovered. Scholarship survived only among those who were willing to submit to barbaric patronage. Original intellectual vigor declined to the vanishing point. Art became ultra-conven- tional or was bizarre and grotesque. Attempts made in India and China to overthrow the foreign yoke 216 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION had failed, because the national consciousness, weak- ened under alien tyranny, made renationalization almost impossible. Alas for India and China ! In Japan, on the contrary, success over the invader created a new spirit of nationalism determined on keeping the old culture. Thus it came to pass that much of what was lost in China was kept and is recoverable, even to the alien scholar, in Japan to this day. As usual, after a time of large borrowing, enriching the mental soil, rose a harvest of original thought. The chief manifestation of the new national energy was evident less in political than in religious develop- ment. Resilience from the victory meant tremendous missionary development of Japanese Buddhism and astonishing phenomena of doctrinal evolutions. It is in the post-Mongol age that we note the founding of new native sects, based not on the old Hindu or mediaeval Chinese thought, but on activities of the native mind and built up through the propagating zeal of the Japanese themselves. Perhaps by this time Japan had made full assimilation of what India could teach. After Honen (1133-1212), who founded the sect of the Pure Word (Jodo), we have Shinran (1173-1262) and Niehiren (1222-1282), who brought religion down to the common people. In this genera- tion, art and dogma, eloquence and beauty, were carried all over the empire. New literary, educa- tional, and architectural influences in the large towns and villages, and even in country places, JAPAN REJECTS MONGOLISM 217 created a new landscape. In "The Religions of Japan" we have treated of the missionary and doctrinal phases of the Ho jo era, showing also their influence on popular art. The Nichirenites form to-day what we may call the Salvation Army of Japanese Buddhism. Rankly luxuriant is the growth of legend around the figure of Nichiren, to which in the nineteenth century the pencils of Hokusai (1760- 1849) and Kuniyoshi (1800-1861) have done justice. There are some who, looking at original Buddhism, as read from the primitive documents of Pali and Sanskrit, may call this Japanese Buddhism a chapter of decay in the history of the faith, while others recog- nize a return to purer Aryan Buddhism, and consider that the Ho jo epoch was creative and strong in origi- nal thought. It may be that fictitious miracle and hot fanaticism often mark the popular phases of the ex- panding Buddhism of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but it is certain that this was its Golden Age in Japan. We have treated this whole subject more fully in "The Mikado's Empire "; while in Dr. Knox's "The Development of Religion in Japan," and in the papers of the Asiatic Society of Japan, one may see how the heart and intellect of the Japanese responded to the new interpretations of Shaka's doctrine. The Buddhism of Ho jo times welded the Nippon peoples into a nation. Never before were the Ainu- Japanese in northern Hondo so Buddhaized. The strong point in the teaching both of Shinran and Nichiren was to show how lowly humanity and ever; 218 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Eta and Ainu, who in practical religion were beyond the ken of the earlier sects and dogmas, could reach Buddhahood. Shinran declared that it was possible for females to attain Nirvana without being reborn as men. In Christian language he taught that women had souls. Both teachers laid stress on the power and willingness of the boundlessly compassion- ate Amida to save and uplift even those who had been considered beyond the pale. Down to the very low- est strata of society reached their message of cheer. The hearts of men on the distant frontier, who for the first time heard the clear invitation, thrilled with hope. The struggles of "Gen and Hei," or Minamoto and Taira, passed into memory to emerge only a solace in art and in music as the praise of manly life. It was at this time, especially, that the Satsuma biwa entered upon a new era of use and phase of power. This instrument is smaller and more delicate than the Chinese lute, from which it is derived, though constructed on the same principle. It is especially used to accompany heroic recitations and ancient songs of love and war, the chief being the famous Heike Monogatari. This classic prose-poem tells of the long feud and great battles between the Reds and the Whites, ending in the annihilation near Shimonoseki of the Butterfly clan and the drowning of the infant Emperor Antoku. In playing it, a very peculiar birdlike trill is imparted to the notes by the vibration of the strings on the broad surface of the fret. " Short phrases of the poem, corresponding POPULAR BUDDHISM IN JAPAN'S APPEALING LANDSCAPE JAPAN REJECTS MONGOLISM 219 almost exactly with operatic recitative, are chanted, and after each of them comes descriptive music increasing in vigor as the battle rages, and sinking into melancholy cadences with the retreat of the vanquished. . . . The dexterity with which these descriptive passages are executed astonishes, and their simple appropriativeness gives the whole composition a charm which not all ancient music, even in the West, can be said to possess. Apart from these descriptive passages, the music is rugged and devoid of melody. The repertoire consists of over one hundred pieces, of which thirty are considered classical." Of this Mr. Piggott has ably written. In this age, though the epic poem proper was (and is yet) unknown in Japan, the whole tone of life showed a manly reaction against the effeminacy of the Fujiwara era. A method of suicide, primarily intended as self-martyrdom in the literal sense, came into vogue, among the samurai, in the twelfth century. In all ancient conceptions, the bowels were the seat of the soul. Hara-kiri, or more ele- gantly in Chinese pronunciation seppuku, meant the opening of one's inner nature to view by a volun- tary and self-inflicted thrust of one's own dirk. It meant proof of sincerity, and it grew to be a sacra- ment and often a vicarious sacrifice. Soon the idea took form that the samurai should not only be ever ready to give proof with his life, but carry always on his person the attest in steel. Thus in the four- teenth century began the custom of wearing two 220 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION swords — the longer one for enemies in battle, the second for self when in recreancy or disaster, or in proof of sincerity, one's inner nature must be revealed. Thus a man bore witness to the truth. In course of time such a method of " shuffling off this mortal coil" became a class privilege, gladly availed of in case of judicial condemnation by the samurai, while the common criminal stretched his neck under the executioner's sword on the public execution ground. When Bushido lost its first glow and was vilely abused by assassins and Ronin samurai, who cut down from behind the unwary foreigners, who, under the treaties, were the guests of the nation, their game was quickly spoiled. By having them decapitated publicly in the place where the vulgar criminals suffered the penalty of their crimes, it was no longer apotheosis to be a murderer. The "institution" of seppuku has caused a river of blood to flow through Japanese history, but its ethical weakness has not escaped the criticism of native writers. One of the first to protest against the moral poltroonery of suicide was the late Fuku- zawa (1835-1901), who so nobly by pen and life was active in shaping and disseminating the new ideals of Japan's civilization. In the modern codes of law, seppuku is not recognized, and instead, even, of public decapitation or hanging, the wilful murderer or cowardly assassin is condemned to hard labor for life, thus robbing him of posthumous fame. In a word, the poetry is taken out of assassination. CHAPTER XVI JAPAN AS A DARK AND BLOODY GROUND BY the thirteenth century the whole of Japan was in the hands of the military class. The more efficient the Kamakura administration, the worse for the nominal government at Kioto, where were the titles, honors, and dignities, together with fine clothes and luxury, poetry and art, priests and pretty women. On the whole, the country was well governed, and it was a time of great prosperity. It led all previous eras in the welding of the nation into unity. It is more than probable that the turbulent feudatories were better kept in hand for the benefit of peace and of the people at large than in contemporary countries of Europe. Native scholars declare that in econom- ics, handicraft, the fine arts, and popular culture, the Ho jo era was one of development. The propagation of Buddhism vastly improved the status of the serfs on the soil and the common people in the towns. From 1221 to 1318 there were eleven emperors, of whom five were under eight years of age, two were eleven, and none was over twenty-four. Of the pup- pet shoguns at Kamakura, from 1220 to 1333, two were of Fujiwara stock, and four were emperors' sons. 221 222 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION In 1319 the Emperor Go-Daigo came to the throne. A man of ability, he smarted at the indignities put on him by the Hojo men, who were in theory servant of servants. Determined to assert the power of the Throne, he summoned his faithful followers Kusunoki, Ashikaga, and Nitta to fight for him. In 1333 Nitta Yoshida (1301-1338), a captain of Minamoto descent, marched with 20,000 men on Kamakura. On the cliff he stood and cast his sword into the waves, with a prayer to the gods to make the waters recede and afford him passage over the dry strand. This came to pass. He attacked and burned the city. Thou- sands of Hojo partisans committed hara-kiri, and the Hojo leaders were driven into obscurity. As with the Taira and the crabs, so the "Hojo bugs," which farmers annually exterminate by fire, keep alive the name and memory of sinners against the Imperial will, the Hojo men, who stained their characters with needless tyranny. In the sixteenth century we shall meet with the second Hojo clan at Odawara. The two years following the fall of Kamakura saw the ostensible rule of the Emperor restored. In "The Mikado's Empire," over thirty years ago, we wrote of this period from 1334 to 1336 as the " Tem- porary Mikadoate." Yet no such thing as a restora- tion of the Chinese system of boards and ministries, introduced in A.D. 645, was possible, any more than a return to the theocracy, or primitive Mikadoism. What had been provinces, properly administered by civil governors from the capital, were no longer real JAPAN AS A DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 223 units of organization, but rather collections of fiefs or conceptions in geography. Withal, the country had been too peaceful and prosperous during seven score years to set aside a system so practically valu- able. Yet the immediate and pressing question was the reward of the Mikado's partisans. One received two, another two, and the third three provinces. This would have made them almost viceroys, had these been the real land provisions of old. In fact, the allotted territories were but little more than great stretches of feudal mosaic, upon which military follow- ers were to be settled as landholders. As might be supposed, the award of spoils made by a Mikado who lived behind screens, seeing only dancing girls and Court favorites, proved unsatisfactory to the warriors. Not one of them could gain access to his presence, for only Fujiwara nobles of the Court had the right of looking upon the Dragon Countenance. In anger, the soldiers said, " Better be vassals with a shogun, than puppets of those who amuse the Emperor." Ashikaga Takauji, making himself the leader of discontent, acted quickly with torch and sword. Accusing the Imperial Prince Moriata, then at Kama- kura, of ambitions for the Throne, he had him assassi- nated. He then put himself in the dead man's place. When forces were sent against him from Kioto, Ashi- kaga defeated them, marched on the capital, occupied it, and drove out the Emperor, who fled intoYamato fastnesses. Unable to capture His Majesty, Ashi- 224 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION kaga set a dummy Mikado on the throne and from him received investiture as the Great Shogun. Now begins the most troubled period in Japanese history. In novels and the drama and during the long reign of the censors in Yedo, this period is the Potter's Field of chronology. There began what we called long ago the "War of the Chrysanthemums." Every thrust of wit, sarcasm, malevolence at con- temporary rulers or institutions, even hoary abomi- nations and the immoralities of yesterday, were dated "in the wicked times of the Ashikaga." For fifty-six years (from 1336 to 1392) and near the time of the great schism in Europe and the "Babylonian Captivity" of the popes at Avignon (1309 to 1376), there were two rival emperors in the northern and southern lines; the one in Kioto, the other in Yamato. Horrible intestine broils and destructive civil wars marked this period. Japan lay in a welter of anarchy until the advent of the third shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, ablest of all the four- teen shoguns of this line. First giving order to Kiushiu and Western Japan, he composed the differ- ences between the rival dynasties. He persuaded the Southern Emperor to come to Kioto and sur- render both throne and regalia (mirror, ball, and sword) under an arrangement, not unknown to previous history, that the branches of the Imperial line should alternately occupy the throne. It was this Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1368-1393) who made a new code of feudalism, and this gave the system a tremendous development. He helped to fix the codes in perpetuity, seemingly making it impossible for any return to the theocratic system. At the literature of Japanese feudalism let us now glance. In 1905 a volume of less than a thousand pages entitled "Nihon-Kodai Hoten," or the Ancient Statute Laws of Japan, was published in Tokio. Two- fifths of its bulk holds all the legislation of the pre- shogunal times, or the Imperial period, from 654 to A.D. 1192, while the laws of the feudal era fill three- fifths. The initial book of Japanese feudalism, a code of fifty-one articles promulgated at Kamakura, A.D. 1222, is the taproot of the whole subsequent growth of Japanese law. Around this nucleus many supplementary enactments grew in the next century. When the Ashikaga inaugurated their dominion, the founder, in 1335, followed illustrious example in issuing a short code, which adopted the main results of the Ho jo regime. This in time was developed in later centuries by various enactments into a body of law greatly exceeding in bulk the Ashikaga original. One of its noticeable features is that whereas the farmer under the theocratic period had to give up seven-tenths of the annual produce of his land in payment of taxes, Imperial and provincial, the Hojo reduced the rate to one-half. By this economic provision the peasantry were quieted and made happy, but not so the samurai or swordsmen, who had as yet no law but the will of 226 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION their feudal superiors. Hence the practical study of the whole problem by Ho jo Yasutoki. His code deals with the adjustments of the new government de facto, with the old government de jure, the grants, confirmations, successions, and distributions of the fiefs, and the crimes and offences which the newly evolved warrior caste were most prone to commit. Notable is the high position accorded to woman, for under the Hojo, females could hold fiefs, yes, even the wife separately from her husband. This made a very different situation from that fixed by the later Tokugawa, which, under the spell of Chinese ethical ideas, distinctly lowered the status of woman. Noth- ing in the code is said about the common people, then in all the Kuanto being largely of Ainu descent or with admixture of blood, as being under the disposal of their feudal lords. In fact, the masses were vir- tually serfs. The people of Japan had no practical recognition in politics until the Meiji period. When Ranald MacDonald of Oregon was, in 1847, asked by the Nagasaki magistrates to explain the grade of Commander Glynn of the U.S. brig Preble, and told to begin at the summit of authority in America, he answered "the People"; but his reply was mystery unfathomable. The radical measure, in the development of feudal- ism, inaugurated by Ashikaga, when he restored the military magistracies, was in making the governor- ships hereditary in the families of his own nominees. This meant that the men whom he appointed should JAPAN AS A DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 227 be the founders of powerful families, whose names have survived the abolition of feudalism even to this day. After the great Yoshimitsu, third of his line, the Ashikaga shoguns, keeping the first syllable of their famous predecessor's name, called themselves Yoshi, Aki, Hisa, Katsu, et cetera. Following the same precedent, eleven of the Tokugawa shoguns in Yedo took the lye in their names from lyeyasu, founder of the line. The idea, for luck's sake, is the same as that followed by steamship companies that must have dam, land, or m as final syllables in the names of their craft. The Ashikaga were lovers of luxury and patrons of art, but degraded the Emperor to lower depths. "The chrysanthemum cowered under the blast." The palace itself was sinking into ruins within sight of the golden pavilion of the shoguns. Yet the heads of their own house, whom they set up as regents, were, for the most part, puppets, or mere figure- heads. There being no central strength or visible exertion of power, it became the general fashion to seize land as a pastime. Bold warriors and clan chiefs sprang up all over the country as robber barons and land-thieves. The Ashikaga themselves governed only part of the country, and civil war never ceased. Two famous families, Hosokawa and the Uyesugi, ruled many provinces, but in the period 1467-1468, these two rivals became enemies. After that, the power of both the luxury-loving Ashikaga and the shoguns dominated by them was as weak as that of 228 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION the do-nothing Emperor in Kioto. The Ashikaga rulers had been hoist by their own petard. By giving their nominees hereditary power, they para- lyzed their own hands and destroyed the unity of their household. After a few years, they could control neither relatives nor the kinsmen of their retainers. The strongest organization in the empire during this period was the Buddhist priesthood. Never- theless, on account of the great diversity of sects, Buddhism could never wield the centralized power that the Church did in Europe. From its first en- trance into Japan to the time of Yoritomo, Buddhism gave the creed and ritual of the Court and upper classes, but in the thirteenth century, owing to the great missionary efforts of Honen, Shinran, and Nichiren, the religion of Shaka became the common people's own. Hence its wider area -and dominance. Buddhism is protestantism, and therefore lacks a head. The dominant sect in Japan, the Monto or Shinshiu, was the most radical of protesters, preach- ing justification by faith and the equality of the souls of women with men, and allowing marriage and meat eating. The temples being tax free, their property increased, as the temporal possessions of the Church did in Europe, through a combination of craft and dogma, conscience and economics. In the second half of the eleventh century it was with arms in their hands that the priests laid their protests and petitions to the Government and even the Emperor. JAPAN AS A DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 229 They were accustomed to decide their own differences by the gauge of battle and had large bodies of men in their pay, while the wealth of the monastery kept on increasing. "Even the tortures of hell are graded according to the money paid," is a Japanese proverb. By the energy of its apostles, the splendor of its art, and above all its crafty deglutition of Shinto, this Aryan faith, duly adapted to the Japanese (as the Occidentalized Christianity of our times is sure to be), made conquest of the whole nation. Under the Ho jo, the priests had been kept down, and for the most part disarmed, but after the fall of Kamakura the monks again became militant and in a very literal sense. During the turmoil of the next two centuries, when might made right, the monastery was usually a castle garrisoned by eccle- siastics and their mercenaries. The land held under holy pretexts was divided into fiefs, rent being paid by military service. The most imposing of these feudal fortresses outside of Echizen, where they were numerous, was on Hiyei mountain, near Kioto. Three thousand monasteries dominated the city, and the priestly garrison acted as director of palace intrigues and the arbiter of strife in the capital. The Imperial City was burned again and again. At one time the dead body of the Mikado lay unburied until money could be begged to pay funeral expenses. Those who tell us blandly that "while Europe was rent with religious strife, Japan was* the Land of* Great Peace," forget, or do not know, how often the 230 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Buddhists of one sect burnt the temples of the others, and filled the streets of the capital with blood and corpses. A large part of Echizen and the whole of Kaga were under a double feudalization, like parts of mediaeval Europe, for they had for their lords their local baron and also abbots of the Shin sect, which is still the most protestant, the richest, and the most powerful in Japan. In the East land, the forty-five monasteries in this sect militant stood on most of the crowded lines of traffic or places of strategic and commercial importance. In Osaka, from 1536, they had a stronghold unmatched any- where in Japan. Contempt for the idea that Nobunaga could take this fortress with sixty thousand men was a joking proverb. In the sixteenth century, with its rather too easy and very quickly abused doctrine of justification by faith in Amida, with aristocratic and Court stock at its head, its priests being Fuji- wara nobles, and with its vast wealth and popularity for a base, the Shin sect was the most powerful organi- zation in the empire. Yet a new element at this time, even as in A.D. 645, entered from the outside to weaken ecclesiasticism and to modify feudalism. This was the coming of Europeans from Portugal with firearms and Chris- tianity. These at once disturbed the balance of power. Instead of the old question, "who shall save the empire from anarchy and perhaps dissolu- tion?" a new' one was asked, "which side, castle or monastery, could utilize the new forces?" JAPAN AS A DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 231 The Ashikaga, who by bad or weak government contrived to make themselves the best hated line of rulers in Japanese history, play an entirely different role in the world outside of politics. Perhaps on the principle that prompted a German prince to sell the services of a regiment of his soldiers for Chinese porcelain vases, so the Ashikaga have won undying scorn by accepting from the Emperor of China the title 0, meaning King, but the shoguns, debauched by their love of art, forgot loyalty and patriotism. They enjoy a unique fame in the realm of art, litera- ture, refinement, and etiquette. Sprung from the Seiwa branch of the Minamoto, they took their name from the castle town in the southwestern corner of Shimotsuke on the Tone River, amid the superb scenery of the Eastern Mountain Circuit. Their ancestral home, now reached by railway, has a population of 22,000. In early days it was an Ainu stronghold, but here, in 1150, the lord of Mutsu, grandson of Yoshiiye, installed himself. He became one of the partisans of Kiyomori. Legend places a famous school here as early as A.D. 801-852, and again tells, with more surety, of a generous patron, an Ashikaga, in the period 1147-1196. Thenceforth it enjoyed wealth, patronage, and fame. Besides its revenue and scholars, those bonzes known to be most learned in Confucianism and Chinese literature were set at its head, so that this school during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the most renowned in Japan. It will be thus seen that on entering upon the 232 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION shogunate, we have in the Ashikaga not rude soldiers, but highly cultivated gentlemen, whose tendency when in power would naturally be to over-refinement. As in previous epochs, Japan at the end of the electric circuit in the Ashikaga age, was powerfully influenced by what had taken place or was in aerial movement in India and China. Without these two hoary seats of human progress, Dai Nippon would not have had the history and development which we know. As among the Mediterranean nations, art passed through the three phases, represented by Egypt, Greece, and Renaissance Europe, that is, the Formal, the Classic, and the Romantic, so ran the course of the spirit in India, China, and Japan. Symbols first, with impressive mass of material; then spirit and matter in harmony; and finally the outburst of individualism. In Japan, this threefold development manifested itself locally, first at Asuka and Nara ; second in Kioto ; and third at Kamakura ; though in the eastern capital, there was but a begin- ning by Yoritomo, to be continued in the Mikado's City by the Ashikaga from the first quarter of the fourteenth to the middle of the sixteenth century. The refined art of the Ashikaga period is distinctly different from the calm of Asuka, or the religious emotionalism of the Fujiwara epoch. Manliness was the note of the Kamakura period. Hence the era of the epic, in poetry, music, sculpture, and painting. The long discipline of the spirit through contemplation, taught in the sect of Zen (from JAPAN AS A DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 233 Dhyana, contemplation) was favored of the samurai. This, resulting in self-control, bore fruit in the fields of art. It was the particular school of Southern Zen, imported from the southern or individualistic half of China, that became in Japan a personal discipline for the swordsmen, but unknown to the common people and esoteric to the vulgar. Zenism means secret doctrine, not subject to any utterance. It therefore ignores outward images and symbols, whether in the form of words or of idols. It means thought transmitted by thought. Zenism is a sort of Quakerism, painful to the lover of gaud and glitter. It is distasteful to all who lean on external aids or who require the clamps of outward authority. The soul itself was made the Buddha, and its true en- lightenment through self-mastery was Buddhahood. The superior man became one with nature, and the clear spirit lived in harmony with the Absolute. In the conception of the typical Zen warrior, for example, the sword became part of his soul ; man and weapon were not will and instrument, but one, and death and life were the same if in the line of duty. Hence the emphasis set on victories over self as far more noble than prayer or penance. Six hundred years of Zenism have made the Japanese hero what he is, in peace and war, and the true samurai so admirable an exemplar of humanity in harmony with itself. Hence the utter simplicity, with splendor, of the Ashikaga art. The Fujiwara were luxurious; their successors were refined. Not display, but suggestion, 234 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION was the ideal sought. Ashikaga art is the most purely intellectual of all the phases of the Japanese world of beauty. Costly simplicity was the canon within the home. Precious things from afar were arranged with consummate taste under thatched roofs. A Muramasa blade was sheathed in plain white wood. One flower, perfect of its kind, was set in a vase. That was the Ashikaga idea, antipodal, for example, to the vulgar display of the rich American or gaud- loving Briton. Many a time in Japan have I seen in the house of taste and wealth a carving, vase, bronze, blossom, wall-painting, solitary and alone, its in- visible sceptre dominating my spirit. Not until begged for by the guest, was the fireproof storehouse drawn upon for surprising stores of silk-enwrapped treasures. Art in Japan had profited by centuries of art criti- cism in China. Intellect prevailed over passion. Color gave way to form in black and white. Ink and line, in place of gold and vermilion in mass, prove that the canons of pure design were known in Japan as in China. The wonderful strokes of Sesshiu and Kano show that native art, stripped of its foreign attributes, can be great, even to the compelling of the soul's rapture. Under the fertilizing patronage of the Ashikaga shoguns, we have a galaxy of painters and wonders of production unmatched in any era of Japan. It seems amazing that such artistic richness should be possible in the midst of constant war. When, JAPAN AS A DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 235 however, we realize that this was the era of the fortified monastery and of the endowed temple, and that most of the artists were either Zen monks and priests or untonsured men who for the sake of artistic indulgence lived simple lives like the brethren of the vow, the wonder ceases. Indeed, it would seem as if the artist's life was a purposed protest against the ambitions, treacheries, and bloodshed of the men in armor and the fighters on horseback. This was the golden age also of the No, or opera. Buddhism had so saturated the national mind, that any new development of music or literature must be Buddhistic in thought and coloring. During the Ho jo period, epic songs, in which the glories of battle were celebrated with voice and instrument, had come in fashion. The recitative miracle plays and Inferno pictures in the old Kioto style, half mummer, half music, were now united in the No. Dance, music, recitative, stage, and scenery were combined with what may be termed a masked chorus, and cast in the form of a historical episode. The No performance might last for hours, the strain being relieved by amusing interludes, as I have seen, in daimios' yashikis and in the old Confucian College hall, in Tokio. Then the Mikado's bandsmen and the hereditary monopolists of the art, in resplendent costumes, represented historical and national episodes of conflict and victory, of agony and joy. At first a weariness to the flesh and confusion to alien eye and ear, the No in repetition blossomed in my conscious- 236 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION ness with the beauty and suggestiveness of the pre- glacial flowers in our shady glens. The perfume of a thousand associations in history, romance, mythol- ogy, seemed wafted down the centuries. As wonder- ful as the pose, graceful motion, or significant and revealing costume, were the imitations by sound or gesture. The "peep peep" of a tree frog suggested night and bedtime. The dipping up with her buckets of seawater by the salt-making maiden on the strand, the boom of the temple bell, — with note changing its meaning in yeuth, midlife, and old age, — the clang of war, the craft of the hunter, the falling of water, the roar of the storms or the wind's whisper to the forest foliage were pictured to the mind's eye, each sound of voice or instrument or swish of garments telling its tale to the imagination. Unsuspected effects were revealed in the pauses. More powerful seemed at times the silences than the sounds. In her art, painting, carving, poetry, dancing, and the drama, Japan excels the Occident in suggestiveness, as the play of forces in the inward soul are more than things seen or heard. Ever is spirit more than sense. A thoroughly logical issue of the No performances — not of their background of dogma and notion, but of their suggestion — were the silent concerts. A lover of brass bands could hardly approve of these. To one able to enjoy the contemplation of a Philadelphia Quaker meeting, or the silence of a mighty cathedral, or who thought of Beethoven, the deaf creator of mighty oratorios and perfect music, this soundless JAPAN AS A DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 237 harmony seemed not so strange. Nevertheless, the No were not for the vulgar, for whom in Tokugarva times grew up the theatre, where, much in realism and little in suggestion, the procedure and passions of daily life were realistically set forth in the capital, to the delight of thousands, and in the provinces to the joy of millions. Then the sentimentalities of the Fujiwara, the esoterics of the heroic Kamakura, and the incredible refinements of the Ashikaga periods were made public property, suited to the vulgar com- prehension. Art became national, and the love of beauty and the expression of it penetrated all classes. CHAPTER XVH THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY IN Japan, the Land of Paradoxes, genealogy and family pride lie at the very basis of society. National and clan ancestors are worshipped and deified, and law, government, and social custom proceed from the notion that of all descended from heaven or living on earth, the tie is one of blood. This is the dogma of ancestor worship. Nevertheless, this is wholly a fiction, for neither the vinculum nor the thread of Japanese history is found in consanguinity, but adoption. Even in the family to-day, a half-dozen persons, in no way related to each other by blood relationship, may call them- selves and are made parents and children, brothers and sisters, by the mere conventionalism of law. The Japanese language, besides lacking pronouns, does not possess a simple word for brother or sister, but has only expressions borrowed from China ex- pressing superiority and subordination; that is, elder brother, younger brother, senior sister, junior sister, in perpendicular gradation. There can be little or no science of genealogy in Japan until her social system is reconstructed. Japanese words 238 THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY 239 expressing family relations have neither the depth nor the meaning that they possess in Christendom. They are legal rather than natural expressions. In a country where institutions are everything and the individual next to nothing, the family, not the single person, being the unit of society, and where pan- theism, not monotheism, is the creed and philosophy, humanity suffers to the aggrandizement of the insti- tution. Galton's great book "Hereditary Genius: Its Laws and Consequences" was not and could not have been written in the land where families have the potency of legal immortality. In some periods of the nation's history, as in Ashi- kaga -times, it was not law or the Emperor's will that created families, but war and victory. Men "created their own ancestry with their own swords." A bold soldier successful in rising to rank, office, or revenue forthwith proceeded to invent a pedigree or to get one made for him by the priest. This was the time of division, when Japan was comminuted and fractional. It was also the darkest hour before the dawn, for the idea of gaining Kioto and securing the Emperor's person, in order to give peace and unity to Japan, began to possess great minds. Conceived as a principle of action in one brain, and transmitted through a succession, the idea came to consummation, and a long peace resulted. These three great men were Nobunaga (1533-1582), Hideyoshi (1536-1598), and lyeyasu (1542-1616). Under their genius, out of anarchy rose order, pros- 240 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION perity, the duarchy of Yedo and Kioto, and finally the two centuries of peace and of virtual Tokugawa monarchy. Yet when the new nobility, consisting of the mob of rough soldiers, ex-bandits, pirates, and robber barons, led by Hideyoshi, swooped upon Kioto, they were as our own barbarian ancestors in Rome. The intense refinement and art instincts of the Ashikaga regime were painful, novel, wholly unintelligible, and at first repellent. In the city, the Japanese Napoleon found that his tasks were those of Peter the Great or Bonaparte in civilizing his comrades of the camp. There were no long beards to be shaved off or hide boots to be polished as in St. Petersburg. Neither was there, as at St. Cloud, a Josephine tactful in cover- ing the arms of newly made general's wives, reddened by dish-washing and scullion work, with white kid and long-sleeved gloves. Nevertheless, with the same energy that the little monkey-faced Hideyoshi had displayed in lopping off heads and winning castles, he applied himself to smoothing the wrinkled front of war by means of the charms of art. Not for the "horsey" knights, just off the saddle, was the work of painters, who, in black and white, only spoke from mind to mind, suggesting more than is expressed. The new art must be visible, realistic, gorgeously rich, blazing with color, and so overloaded with detail, if necessary, that it would leave nothing to the imagination. To complete the calming process, — the forcing back of the war genii into their bottles, — THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY 241 the Taiko gave himself up to the Cha-no-yu. This means literally hot water and tea, but in potency it was the soul-calming cult of aesthetic and peaceful camaraderie. Two other wholly distinct factors influenced Japanese art in this period. Portuguese and Span- iards at home had been under the spell of the Venetian school and Titian's coloring, and they came to Japan with ideas that influenced native artists and archi- tects. In Korea, also, during the great invasion (1592-1598) a quarter of a million of Japanese warriors on the Continent had been confronted with striking proofs of Korean genius in art, and not a few models of taste brought from China during the Ming or Bright dynasty (1369-1628). Terribly was the peninsula looted of its potters, pagodas, pictures, and keramics by the Taiko's soldiers. The glorious "old" Sat- suma pottery owes its splendors to Korean prisoners of war made colonists in Japan. Furthermore, there were in Nippon, at this time, numbers of artists. Most of these were not indeed great, but they were mightily industrious. Hide- yoshi, by setting the pace for the barons, made work for the brush and colors. He had conquered in war, he held his power by means of art. In order to keep the forest of swords quiet in their scabbards, he must needs turn the stream of manly activities into castle building and the decoration of interiors. The genius of the Japanese lies in their power to transform quickly their new knowledge gained into 242 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION working principles. Herein lies a potency to excel their teachers. Little do they invent. Mightily do they adapt. The very fact that Japan has produced no man overshadowingly great, a Moses, Confucius, or Buddha, explains the secret of her amazing power of receptivity and appreciation, and hence her unlimited powers of progress, — even, possibly, to the uniting in harmony the Orient and the Occident. In the sixteenth century two new sets of European ideas set their mark on Japan as potent factors of evolution. The erection of strong castles, able to resist the new artillery, was a necessity, for the age of excellence in defence had passed and the era of superiority in attack had come. The great Regent's models were followed. The seats of the barons, built according to novel plans, took on strange features within and without, many of them borrowed from Europe. This being the age of finest Spanish in- fantry and artillery and of improved fortifications in Europe, where the mediaeval castles had been trans- formed into forts with bastions, the Portuguese in Japan gave new hints which were duly followed. The influence of these is seen to-day in the walls sloping and curved at the corners like the prow of a modern steel ram. The comparatively simple for- tresses of the Ashikaga era, as, for example, the castle of the second Hojo family at Odawara, had low walls and no donjon keep, or central dominating tower. Henceforth, the daimios' castles had more stone work and the wooden parts of the structure THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY 243 were heavier and loftier. The statant dolphin flashing high over all — to be born within sight of which suggested urban polish of manners — rose far higher towards the blue sky. Who does not recall the soaring magnificence of the Ten Shu Dai, or Lord of Heaven Tower, in Tokio, or at Nagoya and Kumamoto? Rising in five stages above the ramparts, this Heaven (defying or propitiating?) place of defence and observation impressed beholders and added strength through easier vigilance. The first baron who, in 1567, reared such a structure was Matsunaga, in his castle at Tamon near Nara. It was a decided novelty as compared with the old shiro, consisting chiefly of nagaya, or long houses. Its name was written at first with the same characters with which the Catholic missionaries in China and Japan expressed the name of God, and the engineering idea came from them or their lay friends. Only afterwards, when the Roman religion was proscribed, was the character altered from that meaning Lord, to one signifying guar- dian, or the Heavenly protector. The popular name for this tower is Tamon, as that for firearms is Tane- gashima. In 1586, at Osaka, Hideyoshi reared in megalithic masonry, that fills with admiration the visitor of to-day, what became a model for many more castles built on a lesser scale. A map of feudal Japan shows hundreds of these fortresses, usually in river valleys or plains, where water to fill the moats was 244 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION in sufficient supply. In my journeys in 1871, when these were still garrisoned and in commission, I was astonished at their number and the strength of some of those situated in favorable natural locations. The standard objection to hill castles or any fortifica- tions set up on rocky pinnacles or high places was the difficulty in securing water for drink, cooking, or the quenching of fire-arrows. Yet even more than the vast fortifications at Osaka, as a model for reproduction, was the Momoyama or Peach Mount castle at Fushimi, near Kioto. As all over the Netherlands one hears of a village Hague, or Brussels, and as in France there are many miniatures of Paris, so at Nikko and in the old baronial residences we may still see in grand reproduction what was the Momoyama style; for this model, though no longer extant, was copied or measurably imitated over and over again. Hideyoshi knew the effect of spectacular glory over the populace, and he dazzled the country folk by the splendor of his own outings and the Court processions. He lined the roads for miles on sunny days with gorgeous painted screens. Through- out the land the walls of castles and palaces blossomed in green and gold. The favorite figures on the screens and sliding doors were colossal pine trees and in their vicinity the symbolic beasts and birds usually associated together in pairs in Chinese and Japanese art and poetry. These were the days of Kano and the hosts of artists whom he trained, until "he" meant rather an academy than an individual person. It is THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY 245 needless to say that, there being plenty both of work and of overwork, there is more variety than is agree- able in the quality of their productions. Hideyoshi made himself popular by stimulating the gold miners to furnish leaf and foil to satisfy the demand for the precious metal that symbolized the golden light filling the Paradise of Amida. The passion for ar- chitecture that would satisfy the new standards of taste and the general activity of the new industrial- ism raised wages and made the people as contented as they were prosperous. The nation now began to move forward to its acme of population, even pressing towards that limit of the food power of the archipelago, which was reached in 1700. In the decade within which Nobunaga was born (1534) and Mendez Pinto (1537) sailed for the far East, we have the beginnings of Japan's first Chris- tian century. The conjunction of events, birth and sailing, suggests that of Emperor Mutsuhito and Commodore Perry, three centuries later ; in the latter case the two episodes of life and movement falling on nearly the same day. Pinto's wonderful stories about the clever Japanese created the scepticism that coined the word "mendacious." William Con- greve, whose smooth lines, "music hath charms" and "married in haste," have almost biblical authority as well as daily currency of speech among us, has in his "Love for Love," written in 1694, or a century and a half after the first European, Pinto, had landed in Japan — 246 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION "Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee -thou liar of the first magnitude." Yet now we know that Pinto was not Munchausen. Landing at Tanegashima in 1542, he brought fire- arms to Japan. Within six months there were six hundred guns or pistols made and used by Japanese. Having been metal workers and artists for aeons, yes, even in dolmen days, the Japanese were then as wonderful in imitation and adaptation as in this twentieth-century era of Shimose explosives, Uda mines, Takamine proteids, and home-built battle- ships. After Pinto came Xavier, and the Southern and Roman form of Christianity, with its sixteenth- century corollaries, the Spanish king's possession of half the world and the Inquisition. Nobunaga's ancestors were descendants of a Taira lady, who with her child had fled the great extermi- nation of A.D. 1185, and with her son reached the village of Tsuda in Omi. Marrying the village elder, her son was given to a Shinto priest from Ota in Echizen. The boy grew up to found the family, which took its name from the village and for several generations furnished Shinto priests. When Ota Nobunaga's father, who had won much land in the skilful use of arms, died in 1549, the young warrior as a partisan of Ashikaga conquered Omi and soon became master of Kioto. In his Echizen campaign against the Buddhist war lords he had two retainers named Hideyoshi and lyeyasu. All the three were men of their age and restorers of THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY 247 Imperialism, and the two latter were destroyers of Iberian Christianity. The methods of the Portuguese missionaries, based on the Inquisition and not so different from those of Nichiren, so far from seeming strange in Japan, were quite in accord with the spirit of the times. The Jesuits were members of an order founded on the military principles of Loyola, and the people of Japan were acquainted with warring sects who fought each other. The ruling idea in sixteenth- century Japan was feudalism, and the soldier in armor was the typical man. The authority and discipline of the Christian leaders mightily impressed the daimios and especially the rising conqueror Nobunaga. This, too, was the apogee of Buddhist priestly power, of military monks, and monasteries that were for- tresses. It seemed not unreasonable to the people that force should meet force, even in religion, for that was the way of the bonzes. In Japan, no less than in Europe, cujus regio, ejus religio, was the legal motto. Business and religion were on a military basis. Bar- gains were made and doctrines propagated by spear and cannon. Indeed, Nobunaga was rather pleased with than repulsed by the foreigners, for he had a cosmopolitan mind. Moreover, since any tool would serve in hum- bling the bonzes, he warmly patronized the friars. The one aim of his life was to disarm the monks and destroy forever the temporal and political power of Buddhism, and he succeeded. One after the other, 248 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION he attacked and dismantled the monasteries, and in 1571 he destroyed Hiyeisan and left it in ashes. From Nobunaga's blows Japanese Buddhism as a political force has never recovered. After his days, the priests were "religious," but not warriors and dictators. One of the greatest figures in Japanese history, he put an end to the petty civil wars that desolated the empire for a century. He could not subdue all the chieftains, but he restored order in thirty of the sixty-six provinces. In 1569 he was able to dominate Kioto, serving the feeble shogun, but in 1574 he turned his arms against him and deposed Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the last of the line. Thenceforward there was no shogun, or Great Barbarian Subduer, in Japan, until lyeyasu, having the substance, received the title in 1603. As virtual governor of the empire from Kioto, Nobunaga became Junior Premier or Inner Prime Minister. He began the work of national reorganization, which his suc- cessors carried out. Not afraid of strangers, he encouraged foreign commerce, and one of his ambi- tions was to bring Japan into the brotherhood of nations — a design frustrated for three centuries by the Tokugawa. Under his favor the foreign mission- aries made astonishing success, though of a kind more worldly than spiritual. In 1582, at the age of forty- eight, he was slain by an assassin, Mitsuhide, who, as the proverb pictures him, "reigned three days." The Emperor at once conferred upon Nobunaga the posthumous title of Dai Jo Dai Jin, or Great Minister THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY 249 of the Great Government, thus elevating him to the second degree of the first rank. I spent a year in Echizen, the scene of some of the grandest exploits of Nobunaga, as well as of Hideyoshi. Among the people there the traditional portrait of this great-minded man is as flattering as it is in the writings of his European contemporaries then in Japan. The best accounts of his life and work may be found in Murdoch and Yamagata's noble " History of Japan." Most romantic of all figures in the historical gallery of modern Japan is that of Hideyoshi (1536-1598), better known by his title of Taiko or Retired Regent. As a little monkey-faced boy, he was meant by his parents to be a bonze, and at fifteen became a neo- phyte. He ran away from the temple and was soon in the service of Nobunaga. By his wit, valor, wis- dom, impudence and modesty in alternation, and unceasing exertions, he rose to be, in time and at the opportune moment, the successor of Nobunaga. Hearing of the latter's death, he made truce with Choshiu, and hastening to Kioto, attacked the traitor, Mutsuhide. Then he marched against Sat- suma and with incredible celerity subdued the whole Southwest for the Emperor. He then entered upon the thorough work of pacifying the East land. He captured Odawara castle, seat of the second Ho jo clan, and selected Yedo as the future capital of the Kuanto and put lyeyasu in charge. He chose an administrative council of five daimios to aid him in 250 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION something like representative or federal administra- tion. In many ways he planned in outline the great schemes which lyeyasu wrought out. Of his Korean expedition, we have written at large in "Corea, the Hermit Nation." Hideyoshi could not be shogun, because only men of Minamoto descent ever held the title, but in spite of precedents to the contrary, and the hatred of the monopolizing and contemptuous Fujiwara, he got himself in 1586 made Kuambaku or Regent, and was thus the executive officer nearest the Emperor. Because in 1591 he retired nominally in favor of his son (though still holding the reality of power), he was called the Taiko, and as such is still known to the people. Under the rival commanders Konishi, a zealous Christian, and Kato, a fierce Buddhist, the many- bannered fleets bore to Korea armies of invasion. These, with their guns and cannon, at first overran the peninsula, but were driven back by Chinese allies of the Koreans sent by the Ming emperors, who were aided also by their newly invented bombshells, and the valor of the Korean Admiral Yu, whose ironclad ram sunk the Japanese ships. After seven years, the Taiko from his deathbed recalled his hosts. One of the most natural of Hideyoshi's ambitious propositions was to found a family; another, and a very Japanese one, was to have himself enrolled among the gods. To this end, he had a temple erected in Kioto, in which all the iron work is said to THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY 251 have been made from sword blades. This enterprise of automatic god-making, which seems from an Occidental point of view insane conceit, was not at all a strange proceeding in Japan ; for, as gods go, and have been made and multiplied in old Nippon, the Taiko was as promising a candidate for apotheosis as any of the previous eight millions or so, in that national pantheon, which is now rapidly becoming the national junkshop. When one remembers how many disreputable characters, some even like Masakado Do, the traitor, crowded themselves into this veri- table menagerie of deities, one can hardly, even from a pagan point of view, blame severely the puerility of the Taiko's act. It would have been in the Shinto, not the Buddhist collection, that Hideyoshi would have been classified. His successor lyeyasu is commonly known as Gongen Sama, that is, a tem- porary manifestation of Buddha, for he patronized the Buddhists. The god-factory of Japan is now closed. It may be that, chiefly because the only real oppo- sition to his egoistic activities, to be posthumously carried on, could come from the Christians, that the Taiko began the first persecutions against them. At Nagasaki, by his orders, on February 5, 1597, twenty-six Christians were crucified. Probably car- ing as little for gods as for men, except as they minis- tered to his aggrandizement, the Taiko was as zealous a patron of Shinto as he was a fierce nationalist. He reared the first of many hundreds of living cruci- fixes, whereon martyrs suffered. 252 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION It is unquestionable that the Japanese nation took some long forward steps under this great man's rule, and as the people are more important than even their leaders, we give our space to picturing them, rather than to the Taiko. We refer those who would know more of the monkey-faced upstart who humbled both Court and feudal barons, ruled Japan for nearly two decades, and laid the foundations for increased national welfare, to Walter Dening's "New Life of Toyotomi Hideyoshi " for a scholarly and popular biography, and to Murdock and Yamagata's work, which is at once voluminous and accurate. lyeyasu's place in national history may be regarded from many viewpoints, but a comic artist shows best the situation. It takes much muscle to make the mochi cakes in which Japanese delight. By hard and long pounding in a mortar with a long-handled heavy wooden mallet, the mass of glutinous boiled rice is made ready for the baking. Nobunaga and Mitsuhide are pictured as pounding the dough, Hideyoshi makes and cooks the pastry, but it is lyeyasu sitting on cushions who eats the cake and gets the glory. In Kodzuke, in the district of Nitta, is the village of Tokugawa. It was founded in the thirteenth century by Nitta Yoshishige, ancestor of the famous families Tokugawa, Matsudaira, Sakai, and others. According to the legend, on entering the village of Sakai, one of the lords was given in token a flat round cake, laid on three mallow or asarum leaves. This THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY 253 unconscious design became the renowned trefoil crest that for centuries glittered as the golden symbol of a family, and even of national power. lyeyasu, born in 1542, the year of the first Euro- pean's arrival, put on armor at the age of twelve. He served many castle lords and field commanders, receiving in 1590 the fief of the Kuanto provinces. He was one of the five great barons associated in civil administration with the Taiko, after whose death he commanded 80,000 men against the hostile league of 130,000 allied clansmen opposed to him in the decisive battle of Sekigahara, or Field of the Barrier, on the 21st of October, 1600. The story is told in Chapter XXVI of "The Mikado's Empire," and better in Murdock's "History of Japan." Forty thousand heads were the trophies of this campaign, making an awful picture of the horrors of war. To use an illustration not intelligible in old Japan, where washed clothes were stretched on a board in the sun to dry, the gory heads, when tied by their topknots, were hung like garments on a Monday clothes-line, officially counted, and their quality made the basis of award in promotion. lyeyasu, the victor, in wise alertness tied with knots the cords of his helmet, and kept his head level. He was magnanimous in exercising his unquestioned authority. He reorganized the feudal fiefs of the empire, dividing old Yamato among seven vassals. While redoubling the honors accorded to the Mikado, and enriching the Kioto court nobles, he kept complete 254 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION control of the executive power. He called to his assistance wise counsellors. Foreseeing, or at least determining to secure for Japan a long peace, he established in Yedo the old libraries from Ashikaga and from Kanazawa, near Kamakura, and began the collection of manuscripts and the printing of the rarest and most useful books. He reestablished learning and became the generous patron of scholars. He received the title of Shogun in 1603, but abdicated two years afterwards in favor of his son Hidetada. Retiring to Sumpu in Suruga, now Shidzuoka, he devoted his energies to literature and the arts of peace. Yet during all this time Hideyori, the son of the late Taiko, regarded lyeyasu as a usurper, and around this youth gathered the elements of discontent - the disappointed men and those made ronin by the recent changes. The great earthquake of 1596 had destroyed the Kioto temple begun by Hideyoshi for his own deification. It was rebuilt by Hideyori, but in the inscription on a bell cast for it lyeyasu pro- fessed to discern an insult to himself, and in 1615 made war against the partisans opposed to him. These gathered in the castle of Osaka, which was besieged and taken. The vast structure, given to the flames, became Hideyori's place of cremation, and the house of Taiko ended in fire and smoke. The castle has never been rebuilt. Returning to Shidzuoka, lyeyasu busied himself in making codes for kuge and buke, and planned those radical measures, which meant the extinction of THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY 255 Christianity, the exclusion of foreigners, and the inclusion of the people of Japan from all the world. The making of a nation on nobler principles, and in fraternity with mankind, was postponed for centuries. lyeyasu died at the age of seventy-four. His ashes were deposited first at Kunozan, overlooking the Sea of Suruga, and later were transported with vast pomp to gorgeous Nikko. In 1619 the Kioto temple in honor of Hideyoshi was destroyed by lyeyasu's henchman, Itakura, the city governor. Momoyama castle, the Versailles of the Japanese Paris, was also demolished and its art decorations and building material distributed among the temples in Kioto. Nijo castle was made the seat of the Bakufu's Resident, the governor of Kioto, and the headquarters of their garrison. Both military and civil influences from Yedo could thus always overawe the Imperial palace. Artistic decora- tions were lavished on its interior walls, so that in Nijo castle we find the most distinctive specimens of art in the early Tokugawa era. We shall hear of Nijo again. As in 1870 there was an event of German significance in the halls of Louis XIV, so in 1868, in the seat and stronghold of Tokugawa power in Kioto, a ceremony took place that meant both fall and uprising, the burial of the limited past and the resurrection of the New Japan. It was in the Japan- ese Versailles that proclamation was made of the abolition of duarchy and the restoration of the old and the creation of the new empire. 256 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION We have called the period from Mendez Pinto 's landing in 1537 to the suppression, by a vast military force, of the Shimabara rebellion of Christians — and others, in 1637 — so ably and fully treated in Murdock and Yamagata's "History of Japan" — "the Christian century." From the latter date, the "corrupt sect" was publicly banned, while in secret and during night's hours the consoling truths of "the Jesus religion" were taught by parents to the rising generation. Springing to life again with fresh power in 1867, the Christians were persecuted even by the new Government, which later was so thor- oughly converted that, besides fixing guarantees of religious freedom in the constitution, the Mikado received in 1906 a legate of the pope with courtesy and honor, and in May, 1907, General Booth of the World's Salvation Army. CHAPTER XVIII THE SELF-ISOLATED HERMIT NATION IN the final evolution of Japanese feudalism under lyeyasu and his successors, of which we have treated in detail in "The Mikado's Empire," we see instead of the federal and partially representative system of Hideyoshi, a purely autocratic governmental machine, in effect, a new monarchy. Social and political barriers were reared which kept the lower folk from trespassing on the pride or privilege of the higher classes. Farmers, mechanics, and merchants, the latter forming the lowest class, were disarmed not only of swords and weapons, but of all visible emblems of luxury. Yet many privileges were granted them, and life and property were secure to them beyond the highest hopes of the Ashikaga age. Mechanical trades, domestic commerce, and agricul- ture were generously encouraged. Thus it came to pass that there flourished within the feudal system of Japan an industrialism which seems surprising in its extent, considering that the nation was in policy a hermit. Family crests and surnames, classic music and the Kioto dance, allowed in the higher ranks, were not for the real producers 257 258 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION or exchangers of wealth. As a rule, the trader, even though rich, could not ride on a horse in the presence of a samurai, or wear other than cotton clothes, or dwell under any but a thatched roof. Being reckoned of samurai rank, I was, myself, when taking my walks in Echizen the innocent cause of making hun- dreds of men dismount to their inconvenience, or get down on all fours in mud or slush. Society was graded to millimetres. Japan was pretty, but its beauty was that of the cloisonne, with its thousands of tiny metal cells. It was sweet, but the divisions were as numerous as in a honeycomb. The nation grew, not a great tree, but rather like a thousand miniature and stunted plants in pots, each with its taproot cut. At top, society meant power, pride, luxury, esoteric pleasures; at the base and edges, subordination, oppression, poverty, disease, starva- tion, and the slow rotting to death of millions. To artist and romancer, feudal Japan seems as lovely as do Sir Walter Scott's middle ages — which never existed except as he chose, by selection and elision of the disagreeable, to imagine them. Into the details of Tokugawa feudalism, which existed by law established until 1867, and virtually until 1871, space does not permit us to enter. The Japan most familiar to our fathers, in the bulky literature of European writers, is that of the Yedo period. Yet while in one respect, on the side of land- ownership and the political institutions resulting therefrom, this system of society approached more THE SELF-ISOLATED HERMIT NATION 259 perfectly our ideals of the feudal system, there is to be noted the same radical differences as compared with the European norm and form of feudalism, as are found in the personnel, the thought, the language, and the spirit of those peoples who have most strenu- ously cultivated the idea of personality, as compared with those in which the communal dwarfs the in- dividual. There was in Japan nothing like an oath of allegiance, or of "homage," as we understand the term, on the part of the daimios to their suzerain. The barons were rather tributary potentates. Some of the feudatories, like Satsuma and Choshiu, were semi-independent rulers, in whose dominions no emissary of the Yedo government was allowed. The shogun himself was only the most powerful of the daimios, who had assumed the protectorship of the sovereign. The actual lord of land and castle was usually a figurehead, who could not control his own reputed revenue. This, after all, was not what he actually got, but the amount of rice at which he was assessed. In poor years there was a vast difference between calculation on paper and reality in bin or bag. Often, however, nominal assessment was below the real figure. It frequently happened also that the more prosperous samurai, especially in those provinces like Satsuma, where there was little or no distinction between knights and farmers, were richer than small daimios. Many great retainers had lands assessed at 75,000 bushels of rice. Large or small, the daimio 260 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION had to feed his retainers. They all depended on his bounty. Such a system could work so long as there were no disturbing influences, such as the presence of for- eigners, but as soon as new economic forces entered, it must fall. Rice was the chief crop and the standard of value, and in this cereal both taxes and salaries were paid. The revenue of a clan territory was the amount of rice which it was supposed to produce. Calculation and reality being equal, the clan revenue — that is, of lord and retainers — would be about one-half of the whole product raised from the soil. The coming of the foreigner, in 1860, raised the price of rice from two to ten dollars per koku of five bushels. The tax on the soil was of two kinds : on irrigated rice lands and on dry ploughed land. A subdivision was made into four classes : good, middling, poor, and bad. The general survey of Tokugawa territory in the regions of the direct vassals and the three princely families, Mito, Owari, . and Kii, was made about A.D. 1620. It classified the land as to quality and apportioned the amount to be paid to the authorities, making the relation between assessed produce and farmer's tax from ten to four. Though great fluc- tuations in value took place between 1620 and 1856, causing great irregularities and much injustice, rice land was usually worth five times as much as arable land, and a good rice field ought to yield in good years eight per cent. Only one-twelfth of the soil of Japan has ever been cultivated. THE SELF-ISOLATED HERMIT NATION 261 It is a long story to tell of the causes and their operations, which led to the fall of the feudal system, but the signing of the initial treaty with Occidentals was the signal of doom. The intellectual and eco- nomic movements, already active within the empire, would sooner or later have destroyed duarchy; but whether feudalism would have been abolished, except after a long struggle lasting many years, is an open question. Nevertheless, it was dead and buried within twenty years after Perry dropped anchor at Uraga in 1853. How and why this hoary system, seven hundred years old, and in the eyes of admirers surely destined to enjoy a life as long as that of the Eternal City, crumbled to dust at the touch of a few daring parvenu, has been already told in "The Mikado's Empire." Twice during the Tokugawa era was the family of rulers in Yedo brought into direct relations with the Throne. In the one case, the shogun personally nomi- nated the occupant. In the other, the prestige of a waning house was restored by the marriage of a sister of the Emperor to the shogun. The episodes in point of time were about two centuries apart. After Shotoku (765-769) nine hundred years pass before another woman sits on the Imperial Throne. Then the novelty of an Imperial lady's reign — a reigning without governing — came by dictation from Yedo. Miojo (1630-1643), who succeeded her own father, was niece of the mighty shogun lyemitsu. The little maid-Mikado, who was the 109th in the 262 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Imperial succession, was but six years old. The pretty puppet was pulled by the wires from the eastern city on the bay, all real power being in the hands of her uncle, who lived in far-off Adzuma, but whose castle of Nijo in Kioto held both a Resident and military garrison. When fifteen years old, at avuncular bidding, the maiden abdicated in favor of Go Komio; that is, Komio the second (1644-1654). She lived to be fifty-three years old. The last lady to act as Mikado, and the 117th of the line, before the constitution of 1889 in its second article declared that "The Imperial Throne shall be succeeded to by Imperial Male descendants, according to the provisions of the Imperial House Law," was Go Sakuramachi (or Cherry Street No. 2), who in 1763 succeeded her grandfather of the same name (1736- 1746) and her brother Momozomo (1747-1762). She too was but a marionette for the Yedo wires, and at the end of her non-governing reign of seven years, she retired into private life, dying at the age of forty-four. Of the Imperial princess, Kadzu no Miya, sister of the Mikado Komei (1847-1866), and aunt of the present Emperor, who married the shogun lyemochi (1858-1866), we shall speak again. Let us now look at the masses of the people. What was the population of the Sun Land during the various ages, Aryan, Yamato, Japanese? Few native writers until very recent times have ever given much critical attention to this subject. The one THE SELF-ISOLATED HERMIT NATION 263 official end in view, when inquiring into the numbers of human beings, was the tax-roll. The mediseval records show that for the purposes of taxation, officers were sent into all of the sixty-six provinces to enumerate the people, but as there was an enormous number of serfs and outcasts, and as children were ignored, these enumerations, even if correct so far as they went, could never be of the nature of a census. During the long periods of civil war, when Japan was divided into feudal fractions, nothing like a census of the empire was thought of. Arai Hakuseki (1656-1725) tells us that in the reign of Kimmei (540-571) "the population was set down at 4,969,890." In the time of Shomu (724-748) it had grown to 8,631,074, "though this is not given in the history." In a word, we have no trustworthy data to go upon. In the sixteenth century, there were between fifteen and twenty million souls, Japan being then as populous as some of the great States in Europe, Austria having sixteen, France fourteen, Spain eight, and England five millions. Of the population of Japan in the Tokugawa period, Professor Droppers has written most luminously. He shows that even the resumption of enumeration in the eighteenth century was so faulty in method, on account of various omissions, as to be almost worth- less. From the beginning of the Great Peace, popu- lation increased with rapidity, reaching its maximum probably about 1700. The influence of the long calm had spent itself before the year 1721, when the first 264 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION regular census was taken. Henceforward there was no real increase of population, because of two reasons. No efforts were made to enlarge the area of tillable land or to stimulate the productivity of the soil. The Tokugawa policy of exclusion of foreigners and inclusion of natives tended to keep things as they were. Each daimio pursued a narrow provincial policy, being quite willing to save himself at the ex- pense of the country. There was little patriotism and no economical unity. Land transport through the various daimios' territories was very difficult to secure, on account of clan feuds and the rivalries and jealousies of the barons. Furthermore, preventable diseases were constantly depleting the population. The processions of the daimios, to and from their castles to the capital and back again, sowed the seeds of death, by spreading contagious disease everywhere. Traffic along the main arteries of the empire acted also in the interest of contagion. Smallpox, measles, dysentery, and typhus fever made awful ravages. Frequent earth- quakes, fires, floods, and epidemics weakened the national registers, but the great reducers of Japanese population were the famines. These, occurring al- most in regular succession, not only prevented natural increase, but made the figures of population drop 1,000,000, 1,500,000, or 2,000,000 in a single year. Four generations, or 120 years from the founding of Yedo, the figures on the national register were 26,061,- 830. In 1792 there were 24,891,441 souls, and in THE SELF-ISOLATED HERMIT NATION 265 1846, 26,907,625 ; no record in the years between ris- ing to 27,000,000. In 1732, the year of the highest figures, the register showed 26,621,816. In a word, Japan's population was stationary for over a century. During these times of famine the government opened its rice storehouses and fed the people. One of the most destructive periods of wastage was from 1781 to 1788. Another awful famine, the monuments of which, in the form of heaps of cremation ashes, I have myself witnessed, was the famine in the Tempo era, 1830-1844. In 1871, the memory of its awful ravages was still fresh in the minds of the people of Echizen. Now great trees grow upon the mounds of bone-ashes, and Nature has " healed and reconciled to herself, with the sweet oblivion of flowers," the awful scar. There are hundreds of such mounds, unknown to tourists or even to foreigners long dwelling in the land. Few writers refer to these proofs that, of necessity and under the stern education of nature, the Japanese have always been compelled to live the simple life. With foreign commerce, however, Japan is like Great Britain, which cannot feed from the soil her own people, but can nourish a constantly increasing population, because of her ships. Selfish seclusion led to starvation. Brotherhood in the world's family banishes all fear of want. Far better had the money spent for memorial bronze lanterns at the shoguns' tombs been used for the people. The annals record also disasters of every descrip- 266 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION tion, rain, flood, fire, earthquake, volcano eruptions, and epidemics of deadly diseases, which not only explain the low figures of population, but also show how these island people have been disciplined. A survey helps to account for their remarkable tempera- ment, which is "a most happy and harmonious com- bination of all the antinomies and contrarieties of human nature." The Japanese are "at the same time active and passive, highly intellectual and childish; ideally clean, but doing things that are opposite to cleanness; markedly proud and senselessly obsequi- ous; forbearing and vindictive; kind-hearted and betraying; rational and emotional; extremely scep- tical and intensely superstitious; the masters of the sublime and base, a nation which has been an in- soluble enigma both to the psychologist and ethnolo- gist" — all of which means that the Japanese, in our present state of knowledge of them, are like other people. The sequel of famine is cannibalism. Not at all infrequent and incredible are the stories told in narra- tives of fact and of fiction, of the behavior of human nature and its necessities when reduced to its lowest terms. Whole villages were deprived of human inhabitants, the roadsides and the floors of the houses being covered with bones and skulls. In the cities, the high prices of rice and food caused riots. Yet, as Dr. Droppers intimates, while epidemics have but a minor and temporary influence in dimin- ishing population, the effects of famine are quite THE SELF-ISOLATED HERMIT NATION 267 otherwise. The people who survive an epidemic are probably more vigorous than ever, while after famine, those who remain are weaker than before, besides being poorer. After epidemics, also, "wages rise and the people quickly forget their former disasters in the prosperity of the moment. The effects of famine, therefore, are far more lasting than those of epidemics, and may indeed, as they probably did in Japan, permanently affect the character of the people." In a word, to those who know the true history of the middle ages in Europe, and enjoy the comparative study of mankind, it is plain that Japanese human nature is exactly like our own and that of our ancestors. The negative character of the Tokugawa Govern- ment, which was directly opposed to all progress and development, is shown in the fact that it attempted no improvement, but strove to cure evils by restraint. Sumptuary laws were passed with what was irritating, and as it seems now with comical, frequency. Accord- ing to the proverb, " Government-made laws last three days," and custom soon forgets old prohibitions in years of plenty, though the poor farmer usually remained in the slough. The punishments for crime were also factors in keeping down the population. Five varieties of capital punishment were known: slow decapitation with a bamboo saw, crucifixion, exposure of the head, burning at the stake, and decapitation with a sword. I have myself repeatedly seen at the blood-pit head- 268 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION less trunks on the pillories, heads stuck on a wad of clay or nailed in place with strap iron. Natives and foreigners are still living who have seen the taking of life in the name of law by means of fire and a bamboo cross. The victims on the latter underwent a double crucifixion, first by being bound tightly to the stock and cross-piece, which in shape resembled a Roman cross, while slow transfixion of the upper part of the body with two crossed spears, which avoided vital parts, made one of steel, of the St. Andrew's pattern. Victims sometimes lingered during three days. Population was also materially kept down to the food limit, by popular opinion and custom. Among the lower classes, it was not common to rear all the children born, especially if girls came too frequently. Among the samurai, many men did not marry until after thirty, and it was considered a social disgrace to raise a family of more than three children. Many of the well-to-do farmers and merchants, influenced like the samurai, by Confucian ideas, followed their example. While there was hardly in the whole country a hospital in our sense of the term, there were in the large cities physicians famous for their skill in preventing the birth of living children. These kept private establishments to accommodate calcu- lating patrons. All authorities agree that the sexual morality in the large cities was at a very low ebb among all classes, while luxury and effeminacy prevailed among people high in birth and wealth. The proof THE SELF-ISOLATED HERMIT NATION 269 of physical degeneration among the men is clearly shown in the miserable failure of the Bakufu's attempt to chastise the one clan of Choshiu. The Yedo soldiers were no match for the hardy clansmen. Hokusai's pencil has satirized the gourmands who were too fat for their armor. Japan, degenerate and officially imbecile, seemed a prey to the conqueror. The terrific earnestness of purpose of the patriots of the Meiji era, to make their people the healthiest in the world, is the reaction against the bad govern- ment and low morals of "the last brilliant period of feudalism before its fall." Except for Millard Fillmore, Perry, and Harris, and the appearance of the United States in Asia, early in the era of steam navigation, who knows whether Japan would have maintained her sovereignty? The sweeping away of the feudal system and with it nearly all the old divisive influences which cut down population and paralyzed national energy, the recreation of monarchy, and more especially the economic unification of the empire, made a new world for all classes and conditions of men. The introduc- tion of modern ideas, the opening of all doors of opportunity, the creation of new lines of achievement for the commoners, thus greatly enriching life and making it worth living, wrought a change that seemed magical. Population began to increase at a rate unknown before. In 1872 a census was made which gave 33,110,555 souls. The steady enlarge- ment is shown in the figures for 1903 (in which those 270 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION of Formosa are not included), which are 46,732,841. There are no fewer than 50,000,000 souls in the Mikado's Empire, of 1907. Not less wonderful is the slow but sure rise of the people to the dignities and honors which were of old the monopoly of the nobles and samurai. From 1895 to 1904, of those who passed examination for entrance to the diplomatic corps, three were nobles, nineteen samurai, and thirty-one commoners. One- half of the army officers, in 1907, had risen from the people, and of the graduates of the Imperial Univer- sity in recent years a majority are of the heimin class ; that is, the common people who make the sub- stance of the nation. "The people are the founda- tion of the Empire." CHAPTER XIX BUSHIDO IN REVELATION THE Japanese, considered as a community of fifty million people, are still, in one sense, in a low state of evolution. A nation of five million highly cultivated people dwells within a nation of forty-five millions of people, far less cultivated, but nine times in number. Proofs of this are seen in the esoteric limitations that have been and are still placed upon many of their richest inheritances. Just as the seventeenth- century Frenchmen, for polemic purposes, set forth the Chinese as a nation of savants, so there are many Occidentals who imagine that the Japanese millions are intellectually homogeneous, and nearly all in the same grade of culture. It is supposed, for example, that all are fairly well versed in Bushido, ju-jutsu, art, learning, etiquette, ethics, etc. Occidental contempt or ignorance has given way to the unbridled license of flattery and exaggeration of impressionists. In a library of books, written by tourists, or men blind by nature or bribes, the Japanese are uncritically appraised out of all recognition by those who know them by long famil- iarity. As a foil, these native paragons are set in 271 272 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION contrast to the foreigners in the seaports, who are crass materialists, hired converters, money grabbers, or stolid philistines. Against the imaginary Nippon, which exists only in the brain of dreamers, and such Japanese as impressionists and sycophants have set before us, there is danger of terrific and altogether unjust reaction. Compare with his earlier writings on Japan, Lafcadio Hearn's latest book — written after he had undergone profound mental changes of opinion on age-old questions — in which he pictures the evolution of the family in Japan as in the Homeric stage, delaying its development and putting modern varnish and veneer of war and machinery, without honest ethical substance below. In law, religion, the fine arts, the trades, there have been secrecy and mystery. Never has there been in Japan a "republic" of letters or art, since the days when China's elephantine system of bureaucracy was borrowed by tiny Japan. Throughout Japanese history and literature, as the abundant vocabulary embedded in the language shows, secrecy and ex- clusiveness have played an enormous part. Probably this is the reason why, in matters of religion, philoso- phy, and literary criticism, there seems to be so much that is puerile, whimsical, and childish in the Japanese, why insular, parochial, and ludicrous notions concern- ing the merits of their own poets, verse writers, dra- matists, and writers are seriously held by native Chauvinists ; and last, but not least, why it is so hard for Western nations to take these people seriously. BUSHIDO IN REVELATION 273 These are also the penalties which the natives of Nippon have to pay for their notions about candor. Truth-telling for its own sake is looked upon as some American politicians have regarded the Ten Com- mandments — as something to be played with, as very "Sunday-schoolish." The weakness of Japanese daily life is seen in the way the Japanese regard the telling of a lie — unpardonable if the end in view be a bad one, but blameless if the purpose of the lie was a good one. It is no wonder that Christianity is by so many Japanese considered quite impracticable. Yet some of the very best minds, including Japanese men of giri (righteousness), believe all the more in "The Jesus religion," because of the enemies it makes. The history of the Knightly Code, or Path of the Samurai, called Bushido, is in point. On its idealized side it seems uniquely noble. If the samurai had always lived up to his professions and had society been shaped to such ideals, Japan would indeed have been an earthly Eden. Here would have existed an island, free from internal war, instead of being, as its history shows it to have been, a realm with ages of blood-soaked battle-fields and bloody struggles, during which the Imperial capital was burned and sacked repeatedly, Imperial princes assassinated, and mikados killed, while the mass of the people were left in misery and wretchedness, with human life held at a low price. Yet at this point of national vanity, as in perhaps every other which concerns human nature, the Japan- 274 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION ese are wonderfully like ourselves. They idealize the past, their human memories generally forgetting or softening into oblivion the ugly and unpleasant. No such Japan ever existed, as is set forth by certain native and foreign writers of the idealizing school, who write as facts what are feelings, and who give us a transfiguration of what has passed away, and which they never saw. Much of Japanese history and retrospective writing reminds one of the name of a Dutch social club seen in one of the Holland towns — "Society for the Abolition of Things Disagreeable." We, too, read Walter Scott for the chivalry and splendor of the middle ages, but forget the plague, pestilence, and famine, the filth, dirt, cruelty, disease, and ignorance of mediseval times, for these are veiled in the mist of romance. Do not our artists, when they paint the picture of our forefathers' history, follow the "Angel" instead of the Anglo-Saxon legend? In looking at Hermann returning home from his victory over the Romans, or at his wife Thusnelda and her women in the triumph of Germani- cus at Rome, Piloty puts on the canvas only men of god-like physique and women of surpassing beauty and grace. The atmosphere of the Munich school of art, for example, in thus picturing the past, is one replete with halos. Despite the bears' skulls on the poles or the skins of beasts wrapped round the warriors' loins, we have not savage men and women, but glorified ancestors. In a word, we, like the Japanese, set the past in transfiguration. We both BUSHIDO IN REVELATION 275 idealize and glorify those whose blood flows in our veins. Thus we flatter ourselves. Bushido was the growth of ages of war. Its un- written rules were 'like the constitution of a secret society which is good for those inside, who held their secrets as mystery to be kept from the exoterics. To the people, Bushido, like the codes of law by which they were governed, was something sacredly guarded as a secret from the common man. Soko Yamaga, born in Aidzu in 1622, became the literary exponent of the code, and his precepts and instruc- tions have been summed up by Rev. J. T. Imai in his marrowy little book, "Bushido in the Past and Present." As Soko was the teacher of Oishi Kurano- suke, the leader of the Forty-seven Ronins, "we rightly infer that to Soko's influence was due the success of the Ronins' adventurous and heroic action." All the world of Japan was given a visible object lesson, of what Bushido was, in the storming of the enemy's mansion, the unopposed march of the popular and applauded murderers through the streets of Yedo, bearing the gory head, the washing of the trophy, the reverent placing of the head of Kira on their Lord Asano's tomb, the delivery of themselves to the authorities, and the voluntary act of hara-kiri by the forty-seven survivors. This historic episode was soon embalmed in literature and art for all generations. Until the seventeenth century Bushido could be known only in a vague, far-off, and dreamlike way 276 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION by the masses. During the long Yedo peace it came to the people like a revelation from the theatrical stage, and from the novel, which is a pocket theatre in itself. Thenceforward the deeds of a samurai became the ideals of the commoners, who awaited their oppor- tunity to create heroes also. This came sometimes in the form of the people's champions, the unarmed but valiant Otoko-dashi, or Bully Boys, of whom and of other characters peculiar to the Yedo era we read in Mitford's "Tales of Old Japan." The drama, the fiction of Bakin (1767-1848), and the art of Hokusai, which was possible in Tokugawa days, invaded the domain of the esoteric and raised the curtain of mystery for the people. Popular, thrilling tragedy was made the exponent of Bushido to the people. In the seventy-four out of the ninety-seven plays of Chikamatsu (1653-1724), Japan's greatest dramatic composer, and in the pieces of other historical drama- tists, the dialogue and action, discussion and im- personation, set against the background of appro- priate costume and scenery, handled almost every phase of duty in the manifold relations of life. The stage was made an ethical school for the illustration of giri; that is, righteousness, or the right thing to be done in accordance with reason. Akin to the work of the schoolmen in Europe, in kneading the funda- mentals and commonplaces of Christianity into the minds and speech of our mediaeval ancestors, was this work of the dramatists, artists, and writers of the Tokugawa era. BUSHIDO IN REVELATION 277 The masses began to enjoy in other domains of thought what heretofore had been only the property of the cultured few. By his scholarship, Motoori (1730-1801) knocked to flinders the secret idols, the monopolized interpretations of scholastics and nobles. The critical history of Rai Sanyo (1780-1832) made tyrants tremble. It would take a long catalogue to make known even the names of the morning-stars that heralded the dawn of the Meiji splendor of our day. In art, anatomy, geography, other revelations were made, which reduced the base fabric of esoteric tradition to rubbish and ushered in the modern world. Yet without these lovers of truth, deemed heretics and rebels, Japan would never have become a "self- reformed hermit nation." So, also, with that system of physical culture and personal defence, called ju-jutsu (there is no such word as jitsu applied to physical exercise in the Japanese language, and ju-jutsu is but one of many jutsu, or arts), whose merits have been alternately so frightfully exaggerated and so vilely misrepresented. The derivation of the word, set in contrast with the popular term for the art, reveals the situation as it existed for centuries. Ju-jutsu among the people meant secrecy and trickery, but the root-idea is the gentle, as opposed to the rough art, which required the use of weapons. Hepburn defines ju-jutsu as the art of wrestling or throwing others by sleight. The native synonym, yawara, means something done not in fair play, though the original idea, containing no 278 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION such suggestion, is to soften, to mollify. Brinkley gives the best definition of ju-jutsu, as "a kind of wrestling, in which dexterity or trick plays a more important part than physical strength," while, again, for yawara, he gives the definition "to do anything by sleight, not by fair means." This art of ju-jutsu, pronounced ju-jutsu, was vir- tually unknown to the people at large, being confined to samurai or warriors. However, in the reconstruc- tion of society from 1868 onward, ju-jutsu has been taught regularly to policemen, and in the army and navy, and is now an art open to all. In like manner, the army and navy are the only real preservers of Bushido, which virtually died in its old form with feu- dalism ; for Bushido cannot fit itself into the modern framework of society, which rests upon law and upon justice to all classes. Bushido is opposed alike to su- preme loyalty to the Emperor and to public law and national ideals. Like our own mediaeval knighthood, it can flourish only under a temporary release from the usual conditions of human brotherhood, as in war. In other words, outside of science and politics, new revelations were made to the people, who entered into enjoyments and privileges not previously theirs. Notably was this the case with music. The old koto and the new samisen came into use throughout the empire, and compositions adapted to popular taste became fashionable being quickly carried from Yedo to the provinces. The diamios' processions continually on the high roads were like shuttles weaving into the BUSHIDO IN REVELATION 279 old warp a new pattern of national life. The capital set the model and the castle cities measurably made copies. The circulating libraries and serial publica- tions, printed on bamboo and mulberry paper — literature and avoirdupois being very light — were transported on man-back or pack-horse. The last new novel, fashion-plate, street song, colored print, or music score was quickly distributed throughout the land. The picture of life on the high-roads as given by the pedestrian and funny fellow Jippensha Ikku (1775-1831) in the Tokaido Hizakurige (literally leg hair, or "shank's mare," on the Eastern Sea Road) is pronounced by Chamberlain "the cleverest outcome of the Japanese pen," with which verdict, having read it, we coincide. The fifty-three stations, or relays, on this famous road, long formed a favorite theme of popular artists. We may now glance at Japan's important musical instruments, being enabled to attain accuracy by availing ourselves of Mr. Piggott's paper before the Asiatic Society. The koto, with which word the Japanese translate our "piano," is of first importance, nearly all of the national music having been composed for it during the two hundred years or more that it has been in popular vogue. The koto, brought to Nippon with the rest of the Chinese orchestra, in the seventh century, remained the fashionable instrument of the Court for over a thousand years, but was used for Chinese music alone. The purely national music was left to the Yamato koto, the 280 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Satsuma biwa, and other instruments which had gradually developed in Japan. Yatsuhashi was the inventor of the late form of the koto and the father of modern music in Japan. He thought that the ancient solemn music might give place occasionally to something lighter and more melodious, and thus a wider audience be obtained among the people. His compositions, called kumi, are the classical standards of the present day. To see how allied to deep emotion and how true an expression of what Japanese feel is their music, we have but to note the themes chosen by Yatsuhashi. These he took from the famous novels, the Ise and Genji Monogatari (1004), which many read and num- bers knew by heart. He composed thirteen pieces, one for each string of the koto, or one for the twelve months, with one over for the leap month. His first piece was produced in 1649. Within a very short time the grace of the new music appealed to the popular taste, and many composers of music arose. The kumi is invariably accompanied by the voice. On the contrary, bugaku, which was long cultivated in Nara and in old Kioto, is, as the composition of the word shows, dance music. It is still played on great festal occasions, by an hereditary company of musi- cians. Probably the best appreciative description of old Japanese music accompanied by pose and motion of superbly costumed dancers, in the Imperial palace, is to be found in Mrs. Fraser's "Letters from Japan." The Yamato-koto, called also the Wa-gon, is claimed BUSHIDO IN REVELATION 281 to be a purely national instrument and an evolution from the six long bows tied side by side, in front of the cave in Uzume's day. Its sounding-board is cut at one end into five long notches, the six strings being attached to the six "bow" projections by thick coarse cords. The bridges are made of untrimmed joints of maple twigs, and the idea of the original roughness of the instrument is preserved in the claim that it ought not to have a case of any sort. Crude in construction, its tone is very sweet, and under the hand of a master it is astonishingly effective. The six strings are tuned in the following order : D, F, A, C, G, C, — the major triad of the tonic and the minor triad of the second of the diatonic scale of C major; an interesting and harmonious combination, with which Western musicians are perfectly familiar. In Japan the geisha (literally, artist) and the sami- sen seem as naturally associated as are cup and saucer. This instrument is the leading one also with the beggar women, the theatre, and in later forms of the No dance. It was introduced from the Riu Kiu Islands about 1560, or, as some say, along with the mosquito net, from Manila in 1700. In its two-. stringed form, it probably came originally from China, when its body was covered with snake-skin, though the modern instrument has three strings and is covered with catskin, for which reason the geisha are often alluded to as "cats." The name samsen, meaning three strings, was changed to samisen, or three tasteful strings. Besides the three standard 282 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION tunings, there are two special tunings used only for comic music. The kokyu, or Japanese fiddle, is said to have been brought from India, through China and the Riu Kiu islands. Very interesting is the sho, or mouth organ, com- posed of a compact bundle of seventeen thin bamboo reeds fixed into a circular lacquered wind-chamber of cherry wood or hard pine. The air passes in a channel round the central support, and it is fitted with a silver mouthpiece. From this instrument, invented in China, Europeans got the idea of the reed organ. There is a great variety in the sho used at different periods. The function of the drum in the Japanese orchestra was to mark and emphasize the rhythm of the dance. To famous musicians of the drum, silken cords of different colors were awarded as prizes, denoting their grade, the ordinary being orange-red, the next blue, the highest lilac. Some knowledge of the instruments in the Japanese orchestra enables one to appreciate the native pic- torial art, book illustrations, ivory netsuke, bronzes, and lacquers, which set forth popular enjoyments. Gongs, which were invented in China after the time of Confucius, and thence imported, were used in Japan till brass instruments were made for the words of command. There is an enormous variety in Japan- ese gongs, from the gilt nishoko, set in an elaborate framework representing clouds and flames, and carried by two men on a black lacquer pole, down to BUSHIDO IN REVELATION 283 tiny affairs suitable for Tom Thumb. Most of the multiform gongs have names which are telltale of their origin and use, whether by soldiers, watchmen, regulators of the dance, time-beaters, or markers for prayers and readings of the Buddhist scriptures. At the theatre two hardwood clappers empha- size both conclusion and confusion. Out-doors, with the same sort of musical timber, the jugglers advertise their performance and the night watchmen in the streets let people know that they are awake and attending to business. At the eaves of the houses we find ihefurin, or wind bell, with broad, flat clappers coming below the body of the bell, and which catches the wind. One of Bakin's one hundred and forty-two stories, before he was silenced by the Yedo censors, is entitled "The Golden Wind Bell." In our days these are made of glass, with flat tongues of the same material. The brass bugle, now used in camp and for drill, is usually called "the foreigners' flute," and has totally displaced the conch shell of old warfare. Another bugle, now made of copper, was formerly made of wood. The proverb or modern caricature equivalent to our "beating the big drum," or "telling a whopper," is in Japanese, "blowing a conch." The Mokkin is made of thirteen wooden tablets in the form of a harmonicon and played with two sticks. The repertoire of popular music, composed to suit these various instruments, made it possible for all classes to soothe and cheer their hours of leisure and 284 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION to vary the grayness of common life with many hours of enjoyment. To her musicians, no less than to her lawgivers, soldiers, and artists with brush and burin, Japan owes a debt of gratitude. Not least among the factors in the evolution of the nation was music. The "heavenly maid" in Japan is not young in years, but, like Yamato Damashii, has the promise of life unto life. CHAPTER XX THE NATIVE INTELLECT FERTILIZED So far from Japan being hermetically sealed up from the world during the long peace (1615-1868), there was no period in her history when intellectual forces from without were more radical or more widely disseminated. It was not the time of the phenomena of the mustard seed, but of the leaven. In the eighth century the Court : in mediaeval times the learned priests in the monastery; in the Tokugawa era it was elect spirits throughout the nation that were affected. Japan as an intellectual debtor is again deeply obligated to the old Treasure Land, China, and in wholly new ideas and science the Dutch repub- lic is her creditor. From first to last, no people have borrowed more from both East and West than the Japanese. lyemitsu (1623-1648), though third in succession, was a second lyeyasu. Under his rule, Holland and China were brought into closer relations with the hermitage in the Pacific, so that never for a decade were the blossoms of the Japanese intellect left unfertilized by the busy bees flying steadily from the Dutch and Chinese gardens. The Holland merchants, 286 286 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION no better and no worse than the traders of their times, were given the monopoly of European traffic. They were located, or imprisoned, on the artificial Front Island, or Deshima, which was connected by a single bridge with Nagasaki. Despite the severe restrictions of vigilant governors and a cordon of spies, Deshima became a centre of light and science, shedding its beams afar, and ever the goal of pilgrims with the inquiring spirit. Religion and politics were banned, but through the permitted filter of medical knowledge dripped priceless riches for the native scholars. The intensely human Japanese soon learned the trick of adopting the profession of physician in order to enter the gateways of other sciences. They were ever eager to extract the truth from the ore itself, rather than to receive the gold in coin, even though it were stamped in Yedo as official and orthodox. In time, by the furtive study of the language, the surreptitious possession of Dutch books, and by incredible toil of brain and pen, there was formed in Japan that body of opinion held by "the Dutch students," which made Perry's work easy. By the thinking assembly from within, far more than by Perry's Columbiads, was the Sun-goddess lured out of her cave. In truth, the inside pressure upon the Bakufu had by 1853 reached the danger point. The rivet heads of the machine were just ready to fly. Millard Fillmore saved not only the North and the South, but also Japan, from political explosion and civil war. The flowering of the nation, the blooming of Japan's THE NATIVE INTELLECT FERTILIZED 287 century aloe, was in accordance with the laws of true evolution. Not more wonderful have been the events of the twentieth century than those in the days of the Tokugawa repression. The Japanese intellect, ever fertile, responded to the Dutchmen's talk and to the pictures and texts of their scientific books. There are some who date the modern era of science from that scene in 1771, when the cadaver of 0-cha Baba (Mother Green Tea) was utilized in the interest of truth. On the execution ground outside of Yedo (Kotsu ga hara, or Boneyard) Sugita Gem- paku, a native doctor, stood, holding in his hand a Dutch book of anatomy with woodcut pictures in it. He compared the reality visible in the dissected female corpse with the European representation and with what had been taught him as laid down in Chinese tradition. The old Eta executioner, unlettered but skilful and practical in anatomy, helped the erudite physician to make thrilling discoveries from the decapitated criminal. What was fact, and what was fancy, in the Chinese standard treatises, were henceforth exposed. Gempaku's book, "New Work on Anatomy," based on and translated from John Adams Kuruman's Tafel Anatomica, created a new era in Nippon. In 1644 a Dutch doctor came to Yedo and spent several years in the shogunal city and taught Euro- pean science. Dutch physicians at Deshima were generously free with their knowledge. The scientific men, Kempfer (1651-1716), Von Siebold (1796-1866), 288 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION to whose memory no fewer than five memorial stones have been reared on Japanese soil, and others fed the sacred flame until it would almost seem as if Japan's modern enlightenment was the work of physicians. On the twentieth of September, 1860, Dr. Pompe van Merdervoort, at Nagasaki, established the first hospital under Government auspices and taught anatomy by dissection. Throughout the Empire, the medical practitioners were centres of light and new ideas. Most of the men of the new heroic age, beginning in 1853, were the sons and grandsons of those whose eyes had been opened at Nagasaki. Echizen's doctors, Hajimoto Sanai and Kasahara, with Yokoi Heishiro the reformer, and Shungaku the daimio, created a senti- ment that compelled vaccination and Dutch medical practice even in the forties. With dispensary and medical schools, and anatomical models of the latest and best style in the city of Fukui of the sixties, Echizen may have led all the feudal fiefs in science, but there were other provinces not far behind. Besides fertilizing, during two and a half centuries, the mind of Japan, the Dutch kept up trade even when profits failed, taught the Japanese modern machinery and motors, artillery, tactics, and gunnery, educated their pioneer naval officers, and built for them the first ships of war, doing for Japan through a far longer period what they had already done for Russia under Peter the Great. In diplomacy, step by step, they prepared the way for Perry, as Dr. Nitobe has THE NATIVE INTELLECT FERTILIZED 289 shown in detail, in his "History of the Intercourse between the United States and Japan." Another much misunderstood character, in the twi- light of modern Japan, was the Ronin scholar. It is true that the armed but masterless gentleman, the free lance, and unsalaried samurai, was often a terror to the unarmed common folks and lived by rapine. In times of political disturbance he was the assassin ever ready to redden his blade, often indeed under the stress of unselfish conviction, yet again under pay and with prospects of personal advantage. It is not on this type of man we need waste any praises. The Ronin of this sort lives in the flashy novels and on the stage, both in popular hatred and admiration. Even if he did not die "in a dog's place," with his head off, he was in the vulgar view a hero and his tomb was garlanded with flowers or hung with fluttering stanzas of poetic praise. Even to-day the cabinet ministers justly fear such a character not yet extinct. The Ronin's successor is the soshi, and the fire-eater who, having little to lose, is anxious to get up war. The avatar of his Malay ancestors, he stands ever ready to run amuck. But no more than the Japanese or American people, are the Ronin to be judged en masse. We must dis- criminate and note individuals. Over against the smug salary-drawing, self-satisfied samurai, basking in his lord's favor, shutting his eyes from truth, and armoring his conscience against qualms, a hide- bound conservative, is set the noble Ronin scholar, 290 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION artist, and, though outside of official approval, the doer of righteous acts. As poor and as honorable as the lens-grinding gentleman, thinker, and scholar, Spinoza, were these lean and hungry men, who began for Japan her better times. Without them, the great awakening books, that came as trumpet calls, could not have been penned. Had these glorious heretics kept silence, the orthodox philosophy of Yedo, with its enginery of prison and torture, might have made it impossible for Japan ever to produce an Okubo, an Ito, a Togo, a Kuroki, or an Oyama. Could the rulers have bribed into silence the outspoken patriot, or the censors have stopped his thinking, we should have had no New Japan. Could the torturers, with their rack and bone-crushing apparatus have wholly suppressed the writings of the Ronin scholars, Japan would have been to-day no better than Russia in freedom of thought and act. True, indeed, that the artist who imitated the Dutch style was officially ordered to commit seppuku, and he did. The engineer who made a coastline map of Dai Nippon was arrested and never got out of prison alive. Such men as Takeno (1804-1850) and Watanabe (1793-1841) plunged their dirks into their own bodies in order to cheat the spies and prisons. The physician Hashmoto Sanai, and with him over two-score of men, whose thoughts were ahead of their time, lost their lives under the executioner's sword. Sakuma (1811-1864), who taught Yoshida Shoin (1831-1860), who taught the Marquis Ito, and who advocated national defence THE NATIVE INTELLECT FERTILIZED 291 according to modern methods as early as 1851, was assassinated in 1864. Yoshida Shoin (or Toraijiro), who marched out of the middle ages into the Nine- teenth Century and begged to be taken to America on Perry's ship, was caged and beheaded, but not until he had set up a school and taught and inspired the men now known to the world as Count Inouye and the Marquis Ito. Neither Chinese orthodoxy nor the political system of Yedo could crush out the truth that finally prevailed, and it was in the search for and dissemination of truth, in every line of inquiry, that the Ronin scholar led. In the chapter on "The Recent Revolutions in Japan," in "The Mikado's Empire," we have shown the currents of thought that flowed to form that mighty stream on which the ark of the New Japan now floats. Nitobe, Satoh, Clement, Okakura, and the writers for the Asiatic Society have added many illuminating details. Hardly less potent than the Dutchmen, in fertilizing during two centuries the intellect of Nippon for new growth, were the Chinese scholars who fled their country during the troubles attendant on the fall of the Ming dynasty and the incoming of the Man- chius who now rule China. In the islands they found a welcome and a home, especially in Mito and Owari. They were surprised to discover the backwardness of their guests in philosophy and theology, for the Confucianism in Nippon, until the seventeenth century, was of a 292 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION primitive, simple type. In communal North China, the system of Confucius, having absorbed what was possible from India, through Aryan Buddhism, and from Taoism, or the fruit of mind in individualistic Southern China, had, in the twelfth century, been wholly recast. The sequel of an outburst of popu- lism and a temporary socialistic revolution mani- fested itself in long and deep research and thinking, out of which neo-Confucianism emerged as a world doctrine and a universe svstem now dominant in all • •* Eastern Asia. It was this restatement of China's phi- losophy, by Chu Hi, which the Ming scholars brought to Japan, and which, under the patronage of the third and fifth shoguns, lyemitsu (1623-1649) and Tsuna- yoshi (1681-1708), became official orthodoxy. To criticise or challenge what the Seido, or University, taught, might without peril be measurably allowed, but to attack or violate the edicts of the Government based on the approved philosophy, meant exile, imprisonment, torture, seppuku, or decapitation. All of these methods of official censure were, in a shockingly large number of instances, illustrated. In these latter days of building the tombs of the prophets, not a few names, that were long behind the clouds of dark night, now shine resplendent in silver. Opposed to this neo-Confucianism was the Oyomei system of philosophy, founded not on a late re-casting, which had hardened after five hundred years into scholasticism, but on a re-reading of original texts. It identified knowledge and action. In its modern THE NATIVE INTELLECT FERTILIZED 293 form it fascinated inquiring minds and nourished those men of light and leading who have not only made the New Japan, but who in council, diplomacy, battle, and initiative, have surprised the world. Almost to a man these devotees of the Oyomei philosophy were opposed to the Bakufu. Even those who kept their loyalty to Tokugawa but were not disobedient to their vision of truth, became champions of reform from within, while accepting science from without. Such men as Echizen Shungaku, Yokoi Heishiro, Yuri Kinmasa, Katsu Awa, and Okubo Ichiwo have left their mark indelibly upon history. "Oyomei" is the Japanese pronunciation of the name of the Chinese soldier and thinker Wang Yang Ming (1472-1528), the great protestant against Chu Hi's Confucianism. Wang had a Washingtonian mind. Oyomei's teachings may be summed up in that ancestral motto, which, on the same English shield at Sulgrave with the spur rowels (which are not stars), and the bars (which are not stripes), teaches exitus acta probat (action proves profession). "More real good was to be achieved in proceeding straight to action under the guidance of conscience which was Heaven and all, than in indulging in idle talk about the subtlety of human nature." "The purifi- cation of the heart was the first and main point of study." This was the pith of Oyomeism. Bushido was taught only for practical benefit, and never became a philosophy. In its highest develop- ment it took no philosophic form, except that under 294 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Oyomeian teachers it became a method of Socratic doctrine in question and answer. Hence it was that men who hungered for intellectual justification of life and duty read eagerly the writings of Nakaye Toju (1608-1649) and Kumazawa Hanzan (1619- 1691), who made the teachings of Oyomei a creed. Herein was manifested again the true Japanese genius, which is ever impatient with the abstract and is eager for the practical. Oyomei transformed mediaeval Confucianism into an immediate working principle for the individual. It unshackled some Japanese minds from what was slavishly communal. It had in it a dash of personality and made its devotees willing to face change. The main idea, contended for and reasserted by its Japanese exponents, was that there should be immediate relation between knowledge and activity, with consistency between the two. It is the Dutch "raad voor daad" (counsel before action) with emphasis on the daad. It shone superbly in that greatest of all modern Japanese, Okubo (1832-1878), — greatest in the sense of being original and creative, — who was said to have "a European mind." It is significant that this Oyomeism was most culti- vated in those provinces most distant from Yedo, such as Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, although even in Mito, Owari, and Echizen, groups of thinkers and men of affairs with minds hostile to the Yedo Academy arose, and were ready for change. Thus the men trained in the Oyomei principles were the very opposite THE NATIVE INTELLECT FERTILIZED 295 in mind to those who wanted above all to keep things as they were. The Oyomeians, resourceful and alert, desired reform. Nevertheless, their special mental discipline revealed no definite political goal. This and the prize set before them — complete national unity — were furnished by the historical writers who adjusted their telescopes of research to the past and interpreted its full meaning. They showed that their only legitimate sovereign was the Mikado and that the various "bosses" and power- holders, mayors of the palace, rings of Fujiwaras, and Court nobles, and the Ho jo, Ashikaga, and Tokugawa lines of shoguns, as well as the Taira, were historically usurpers. When this truth once possessed the hearts of the samurai, they flamed out in reverence for their supreme lord, and the determination to serve him and him alone possessed them. The historical school, led by the daimio and scholars of Mito, and Rai Sanyo, feeding and stimulating men of Mazzini- like minds, furnished the point of contact with the Occident, made Japan cosmopolitan and ready to treat even with the so-called barbarians. This was true, even though their purpose was veiled by apparent hatred of the Western ' ' barbarians. " In a word, when the fleet sent by Millard Fillmore in 1853 appeared, there was a mighty army of brave men ready to restore the ancient relation of Throne and people, to abolish the Camp, and to march out of the middle ages into the world's best century. CHAPTER XXI THE RUSSIAN MENACE IN THE NORTH WHILE these inward intellectual movements were preparing the Japanese for self-reformation when opportunity should arise, external events and influ- ences were, with cumulative power, compelling re- adjustment to a new environment. We shall now glance at affairs in the far North. From the tenth to the seventeenth centuries the Ainu hardly furnished a problem to the Government of Japan. It took a long time for the Japanese to unveil their coasts, and to get a clear idea of what was the exact domain of the Mikado's empire. Yezo, called first, as we have seen, Watari Shima (Ferry Island), was first garrisoned in 662, but temporarily. It was not probably circumnavigated by Japanese in any scientific fashion, and never explored, until near the Tokugawa period. Saghalien, or Karafuto, was supposed to be a part of the Asian continent, until the spirit of exploration, aroused by the Russian menace, prompted Mamiya Rinzo (1781-1845) to build a boat especially adapted for narrow straits, and, by sailing nearly round it, to prove it to be an island. Then it was possible to make a correct map 296 THE RUSSIAN MENACE IN THE NORTH 297 of those northern island possessions, which since 1868 have been included under the general name of Hok- kaido, or the Northern Sea Circuit. But neither name nor real possession came till geography was known. In truth, the Japanese owe largely to the Russian menace, as a provoking cause, their modern national unity, solidarity, and development of power. Pressure from the Muscovite was a leading element in forcing national evolution. In the native consciousness, the island we call Yezo, for which even yet the Japanese have no special name, was hardly considered a part of Dai Nippon. The general term for the northern region of Hondo above the thirty-seventh parallel was Oshiu, in which were seven provinces and where are now six prefec- tures. The great high-road northward into this Scot- land of Japan was the Oshiu-Kaido. From the sho- gunal city of Yedo to Awomori the distance was three hundred and forty miles, with eighty-seven relay stations, the road and its equipment being much like high-roads in Europe during the same period. It is well to go back and trace the thread of events from the ninth century, when Ainu wars ceased on the main island. What brought Japanese pioneers into Yezo was the lust for gold. About A.D. 1205, a boat from the daimio Araki's fief in Chikuzen, carrying two sailors and a cook, was blown to sea and driven to Yezo island. While they waited for south winds to take them back, the cook, in going after water, found a shining stone at the foot of a water-fall. 298 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Picking it up and hiding it from his companions, he carried the nugget home and presented it to his daimio, who sent it to the Kamakura Shogun, who was the son of Yoritomo. The daimio was ordered to go to Yezo, to take with him the cook as guide, and to prospect for further riches, while the discoverer received a present of five thousand bushels of rice and was allowed to take his master's name, Araki. An expedition of over a thousand men, including laborers, cooks, gold-washers, soldiers, and a chap- lain, was organized. They left Chikuzen July 9, 1205, and made landing in Yezo in August. First building a fortification to guard against the hostile Ainu, they began washing for gold dust, but from the very first the white savages gave them trouble. Another castle was built, which to-day still bears the name of the quondam cook, who became in succession, gold- discoverer, nobleman, explorer, and commander. The Japanese remained thirteen years all together in Yezo, washing in various streams and obtaining much precious metal, but the hostility between the Southerners and the Ainu was not allayed. In a terrific battle, the Ainu were victorious and slaugh- tered the Japanese to the last man, except the old Buddhist priest, who is said to have been kindly treated by the Ainu and lived to the age of one hundred and five. Exulting in victory, the Ainu crossed the strait to raid the Japanese settlements, but were beaten off. At this spot again, the Musa gold field, in 1873, washing for the precious metal THE RUSSIAN MENACE IN THE NORTH 299 according to modern methods, was recommenced by the American mining engineer, Henry S. Mimroe, of Columbia University, New York, who recovered to history this story of mediaeval mining. During the long era of civil wars, and until the time of lyeyasu, Yezo island was comparatively neglected, but the southwestern corner was held, and the navi- gation of the Straits of Tsugaru was guarded. In 1442 the first colonizer of the island, and ancestor of the daimio of Matsumae, sprung from a family origi- nally of Wakasa, began his work. Going to Yezo, he helped the governor to put down an Ainu uprising, then married his daughter, and, according to common custom, took the name of his father-in-law. The great-grandson of this man ruled the Ainu with tact find success, encouraged trade and commerce, and invited immigrants. His son (1550-1618), who pledged submission to Hideyoshi in 1587, built at Matsumae a castle and changed his name to that of the place which became the centre of Japanese trade and colonization in Yezo. Henceforward the daimios of Matsumae, with their crest of four diamonds, or lozenges, within a circle, became well known. From the watch tower of their castle, built on an eminence commanding the town, the "black ships" of the pass- ing American whalers were noted and reported to Yedo. No attempts were made to civilize the Ainu in these early years, but on the contrary they were often cruelly treated, and it was made a penal offence for 300 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION any Japanese to teach them the arts of civilized life. It is no wonder therefore that these Aryan savages revolted. One notable attempt to regain freedom was made under the famous chief Shagukhamu in 1669. It required an energetic effort and the put- ting forth of all his military resources by the lord of Matsumae to put down this uprising. There are many books on this single episode, beside others that treat of Ainu chiefs whose personality was marked. A library of books on the Ainu in Yezo began to form. Among the interesting litera- ture of northern travel is a lady's illustrated diary of a journey from Yedo to Hakodate and back, de- scribing in classical style the famous frontier stone at Taga, and the manners and customs of the Ainu. Several books tell of Japanese sailors picked up by Russian ships and brought to Nagasaki. Others describe the various Ainu rebellions until the eigh- teenth century, one being as late as 1789. Others summarize the information contained in that great mine of information, the Dutch books, especially the work of Maerten Gerritsz Vries, who in 1643 made notable discoveries in northern Japanese waters. Others treat of Japanese dealings with the Russians in the north. One author in 1802 refuted earnestly the impression that the northern possessions of Japan are useless for the central Government; others urge the. necessity of the development of Yezo. One map of Saghalien shows the Japanese settlements made there early in the nineteenth century. Another, THE RUSSIAN MENACE IN THE NORTH 301 tbesides giving the official correspondence concerning the Russian descents on Itorup island, with a diary of events of 1807, presents the popular songs and squibs to which the occasion gave rise. The Russian menace in the north was probably the first series of events that carried into the official mind at Yedo serious doubts as to whether the system of lyeyasu was, after all, to last forever. The resistless advance of the Slavs eastward had begun about the time that the Anglo-Saxon people faced westward. The one marched across half-frozen soil to seek warm seas. The other sailed over the blue ocean to find land and freedom of conscience. A prolonged duel between the Cossack and Tartar opened. But with rivers and boats, snow and sledges, on horse and by wagon, Siberia was won and the Russian settlements multiplied. The Holy Greek Church, conditioned in previous centuries by Turk and Mongol, reasserted her life in far eastern Asia. She blessed her children as she exhorted them to possess the lands of the pagan. Russia being thus far denied the gift of harbors and access to warm seas, the northern islands of Japan, so slightly cared for by the Yedo Government, offered a constant challenge to Muscovite enterprise and cupidity. Kamschatka was known in 1700 by the Czar's sailors. In 1728 Bering reached the waters that bear his name. In 1736 Spadenburg voyaged to the group of islands which he called the Smokers or Kuriles, which are but a geological continuation of Yezo island. When a Japanese junk was wrecked 302 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION on the Aleutian Islands, — probably but one out of thousands of like fortune, through the long ages, — Queen Catherine, in 1792, after ten years of detention, kindly sent the crew home. Under her patronage a professorship of Japanese was started at Irkutz. She attempted, but in vain, to open intercourse with Japan ; but, despite politeness and proffered brother- hood, Yedo remained piggishly obdurate. In 1804 the Emperor Alexander, wishing to delimit or rectify the frontier, again attempted to open intercourse and sent his special ambassador Resanoff to Nagasaki. The Japanese were damnably and devilishly polite to him, but after long delays came the answer, "All communications between you and us are impossible." It was this Satanic etiquette that decided Perry to keep away from Nagasaki, to go direct to Yedo, and not to take "no" for an answer. The angry Russian envoy went off determined on revenge, and on his way home incited two Russian naval officers to land on the Japanese coast. They did so, plundering some poor fishermen's villages. For this act Golownin was later to suffer. The Russian activities of exploration made it almost a certainty that Japan's frontiers would be violated and her barbarous and unsocial policy of exclusion would be compromised. Krusenstern of Kronstadt made his famous voyage from 1803 to 1806 and collected a Ainu vocabulary. Golownin, in the sloop of war Diana, was sent out in 1807 to explore THE RUSSIAN MENACE IN THE NORTH 303 the Russian waters in the North Pacific. Driven by lack of food and water to land upon Kunashiri Island, he was seized and imprisoned during two years, but finally was set at liberty. His book, "Memoirs of a Captivity in Japan," translated into many languages, became the source of most modern im- pressions concerning the Japanese. This series of events roused in Yedo a tremendous excitement, the most interesting result of which was a fresh outburst of literary activity, as shown in the creation of a library of manuscripts and printed books on the Northern Islands and the Ainu, now increased to over half a thousand. Most of these are listed and annotated in Chamberlain's "Aino Studies." The earliest European work in which the island of Yezo is explicitly mentioned is by Eliad Nicolai, Munich, 1619. The standard work on Korea, Riu Kiu, Yezo, and the Bonin Islands by Rin Shihei, in 1785, was translated by Klaproth, who for a while enjoyed Russian honors and emolument. In 1809 a Japanese author translated a work, probably from the Russian, defending the mental powers of the Ainu and arguing that they were the intellectual equals of the Chinese, Tartars, and Japanese. The first Ainu vocabulary, or dictionary, based on Krusenstern's list, containing two thousand Ainu words, was by Davidow, St. Petersburg, 1813. Another volume details the genealogy of the house of Matsumae from A.D. 880, and the family annals from 1191 to 1789. One author gives in his book a list of Chinese characters as suitable 304 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION for writing the place names of Ainu land, the selection being made for the government of Hakodate. The policy of blotting out aboriginal Aryan names, begun in the eighth century, was diligently continued, but the time was to come when the Japanese would be ashamed of themselves for thus Mongolizing their country. Further proofs that the Russian claims to territory in the North helped powerfully to consolidate the Japanese empire are seen in the determination of Mamiya Rinzo (1781-1845) to find out whether Saghalien was part of Siberia or an island. Born in Hatachi, he learned land surveying from the Dutch and became a petty officer under the shogunate. Ordered to proceed north, he built a long, narrow boat, specially adapted for the work, and started with Matsuda Denjuro, the noted author and explorer of the interior of Saghalien. In his first expedition, in April, 1808, Mamiya reached Cape Lyak, in Lat. 51° 55' N., here making up his mind that Saghalien was an island, though figured on all maps as a con- tinuation of Siberia. In a second expedition in 1808-1809 he extended his explorations to Nanio Vil- lage, 53° 8' N., on the west coast, whence he could look out northward on the expanded Saghalien Gulf and see the lines of land on either side separating like the branches of the letter Y. Having crossed the narrowest part of the "Straits of Tartary" and into East Manchuria and been the first known Japan- ese to visit Siberia, he returned to Yedo and wrote an illustrated account of his travels. THE RUSSIAN MENACE IN THE NORTH 305 In honor of this intrepid explorer, the Japanese Government, in 1905, renamed the water passage between island and continent Mamiya Kaikyo, or Mamiya Strait. On the basis of the United States H.O. charts, No. 1777, of August, 1900, and No. 1778, published June, 1904, showing the northern and southern third, and the British Admiralty chart of 1859, corrected in 1903, delineating the middle sec- tion, the Hydrographic Department, I.J.N. in Tokio, March, 1905, under Real-Admiral Kimotski, compiled a superb chart in three sheets, over nine feet long, which was used by the expedition which recaptured the island in July, 1905, during sittings of the Peace Conference at Portsmouth. The Japanese navy had not surveyed the waters of Saghalien, and the show of names of navigators all along the island coast and the long occupation of Northern Saghalien, makes it difficult to see how Russia could ever agree to cede the whole island to Japan. These varied activities in ships and books, of explorer and students, during the first half of the nineteenth century aroused the Yedo Govern- ment. The daimio Matsumae was punished for his lack of energy in guarding against the enemy, by transferring him and his fief to Hondo. In 1821 the family was repatriated in the ancestral seat in Yezo, and there is still a baron of the line and name. Praiseworthy efforts at colonization were made and a policy of kindness to the Ainu begun which reflects credit on the Tokugawa, and 306 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION compares favorably with similar measures of Eu- ropean nations. Many more attempts were made by Russia to obtain a foothold on Japanese soil, but no treaty of peace and friendship was signed until February 7, 1855. This was some months after the American success inaugu- rated by Millard Fillmore. Thus gradually the northern sea frontier of Japan was "moth-eaten." The Kurile Islands gradually came into Russian possession, and the whole island of Saghalien was occupied. In 1875 the Russians, through De Rosen's diplomacy, carried on in Tokio, received a title-deed in exchange for the useless part of the Kurile Islands — which the Japanese had already thought they owned. The impression left on the Japanese mind by these encroachments on the north by Russia — ever suffer- ing a hunger for more land and a warm sea — was intensified by the temporary occupation in 1861 of Tsushima, whence they were compelled by the British fleet, at the request of Katsu Awa (1823- 1900), to remove. What that lifelong impression of danger from Russia was, is best shown in the answer of the two Japanese lads who first came in 1866 as students to America. "What brought you here?" asked their friend, Dr. J. M. Ferris. Their reply came quickly, "To learn how to make big cannon, so that our country will not be conquered by Russia." Another nation and flag appeared on the ocean and in the North, in the second third of the nineteenth THE RUSSIAN MENACE IN THE NORTH 307 century. The American whalers, rounding Cape Horn, pursued their prey in the seas of Japan, and soon from the watch-tower at Matsumae, the passing black ships were counted by scores. In 1839 a majority of the 555 Yankee ships in the whale fishery hunted the sperm whale in the Pacific. In 1847 the number of vessels had risen to 729, and the capital invested amounted to $20,000,000. In 1848 the New Bedford men had passed through Bering Straits into the Arctic Ocean, and of the whole American fleet, 278 vessels were in North Pacific waters. This meant frequent shipwrecks on the coast of Japan, with varied treatment, kind or cruel, of Ameri- can sailors, of which one must read in Professor E. W. Clement's corrected and annotated edition of Hil- dreth's "Japan as It Was and Is," reissued in Chicago in 1906. The waifs were sent to the United States by way of Nagasaki and Batavia. Japanese were also brought to America. "John Munn" (Manijiro), who learned English at Fairhaven, near New Bedford, was, in 1854, unknown to Perry, in the rear and hidden part of the treaty-tent as interpreter, and lived to translate Bowditch's "Navigator." Joseph Heco, author of the "Narrative of a Japanese" (1850-1889), was educated in Baltimore, and did good service as interpreter in Japan, especially when with MacDougal in the U.S.S.S. Wyoming at Shimonoseki in 1863. These are two known, among many, who, like soldiers who have nobly served their country, sleep in graves marked "unknown." 308 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION On the American side we have a most romantic and wonderful but true figure in Ranald McDonald (1824-1894). In the Executive Document, No. 39 of the Thirty-Second Congress, is his deposition. "That started Perry." In 1891 Dr. Nitobe wrote, "In his work, although it is little noticed and less known, we trace a promise of American educational activity in Japan." Mr. R. E. Lewis in his "Educa- tional Conquest of the Far East" (1903) outlines the story of modern education in Japan. The narrative of this first teacher of English in Japan is also given in fiction by Mrs. Eva Emery Dye, in "McDonald of Oregon," Chicago, 1906. This son of a Chinook prin- cess and Archibald McDonald of the Hudson Bay Company, was born at Astoria. The lad met ship- wrecked Japanese at Vancouver. In his twenties, instead of warming for life a three-legged stool in the Company's Canadian office, he shipped before the mast. He had himself, in 1845, put ashore in Japan and was taken to Matsumae, where he at once began making a Japanese vocabulary, and thence to Naga- saki. With true educational and missionary spirit, McDonald began teaching the language of Will Adams (Shakespeare's contemporary, and who was in Japan from 1600 to 1620) to young Japanese. McDonald raised up a school of interpreters for Biddle (1846), Glyn (1849), Perry (1853), and other Americans, of whose visits to Japan we have written in the "Life of Matthew Calbraith Perry." Of the fourteen young men who came daily to his cage in THE RUSSIAN MENACE IN THE NORTH 309 Nagasaki, to learn English with the help of Moriyama, the scholar in Dutch, and a Dutch-English dictionary, several became not only useful but famous, among them Moriyama Yenoske and Hori Tatsnoske, "all student samurai of the double sword." On winter nights, Ranald's cage became "a house of reception, lit with wax candles on low square stands. Men of all orders came to see and talk with the first teacher of English in Japan." It is now in place to tell of President Millard Fill- more's project to invite Japan to enter the world's brotherhood. Perhaps of all Americans, Fillmore enjoys the highest share of honor in winning the Japanese to fraternity. CHAPTER XXII DIPLOMACY AND COMMOTION THE world in general knows the outside story of the opening of Japan by the removal of the amado — storm doors, which let in the light. The inner story may not be as familiar. Oregon ; the Mexican War; California ; the American whalers in the Pacific Ocean ; the desire to get rid of European despotism on the continent of America, as in Alaska; the eagerness for trade; the need of coal, following upon the application of steam; Japan's position as a link between the Occident and the mother-continent of Asia, — all these were motives apart from the frankly acknowledged desire for the Christianization of Japan, and the hope that she would emerge from seclusion and enter the world's sister- hood. The Sun-goddess had sulked in the cave long enough. For the purpose of tendering the olive branch to a proud hermit, there was no better President of the United States, nor had the American people ever a more efficient servant in the chair of the navy depart- ment. Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) and William Alexander Graham (1804-1885) were among the 310 DIPLOMACY AND COMMOTION 311 ablest servants of the nation. It was a time when the activities of the United States navy and their commanders were notable in all parts of the world. Brilliant chapters were being added to the records of exploration, discovery, diplomacy, the enterprises of peace, and the assertion of American nationality. Such men as Graham and Kennedy in the Navy Department, and such Secretaries of State as Web- ster, Everett, and Seward, dealt with the Japanese question. For the mission to a proud people, a naval officer of the highest attainments in science was chosen. He had indeed been a man of war from his youth up. Born in 1794, he was a midshipman in 1809. He trod the decks of the frigate President in 1812, and was lieutenant in 1813. Yet he was familiar with the courts and kings of Europe, from Russia to Britain. He knew, too, the common and lower grades of man in Africa and Mexico. He was a scholar in the prime of life. By general reading and by what Glyn and Ranald McDonald, Cooper and Biddle, had written, he had discerned the difference between the people of Japan and their governors, and knew well the distinction between a nation and its temporary form of government. No man understood the real Japanese better, discerning both their reality and their sham, than Perry. Patiently selecting his men and ships and supervising their equipment, despite all delays, he secured a staff and squadron represent- ing the highest naval science. In choosing the 312 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION presents for "His Majesty," the Yedo shogun, he spent much time and care. He did not know that Komei in Kioto, father of the present illustrious ruler, was the real Emperor (1847-1867), and most of the Japanese themselves in reality knew no more. In the forefront of scientific achievement, virtually the father of the new American navy that was born in the era of steam, and one of the first users of the electric telegraph, Perry was President Fillmore's own choice. Divining the hunger of the hermits for the triumphs of science, the Commodore was given also a free hand. He had hints of these eager spirits, to whom knowledge of the outer world had long been forbidden. To that noble appetite he longed to minister by tendering keys to the treasure house of science. He loaded his store ships with a railway and locomotive engine, telegraph wires, various machines and instruments with their equipment, ploughs, agricultural tools, sewing-machines, keys, locks, lamps, and a hundred forms of American invention. The commodore proposed to set up on the strand at Yokohama an industrial exposition that should lure Sky-Shine out of her cave. He would make the gods laugh with his tickling comedy. Where the islanders had deified and worshipped the forces of nature, he would show how man had tamed and harnessed them. All of Uzume's fun should be there. He trusted to get the stone door of the cave ajar. Then he hoped DIPLOMACY AND COMMOTION 313 for some god of strong hands, in the form of a trained diplomatist, who should pull it wide open. Perry succeeded. His programme, as carried out, was the apparition of steamers off Uraga in Yedo Bay in July, 1853 ; delivery of President Millard Fillmore's letter in the pavilion, not at Nagasaki, but at Kurihama (where now rises the golden-lettered obelisk inscribed by Marquis Ito and to which the Mikado subscribed money, in Perry Park); then "sayonara;" and eight months' leisure for the Yedo authorities to meditate over tea, tobacco, and hibachi, and also for the boiling of the political pot. He re- turned the following February, with an augmented squadron of twelve vessels, ranged in crescent line off the shore of Kanagawa, within sound of the night booming of the temple bells of Yedo. He came to Adzuma, where Yamato Dake of legend had been, for commerce, yet he made no secret of his belief that the United States was a Christian country. He would do no business on Sunday. On that day the one flag more sacred to an American than the stars and stripes was hoisted to the peak. It called men to worship not local gods, but the one God, Father of all. Worship and praise were held on deck. Frightful was the excitement on land. Many were the symbolical cups of cold water drunk and the white kimonos put on in expectation of death in battle with "hairy to-jin," for these Americans looked like the Ainu, and were as hairy-faced as Yezo savages, or the ancient nobles and mikados from Ama, as the 314 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION artists represent them. Large was the army collected and in waiting for the ravages expected from the American barbarians, if things should go wrong. But no ! Politeness, courtesy, humanity, with no humiliations, was the American demand. Happily for Japan, though the shogun lyesada (1824-1858) was both a youth and a weakling, his premier Abe grasped the situation. Despite dissenting voices and fierce criticism, he acted with statesmanlike wis- dom, and sent his wisest commissioners to treat with the American envoy. Hayashi, the professor of the orthodox philosophy and Chinese literature in the Seido University, and the American Commodore made a covenant of peace and friendship, almost exactly like that in the draft proposed by the Dutch, through J. Doncker Curtius and known in Yedo. Dr. S. Wells Williams proposed the "favored nation" clause. Nothing was said in the text of extra-terri- toriality, nor was trade or residence yet in sight. After the treaty followed many treats. Grati- tude for Japanese hospitality and the unsealing of two ports (one of them utterly worthless) for sailors to obtain food, fuel, and water, meant also a lively sense of favors to come. The refreshments on the Japanese side were furnished by Momokawa, the Yedo caterer, and his bill was for 2000 riyo, or $10,000 in present values. We have the picture, menu, and translation on Tokio postal cards of 1907. Then followed the unpacking of bales and boxes. The puffing locomotive whirled round the railway track. DIPLOMACY AND COMMOTION 315 The telegraph wires thrilled with sparks of light. Transmitted into words and syllables, by writing of dots and dashes, the mystic fire of heaven spoke as Sky-Shine did to Kobo. The polished machinery and the wonder-working devices of industry were as fascinating as the mirror and jewels before the cave. Many thoughtful men asked which were the "bar- barians." After this, the Yedo official world hoped to go to sleep again. The fleet sailed away, but the political pot boiled furiously within. Sky-Shine was far from being entirely out of the cave. A few American ships approaching Japan and expecting trade were turned back, their skippers furious at Perry for securing so little. Who should pull the rock away and let full light shine all over the Honorable Country, yes, and to the world afar? Abe, Ise no Kami, was followed by Hotta (1810-1864), a premier of scholarly tastes and even broader mind, who saw the necessity of "the frogs in a well," as the native proverb mirrors the conceited hermits, knowing something of "the great ocean" of humanity and the world at large. He it was who opened a school of foreign language and science — the germ of the splendid Imperial Univer- sity in Tokio. It was, in deference to the fire-eaters, called ' ' Office for the Examination of Barbarian Books. ' ' He was one of the two noble spirits who cooper- ated to make Japan take a long step forward in history and toward a nobler goal than timid or narrow bigots 316 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION ever conceived of. Under Abe's directions, permis- sion was given to the daimios to build men-of-war, a national flag was adopted, — the red sun on a white field, — Katsu Awa was sent to Nagasaki to study engineering, a musketry instructor taught by the Dutch was commissioned, forts were built in Yedo Bay, and preparations were made to order warships in Holland. Sakuma (instructor among others of Japan's leading philosopher, Kato Hiroyuki) proposed the hiring of foreign experts who should come to Japan to teach the Japanese modern arts and sciences. Thus he foreshadowed that army of five thousand Yatoi, who from 1865 to 1900 taught Japan her new ways. Within eighteen months of Perry's departure ap- peared Townsend Harris (1803-1878), founder of the New York Free Academy, now the University of the City of New York, whose president in 1907 is also head of the Japan Society formed when Kuroki visited Manhattan. Harris had no fleet or soldiers. He persevered in kindness and firmness and he told the truth. At every point he beat the liars and the men of sham, which the Bakufu system, or Tent Government, itself far gone in decay, grew like mush- rooms on a rotten log. The American entered Yedo with no humiliation, obtaining audience of the sho- gun. He then virtually opened a school to teach hermits the laws of modern life among nations, and he kept it four months. He demanded a treaty and the opening of ports to commerce, with trade and residence. THE YEDO SHOGUN AND His WIFE ix TREATY DAYS DIPLOMACY AND COMMOTION 317 It was a critical moment of strain and stress between Throne and Camp. Within the empire, the volcano was ready to blow the rocky cap off the Yedo usurpation. The long-gathering forces of public opinion were on the point of explosion. At Kioto was thick darkness concerning knowledge of the outer world. At Yedo there was some acquaintance with modern movements and with dangers and forces from afar. Hotta received Mr. Harris, and then he, following Professor Hayashi, went to Kioto in person to secure the Imperial signature. After the ebb and flow of opinion in the palace, Hotta's labors were fruitless, and he came back to Yedo disheartened. At the clamor of his enemies, he was shut up in his yashiki and died soon after. His successor was li (1815-1860), lord of Hikone. Hotta, lord of Bitchiu, did not die in vain. He fell nobly in the wreck of a tottering system. At Kioto, Sanjo (1837-1891), the kuge, was the stalwart who opposed the idea of relegating the control of foreign affairs to the shogun, contending that the Mikado should have and keep all power in his own hands. Alternately honored and degraded, in exile and honor, Sanjo rose in 1874 to be premier of Japan. He was one of the first at Court to know that the secret of the opposition to and the assassination of foreigners and burning of their legations was one of indirect force. The real object of the assassins and incendiaries was the destruction of the Bakufu system. The situation was complicated by the domestic 318 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION necessity of choosing an heir to the shogunate. Women ruled the Yedo Court, and the Boudoir threatened to overweigh the Council table. While the Bakufu pensionaries considered the selection of an heir a purely family matter, others, good men and wise, argued, in view of the crisis, that this was a matter on which national destinies might hang. Furthermore, there were differences of opinion as to how the Country, if open, was to treat with outsiders. One could now spell nation with an N, for the spirit of nationality was hourly rising. Abe had desired Keiki, son of Mito, popular with the daimios and the Kioto Court, to be shogun, but between his duties in the Council and the women of the Yedo Court, who disliked Keiki, he was obliged to temporize in order to carry out his liberal schemes so distasteful to the ladies. It was the petticoat and not the brains of the Bakufu that, in Hotta's absence in Kioto, had secured the elevation of li to the premier- ship. He at once yielded to them and appointed lyemochi (1846-1866). The boy-shogun, son of the daimio of Kii, was thirteen years old and was thir- teenth of the line, yet in Japan is no superstition about this number, for neither Christ, nor Judas, nor the Supper was known. It was the vice of government, in both Kioto and Yedo, that there was no sharp dis- tinction between the Court and the Government, being then only a little better than the Korean method. Hence the vigor of reform and wisdom in the Consti- tution of 1889 on this subject. DIPLOMACY AND COMMOTION 319 With perhaps the purest motives, and to save his country from the fate of India or China, but with a hand as high as any Alva or Torquemada, the premier li took the responsibility, defied the wrath of Mikado and Court, signed the treaty, and then proceeded to confine to their houses the daimios of Echizen, Owari, Tosa, and Uwajima, and to order to decapitation, exile, or imprisonment all who opposed his will. The net of fate was cast over the whole country and soon the prisons were full. Among the victims to the deathsman were Yoshida Shoin (teacher of Marquis Ito), Hashimoto Sanai, Rai, son of the historian Rai Sanyo, and nearly forty others, men of genius and leadership, mostly disciples of the Oyomei philosophy. li despatched an embassy to America to confirm the treaty, and — we write it in May, 1907, when the cruisers, the Chitose, famous under Togo in the Russian war, and the Tsukuha, built wholly in Japan by Japanese, lie at anchor in the Hudson River — Katsu Awa navigated the Kanda Maru across the Pacific and back, and this within five years after first seeing the two steamships under Perry's flag, the U.S.S.S. Powhatan and Susquehanna. The author having seen in 1850 the launching at Philadelphia of the Susquehanna, met in the same city several of the members of premier li's embassy in 1860. In the view of his enemies, li was "the swaggering Prime Minister." A noble patriot, he foresaw his country's needs and did his best. Such is the judg- ment of scholars. "Heaven's ordination baffles the 320 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION human" is the pious verdict of an Imperial prince and of those Japanese not a few, who, after self- effacement, bow before the Mystery, not knowing a Father. A daimio of the old type, loyal to the Tokugawa, who had always had charge of foreign affairs, he believed in the Yedo autocracy, and cared not for innovations. He had no idea of the strength of the rising sentiment of neo-Mikadoism. As so often in Japan, the sword solved the problem. Despotism was tempered by assassination. Attacked by seventeen Ronins, March 23, 1860, during a heavy snowstorm, li and eight of his train lost their lives in sudden onslaught of men who considered themselves instruments of Heaven's vengeance. In a fearful sword battle, the sparks of crossed swords mingled with the falling flakes. Eight of the attacking party were killed or died of wounds. In Yedo, brave men, with noble spirits consecrated in loyalty to a tottering institution which was ruled on the inside by pampered women, who were wicked through ignorance, had tried to maintain the pillars of state and cope with the situation. Ando, Tsushima no Kami (1819-1871), followed li in the troubled succession. He hoped to restore the prestige of the shogunate by marrying the Mikado's sister, the prin- cess Kadzu no Miya, to lyemochi. With splendor and illumination the wedding was celebrated, but to so low an estate in popular fame had Tokugawa fallen, that the whole affair was looked on as the extortion of an Imperial hostage to compel endorsement of the DIPLOMACY AND COMMOTION 321 Camp's arbitrary measures. Ando, like li, was attacked by Ronins, and only by personally using his own sword with effect did he escape. After a troubled life, worn out by the harassing cares of State, in an era that seemed all earthquake and volcano, lyemochi fell ill and died. A white- haired lady of many sorrows, the body of his widow, emerged in 1906, from a life's retirement, to momen- tary publicity, while borne to the rest of the grave. She, too, was one of the martyrs to Japan's pangs of transformation; costly, yet worth the pain. Echizen's work, begun in 1862, as Supreme Ad- ministrator of Affairs, bridged the abyss between old and new. He served in both Yedo and Kioto, as servant both of the shogun and Mikado, holding the reins of power and actually the chief ruler in a most critical era. There were clan leaders and war captains whose names blared very loudly in contemporary fame's trumpet, but they were soon to fall into ob- livion. Echizen was the true patriot, earnestly hoping, like our own Fillmore and Webster, to stave off impending civil war. In both cities, Echizen held in check the disorderly elements. He was loyal to the old order, while yet prophet enough to see the resist- less new era that was inevitably coming. Echizen had among his near advisers such men as Yuri Kinmasa and Yokoi Heishiro. The former, the Thomas Jefferson of Japan, penned with his own hand the "Charter Oath" of the Mikado in 1868, intended as a State Rights document and aimed at 322 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION the centralizing clan- combination which has so long, and even in our late days of the twentieth century, dominated the Government in Tokio. Later, with consummate skill, he ordered the finances of the new Imperial State, when it came into being. Yokoi, as adviser to the young leaders of the coup d'etat of January 3, 1868, helped to guide the ship of State grandly through the rocks and billows. He proposed the elevation of the outcasts to citizenship and was the first to plead for freedom of conscience — two of Japan's grandest moral triumphs, now incorporated in the constitution of 1889, in which she leads some European nations. Echizen guarded the Imperial Palace, for as in all ages, since 645 A.D., to possess the Mikado's person and to give legality to their schemes was, alike to the plotters and to the patriots, the supreme aim. Now in late summer, 1862, began the alternating current between Yedo and Kioto that meant the death of many. Echizen, made Supreme Director of Affairs, with Yokoi Heshiro, attempted the moral cleansing of Yedo,. The time was not yet ripe, but the daimios were released from maintaining houses of hostage in Yedo, and, with their families and clansmen, flocked to Kioto. The sacred city in Yamato seethed like a caldron. To the American this decade of gathering clouds recalls the ten years previous to the great civil war. Commotion and danger were varied with episode so odd as to call for laughter, caricature, and street songs. DIPLOMACY AND COMMOTION 323 How could Echizen or any other governor keep order "at the base of the chariot" with all the elements of revolution thus focussed in the Imperial City ? The gayety and the grimness of the period were alike illus- trated in the comedy of the Ronin, who were radical Mikado-reverencers. They entered a memorial tem- ple, cut off the heads of the wooden images of the Ashikaga regents, and pilloried them on the dry bed of the river. All the world looked, wondered, trem- bled, laughed, but they saw the point. As a lover of order and a relative of the Tokugawa, while fiercely progressive, Echizen in a rage strove in vain to ferret out the perpetrators of the insult and the prophecy. From dumb show with wood, the Mikado-mad Ronin proceeded to redden their swords in the blood of merchants known to have traded to advantage with the hairy-faced aliens, and to set their severed heads on city gates. One apostle of progress, Sakuma Shozan, who rode on a horse with a European saddle and bridle, was slain for his temerity. In Yedo Mr. Heusken, the young Hollander, Secretary of Mr. Harris, was cut to pieces January 14, 1861, by the assassins' swords. The envoys and legations even of European Powers, though rich in convenient ships of war and battalions of soldiers which they landed at Yokohama and fixed in camp for safety, struck their flags and deserted Yedo. Mr. Harris alone, without even a sentinel, kept the stars and stripes floating over the American Legation at the Temple of Zempukuji. 324 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Choshiu tried to force "the king's hand," that is, to coerce the Court, with artillery, rifles, and swords, both at long range and in hand-to-hand fight. March- ing upon Kioto August 20, 1864, with cannon, Cho- shiu's bands attacked the palace, and a battle raged which laid most of Kioto in ashes. "The city of the ninefold circle of flowers" nearly "disappeared in the flames of a war-fire." Echizen, Satsuma, Aidzu, and the loyal clansmen beat off the warriors from the southwest who, with modern arms, were at one and the same time, from their forts on the Straits of Shimonoseki, fighting the foreigners' ships and in Kioto were seeking to seize the Son of Heaven. On September 5, eighteen ships of war, with two hundred and eight guns and 7590 men, under the flags of Great Britain, France, Holland, and the United States, bombarded the batteries, and on the seventh cap- tured and demolished the fortifications. Of the $3,000,000 indemnity, exacted and finally paid by the Imperial Government in Tokio, the United States received $750,000, but afterwards paid this same sum back to Japan, keeping the accumulated interest. Thus straining every nerve, this clan of Choshiu hoped to rule as lords paramount of Japan. It was at such a mere'change of mats, but not of the floor, the overturning one despotism to set up another, Choshiu or Satsuma instead of Tokugawa — that the pro- visions of the Charter Oath of April 6, 1868, were aimed. DIPLOMACY AND COMMOTION 325 The shogun's expedition of chastisement against Choshiu followed, led by Echizen, who must vindicate law. But the punishment was not great nor was pursuit pressed. All men were beginning to see some things more clearly. Instead of divided coun- cils, clan feuds, and jealousies, there must be unity in order to make a true commonwealth and have a government suited to the time. If Japan was to be treated as a sovereign nation, all parties and all clans must unite. At these parties let us now look. CHAPTER XXIII THE NEW GOVERNMENT AND THE NEW JAPAN THE two great factors in the mighty dualism that inheres in all schemes of government are centraliza- tion and local power. In preserving the happy bal- ance, there are many oscillations. Whether in monarchy, oligarchy, democracy, bureaucracy, or so-called autocracy, these centrifugal and centripetal forces are ever at work. Even in federal government, the counterbalance of national supremacy and state right shows that there are forces as continuously operative as those which produce the density of the earth's crust, and of which earthquakes and volcanoes are some of the phenomena. In Japan are the solid mountains and shore profile, but also the oft-heaving earthquake and the belch- ing volcano. Apparently in static calm, the land is in reality in perpetual oscillation. So, also, during the ages have been the alternate rise and fall of the scale pans in which the Mikado's authority was weighed against that of local rulers and powers. History, since the eighth century, shows a weakening Court with an over-organized bureaucracy, as against 326 NEW GOVERNMENT AND THE NEW JAPAN 327 a constantly strengthening military and a growing feudal power in the provinces. After various political earthquakes, affairs settled to the static calm of duarchy, with twin capitals, Kioto and Kamakura. Then the temporary mikadoate concentrated power with the Emperor, but only for a little while, the break in the political strata issuing in long anarchy. When again, under Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, the nation was for another brief term of years nominally united round the Throne, we find under lyeyasu, another and a still stronger duarchy in form, while really it is monarchy, centralized in Yedo. Under the outward guise of feudalism is the rule of one man, the Imperial power being a shadow. Not until out- side pressure, in the last half of the nineteenth century, came to produce the greatest of all Japan's political upheavals, did the age-old strata settle to give the Throne a sure foundation and make in the Japanese nation a substantial unity, and such as had been never before known. In the nature of the case, while lacking force applied from without, there could be no true unity or monarchy. Within old Japan duarchy was as natural as the centripetal and cen- trifugal forces of the cosmos. lyeyasu in encouraging learning had unwittingly provided for the downfall of his dynasty. It was a scholar's movement that abolished duarchy and feudalism and brought in the modern world of Japan. The work of the critics and historians of the Mito scholars, and of Rai Sanyo, who revealed the foun- 328 JAPANESE "NATION IN EVOLUTION tain of power in Kioto, the study of archaeology, the revival of the study of pure Shinto, the exasperation of the land-working classes, the hostile jealousy of the Mikado-reverencers, and the desire of the great daimios to share in the wealth which trade was bringing to Japan, were among the causes leading to national upheaval and outburst. When the American "armed embassy" or "peace- ful armada" sent by Fillmore appeared, the Bakufu, itself a duarchy made up of an outer ministry and an inner household, i.e. of Cabinet and Boudoir, was not the nation's head, or the supreme power, yet in all its dealings with foreigners it pretended to be so. Hence the continual resort to tricks and subterfuges, even to the forging of the Mikado's signature to the new treaties, in order to prevent foreigners from finding out the facts that the shogun was not, as in the documents, "His Majesty," or the Emperor. Perry, the United States authorities, and all the first diplomatists were deceived, but Townsend Harris, the American Consul-General, when underlings had laughed in his face at the idea of the Mikado's inter- ference, threatened to go to Kioto in person to find out why Yedo delayed to sign. Nevertheless the Emperor Komei held back his sign manual. When the Yedo premier, Lord li, a Fudai, or family vassal, daimio of Hikone, "took the responsibility," set his signature to the document, and sent an embassy of ratification to America, he was, as we have seen, promptly assassinated, his retinue being attacked NEW GOVERNMENT AND THE NEW JAPAN 329 by a band of Ronins, who made a bloody battle-field of the avenue leading to the castle. Dying outside his yashiki, his estate had been confiscated, save that the hands of time's clock were set forward by published fiction, so that he might expire officially within the gates, and thus his heirs save their inheritance. In Kioto, where the darkness visible of ignorance reigned, there was anger and wrath at the shogun's fresh usurpation of power in signing the treaties, but the Yedo Government stretched forth its iron hand from the castle of Nijo upon the palace, banished nobles, filled the prisons with upright Mikado-par- tisans, and compelled others to commit hara-kiri. Soon those high-souled assassins and incendiaries, who have since become Imperial advisers, kept Yedo in turmoil, burning legations and assassinating foreigners. Their immediate aim was to embroil the shogun with foreigners, who would send armed fleets to avenge their murdered citizens. Though few out- side Japan could understand the reason for such violence, it was all done for the one purpose, cherished during a century, of toppling down the shogunate, and exalting the Mikado to supreme power. In retaliation, the Yedo Government encouraged the Treaty Powers to send their warships to bombard the cities of Kagoshima and Shimonoseki, belonging to their feudatory vassals, Satsuma and Choshiu, whom the shogun was impotent to coerce, that they might be humbled. There was a clash of systems. Men from countries 330 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION which had thrown off the feudal yoke five hundred years before came into collision with feudalism as a living force. Merchant foreigners insisted on riding horses and refused to dismount before the daimios' processions on the great high-roads, and the Bakufu could not compel them. Neither could the shogun any longer force their great feudatories to reside in Yedo. In despair, the Lord of Echizen, relative of Toku- gawa, was called to be the Supreme Administrator of Affairs. A far-seeing statesman, he read the signs of the times. One of the first things which he did was to abolish the custom of the daimios coming to Yedo. At the same time, the shogun prepared to do personal homage to the Emperor in Kioto. Thus had the pendulum swung and the prestige of the Mikado increased ! On the 21st of April, 1863, ancient custom revived. The shogun, head of the Tokugawa house, was seen kneeling before the Mikado in Kioto, worshipping "the Dragon Countenance," and receiving a cup from His Majesty. Besides enriching Court nobles and servants, and "moisten- ing the whole populace in the bath of his mercy," to the tune of five thousand strings of silver, — the shogun restored ancient history. This lovely pro- cedure helped powerfully to reduce the financial re- sources of the Bakufu to the lowest ebb. The clans now flocked to Kioto, which became the centre of intrigue and interests, but when the Bakufu attempted the second time, in 1866, by force of arms NEW GOVERNMENT AND THE NEW JAPAN 331 to chastise its disobedient vassal, Choshiu, which now had within its territory steamers, modern weapons, American rifles, and artillery, and Dutch books of military science, besides plenty of money and much of the best brain and valor of the country, the Yedo troops were thoroughly beaten, and the prestige of Yedo was irretrievably ruined. Being now able to meet together and take council, the once jealous clans stifled their jealousies and made up their quarrels. They formed a combination which, in Kioto, after manifold checks and counter- checks, succeeded in compelling Keiki, the Yedo shogun (born in 1837, and still, in 1907, living) to resign. On the 9th of November, 1867, in a noble manifesto, this last of the shoguns returned his dele- gated powers into the hands of the Emperor. By this time public opinion, i.e. of the gentry of the clans, was crystallizing into three forms. The " Federalists " wanted a council of feudal lords; the "Imperialists" clamored for centralization; and the "Unionists" looked for a national legislature representing all the clans. Keiki resigned because he was under the im- pression that a general council of daimios was to be immediately convened at Kioto, to deliberate upon and settle the basis of a new constitution. The 15th of December was the day fixed for the opening of the assembly. Instead of peaceful dele- gates, the roads were full of marching soldiers, both of the Bakufu and from the daimios, and instead of an assembly there was a coup d'etat, and the Im- 332 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION perialists won the day. On the 3d of January, 1868, the armed men of the combination of Satsuma, Choshiu, Aki, Owari, and Echizen took possession of the nine gates of the palace. Allowing only those Court nobles whose views coincided with their own to approach the Emperor, they held an assembly and procured the Imperial decree for abolishing the Bakufu and other offices, and for the creation of a new Na- tional Government based on "public opinion," i.e. of the military classes. Such a political entity as that of "the people" was not in view. Meanwhile in the castle of Nijo, Aidzu being the governor, Keiki with his large army, and moved by angry advisers, was mortified at the turn which affairs had taken. He sent a memorial to the Court which showed clearly that he regretted his resignation. He then left Kioto with his army to "calm the passions of his followers," and also to occupy Osaka in force, and thus hold the sea- power and block communications. Meanwhile the new Government was established with three grades of officers, to be filled respectively by an Imperial prince, by kuge or daimio, and by samurai, with eight departments of administration, according to the differentiations, executive, legisla- tive, and deliberative. When the shogun, with his followers, attempted to reenter Kioto in force, to "drive out the bad Counsellors of the Emperor," he was resisted, and by this move made himself a choteki. In the civil war which followed, the loyal NEW GOVERNMENT AND THE NEW JAPAN 333 forces were everywhere victorious. The new Gov- ernment was established in Tokio. Katsu Awa acted as the peacemaker between the old adherents of the Baku'fu and the men of the new regime. The Oyomei philosophy proved, with the right person- alities, to be a vital factor in the evolution of the nation. Vital Christianity won its initial victory in this war. Dr. Willis of the British Legation, who had attended to an Eta woman wounded at Kobe, was invited to Kioto, and used his professional skill as a surgeon on the wounded of both sides. In the campaign at Wakamatsu in October, 1868, against the contemptuous neglect of the wounded and other mediaeval methods of warfare, he made energetic and effective protest, and clan lines were wiped out in a common humanity. Dr. Willis's words and example made new law for Japan and gave the precedent for the treatment of Chinese in 1895 and of Russians in 1904. By her financial aid, by her courts as examples, by the conduct of her honorable merchants, Great- Britain proved herself a friend of Japan in her earliest need and continued unswervingly so, until the logical culmination was made in the Anglo-Russian alliance of 1900 and 1905. Japan owes the British people more than money. CHAPTER XXIV FOREIGN SERVANTS AND HELPERS THE outstanding event in modern Japan which far overtops, in moral grandeur, even her military cam- paigns, was the Charter Oath of the Mikado, taken in the halls of Nijo Castle and in the presence of the lords, both of the Court and of the land, on the 6th of April, 1868. The Emperor was then fourteen years of age. The words put into his mouth and uttered before gods and men were carefully weighed and chosen beforehand, in what would be called in Amer- ica, a caucus. Their final form was from the pen of Yuri Kinmasa of Echizen. The object of this solemn act was to make a nation; that is, to secure a union of interests, to allay the jealousies of the clans, and to follow as closely as possible the ideal constitution of the nations of the West. More immediately, it was intended to prevent any one clan, such as Satsuma or Choshiu, or a com- bination of clans, from being the dominating factor in the new Government. In point of fact, the end in view was not fully realized, for instead of the Government being made up of able men chosen in justice and proportion from 334 FOREIGN SERVANTS AND HELPERS 335 many clans, the three clans of Satsuma, Choshiu, and Tosa secured virtual possession of the Government and held it until our time, even within the twentieth century. The Mikado's promise was not really fulfilled, even in the form of granting a written constitution, until 1889, and then only under long and severe pressure that often threatened explosion. In rhetoric and traditional orthodoxy, the constitution is "the gift of the Emperor to his people." In actual fact, it is the result of twenty-one years of unceasing struggle and demand of earnest opposers of oligarchy that the Imperial promise be fulfilled. One of the most important of the five clauses of the oath was, that intellect and learning should be sought for throughout the world in order to establish the foundations of the empire. This was simply legalizing what had been begun under Tokugawa. In 1863, men of war had been ordered from Holland and Messrs. Enomoto, Aka- matsu, Uchida, and others were sent thither as stu- dents of naval science. They returned in 1868 in the Kaiyo Maru, most of them becoming officers of the navy. Sakuma Chozan was the first Japanese who openly urged that foreigners be invited to come to Japan and teach the arts and sciences of the West, and men of Echizen early held similar ideas. The Yedo Government had already employed engineers and military instructors. A telegraph, lighthouses, ships of war, and various manifestations of the new spirit were already visible. It was in the view of the 336 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Imperial oath, also, that native students should be sent abroad. Some, indeed, had surreptitiously already, under assumed names, visited Europe and America. Among them were Ito, Inouye, Terashima, and others who have since become famous. In America, Rutgers College, at New Brunswick, N.J., was at first the point of concourse. The number of young men and women who have studied abroad, taking longer or shorter courses, may be tens of thousands. Under the Charter Oath, not fewer than five thou- sand salaried foreigners, men and women, including about twelve hundred American teachers, experts in their several callings, were brought to Japan before the beginning of the twentieth century. I believe myself to have been the first one, called out under this oath and its provisions, to come from a foreign country to Japan. Since civil war almost immediately broke out after the coup d'etat in Kioto, no steps were taken at first, but in the spring of 1870 Echizen, who, being a relative of the shogun, yet loyal to the Emperor, having already sent students abroad, made applica- tion for a staff of five Yatoi — a military instructor, a mining engineer, a medical doctor and surgeon, a teacher of the English language, and a college gradu- ate, one proficient in natural science, who could also train up teachers and, as the words of the appoint- ment ran, "organize schools on the American prin- ciple." No Mom Bu Sho, or Department of Educa- tion, was as yet organized. FOREIGN SERVANTS AND HELPERS 337 Of those sought for or appointed, Captain Frank Brinkley, the well-known lexicographer, editor, and author of the Oriental Series, then in Japan, and an officer in the Tenth British Regiment, was appointed military instructor, but did not get to Fukui, being retained by the central Government in Tokio as instructor in artillery theory. Mr. Alfred Lucy, an English gentleman from Birmingham, was for some months in Fukui before my arrival. The offers of positions for mining engineer and physician, when made in America, went begging. The salary was generous, but no life insurance company in the United States would, except at heavy premium, insure the life of any one going into the interior of Japan, for the feudal system was still the form of society and the Ronin was in the land. I reached Fukui, March 4, 1871, and began my work. The Union Pacific Railway had just been fin- ished across the continent, the scalping Indians, as the conductor's scalpless cranium bore witness, still roamed the plains, and the side-wheel wooden steam- ers took twenty-nine days to carry one between the Golden Gate and Fujiyama of Ainu name. These helpers of the Japanese, who came from America, from every nation in Europe, and from more than one in Asia, were called in popular language yatoi, or hired aliens, and later o yatoi. They were a very varied lot of people, and the conceit of some, who knew nothing of native history and imagined themselves to be the especial favorites of the Japanese, 338 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION was vast and vaporous. When they realized the exact facts as to their status and that their employers would give them no power whatever, often withhold ing even the cooperation necessary for mutual success, they were alternately irritated and humbled, and some went home in wrath or disgust. Those in whom was the spirit of modesty and service succeeded grandly and were happy every hour in their congenial toil, proud of their opportunity of coworking with such promising pupils. When through their "con- tract," they were loath to leave, despite the call of home. Such servants of their fellow-men felt it to be the honor of their lives to have served Japan and have ever afterwards cherished pleasant memories. The reverse of a true picture thus painted is seen in vanity, incompetence, an overbearing spirit, lack of tact and sympathy, drunkenness, immorality, or other personal faults and failings joined to national pecul- iarities, and set over against the pig-headed obstinacy, the mulishness of ignorance, and the vulgarity of the upstart natives. Many of the men put in office and in charge of delicate and valuable machinery were the mere puppets of chance, lacking the first elements of the modern discipline of science, and the care and habits necessary to success in managing railways, lighthouses, telegraphs, and such enterprises as were higher in scope and requirement than clansmen's duties or political henchmen's obligations. The astonishingly frequent change of office-holders showed how fierce was the struggle for Government plunder FOREIGN SERVANTS AND HELPERS 339 among the hungry aspirants. How the public crib could bear the assault of so many eager to be fed, was one of the things to be wondered at. Yet, on the whole, the failings of both sides must be freely confessed. The yatoi was in the main a creditable figure in the making of new Japan. If one lacks faith in the character and ability of these "hired servants" of the Japanese*, who spent few or many years of their most efficient manhood in Japan, he has but to consult the records of scientific societies or read the names and life stories in the biographical encyclopaedias and the handbooks entitled "Who's Who." In many cases, the yatoi not only sowed the first seeds of knowledge, but they created new sci- ences, being original investigators, explorers, or observers. They inaugurated the railroads, tele- graphs, lighthouses, the building of steamships and laboratories, organizations of bureaus, and in a thousand ways showed the Japanese how to utilize the forces of nature, develop the national resources, and improve the condition of man. They could not bestow on the Japanese their superb mental powers, — the Creator's gifts were not theirs, — but they did point the way. In thousands of souls they kindled sacred fire. They brought the seed, and the natives have raised the flower. They scattered the grain, and the Japanese have reaped the harvest. "The foreign employe is the creator of New Japan," is the verdict of Basil Hall Chamberlain. Noble are the records of Pumpelly in mining, of 340 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Brunton in lighthouse engineering, of Brinkley in illuminating public opinion, of Knipping in meteor- ology and mapping the routes of storms, of Scott in elementary education, of Simmons and Wigmore in unearthing the private law of Japan, of Wagner in improving mechanical and keramic possibilities, of House and Mason in music, of Divers, teacher of Takemine and Shimosa in chemistry, of Milne in initiating the science of seismology, of Lyman in revealing true geology and saving millions of dollars in being lost in foolish experiments, of Morse in opening from the soil the treasures of archaeology, of Meckel in training officers in military science, of Douglas in educating Togos, of Boissonnade, Bous- quet, Bertin, and others in the brilliant staff of Frenchmen, and of Baeltz and Scriba in anatomy, physiology, and ethnology. The stories of scores of others whose names it seems shame and outrage not to mention, show that Japan has incurred a debt that it is very questionable if she can ever repay, ex- cept as she strives to make the whole world better. Many of these yatoi were not flatterers, and they scorned to be such. They told the truth and refused to be domineered by official ignorance and base per- versity. Sometimes they withstood to their faces those who, while painfully polite on the surface, were thieves, brigands, and assassins at heart. Perhaps these yatoi were sometimes brusque and lacking in the arts of a courtier, so that their breasts do not show the decorations showered so freely on those FOREIGN SERVANTS AND HELPERS 341 who found favor with their employers. Yet it is to the everlasting credit and honor of the typical samu- rai, one of the surest proofs of the power of the Jap- anese to continuously progress, and an earnest of their ultimate success, that they have taken gracefully their medicine of criticism. Lacking in physical stature, perhaps at some points in ethical fibre, they may be; but, in greatness of spirit, in willingness to confess faults, to turn about and do the right thing when they see clearly their duty, they have, as individuals and as a nation, no superior in the history of humanity. The yatoi found a nation ready to go to school, but who made the Japanese people ready? No story of salaried aliens' triumphs would be complete without mention of the American missionaries who entered as early as 1859, and took hold of the boys. During our Civil War and after it, these were compelled, by the financial weaknesses of their societies at home, to be in a measure, or for a time, yatoi. They seeded the Japanese mind, as a field, with the noblest ideas in ethics, political economy, historical development, and told the secrets of national prosperity and democracy. They taught in the first schools hundreds of lads who afterwards became leaders, and have been or are to-day in high station. In these youth, the sacred thirst for science, history, and language was raised. They drove in the plough beam deep, harrow- ing the fields and getting all ready for the day of national public schools and the secular teachers who came after 1870. 342 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION While that American committee of four, Williams, Verbeck, Brown, and Hepburn, had virtually the whole field to themselves in ethics, medicine, and sci- ence, another committee of four was with them " un- consciously binding the selfsame sheaf." These were Iwakura, a Court noble; Okubo, the brain; Kido, the pen ; and Ito, the practical manager of the Restoration of 1868, — a movement which meant the evolution of the Japanese man and nation. When the new Government was established in Tokio, it was increasingly felt that the feudal system was an anachronism, and that it would be impossible to use the new motors in its worn-out machinery. The four great clans, Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, Hizen, were first won over to the idea. Then, after due consultation and consideration, pondering the sub- ject in all its relations, withal not forgetting the possible necessity of unsheathing the sword and letting blood, the edict went forth in July, 1871, from the young but mighty men sitting in Tokio in the Emperor's name, that feudalism should fall. The daimios were ordered to give up their castles, lands, and registers, and to come and live as private gentle- men in Tokio. The samurai were to relinquish their hereditary pensions, receiving in return enough to support them for a few years, until they could find employment and a livelihood. Society was reor- ganized on the basis of three classes, — nobles, gen- try, and commons. This was the great renunciation, and I was witness FOREIGN SERVANTS AND HELPERS 343 of it. In nearly three hundred castles, in the autumn of 1871, took place solemn scenes of farewell between lords and retainers. On the first Sunday in October, the Lord of Echizen called his three thousand samurai and his guest into the castle at Fukui, and, after due ceremonies, read an address. He reviewed briefly recent events, announced the Imperial order, and urged his late loyal followers, accepting graciously the situation, to transform personal loyalty into national patriotism, centring all heart and will in the Emperor. It was a sublime and moving spectacle to see that vast audience of two-sworded, richly dressed, and earnest-faced men. They were proud of their inheri- tance and their privileges, and devoted to their lord and his house, yet were ready to lay all aside, even income and office, and to break with their individual and personal past, in order to be true patriots, worthy members of a new commonwealth. Echizen had been seeded with new thought and was ready for change. Passing out of the castle to their homes, these heads of families mostly went forth to earn their own livelihood. Thus Japan, nourished by feudalism, as the growing child is nursed and trained to sturdy manhood, bade farewell to a faithful ser- vant to enter upon the untried and unknown era of industrialism. No blood was shed at the time, but in the uprisings and protests, even to the Satsuma rebellion of 1877, put down with fire and steel on many a red field, we see how hard the feudal spirit 344 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION died. In the inner counsels of the Tokio Govern- ment we see how vigorous it is in its resurrection. National advancement was all the more possible because of the equalization of classes and the up- raising of the new humanity. Very soon with the uplifting of the outcasts was the bestowal of all national privileges upon every class. The army, navy, courts, schools, avenues of promotion, possi- bilities of success and fame, were opened uncondi- tionally to all. Manufacturer, artisan, merchant, scholar, and whoever would be the nation's friend, might compete in friendly rivalry. Now rose in the cities the great factories, and at the seaside the great shipyards, while all over the land were extended the iron highway and the electric wires, bringing in a new era of swift communication and profitable indus- trialism. Through foreign commerce the nation has been enriched twenty-fold. Of these yatoi, or servants, I believe I was as I have said, the first called out from a foreign country (not under the shogun or a feudal baron, but) under the Imperial Charter Oath of 1868. I reached Tokio, January 2, 1871. and immediately began edu- cational work in the Language School, now the Imperial University. Leaving Tokio, February 16, by way of Kobe, Osaka, Otsu, Tsuruga, I reached Fukui in Echizen, March 4, being busily employed in school and laboratory and in training of teachers until midwinter of 1872. By this time I had seen the great defect in the education of the samurai, from which FOREIGN SERVANTS AND HELPERS 345 class all the students and teachers then came. It was too scholastic. Manual training and technical skill and the application of science to immediate needs was the crying necessity. I addressed a memorial to Mr. Ogi Takato, first Minister of the newly formed Mom Bu Sho, or Department of Edu- cation. He at once called me to Tokio to organize a Polytechnic School. Happily the idea grew to larger proportions and the superb Imperial College of Engineering resulted. This noble institution has been wholly served by British teachers. Dr. Henry Dyer, author of "Dai Nippon: A Study in National Evolution," presided during ten years, being succeeded by Dr. Edward Divers, among whose pupils were Drs. Takamine and Shimose, of fame in explosives. There are now hun- dreds of special schools, the Higher Technical School in Tokio being the most famous. The general scheme for a national system of educa- tion, planned by Dr. Verbeck and elaborated under the ministry of Oki Takato, was carried out under the supervision of Dr. David Murray and Viscount Tanaka Fujimaro. Among the ablest ministers of education is the present incumbent, Nobuaki Makino, second son of the great Okubo. One of the forces most influential in the development of right ideas and practices has been the Mei Roku Sha (Society of the Sixth Year of Meiji), whose discussions and criticisms have kept alive noble ideals and healthy sentiments. Most powerful of all for national unity have been the 346 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Rescripts of the Emperor, notably the one on Edu- cation, issued October 30, 1890, which is read fre- quently in all the schools. It calls for the practice of the noblest virtues in daily life, and, like a father, the Head of the Nation thus exhorts his children : - "Always respect the Constitution and obey the laws; should emergency arise, offer yourselves to the State loyally and bravely; and thus support our Imperial Throne coeval with the Heavens and the Earth. So shall ye be not only Our good and faithful subjects, but make manifest the character inherited from your ancestors." Many Japanese publicists who have studied and lived long in the Occident are frankly telling their people that if they live up to the spirit of the Em- peror's Rescript, they have little to borrow from the theology or philosophy of the nations of the West. CHAPTER XXV THE NEW NATIONAL AHMY AND NAVY THE idea of a national army of soldiers, infused with loyalty to the Emperor, born into a new patriotism, educated in the public schools, and made democratic by the camaraderie of conscription, that should level all class distinctions while in the ranks, was born in the parlor of Dr. Verbeck, at the great conclave of statesmen held in his house in July, 1870. Out of Satsuma, the greatest of the war-loving clans, as was meet, have come forth in overwhelming majority the men whose names shine on deck and field and are known to the world. If the national navy was long called "a Satsuma Fleet," and if the high and choice commands in the army were, for a genera- tion or more, held chiefly by Satsuma men, there was reason for it. This grand body of clansmen was led by men trained in the Oyomei philosophy. For the sake of their country, under the influence of Saigo in 1865, they buried their feuds with Choshiu and other clans and united with them for the nation's good. This act was a distinct forward step in national evolution. Abandoning definitely their long-cher- 347 348 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION ished ambition to set a Satsuma chieftain in the place of the Tycoon in Yedo, they bore the bloody brunt of the Civil War of 1868-1869, but were disappointed in the rewards. In bad temper, they left Tokio and went home. Nevertheless, at the call of the Emperor, they flung their sulks and grudges into oblivion. In 1870, alertly responding to the Mikado's invitation, they began, with four regiments of infantry, the new invincible army. In that nucleus of Oyama's host of 1904, most of the famous names of his division commanders are to be found. By initiating, with Echizen, the enterprise of sending youths to study in Europe, Satsuma soon trained officers ready to apply modern science to the art of war, in sea or land power. The Emperor appealed to all classes and conditions of men to form a national army, the first since the era of Ainu wars. His invitation was an emancipation. The privilege of enlistment to the peasant boy came as a patent of nobility handed him by his monarchy, above all on earth beloved. It made knights of commoners and samurai of the street man and villager. It transformed clodhoppers into self-re- specting gentlemen. To serf and pariah it was the liberty cap, for Eta and hi-nin were made citizens in October, 1871. Occidental experts, who, when Japan confronted first China and then Russia, groped after knowledge through statistics, and then ventured upon prophecy, failed miserably. Though confronted with a wealth •of pragmatic facts, they were confounded because THE NEW NATIONAL ARMY AND NAVY 349 ignorant of the quality of Japanese manhood. "One ruddy drop of manly blood the surging seas out- weighs." Even aliens, long dwelling on the soil, who judged Japan by those cowardly ruffians who had cut from behind, knew not the splendid qualities of the farmer boy. The fruit of a thousand years of dis- cipline in industry, hardship, instinctive obedience, lay behind the new conscript. Three centuries of the revelation of Bushido had fired his imagination. He would, he must, imitate the ancient hero. To drink the cup of cold water in parting, to don the white kimono of the corpse arrayed for burial, to say the farewell at the cemetery before the tombs of his ancestors, to concentrate all inherited loyalty from his father's local lord to the Incarnation of the nation, and then to die as the Emperor's samurai or servant, was his consuming ambition. The Japanese became a people with an oriflamme. In 1877, after their bayonets had crossed with the sword blades of the rebel Saigo's samurai, these peasant soldiers laughed at the idea of being afraid of Chinese or Russians. On the return march to barracks, every nicked and bent bayonet was hailed as a pledge of future victory. What the sword had been to the samurai, the rifle and its equipment became to the conscript. Unique in the history of Asia was the intellectual equipment of the new soldier under the banner of the rising sun. Every man could read and write. Each private had been in the public schools begun by 350 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION American teachers. He continued his brain and heart culture in the barracks. He built up his body by better food, scientific exercise, good habits, and a grandly regular life. His life was enriched by new friendships and mental horizons. He saw the world from other points of view than the paddy field and the charcoal fire. He entered the national hall of fame. In his soul he returned the greetings from afar of those who had waited not for the rising, 'but for the risen sun. From smacks and coasting boats the fisherman graduated to ships, that besides concen- trating in their war power the science of ages, called forth for their use and mastery the noblest faculties of man. From junk routine and manners he was promoted to a school of life that eliminated disease, added to his weight, stature, appearance, and charac- ter, even while living in a world of flaming ideals. Those Europeans who in 1904 worked out their arm- chair strategy with the official reports of twelve- inch guns and statistics, in the last new Cyclo- pedia and the Statesman's Year Book, could cal- culate on weight of iron or lead, but not on the specific gravity of Japanese humanity. Not with- out significance is it that the "monster heroism" of Port Arthur was wrought chiefly by the Ninth Division, of soldiers raised in a region where the free schools established were among the very first outside the Capital. It was in Echizen that the new scientific and ethical and humanitarian spirit, that demanded hygiene and education, first started in THE NEW NATIONAL ARMY AND NAVY 351 the West coast and thence spread throughout the whole of old Koshi. The dogmas lying behind the embattled hosts and the steel navies of Europe and the age-old claim of China to universal sovereignty were the real hin- drances to Japan's legitimate development. Too well the Tokio statesmen knew the reluctance of Occidental diplomatists to see a new world-power arise in Asia. Apart from individual opinions and the contemporaneous concerts of the Powers, the Japanese had read history and realized what were the dogmas of the dual political orthodoxy which they must overthrow. Their own memory-scar of the seventeenth century was fresh. By papal bull, it had been taught that the world belonged to the Iberian Powers. They had then confronted the dogma proclaimed in Rome, and given expression in Europe by the Inquisition and Spanish Armada; in America by Cortez and Pizarro; and in the Far East in the Spanish conquest of the Philippines. Through Hideyoshi and lyeyasu, and at Shimabara, the Japanese had given to this dogma, when applied to them, their answer in fire and blood. In the nineteenth century, when intent on realizing their ideals of political and social equality with the rest of the world, the Japanese leaders were confronted by three theories, the ruling ideas of the age, two of which 'had been over and over again embodied and made real on Asiatic soil by armed force in war and blood, and the seizure of territory. In 1870 large 352 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION parts and whole nations of Asia were conquered peoples dwelling under European flags. The process of subjugation, under the name of "conquest," "protectorate," "colonization," or "spheres of influ- ence," was going on apace. Even "the break-up of China" was talked of, published, and believed to be imminent. These three theories, in order of their age, were : — 1. The Chinese dogma of Whang Ti, or Universal Sovereignty. In this view, China was the Middle Kingdom, and her Emperor the sole Son of Heaven. Hence, all surrounding or neighbor nations were and could be only tributaries or vassals. Before the throne in Peking, all envoys must make the kowtow or nine prostrations, and all questions were to be settled according to precedent and law of the theo- cratic dynasty of Great China. International Law was Pekingese law; that is, what China chose to make it. So long as this highly civilized State was surrounded entirely with pupil or subject nations, such a dogma was orthodoxy. Nevertheless, in the system, Japan was the one insurgent. Accepting China's calendar, she refused to acknowledge vassal- age, and the name of an Ashikaga, who accepted the title of 0, or king, from the Emperor of China, is execrated, while that of Hideyoshi, who scorned the tender, is honored and his tomb has been rebuilt in splendor. 2. The European notion, also a fixed doctrine, based on Portuguese, Dutch, British, French, Russian, THE NEW NATIONAL ARMY AND NAVY 353 and German precedents of occupation, is that Asia, like Africa, existed for exploration or conquest by Europeans. Asiatics were to gratify the desires of Western nations, swell their revenues, pay their debts, or at least to furnish a market. Native rights* and privileges were not to be measured with those of the conquering white man. 3. The American doctrine, established by the people and vital precedents, long before Government utterances or action. From the departure of the first ship, bound for Asia and sailing under the United States flag, in 1784, within six months after the treaty of peace with Great Britain, this doctrine was part of the American consciousness. It is, that the people of Asia, being human and brothers, besides existing for honorable trade and interchange of ideas and commodities, are to be healed, helped, taught, and won to the best ideas of the whole race. The Ameri- can merchant, sailor, explorer, whaler, teacher, physician, missionary, went out with this idea. In spite of local discords, of municipal congestion, of hostile elements, the prejudices engendered because sentimentalism has changed to economic rivalry, and the new point of view natural to two armed Powers, this is still the American doctrine. None knew better than the Japanese leaders and none recognized more clearly the mark made on the world by the non-political American merchants, and the philanthropic teachers and missionaries, with their schools, dispensaries, and hospitals, for they 354 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION had these object lessons on their own soil and were long familiar by report with the same in India and China. Moreover, most of those most intelligent in these matters, and several of the statesmen of highest ability, had been themselves for years under the direct personal training of the American missionaries. Not only such able men as Okuma and Soyeshima, then in the first modern cabinet in Tokio, but over one-half of those, and the more important half, of the members of the Imperial embassy of 1872, had been trained in modern knowledge by Verbeck, while scores of others whose names are now famous were taught by Brown, Hepburn, or Williams. It was this body of inquirers, wiser and sadder, that after traversing the world in 1872-1874, turned Japan permanently away from China to face the Occident. Against each one of these three structures of dogma the Japanese were to be brought face to face by the logic of events. With two they were to come into armed collision : with the first, the Chinese, for its destruction; with the second, the Russian, for its halt and arrest; with the third, the American, to find behind local, abnormal, and temporary conditions, the solid American creed, based not on sentiment alone, but on old ideas of justice and the affirmations of law. The victory over "Cathay," in 1904-1905, which wiped out forever the effete Chinese dogma of uni- versal sovereignty, was essentially moral, though THE NEW NATIONAL ARMY AND NAVY 355 ending in war. The war of 1894 began in 1868, when Japan discarded Chinese ideas for a beginning of representative government, and continued when in 1871 she dropped the Chinese or lunar for the Occi- dental or solar calendar. Step by step the Tokio Government proceeded to assert the legitimate rights of Japan, by annexing formally and incor- porating in the Empire what by blood, language, and history, had long been a part of Japan. Yezo was colonized and given scientific reconnoissance and survey by a band of American scientific men. Nego- tiations were opened with Russia concerning Sag- halien and the Kurile Islands. The last vestige of dual sovereignty in Asia was abolished when the kinglet of the Riu Kiu Isles was brought from Napa to the Tokio capital and made a marquis, while Shuri Castle was garrisoned by Imperial troops. Duly notifying China, they began in the Okinawa Ken, the task of sadly needed reform in Government in Riu Kiu — the old Eternal Land, of the Kojiki, and the modern country of perpetual afternoon. When later, a Riu Kiuan vessel was wrecked on the Eastern or savage coast of Formosa, over which China never claimed sovereignty, and its crew murdered by the red-skinned head-hunters, redress was asked for. The Tokio government sent General Saigo to chastise the murderous tribesmen, who were alleged to be can- nibals. The Peking Court, stirred up by the insinua- tions of aliens jealous of the rising empire, ordered the Japanese off as intruders on the territory of China. 356 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION In the diplomatic battle that ensued, Japan planted herself squarely on the ground of the world's international law and won. Indemnity was paid, and Japan evacuated the island with honor — to come back as master twenty-one years later. Her seven hundred sons who perished in the expedition were given honorable resting-place in one of the very first of Japan's national cemeteries at Nagasaki. The period of Japanese national development from 1874 to 1894 has been quite fully treated in "The Mikado's Empire," and cannot be even sketched in this little volume. The chief events were internal. They were chiefly phenomena of the struggle between the old and the new principles and forces, such as the great Satsuma rebellion of 1877, and several smaller uprisings previous to this, the assassination of some of the Mikado's ablest statesmen, the long struggle for the freedom of the press, and, more important than all, the agitation in favor of a written constitu- tion, in fulfilment of the Imperial Charter Oath of 1868. On October 12, 1881, the Emperor promised to establish a Parliament in 1890. Such men as Goto, Yuri, Kataoka, Soyeshima, Okuma, and Itagaki deserve equal honor with those to whom the fram- ing of the instrument was entrusted, and whose breasts are "smeared with gold." After due study and debate in the Privy Council, the Constitution, in sixty-six articles, was, amid much popular rejoicing, proclaimed on February 11, 1889. To the keen THE NEW NATIONAL ARMY AND NAVY 357 disappointment of some of the best men in the Empire, the model chosen for Japan was Prussia rather than England. The ministers are responsible, not to the Diet, but to the Throne. The basis of Government in Japan is upon tradition and conquest and the "fixed expenditures" make the Diet a Parliament in name rather than in fact. Nevertheless, the Consti- tution of 1889 is a noble instrument, and under its provisions the nation has reached an astonishing degree of prosperity. Unless militarism paralyze moral progress, the freedom of the people is sure to broaden and deepen, and law-abiding democracy, under forms of Imperialism, come to bless the mil- lions of Everlasting Great Japan. In this work on the nation in evolution, I deal but slightly with Japan's "phenomenal" activities and development of material resources during the nearly forty years of their inception, which I witnessed. The reason is plain. From a historical point of view there is really nothing new or strange in the national movements, but only evolution. The Japan- ese have done what their genius has always prompted them to do. They are not only the most improvable race in Asia, but possibly even in the world — the true middle term being "the Orient" and "the Occi- dent"— words whose old meaning is fading away in the full light of the world's opening day of greater glory. CHAPTER XXVI PANOPLIED JAPAN. A PUBLIC SCHOOL ARMY BY the year 1894 Japan was a panoplied nation, able to defend herself and assert her rights, both against Chinese arrogance and the robber-nations of the West. A new generation of young men, nourished in the ideas of the nineteenth century and educated in the public schools, had grown up under new insti- tutions. The old narrow idea of loyalty to the feudal lord had been sublimed into loyalty to the Mikado. In place of three hundred petty principalities was a nation infused with the newborn virtue of patriotism. The new national army had already tested its spirit and power in a serious campaign. The navy built of steel, armed with modern weapons, and with dis- cipline adopted from Great Britain and infused with ideals of Bushido, was commanded by officers educated abroad and possessed of considerable experience. Sailors and soldiers were ready and eager to obey the Emperor, even beyond the seas. Not least to be considered was the organization of a Red Cross Society, with a body of skilled surgeons and physicians with hundreds of trained women nurses. The American missionary, Dr. J. C. Berry, 358 PANOPLIED JAPAN. A PUBLIC SCHOOL ARMY 359 had initiated not only this noble method of util- izing women's powers and gifts in behalf of the suffering, but also prison reform, and the Govern- ment had taken up both enterprises. After the suppression of the Satsuma rebellion, or during it, in 1877, a society for humanitarian relief was or- ganized. In 1886 Japan joined the Geneva con- vention and the name of the Red Cross Society of Japan was assumed, which in 1907 had over one million members. During the Russian war, 1,015,129 Japanese and 28,379 Russians were treated, the hospital steamers making 614 voyages. In hearty cooperation is the Japan "Woman's League," with a half million members, founded by Mrs. Okumura, which has done a noble work. Korea, which is Japan's Ireland, was the occasion of the war with China (as with Russia), but not the cause. This latter was to be found in the Chinese claim of universal sovereignty which, even after treaties with Japan and European countries, that recognized Korea as a sovereign State, was per- sistently and in the face of a special agreement with Japan, defiantly maintained by the Chinese. The Peking mandarins seemed to have no sense of either honor or humor, or were unable to perceive the incongruousness of putting Korea back into dual relationship. The king and Court of Cho-sen were too weak to have had any stability of mind on the subject of their relations to either empire. There being no clear distinction between Court and Govern- 360 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION ment, Seoul, the capital, was naturally a hotbed of intrigue, the parties of nobles being alternately pro- Chinese or pro-Japanese, with pro-Russian, pro-French and other varieties, as opportunism seemed to demand. Instead of the Yang-ban (civil and mili- tary) parasites on the nation giving up their preroga- tives, their clutch on the treasury, and their depen- dence upon sorcerers, palace eunuchs, and female servants, addressing themselves to the task of popular education, and getting down to earning an honest livelihood, like the Japanese samurai, they kept on in their old ways, continuing them, even to 1907. In Southern Korea, rebellions and uprisings are chronic, on account of official corruption and oppres- sion. The peasants, having exhausted every other measure of redress or relief, were easy victims to any agitator who promised to bring in the Golden Age. There being no vivifying force in Buddhism, which had been under ban for centuries, or in Confucianism, which was the cult of the oppressing and persecuting nobles, a Korean scholar, Choi, thought that he found hope in his own system of eclecticism. In this, Christianity was made an element and even a new means of protecting Oriental culture (Tong Hak) against the inroads of Occidentalism — at least this was his pretext — and of relieving the struggles of his countrymen. Branded as a heretic, he was put to death, as thousands of native Christians had already been. When Choi's followers spread their table with the crimson cloth in front of the Palace PANOPLIED JAPAN. A PUBLIC SCHOOL ARMY 361 gates and laid on it the petition that their teacher should be posthumously honored and the stain offi- cially removed from his name, they were driven away with violence. The springtime sequel, in 1894, was a great outbreak in the South, which the troops sent from Seoul were unable to repress. The Tong-Hak rebellion became so serious that the pro-Chinese party of the Court applied to China for military assistance. In 1885, after the previous disturbance and blood- shed between Chinese and Japanese troops, consequent upon the attempt of Kim Ok Kiun and others to reform Korea within twenty-four hours, a convention had been made by Li Hung Chang and the Marquis Ito, that neither China nor Japan should send armed men into Korea without notifying the other. China, ignoring this treaty, despatched her ships and sol- diers, not notifying the Government of Tokio until after she had done it. Simultaneously she insulted every country that had made treaty with Korea by speaking of Korea as "our tributary state," thus reasserting her ancient claim and flouting it in the face of the world. At the same time, popular opinion in Japan blazed into a conflagration because of the assassination on Chinese soil of Kim Ok Kiun. He, having fled to Japan in 1885, received asylum and became very popular. Lured to Shanghai by a telegram which was forged and a bank draft which was worth- less, he was promptly assassinated by Korean spies. The Chinese government made itself a common carrier 362 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION of carrion by ostentatiously sending Kim's body on one of its own men-of-war to Seoul, where it was duly chopped up and the pieces publicly exposed, the murderer being rewarded with office and money. This exhibition of savagery was meant to be an object lesson and a direct insult to Japan, for having aban- doned such time-honored practices. When, on the 12th of June, a body of the Mikado's troops, under strict discipline, was despatched to Korea, the whole nation and the Government were one in sentiment. Tokio replied to Peking, notifying its military action, but inviting China to join in effect- ing financial and administrative reform in Korea. China promptly refused and demanded the with- drawal of the Japanese soldiers, at the same time setting her Manchurian troops on their march over- land, and chartering the transport Kow-Shing with artillery and troops for A-san, a stronghold south of Seoul. The war of civilizations began, it is said, by the Chinese battleship Chen Tuen firing on the Na- niwa. On July 25 Captain, now Admiral, Togo, meeting the Kow-Shing, after long waiting on one side and refusal to surrender on the other, sunk the ship. On July 30 the Chinese were driven from A-san. Declarations of war followed, both on August 1. The one was temperate and clear. The other showed a Bourbon-like inability to learn or forget. It came from men who seemed not to know in what age or world they were living. China claimed PANOPLIED JAPAN. A PUBLIC SCHOOL ARMY 363 to have always followed the paths of philanthropy and perfect justice, while the Japanese "Wo-jen," or pigmies, were declared, without any cause whatever, to have violated the treaties and invaded China's small tributary. At once the battle of statistics opened. Arm- chair strategists in Europe and America, with their books of reference at hand, made prophecy in favor of the giant against Jack. So many ships, guns, men, resources ! Of course China must win. What could the stripling do against old Goliath? The writer, having helped to educate some of the boys who were now in Cabinet and in command, or on field and deck, knowing the Japanese history and spirit, as well as material resources, laid down in his public lectures the rough plan of campaign, as fol- lows: That "at the one place in Korea, where decisive battles had always been fought, that is, Ping- Yang, the Japanese would be victorious, and virtually annihilate the only army China had, that is, the twenty-five or thirty thousand men trained under German officers; and after that Japan would go through China as a knife goes through cheese, being sure, on the water also, to win ultimate victory." Apart from her small army, China had only untrained mobs. The Japanese were vastly superior in real soldiers and in experienced naval officers. In the battle on the 15th of September at Ping- Yang, the Chinese army was broken up, and by July 1 there were no Chinese in Korea. On the 17th of 364 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION September the Chinese fleet was virtually put hors du combat. Then, over the Korean Rubicon, General Nodzu's army began that brilliant series of victories which enabled the Japanese, in April, 1895, to domi- nate a territory on the Asian continent that exceeded in area her own empire in the sea. The second army under Marshal Oyama took Port Arthur on the 21st of November. Wei-hai-wei came into the possession of the Japanese of the third army, on January 31, 1895. An expedition sent to Formosa made landing on the main island, after capturing the forts in the Pescadores. Instead of honorably facing the reality which in- ternational law requires, the Chinese Government made unworthy attempts to gain time by sending unaccredited agents to treat for peace, but March 21, at Shimonoseki, Li Hung Chang sat in council with Marquis Ito and Viscount Mutsu, and negotiations opened. Here Japan suffered the penalty of her own false ideals and misguided education, through the attempt of a fanatical Soshi, true successor of the Ronin, to assassinate the nation's guest, the venerable Chinese envoy, who escaped with a bullet wound in the cheek. A settlement was made and the ratifica- tions were to be exchanged at Chifu on May 8. The first treaty made ceded to Japan a large portion of territory in Manchuria and Formosa, and awarded an indemnity of 300,000,000 Kuping taels. The convention was signed April 15, and the peace terms, giving the Emperor complete satisfac- PANOPLIED JAPAN. A PUBLIC SCHOOL ARMY 365 tion, were announced on the afternoon of April 22. In his proclamation he added that "no countenance will be given by us to such as through conceit at the recent victories may offer insult to another state or injure our relations with friendly powers, especially as regards China." No sooner had this proclamation been issued than Russia, calling to her aid Germany and France, assembled naval forces at Chifu, and formed a coali- tion which compelled the Japanese to give up all hope of holding an acre of ground on the continent. It was a comical sight, when the little steam tug bear- ing the Japanese envoys and their olive branch steamed into Chifu harbor. The passage was made through an artificial fog created by the smoke of the artillery of battleships and men-of-war. Three Brob- dingnags of Europe were trying to overawe the Lilliputians, and make them understand how terrible these fierce lovers of the peace of the East were. Japan, not entirely exhausted, but hardly ready to fight at one time three of her professed friends, swallowed her pride. The Mikado recalled his proclamation, issued a new one, and then the whole Japanese nation made up its mind to settle with Russia later. Formosa was occupied, and the Chinese indemnity was immediately invested in battleships. After the short-lived Formosan Republic had vanished in smoke and some heavy fighting had been done, the splendid enterprise of developing Formosan resources, 366 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION giving her people a better government, hygienic models, and the benefits of modern civilization, of pacifying the head-hunting savages, and of making the island pay for itself, was begun. Under Dr. Goto Shimpei and General Kodama, the task proceeded, and has already issued in a triumph that is a wonder in the annals of colonization. The cartloads of Chinese silver taels shipped to England came back in the form of floating steel. Straining every nerve to develop resources and bring their army and navy to the highest grade of efficiency, the Japanese waited to see how Russia would keep both the peace with the East and her own solemn promises. The preparations to surprise the world were by no means relaxed when it was found that through diplomacy and railroads, and by cities built before there were people to live in them, Russia was occupying Manchurian territory, and that all signs pointed to permanent possession. Meanwhile, two new factors made sudden and unlocked for appearance in the Far East as disturbers of the balance of power, and the economic system of the whole world underwent revolution. By their command of mineral resources, the Americans had unsettled the equilibrium of production. When, in March, 1897, Pittsburg was able to undersell the world in steel, Europe took the alarm and began to seek both cheaper material and new markets. The logical result was a general scramble among Europeans to fasten their grip upon the country which possesses the coal and iron of the future. Russia seized Port PANOPLIED JAPAN. A PUBLIC SCHOOL ARMY 367 Arthur, the British took Wei-hai-wei, and Germany made descent on Kiao-Chau, thus commanding the road to Peking. Before France and Italy could obtain some of the plunder, the American ownership of the Philippines and the outbreak of the Boxer uprising forced the United States into the diplomacy of the Far East. The masterly statesmanship of John Hay and William McKinley prevented that " break-up of China" which had been so gayly anticipated. When the commercial invasion of China, so morally disastrous, and so much more terrible, in its immediate effects, than the missionary enterprise, in disturbing old habits, customs, and prejudices, besides throwing hundreds of thousands of men out of employment, precipitated the Boxer outbreak, the United States led the way in promptness, policy, and power. Prem- ier Yamagata in Tokio, seeing eye to eye with President McKinley, made ready to relieve the lega- tions, then besieged, not by Chinese soldiers or Gov- ernment forces, but by a mob in Peking, ordered the Hiroshima division to China. Had the Americans and Japanese been allowed to proceed without waiting for others, the legations could and would have been relieved at least a month sooner than they were. Happily for the preservation of the honorable policy of the United States since the very foundation of the Government, Rear-Admiral Kempff of the United States navy refused to join the coalition of foreign commanders, who in a time of peace, when the Chinese Government had committed no hostile act, 368 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION decided to fire upon the Taku forts, which commanded the river ways to the Chinese capital. Unfortu- nately the Japanese joined in this ruthless act of treachery to a friendly Power, which precipitated a war with China, so that the Chinese regulars were at once let loose in hostile action. Rear-Admiral Kempff laid the foundation for the commanding place which the United States occupied in later negotia- tions in Peking. Within two weeks of receiving orders from Tokio, twenty thousand Japanese veterans were on Chinese soil, marching with General Chaffee and the United States contingent. Unfortunately they were obliged to wait for the slow Russians, and could not march except in company with the other seven nationalities. At Tien-tsin they made, with valor and science, a noble record. On the march, they were among the best-equipped and provisioned troops, and they learned enough by experience to make them ready, should necessity come, to face European troops in battle. In the looting of Peking, which disgraced the soldiers of every army, it was curious to see the Japan- ese going after the things beautiful, securing works of art rather than lucre, though they seemed to have almost a preternatural knowledge as to which store- houses were empty and which were full. Among other loot brought to Japan was a magnificent copy of the Buddhist Canon, numbering hundreds of volumes, the whole library weighing thirteen tons. Each book was three feet by one in size, bound in gold brocade, PANOPLIED JAPAN. A PUBLIC SCHOOL ARMY 369 with a picture on the cover. Along with these, were two lecterns of red sandalwood eighteen feet long, three wide, and four high. During this period, the development of industrial- ism and commercial activity following the war with China resulted in the increase of a movement which had been going on since the abolition of feudalism in 1871. The population from the rural districts pressed into the great cities and seaports, and notably into the immense manufacturing city of Osaka. The statistics of production are surprising and are found in the annual publication of the Imperial Cabinet, begun in 1886, entitled "Resume Statistique L'Empire du Japon," in French, and the invaluable Japanese Year book, published in Tokio, in English, and con- taining the personal history of prominent people as well as figures relating to material development. An event of international interest was the Anglo- Japanese alliance signed in London, January 30, 1902, in which the governments of Japan and Great Britain, interested in maintaining the independence and terri- torial integrity of the Empire of China and the Empire of Korea, and in securing equal opportunities in those countries for the commerce and industry of all nations, made a compact, to last during five years, each agreeing to assist the other in time of war if attacked by a second party. On this basis, Japan was enabled to resist Russian aggression. CHAPTER XXVII THE WAR WITH RUSSIA. A FOOTHOLD ON THE CONTI- NENT THE practical recognition of the dignity and power of Japan by Great Britain soon bore fruit. Since 1878 Russia, apparently turning her whole colonizing energies eastward, had built her railway through Siberia. With the help of France and Germany, she had driven Japan away from the fruits of her victory in Manchuria, and, immediately after the Boxer episode, had secured from China a treaty giving her the lease of Port Arthur and the right to build a railway thither and also to Dalny. The long-desired ice-free port seemed now in Russian hands, and forthwith the virtual possession of Manchuria was attempted. Solemnly promising to withdraw her forces on October 8, 1903, Russia on that date gave no sign except of strengthening her position on Chi- nese soil. It seemed that all diplomacy had been transferred from St. Petersburg to Port Arthur, and that Admiral Alexieff was dictator of the situation. The United States, accepting the pledged word of a friendly Power, signed, on the day appointed for evacuation, a treaty with China, opening Mukden and 370 THE WAR WITH RUSSIA 371 An Tung as places of trade. Nevertheless, Russia refused to receive the American consuls duly appointed and empowered. It is highly probable that, had Russia continued such a policy, there would have been war between the United States and Russia within ten years, unless Russia had backed down from such an absurd position. The long diplomatic duel between Tokio and St. Petersburg is well known. While Mr. Kurino and Count Lamsdorff were busy with bags of despatches, with shameful delays on the Russian side, the military activities of the Czar's masters — or servants — were on the increase. Twenty-six Russian war- vessels were gathered at Port Arthur. On February 6 diplomatic relations were broken off, and war after the manner, not of reasonable men, as is hoped will be the case within this century, but according to custom and the way of the panther and the tiger, was begun. Vice-Admiral Togo was put in command of the navy and Korea was occupied. Within sixty hours two Japanese divisions were marching toward the Korean Rubicon under General Kuroki. On May 1, the American moving day, his soldiers plucked both blooming violets and Russian cannon on the reddened fields of Manchuria. Within three days of the declaration of war, Russia had one- third of her Eastern navy damaged or destroyed. When the ice, which armored the shores of Manchuria, melted sufficiently to permit it, the second army under General Oku made landing. After brilliant victories, 372 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Port Arthur was besieged, to relieve which Kuro- patkin marched south, only to be defeated by Oku, on June 14. The next day the armies of Oku and Nodzu joined Kuroki at Liao Yang. Port Arthur resisted assault, and the tedious work of bombardment and circumvallation had to be begun. The Russian fleet, after the midsummer, ceased to be a factor of offence. Liao Yang, after a pitched battle, engaging half a million men, was entered September 4. The next great objective point was Mukden, the capture of which would so influence China that the moral results were to be greater even than the surrender of Port Arthur. To-day twenty thousand Chinese students are in Japan, learning the secrets of success. Meanwhile the Baltic fleet, under Admiral Rojest- vensky, began the long voyage to the Far East, to meet doom where the Mongol Armada had sunk from sight over five hundred years before. When winter came on, the two armies went under cover, but the Osaka mortars behind Port Arthur threw in their eleven-inch shells continuously, and the city surrendered at the end of the year. This set free Nogi's army on the left, while from the east, the two divisions from Korea, forming the right wing, soon gave the armies under the Mikado's banner an effec- tive field force of four hundred thousand men, along a semicircle of over a hundred miles. Meanwhile, at Mokpo, in Korea, Admiral Togo, with ships refitted, was drilling his captains and commanders in evo- THE WAR WITH RUSSIA 373 lutions and target-practice, and preparing to be "lucky" by leaving nothing to luck. The great battle on land opened February 22, 1905, lasting the greater part of three weeks, but on March 10 the sun-banner floated above the tombs of the Manchu dynasty. In swift pursuit, the Japanese occupied the mountain passes looking toward Harbin. On May 27, between the hours of 2.08 and 2.45 P.M., the great naval battle of the Sea of Japan was decided. Before the end of the next day the greater part of the Russian fleet was under the waves or in Japanese hands. These are the known facts now seen in perspective. Knowing well, since 1866, the spirit and temper of the Japanese, and having lived three years in Tokio in view of barracks and drill grounds, I was asked, of the Twentieth Century Club in Hartford, on the even- ing of February 8, 1904, to forecast the issues of the war. This I did as follows : — 1. The Russians will land no men in Japan except as prisoners. 2. Within one year the Japanese will have in Manchuria a splendid army of six hundred thousand men drilled, equipped, and handled according to the advanced principles of modern military science. 3. The Japanese will quickly win and hold the sea-power, protect their communications, and sink the Russian fleets. 4. The spirit of Bushido will be the spirit of the whole army, and every soldier will be a samurai. 374 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION 5. The effectiveness of the Japanese artillery and ammunition will more than surprise the world. It will astound experts. At Greene, N.Y., May 25, 1905, I said in a public lecture, "Within a week, the majority of the Russian ships will be under the waves. The elements in the situation forbid the idea of chance." When the month of June arrived, and the purple wistaria was blossoming, the situation was this: Japan had annihilated the Russian fleet, and had gained an uninterrupted succession of victories over the Czar's forces on land. With long foresight and thorough preparation, every contingency had been provided against by a war-loving people, united and enthusiastic, and fighting in a 'life-and-death struggle for food, for growth, for life, and for honor, and so situated as to be able to strike quickly and near home. On the other hand, was a self-confident and thor- oughly unprepared Power fighting at arm's length in the distant extremity of empire. In the midst of a country only recently opened to sparse settlement and with slender railway equipment, the Russians had been at a tremendous disadvantage. Yet their resources in men, money supplies, and credit were still great. During the war, the one signal triumph of genius on the Russian side was in the enlargement and increased efficiency of the railway. With a very greatly increased army and under a new com- mander, the Russians could, very probably, after June, 1905, have more than held their own. They THE WAR WITH RUSSIA 375 had learned wisdom and had awakened to the pro- portions of their task. On the other hand, Japan had greatly strained her resources in men, money, and supplies. Having Korea easily under her control, she had, with amazing rapidity and commendable enterprise, built during the war a railway from Fusan to Wiju, thus traversing the whole peninsula. Rough and poorly equipped, it could nevertheless be made serviceable should the campaign continue. The Liao Tung peninsula, hav- ing easy water communications on both sides, it had not been difficult for Japan to move and feed armies. Geography, which is half of war, had thus far been Japan's best ally, but after Mukden, geography would have been wholly against her and in favor of Russia. The problem was to move out of and away from an easily controlled limited area into a great space, farther and farther from her communications. Geog- raphy would then have been her active enemy. Meanwhile her financial and other resources, already strained, would soon reach a point of depletion be- yond the limits of safety. To have continued the war, facing such conditions, would, in all probability, have been to face disaster, and perhaps to repeat at the other end of Russia a Napoleonic failure. This was the contention which I made in public lectures and conversation at the time when an invi- tation came from one of Millard Fillmore's successors to take steps for terminating the hostilities. Japan had gained that for which she drew the sword. It 376 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION was against the instincts of men taught in Bushido to make war, or to keep on making it, for the sake of money. Marshal Yamagata had already left Tokio for Manchuria. With the victorious generals in the field, he held a council to obtain their views, and to be ready to explain to the nation why he, as a sol- dier, believed in honorably concluding the war, should opportunity allow, in order that Japan should be able unexhausted to exploit her newly won field. It was not wise to spend all one's money and effort on building a house, having nothing with which to furnish it. Notwithstanding the noise of journalism and the demand of the young statesmen in the newspaper offices of three continents, I, for one, could not see why or how the Japanese could ever get any indem- nity, for the expenses of the war, from Russia, or present any reasonable claim for the warships in- terned in neutral ports; while I doubted very much whether Russia would yield the whole of Saghalien. I felt sure that under the direction of Baron Komura and Mr. Takahira, the welfare -and honor of Japan would be safely entrusted, for I knew both of these gentle- men from their youth up. Baron Komura had been, for two years or more, one of my pupils, and one of the very best of them, in the first class in the Imperial University, 1872-1874, and I knew thoroughly the workings of his mind, which was one of extraordinary penetration, grasp, and poise. Mr. Takahira had been in one of the lower classes, but I knew his patience THE WAR WITH RUSSIA 377 and thorough knowledge of detail. Meeting him in Washington, July 28, 1904, at the funeral of Admiral Taylor, U.S.N., in Arlington Cemetery, I had given him my reasons for my absolute faith in the complete success of the Japanese struggle with Russia. While the commissioners were travelling toward the green baize table at Portsmouth, the Saghalien expedition occupied Korsakoff on July 8, and Alexan- drosk, July 24. On the 30th, General Haraguchi declared military administration over the whole island, the remnants of the Russian troops in northern Saghalien surrendering on the 31st. No one knew better than Baron Komura on what an unpopular mission he was going, and how fierce would be the opposition of the journalists and the elements in Tokio that do not make for peace, law, or order. Indeed, the Marquis Ito had warned him what to expect. Cool-headed diplomacy and hot-blooded war do not usually see eye to eye, and another step in the evolution of the nation and in self-mastery was to be taken. Japan was to enter upon the greatest of all her victories, the victory over herself — a thousand-fold more glorious than all her fairy-tale conquests. The peace conference opened August 9. At the first business meeting the Russians promptly re- jected the proposals of indemnity and territorial cession, which no doubt Komura had anticipated. It is probable that not one of the Elder Statesmen, or any one in the Cabinet or Privy Council, who had 378 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION any right to advise the Emperor, really expected indemnity or cession of territory, and that the sub- stance of instructions to the plenipotentiaries was that they should secure as far as possible commercial advantages in Manchuria, the Japanese sovereignty over Korea, and all rights of the most favored nation in the waters adjacent. The Russian envoys agreed to Japan's sovereignty over Korea, the transfer of the lease of the Liao Tung peninsula to Japan, and of the East China Railway south of Chang Chun, and the privilege of Japanese fishing on the Siberian coast. In fact, De Witte and Rosen seemed ready to acknowledge that whatever related to Russia's trespass on Chinese soil and all matters of actual accomplishment by the Japanese should be acknowledged and passed over, 'but they were obdurate in all that related to Russian honor and the possibilities of the future. They flatly re- fused to yield the whole of Saghalien, to surrender the warships interned at neutral ports, or to agree to the limitation of the Russian navy in the Far East. The conference, toward the end, seemed about to end in failure. Since the Anglo-Japanese alliance had been renewed and Japan had gained her foothold in Manchuria, and was free to pursue a peaceful policy for at least ten years, it seemed to the Elder States- men wise to accept the situation. On August 28, after a protracted meeting of the Elder Statesmen, Privy Council, and Cabinet, followed by a conference before the Throne, a long telegram was despatched to THE WAR WITH RUSSIA 379 Baron Komura renouncing the war indemnity and the northern half of Saghalien. The expected results followed when the news, in distorted proportions, reached Japan, although the demonstration took a form that makes every Japanese blush as he thinks of it to-day. It was the Tokio populace, and not the nation, or the people, that made disgraceful protest in a carnival of riot. Unfortunate local conditions furnished the soil out of which noxious weeds of lawlessness quickly sprang up, though coming and going like Jonah's gourd. The people of Tokio had long been indignant because the city's police force was under Imperial instead of municipal control. Hence Tokio policemen were very unpopular. The Home Minister was personally obnoxious. The journalism of the capital had hardly reached the standard of average civiliza- tion, though quite equal in vileness to some yellow specimens of our own reptile press. Thousands of jin-riki-sha men had been thrown out of employment by the recent installation of electric cars and rail- ways. The proprietors of brothels, angry at the inroads made upon their infernal business by active Christians, who enforced law, were quite ready to burn churches. In a word, here was an unusual and altogether exceptional combination of elements that was to disgrace the nation, and, under the very eyes of the Emperor, to make Tokio a place of anarchy, seriously compromising Japan's boastfulness and pride in order. 380 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION In the Tokio Fury of September 5 and 6, the Cabinet ministers' houses were assaulted, police offices, sentry- boxes, electric cars, and Christian churches were burned. The police, charging upon the unarmed populace, killed some and hurt many. The number of casualties were 471 police and 558 citizens, most of whom were wounded. Besides domiciliary search- ings, hundreds were arrested on the charge of sedition and rioting. Incendiarism and collisions between police and people continued, so that it was necessary to issue an Urgency Imperial Ordinance, though the Metropolitan Council, by a strongly worded resolu- tion, openly condemned this action of the Govern- ment. Tokio, for the first time, was placed under martial law. Five newspapers were suspended, military patrols placed in over seventy places in the city and suburbs, and electric cars stopped after dark. When the same disorder was attempted at Yoko- hama the rabble was prevented from mischief by the presence of soldiery. On September 12 Admiral Togo's flagship Mikasa was accidentally blown up at Sasebo, five hundred officers and sailors being killed or wounded. Anti-peace demonstrations were held in the prov- inces. On the 20th another united -anti-peace friendly meeting gathered at Uyeno in Tokio, and six professors of the Imperial University handed a petition to the Imperial Household that the peace treaty be vetoed. The Union Anti-peace Committee, for the whole country, submitted a memorial to the THE WAR WITH RUSSIA 381 Throne. By the 27th of September two hundred petitions to veto the ratification of the peace treaty had been sent to the Court. Nevertheless the Privy Council wisely approved the ratification of the peace treaty, and soon a com- bination of circumstances caused a tremendous revulsion of national feeling, and all agitation sub- sided very quickly. On the 27th the Anglo-Japanese alliance renewed was published and Tokio was released from martial law. The hotheaded populace found out that the treaty was not quite so bad as they had expected. Admiral Noel, commander of the British Asiatic squadron, visited Kobe and Yokohama, and there were festivities and fraternal demonstrations on a large scale. The Emperor issued a Rescript, in appreciation of the services of his soldiers and sailors. After the triumphant entry of Admiral Togo and his officers into Tokio and the grand naval review, on October 22 and 23, the people seemed to forget their late griefs and to face the future with hope and joy. Baron Komura, on his arrival, received immediate audience, honor, and award from the Emperor. He was soon sent to China as special plenipotentiary, to secure the results of the peace treaty. On Novem- ber 5 the great memorial services at the Shokonsha, or Shrine for the Welcome of Spirits, were held. On the 14th the Emperor proceeded to Ise to make formal communication to "the Imperial ancestors," notifying them of the conclusion of peace. On December 7 Marshal Oyama and his staff, and on 382 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION the 9th Kuroki and staff, had their triumphant recep- tion in Tokio. On December 21 Marquis Ito was appointed Resident General in Korea. The Imperial headquarters and the united squadrons were dissolved. The Tsukuba was launched at Kure on the 26th. The opening ceremony of the twenty-second session of the Diet was held on the 28th, and thus the year closed with "the Empire grateful for universal peace." Japan's real advance was in science, philanthropy, the saving of human life, the kind treatment of prisoners, and in living up to the highest requirements of civilization. CHAPTER XXVIII A WORLD POWER. AMBITIONS, BURDENS, PROBLEMS IN the narrow life of old Japan, with its high ideals, severe training, and elect simple life, one can see resemblances to the Spartan, the Stoic, the Calvinist, and other types of conviction and culture, that have made heroes and institutions worthy of serious study. As the Japanese magic mirror, which shows in its reflection both a smooth orb of light and the artistic theme in bas-relief cast on the other side of the metal, so, in the bursting into world-light of modern Dai Nippon, we recognize behind phenomena all the age- old ideals crystallized from long political training and ethical discipline. Modern Japan has not surprised those who knew well her real story. The region of the Yamato and the primitive Mika- doate was at first a very small area. Steadily grow- ing through the early and mediaeval ages, it has not only expanded, but consolidated. By mastery of science and supreme prowess on land and sea, but even more by calling out her own inherent virtues and forces, Japan has in our century become a world- power. The Japanese are claiming social, as well as political, equality and are determined to make themselves worthy of both. 383 384 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION Their pride, always great, is now flattered by suc- cess. Their ambitions, long dormant, have awakened to the grand opportunity. But what are Japan's ambitions ? About this, the world is thinking, and various are the answers given, according as they spring from guilt rather than righteousness, ignorance rather than insight, and out of emotions instead of science. Legacies from the Crusades, memories of the Mongols, seared-conscience shadows, nightmare dreams of a "Yellow Peril," fears that raise a skeleton at the banquet of earth- hungry European marauders, destroy clear vision of the future and confuse the perspective of history. The avaricious Yankee fears for his share of plunder. The untempered alien, anarchist, or fanatic, who abuses his freedom in the United States, outdoes the dog in the manger. To those who know well Japan's story and the re- lentless cosmic conditions imposed upon her people, and who are even moderately free from prejudice, taking science instead of instinct as the point of view, it is difficult to see in Japan's purpose anything more than the first law of nature. Self-preservation is her highest ambition. By making the food-supply for the nation sure, by securing honorable commerce and open markets, and in longing for a fair share of the produce of the earth, she would hold her own in the competition of the nations. "Second to none" is her motto. To secure victory in the splendid race, she will make herself worthy of the crown. A WORLD POWER 385 This is the view of things outwardly. Japan must make her position sure. So long as it is the way of the world, even among the advanced nations that pose as her exemplars and teachers, to choose the battle- ship, the army corps, artillery, powder, and bayonets as final arguments, Japan will follow, for she must and will keep step with humanity. She knows well what its still sad music is. No nation in Europe is older than she or has a richer experience. But if, on the other hand, reversing the order of the ages and ushering in the reign of reason in place of brute force, the nations rear tribunals of arbitra- tion, lessen their armaments or even disarm, Japan will be quick to keep step, follow example, and be eager to run in the race, as hopeful rivals for the crown of peace. For, all that Japan does is best explained by her own inner life. One must study her magic mirror. All her revolutions — often unseen, unknown, unsus- pected by the world — have been first wrought in her own mind, or at least in that of her leaders. The interior life, especially since 1853, has been and still is greater than the exterior. That which is unknown to the world at large is vastly more important than what newspapers and telegrams reveal. Japan's inward ambition is even nobler than that which finds outward expression. It is to screen the evolu- tion of the average Japanese into a modern man. The five millions who rule the country would lift up to full manhood the entire nation of fifty 386 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION millions. What hurts, what helps one, now helps, hurts all. For, alongside of her ambition is her double burden. Hers is her own added to "the white man's." With her hopes are her problems. After the long aeons of struggle, the Japanese are not yet a nation in the truest sense, and their leaders know it. The nation inside the nation is small. The mighty mass still pagan, even in a Japanese sense, inaka, stolid, low in the scale of evolution, is yet to be raised up. Neither bloody victories nor dazzling military successes have yet done this. The myriads upon myriads of inaka are still far below the intelligent heimin. As tough a problem to that Tokio statesman, who is a real patriot, as to the " hired converter," the alien mission- ary, is the problem of the lower forty-five millions. Before the militarist and "kitchen cabinet" dictators, they are fully "submerged." With full bellies and with even scant comforts, these can be kept contented; but, unless we mistake both the high-souled men of '68, their successors near the Emperor, and the sons of the twentieth century, the ambition of these is to make a nation of real samurai. How to do this is the question. With nations, as with individuals, life is short and art is long. No royal road has ever yet opened to a permanent success that eliminates dust, sweat, and toil. The labor that is forgotten must ever precede the work that remains. Alas for the men of glowing vision that faint in the long service ! Even those of '68, giants in will, but A WORLD POWER 387 children in experience, burnt often their fingers and chewed long the cud of disappointment. I knew them well and heard them talk. They thought that five or ten years would suffice to make Japan not only the equal of Europe, but the welcomed and accepted member at the world's council. To compile hastily-made law codes, they supposed would at once secure the abolition of exterritoriality. To send abroad direct representatives of the Emperor would extort instant acknowledgment of Japan's political equality. To this day, overweening conceit makes many a Japanese imagine that he and 'his people are decidedly the superiors of Europeans. Yet many a long and hard discipline awaits him before he finds reality apart from conceit. So sure in 1872 were the members of that wonderful committee of four, Iwakura, Okubo, Kido, and Ito, of their quick success, that despite the warnings of the American minister, Hon. Charles De Long, they actually left Japan for America without the credentials of plenipotentiaries. After honored re- ception at the White House and on the floor of Con- gress, they met with humiliation and rejection at the State Department. Then they lost months in wait- ing, while two of the envoys recrossed the Pacific to get the first requisites for the opening of the ques- tion. After traversing the round world, they failed in their great mission. The Governments of Europe were unanimous in refusing to trust their people to native courts. 388 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION For twenty years or more their Emperor suffered lese majesty in his own domain. Only after long and devious ways, agonizing to find the straight gate, amid conservative reactions, warfare at home, assassination of their ablest men, internal struggles in cabinet and tribune, in debates before the Throne, with prisons filled with editors and men whose chief crime was prayer to the Throne that the Imperial promises of 1868 should be fulfilled, labors manifold in the making of codes and law and persistent diplo- macy at home and abroad, were they able to win from the nations full recognition of Japan's sovereignty. Yet all this internal struggle — in its collective results as bloody as the strife with China and more strenuous by far and amazingly more prolonged than the later war with Russia — was but a legal and political one. No one can even measurably under- stand twentieth-century Japan, who does not realize that her internal struggles were greater than her out- ward wars. Her mightiest conquest was over her- self. In grandiloquent phrase, too "Oriental" to be wholly worthy of modern Japan, everything, includ- ing the Constitution and victory on deck, in the field and at the council table, came "by grace of the Emperor," by "virtue of the Mikado's ancestors." In plain Anglo-Saxon, these came from the brain and heart of Japan's struggling and aspiring sons, in much the same way as come the triumphs of Occidental men, who ascribe glory to God and give credit to mortal sinners. In the English language, it is correct FUKUZAWA NAKAMURA OKUMA ITAGAKI FOUNDERS OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN JAPAN A WORLD POWER 389 to say that Japan's Constitution and her victories are the results of hardworking men, of the living as well as the dead, of the spirit of the nation. In the social and intellectual, the moral and the spiritual realms, the same law of fleeting time and receding ideals holds good. Japanese human nature is exactly like ours, and the laws that govern the development of the nation no different in an archi- pelago than on a continent. Eager to discharge their teachers, to get rid of their yatoi, and to raise the exotic seed to consummate flower, that they might themselves hold every shred of power, the Japanese moved quickly to success that too often was illusive and disappointing, as much of their seeming success to-day is. There are many sloughs of despond and pathways of sorrow yet to be traversed. Their experiences have revealed the national excellencies and limitations. Herein, during the past decade or two, they have seen them- selves in a mirror, and as the discerning critic beholds them. As soldiers and sailors they excel. Quick external success that dazzles especially the onlooker seemed easily won; but in education, in morals, in social uplift, in the virtues of truth, chastity, stability of marriage, in all that makes the real man apart from the noise of war, and as something other than what is appraised in uniforms and breast medals, how slow the advance ! How difficult to find thoroughly good teachers in the schools, honest merchants, who will keep a contract against a falling market, men that 390 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION swear to their hurt but change not, who love truth for its own sake, or bestow freely their wealth for public good ! How slightly scratched is the soil of paganism — that is, paganism from the point of view of any religion on earth that has lofty ethical ideals ! How priestcraft still dominates the villages ! How low is still the status of women ! How licensed obscenity still smells rank in Japan, Korea, Man- churia, and the southern Asiatic ports ! How glori- fied are still the moral poltroonery of suicide and the false heroics of the assassin ! How slight has been the real advance of truly representative government ! Bureaucracy and military oligarchy form the real power behind the Throne. Japan's " kitchen cabinet " is a disgrace to a nation professing constitutional monarchy. True party government seems yet far off. Domestic morals seem to be at that state of evolution which shows that Japanese are ethically yet in the group, rather than in the individual. To get at the facts we need not read missionary reports or the criticisms of hostile and unsympathetic aliens. Confining his reading to native literature, official and private, to his observation rightly inter- preted, to such books as Lafcadio Hearn's final work — so radically different from all his others — "Japan : An Interpretation," a subtle but terrific exposure, one can sympathize with those patriots who bear their country's burdens on heart and mind. The purest lover of Nippon is not necessarily found in government pay, uniform, or decoration. Very, A WORLD POWER 391 very far from it ! By a real Japanese patriot, we mean an unselfish one, less anxious for favor, rewards, and promotion than to give service and help, in har- mony with noble spirits who loved their country more than life, who toiled and even suffered on in life rather than sought easy death in battle or stooped to cowardly suicide. Whether pagan, agnostic, or Christian, if living to-day, such a patriot knows the reality. The kind of success that Japan has already won sobers him, because of its rapidity and its decep- tion. He knows too well how great is that part of his country's debt which is not expressed in treasury notes. The sort of national success yet to be gained is what he hopes for. The true glory of such men's labor makes stars and medals ridiculous. These, the real makers of the New Japan to come, prick the bubbles of a mythology that is made to bolster the bureaucracy that is parasitic to the nation and eating out its nobler life. They attack moral rottenness of certain licensed "institutions," exposing it with a view to heal inherited traits of moral weak- ness. They would reform some damning ideals that glorify self-murder. They teach that it is even better to be taken prisoners honorably and show patience and a lifelong noble character, than to quickly beg life's noblest question by suicide. They are grappling with the rapidly advancing problems of labor and capital, of government and socialisms. They are rearing solid foundations for ethical sanction to the higher civilization to come. They note the 392 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION weathering and the deliquescence of classic supersti- tion and nursery dogmas which time inevitably brings, and they labor to exemplify and embody in the State that which accords with reality and the world's best hopes. They are giving to their people, in unselfish and devoted lives, real ethics and pure religion. To them the Nation is more than its rulers. It will be ultimately impossible, with the popular study of science and history in the common schools, to preserve the dogmas on which the Government or the oppression of the masses has long been built, or to maintain even the reserved powers in the Consti- tution. In Tokugawa days, the policy was to hold intact the iron bands of inclusion and exclusion and to keep the people ignorant both of the law and the reasons of the law. Science, as certain as earth- quakes, will assuredly overturn certain political dog- mas and superstitions in Japan which nominally grant the people liberty, while in reality withholding it. In impotent fear, the upholders of puerile super- stition have banned all critical science that explores ancient history to the detriment, real or supposed, of imperialism. Academic freedom in Japan is not yet, and bold scholars have more than once felt the dis- pleasure of the Government. The Japanese, no more than other living nations, or those buried in the dead civilizations of the past, need hope for permanence in that character, which was the product of an age of feudal discipline now and no longer possible. Whence shall they obtain the A WORLD POWER 393 moral force to drive their new motors in this era of democracy, or, as a native editor said, "the moral oil to run the new machinery " ? Even " kitchen cabi- nets" or palace cliques cannot keep back democracy. The Nation in evolution must rule. CHAPTER XXIX SECOND TO NONE IN this chapter I propose to summarize Japanese history and to set forth our reasons why the people of Nippon should be treated with absolute justice. The whole of Japan's trustworthy political history, until 1867, may be comprehended in the one word — feudalism. Before written record in the eighth cen- tury, we have the one great phenomenon, in legendary outline only, of the descent of the conquering race upon the islands. The process, obscure in details, is clear in its main features. Then follow ages of struggle with the Aryan Ainu, who are subdued and made one with the Yamato people, forming a homo- geneous body, the Japanese people. The rise of the military classes follows as the startling result. By the twelfth century, when for the first time the many and mixed tribes of various ethnic stocks, Aryan, Malay, and Mongol, perhaps Semitic also, are blended into a nation, feudalism is a system accepted as a fact. In the conception of society it is almost axiomatic. After various episodes and interruptions, domestic and foreign, and a long training in feudal law, custom, and ideals, Japan, from lyeyasu, enjoyed over two 394 SECOND TO NONE 395 centuries of isolation and peace. In the nineteenth century we behold the onslaught of foreign influences, issuing in centralized monarchy, the abolition of feudalism, the adoption of the material forces of the West, the reconstruction of the State at the hands of about fifty high-souled leaders, two notable foreign wars which blew to atoms two obsolete dogmas, the one Chinese and the other European, and Japan's emergence yesterday as a world-power. Such phe- nomena equal, if they do not eclipse, in historical interest the rise of the Dutch republic in the six- teenth century, which compelled a new Europe. Suppose some other than Chinese civilization and some other religion than Buddhism — Hittite, He- brew, Roman, Greek — had come to these insulars ! Happily, between the sixth and twelfth centuries, China of the glorious age of the Tang and Sung dynas- ties was the most civilized country on the globe. Her political system was noble, her literature superb. How vast is the debt of both Japan and mediaeval Europe to China ! Herein is the abysmal difference between the Chi- nese and the Japanese or ourselves. The Chinese invented what they have. We did not; nor did the Japanese. Nearly all that is fundamental in our civilization, religion, law, letters, figures, has been borrowed. Like the Japanese, we are debtors to past ages, races, and civilizations. On the contrary, the Chinese have had but one culture. It is indige- nous. They have held to it and have never changed. 396 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION It is no wonder that they seem thus far incurious and insensitive. The Japanese, like ourselves, invented little, although in modern times they have adopted and adapted many new things. Adepts always, when opportunity offered, they took the novelties and were soon "up-to-date." The Japanese mind, thoroughly un-Mongolian, works in other grooves than those smoothed by the Chinese. This, then, was what these Yamato men did when they adapted things Chinese. They became "ex- pansionists" and organized armies. In A.D. 645 was their great revolution. Having imported something better than what they already had, they adopted "civilization." They took from China a manifestly superior pattern for their civil government, with costume and documents. China and Chinese were to the Japanese as Rome and the Latin language to Europe before the rise of the modern nationalities. According to the law of human progress, the Japanese did what our fathers did. They accepted the poten- cies of improvement when these were offered them. From one point of view the entrance of Chinese or Mongolian civilization into Japan was a calamity. Politically, "it neither consolidated the State nor affirmed the Throne," while it arrested the progress of the language, petrified literary forms, and enchained the intellect to an alien past. In the working of their minds, in the domain of philosophy and religion, the Japanese are notably un-Mongolian. Unlike the Chinese, but like the Greeks, who, in the crucible of SECOND TO NONE 397 their brains transfused the simple spiritual ethics of Jesus into an elaborate theology, and like the Latins, who turned them into an ecclesiastical discipline, the composite islanders transformed their imported Bud- dhism as well as their exotic politics and social ideals. What came from beyond sea suffered more than a sea-change. With a power of adaptation that is very near creative originality, they developed new systems that Shaka Muni would no more recognize than would Jesus the things named after him. Kobo in the eighth century was quite as clever as Philo, Euhemerus, or Anselm, in knowing how to breed away thorns from the cactus. The successors of this man Kobo, of Shakespearian intellect, evolved fresh wonders from old religions — especially when more priestly power was to be won and revenue increased. Out of the suggestions of Chinese art the Japanese created a most un-Mongolian world of beauty and taste. In statecraft, they laid under the Mikado's Throne foundations totally different from the bases set up either in the Southern or Northern Chinese capitals. Instead of keeping apart in castes, as in China, soldier and civilian, the Japanese united in one figure the warrior and gentleman. With sword and pen, Bushido and learning, that typical product, the samurai — unmatched in all Asia — was pro- duced. This most un-Mongolian kind of man culti- vates a patriotism that is seismic in its energies. This indigenous flower of Japanese manhood is bathed in the dews and steeped in the virtues of truth, loy- 398 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION alty, and sacrifice. His is the spirit which breathes the renunciation of all things for the nation and its incarnation, the Emperor. By training a new genera- tion, even all the people, in the samurai's code (and this was made possible by a national free public school system) and by virtually conferring the patent of nobility upon commoners through service in the army, Japan was able easily to humble mighty Russia. Before 1868 things were done for the special classes. In the Meiji era, statesmanship, intellect, and applied philanthropy have been for the whole nation. The un-Mongolian spirit of the Japanese is seen in their refusing to accept blindly Confucianism in its traditional form or logical consequences. Wherever in the Chinese empire the sage sways his sceptre, filial piety is the cornerstone of society and "the five relations" form foundation. But, for better or worse, the ultra un-Mongolian Japanese rejected Chinese theory and practice. They made loyalty, not filial piety, their central virtue. In the feudal world the baron was, in the new empire the Emperor is, the centre of all loyalty. Mikado and country are more than kith and kin. Family ties snap at his call. Note that China has had thirty-six dynasties, Japan but one. In a word, the Japanese in mind, body, speech, thought, ways, institutions, mental initiative, in the past and present and in their methods of life in foreign . countries, are radically un-Mongolian. Occidentals, still under the spell of traditions as old as the Cru- SECOND TO NONE 399 sades, wonder whether their "new" civilization of Japan will endure. From the viewpoint of history, the Japanese have done nothing new or strange. They are true to their record. Foreigners, judging these "Orientals" (a word that has lost much of its old meaning) out of their own prejudices, are apt to see only the phenomenal since Fillmore's time. Igno- rant of the centuries of mind-preparation that wel- comed science when it came, they may well be amazed and suspicious. The Japanese will be greatly modified by Occidental influences, but the "Orient" will modify the "Occident" with equal power and mutual benefit. Religionists who expect to win these un-Mongolian islanders to traditional Christianity, whether of the Greek, Roman, or Reformed order, are doomed to disappointment. These people are so much like ourselves that they already put difference between what Jesus taught and that which the sects and establishments bring them. Every theology or philoso- phy yet acclimated in Japan has been compelled to "wear a Japanese kimono." In this age of science and critical history, the Japanese, while rapidly becoming followers of Jesus, reject Latin and Greek traditions as non-vital. The mediaeval forms of European dogma are discarded. They are thinking out and setting in their own moulds of mind the -message of the Nazarene. In the rebirth of the nation into the spirit that moves the best civilization of the world, the Japanese are one with humanity. 400 JAPANESE NATION IN EVOLUTION What we have stated, with detailed proofs, in a pamphlet of twenty pages published in Boston in April, 1907, and entitled " Christ the Creator of the New Japan," is this: — "Behind almost every one of the radical reforms that have made the New Japan stands a man — too often a martyr — who was directly moved by the spirit of Jesus, or who is or was a pupil of the mis- sionaries." In a word, the Japanese, having always striven for the best, will not in the future be behind the elect souls of every age, nor will they turn their backs to the Great Captain. The Japanese are not "Mongolian." They justly refuse to be classed as such. In the end, both deserv- ing and winning success, they will gain social as they have already won political equality with Occidentals, and the world will be the better for it. INDEX Abe, 315. Aborigines, see Ainu. Academic freedom, 392. Adoption, 238, 239. Adzuma, 94, 313. Agriculture, 51, 163. Aino, 8. Ainu, ancient, 1-29, 48, 90-100, 133-138, 171, 180-190, 201, 203, 218, 348. Ainu, modern, 7-13, 45, 50, 166, 211-218, 298-304, 313. Alphabets, 123, 175. Alps, Japanese, 95, 96. Ama, 51-58, 162. Ama-terasu, see Sky-Shine. Ambitions, 384-393. American doctrine, 353. Anatomy, 13. Ancestor worship, 165, 166, 238, 388. Ancestry, 65, 108, 115, 166. Ando, 320. Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 333, 369. Antoku, 107, 200. Arabian Nights, 20. Arai Hakuseki, 43, 263. Araki, 297. Archaeology, 66-74, 145. Architecture, 31, 185, 232, 242, 243. Areas, 103, 145, 152. Arrows, 57, 60, 94. Art, 65, 68, 72, 85, 119, 174, 232- 234, 240, 282, 397. Artists, 140, 176, 290. Aryan language, 1, 5. Aryan names, 1-7, 105. Aryan religion, 210. Asakawa, 193. Ashikaga, 223-237, 323, 352. Assassination, 143. Aston, W. G., 96. Asuka, 121, 122. Awabi, 60. B Bakin, 276, 283. Bakufu, 205, 206. Banzai, 137. Batchelor, Rev. John, 4, 5. Beggars, 109-111. Bell, Rear-Admiral, 64. Bells, 148, 209, 254, 282. Berry, J. C., 358. Blacking teeth, 39. Blending of races, 183, 394. Boats, 37, 184. Bonzes, 169, 228-230. Books on Japan, 20. Booth, General, 256. Boxers, 367, 368. Brinkley, Captain, 20, 278, 337. British fleet, 306, 381. Bronze age, 68. Bronzes, 124, 129, 130. Browning, 72. Buddha, 115. Buddhism, 114, 119-132, 157, 185, 192, 205, 210, 216-218, 228- 231, 247, 248, 368, 397. Bureaucracy, 147-150, 195. Bushido, 197, 220, 271-284, 293, 349, 373, 376, 397. C Calendar, 147, 352, 355. Camp, 171, 205, 206, 318. 401 402 INDEX Campbell, M. A. G., 10. Cannibalism, 9, 266. Capitals, 70, 75, 171, 167, 273. Castles, 229, 242, 243. Caucasian types, 4, 98. Censors, 65, 224. Census, 115, 263, 269. Chairs, 33, 34. Chamberlain, B. H., 5, 79, 165, 302, 339. Charter Oath, 324, 334-336. Chauvinism, 157, 272. Chifu, 364, 365. Chimneys, 33. China, 11, 21, 134, 395. Chinese characters, 2, 3, 20, 173, 174. Chinese history, 21. Chinese ideographs, 80, 130, 131. Chinese language, 74. Chinese philosophy, 83, 292-295. Chinese political ideas, 145-151, 153, 352, 355, 359. Chinese rhetoric, 20, 91, 92, 156, 320. Chinese war, 359-365. Choshiu, 324, 325, 334. Christianity, 131, 132, 229, 246- 249, 273, 360, 399. Chronology, 27, 65, 70. Chrysanthemum, 32, 224, 227. Chu Hi, 292. Cities, 180. Civilizations, 118. Clanism, 146. Clay images, 98, 104. Cleanliness, 50, 66, 162. Clement, E. W., 291, 307. Cock Robin, 57. Codes, 209, 220, 225. Colonizing, 305. Color prints, 42, 279. Comets, 135. Commoners, 270, 276, 386. Compass, 84, 186. Confucianism, 143, 147, 291-294, 398. Constitution of 1889, 335, 356, 357, 389. Coolies, 11. Copper, 105, 173, 174. Coup d'e'tat, 143, 332, 336, 395. Creation, 50. Cremation, 265. Crucifixion, 251, 268. Culture wars, 6, 21, 27-29, 291- 295. Curly hair, 45, 115, 116. Dai Butsu, 124, 204, 205, 264. Daimio, 202, 258-261, 264, 319, 342-344. Dancing, 52, 54, 82, 138, 280. Dates, 27. Decorative arts, 66-68, 234, 240- 244, 255. Deer, 95. Dening, Walter, 252. De Rosen, 306, 379. Deshima, 286. De Witte, 378. Diatonic scale, 84, 281. Dickins, M. F., 79, 165, 166. Diseases, 264. Dissection, 287. Divers, Edward, 345. Dogs, 9, 95. Dolmens, 57, 64, 68-73, 115, 134, 144, 145. Dragon-fly, 76. Dragons, 54, 55, 63. Droppers, Gerritt, 263, 266. Drums, 282. Duarchy, 201-203, 208, 327, 331, 332. Dutch, 34, 285-288, 335. Dyer, Henry, 345. E Ear tomb, 43. Ebisu, see Ainu. INDEX 403 Ebisu, the idol, 36. Echizen, 3, 94, 229, 230, 246, 249, 288, 293, 319, 321, 330, 334, 335, 336, 343, 348, 350. Eclipse, 53. Economics, 53, 172, 189, 225, 264, 341, 344, 366, 376. Education Department, 80, 308, 336, 345. Effigies, 73, 98, 104. Egret, 96. Emperor, 102-103. Empresses, 105, 143, 170, 261, 262. English scholars, 20, 340, 345. Esoterics, 277, 376. Eta, 4, 45, 109-116, 287, 322, 348. Ethics, 166, 389-383. Euphemism, 173. Evolution, 50. Eye-sockets, 11, 60. Fairy-tales, 14, 48-62, 166, 391. Family, 154, 165, 238, 239. Famines, 264-267. Fetich, 168. Feudalism, 145, 169, 187-194, 195-204, 224-228, 259, 261, 269, 328, 342, 343, 394. Fillmore, Millard, 34, 269, 286, 295, 306, 309, 310, 312, 313, 321, 375. Fire, 52, 93, 168. Fire-arms, 246. Fire-proofs, 37. Fishes, 9, 60, 61. Flags, 53, 313, 316. Food, 62, 265, 314, 384. Food-plains, 180. Foot-ball, 142, 143. Forced labor, 72, 139, 169. Formosa, 355, 364-366. Forty-seven Ronins, 275. France, 324, 370. Fraser, Mrs., 280. Froes, 27. Frontier theory, 23. Frontiers, 6, 51, 145, 178, 180- 186. Fujiwara, 152-155, 179, 188, 192. Fujiyama, 3, 90. Fukui, 3, 86, 109, 288, 337, 344. Fukuzawa, 220. G Garlic, 95. Geisha, 39, 82, 281. Genealogy, 58, 65, 97, 161, 163. Genghis Khan, 211. Genji, 44, 189. Genji Monogatari, 177, 280. Geography, 5, 59, 173, 296-306, 375. Germany, 340, 367, 370. Glyn, 226, 308. Gods, 25, 33, 45, 52, 251. Gold, 9, 174, 178, 245, 297, 298. Golownin, 302, 303. Goto Shimpei, 366. Gowland, 68. Graham, Secretary, 310, 311. Great Britain, 333, 353, 360, 361, 367, 381. H Hades, 54. Hair dressing, 37, 38, 197. Hairiness, 12. Haniwa, 73, 74, 104. Hara-kiri, 219, 329. Harris, Townsend, 316, 323, 328. Hashimoto, 112, 288, 290, 319. Hats, 37. Hayato, 99. Headgear, 37, 38, 183, 197. Head-hunting, 42-44, 253. Hearn, Lafcadio, 7, 272, 390. Heating, 32. Heco, 307. Heike, 44, 199, 200, 218. Hepburn, 277. Heredity, 238-239. 404 INDEX Hermann, 13, 274. Hideyori, 254. Hideyoshi, 239, 249-252, 352. Hi-nin, 109. Hiouen Tsang, 124, 185. Historiography, 20-25, 50, 63, 71, 271-277. History, 22-25. Hitchcock, Romyn, 68. Hitomaro, 166. Hojo, 207-218, 221. Hokkaido, 8, 17, 297-309. Hokusai, 269, 276. Holland, 69, 335. Hondo, 6, 14, 70, 91. Honen, 216, 228. Honorifics, 5, 59, 145. Horses, 9. Hospitals, 268. Hotta, 317. Houses, 31-36. Idzumo, 56, 59, 65. li, Premier, 42, 317-320, 328. Imai, J. T., 275. Immigration, 7, 183. Imperial House Law, 262. Imperial tombs, 70. Indemnity, 364-366, 376, 379. India, 18, 24, 120, 122-124, 216. Indians, N. A., 54. Indonesians, 17. Industrialism, 59, 257. Inquisition, 154, 247. Interpreters, 308, 309. Iroquois, 5, 14, 69. Ise, 32, 96. Itagaki, 356. Italians, 211, 212. Ito, 290, 312, 319, 342, 364, 377 382, 387. Iwakura, 342, 387. lyemochi, 318-321. lyeyasu, 129, 239, 251, 252-255 301, 327. 'Jap," 24. Japanese character, 266, 341. Japanese genius, 67, 131, 294. Japanese human nature, 226. Japanese language, 77-79, 302. Jeroboam, 205. Jewels, 52, 58, 62, 72, 98. Jimmu, 27-29, 63, 104, 165. Jingu, 104, 133. Ju-jutsu, 39, 277, 278. K Kadzu no Miya, 262, 320, 321. Kagura, 54, 83. Kamakura, 171, 179, 200, 214, 296. Kami, 162, 163. Kana, 106. Kano, 244. Katsu Awa, 293, 306, 319, 333. Keiki, 318, 331, 332. Kempff, 367, 368. Kibi, Rear-Admiral, 106. Kim Ok Kiun, 361. Kioto, 168, 188, 229, 239, 273, 322, 324, 329, 332. Kissing, 39. Kiyomori, 155, 199. Knox, Dr., 217. Kobo, 175, 315, 397. Kodama, 124, 131, 366. Kodzuke, 98, 252. Koganei, 13. Kojiki, 2, 27, 49. Kojiki (Records), 2, 49, 54, 78. Komei, 262, 312. Komura, 376-381. Korea, 26, 43, 60, 99, 100, 120, 122, 126, 192, 241, 250, 319, 359-364, 382. Koreans in Japan, 142. Koshi, 3, 94, 183, 186, 350. Koto, 279-281. Kow-shing, 362. Kuanon, 15. Kuanto, 91. INDEX 405 Kuroki, 116, 290, 316, 382. Kuro Shiwo, 16, 30. Lake dwellers, 32. Landholding, 149, 150, 189-184. Landscape, 120, 122. Language, Ainu, 5. Language, Chinese, 74, 175, 238. Language, Old Japanese, 74, 77, 238. Language, Semitic, 74. Law, 177, 225, 226, 267, 333. Leather, 46, 114. Legal fictions, 57, 65, 238. Lewis, R. E., 308. Libraries, 231, 254. Li Hung Chang, 364. Lincoln, A., 108, 112. Lips, 39. Literature, 170, 175, 235, 276-279. Lost Tribes, 200. Loyalty, 398. M Malay element, 30-47, 289 Mamiya, 296, 304, 305. Manchuria, 46, 362-365, 371-378. Manjiro, 307. Manyo poems, 33, 35, 48, 78. Marco Polo, 211. Marriage, 63, 268. Masago, 207. Matsumae, 299-305, 308. MeCauley, Rev. C., 79. McDonald, Ranald, 226, 308, 309. Medical science, 286-288, 359. Meiji era, 20, 25, 71, 398. Mendez Pinto, 245, 246, 256. Merchants, 258, 330. Metals, 9, 72, 189, 190. Michizane, 85, 177-179. Middle Ages, 258, 274. Migrations, 30, 44, 49, 59, 301. Mikado, 102-108. Mikadoism, 20, 23, 64, 65, 119, 150-155, 161, 222-225. Militarism, 206. Minamoto, 107, 202, 207, 250. Mirror, 52, 318. Misasagi, 70-74. Missionaries, 341, 400. Mito, 294. Monasteries, 171, 230. Mongolianism, 79, 176, 215, 304, 396-400. Mongols, 129, 209-216, 272. Monkey, 58. Monogatari, 79. Moon lore, 50, 53, 54. Morals, 65, 166, 258, 389, 391. Mounds, 67, 68. Mountains, 59. Mukden, 370, 372. Munroe, H. S., 299. Munro, N. G., 26, 47. Murdock, 256. Muro, 28, 29, 45. Murray, David, 345. Music, 52-53, 81-89, 218-220, 235- 237, 279-284. Mustaches, 13. Mutsu, 173. Mutsuhito, 31, 102, 108, 113, 245, 313, 346, 348, 365. Mythology, 2, 161, 391. N Nagasaki, 251, 356. Nakasendo Road, 94. Nakatomi Kamatari, 142, 144, 152. Names, 26, 73, 227. Names of Japan, 18, 19, 55, 65, 67, 76, 90. Nara, 124, 128, 167. Naturalization, 116, 117. Nature, 87. Navy, 316, 350, 358. Negrito, 44, 111. Negroids, 45, 114. Neo-Confucianism, 123, 292, 398. 406 INDEX Nichiren, 216, 217, 228, 247. Nijo castle, 255/ 262, 329, 332. Nikko, 106, 255. Nitobe, 289. Nitta, 222, 252. Nobunaga, 193, 230, 239, 246-249, No, 54, 86, 235. Numerals, 53, 111. O Oath, 40, 259. Oceanic myths, 60-62, 63. Odawara, 222, 242. Ojin, 104. Okakura, K, 51, 68, 85. Okakura, Y., 163, 215. Okubo, 294, 342, 345, 387. Okuma, 354, 356. Oranges, 65, 93. Organ, 282. Orient and Occident, 24, 399. Osaka, 64, 134, 230, 243, 370. Outcasts, 108-113, 263. Oyama, 364, 381. Oyomei philosophy, 112, 292-295, 319, 347. Pagoda, 31, 32, 136. Painting, 128, 177, 178. Parties, 331. Peking, 367, 368. People, 226. Perry, M. C., 34, 213, 302, 308. 311, 312. Persecution, 154. Personality, 101, 107, 204. Phallics, 50. Philosophy, 290-295. Physicians, 268, 286. Physique, Japanese, 30, 31. Piggott, Mr. F. T., 84, 219, 279. Pigmies, 45. Piloty, 13, 274. Ping Yang, 363. Pit dwellers, 45-47. Pittsburg, 366. Place-names, 1-6, 26, 174. Poetry, 78, 79. Polygamy, 190. Polo, 43, 44. Population, 245, 263-270, 369. Port Arthur, 350, 370-372. Portsmouth, 19, 305, 376-380. Portuguese, 230. Pottery, 9, 73. Pre-Mongolian Japan, 20-23, 1- 100. Princes, 172, 190. Proverbs, 57, 207, 213, 229, 267, 294. Punishments, 267. R Railways, 312-314, 374, 375. Rain, 137. Rai Sanyo, 85, 277, 319. Rebels, 198. Red Cross Society, 358, 359. Regalia, 224. Regent, 155, 156, 250. Rembrandt, 23. Rescripts, 346. Revenue, 145-149, 259, 260. Revolution, 396. Rice, 51, 162, 259, 260. Righteousness, 276. Rituals, 162, 164. Riu Kiu, 17, 355. Rojestvensky, 214, 372, 373. Roman script, 81. Ronin, 220, 254, 275, 289-291, 323. Russian church, 301. Russians, 7, 198, 214, 296-306, 355, 365, 366, 368, 370-378, 398. Russian war, 88, 160, 359, 370- 378. Rutgers College, 336. S Saghalien, 7, 296, 304, 355, 376- 379. INDEX 407 Saigo, 349. Sailors, 350. Sakuma, 290, 316, 323, 335. Salt, 111, 236. Samisen, 281. Samurai, 196, 209, 342, 349, 397. Sanjo, 317. Satsuma, 40, 55, 59, 64, 241, 249, 259, 334, 343, 347, 348. Scabbards, 41. Schools, 231. Scriptures, 126-128. Sculpture, 122, 124. Secrecy, 272. Semitic language, 74. Sendai, see the illustration. Shell heaps, 14, 65, 73, 91. Shidzuoka, 254. Shimonoseki, 311, 324, 329. Shimosa, 246, 345. Shinran, 216-218, 228. Shinto, 153, 157, 159-166. Shinto temple, 32, 47. Shogun, 187, 198, 208, 250, 318- 321, 330. Shotoku, 121, 139. Siamese, 6. Silent Concerts, 236. Simplicity, 67, 234. Sitting, 33-35. Sky-Shine, 51-55, 163. Slavery, 49, 96. Smile, 154. Smoke, 33. Sogaclan, 121, 133-144, 183. Soga Yemishi, 72, 122, 134-144. Soil, 260. Sougs, 28, 29, 86, 92. Soshi, 289, 364. Sovereignties, 70, 145. Soyeshima, 354, 356. Spain, 131, 246, 351. Spaniards, 241, 242. Spirits of ancestors, 67, 102, 381. Statistics, 35, 114, 263-265, 269, 369. Stature, 35. Stone age, 26, 90-100. Students abroad, 134, 185. Sugita Gempaku, 287. Suicide, 219, 220, 390. Suiko, 101, 121. Sun-goddess, see Sky-Shine. Surveys, 260. Susa-no-o,'-51. Swords, 54, 58, 67, 93, 164, 197, 213, 220, 222, 238, 320. Sword worship, 40, 41. Taira, 107, 154, 155, 246. Takachibo, 59. Takahira, 376, 377. Takamine, 246, 345. Tamura, 186, 187. Taoism, 292. Tattooing, 42. Taxation, 112, 149, 150, 193, 225, 228. Teeth, 39. Tenchi, 142, 151. Tenno, 102, 103. Tenshi, 102, 103. Ten Shu Dai, 243. Terpen, 69. Theatre, 276. Thompson, Rev. David, 74. Throne, 140. Togo, 59, 181, 214, 290, 319, 362, 370-373, 380, 381. Tokaido, 98, 110, 279. Tokimune, 209, 212-214. Tokio, 91, 93, 379, 380. Tokugawa, 226, 248, 260, 267, 392. Tonality, 87, 88. Tong haks, 360-361. Traders, 258. Treaties, 261, 314, 329. Tsukuba, 319, 382. Tsushima, 306. Tumuli, 66-70. Tycoon, 187. 408 INDEX U Ukio-ye, 42, 279. Under Shine, 56. Unebi, 64, 141. Uniformity, 6. University, Imperial, 315. Uzume, 52, 58, 82, 281, 312. Vegetarianism, 106, 114. Verbeck, G. F., 342, 345, 347, 354. Village assemblies, 53, 55, 60. W Washington, 151, 154, 293. Whalers, 307. White men, 10, 11, 25. White race, 1-15, 25. Williams, S. Wells, 314. Willis, Dr., 333. Wo-jin, 211, 363. Woman, 38, 88, 93, 106, 166-168, 170, 176, 177, 183, 200, 207, 218, 226, 268, 300, 318, 359. Woman Mikados, 105, 106, 170, 261, 262. Writing, 70, 123, 126-128. X Xavier, 246. Yamagata, 28, 367, 378. Yamato, 3, 26, 49, 64, 71, 75, 128, 383. Yamato Dake, 40, 91-96, 313. Yamato Damashii, 74—89. Yatoi, 316, 336-342. Yebisu, see Ainu. Yedo, Bay, 93. Yedo, City, 3, 91, 249. Yemishi, see Ainu. Yezo, 6, 7. Yezo Island, 184, 186, 297-309, 355. Yokohama, 93. Yokoi, 110, 112, 288, 293, 321, 322. Yoritomo, 44, 129, 130, 200-206. Yoshida, 290, 291, 319. Yoshino, 64. Yoshitsune, 200. Yuri Kinmasa, 293, 321, 322, 334, 356. Zenism, 233. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. wi NOV291988 18HV- A 000165407 8