# Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 1/Appendix

Appendix
Appendix
Note 1.—The total area of these islands and islets is 162,000 square miles, in round numbers, of which 16,000 square miles have been added since the centralisation of the Government in 1867. Taken in order of magnitude, the five principal islands are Hondo, or Nippon (86,373 square miles); Yezo (30,148 square miles); Kiushu (13,778 square miles); Formosa (13,429 square miles), and Skikoku (6,861 square miles). Previously to the acquisition of Formosa, the area of the Japanese empire was equal to that of the British Isles, Holland, and Belgium combined. With the addition of Formosa and the Pescadores, it has become approximately equal to the area of the British Isles, Holland, Belgium, and Denmark.
Note 2.—The Koji-ki, or annals of ancient matters.
Note 3.—The Nihon-gi (history of Japan) and the Koga-shu (ancient records).
Note 4.—Personal names were taken from the terminology of natural objects. Thus an Emperor was called "large wren," and noblemen were designated "mackerel," "red fish," "firefly," "weazel," "bonito," "earth-worm," "dragon," "whale," etc. No change in this system occurred until the introduction of Chinese learning and Buddhism, when curiously incongruous appellations began to be adopted; as "Head-fisherman Amida" (Amabe no Amida), "Silk-embroiderer Confucius" (Kinunui no Koshi), "Bow-maker Buddha" (Yuge no Shaka), "Field-dog-keeper Laotsze" (Agata no Tsukai no Roshi), and others equally startling, even courtesans taking the names of deities. In the ninth century the Emperor Nimmiyo set a new example. He gave himself a name signifying "just and righteous" (seiryo), being thus the first to import an abstract idea into personal ​nomenclature. The fashion of the nanori (self-given name) was thus inaugurated. A few years previously, another sovereign (Kwammu, 782-806) caused an eminent scholar to assign posthumous names to the former occupants of the Throne, and the result was that the Rulers of Japan came to be known in history by names of which many were borrowed from the annals of China or Tartary, and none was borne during his lifetime by the sovereign thus designated. In mediæval times, strange confusion was caused by extending the old methods of nomenclature without regard to the motives that had governed them. It thus fell out that many of the official titles which had been prefixed to personal names in the early ages and used in lieu of patronyms, took permanent place in the language as family appellations, and were employed without the slightest discrimination as to their fitness. To this abuse was due the common adoption of such names as Otomo (Great subject), Okura (Imperial treasury), Inukai (Master of hounds), Hatori (Weaver), and so on. A still more indiscriminate extension of this habit is attributable to the levelling of time-honoured social distinctions that took place during the military epoch, when soldiers ruled the country and provincial captains supplanted the Court nobles in the metropolis. The old official titles then began to do duty as personal names, so that (to convert the facts into their English equivalents) the sons of private soldiers received baptismal names such as "Lord Chamberlain" or "Commodore"; the child of a farmer might be dubbed "Prince" or "Lord Chamberlain," and a courtesan or danseuse went by the name of "High Prelate" or "Field Marshal," even differences of sex being lost sight of in the general confusion. Another method of naming was inaugurated in very early times: the sovereign bestowed a patronym, much as titles were given in the West. In constructing such a name, the feat that it commemorated was translated into symbolical language—as when a great archer was called "noble target,"—or some natural object of special beauty or grandeur was taken, or else a part of the donor's name was joined to a part of the recipient's. The greatest family that Japan ever possessed—the Fujiwara (wistaria plain)—had the honour of obtaining its designation from an Emperor. There are only 292 family names in Japan, ​and of these 39 are derived from the nomenclature of the vegetable kingdom, 44 from that of other natural objects, 14 from that of geographical divisions, and the rest from ancient official titles, moral or physical qualities, and miscellaneous sources. The method that finally came into commonest vogue may be thus described. Parents in naming their sons generally adopted a numerical suffix,—taro (great male) for the eldest; jiro (second male) for the next; saburo (third male) for the next, and so on—and, by way of prefix, chose the name of some natural object, as kin (gold), gin (silver), tetsu (iron), matsu (pine), ume (plum), take (bamboo), etc. Thus there resulted such names as Kintaro, or Matsujiro, or Ginzahuro, which had the advantage of conveying information about the number of a man's elder brothers as well as about himself. Another method of constructing boys' names was to use the numerical component as prefix, appending to it the designation of an office, as suke (assistant official), hiyo-yei (military guard), yemon (gate guard), etc. Thus were obtained Tarosuke, Jiro-hiyoyei (abbreviated to Jirobei) Sahuro-yemon, and so on. It will be easily understood that names of the latter kind were originally confined to persons eligible for the offices indicated: they are, in fact, an outcome of the ancient custom which merged the personality of the individual in his official position, and bestowed on families a hereditary title to certain posts. For a similar reason, family names, since they had their origin in offices of State, might not be borne by commoners; that is to say, they were limited to the comparatively small section of the nation which could trace its descent from the chiefs of the first colonists and had been admitted to that rank for special reasons. The rule held until modern times. Hence, if a man possessed a family name, it was possible to be at once assured that he belonged to the patrician order. Japanese names are a source of considerable perplexity to foreigners, because, in addition to the family name (uji or miyoji) and the personal name (zokumiyo), there was a child-name (osana); there was an "adopted name" or "true name" (nanori or jitsumiyo); there was a posthumous name (okurina or kaimei), and there was sometimes an art name (go). The "adopted" or "true" name was nothing more than a second personal name—independent of any of the suffixes or ​prefixes mentioned above—which was taken by a patrician lad on emerging from childhood, the posthumous name was given by the Buddhist priests and inscribed on the tomb, and the art name was taken by a painter, an author, a musician, an artisan, or a professional expert of any kind.
Just as in the West it has always been a point of etiquette to avoid using the name of a person of rank to whom one addresses oneself, so in Japan, the post of an official, or the palace of a nobleman, or some other impersonal designation was always used in speaking to illustrious individuals. But that is a matter connected with the genius of the language rather than with the question of nomenclature.
Note 5.—These gohei (sacred offerings), as they are called, have never ceased to be an important part of the paraphernalia of worship. They may be seen to-day suspended at the shrines, near the sepulchres of the dead and before the family altar. It is supposed by some that they originally served merely as means of accentuating the outlines of the rope fences enclosing a deified tree, and that, like all other objects employed for ceremonial purposes, they were subsequently endued with sanctity of their own. Another, and more probable, theory is that they were pieces of the cloth offered to the deities.
Note 6.—Admirable translations of many of these rituals have been made by Sir Earnest Satow, Mr. W. G. Aston, and Dr. Florenz.
Note 7.—"Rock-house" (iwa-iye) or "demon's closet" (oni no setsuin) was the term applied to these caves by later generations.
Note 8.—It is doubtful whether in the oldest form of building the pillars were not sunk in the ground without stone foundations.
Note 9.—It would seem that a refined sense of tone existed among the early Japanese, for the records say that the Emperor Ojin, who reigned at the close of the third century, used ship-building wood for the body of the Wa-kin and that the instrument gave particularly melodious notes.
Note 10.—Examples of adaptability of Chinese ideographs are innumerable. Thus, dempo (transmitted intelligence) is the exact equivalent of "telegram;" Kaikwan-zei (sea-gate tax) ​well expresses "customs duty;" rigaku (natural-law science accurately represents "physics;" Kikwa-ho (country-change law) conveys without mistake the idea of "naturalization law," and such instances might be multiplied ad infinitum.
Note 11.— A legend of the Empress Komyo says that, in obedience to a voice audible to herself alone, she vowed to wash with her own hands the bodies of a thousand beggars. The task had been completed as far as 999, when there presented himself a loathsome leper, covered with revolting sores. The courageous woman did not hesitate. She proceeded to wash the leper, and when he told her that if there were found in the world any woman sufficiently merciful to draw the venom from his sores with her mouth he should be healed, she did him that service. Thereupon the place was filled with dazzling effulgence; an exquisite aroma diffused itself around, and the leper, declaring himself the Buddha, disappeared.
Note 12.—The Emperor Temmu (673-686) ordered that every house in the land should have an altar for the worship of Buddha, and his successors called temples and idols into existence by edicts.
Note 13.—The Emperor Shōmu (724-748) was the inaugurator of this custom. After a reign of twenty-four years, he shaved his head and retired to a cloister.
Note 14.—Dōkyō, the favourite Minister of the Empress Dowager Kōken.
Note 15.—Only certain portions of the document are quoted here.
Note 16.—The Soga family. This was the clan that distinguished itself by its unique fidelity to the cause of Buddhism, and assisted Prince Shotoku to destroy its own great rival, the Mononobe clan, which inveterately opposed the foreign faith. The Soga survived the Mononobe for thirty years only. Their disloyal arbitrariness towards the Throne provoked a revolt which ended fatally for themselves.
Note 17.—Taikwa a signifies "great change." It was the first year-name in Japan, the period 645–649 a.d. being called Taikwa.
Note 18.—The student will hear this memorable reformation described sometimes as the Taikwa (great change) ​and sometimes as the Taihō (or Daihō) reform, the former term being derived from the name of the year-period (645—649) when the new legislation commenced; the latter from that of the period (701—703) when it terminated.
Note 19.—A residence built for himself by the Soga chief Iruka is said to have been surrounded with a palisade and provided with storehouses for weapons and armour, and each gate had buckets hung near it as a precaution against fire. The residence of the same Minister's father was encircled with moats and had arrow-magazines.
Note 20.—In the reign of the Empress Jito (690-696), for example, no less than seven waves of immigrants are said to have flowed to the shores of Japan, and all these strangers were hospitably welcomed and their services utilised.
Note 21.—The Empress Kōken (749-758) issued an edict that every house throughout the realm should be provided with a copy of the Classic of Filial Piety, and should regard it as the primer of morality; and from her time onwards successive sovereigns employed their influence to popularise Confucianism, bestowing liberal rewards upon women who distinguished themselves by fidelity to their husbands, upon children conspicuous for piety to their parents, or upon servants noted for loyalty to their masters.
Note 22.—The Mara of the present day lies mainly to the eastward of the old capital, but the temples occupy their original site.
Note 23.—A couplet written at that era embodied the popular conception of a journey: "The grandest rice-bowl used at home becomes for the traveller an oak-leaf."
Note 24.—Temmu (673-686).
Note 25.—The method of treating children's hair in the Nara epoch was picturesque. At the age of three the little one's hair was cut short but of equal length all over. It was then allowed to grow until it reached the shoulders, at which length it was kept, the hair over the forehead, however, being trimmed so as to form a fringe hanging to the eyebrows. A few years later, a boy's hair was looped up on each side in the shape of a gourd-flower, and a girl's was suffered to grow thenceforth without restraint.
​Note 26.—Japanese antiquarians assert that both men and women of rank wore long veils in early times, and were equally averse to exposing their complexions.
Note 27.—Another evidence of the fidelity with which Chinese fashions were copied.
Note 28.—It has been alleged that by striking the palms together when about to worship, a Japanese intends to attract the attention of the deity. The explanation is fanciful and groundless.
Note 29.—It is built with logs of wood, hexagonal in section, laid horizontally, so that the walls present a deeply corrugated appearance. Though repaired from time to time, this storehouse retains the exact form given to it by its architects nearly twelve centuries ago.
Note 30.—Out of this rule grew the appellation shinzo (new building) still commonly applied to Japanese wives in the middle classes.
Note 31.—Mr. Basil H. Chamberlain, in the admirable preface to his "Classical Poetry of the Japanese," explains this point with great clearness, and M. D. E. Aston, in his exhaustive treatise on "Japanese Literature," shows why rhyme would scarcely be possible to a poet using the Japanese language, namely, that as all Japanese words end in one of the five vowels, constant iteration of the same sound would be inevitable.
Note 32.—This is illustrated by the fact that the Japanese use the same word (uta) to express "song and poem."
Note 33.—A stringed instrument played with both hands; the fingers of the right hand being armed with ivory tips, and the fingers of the left being used to press the strings.
Note 34.—"Fujiwara" signifies "Wistaria plain." The name was conferred by the sovereign on Kamatari in recognition of his services.
Note 35.—The consort of the late Emperor Kōmei (1847-66) was a Fujiwara, and the bride of the present Prince Imperial is also a Fujiwara.
Note 36.—Kyōtō continued to be the Imperial capital during 1,074 years, until the Meiji Restoration of 1867, when the Court was transferred to Yedo (now Tōkyō). Seventy- seven Emperors held their courts successively in Kyōtō. ​During an interval so protracted, the city, of course, underwent many changes, but to this day its general plan remains on the lines of its earliest projection. It was built after the general scheme of Nara, but on a much grander scale. The outline was rectangular, 17,530 feet from north to south, and 15,080 feet from east to west. Moats and palisades surrounded the whole—the system of crenelated walls and flanking towers not having been yet introduced—and the Imperial Palace, its citadel, administrative departments, and assembly halls occupied the centre of the northern portion. The Palace was approached from the south, its main gate opening upon a long street 280 feet wide which ran right down the centre of the city. Thus the city was divided into two equal parts, of which the eastern was designated "left metropolis," and the western, "right metropolis." The superficial division was into districts, of which there were nine, all equal in size except those on the east and west of the Palace. An elaborate system of subdivision was adopted. The unit, or house, was a space measuring 100 feet by 50. Eight of these units made a row; four rows, a street; four streets, a division; four divisions, a district. The entire capital contained 1,216 streets and 38,912 houses, with a population of about two hundred thousand. The arrangement of the streets was strictly regular. They lay parallel and at right angles, like the lines on a checker-board. The Imperial citadel measured 3,840 feet from east to west, and 4,600 feet from north to south. On each side were three gates; in the middle stood the Palace, surrounded by the buildings of the various administrative departments, and in front were the assembly and audience halls. The nine districts were divided from each other by main streets, varying in width from 170 feet to 80 feet. They intersected the city from east to west; were numbered from 1 to 9, and were themselves intersected in turn by similar streets running north and south, and by lanes at regular intervals. The buildings were in general lowly and unpretentious. Even in the case of the Palace, the architects observed the austere canons of the Shintô cult, which prescribed purity and simplicity as the essential attributes of refinement; and in the case of the citizens' dwellings, every effort to obtain lightness, airiness, or ornamentation was reserved ​for chambers opening upon inner courts, or looking out on miniature back-gardens, so that the front effect was sombre and monotonous. Many of the houses were roofed with shingles, but some had slate-coloured tiles, and the Palace itself was rendered conspicuous by green glazed tiles imported from China. The conception of such a city at such an epoch—half a century before Lodbrok the Dane sailed up the Seine, and fifty-five years before the birth of Alfred the Great—bears eloquent testimony to the highly civilised condition of Japan and to the Emperor Kwammu's greatness of mind and resources.
Note 37.—Such persons were named ronin, literally, "wave men;" that is to say, individuals without any fixed status or employment. They are met here for the first time in Japanese history, where they thenceforth figure as a perpetual element of unrest.
Note 38.—He employed able men without any regard for the part they had acted in his own life. He gave the command of the Bando troops to Tamura-no-maro, whose father had intrigued to procure the Throne for a different prince, and he appointed as tutor to the Heir apparent a man who had twice endeavoured to thwart his purposes.
Note 39.—It is noticeable that this spirit of exclusiveness did not take any account of alien origin. Tamura-no-Maro, who commanded the Emperor Kwammu's Bando soldiery, was descended from a naturalised Chinaman. Yet, on returning to Kyotō after the final defeat of the Yezo, he received the Emperor's daughter in marriage, and became the father of the next sovereign, Heizei.
Note 40.—The extreme possibilities of this system were illustrated in the case of the Fujiwara chief Michinaga. He held the office of Regent during the reigns of three Emperors (987-1037); his three daughters became the consorts of three successive sovereigns, and he was grandfather simultaneously of a reigning Emperor and of an heir apparent. Nothing was allowed to interfere with the consummation of this nobleman's designs. Desiring that his daughter, Aki, should enter the Palace where his elder brother's daughter, Sada, already held the position of Empress, and unwilling that his child should have inferior rank, he devised for Aki a special title, carrying with ​it all the privileges of an Imperial consort. There were thus two Empresses, each living in a palace of her own.
Note 41.—The memory of this unfortunate statesman, Sugawara-no-Michizane, is surrounded by a halo of romance which affords an insight into Japanese character. He belonged to an ancient family of professional litterateurs, and had none of the titles which in that age were commonly considered essential to official preferment. By extraordinary scholarship, singular sweetness of disposition, and unswerving fidelity to justice and truth, he won a high reputation, and had he been content with the fame that his writings brought him, and with promoting the cause of scholarship through the medium of a school which he endowed, he might have ended his days in peace. But, in an evil hour, he accepted office, and thus found himself required to discharge the duties of statesmanship at a time of extreme difficulty, when an immense interval separated the rich and the poor, when political power was usurped by some and abused by others, when the arbitrariness and extortions of the local governors had become a burning question, when the nobles and princes were crushing the people with merciless taxes, and when the finances of the Court were in extreme disorder. Michizane, a gentle conservative, was not fitted to cope with these difficulties, and his situation at Court was complicated by the favour of an ex-Emperor (Uda) who had abdicated but still sought to take part in the administration, and by the jealousy of the Fujiwara representative, Tokihira, a young, impetuous, arrogant, but highly gifted nobleman. These two men, Michizane and Tokihira, became the central figures in a very unequal struggle, the forces on the one side being the whole Fujiwara clan headed by the unscrupulously daring and ambitious Tokihira; those on the other, a few scholars, the love and respect of the lower orders and the benevolent tolerance of the self-effacing Michizane. The end was inevitable. Michizane, falsely accused of conspiring to obtain the Throne for his grandson—an Imperial prince had married his daughter—was banished to Dazaifu, and his family and friends were either killed or reduced to serfdom. The story is not remarkable. It contains no great crises or dazzling incidents. Yet if Michizane had been the most brilliant statesman and the ​most successful general ever possessed by Japan, his name could not have been handed down through all generations of his countrymen with greater veneration and affection.
Note 42.—The Emperor Seiwa (859-876) was the first, and his example was followed by Uda (888-897). But there was a difference. Seiwa, after surrendering the sceptre, devoted himself sincerely to prayer and pilgrimages: Uda took the title of Hō (high pontiff) and, as the head of all the Buddhist prelates, led a life of splendour scarcely inferior to his previous state.
Note 43.—The posthumous name given to the deceased by the Buddhist priests was inscribed with letters of gold on a black lacquered tablet, and was entrusted to the care of the temple where the body was buried.
Note 44.—The "divine tree" was the emblem of Shintô. It will therefore be understood that these menacing demonstrations, though inaugurated by the Buddhist priests, were employed sometimes by Shintô ministers also. Instances of the latter nature were comparatively rare, however.
Note 45.—This included the birth of a domesticated animal or bird, barn-door fowl excepted.
Note 46.—These rules are quoted from a book of etiquette published at the beginning of the tenth century.
Note 47.—A species of guitar with three strings; essentially a woman's instrument.
Note 48.—This game was called iro-bumi-awase (composing love-letters), and the method of procedure corresponded to that of the uta-awase (composing poems). It found great favour during the reign of Horikawa (1087—1107).
Note 49.—Every Chinese ideograph has a basic element, which is called the radical; and a phonetic part which suggests the sound. Numbers of ideographs being mononymous, have the same phonetic part, with different radicals, and numbers have the same radical with different phonetic parts. Given a certain radical, to construct from memory as many as possible of the ideographs composed with it; or given a certain phonetic, to draw up an exhaustive list of the mononyms it belongs to,—such was the method of the old-time calligraphic competitions.
​Note 50.—Every one of these halls and galleries had its appellation, as, the "hall of everlasting benevolence," the "hall of sweet savour," the "hall of perpetual peace," the "hall of virtue and justice," and so on.
Note 51.—Hence the wife of a nobleman was usually called Kita-no-kata, or "the northern personage."
Note 52.—The dimensions of a mat were invariably six feet by three. It served as a unit of superficial measurement. Instead of saying that a room measured so many feet each way, people said that so many mats could be spread there. Two mats made a tsubo (six feet by six feet), the unit of area for lands and buildings alike. The convenience of this method of measurement is great. If a house is said to have so many feet of frontage and so many feet of depth, little idea of its accommodation is conveyed to ordinary minds, and even the dimensions of a room, when stated in feet, are difficult to picture to the imagination. But when a Japanese hears that a house has fifty tsubo, for example, of superficies, he knows that one hundred mats can be spread there, and as he is quite familiar with the space enclosed in a room of six mats, or eight mats, or ten mats and so on, he obtains at once a clear conception of the number of rooms that such a house may contain and their size. He speaks, also, of the cost of building at so much a tsubo, and can thus estimate at once the expense of erecting a house with a given amount of accommodation.
Note 53.—The paper of that time was not sufficiently tough to be fitted for such a purpose.
Note 54.—Echigo is now the chief centre of kerosene production in Japan.
Note 55.—The custom of putting red and gold on the lip had not yet been introduced.
Note 56.—Tea and two varieties of sake. The sake, or rice-beer, of that time was brewed just as it is at present. But, after brewing, it was often mixed with ashes of the Clerodendron tricotomum to give it a bitter taste. It then received the name of "black sake."
Note 57.—It is uncertain when tea was introduced into Japan. As early as the reign of Shomu (724-748), a tea-drinking entertainment took place in the Palace. The Buddhist ​priests seem to have obtained the leaf from China, and to have remained almost the exclusive users of the beverage until the beginning of the ninth century, when the Emperor Saga was so pleased with tea given to him by a Buddhist prelate that he ordered the plant to be cultivated in five provinces near the capital. But he did not succeed in making it popular. Its very name was forgotten for nearly three centuries.
Note 58.—A spray of flowers thus attached to a present was called kokoro-bana (blossom of the heart; i. e. flower of good wishes). Originally real flowers were used, but subsequently artificial blossoms were substituted or even ribbons. In a still later age, it became customary to decorate with a paper butterfly the handle of a vessel used for pouring out sake on occasions of congratulation, and it is believed that the modern habit of attaching coloured paper to a gift had its origin in the "heart-blossom."
Note 59.—The annals of the Heian epoch contain the names of five celebrated flutes, four guitars, and nine harps. The names given to them were such as "Verdant leaves," "Rippling current," "Summer landscape," "Restful peace," "Autumn wind," "Pine-scented breeze," "Memories of the past," and so on.
Note 60.—Sung by the celebrated Shizuka when, after her parting from Yoshitsune, she had to dance before his brother and enemy Yoritomo.
Note 61.—Fille de joie. The term makes its appearance for the first time in books written at the beginning of the tenth century.
Note 62.—A striking illustration of the part played by women and of the morality of this Court is furnished in the closing scene of the Heian epoch. The Emperor Toba gave his heart to a concubine, Toku (afterwards called Bifuku-mon-in). The heir-apparent, Sutoku, though nominally Toba's son by his consort Soshi, was suspected to be the son of his grandfather, Shirakawa, who had been a lover of Soshi. Toba, at the instigation of his mistress Toku, caused the heir-apparent to step aside in favour of Toku's son. But the latter died childless at an early age. Sutoku then seeking to recover his birthright, was opposed by the lady Toku, who maintained that ​her son had been done to death by Sutoku's incantations. These complications inaugurated the struggle between the two great clans of Minamoto and Taira, and plunged the nation into a succession of sanguinary wars.
Note 63.—The names of these courtesans are appended to poems in three of the Japanese classical anthologies.
Note 64.—The reader will observe that a serf marriage was legally recognised. It was not a mere contubernium, as in Rome. In many respects, as indeed might be expected, the condition of the serf in Japan resembled that of the slave in Athens.
Layout 2