The clouds of Izumo are certainly billowing!

In Part 1 we went over the geography of the area that makes up the Izumo Cultural Zone, through the Yayoi up to the reign of Queen Himiko. In this episode we’ll take a look at the period from the Wa under Queen Himiko’s Yamato through the Kofun period, and examine what was going on with Yamato and Izumo. Was it a vassal state? Was it independent? what exactly is going on?

We’ll look at what we can. This is honestly a murky area, and it probably doesn’t help that we really haven’t covered the Kofun Period, but I thought it would be good to use this time to cover a few things.

Readings

So to start things off a little clarification.  This episode I refer to the river that runs through Eastern Tottori as the Sendai River, but last episode I referred to it as the Chiyo River.  So what gives?  Well, it turns out that both are readings for the name of the river:  「千代川」.  “Chiyogawa”, or “Chiyo River” is a very logical reading and I have found it in several English sources as well as some local names in Tottori.  However, when I was looking at the modern river in Japanese, I found that it was most commonly called the Sendai River, at least in modern Japanese.  This is not dissimilar from the Gō River, also known as the Ye or E River:  「江川」.  All those readings make sense but it is clearly know as the Gō River, today.  In that case, though, since the Ye River appears to be the name used in the Chronicles, I tend to default to that reading.

Another reading that we talk about in the episode is that of Wakatakeru, aka Yuryaku Tennō.  Wakatakeru can be spelled using 「若武」, and that second character, 「武」, which we read as “Takeru” is the character we find the Liu Song chronicles, and the Sino-Japanese on’yomi reading is “Bu”.  Yuryaku, of course, is a posthumous name—and one that was given much later—so the Chinese records would not have necessarily known the sovereign by that name.

Finally, not so much a reading, but a possible confusion:  Izumo Taisha, aka Izumo Ōyashiro, aka Kizuki Taisha.  So first off, 「大社」can be read as “Taisha” or “Ōyashiro”.  Oddly, the latter is the more common reading in Izumo, but Taisha is more common in most of the rest of the continent.  The other names,  Kizuki v. Izumo, simply refer to where the shrine sits.  “Kizuki” is the specific name of the land where the shrine sits, and was the formal name in most records up to the Meiji period.  “Izumo” is the name of the current city and the ancient province—even the  name of that specific district.  So “Izumo Taisha” was the common name for years, and it became the official name in the Meiji period.

Yamato and the Round Keyhole Kofun

While this is an episode about Izumo, a lot of our discussion this episode focuses on the play between Izumo and Yamato, and so we should be aware of those things that help define just what is Yamato and how do  So there are at least two things that people have used to trace the early development of the Yamato, since there really isn’t a lot in the written record that we can trust. One of them is the mounded tumuli that give the period its name, and the other is the various mirrors that have shown up in the archipelago. Both of these help us to get an idea of just what sorts of connections there were across Japan in the early days.

Mirrors

Regarding the bronze mirrors, the most famous are the old mirrors from Himiko’s time, and we have touched on them, before. Mirrors from Himiko’s time have been found across the country, and while they aren’t always found in a context contemporary to Himiko herself, their placement generally tells us that there was a connection at some point. IIt seems most reasonable to assume that those mirrors, rather than being horded by Yamato and doled out over the years were in stead distributed shortly after they came arrived as a means of achieving and maintaining the loyalty of members of the early Yamato political system. They may have remained in families for several generations, like fine china or silverware, passed from one member to the other, before they were actually buried with a member of the family,

It is of course possible that some of the mirrors were passed down to other vassals—from Yamato, to a member of the court, and then to some local elite, but even then there is some connection back to Yamato—the six degrees of Queen Himiko, as it were.

And after seeing this pattern with the mirrors identified from Himiko’s reign, similar patterns were established for other generations of mirrors. It isn’t always clear when a particular mirror was cast, though, nor when it was given out, so while we can see various networks and relationships, putting them in a chronological context can be difficult.

Of course, the importance of mirrors predates Himiko, but it is the combination of her and the kofun period that provides us most of our knowledge and understanding on the subject.  In addition to their archaeological discovery, mirrors also play an important part in the stories.  After all, a mirror was part of the display that lured Amaterasu out of the Heavenly Cave and became one of the three primary pieces of regalia for the coronation of a new sovereign.

Kofun

We’ve previously talked about the mounded tombs, and particularly the round keyhole shaped tombs, like Hashihaka kofun.  The truth is that this is only one shape of many, though likely the most famous and iconic one.  The general shapes are as follows:

·       Round Keyhole Tumulus (前方後円墳 / ZENPŌKŌENFUN) – Literally “Rectangular Front, Round Back Tumulus”, describing this classic shape.  The largest kofun in the islands belong to this shape, and they are assumed to be the tombs of the sovereigns and the most important members of the Yamato state.  More than any other shape, the Round Keyhole shape is assumed to demonstrate the historical extent of Yamato’s reach.  Local chieftains and elites are buried in similar fashion, though perhaps on a lesser scale.  The largest such kofun is Daisenryō Kofun, in Ōsaka, with a tomb mound of about 525 meters, and a total length, including moats, of about 840 meters.  It is said to be the resting place of Nintoku Tennō.

·       Square Keyhole Tumulus (前方後方墳 / ZENPŌKŌHŌFUN) – Similar to the round keyhole, but both the front and the back are rectangular.  The assumption is that these were not regulated to the same degree that the round keyhole kofun were, which could explain their popularity in places like the Ou plain.  It may have been a way for elites who didn’t have the proper connections or lineage to mimic the Yamato lineage without stepping on their toes.  Alternatively, it may have been explicitly used by a particular class of individuals.  They show up throughout the archipelago, including the Nara basin, where they can be quite large, even larger than some types of the round keyhole tombs.  Though the shape may not be the same, they would have required labor on a similar scale.  The largest such kofun comes in at 183 meters long, in Nara, while the largest in Izumo is Yamashiro Futago at only half that size, about 94 meters long.

·       Round Tumulus (円墳 / ENPUN) – This is simply a round shape, without the front rectangular projection of the round keyhole shape.  These also show up throughout the archipelago, and the largest ones are about 110 meters in diameter.

·       Square Tumulus (方墳 / HŌFUN) – Similar to the round tombs, these are square or rectangular without any front projection.  Early on in Izumo, these show up as similar to the four cornered burial mounds, but quickly they seem to lose the projections of the mounds and are built more like kofun in the rest of the archipelago.  While not unique to the Izumo region, they are certainly more common there than any other area.  In the early period, the largest hōfun was Tsukuriyama, on the Nogi Plain,*  measuring 60 meters on a side.  Later, larger hōfun would be built elsewhere.  The largest of the late Kofun Period was 78 meters on a side, built in the Kantō area, in modern Chiba prefecture.

Professor Tsude Hiroshi suggested that the shape of the tumulus was dictated by one’s lineage, and the size had to do with the individuals relative rank in society.  Thus those with Round Keyhole tombs would have been making a claim to a royal lineage.  At least, that is one hypothesis.

Of course, not every tomb fits neatly into these categories, and there are some variants.  There are other shapes related to these core forms:  scalloped shape tumuli (帆立貝式墳), doubled tumuli (双円墳), or doubled keyhole shaped tumuli (双方中円墳), among others.

There are also many other features that we aren’t attempting to address here:  The type of figures that adorned the tomb, the type of coffin, the type of burial chamber, the grave goods, etc.  

As more and more kofun are studied, our knowledge continues to grow.  Unfortunately, many kofun have disappeared.  Some have been destroyed over the years or may only be recognized by the remains of coffins or stones found in excavation.  And some of the most impressive are still considered the resting places of the ancient sovereigns of Yamato, and therefore are off-limits to any kind excavation.  This used to be the case for all kofun, but archaeologists have gained access to more and more over the years.  Limited investigations have been allowed on some, but still, one can only wonder at what still awaits discovery.

If you would like more information on Kofun, I recommend the following sites, where you can look up some kofun in the various locations.  Of course, even these databases have their limitations:

·       Kofun Map – A project by a couple of people in Tokyo that is not nearly a complete record of all of the kofun, but it seems to be focused on kofun that you can go and visit.  It is in Japanese, but they have lots of good info if you want to check out these kofun as a tourist.  They also have some photos for some of the kofun, and include kofun and burials that don’t make the cut for some other databases.

·       Japanese Ancient Tombs Database – A Japanese database of mostly keyhole tombs, but they have some other significant kofun as well.  You can search on a variety of criteria, and they do have a basic introduction to Japanese kofun in English.

·       Round Keyhole Tomb Database – A database of the various keyhole tombs.  You can actually navigate via the map, even if you don’t speak Japanese, and see the locations of various kofun, as well as photos, if they are available.

References

·       TORRANCE, Richard (2016). The Infrastructure of the Gods: Izumo in the Yayoi and Kofun Periods. Japan Review, (29), 3-38. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/44143124

·       Barnes, G. L. (2015). The rise of civilization in East Asia: The archaeology of China, Korea and Japan. London: Thames & Hudson.

·       Carlsqvist, Anders (2010). The Land Pulling Myth and Some Aspects of Historic Reality.  Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 37/2: 185-222. Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture. Accessed 4/22/2020 at https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/3016

·       蓮岡、法暲　(2002)。「神原神社古墳」。加茂町教育委員会。http://doi.org/10.24484/sitereports.2419

·       Piggott, Joan (1997). The Emergence of Japance Kingship. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.

·       Piggott, Joan (1989). Sacral Kingship and Confederacy in Early Izumo. Monumenta Nipponica, 44(1), 45-74. doi:10.2307/2384698

·       -,- (1995)。「埋蔵文化財愛知No.42」。愛知県埋蔵文化財センター。http://www.maibun.com/DownDate/PDFdate/maibuai/42.pdf