CHAPTER V

DEATH BY NEGLECT AND SACRIFICE IN JAPAN—THE NEW-BORN TABOO—MYTH OF THE EXPOSURE OF THE CHILD OF THE GODS—GROWTH OF THE MARRIAGE CUSTOM—THE ARRIVAL OF THE CHINESE—MODERN CANNIBALISM—MODERN LAWS ON THE SALE OF CHILDREN.

The first inhabitants of Japan were a numerous people named Koropok-guru, who lived in conelike huts built over holes dug in the earth and who were exterminated by the Ainu people. The latter were in turn conquered by the race that we speak of today as the Japanese; these last settlers coming to the islands of Japan from somewhere in the north of Central Asia, while a second stream of South Asian immigrants were drifted to Japan by the Japan current.

In the _Kojiki_, or “Records of Ancient Matters,” dictated by Hide-no-are and completed in A.D. 711 or 712, we have a record of the mythology, manners, language, and the traditional history of Japan; this “history” purports to give the actual story of Japan from the year 660 B. C., when the first Emperor Jimmu, “having subdued and pacified the savage deities and extirpated the unsubmissive people, dwelt at the palace of Kashiwabara.” Modern Japanese scholars as well as Western scholars are inclined to say that there is really no authentic history before A.D. 461 but as a picture of the customs of early Japan, the _Kojiki_ is still the only authentic document that we have.

Inazo Nitobe, in dividing the history of his country into periods, groups the legendary age and all that went before the political reforms of the seventh century as the first period, under the name of the “ancient period.”

These ancient people, the mythical people of the _Kojiki_, had passed through a genuine Bronze Age and had in general attained a high level of barbaric skill. Of their many curious customs, both in the _Kojiki_ and in the equally important _Nihongi_ or “Chronicles of Japan,” prominent notice is made of the “parturition house”—“one-roomed but without windows, which a woman was supposed to build and retire into for the purpose of being delivered unseen.” Here is evidence that the infant was “taboo” until it had been received by the head of the house.

Even up to recent times in the island of Hachijo the custom survived according to Ernest Satow, who visited this island in 1878.

“In Hachijo,” wrote Mr. Satow, “women, when about to become mothers, were formerly driven out to the huts on the mountainside, and according to the accounts of native writers, left to shift for themselves, the result not unfrequently being the death of the new-born infant, or if it survived the rude circumstances under which it first saw the light, the seeds of disease were sown which clung to it throughout its after life. The rule of non-intercourse was so strictly enforced that the woman was not allowed to leave the hut even to visit her own parents at the point of death, and besides the injurious effects that this solitary confinement must have had on the wives themselves, their prolonged absence was a serious loss to households where there were elder children and large establishments to be superintended. The rigour of the custom was so far relaxed in modern times that the huts were no longer built on the hills, but were constructed inside the homestead. It was a subject of wonder to people from other parts of Japan that the senseless practice should still be kept up, and its abolition was often recommended, but the administration of the Shoguns was not animated by a reforming spirit, and it remained for the government of the Mikado to exhort the islanders to abandon this and the previously mentioned custom. They are therefore no longer sanctioned by official authority and the force of social opinion against them is increasing, so that before long these relics of ancient ceremonial religion will in all probability have disappeared from the group of islands.”

As with most early histories there is little description of custom or manners in either the _Kojiki_ or the _Nihongi_, but we gather what the general attitude was toward children from the fact that the conception of marriage was probably limited to cohabitation, this condition lasting until well on into the Middle Ages,[100] cohabitation being often secret at first, but afterward acknowledged. When the latter conditions had come to prevail, the young man, instead of going to his mistress under the cover of the night, brought her back publicly to his parents’ home, and that was the beginning of his own home.

Little is there in the _Kojiki_ about the care of children but the harshness toward women about to have children, as shown in the frequent reference to the parturition houses, shows that unless they were children of royalty they were left to whatever care their mothers might be able to bestow on them.

In the account of the making of Japan by the two Heavenly Deities, known as the Izani-gi-no-kami and Izana-mi-no-kami, the Man Who Invites and the Female Who Invites, it is stated that their first child was not retained.

“This child,” says the legend,[101] after retailing the events that led up to its birth, “they placed in a boat of reeds and let it float away. Next they gave birth to the island of Aha. This is not reckoned among their children.”

Among the gods, therefore, children were rejected or accepted without ceremony, and with such an attitude of rejection or acceptance depicted as the normal condition among the deities, it may easily be imagined what was the attitude of the ordinary beings who modelled their conduct on that of the deities.

It is told of the first Emperor Jimmu, that, meeting a group of seven maidens, he invited one of them to become a wife of his, and on her acceptance the sovereign passed the night at her house. This constituted the only marriage ceremony that the times knew. As far as the woman was concerned, all that the new condition meant was that she was liable to receive a visit at any time from her new lord and master, but on his side there was no obligation, no duty of fidelity, and he was free to form as many similar unions as fancy dictated.

The children were brought up by the mother and one household of a man might be in absolute ignorance of another.[102] Mistress, wife, and concubine were on the same footing and could be discarded at any moment. When the Deity of Eight Thousand Spears, attired in his favourite courting costume, is about to go forth and search for a “better wife” he boldly announces that:

When I take and attire myself so Carefully in my august garments green As the kingfisher— It is with the intention of finding another mate.

To this the Chief Empress, Her Augustness the Forward Princess, to whom the frank statement is made, plaintively replies:

“Thou ... indeed, being a man, probably hast on the various island-headlands that thou seest and on every beach-headland that thou lookest on, a wife like the young herbs. But I, alas! being a woman have no man except thee; I have no spouse except thee!”[103]

What became of the children in the cases of conjugal separation does not appear, a statement that is made by no less a Japanese authority than Chamberlain.[104] In only one instance is there any reference made to the fate of a child that had been deserted, but this is an unusual case, where the father had violated the rules of the parturition house, with the result that the mother disappears, leaving the father to take care of the child. He pledged himself to look after it until the day of his death but the sister of the child’s mother was first invoked to act as nurse.

The result of this system of family life was that where the children of different mothers but of the same father discovered one another’s presence there were feuds and much fighting, especially as it was the children of the latest affection who were generally the recipients of his favour to the chagrin and anger of the less favoured children and families. Marriages between half-brothers and halfsisters were another result of the system, the only restriction on marriages of any kind being that children of the same mother should not marry. Sons of the same father were thus incited to be enemies rather than brothers, in the accepted sense, and the annals of the civil wars are replete with tales of treachery and ambition and show almost an entire absence of natural affection. The fact that the children had no claim on the love and the protection of the father and that their mother was condemned under the ancient system to the function of a mere animal, is cited by Brinkley as the reason for this cruelty and treachery.[105]

This was the position of the child in the society that is depicted in the _Kojiki_ and the _Nihongi_, although the latter, written about forty years after the _Kojiki_ (A.D. 720), and under the influence of the Chinese, is more apt to depict the conditions that sprang up with the spreading Chinese culture.

The fourth century brought to Japan a knowledge of Chinese classics, and Chinese morals, and in 552 A.D., there came a still greater change when the Buddhistic religion was introduced through a copy of the scripture and an image of Buddha being sent to the Yamato Court by the government of one of the Korean kingdoms. Unsuccessful preachments there had been by unofficial missionaries before this, but the arrival of the Korean ambassador served to bring to the attention of the government the new religion in a manner calculated to arouse interest in its doctrines.

Whatever may be the defects of Shintoism, human sacrifice never seems really to have been part of its practice,[106] and to this fact, with the increasing regard for life that came with civilization, is undoubtedly due the little emphasis given to infanticide among the Japanese. Another influence, undoubtedly, and this is said to be the “best point of Shinto,”[107] is that the people were taught that they themselves were sons and daughters of the gods, a belief apt to save the killing of surplus members of society in a time of economic stress.

According to the _Nihongi_, human sacrifice was put an end to in Japan in the year A.D. 3:

“Tenth month, fifth day: Yamato-hiko, the Mikado’s younger brother by the mother’s side, died.

“Eleventh month, second day: Yamato-hiko was buried at Tsukizaka in Musa. Thereupon his personal attendants were assembled, and were all buried alive upright in the precinct of the tomb. For several days they died not, but wept and wailed day and night. At last they died and rotted. Dogs and crows gathered and ate them.

“The Emperor, hearing the sound of their weeping and wailing, was grieved at heart, and commanded his high officers, saying:

“‘It is a very painful thing to force these whom one has loved in life to follow him in death. Though it be an ancient custom, why follow it if it is bad? From this time forward, take counsel so as to put a stop to the following of the dead.’

“A.D. 3, seventh month, sixth day: The Empress Hibasuhime no Mikoto died. Sometime before the burial the Emperor commanded his ministers, saying:

“‘We have already recognized that the practice of following the dead is not good. What should now be done in performing this burial?’

“Thereupon Nomi no Sukune came forward and said:

“‘It is not good to bury living men upright at the tumulus of a prince. How can such a practice be handed down to posterity? I beg leave to propose an expedient which I will submit to your Majesty.’

“So he sent messengers to summon up from the land of Idzumo a hundred men of the clay-workers Be. He himself directed the men of the clay-workers Be to take clay and form therewith shapes of men, horses, and various objects, which he presented to the Emperor, saying:

“‘Henceforward, let it be the law for future ages to substitute things of clay for living men, and to set them up at tumuli.’

“Then the Emperor was greatly rejoiced, and commended Nomi no Sukune, saying:

“‘Thy expedient hath greatly pleased our heart.’

“So the things of clay were first set up at the tomb of Hibasuhime no Mikoto. And a name was given to those clay objects. They were called _hani-wa_ or ‘clay rings.’

“Then a decree was issued, saying:

“‘Henceforth these clay figures must be set up at tumuli; let no men be harmed.’

“The Emperor bountifully rewarded Nomi no Sukune for this service, and also appointed him to the official charge of the clay-workers Be. His original title was therefore changed, and he was called Hashi no Omi. This was how it came to pass that the Hashi no Muraji superintended the burials of Emperors.”[108]

The date ascribed to this incident cannot be depended on. “Chinese accounts speak of the custom of human sacrifices at the burial of a sovereign as in full force in Japan so late as A.D. 247,” says Aston. Probably all the events of this part of Japanese history are very much antedated. But of the substantial accuracy of the narrative there can be no doubt. Some of these clay figures (known as _tsuchi-ningio_) are still in existence, and may be seen in the British Museum, where they constitute the chief treasure of the Gowland collection. The Uyeno Museum in Tokio also possessed specimens, both of men and horses. None, however, remain _in situ_ at the tombs. The _hani-wa_ (clay-rings), cylinders which may now be seen embedded in the earth round all the principal _misasagi_, are so numerous that they can hardly have all been surmounted by figures. But they are of the same workmanship and of the same date, and no doubt some of them are the pedestals of images, the above-ground part of which has been destroyed by the weather or by accident.