Episode 53: [Insert Name of Monarch Here]

November 16, 2021 Joshua Badgley

This episode we will talk about a lot of little stories. A few of the characters we mention, down below.

The Iron Shields of Goguryeo

There are actually two iron shields that are part of the treasures of the Isonokami Shrine (http://www.isonokami.jp/about/c4.html), one of which is on permanent loan to the Tokyo National Museum. They are of peninsular manufacture, probably late 5th to early 6th century—suggesting that they were not presented in the time of Ōsazaki, and they may not be the shields referenced in the story, but they are likely similar. Iron shields like this seem impractical, given their size and assumed weight, but they were still quite impressive.

Individuals referenced:

Tatebito no Sukune (盾人宿禰) [Literally “Lord Shield Person”], and later it is Ikuba no Toda no Sukune (的戸田宿禰), [Toda no Sukune of the Target]. Later we see Toda no Sukune spelled as (砥田宿禰), but given that he is listed as the founder of the Ikuba no Omi (的臣) and he’s sent traveling with Sakashi-nokori no Omi, who had been granted his rank at the same time, it seems a fair bet that these are one and the same person.
Sakashi-nokori no Omi (賢遺臣), formerly Sukune no Omi (宿禰臣) [This is a weird mixing of kabane]

The story of Tamichi

Takahase (竹葉瀬), ancestor of the Kozuke no Kimi (上毛野君)
Tamichi (田道), his younger brother who went off to attack Silla with him
Harbor of Ishimi (伊寺水門), where Tamichi was killed

The story of the Giant Tree of Tōtōmi (遠江國)

The country—later province—of Tōtōmi was named for Lake Hamana. It was the far (遠) lake (江): Tohotsu Afumi. Meanwhile, Chikatsu Afumi, the “near lake” referred to lake Biwa.

Yamato no Atae Agoko (倭直吾子籠) - this is the same individual whom the brothers went to to help clarify ancient laws. While this story of a giant log doesn’t seem like much, it gives us another view of this particular courtier.

Water torture in the Harima Fudoki

A couple notes. FIrst, Hōki was earlier pronounced Hahaki (伯耆), and along with Inaba (因幡), it sits on the Japan Sea side of the main island, just east of Izumo and north of Harima and Yamato. These are areas that seem to have originally been part of the Izumo sphere of influence, but they adopted the Yamato style round keyhole tombs earlier, possibly indicating a move away from Izumo and towards Yamato.

Kaguro of Hōki (伯耆加具漏) and Oyuko of Inaba (因幡邑由胡) are the two wealthy lords who are basically accused of being overly prosperous and disrespectful.
Una hime (宇奈比賣) and Kuha hime (久波比賣) - daughters of Miso of the Hatori no Muraji and Arasaka HIme. They were likely wives, possibly political marriages to the two wealthy men.
Miso no Hatori no Muraji (服部彌蘇連) - a powerful member of court. Normally his name would be more like “Hatori no Muraji no Miso”, but it seems this may have been a way of giving him greater respect by his daughters’ statement.
Arasaka Hime (阿良佐加比賣). The wife of Miso no Hatori no Muraji, she is said to be the daughter of the Kuni no MIyatsuko of Inaba (因幡國造), though to be honest, the original text does not clearly state that and you could just as easily read it that she was the Kuni no Miyatsuko of Inaba. It wouldn’t be the first important female ruler of that area if we go back and look at some of the Izumo stories, but the general consensus seems to be that she is just the daughter.
Sai no Muraji no Sayo (狹井連佐夜). His name is given in the more standard format. However, this is still perhaps the only real mention of this individual so far.

Sukuna of Hida

This is perhaps the first real mention of Hida (飛騨), the mountainous area north of modern GIfu.

Sukuna (宿儺) - His name resembles a corruption of Sukune—perhaps this was a typo and he was originally of “sukune” rank. Or it was just an example of using similar Chinese characters to make the proper sounds.
Naniwaneko Takefurukuma (難波根子武振熊). This extremely long name seems to start with a title: Naniwaneko. There has been some thought that the “neko” in earlier sovereigns names was a type of title, so that they were “Yamatoneko”. Here it is clearly referencing Naniwa instead of Yamato. The rest of the name is similarly interesting. For instance, should the “Take” be part of the previous title, meaning “brave”? Is any of this an actual name? Perhaps Furukuma?

The Pool of Agatamori

This takes place in Kibi (吉備), modern Okayama area. An “agata” (縣) is a district, and “mori” (守) means to protect, and usually used to indicate a governorship of some kind. Later it would be the “no-kami” of many names, such as “Ise-no-kami” (伊勢守), a title that later became name, indicating that one was nominally in charge of Ise province, though this would lose much of its meaning in later eras.

Kawashima (川嶋) literally means “river island”

Shiratori Tomb

Meki (目杵), the guard who was trasformed.
Hashi no Muraji (土師連), the family who eventually received conservatorship of Shiratori kofun.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is episode 53, Insert Name of Monarch Here .
Before we get started, a quick shout-out to Joe for helping to support the show. If you want to join him, you can find us on our recent Patreon page—just look up Sengoku Daimyo—or you can also donate through KoFi, at Ko-Fi.com/sengokudaimyo.
Also, a quick content warning: some of these entries contain things that may be disturbing. Specifically, this episode we will be referencing a suicide, however briefly.
This is probably going to be our last episode on the reign of the Great Wren, Oho Sazaki no Ohokimi, aka Nintoku Tennou. We’ve gone over the story of how he came to power, of his many loves, and several other stories—including how early elites were getting brain freezes in the summer thanks to their private slushee stash.
This episode is going to be about many of the other stories from his reign—those I didn’t cover previously. I’d generally categorize them in two different ways: First there are stories relating to the mainland, specifically to the Korean peninsula and our favorite cast of characters over there—mostly Silla and Goguryeo. Then there are stories from the archipelago itself. But the big thing that seems to unite these stories, in my mind, and why this episode has the title it does, is the fact that the sovereign’s place really isn’t defined or required for most of them. While the sovereign may, indeed, be referenced, and though some of the stories do seem to fit with other events, the truth of the matter is that it could be any sovereign, and how and why these stories are particularly tied to Oho Sazaki is not immediately clear, at least not to me.
For those stories referencing the continent, I suspect that a large part of that narrative is being driven by stories in things like the Baekje Annals, which the chroniclers were clearly pulling from. As we’ve seen, though, the dates don’t always line up, and it’s possible that some of these stories were added in simply because of the dates—which are still wildly inaccurate in this time period—and not because of a clear connection with Oho Sazaki’s reign.
On the other hand, the stories from the archipelago feel, to me, like local stories, not dissimilar to what we find in the later Fudoki. They are probably set in the 5th century, but as for whether or not they were explicitly set during the time of Oho Sazaki’s reign is unclear.
What does seem clear is that there was a very important fifth century ruler of some import—hence the presence of Daisen Kofun, which we discussed in episode 51 – as a reminder, this is the largest kofun in the archipelago, and one of the largest mausoleums in the entire world. Its construction likely took years, and untold numbers of laborers, crafters, and more. Whether the individual interred there was actually known as Oho Sazaki or not, their reign was no doubt a marker for later generations, and I suspect that, between the reigns of Oho Sazaki and his father, there may have been numerous stories that were attributed to them, particularly if they took place some time early in the reigns of their particular dynasties. And so the stories all get woven together and start to settle into a timeline. As things get written down, they obtain a kind of canonical position in the histories.
So with that understanding, let’s get started!
We’ll begin with the stories regarding the continent. Here we see the continued evolution of the complex relationships between the emerging nation-states of the peninsula and the archipelago. This isn’t as simple as stating that it was Baekje and Yamato—and possibly the states of Kara—against Silla and Goguryeo.
For instance, at one point it seems that Yamato’s relationship with Goguryeo had improved, at least since the days of Gwangaetto the Great. To illustrate this, a Goguryeo embassy is said to have arrived, bringing a gift of two iron shields. These caused quite the stir in a land that had iron armor but seems to have largely still been using shields made of wood. Not a month after the embassy had brought them, the ambassadors were being entertained at the court and people started shooting arrows at the shield. Rather predictably, the shields did as expected, and the arrows seem to have bounced off. Nobody could pierce them, unlike, one presumes, the wooden shields of the time.
Nobody, that was, until one man, Tatebito no Sukune. He stood up and took aim and he must have had quite the draw weight on his bow, as his arrow pierced the target. In recognition of such a feat, Oho Sazaki bestowed on him a new name. While he was previously known as Tatebito, a name that could be translated as “shield person”, he was given the name of Ikuba no Toda, where “Ikuba” means “target”.
Later Toda no Sukune—whose name is spelled differently, but who is claimed as an ancestor of the Ikuba no Omi—was made an ambassador himself, along with Sakashi-nokori no Omi, who gained his title at the same event where Ikuba no Toda no Sukune was given his name for piercing the shield. These two were sent to the mainland because, at least as the Nihon Shoki puts it, Silla had not been sending expected tribute. I mean, it kind of makes sense that you would send a guy who can shoot an arrow through an iron shield as an ambassador to a misbehaving tributary nation, right?
Toda and Sakashi-nokori showed up and were offered—and I use that term in the loosest of meanings—a quite specific one thousand four hundred and sixty pieces of tribute, including silk and various objects. In total it was 80 shiploads—probably just the Chronicles’ way of saying it was a heck of a lot—quite the haul for anyone at that time, however it may have actually been acquired.
Of course, this wasn’t the only “embassy” to Silla. At one point Takahase, who is said to be an ancestor of the lords of Kodzuke, the Kodzuke no Kimi, was sent to Silla, again because of this perceived failure by Silla to send tribute to Yamato. As he started out, though, before he left the islands, he spotted a white deer, a presumably auspicious sign, so he broke his journey and took the deer and returned to the sovereign. He then chose another day and left to travel across to the peninsula.
Shortly after Takahasa had left, Oho Sazaki decided he wanted a little insurance that the mission would be successful, and so he sent Takahase’s own brother, Tamichi, to follow after him, commanding him that if Silla refused to pay up then he should raise up an army and invade. Heck, this is looking more and more like some medieval gangster type shakedown. I can just see Don Sazaki saying something like “leave the sword, take the cannolis.” Or whatever the equivalent sweet of the day might have been.
Now it seems that Silla was, indeed, recalcitrant. They offered battle daily, rather than pay – I mean give - the Yamato forces what they wanted. But Tamichi made strong fortifications, and he refused to leave them. One day, as the siege dragged on, the Yamato forces captured a Silla soldier who was questioned—and probably not in a very nice way—and eventually gave up details of Silla’s order of battle. It seemed that Silla’s strongest forces were typically concentrated in the right van of their forces for some reason, and when Tamichi heard of this he knew what to do. The Yamato forces did go forth to do battle, and as they did so, Tamichi saw the hole in Silla’s left flank, just as the soldiers had said. He took a force of swift men—the chronicle says cavalry which might be an exaggeration, though we do see horse equipment from this period—and he bore quickly down into the gap. Once the left side of the Silla army collapsed, the Yamato soldiers were able to roll up the rest and rout them. In the end we are told they ended up taking—read “enslaving”—four villages worth of prisoners back to Japan, where they were no doubt resettled and put to work for Yamato.
This must have been a huge victory, and Tamichi was no doubt lauded for it, but his story doesn’t end there. For some time after his victory in Silla he was sent to the northeast, as the Emishi were rebelling. Unfortunately he did not fare as well in this campaign, and it would prove to be his last. Tamichi was slain at the Harbor of Ishimi. One of his soldiers was able to obtain his tamaki—an armlet apparently made of beads and bells tied together with a string—and they brought that back to his wife, who used it to strangle herself, thus joining her husband in death . This act moved even the hardest of the soldiers to tears.
At some later point—we aren’t told when, other than it was after Tamichi had been buried and a tomb erected—the Emishi once again rebelled and made as though to carry off many of the people. At the same time they dug up Tamichi’s tomb, presumably somewhere up in the Kozuke region, to loot the grave, and when they did so a giant serpent came out of the tomb. Its poison was potent, and all but two of the Emishi died. Thus it is said that Tamichi was able to get his revenge, even from beyond the grave.
As I mentioned above, these stories seem less about the sovereign, and more about notable individuals, such as Toda no Sukune and Tamichi, and their war-time heroics. Similarly, other stories seem to be about various people and places.
For example, there is the story of the giant tree of Toutoumi, which is to say, the western lands of modern Shizuoka province, around Lake Hamana, formerly known as Tohotsu-a(f)umi, from which the province got its name. Now whether there were particularly torrential rains or a massive earthquake—or just that nature took its course—we aren’t told, but what we are told is that the Kokushi, or provincial governor, of Toutomi reported that a huge tree had fallen along the banks of the Ohowigawa, floating downstream until it got stuck, firm as the Evergiven in the Suez Canal.
Now this wasn’t just some log, but it must have been a massive old-growth tree, likely hundreds of years old. It was 10 “girths” in size—in other words it was an incredibly big tree—and split in two at the very end. This was such an incredible find that the court sent Yamato no Atahe no Agoko himself to take care of things. Now, you may or may not remember Agoko—we mentioned him back in Episode 49 when Prince Oho-yamamori—or perhaps Nukada no Ohonakatsu Hiko—took the rice-lands and granaries from Ou no Sukune during the interregnum, while Oho Sazaki and his brother were still bickering over who would be sovereign. Even though Agoko had been off on a mission on the Korean peninsula at the time, the court tracked him down to help resolve the dispute, since apparently nobody knew the courtly traditions quite like he did. His ruling saw the land and granaries returned to Ou no Sukune and fueled the murderous rage of Oho Yamamori, who tried and failed to kill his own younger brother and take the throne for himself.
Here we see Agoko’s return to the forefront—he traveled to the land of Toutoumi, had the giant tree made into a boat, and then he sailed it back to Naniwa by way of the Southern Sea—in other words he sailed down south, around the Kii Peninsula.
A minor historical note here—this story, besides giving us more evidence of Agoko’s competence, is the earliest story we have that references the person overseeing a land or province as “kokushi”, which might well be termed something like provincial governor. Of course, much like the mention of horses during Yamato Takeru’s campaigns, this could just be an anachronism thrown in by later chroniclers. Nonetheless it could also be an indication of the structural changes occurring in the political make-up of the islands. Certainly Yamato’s hegemony appears to have hit a zenith at the point that Daisen kofun was built, so it may be that they were, in fact, exerting greater and greater control over the provincial leaders.
There are also a number of stories out of the Fudoki—largely from the Harima Fudoki. Many of these are simply etymologies for various place names. For instance, Ikahino, which literally translates to something like “the fields for keeping wild boar” claims that the area was given by the sovereign to keep a wild boar consecrated to Amaterasu. Sawoka, on the other hand, which means rice-planting hill, was named after the annual rice-planting festival that was held there. There is also Kurusu, named after a local chestnut grove, supposedly started from peeled chestnuts presented by the sovereign.
While some of these are interesting, and provide some tidbits on the operation of the court and various beliefs and onomastics, most such entries don’t have the depth that we’d really like. Though there is one with a bit more flair. It is recorded in the entry about Mikazuki Hara—the soaking fields.
We are told that there were two men who were so extravagant that they washed their feet with fine, clear sake. These two men were named Kaguro of the country of Houki and Oyuko of the country of Inaba—both areas on the Japan Sea side of western Honshu. The Yamato court considered that their conduct was excessive and disrespectful, and it sent out Sayo of the Sa(w)i no Muraji to bring them in and face punishment. Accordingly, Sayo went out and arrested all of the members of their households. And since there was no due process nor concepts of “innocent until proven guilty”, on the way back, Sayo tortured his prisoners, dunking—or soaking—them in water.
During the journey, there were two women who wore jewels on their wrists and ankles—not the kind of thing you’d expect to find on a servant, even one in a crazy rich household like that of Kaguro and Oyuko. In fact, after Sayo dug into it a little while he found out that they were, in fact, Una and Kuwa, the daughters of Miso of the Hatori no Muraji and his wife, Arasaka Hime, who herself was the daughter of the kuni no miyatsuko, or lord, of Inaba.
Now Miso was apparently a rather influential man at the court, and Sayo likely had a moment of panic as he realized just who it was that he had been treating as common criminals. He immediately released both of the women and sent them on their way. The place they were released was known as Farewell Hill, or Mi-oki-yama, and the place where Sayo had tortured his prisoners by dunking them in water was Mikazuki Hara, the Soaking field.
Once again, it is hard to exactly place this story in the timeline of Oho Sazaki’s reign, even though the Harima Fudoki does mention that it was the time of the Prince of Takatsu in Naniwa—based on the details, it could have been just about any time. For example, there is no clear evidence for a Hatori no Muraji named Miso, or his influence at the court. Granted, there are few enough individuals mentioned, anyway, and it could be that stories about him just didn’t warrant inclusion in the Chronicles and other records.
Once again, I suspect that this story evolved from some larger conflict the Yamato court had with Houki and Inaba, but what exactly I couldn’t say—just more evidence of the lack of good and reliable records for this period.
There is one thing in this story that would probably be worth noting, however, and that is the use of torture. Now this could be just part of a false etymology given life – finding an explanation for why this given place was called the “soaking field”, but we do see in the archipelago, at least later, that officials were not above using torture to get a confession.
In fact, one might note that the rule of thumb was less “Innocent until proven guilty” but more “guilty until proven innocent.” If you were arrested in ancient times, your guilt was more or less presumed. After all, if you were an upstanding citizen, why would you ever be arrested? Obviously, as we understand the legal system today, this is extremely problematic, but in ancient times it wasn’t uncommon to derive a confession through torture or other means, since that was seen as just streamlining the process. This would be true throughout most of the archipelago’s history, really.
But I digress. Beyond a few details that seem odd, there is nothing too outlandish about the story, overall—well, other than it taking Sayo until after they were tortured to determine that two of the women were actually rather important personages.
But not all of the stories are quite so mundane. While the stories of fighting on the mainland or even just dealing with a literal log jam in Toutoumi, might seem reasonable, the next story is one that seems like it would be more comfortable several reigns back, when Okinaga Tarashi Hime had to deal with literal winged rebels. This is the story of Sukuna of Hida.
Hida, by the way, indicates the area west of the Hida Mountains, in the northern, mountainous areas of what is today referred to as Gifu Prefecture, encompassing the areas of modern Hida, Takayama, and parts of Gero cities. This landlocked area is exactly the kind of treacherous area that was largely uncharted even into modern times. It is also the home of the famous Shirakawa-go and Gokayama villages, where the specialized gassho-zukuri houses have earned the area a UNESCO World Heritage site status. This especially steep-roofed houses were specifically developed due to the deep and heavy snows that regularly inundate the region, indicating the harsh conditions facing anyone in the region, so it may not be surprising that it was the source of some rather fanciful tales.
Which brings us back to Sukuna. We are told that on one “trunk” he had two faces, each turned away from each other. The crowns met, and there was no nape of the necks. Each of the two sides had their own hands and feet, and there were knees, but they were conjoined all the way down the back side. He carried swords on his right and his left side and he used the bow and arrow with all four hands.
Sukuna, who sounds like something out of an episode of He-Man, did not use his powers for good. In fact we are told that he plundered the people, and so the sovereign sent a man named Naniwaneko Takefurukuma, to deal out justice and stop his reign of banditry. Sure enough, Naniwaneko was successful and eventually slew Sukuna, ending his threat to the people.
So let’s break this down somewhat. First off, let’s address the obvious—isn’t it possible that the description we are getting is of conjoined twins? And it probably is possible, but not very likely. I think it is also safe to say that unfortunately, conjoined twins have historically been more at risk of violence from society than threats to it, given that humans can often be cruel and intolerant.
However, I suspect something else may have been going on here, as it seems the much simpler answer is that in the stories about Naniwaneko’s exploits, Sukuna was given monstrous characteristics that would both signal to the audience that he was a bad dude, but it would also make him that much more of a challenge for our hero to overcome. It strikes me as more likely that Sukuna was probably more of a local bandit or warlord, hiding out in the mountainous Hida region, and plundering nearby settlements. Of course, whether he was more of a Blackbeard type or Robin Hood, we cannot know, since we only have Yamato’s side of the story.
In fact, he’s more important, here, as a foil for Naniwaneko, who was an ancestor of the famous Wani no Omi family. We haven’t really discussed the Wani no Omi much, but the stories do mention them over and over, from the stories about Iware Biko, aka Jimmu Tenno, and his march on Yamato, up throughout the narrative. Mostly it is a reference here or there, but given the frequency we can assume that they were a family of some importance. I suspect that stories such as these were likely gleaned from the histories of the noble families, which in turn ensured that they would back the Chronicles as the official history of Yamato.
A similarly fantastical tale is told about another warrior, a man of fierce temper and of great bodily strength. We don’t know his name, but he was the ancestor of the Kasa no Omi and we are otherwise merely told that he was an agatamori—similar to an agatanushi, and likely translated as something like a “district warden”. Now this Agatamori lived in the land of Kibi—that land where it seemed they often rivaled Yamato in their power, or at least in their ability to organize labor and build giant, kingly style round-keyhole tombs.
The Nihon Shoki tells us that there was once a water-snake who sat at a fork in the Kawashima river, in central Kibi—probably the area later known as Bitchuu, in the western area of modern Okayama Prefecture. Travelers who passed by the area where the snake was at were “affected by its poison”, and died. Of course, we aren’t exactly told how they were affected—one assumes it bit them, but there are also stories of snakes effectively belching their poison, like some kind of dragon. Whatever the method it used, it was killing people and needed to be stopped.
The Agatamori went to where the snake was located, and here it seems he tried a diplomatic tack at first, one that seems somewhat at odds with the task at hand. He started by throwing three calabash gourds in the water, telling the water-snake that if he could sink the calabashes then the Agatamori would go away. But if he could not then he would kill the snake.
If this sounds familiar, you may remember a similar test of a water-spirit a few episodes back, when a man who was to be sacrificed to the river to ensure successful completion of a new canal used a similar tactic to prove that the kami was not as powerful as he claimed. In that case, the kami created a whirlwind to try to push the gourds under the water, but in this case the water-snake transformed into a deer and tried to sink them in that form. In both cases, this task proved too difficult, even for supernatural beings to accomplish.
And so, since the water-snake had failed to sink the gourds, the Agatamori raised his sword and entered the water to kill the snake, as well as its kith and kin, which filled a cave in the bottom of the pool. The Agatamori slew them all, such that the river itself ran red with their blood, and the pool became known as the Pool of Agatamori.
Once again, there is nothing in this particular story that is specific to a given sovereign, and it seems that this is more a story of Kibi and of the Kasa no Omi. There are also some curious parallels with other stories, such as the would-be canal sacrifice I just mentioned. It also bears mentioning, here, that kami in the earlier stories often appear as snakes, which in this case would certainly seem to be the implication, given how it could transform itself into a deer and all of that. There are also some intriguing parallels with stories from India and Southeast Asia, where snakes are often connected to rivers and water.
Continuing in the vein of the supernatural, there is one last story that I’ve saved from the Nihon Shoki, and that is the tale of Shiratori kofun, aka the White Bird Mausoleum of Yamato Takeru. We talked about this back in Episode 35—after the death of Prince Yamato Takeru, he was originally buried in a mausoleum over in Ise, where he had died, cursed-slash-poisoned because he had unwittingly disrespected a kami. After his wife and children and come to mourn, we are told that his spirit transformed itself into a white bird—a shiratori—and flew off to Kawachi. When it landed, a second tomb was built to honor his spirit, and it was known as the White Bird Mausoleum.
These kofun were likely more than just giant graves, but rather it seems clear that they were maintained, possibly as worship sites. Some of the features around larger keyhole shaped tombs appear to be built as areas for rituals—either as part of the burial or perhaps for rituals that were held afterwards.
Whatever rituals may or may not have been conducted there, though, the kofun—or at least some of them—were staffed, by guards if nothing else. Well, and a bunch of haniwa, but they were less effective as guards . After all, these giant tombs were not only monuments to the deceased elites of the Archipelago, they were giant treasure chests, filled with treasures of iron and more, just waiting to be opened by some enterprising grave-robbers.
In most cases, no doubt this tomb-guarding was considered an extremely important task, since the kofun contained the remains of the sovereigns and other important personages, but as for Shiratori Kofun, it was more of a memorial—or at least the way the stories were told. Since it wasn’t, technically, the kofun of the actual Yamato Takeru—that was the tomb over on the other side of the Kii peninsula—then when the Yamato court needed more laborers it seemed like a reasonable move to reassign some of the guards from the Shiratori tomb. They determined that their service was no longer required at a quote-unquote “empty” tomb.
However, the spirit of Yamato Takeru—or some other kami—wasn’t too pleased with this bit of bureaucratic reshuffling. Thus it was that one of the guardians-turned-laborers, a man named in the Nihon Shoki as “Meki”, was suddenly transformed into a sacred white deer. When the sovereign heard about this, he apparently had second thoughts, and immediately had the remaining men reinstated as guardians and gave charge of all of them to the Hashi no Muraji.
Of course, I have a few doubts about the whole thing with the transformation into a deer, but there are still a lot of interesting details to consider about the kofun and the way that they operated. I suspect that this story comes from the Hashi no Muraji, and that guardianship of the tombs, much like overseeing a shrine or other sacred place, was as much about the rice-lands and taxes dedicated to its upkeep, as well as possible status for those who were in charge of it. It is stories like this that, looking past the supernatural elements, can really give us a better look into what life was like at this time.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to seek most of these stories elsewhere, as with this episode, we leave behind Oho Sazaki, and start getting into the rest of dynasty and the 5th century.
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References

Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Aoki, Michiko Yamaguchi (1997). Records of Wind and Earth: A Translation of Fudoki with Introduction and Commentaries. As published at https://jhti.berkeley.edu
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1

Episode 52: The Many Loves of Nintoku

November 1, 2021 Joshua Badgley

The Eurasian Wren, or *Sazaki*, the namesake of our current sovereign in the stories. THat said, though the Kojiki clearly names him as Ōsazaki, the Nihon Shoki uses the character for “suzume”, or sparrow, though likely at the time it jsut meant a small bird of some kind. Other translators have suggested the term “wagtail”. Photo detail from a public domain photo found on Wikimedia Commons.

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This episode is mostly going to just be stories from the Chronicles about the many loves of Ōsazaki no Mikoto, aka Nintoku Tennō. Some of the most interesting parts of this, to me, are, for one, the use of songs and poetry to tell the stories. I really think this hearkens back to some kind of tradition of oral history. Also, the fact that many of these songs and poems occur in the same or different parts of the Chronicles, often dealing with similar subjects. While the dating for this period seems to be way off, I find it highly likely that, at least by the 8th century, many of these stories were well known enough, and the different chroniclers were drawing from the same sources when compiling these histories.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 52: The many loves of Nintoku.
Welcome back.
Before we get started I wanted to give a quick shout out to Chad who joined as a supporter over on Patreon. We had been toying with the idea and after hearing that some people would prefer it we decided to give it a shot. If you want to join him, just look up Sengoku Daimyo over at Patreon.com. We’ll also stay up on Ko-Fi and we’ll be looking into a few other options—if you have thoughts on a preferred donation mechanism, feel free to drop us a line!
That said, let’s get into the actual content.
This episode we are continuing with the story of Oho Sazaki, aka Nintoku Tennou. Last time, in episode 51, we went over some of the stories that seem to contribute to Oho Sazaki’s reputation as a virtuous sovereign, worthy of the throne on which he sat. We discussed how after several natural disasters, he halted taxation and conscription by the government so that the people could rebuild, allowing his own palace to fall into ruin in the process. This was seen as the hallmark of a ruler who cares for his people, that he was willing to take on such hardships for their sake.
Meanwhile, as virtuous as he may have been towards his people, his home life seems to have been a different issue.
Before we get into this, I do want to acknowledge, as I have in the past, that the morals of ancient Japan were not necessarily the same as what we might hold today. For example, we know that polygamy was common especially among the elites, where marriage alliances seem common. It should be noted that these arrangements were typically one man and multiple women, without much evidence for the opposite practice of one woman to multiple men. In fact, this gendered imbalance goes back to the time of Himiko, if the Wei Chronicles are to be believed, so this may not have been directly tied to the waves of misogyny that were coming over from the continent about this time, though there definitely was a strongly patriarchal bent to the narrative.
And I bring this up in part because we have to remember that this is not an unbiased history, so we can’t always assume that the views of the authors match those of the time they are writing about any more than an author today will have the same biases as someone from the 16th or 17th century. So, for instance, it is hard to know how accurate the position of the women being described might be. Iwa no Hime, whom we will talk quite a bit about, is described as the Queen, and this terminology often gets interpreted as meaning the primary wife of the sovereign, more or less, but was that all? Or did she maintain some power and authority in her own right? Unfortunately, since all the stories are filtered through an 8th century, Confucian inspired lens, it is hard to say. Certainly there were women in the 7th and 8th centuries who became sovereigns in their own right and held power equivalent to any male sovereign even as the place of women was changing with greater and greater adoption of continental norms and culture.
And finally, I just want to note again that the morals of the past often aren’t those of our own. Adultery, rape, and murder pop up again and again in the narrative, even committed by individuals otherwise coded, explicitly or otherwise, as virtuous. That such things were not a blemish against these legendary figures may speak to a different set of moral judgments that were being made at this time.
Let me be clear: I am not suggesting that we fall into the trap of moral relativism. Just because people of the time may have considered Oho Sazaki’s actions as virtuous and proper does not mean that we necessarily need to come to the same conclusion. Humans are complicated creatures—much more complicated than most narratives will allow for. However, part of our goal will be understanding, as best we can, what sort of ethical and moral compass was guiding the people of these ancient times to help us get a better understanding of what people did and why. That doesn’t mean we need to condone their actions.
With that said, let’s take a look at the love life of our virtuous Oho Sazaki no Ohokimi, and we’ll start, actually, back in the reign of his father.
You may recall that in the reign of Oho Sazaki’s father, Homuda Wake—aka Oujin Tennou—there was the beauty Kaminaga Hime, who arrived in truly awe-inspiring fashion in boats crewed by sailors all fitted out in deerskins with the antlers attached. Oho Sazaki was smitten by her as soon as they clasped eyes on one another, and though she was meant for his father, the lovesick Oho Sazaki was able to make his feelings known such that they were eventually married and she became one of his wives.
However, when he ascended to the throne as Oho Kimi, or Great Lord, it was not Kaminaga Hime who became his queen but rather another woman, whom we have also mentioned in passing, named Iwa no Hime.
We previously mentioned Iwa no Hime because, despite being the mother to several future sovereigns, she doesn’t seem to have had the credentials one might expect of a queen. Primarily she doesn’t have a clearly royal lineage. Rather, she is the daughter of Katsuraki no Sotsuhiko. As we mentioned several episodes back, talking about Sotsuhiko and Takechi no Sukune, he was only ever mentioned as a vassal of the Yamato sovereign, but there are some clues that he may have been more. He may have been some sort of sovereign in his own right, and for that matter, what did that mean for his daughter? What was up with her?
We aren’t really given any details as to how Iwa no Hime and Oho Sazaki met, but one can assume that it was through her father’s connections. But what political benefit was there in marrying the daughter of a vassal?
On the other hand, if Katsuraki no Sotsuhiko was a ruler in his own right, then his daughter may have been just the thing to help bring their domain or kingdom together with Yamato, perhaps further strengthening an alliance into something more. If this were the case, I have to wonder what Iwa no Hime’s status was. It is possible she was simply a pawn, bartered away on the political stage, and certainly there were many women in the elite families for whom this was their ultimate fate. On the other hand, we know that women held considerably more power back in the earliest times, and we’ve seen the stories of Okinaga Tarashi Hime, who was also related to the Katsuraki family. So it also strikes me as possible that Iwa no Hime may have also have had some political and administrative clout of her own.
She was certainly strong-willed, according to the Chronicles: despite the apparent cultural norm of a man keeping multiple wives, Iwa no Hime put her foot down, and would try to fight it tooth and nail. Of course, it may be that she had little choice in any wives that Oho Sazaki took before she was elevated to the rank of Queen, but after that point she really seems to have laid down the lawn.
The Chronicles claim that this stemmed from an innate jealousy. Even mentioning other women of the palace in her presence was enough to set her off. And so we see this theme throughout the stories we are told.
Now, going back to Oho-Sazaki’s first documented crush, Kaminaga Hime, we hear very little about her after the reign of Homuda Wake. We know that she produced several sons, but for the most part she seems to have faded from the story, her part in it complete.
There were plenty of other women, however, that caught Oho Sazaki’s eye, much to the chagrin of his principal wife and queen, Iwa no Hime. For example, in the Kojiki we are give the story of Kuro Hime.
Now Kuro Hime was the daughter of the Amabe no Atahe of Kibi, and, as is so often the case in these stories, her beauty “was of great renown.” Though the rumor mill version of Yamato Tinder sounds rather single-minded, I suspect that it went beyond merely the physical, even if that is what the chroniclers themselves were concerned with. After all, beauty might be shorthand for <<insert clip of “huge tracks of land”>>. Kibi, as we’ve discussed before, was quite powerful and populous in its own right, building kingly tombs that rivaled those of Yamato, so there was much for someone like Oho Sazaki to desire, and so he summoned her to his court, apparently with the intention of marrying her.
So Kuro Hime packed her bags and sailed over to Naniwa and the court. Once there, however, she started to hear rumors. Confidants in the Yamato court warned her about Iwa no Hime and her jealousy. Rather than risk Iwa no Hime’s ire, Kuro Hime decided that Oho Sazaki wasn’t worth it, and she threw her things back in the boat and prepared to head back home.
Oho Sazaki was apparently heartbroken. Watching out from a high tower he sang a song:
“In the offing / The small boats are stretched out in a row; / In one of them, / Masazuko, my beloved, / Goes down to her native land.”
As sentimental as he might have been, what Oho Sazaki wasn’t was quiet. Iwa no Hime heard his composition, and she became enraged. She sent out people down to the Bay and had them hound Kuro Hime out of her boat, her ride home, and forced her to walk back to Kibi on foot. That might have taken several days, possibly a week or more, depending on the quality of the roads and pathways.
And as arduous and incredible as that journey might have been, what really draws my attention is the power of Iwa no Hime. Her jealous tantrums were not merely biting commentary—she sent people out to physically hound and harass Kuro Hime. And where was Oho Sazaki in all of this? Why wasn’t he standing up to Iwa no Hime?
I guess that the narrative could be explained by the trope of the hen-pecked husband, which seems to be the tack that the stories take. Personally, I like to think that it demonstrated that, at least in Iwa no Hime’s mind, she and Oho Sazaki were equals. But perhaps that is just wishful thinking.
Regardless of why, Oho Sazaki was not one to oppose his wife. Well, not directly, at least. He still longed to see Kuro Hime, and so he went with one of the classic husbandly lies so trope-worthy that from the 8th century to today it is still being used. He told her he was just going out shopping, and he definitely wasn’t going down to the local pub to have a pint with his mates.
Well, okay actually he told her that he was going to Awaji, the island just off of Naniwa that had long been site of royal hunting grounds, where sovereigns had gone to participate in their more leisurely pursuits. He certainly said nothing about heading out from Awaji to Kibi. After all, what his wife didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Standing on Awaji, looking out across the Seto Inland Sea, Oho Sazaki once again encapsulated his feelings in poetry:
“Setting out / from the point of Naniwa / Of the glittering waves, / I view the land / and behold the island of Awa, / The Island of Onogoro / the Island of Ajimasa / And of Sake tsu Shima.”
On its own, this probably was just a poem about kunimi, or viewing the country, a common ritual of kingship demonstrating hegemony over the land. But if you add an unspoken line, as suggested by Phillipi: “But nowhere do I catch sight of my beloved.” Well, then the whole thing takes on a different tone, one more fitting for the circumstances. And it is likely that this was the unspoken feeling one was supposed to deduce, even if it wasn’t directly stated.
It was certainly the unspoken feeling that was acted upon as Oho Sazaki set out to Kibi, where he found Kuro Hime, who took him to the mountain foothills and fed him there.
At that point, the narrative gives us several poems, or more likely, based on their structure, songs that were meant to be set to music of some kind. Phillipi points out how these poem-songs repeat certain words over and over, and many of these appear in both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, but not always in the same places. That would seem to indicate that the songs were probably well known, passed down as part of a strong oral tradition, but that the actual context of the songs may have been lost. One of the songs is only found in the Kojiki, but then it is also recalled in the Tango Fudoki, but this time in the mouth of a supernatural woman of the Urashima legend. These were songs that the people likely knew well, and so it was easy to slot them in, much in the way that a modern television program might choose well known songs rather than creating a totally original soundtrack.
Looking back at our story, we aren’t really told how Iwa no Hime reacted once Oho Sazaki returned, though presumably she noticed something was off. Most importantly, however, Kuro Hime appears to have stayed in Kibi, and we don’t really hear any more of her. Iwa no Hime’s position remained secure, despite her husband’s dalliance.
In fact, it seems reasonable to conclude that Oho Sazaki may have learned his lesson, for the Nihon Shoki contains a story not about Kuro Hime of Kibi, but rather of Kuga Hime, a lady of the palace. Now Oho Sazaki, like a moth drawn to the flame, lusted after Kuga Hime, and desired to show her his affection—bidden or otherwise. But before going so far as to send her a basket of eggplants and a not so subtle invitation to visit him in his chambers he did something a bit uncharacteristic at this point. He paused.
It seems that his wife’s legendary jealousy had left an impression on Oho Sazaki, and he began to think through what his personal desires might mean for poor Kuga Hime if he actually acted on them. After all, he would be spared, but Kuga Hime would have to bear the brunt of Iwa no Hime’s wrath. On top of that, there is no way that she could ever be considered a queen, such as Iwa no Hime was.
And so, with apparent consideration for her age and not wanting Kuga Hime to waste the best years of her life, Oho Sazaki decided that he could do something better than bringing her into his harem. Instead, he could play matchmaker, himself. Of course it goes without saying that Kuga Hime had no real say in this un-asked-for good deed.
Thus, Oho Sazaki sang out a poem, presumably at a banquet where all the most eligible bachelors were gathered, asking if anyone would be willing to “nourish the daughter of the Omi, who sweeps along the bottom of the water.” The response to this question came from Hayamachi, the ancestor of the governors of Harima, who formed his response in the thirty-one syllable style, known as Tanka, that would eventually become the default for off-the-cuff poetry at the court. In this case, the poem was rather straightforward, stating simply: “I, Hayamachi of Harima / Where the dreadful tides are / though full of awe / like rocks tumbling down / I will nourish her.”
And with that, no doubt quite pleased with himself, Oho Sazaki simply gave Kuga Hime to Hayamachi.
It seems though, that Kuga Hime, who had not been consulted in any of this, had other plans. Even though Hayamichi went to Kuga Hime’s house to collect her, she would not comply. He insisted, however, on approaching her curtained space—a reference to the way that the large, generally open floor plans of early Japanese noble architecture would often be separated with curtains of fabric or reeds, often delineating between the male and female spaces, as well as public and private. In later eras, even when it was customary for women in the summer time to wear little more than an almost transparent gauze robe, it would be scandalous for a man to catch a glimpse of a woman’s uncovered flesh—even if it was just a hand reaching out beyond the curtain.
In the 5th century, however, it is unclear just how sensual such an act might be seen, but the 8th century writers are nonetheless conveying that separation between them—a physical barrier representing, at the same time, an intangible one. For Kuga Hime insisted that she would die husbandless, and that she could therefore not become Hayamichi’s wife.
Well, when Oho Sazaki heard of all of this, he certainly had egg on his face. For all the trouble he had gone through, and he had, in fact, promised Kuga Hime’s hand to Hayamichi. And so, believing this marriage to be for the best—or perhaps simply to avoid the embarrassment he felt—the sovereign, Oho Sazaki, commanded Kuga Hime to go with Hayamichi to Kuhada, where they would be married. However, it was not to be. Kuga Hime’s declaration proved to be prophetic—she tragically passed away during the journey and never made it to Kuhada. Thus, as she said, she died husbandless.
And so we get a glimpse of Oho Sazaki and his relationship with women in his life, but there is one more that stands out above the rest. It is found in both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, with many of the poems showing up in both of them, though occasionally in slightly different parts of the narrative. I’ll try to weave the two accounts together as best I can.
Oh, and before I go much further, I should introduce the new woman in Oho Sazaki’s life. Although she isn’t exactly a new woman. In fact, we mentioned her several episodes back when we talked about the tug of war between Oho Sazaki and his brother, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, over who wouldn’t have to sit on the throne after dear old dad passed away. She was the woman given to Oho Sazaki by Waki Iratsuko on the moment—or even slightly after—his own death. Her name was Yata no Waki Iratsume, aka Yata Hime, Oho Sazaki’s own half-sister.
As you may or may not recall—we honestly didn’t spend too much time on it back then—Yata no Waki Iratsume was given to Oho Sazaki to take on as a wife because her full brother, Waki Iratsuko, had taken his own life. Remember that siblings were only considered to be truly blood relatives if they shared the same mother, and thus the ancient chronicles saw nothing strange in this arrangement. In fact, many would no doubt see it as strengthening the royal lineage, a concept that was popular in many places, not just Japan, leading to tragic things like, well, the Hapsburgs, for one.
Inbreeding aside, despite the fact that she had been granted to Oho Sazaki when he had taken the throne—or so we are told—she remains out of the picture for about 2 decades. Presumably, during this time, she was being well kept, but she was not Oho Sazaki’s queen—she wasn’t even one of his secondary wives. And one of the reasons for this may have been Iwa no Hime.
The Nihon Shoki claims that Oho Sazaki told Iwa no Hime that he wanted to take Yata Hime as his wife, but Iwa Hime would not allow it. Oho Sazaki tried to change her mind with poetry, but Iwa no Hime was just as quick witted, and clearly his equal. As translated by Aston, the exchange goes something like this.
Oho Sazaki sang: “As a means of raising up / Dear ones: / As a spare bowstring / To supply a vacancy / I would place her along with thee.”
But Iwa no Hime wouldn’t have it: “In the case of garments / To double them is well, / But my Lord who would set in a row / The couches of night- / I wonder if he is wise.”
Oho Sazaki persisted, however: “Like the shore of Narabi / Of Cape Naniwa / That projects (into the sea) / It must have been solely to be thy comrade / That the child came into being.”
Still, Iwa no Hime continued to object: “Like the summer insect, / The insect that seeks the fire / Wearing double garments, / That the palace precinct should be thus, / Nay! It is not good.”
Nonetheless, Oho Sazaki would not take a hint: “Even the traveller, / Who with unbared tears / Toils over the little pass of Hika / in Asatsuma - / Well for him had he a companion.”
Iwa no Hime could see he wasn’t going to let up, but neither would she give in, and so she finally just refused to keep going. She refused to answer him, and refused to give her consent.
And that might have been the end of it. The Nihon Shoki tells us that eight years went by, and apparently Oho Sazaki didn’t bring it back up, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have thoughts.
One day, according to both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, Iwa no Hime left the palace and made an excursion down the Kii peninsula. There she was looking for a special set of leaves, which came in clusters of three and which could be used as drinking cups for certain ceremonies. She was planning to host a lavish banquet, and we are told that she had an entire boatload of these leaf cups that she was bringing back with her.
It was during her absence that Oho Sazaki’s rebellious streak kicked in, and despite the Iwa no Hime’s clear refusal eight years prior, Oho Sazaki finally went ahead and married Yata Hime. They then apparently did what married couples do, and word got around. In fact, as Iwa no Hime’s retinue was returning with her to Naniwa, a common laborer approached one of her handmaidens. He began to give her the latest hot goss, talking about the scandalous way that the sovereign was disporting himself day and night with his newest bride.
Upon hearing this, the handmaiden, who had been in one of the boats near the back of the procession, urged her sailors to row faster, until she caught up with her mistress, Iwa no Hime. There the handmaiden told her everything that the laborer had said, and Iwa no Hime lost it. In a fit of rage she enacted her own table flip, dumping all of the leaf-cups into the ocean—perhaps one of the first great examples of an angry “table clearing”, which Hollywood directors love so much. She then gave the decision not to stop in Naniwa, but instead to sail on by and up the canal towards Yamashiro. She sailed by Naniwa, where her husband, Oho Sazaki, sat on shore, watching with no doubt a confused look on his face as her boats did not put in as expected, but rather continued up river. It was here that she sang:
“As I ascend / As I ascend the river, /The Yamashiro River / Of the connected mountain peaks,
On the bank of the River / There is growing / A Sashibu / A Sashibu Tree
Underneath it / There is growing / A wide-leaved / Sacred camelia tree.
Like its flowers / Shining Brilliantly, /Like its leaves / Wide and calm / Are you, my great lord.”
And so singing, she went on by.
As she arrived around Narayama, she again composed a song, found in some form in both of the chronicles:
o “As I ascend,
As I ascend towards the palace
Up the Yamashiro River
Of the connected mountain peaks,
o I pass by Nara
Of the blue clay
I pass by Yamato
Of the little shields;
o The country which I long to see
Is Takamiya in Kazuraki
Where my home is.”
And by this we can assume she was headed back to her family. Remember, she is the daughter of Katsuraki no Sotsu Hiko—Sotsu Hiko of Katsuraki—so going back to Takamiya, the high palace, may have been a reference to her going back to the site of her family’s territorial seat of power. However, we are told that on the way she took a detour, stopping in the house of one Nurinomi, a man of Kara who lived in Tsutsuki. Or that’s what the Kojiki tells us. The Nihon Shoki claims that she built her own palace on the south side of Tsutsuki Hill, with no mention of Nurinomi.
Now while all this was happening, Oho Sazaki was not exactly standing idle. First, he sent an attendant named Toriyama, once more with a line of verse to tell him what to do, but it appears that Toriyama was unsuccessful. And so he turned to another of his vassals: Kuchiko—or possibly just Kuchi—of the Wani no Omi.
Now Kuchiko was a loyal vassal, and it was apparently no secret where Iwa no Hime was staying. We are told that he went out to deliver a message from Oho Sazaki, but Iwa no Hime refused to hear it. Even though the rain was coming down hard, Kuchiko prostrated him in front of the house, until Iwa no Hime left and went to the rear quarters, at which point he ran around the outside of the house—after all, nobody had invited him in—and he prostrated himself, again, in the wet and the mud, by the back entrance. Iwa no Hime, her own stubbornness by now legendary, simply went back to the front of the building, and, once again, Kuchiko prostrated himself again in the yard.
All this time, the rain kept pouring down on poor, loyal Kuchiko. He had been given a message by the Sovereign, and he had to deliver it, but at the same time, he couldn’t exactly force Iwa no Hime to listen to it. And so he stayed there, in the rain, even though the courtyard was starting to flood, so that the waters were at his waist, and a red cord that he had began to bleed, staining the blue fabric of his clothing and turning it red. Still, Iwa no Hime did nothing.
Now it just so happened that Kuchiko’s younger sister, Kuniyori Hime, was serving in the retinue of Iwa no Hime, and when she saw the poor state that her brother was in, and realizing the futility of his mission, she started to weep for him.
And the rocky exterior of Iwa no Hime seems to have cracked, just a little. She asked her maiden why she was so upset, and Kuniyori Hime said to her: “I am moved to tears / At the sight of my brother / Speaking his message / At the Palace of Tsutsuki / of Yamashiro.”
She then said quite plainly that it was her brother and she felt bad for the situation he was in. Iwa no Hime, moved by Kuniyori’s grief, agreed that Kuniyori Hime could talk to him, even though she would not. And so Kuchiko was apparently brought inside—and hopefully given some dry clothes—and he conferred with his sister and with the master of the house, Nurinomi.
Here, it is the Kojiki that tells us what apparently happened. According to that version of events, the trio of Kuchiko, Kuniyori, and Nurinomi agreed to tell the sovereign that Iwa no Hime had simply come to visit Nurinomi and to see the silkworms that he cultivated. Of course, by this time, silkworms were likely well known on the continent, but I’m not sure how commonly known their lifecycle was. And thus it was possibly believable that Iwa no Hime might go to visit and see the process.
With this little white lie they apparently hoped to put off the sovereign and his curiosity—after all, it seemed as if there was no way that Iwa no Hime was going to change her mind. And for a little while it worked. But only a little while. A month went by, and Oho Sazaki was apparently beginning to wonder. He made his own way up the river towards Yamashiro, eventually reaching the palace in Tstusuki where Iwa no Hime had apparently put down some roots.
Once there, Oho Sazaki called out to her, with yet more poetic verses, asking that she come back with him, but it was no good. She refused to go with him and essentially told him that as long as *that* woman was still in the palace, she would never return to the palace.
Dejected and empty-handed, Oho Sazaki returned to Naniwa. We are told that Iwa no Hime kept her word, and they never saw each other again. According to the Nihon Shoki, Iwa no Hime would die five years later, leaving several heirs to the throne.
As for Yata Hime—she and Oho Sazaki continued to live in the palace, and several years after Iwa no Hime’s passing, Yata Hime was made Queen.
It is said that Oho Sazaki and Yata Hime would often spend their days and nights in one of the high towers, because the weather was so hot one autumn. While they were up there, they could hear the hauntingly musical cry of a deer out on the nearby Toga moor, and they would feel great pity for the animal. One evening, about mid-month, the moor went silent, and they both wondered what might have happened. The next day, a man of the Saheki-be showed up with an offering—a buck that head taken out on the Toga Moor. Oho Sazaki immediately deduced that this was likely the deer they had been hearing, and he was suddenly filled with resentment, even though, logically, he knew there was no way for the man to have known. Still, he had him banished from the royal presence, such that he was not allowed to approach the royal palace and he would be removed to Nuta.
There is an accompanying story in the Nihon Shoki about a man who went to Toga and spent the night on the moor. As he was out there, two deer, a buck and a doe, came and laid down beside him. In the morning, the buck miraculously spoke up, telling the doe about a dream he had had, where he was covered in white mist. He wondered what it could mean. The doe said that it must meant that if he went out that day, he would surely be shot. The white mist would be like the salt that would cover his body to help preserve the meat. Nonetheless, the buck went out, and sure enough there was a hunter on the moor, and he shot the buck, just as the dream had foretold. Thus there is a saying: “Even the belling buck follows the interpretation of a dream.”
Now Yata Hime and Oho Sazaki seem to have loved one another very much, but despite this, Yata Hime was never able to bear him any children. And here we get an interesting note from the Kujiki, which we should remember, was very keen not just on the royal lineage, but on the lineage of the once-powerful Mononobe clan, whose fortunes had declined somewhat by the 8th century. It tells us that because she was childless, the sovereign basically selected an attending minister, Mononobe no Oho Wake no Muraji, to be set up as a prince, the adopted son of the Queen, Yata Hime. Her name, “Yata” was turned into a surname, a new Uji, or clan group, and she was made the Uji no Miyatsuko and given the title of Yatabe no Muraji. This seems to be confirmed by the Shinsen Shoujiroku, who claims that the Yatabe no Muraji descended through Ikaga Shikowo, as Oho Wake was a descendent in the fourth generation.
There is one more story that I’d like to leave you with, for it turns out that even the sovereign had rivals, and he was not always lucky in love. This story comes to us in two versions, from the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki.
Now it came to be that Oho Sazaki wished to marry his half-sister, Medori no Miko, the sister to his wife, Yata Hime. And so he sent as an intermediary one of his younger brothers, a man by the name of Hayabusa Wake no Miko. Now the Kojiki places this story sometime during the reign of Iwa no Hime as queen, for Medori no Miko was concerned. She feared that, for all of his prestige, Oho Sazaki was not a good match because of the arrogance—or jealousy—of his wife, Iwa no Hime, which had even kept him from marrying Yata Hime for so long. Instead, she decided to marry Hayabusa Wake, instead. They got married in secret, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, Hayabusa Wake decided not to return to the palace. After all, what was he going to say? “Sorry bro, I know I was supposed to chat her up for you, but, like, we got married, instead. Cool?”
Not hearing back from his intermediary, Oho Sazaki went to the place where Medori no Miko was staying. He stood at the doorsill while she was at a loom, weaving. He called out to her with a poem:
“For whom is intended, / The garment being woven / By my lady / Medori.”
Medori Hime must not have known that it was Oho Sazaki who stood at the door, because she replied:
“It is a cloth for a coat / for the high-flying falcon, / Hayabusa Wake no Miko”
Having heard her reply, Oho Sazaki, whose name means the “Great Wren” or “Great Wagtail”, realized that her heart belonged to Hayabusa, whose name means “Falcon”. According to the Nihon Shoki’s account, Oho Sazaki decided to just let it go at first. After all, there was no need to stir up trouble, and Medori was, after all, sister to his wife, Yata Hime.
Later, however, there were stories that started to drift out about Hayabusa Wake starting to get various ideas, and a song that his own attendants were heard singing:
“ The Falcon / Ascending to Heaven / With soaring flight-- / Let him seize the wren / On top of the Tsuki trees.”
Well, given their names, this seemed like a clear claim of rebellion. Oho Sazaki had been patient, for his wife’s sake, but he couldn’t let a private quarrel develop into full blown rebellion, and so he decided to nip the entire thing in the bud. Medori Hime and Hayabusa Wake heard about the plans for them, however, and they fled.
As soon as Oho Sazaki heard they had fled, he sent Kibi no Honchi-be no Wofuna and Harima no Saheki no Atahe no Aganoko to pursue and kill the couple. Before they left, however, Yata Hime stepped in. Though she recognized her sister’s error and the need for her to be punished, she asked the generals to help her, nonetheless, maintain some dignity. It was not uncommon, at that time, for the defeated to be slain and for their goods to be divvied up amongst the victors. Yata Hime asked for an exception in the case of her sister, requesting that she remain covered up, with some dignity, even in death.
Sure enough the two generals, Wofuna and Agonoko, caught up with the lovers around Uda, but the two escaped over Mt. Soni. Eventually they were caught and slain on the Komoshiro moor in Ise. Despite the orders, Wofuna searched the princess and took her jewels and then buried the princess and Hayabusa on the bank of the Ihoki River. The generals then returned and gave their report—conveniently skipping over what happened with the jewels.
Time went by, and later in that same year it came time for the Festival of First Fruits. During this festival, Yata Hime noticed some familiar jewelry on the hands of a couple of the women. She immediately asked where they had gotten them, and they pointed out that they had received them from Aganoko. When questioned more directly, Aganoko eventually came clean, admitting that he had stolen the jewels against the orders he was given.
The sovereign was furious, and the charge would normally have been death for Aganoko, but instead Aganoko offered up all of his own lands to the throne. Because they had been forfeit due to the jewels, or Tama, that Aganoko had stolen, these lands were known as “tamade”.
And that was the story of the Falcon and the Wren, and the last of our stories about Oho Sazaki’s love life. I hope you have enjoyed them. Next we will probably talk about some of the more miraculous and unbelievable tales from this reign.
But that’s all for now, so until next time, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site, kofi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the link over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
Also, feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you and your ideas.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1

Episode 51: Flood Control and Refrigeration

October 16, 2021 Joshua Badgley

Daisen Kofun (大仙古墳), part of the UNESCO World Heritage Mozu-Furuichi tomb group (百舌鳥古市古墳群), traditionally believed to house the body of Ōsazaki no Sumeramikoto, aka Nintoku Tennō. It is not only the largest kofun in Japan, but one of the largest tombs in the entire world, at least twice the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Photo copyright © National Land Image Information (Color Aerial Photographs), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

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This episode we start our series on the early 5th century sovereign Ōsazaki, aka Nintoku Tennō. And first off we will talk about that posthumous name given to him at some later date—possibly as late as the 7th or 8th centuries. Nintoku (仁徳) would seem to indicate that this sovereign was seen as a virtuous king. And so we see stories about how he lived in a humble style while there was a drought so that the people could take what little they had and make it through the lean times. He even removed requirements for forced labor.

Once taxes and labor were restored, we see him working on projects to control the waters and hold back the flooding of the Yodo Rivier, which may have been something that happened in this period, but it also feels very much like the kind of thing that would be said about the ancient rulers on the continent, particularly in the Yellow River region.

In fact, there is an early concept of the formation of kingship being largely derived in the various wet rice agricultural societies by those who were able to move water around. This is the so-called “fluvial hypothesis” of state formation. And although more recent concepts of state formation may be focused on a more complex model with multiple different factors contributing to the eventual formation of what we would call a “state”, the movement of water was definitely an important role in agricultural societies. After all, if you are cultivating rice with wet paddy agricultural methods, you have to occasionally flood and drain the paddies. Even today, rice farms in Japan can be seen linked to various irrigation canals so that paddies can be flooded or drained on schedule. And of course that is the key, because if there are any problems, those same irrigation ditches might overflow and floods might occur out of cycle, ruining the crops and destroying entire harvests.

This becomes even more likely when you site your fields near easily accessible sources of water, such as rivers and streams, which might overflow in the heavy rains that can sweep the archipelago. So anyone who could make some claim to control the waters—both through spiritual as well as secular acts—would be important in those societies. Of course, those same individuals were also likely important for organization of military forces, trade, and more.

Ice Houses of Ancient Japan

Himuro (氷室) in Tenri city, Nara. Photo by うぃき野郎, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the more surprising features of the narrative this time around might be the mention of an ice house, or himuro (氷室). A “muro” is a type of pit dwelling, and “hi” means ice. Now storing ice in covered pits goes back to at least 3~4,000 years ago, with perhaps the oldest reference being to one in Mesopotamia. But it is still rather incredible. By digging down into the earth, you end up using the natural cooling effects of the earth itself to help insulate the ice, and while they couldn’t necessarily make ice during hot months, they could certainly store ice from the winter months. There is even a shrine in Nara called “Himuro Shrine” that claims to go back to at least the 8th century as being dedicated to a kami of ice houses. Apparently they were on the hook to supply the court and the royal family.

Of course, ice would still have been something precious, at least in the summer months, so it was likely only ever accessible by the aristocracy, but it was something that they had, which is pretty neat. Consider, also, that as you sip on your ice water on a hot summer’s day, you are the envy of so many of our ancient ancestors around the world.

Daisen Kofun

The supposed resting place of Ōsazaki is Daisen Kofun, and you can see a photo of it, above. The truth, however, is that we don’t know who rests in the main chamber. Recently, the Imperial Household has given permission to do rare excavations of portions of the tomb, but mostly it remains off-limits as it is considered a sacred resting place.

That said, there have been people inside the main burial chamber. In the Edo period there were people who went in and catalogued what was there, and another exploration took place in 1876. Some of the items from the tomb are on display in local museums, including the haniwa, and we have an old drawing of the interior. However, none of that definitively identified the occupant.

Drawing of the inside of the main tomb chamber.

Drawing of the sarcophagus inside the tomb.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 51: Flood Control and Refrigeration.
So before we got interrupted in our narrative by last episode’s diversion into new DNA evidence about Japanese populations, we were about to get into the reign of Ohosazaki no Mikoto, also known as Nintoku Tennou.
As you may recall from Episode 49, when Oho Sazaki no Mikoto’s father, the previous sovereign, Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, passed away, he left three possible heirs. The eldest brother, known most popularly as Oho Yamamori, though he also seems to be conflated with a prince Nukada—who may or may not be the same person--had been given command of the mountains and forests. Oho Sazaki no Mikoto, the middle brother, had been put in charge of the administration, assisting the Crown Prince, the youngest of the three brothers, known as Uji no Waki no Iratsuko. What should have been a straightforward succession, though, turned into a bit of a muddled mess. Waki Iratsuko didn’t want the job and thought that Oho Sazaki no Mikoto should take it. Oho Sazaki no Mikoto may or may not have wanted the job, but didn’t want to go against his father’s wishes, and so he refused it. Oho Yamamori actually *did* want the job, but nobody else thought he should have it. Oho Yamamori tried to take it from Waki Iratsuko, who turned the tables on him and sent him to sleep with the fishes, quite literally. Then Waki Iratsuko and Oho Sazaki both refused to take up the role of sovereign, which went on for several years, or so we are told. Finally, Waki Iratsuko committed suicide in order to force his brother’s hand, even going so far as to come back from the grave to briefly give his brother his blessing.
And if you don’t believe a word of that whole mess, don’t worry, you are in good company. In all likelihood this story has been twisted, taken apart, and put back together several times over as we are still in a confusing period. Some archaeological evidence points to there being co-rulers, but the narrative says only one, and the lengths of these reigns—those of Homuda Wake and Oho Sazaki no Mikoto—have been generously expanded in order to link Homuda Wake’s mother, Okinaga Tarashi Hime, aka Jinguu Tenno, with the reign of Queen Himiko.
There are little hints here and there, though, as to different underlying truths, particularly in the way that some stories are told in the reigns of different sovereigns, depending on the source. For instance the story of the Karano is given in the Nihon Shoki during the reign of Homuda Wake—that incredibly fast ship that eventually become rotted out and roasted for salt. Well, in the Kojiki the Karano was built during the reign of Oho Sazaki, and the burning for salt happens on his watch. Of course, it is possible that memories simply fade and the exact details of any given activity can’t truly be traced, but there is also the possibility that if Ohosazaki – Nintoku-tenno – and his father Homuda Wake – Ojin Tenno - were in reality acting as co-rulers of some kind, then the Chroniclers were struggling with which events should go under which sovereign.
Despite all of that confusion, however, we can still draw some conclusions. First off, it is very clear that succession at this point was not a settled tradition. It wasn’t necessarily the oldest son who inherited, and so one can only imagine how easily disputes must have arisen upon the death of a sovereign as various factions formed behind one candidate or the other. I’ve seen it suggested that perhaps this was de rigeur for the times, and that the death of a sovereign would have often led to periods of fighting and even civil war as people asserted themselves in the power vacuum.
Eventually, however, Oho Sazaki no Mikoto was the only one left, or at least according to the stories, and so he reluctantly took on the title of Oho Kimi, the Great Lord, or Sovereign.
We’ve talked about 3 brothers, but Oho Sazaki was actually the 4th child of Homuda Wake by a woman known only as “Naka tsu Hime”, or “The Middle Lady”. However, we are told that she was the granddaughter of Ihoki Iribiko, who himself was the son of Oho Tarashi Hiko, aka Keiko Tenno, reinforcing the concept that it was just as important for the maternal line to be of royal blood as it was for the paternal.
Speaking of which, there was one more prince of royal blood that gets mentioned, but isn’t part of all of this ruckus. In the Chronicles he bears the moniker of Futamata no Miko, and at this point in the story we don’t get much other than a strange bit of genealogy, but we’ll get back to him in a future episode. For now, just realize that he is also prioritized in the story, despite a plethora of other sons and daughters listed in those long rolls of begats that all of these sources loved so much.
But for now let’s get back to our main character, the new sovereign. I have to say, some of the information we have on Oho Sazaki no Mikoto feels like pure propaganda. For instance, when he finally took the throne the land was in pretty bad shape, and no wonder, when you think about it. After all, how long had things been going on without a central authority? If there is any truth to the stories, after all, Oho Sazaki and his brother Waki Iratsuko had been playing keep-away with the kingship for a long time. It is likely that quite a few things had been neglected in that time—though presumably they at least had buried dear old dad before they descended into their squabbling over just who wouldn’t sit on the throne in his absence. But now it seems that things weren’t looking too good.
One of Oho Sazaki’s first orders of business was to build the new palace building. As we’ve seen during this time, it was common to build a new palace as the seat of the court when a new sovereign came to the throne. This would continue for the next several centuries. This may have had to do with the belief that the previous court buildings were polluted with the death of the previous sovereign, which is the most common explanation we have. Truth be told, though, there are a lot of questions, including the actual location of the various court buildings. This practice could also have just been practical—in the same way that the shrine at Ise was, and continues to be, rebuilt every 20 years, it may be that by the end of a given reign the palace would have that much more age, with possible structural issues that just couldn’t be easily repaired, and building it anew, in a different location, may have been a way to keep things relatively fresh. No doubt much of the materials would be recycled if they could be.
Still, for whatever reason, we are told that Oho Sazaki no Mikoto established a new palace in the Naniwa area, but that he did so quickly—more quickly than was typical. The Nihon Shoki tells us that his palace was built “without plaster or paint” and that the thatching was “uneven”. The plaster and paint may reference later architectural features—I don’t know if that was being done at the time—but I think we get the general impression that things were a bit slapdash, and they didn’t take the time to ornament the palace as usual. This was in order to spare the workers for the fields. After all, the communal nature of the harvest meant that it was more or less all hands on deck at certain parts of the season, and pulling people away for other projects, even projects for the court of Oho Kimi, risked them not being available for their agricultural duties. It sounds like things were already pretty bad.
In fact, there is another part of the record that claims Oho Sazaki climbed up to a high place—possibly a mountain—and viewed the country. We’ve talked about this in past episodes, where sovereigns real and mythical would climb to high point and perform kunimi, or a viewing of the countryside. This seems to have been an important aspect of rulership, and Phillipi notes that it may have practical roots in looking out from a high place to help determine which fields needed to be planted or harvested and helping to generally direct the activities of the surrounding area. Of course, later this activity would become more of a diversion, as the role of the sovereign changed. Mizoguchi notes how the elites gradually changed from the time of the Yayoi, when they were actually valued for their skills in performing work for the community, whether administrative or spiritual, to an attitude in the Kofun period where the elites came to see themselves as generally deserving of their position based on the nature of their birth rather than any specific work they were doing. This was part of a general slide away from the more egalitarian society of independent groups to a more centralized model with more despotic tendencies, a process that the archipelago was still in the midst of, in many ways.
Anyway, as Oho Kimi was performing this ritual-slash-royal field trip to the mountains, he was crestfallen to note a distinct lack of smoke rising up from the valley. This was extremely puzzling, as it meant that there was a dearth of activity.
Now this may not be something we all immediately see. After all, smoke and smog are so often things we hope not to see in the world, especially given what we now know about the state of the climate. But back in the Kofun era, smoke would have been a key indicator of human activity. From casting terracotta figures to smelting metals, to simply cooking food, one would normally expect to see a good deal of smoke. But if the hearth fires weren’t operating, that meant that there were problems.
Sure enough, we are told that there was a severe drought that affected the crops. Without food to cook, why build a fire? And while we know that in the Jomon period people had been able to live off the land, the Yayoi and Kofun populations had already grown well beyond what hunting, gathering, and basic horticulture could sustain. They needed their agricultural harvests if they were to feed their people.
And this was likely one reason for the less than glorious construction of the palace, but it went even further. We are told that Oho Sazaki excused forced labor for three years, and he let the palace and other administrative buildings fall into disrepair. This wasn’t just for Kawachi and neighboring Yamato provinces, but for all of those who submitted to Yamato hegemony. He is even said to have rationed his own food and that of the court. Though not everyone agreed with his actions, he felt that it was the role of the sovereign to provide succor to the people in times of need so that they could deal with the situation and get back on their feet.
And sure enough, it seems to have worked. Three years later, Oho Sazaki went back to look out over the land and the smoke was rising up once more, indicating that the people had something to cook. Realizing that his people were flourishing once again, he returned to the palace, satisfied that he and his people were prosperous once more.
Of course, not everyone felt quite the same way, and one of the more vocal opponents to Oho Sazaki’s position was actually his own queen: Iwa no Hime.
Now Iwa no Hime is someone we’ve mentioned previously, as her father was none other than the famous Kadzuraki no Sotsuhiko. In fact, it is her place as the official queen that make people wonder if there wasn’t more to Sotsu Hiko himself than we are really led to believe.
Iwa no Hime could hardly believe her husband. Here he was, rejoicing at how prosperous they were all because he saw some smoke. Perhaps he might have been a little too close to the wrong kind of smoke, though, if you know what I mean. After all, their palace was so dilapidated that it could not even be repaired—they were going to have to completely rebuild it. The roof leaked, they were still rationing their food, and their belongings had become worn out and threadbare. She was the Queen, dammit; she was supposed to be living in luxury and having people wait on her. They were supposed to be the upper crust—the elite. Instead they were barely any better off than the farmers who grubbed around in the dirt! How could Oho Sazaki claim that they were at all prosperous?
But to all of these accusations, Oho Sazaki merely replied that as the sovereign, if the people are prosperous, then the ruler can’t help but be prosperous as well. And even though the provincial administrators were starting to petition the court to once again allow them to start collecting taxes in goods and labor so that they could repair their administrative buildings, still, Oho Sazaki held off for just a little bit longer to give the people time to fully recover. Eventually, though, with life back on track, he did reinstate policies of forced labor and taxation, roughly six years after he first noticed the problem.
I may not need to mention this, but this whole thing seems quite dubious an account, and it is filled with language that is very continental in its outlook and thinking. Clearly later Chroniclers were placing into Oho Sazaki’s mouth a very Sinified explanation for his actions, describing him in terms that well-read scholars would recognize as aspects of the coveted sage-kings of old, following the Way of Heaven. It is possible that this was just the 7th and 8th century language for describing the way that Oho Sazaki no Mikoto was adored as a wise ruler. It is also entirely possible that he was dealing with things like drought and famine, but perhaps not for six years—that may be an exaggeration to just fill in some of the dates.
Whatever the facts may have been, the Truth that the Chroniclers wanted to convey was just how much he earned his posthumous name of “Nintoku”. The first character, “Nin” actually means duty or responsibility—literally carrying a burden. The second character, Toku, is the same one seen in the name “Tokugawa”, as in the Edo period shoguns, and it means “virtue” or even “benevolent”. Duty and Virtue—that is the name that later generations would ascribe to this sovereign based on the stories that were told about him.
Stories of his virtue weren’t limited to the austerity measures he imposed on himself in times of need for his people though. The Chronicles also talk about his projects and great works. For instance, the water-slash-irrigation works he had performed, such as building a channel in the plains north of the palace. Now, granted, this seems to be fairly common stuff for a ruler and a modern day comparison might be, I don’t know, something along the lines of a large infrastructure project. Where we might invest in roads, electricity, and broadband, back then it was more often than not an investment in water. Either ponds, to hold water, or channels to help get water from point A to point B, thus opening up more land for cultivation. Since land—and the rice it produced—was wealth, this was directly contributing to the bottom line of his people.Of course, it doesn’t hurt that continental sage kings were also praised for the ways in which they tamed the waters. In their case it was usually the Yellow River or the Yangtze, whose banks would regularly overflow and flood the surrounding areas if not kept in check, but nonetheless I think we can safely assume that the focus on water projects was anything but accidental.
Now this period likely had plenty of water works to focus on. You may remember how I mentioned that Kawachi province was once the home to a large bay that stretched from the mountains to a small strip along the inland sea shore between the areas of the modern Yamato and Yodo Rivers. This bay emptied out around the port of modern Ohosaka, where it joined the Seto Inland Sea. Over the centuries, however, it silted in, and the shallow, estuarine bay likely became more of a lake by Kofun times. This process continued as it likely became more of a swamp, and eventually a marsh and then dry land. No doubt as that happened, workers would, on the one hand, be needed to convert the new lands into rice fields, but there would also need to be works to help move the water, draining swampy areas and irrigating those that were too dry, while also preventing unexpected or excess flooding.
All that to say that controlling the water was more than just an ancient form of virtue-signaling: It was dealing with a real problem. And some times things required a little extra intervention.
For example, one of the problems that the Kawachi plain no doubt had as it silted up was that it was still extremely low-lying terrain. Since it silted up it was likely just at or even slightly below sea level. And so it no doubt wouldn’t take much flooding along the Yodo river to spill over and down into those low-lying areas. Given the numerous tributaries that feed into the Yodo River before it dumps out into the Seto Inland Sea, it is easy to understand how this may have been a quite thorny problem. And so a decision was made to build up an embankment along the river to help keep it from spilling over. This was called the Mamuta embankment, and tradition seems to indicate that it went from Neyagawashi, in the north, down to somewhere around the Asahi district of modern Ohosaka. A portion of this embankment is even thought to lie behind the main shrine building of Tsutsumine Jinja—“Tsutsumi” meaning “embankment” in Japanese.
Work on the embankment seemed to be going well except for two areas where they had continual problems, as no matter what they did the embankment kept rupturing. Workers and overseers on the project were at a loss for what to do and turned to Oho Sazaki no Oho Kimi to figure something out.
And here is where Oho Sazaki used decidedly traditional methods to solve the problem. After giving the matter some thought, he apparently slept on it. And the next morning he awoke refreshed, but also with a potential answer to this thorny problem, as apparently he had been visited at night by the spirit of the river. Of course, the River Kami didn’t bring a new form of hydrological engineering, nor did it promise to hold back the flood waters itself. No, rather the kami demanded a sacrifice. And not just any sacrifice, mind you—you couldn’t just ride over to the nearest village, find a couple of unlucky stiffs and throw them into the river. No, these two were specific, named individuals. The first was Musashi no Kowakubi—aka Mr. Strong Neck of Musashi province. The other was a local man, Kawachi no Mamuta no Muraji no Koromo no Ko—aka Mr. Garment Child of the noble Mamuta clan of Kawachi.
I know we’ve talked about this rather morbid practice before, known as hito-bashira. It was the idea that, in extreme cases, a human being might be sacrificed in order to help prop up or protect a building or location. Of course, it should be noted that many of those locations eventually were identified as being haunted by the very spirits of the people who had been sacrificed in the first place, so I’m not sure that one could say this was in any way a sound architectural practice. Furthermore it is unclear just how often this practice was actually carried out vice simply stories that it happened. Still, that appears to be a part of the tradition that we see here.
Now Musashi no Kowakubi was a devout and loyal individual, from all we can gather, and he appears to have accepted his fate with some amount of acquiescence, grace, and dignity. They say that even though he wept, he jumped into the waters himself and drowned. That was in the area of the Asahi district of modern Ohosaka, or so tradition states, and there is a rock and a sign back in one of the neighborhoods there commemorating the incident at what is called Kowakubi no Taema—Kowakubi’s Gap.
Meanwhile, it seems that Koromo no Ko was a bit more hesitant. He apparently was not convinced by the sovereign’s dream and demanded proof of the River Kami’s divine nature. He made the claim that whatever kami had whispered in the ear of the sovereign as he was dreaming it was not actually the kami of the river. And so when we was called to sacrifice himself he showed up with a couple of calabash gourds.
Now no doubt the officials who were there to oversee the ritual were a bit confused, but Koromo no Ko quickly explained his logic. The gourds were not meant, as one might initially assume, as some kind of ancient floatation device to help him stay afloat when he went in. Rather the two gourds would be his test to ensure that it really was the river kami who demanded his sacrifice. He said to those that were gathered there: “If this river-god is a true god, then it will sink these calabashes, and I will enter of my own accord. But if they do not sink, then this kami is not a true god and why would I waste my life in vain?”
And so saying he threw the two guards into the river. Immediately a whirlwind formed, and it seemed that some force was trying to pull or perhaps push the gourds under, but it was no use—they eventually floated away on the wide waters. Given the evidence before them, the officials agreed to let Koromo no Ko go free and then they eventually did finish the embankment without need for further sacrifice.
The area where Koromo no Ko was going to be sacrificed be came known as Koromo no ko no Taema and is traditionally held to be around the site of modern Taema bridge in Neyagawa.
Of course, beyond just the implications for how the water works fit in with Oho Sazaki’s status as a continental style sage-king, this story really has some fascinating details. First off, there appear to have been no recriminations against Oho Sazaki for getting it wrong. They don’t even touch on the fact that he almost sent a man to his death. Apparently that is just how things worked and sometimes you got a sign that didn’t work out as it should have. His reputation seems untarnished by this incident.
Second, it is notable that there seems to be no particular blame or questioning of Kowakubi’s sacrifice. If anything, I would suggest that his sacrifice was probably considered the cultural norm—or at least the cultural norm that the court wanted to emphasize. If your sovereign called you to do something dangerous and foolhardy that might require you to give up your own life, it was perfectly acceptable—even admirable—to be loyal to a fault. The tragedy of the possibility that such a sacrifice wasn’t actually needed doesn’t really play into the narrative as far as I can tell, which memorializes both men equally.
And that’s the other side of the coin. Despite the fact that Koromo no Ko appears to have proved Oho Sazaki wrong, his cleverness is rewarded, and he is able to continue living. He even gets a section of the embankment named after him, just as Kowakubi did.
Of course, I think I know who I’d rather be in this particular story, but I still wonder how people of the time saw it.
For these projects, Oho Sazaki conscripted local labor, but also foreigners—as in previous reigns we see Men of Silla, supposedly part of a diplomatic envoy, conscripted and put to work on the Mamuta embankment. Again I have to wonder about just how much of a “diplomatic” mission this really was or if these were more captives—people enslaved during raids on the peninsula.
Other works included canals, such as the one in Kurikuma in Yamashiro. But it wasn’t just water that was important. The Nihon Shoki mentions a variety of public works and infrastructure projects: bridges, roads, irrigation, etc. Oho Sazaki even established granaries at Mamuta for the first time—possibly taking advantage of land reclaimed by the embankment.
An interesting note is that the vast majority of all of this building activity takes place quite specifically in the Nihon Shoki—perhaps the most Sinified of the Chronicles. The Kojiki, built as it was around the performance of these tales at court, seems much more focused on the torrid love affairs, the likes of which would no doubt make for near perfect daytime TV serials. Meanwhile, the Kujiki runs through the story with an almost montage-like pacing, providing highlights of a few of the key stories, but still skipping over a lot of the public works projects that the Nihon Shoki enjoys so much.
Much of this preference in the Nihon Shoki only seems to further emphasize its authors’ preference towards a certain type of Continental narrative. While they all clearly praise Oho Sazaki’s virtues, and many pull from the Big Book of Confucian Cliches to demonstrate it, only the Nihon Shoki seems to translate so much of it into the kind of work that would be expected of a continental sovereign. Unfortunately, that also brings into question just what sources were they drawing on for this information, and how much of it was just propaganda stuck in there to fill up pages—and decades—with material is hard to say.
Likewise, the Nihon Shoki doesn’t just focus on the internal issues that Oho Sazaki was dealing with, but also with the external foreign relations as well. There were raids on Silla, and the so-called tribute—probably just the normal diplomatic gifts that were part of the international trade system—from a variety of places. They even claim that there was tribute from Goguryeo and from the Jin court itself.
Many of these stories are fanciful, and don’t really say much about Oho Sazaki no Mikoto. For example,at one point, in the Nihon Shoki’s account of this reign, we are given the story of Lord Chyu, grandson of the King of Baekje. We discussed this in the episode on Katsuraki no Sotsuhiko. Lord Chyu had been extremely disrespectful to Ki no Tsuno no Sukune, and was sent back to Japan with Sotsuhiko in chains. Of course, rather than going to the court he made his escape and sought refuge with Nishikoro no Obito no Koroshi, where he claimed that he had been pardoned and asked to be taken in for “maintenance”. Eventually the sovereign forgave him.
One day a strange bird was caught and offered up to Oho Sazaki no Ohokimi, but nobody seems to have known what it was. Lord Chyu, however, identified it as what he called a “kuchi”, which was swift and could easily be tamed. And so Oho Sazaki gave the bird—which may have been a goshawk, or taka—to Lord Chyu to train, and this seems to be the first account of falconry in the archipelago. Eventually they set him up at the village of Takaama. Now Aston translated this as “Hawk” and “Sweet”, but I can’t help but notice that our fishermen from previously were also called “Ama”. So is this then the village of “Hawk Fishermen”? Regardless of the precise etymology, Lord Chyu is held as the founder of the Takaama-be, the group presumably set up to supply falconers for the court, though for a long time it seems that the very best falcons themselves were imported from the continent.
Some of these stories we may put in a later episode, telling the exploits of various individuals and some of the wonders from the period, but for now let’s keep an eye to the works of Oho Sazaki no Ohokimi, the sovereign of Yamato.
Perhaps one of the more surprising things from this account is the mention of a type of storehouse, but not one for grain. Rather, it is in this account that we get the first mention of an early icehouse. It seems that one of the royal princes, Nukada no Oho Naka tsu Hiko, who was apparently conflated in other stories with the late royal brother, Oho Yamamori, was out hunting in the country of Tsuke when he looked down from top of a mountain or hill onto a nearby moor where he noticed a shape like a hut. He sent a messenger to go take a look at it and the messenger told him it was some kind of muro, which is to say a pit dwelling. Specifically it was an ice-muro. The people of that land had learned to dig a deep hole—over ten feet deep, compared to a normal muro which was typically only several feet deep—and over that giant hole they had placed a thatched roof, which from ground level made it look just like any other hut. In the winter time they would lay down thick layers of reed grass on dirt floor and then ice would be stacked upon the mat. Doing so, they found they could keep ice even through the heat of the summer months, and during the hottest months of the year they could take the ice and place it in water or sake to create cool drinks. News of this was taken straightaway to the court, and Oho Sazaki instituted his own ice muro and rules to always store ice from the last month of winter until the second month of spring, when the ice would melt away.
This is really incredible when you think of it—we so often equate ice in our drinks with technology like refrigeration and here they had ice for their drinks back in at least the 8th century. Pretty remarkable if you think about it.
And there is one last major work that we are told Oho Sazaki no Ohokimi instituted, and that was to choose the size of his own tomb. He is said to have sited it at Mozu, or Mozuno. The Nihon Shoki says that construction started in the 67th year of his reign, and that he died twenty years later.
Now it is quite probable that the dates are an exaggeration, but the idea that he was responsible for his own tomb, not so much. After all, as tombs grew larger and more elaborate, it must have taken more and more time to build them. Timber and labor that a future sovereign may not wish to lavish on his predecessor, regardless of his filial piety. It makes a lot more sense to build your own tomb, so you have it just as you like it.
And, if tradition is correct, he certainly got his money’s worth. Many believe Oho Sazaki, aka Nintoku Tennou, to be buried in Daisen Kofun, which is not only the largest kofun in Japan, but it is one of if not the largest manmade burial structures on the planet. Because of its shape, it may not seem as large in some contexts, but it is only three meters shorter than that great pyramid of Giza, and over twice as long. It stands with the Great Pyramids and the tomb of the Emperor Qin Shihuangdi as one of the three largest tombs in the world.
It must have been quite the site, and a bit of memento mori, being erected, as it was, during Oho Sazaki’s own lifetime. It isn’t exactly sitting directly outside of Naniwa palace itself, but it was still likely a well known landmark pretty early on in its construction.
However, very little is actually known about Daisen Kofun—we aren’t even sure if it is the tomb mentioned in the Nihon Shoki or not. It is possible that it belongs to one of the other sovereigns of the era. Unfortunately, as the supposed burial site of one of the ancestors of the Imperial Family of Japan, the site has been off-limits to any but the most cursory of surface examinations. Nonetheless, excavations do occasionally occur, often as part of some kind of repair, and recently teams have been given the green light to perform new excavations on the tomb, though don’t expect them to be opening up any treasure rooms. From what I can tell, the excavations seem focused on the structure of the tomb, which is still largely covered in the forest that has grown up on it over the centuries, and it will examine some previously discovered features, such as rock pavement and possible looking for more haniwa, or clay figures. I haven’t seen any indications that they are actually going to disturb the burial chamber, however—whoever lies interred in that monumental structure shall continue their slumber unhindered.
Still, this is really fascinating, and we’ll be waiting to see what is found. It is unlikely that anything will directly state “Oho Sazaki sleeps here,” but one can hope. More likely they’ll be looking to get greater insights into the construction of one of the most massive man-made structures of the pre-industrial era. Good luck to all of those working on the project!
With that, I think we will bring this episode to a close. I wanted to focus on Oho Sazaki and some of those things that helped garner him a reputation as a wise and virtuous ruler. There are still plenty more stories to tell from this period, though. For one thing, we hardly touched on the drama in the “hinter palace”, and it certainly seems that love and lust were high on the list of things people were interested in knowing about the ancient sovereigns. And no doubt the nobles’ own desire for a genealogical link to the royal family only helped fuel interest.
And then there are the fantastical and heroic stories and tales. Many of these are focused on other players, and the sovereign and the court is merely the backdrop. There are numerous stories of wars, fighting, magic, and revenge from beyond the grave. So we’ll get into that as well.
But that’s all for this episode, so until next time, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site, kofi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the link over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
Also, feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you and your ideas.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

- (2020). Website: 仁徳天皇陵古墳百科. Last visited 14 October 2021. 文化観光局博物館学芸課. https://www.city.sakai.lg.jp/kanko/hakubutsukan/mozukofungun/kofun.html
Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1

Episode 49: Three Brothers, One Throne

September 16, 2021 Joshua Badgley

Crown Prince Uji no Waki Iratsuko (菟道稚郎子), as imagined in the 19th century.

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When Homuda Wake died, we are told that he left his youngest son, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, as Crown Prince. However, there were still two other brothers with a claim to the throne, and not everyone was committed to upholding their father’s wishes. This episode we discuss the succession crisis that arose after Homuda Wake’s death. We also try to provide a little external context, looking beyond the story in the Chronicles. Finally, we briefly touch on a UNESCO World Heritage Site associated with this whole episode.

The Dual Kingship Model

One of the discussion points in this episode is the dual kingship model, as presented by Kishimoto Naofuji in his article, “Dual Kingship in the Kofun Period as Seen from the Keyhole Tombs.” He builds on the previous theory of gendered co-rulers—the Hiko-Hime-sei—suggesting that the co-regents weren’t necessarily gendered, but simply had different functions. He explains this through the grave goods and the shapes of the various tombs: While they all have the same general “round-keyhole” or “前方後円” shape, there are slight differences in the tiers and shape, such as various protrusions, that seem to come from different “lineages” of tomb construction. Since these tombs are roughly equal in size and therefore assumed to be roughly equal in status, and the two lines continue through successive tombs, he suggests that they were for royal elites with slightly different functions.

Of course, it is hard to see any such model in the continental references. Nowhere do they explicitly reference multiple “kings”, though in the Wei Chronicles they do mention someone who helped with the administration while Himiko handled more sacred and mystical duties. One reason for this lack in the external sources may be that the continental chronicles just didn’t have a full understanding of Wa politics and therefore assumed that they governed under rules similar to the ones they themselves knew.

It is also possible that this whole thing is wrong. Without access to most of the kingly kofun, we may never know for certain who is buried there—and even with access there is likely to be debate. But it does keep us on our toes and should be a good reminder not to trust everything that the Chroniclers throw at us.

Prince Ō Yamamori (大山守皇子) and Prince Nukata Ō Naka tsu Hiko　(額田大中彦皇子)

The connection between the prince known as Ō Yamamori and Prince Nukata no Ō Naka tsu Hiko is still somewhat uncertain. It seems clear that they were conflated into a single character by the 8th century chroniclers, but it is quite possible that in truth, their stories were combined at a later date. This seems further emphasized by the fact that in the story about Ō no Sukune and the rice-lands of Yamato, the Prince in question is referenced consistently as Nukata (or Nukada) no Ō Naka tsu Hiko. However, in the scene after this, it is Prince Ō Yamamori who is referenced. The placement and the grudge would seem to indicate that the story of the rice-lands incident added to the frustration that Prince Ō Yamamori felt with his position, and there is even a mention that the reason Prince Ō Naka tsu Hiko felt entitled to the lands was because they belonged to the “Yamamori”.

However, I would be remiss not to note that there is a later story—some 60+ years later—that also mentions Prince Nukata no Ō Naka tsu Hiko. This is many decades after Prince Ō Yamamori’s death. Unfortunately, that simply leaves me with more questions.

Regardless, we maintain here Aston’s assertion that the two were actually one and the same, with Ō Yamamori being the title (Great Mountain Protector) and Nukata no Ō Naka tsu Hiko may have been the prince’s actual name, such as it is.

Ujigami Shrine (宇治上神社)

This shrine is well late of our narrative, as we don’t have evidence for it until some time between the 8th and 10th centuries, but it still is interesting and it is connected to our story because it enshrines three of the individuals we discuss: Homuda Wake, aka Ōjin Tennō, and two of his sons: Uji no Waki Iratsuko and Ōsazaki no Mikoto. On top of that it is an UNESCO World Heritage Site, and if you are ever in Uji city, you should check it out.

The honden, or main worship hall, of Ujigami Shrine—one of the oldest extant examples of shrine architecture, in this case dating back to the Heian period. This hall is a national treasure and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 49: Three brothers, one throne.
Quick content warning upfront in this one—there is some brief mention of suicide in this episode, as well as other forms of violence in this episode. We’ll add notes about it to the episode description when it is released if you need more specific details.
Also, before we get going a quick shout out to Craig and Shinanoki for donating to support what we do here. Also thanks to Shinanoki to making the suggestion to open “memberships” on Ko-Fi, which is a new feature, so now you can either drop us a one time payment or set up a monthly donation. That is all over at Ko-fi.com, that’s “K”-“O”-“DASH”-“F”-“I”, “dotcom”, “Slash” “sengokudaimyo”.
More on that at the end of this episode.So, when we left off at the end of our last episode, Homuda Wake was dead. The sovereign who had ruled over Yamato through so many eventful years was no more. Over the course of his reign, Yamato’s influence on the peninsula had expanded, along with its influence on the rest of the archipelago. Weavers, seamstresses, smiths, and more had made their way from the continent to the islands where the Wa lived, spurring advancements in a wide swath of different fields. The islands now had horses, and people could read and write. And one thing that seems true around the world: reading and writing greatly increase the speed at which a people can import new ideas, thoughts, and philosophy.
One thing was for certain: things were changing, and fast. Like the parable of the frog in a pot of water, we don’t always notice change until well after it has happened. In fact, we often tend to see change as though it wasn’t change at all—we project back on the past an image consistent with what we know. Maybe we make some comparative notes between how it was when we were growing up and how it is today, but there is a tendency to assume that anything quote-unquote “beyond living memory” was just some version of life like our grandparents told us about.
How that’s relative here is that we are watching change happen over some two hundred years—from the end of the Yayoi period in the 3rd century and the mention of Queen Himiko to the current era in our story. For comparison, as of this episode, recorded in September 2021, the US constitution is roughly 233 years old – and the Edo period in Japanese history lasted for a little over two and a half centuries, depending on how you count it. And both those periods have been marked by enormous change as well.
During the 200-year span in our narrative, we have seen the emergence of small countries, or perhaps proto-states, across the islands. It may not be fully correct to assume that they had complete control, even within the borders attributed to them, however. The polities that arose from the Yayoi period were based on a practice of wet-rice cultivation and trade that saw them spread out the plains and river deltas, as well as along the coastal regions, but at the same time various other lifeways continued in the mountains, which even then made up the majority of the archipelago’s landmass. Given that most fertile plains in Japan are around the deltas where rivers empty into the sea or large lakes, like Lake Biwa, it seems quite understandable that the waterways would also be an important means of travel and communication, which only further draws a distinction between the plains and the mountains.
Which isn’t to say there weren’t population centers built around other commodities, such as the jade-producing regions in the Koshi region, but these appear to have been exceptions, rather than the rule. Even the various mountain communities interacted with the rice-growing cultures on a regular basis, though they are clearly depicted as being outsiders.
Of all of these early states, Yamato appears to have been the largest and most powerful of these entities, but all the same it is questionable how much direct control it had beyond its own borders. Control, however, is different from power. Levers of power are complex, even today. There are many types of power that any individual or group can access and deploy to their benefit. Legal and military power are the ones we probably think of most often when we think of a modern state or country, but influence can be achieved through other means as well. Religions often wield considerable power through the influence they have on their followers, such that leaders like the Catholic Pope or the Dalai Lama might be seen as highly influential figures on the world stage, despite not having the typical trappings of a state apparatus. Economic and trade networks also create their own levers of power that can influence others. Or you might just be able to use logic and persuasion to get people on your side and to do what you want them to do. And then there is simply the force of tradition, and traditional relationships, which may generate influence between groups. There are so many ways that one can influence others, it isn’t just about being the person at the top of the legal pyramid. After all, what is a leader if nobody decides to follow them?
And whatever else we may say about the state of Yamato, it does appear to have become a leader in the archipelago. This had likely been accumulating through a variety of means, one of them possibly being the spread of the cult of Mt. Miwa and a burial ritual for elites based around monumental tomb structures – the giant kofun that we’ve been talking about, which by this time period were reaching truly impressive sizes. Whether this cultural practice was part and parcel of the spread of direct Yamato power, or a separate influence, I can’t really say, though they may have encouraged one another. Either way, as this ritual and the knowledge of its specifics was based in the area of Yamato, that seems to have given the Yamato elites a leg up in their dealings across the archipelago. These relationships, properly cultivated, and reinforced through marriage politics across the various countries, had grown into something more—perhaps a kind of confederation.
A similar process seems to have been going on over on the peninsula, within the areas of the Samhan, the three Han of Ma, Jin, and Byeon. Here, we know a little from the accounts in the Records of the Three Kingdoms, including the Wei Chronicles, as well as the stories from the annals of the Silla and Baekje kingdoms that eventually were recorded in works like the Samguk Sagi and the Samguk Yusa. In particular, in the Baekje Annals we are told that there was a single ruler, or King, of the Mahan confederation, but that position was replaced by Baekje as they began to conquer, assimilate, and subjugate their neighbors. Silla, we are told, grew up out of an alliance of six members of the Jinhan, eventually rising to power as the pre-eminent state in that region. Byeonhan looks to have been in a similar process, with various mentions of a King of the states known as Kara, or Kaya, as well as a ruler of Nimna—whether or not those were the same individual is hard to say, but the Chronicles seem to suggest that there were different positions. Kara, however, seems to have been late to the game—perhaps it never had the external impetus of others to bring the various communities together, or perhaps, trapped as it was between Silla, Baekje, and the Wa of the archipelago, it was pulled in too many directions, given that it was the crossroads across which the others would often march in their conflicts. This is a position the entire peninsula would find itself in, later, but for now it appears to have affected the growing states of Kara the most.
So, looking at the details of how these states on the peninsula consolidated their power, it is reasonable to assume that a similar process was at work in the archipelago – although the Chronicles, being the official record of the Yamato court written centuries after the fact, don’t go into the same level of detail of how their own sausage was made. This power consolidation wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision on any one person’s part. There was no great unifier to point to who was bringing these states together—no Oda Nobunaga with his armies, nor a Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. At least, not yet. And still, a shared culture was being built through various rituals and ties across the various countries of the islands.
Early on, we see this not only in the monumental tombs, but in the distribution of elite goods. Bronze mirrors seem to have been the most popular such item, at least early on. These were likely acquired from the continent, from groups like the Wei and the early Jin courts, and then distributed by a central authority, whom many assume to be the Yamato court. In addition to those acquired from the continent, local copies were also produced. The importance of these mirrors is further emphasized in the stories, such as when various local lords bring out their finery to meet envoys of Yamato, or even in the depictions of how Yamato’s own missions were decked out. Furthermore, the mirror’s place in the legend of Amaterasu also seems to be key.
But as the centuries went on, the 4th century, into the 5th, saw another item, also mentioned in the story of Amaterasu, which we start to see more of, even as incidents of bronze mirrors begin to decline. These are iron swords, and as we start to see more of them in tombs, especially as the bronze mirrors diminish, we can make some assumptions as to where the people of the archipelago were placing their values. Mirrors may represent ritual authority, but they also represent a kind of wealth. Mirrors have a use, but having many mirrors seems to be more about strict wealth—and access to the kinds of continental goods that would make someone important in the early periods. Swords, along with armor and other tools of war, are also signs of wealth, as iron was still largely obtained through continental trade, but these have a much more direct use, as well. After all, arm 100 people with mirrors and, unless you are constructing an Archimedean death ray, they aren’t going to do a whole lot in a fight. Arm those same 100 people with swords and armor, and you have a formidable fighting force, especially when previous forms of arms and armor consisted largely of bronze or stone and lacquered wood. It seems that there was, in this period, a greater emphasis on military might and achievements.
Which isn’t to say that it was all peace and love before—we certainly have examples of the kind of mass violence seen in inter-group conflict early on, but this doesn’t appear as one of the defining aspects of the social elite as it would come to be later on. This change may be understandable given the turmoil that had taken place on the continent. Goguryeo had destroyed the old commanderies, which no doubt caused disruption in the trade networks. That could help explain increased incidents of Wa raiders along the coast of the peninsula—though for all we know this may have been something that had been going on for much longer, with nobody around to record it. It is also possible that the concept of a warrior elite was coming over from the peninsula with waves of immigrants, many of whom were captives or refugees; victims of the violence that seems to have characterized this period.
Evidence of immigrants can be found across the archipelago. For one thing, immigrants are tied to many places in the archipelago, and specifically to the current dynasty. We’ve talked a little bit about immigrant influences in places like the country of Toyo, as well as Kawachi, Izumo, and Koshi on the main island of Honshu. Indeed, Kawachi, in the south of modern Ohosaka, is a hotspot in the chronicles for immigrant presence, and it seems to have been a the center of activity, as that is where this dynasty‘s tombs, and many of their supposed palaces, were located. The narrative of the royal family even claims ties back to Silla princes and there is evidence that they may have also had marriage ties to the Baekje royal line.
We’ve also heard about artisans brought over from the peninsula to revolutionize weaving and other crafts. In the 5th century we will see the rise of sue-ware pottery, a kind of high temperature fired stoneware that likely came over from Kara. You see the same techniques adopted in Silla for their pottery around the same time. These techniques required extremely high temperatures, requiring a new kind of kiln, built upon a hillside. These same high-temperature techniques would have been useful in the process of extracting iron, necessary for all of the arms and armor we are seeing.
But of course, when it comes to pottery, it isn’t just peninsular style stoneware that we see—local traditions were also evolving. In particular, we see more and varied styles of haniwa, those terracotta clay figures that adorned so many of the kofun, particularly the monumental kingly kofun. Eventually these figurines would come to be important windows in to what life actually looked like at this time.
And as we are talking about the march of time and things that were eventually forgotten, I’m also reminded of Professor Kishimoto Naofumi’s dual kingship model. We talked about this a little bit previously, but this model states that for a time, there were actually two sovereigns: one who ruled as a sacred authority, interpreting the signs of the kami and directing the spiritual well-being of the land, while another dealt with more secular matters, having to do with things like administration of the government as well as any military activities. This goes back to the description in the Wei Chronicles of how Queen Himiko ruled through her spiritual power, and others seemed to be handling the day to day work of administering Yamato, and it is further indicated in the shapes of the kofun themselves. In fact, Prof. Kishimoto points to aspects of their shapes like certain protrusions, and the number of tiers, that appear to show at least two parallel lineages for tomb construction. I wanted to bring this back up, because otherwise we get just the view of the Chronicles, which crams all of the rulers into a single, largely unbroken, patrilineal descent model, either because the 8th century chroniclers couldn’t conceive of anything different from their current model or possibly because they had drunk too much of the continental KoolAid in regards to what was a quote-unquote “proper” model of kingship.
So here we have the possibility for two separate lines stretching back to at least Himiko. When, with Homuda Wake, the power of Yamato moved from the Nara basin out to Kawachi, with its greater access to the sea, that could be a demonstration of another chiefly line taking control, or it could be indicative of a desire for easier access to the waterways that led to the peninsula and the rest of the continent. Either way it pulls the sacral ruler further west, away from the holy mountain of Mt. Miwa, and seems to turn the face of Yamato towards the trade connecting it with the continent.
And that brings us back to where we are in the narrative. The sovereign, Homuda Wake, was dead. His body may have been laid out for a time—mogari—before being entombed in one of the kingly kofun. Tradition says that this was Kondayama Kofun, and based on the size it was likely constructed well before his death, as some have estimated that construction of something that large would have taken at least a decade. Tomb construction was probably a business all unto itself, constantly in motion, organizing the labor, resources, etc. for both the tombs of the rulers but also other elites across the archipelago. The construction would likely have been taking place as the backdrop to Homuda Wake’s court.
Now from what we are told, the succession issue after Homuda Wake passed should have been pretty cut and dried. After all, Homuda Wake had set up his son, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, as the Crown Prince. As for his other two eligible sons, he had actually set them up as well. Oho Yamamori had been put in charge of the mountain areas, while Oho Sazaki, whom you may recall from last episode gave Homuda Wake the answer he had been looking for in terms of his succession decision, was made the Assistant to the Crown Prince and put in charge of administration—which sounds vaguely similar to idea that he may have been set up as a co-ruler, per professor Kishimoto’s model, while his brother, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, was set up to succeed Homuda Wake directly.
Whatever was actually going on, of course the story in the Chronicle maintains the story of a single throne and a single ruler, and Uji no Waki Iratsuko was supposed to be that ruler. But, as you might have guessed, that isn’t how everyone saw things. Now Oho Sazaki had no problem with this arrangement, we are told. He immediately turned over the reigns of government to his brother. Uji no Waki Iratsuko, on the other hand, well he didn’t actually want to take the reigns of power himself. He looked at his older brother, and everything he was doing to run the country, and he tried to turn everything over to him. Oho Sazaki wouldn’t hear of it, of course—their father had made his decision, and Oho Sazaki was determined that they would stick to it.
Meanwhile, their eldest brother, Oho Yamamori, aka Nukada no Oho Naka tsu Hiko, had other ideas. He wasn’t at all pleased with how things had turned out, and he was more than willing to take matters into his own hands.
The first we hear about Oho Yamamori gathering power is in the Nihon Shoki, and it is something of an ancient legal dispute. You see, he attempted to use his position to take administration of the official rice-lands and granaries in Yamato from a member of the court, Ou no Sukune, claiming that the lands had originally been a part of the Mountain Warden, or Yamamori, land. As Oho Yamamori, he believed that he should have governance over those lands and how the granaries were run. From a western perspective, this is like requesting the keys to the royal vault. From at least the 8th century, when the Chronicles were written, and probably going back to the early structures of wealth in the rice-growing Yayoi culture, control of the production and distribution of rice was one of the main features of elite administration. Owning rice-land, which is to say being entitled to the taxes on that land, as well as handling the granaries where taxed rice was stored would provide a tremendous income boost, as throughout most of Japan’s history, it was common for the one controlling the taxes to take some amount for themselves, as long as the state got what it was owed.
And so it is little wonder that Ou no Sukune was taken aback at having these fields and granaries removed from his administration. He went Homuda Wake’s designated heir, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, to submit a report and ask for a ruling, but Uji no Waki Iratsuko delegated—perhaps showing that he was cut out for leadership after all. He sent Ou no Sukune to his older brother, Oho Sazaki no Mikoto, to make the report to him, instead. Of course, Oho Sazaki had been administering the government for his father already, so he knew what needed to be done. In this case he went to a man named Maro, the ancestor of the Yamato no Atahe. He asked Maro if it was truly the case that that the granaries and rice-land originally belonged to the administration of the Yamamori. This was probably because much of the early Wa legal system seems to have been based on precedent and tradition. It is, of course, unclear how such precedent would be passed down originally—perhaps there were specialists among groups like the Katari-be who memorized not only genealogies but important events as well. After the advent of writing, court families would maintain their own diaries and records of what had happened, and why, and these would be passed down, creating private repositories of precedent that helped cement their family’s status and importance to the court.
In this case, however, Maro was at a loss, but he suggested that they contact his younger brother, Agoko, whom he was sure would have an answer for them. Unfortunately, Agoko was off on a mission in Kara, and so Ou no Sukune was sent to recall him. Ou was given command of some 80 fishermen—one might say a boatload of fishermen—from Awaji to act as oarsmen. There seems to be a correlation that the more oarsmen, the faster a boat will travel, and so this seems to indicate he was sent off with all haste.
Ou no Sukune made it to Kara and found Agoko and brought him back to the court. Agoko, who must have been quite the student of the old stories, told the court what he knew. According to Dr. John Bentley’s translation in the Sendai Kuji Hongi, aka the Kujiki, Agoko said: “Tradition says that during the reign of the Great King who ruled from the Makimuku Tamaki Palace—which is to say Ikume Iribiko, aka Keikou Tennou, the 11th sovereign and part of the previous dynasty—the authority was given to Heir to the Throne, Oho Tarashi Hiko, who established the granaries of Yamato. At that time, the edict read, ’All granaries of Yamato are to be the granaries of the Great King and not the property of the child of a Great King. If the Great King is not in power, then the granaries are not his.’ Therefore this land is not the land of the Yamamori.”
While that is likely an insertion by the Chroniclers—after all, we have no evidence of written edicts from the time of Oho Tarashi Hiko, for one thing—the answer that Agoko was giving was pretty clear: The granaries and rice land all were owned by the actual sovereign—the Oho Kimi, or Great King—so Prince Oho Naka tsu Hiko – aka Oho Yamamori - could get bent. Sure, Uji no Waki Iratsuko and Oho Sazaki were still vacillating on who should actually be running things, but it wasn’t Oho Yamamori , so he couldn’t just go around demanding control of the rice lands and granaries.
Oho Yamamori was at a loss. He apparently didn’t have anyone on his side to refute Agoko’s argument, and so he dropped his case. Specifically we are told that he “realized that he was in the wrong”, and because of his contrition his brother, Oho Sazaki, forgave him and didn’t do anything to further punish him for his actions.
The story goes on that Oho Yamamori was fuming. First, he had been passed over to inherit the throne by his father, Homuda Wake, and now he had been rice-blocked by his two younger brothers. *He* was the eldest and *he* was entitled to sit on that throne, and he would do whatever it took to make sure that came true. And so he started to raise an army in secret to kill his brother, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, the heir to the throne.
“Secret”, however, is a relative term. Word of Oho Yamamori’s plans reached their middle brother, Oho Sazaki no Mikoto, who immediately went and told Uji no Waki Iratsuko, who in turn raised up an army of his own. The Kojiki tells us that these men were concealed along the banks of what may have been the Kizu River, south of Uji, and that curtains were placed at the top of a nearby mountain or hill, to make it look like Waki Iratsuko was there, holding court. They even dressed a decoy up and placed him on a dais so that it would further seem like it was Waki no Irtasuko up there. The Nihon Shoki and the Kujiki suggest that this was the location of Waki Iratsuko’s own palace—hence the “Uji” in his name. Either way, Oho Yamamori approached with his men, expecting to catch him unawares.
Meanwhile, Waki Iratsuko had put on a disguise. This is one feature that all of the Chronicles agree on—he disguised himself as a common ferryman and set himself up on the side of the river. Some accounts even claim that he greased the boats to make them more slippery. And it wasn’t only Waki Iratsuko who had disguised himself—Oho Yamamori had concealed his troops and moved them in secret, while he, himself, wore clothing over his own armor, to hide his martial intentions. When he finally arrived at the river, he looked across and saw what he thought was Waki Iratsuko on the other side. Confident that his victory was a mere boat ride away, Oho Yamamori got into the ferry, not realizing that the commoner running it was none other than his own brother.
Glowing the confidence of a comic book supervillain just before his plans come to fruition, Oho Yamamori posed a cryptic question to the ferryman, asking him if he thought that he could take the “huge enraged boar” on the mountain on the other side. At this the Waki Iratsuko said that he would not take the boar, and then suddenly he tipped the boat, dumping his brother, Oho Yamamori, into the river.
As Oho Yamamori floundered in the river, fighting against the weight of his armor, he begged the ferryman to help him, still not realizing it was his brother. Of course, he was a royal prince, so this wasn’t just some exclamation, but it was sung out in lines of poetry. Or so we are told—that may just have been a narrative device to help remember and recount the dramatic part of the story. Either way, he called out, and, when no help was forthcoming, he tried to swim to shore. As soon as Waki Iratusko had tipped the boat, however, his own men arose on the banks of the river, bows in hand, and they kept Oho Yamamori from reaching either bank before he finally sank beneath the water. Later they would search the river near where he went under and eventually they found him as their poles hit his metal armor, and they dragged his body out of the river at a place known as Kawara, said to be part of modern Kyoutanabe city, just south of Uji. There is a poem of grief attributed to Waki Iratsuko, who *had* just thrown his own brother overboard and watched him drown, after all. Later, he would have Oho Yamamori buried in a tomb on Mt. Nara—traditionally identified as Sakaimedani Kofun, aka Narayama-baka, north of modern Nara city, south of the supposed site of the conflict. Oho Yamamori’s line didn’t end with him, however, and several families traced their lineage back to this figure.
So with that out of the way, one might assume that Uji no Waki Iratsuko had finally come into his own. He had shown that he could raise an army, outsmart a foe, and take the necessary steps to stay in power—even if it meant the death of his own older brother. One assumes he could have used his victory to cement his place in the lineage. And yet… he *still* insisted on making his older brother, Oho Sazaki no Mikoto, take the throne. And Oho Sazaki continued to defer, claiming he didn’t want to go against his father’s wishes. And so for a while there they were, each in their own private homes, which should have become the new court once Homuda Wake passed away, but each refusing to take up the mantle. Waki Iratsuko had his palace up in Uji and Oho Sazaki was probably living in Naniwa—modern Ohosaka.
Things were so bad, that people weren’t sure what to do. For example, one day a fisherman, or “ama” in Japanese, came to the Uji Palace with a mat filled with fresh fish to offer up to the sovereign. He approached Uji no Waki Iratsuko with the gift, since he had been named as Crown Prince and successor by the previous sovereign, Homuda Wake. But Waki Iratsuko refused the gift. “I am not the sovereign,” he told the fisherman, and anyone listening. He insisted that the gift should be presented down river at the Naniwa palace of his brother, Oho Sazaki no Mikoto. This was a journey of probably around 40 km, or 24 miles, and would have taken a day on foot—perhaps not quite so much on the river, but still something of a hike.
And so the fisherman dutifully took his catch down to Naniwa, where he presented it to Ohosazaki no Mikoto, but Oho Sazaki also refused it, just as had his younger brother. He would not go against their father’s orders, and so he commanded the fisherman to head back to Uji no Waki Iratsuko.
Now by this time the day had grown late, and the fish were starting to go bad with all of the travel, and so the fisherman tossed the whole thing and resolved to try again the next day with a new catch.
Sure enough, he caught the fish and wrapped them up, just as before. He went to the palace in Uji, this time prepared to explain that Oho Sazaki had sent him back, but it was no use. Just as before, Uji no Waki Iratsuko insisted that he was not the sovereign and that any offerings had to be made down in Naniwa to Oho Sazaki. Once again the fisherman made the treck, but just as had happened the day before, Oho Sazaki refused, claiming he was not the sovereign. Once again, with all the back and forth, the fish were rotten and no longer good for anyone to eat, and we are told that the fisherman just threw up his hands and wept, for there was nothing else he could do.
From this came a saying: “Ama Nare Ya, Onogamono kara nenaku”—“There is a Fisherman who Weeps on account of his Own Things”.
And it seems like things may have continued on like this, which couldn’t have been good for anybody. Somebody was going to have to budge, but who would it be.
According to the Nihon Shoki, it was Uji no Waki Iratsuko who finally took matters into his own hands. Seeing that his older brother would not give in, and realizing that this couldn’t continue like this or everything would fall apart, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, we are told, took his own life.
As soon as the shocking news reached Waki Iratsuko’s brother, Oho Sazaki, he raced upriver to Uji. As he got there, they were already preparing Waki Iratsuko’s body for burial, and we are told that he was lying in the coffin, dead, when Oho Sazaki arrived, weeping and wailing and pouring out his heart. It seems, however, that Waki Iratsuko was not quite ready to fully leave the mortal plane, however. Though he seemed to be dead as a doornail he suddenly sat bolt upright in his coffin and addressed Oho Sazaki. The zombie prince told his older brother not to grieve, because this was in the best interest of the country, and Waki Iratsuko then asked Oho Sazaki to take Waki Iratsuko’s sister—a daughter of Homuda Wake, but by a different mother than Oho Sazaki—as a wife and to install her in one of the side palaces. After saying all of that, he then fell down dead once more. Tradition states he was buried at Maruyama Kofun in Uji—also just known as Uji-baka—a round keyhole style tomb on the north side of the Uji River in modern Uji city.
And so it was that Oho Sazaki no Mikoto, also known as Nintoku Tennou, finally ascended the throne.
We’ll talk about his reign over the next few episodes, but let’s quickly take a look back at this story. One of the things that struck me as I was reading this in the different sources is that this seems to be one of the stories where there is generally agreement between the various chronicles. It isn’t something that just shows up in one or two, but all three, and the with similar beats in the action, with only small differences in the details. So either they were drawing from the same story or it was a fairly well known and popular one, I would assume.
Still, that doesn’t mean I fully trust all the details. For instance, were they really all siblings, sons of Homuda Wake? Or were they simply separate claimants to the throne? Even if they were all three sons of Homuda Wake, did they all have an equal claim to the throne? We’ve typically seen in the past that there is a single queen whose progeny are then eligible, but here we have three different potential sovereigns from three different queens. It is, of course, possible that the blood ties were fabricated, later, based on an assumption that it was needed to succeed the previous ruler.
Then there is the question of whether or not things were really this cut and dried. It seems like a lot, even when dressed in peasant garb, to assume that Oho Yamamori would not recognize his own brother. Things still have a somewhat fantastical bent to them, though it certainly is possible—the idea of lining the river with your men and having them shoot at someone so they could not swim to either bank seems like a tactic that someone might try.
Even if we take the whole thing at face value, though, it says something about just how perilous and chaotic the period after a sovereign’s death could be. Without a clear tradition that laid out who would succeed, fights could easily erupt between different claimants to the throne, even when a Crown Prince had clearly been named. In this case the eldest clearly thought that they deserved the throne, and the middle and youngest brothers continued to bicker over just who should have it. And while I wonder if some of that isn’t just a romantic face to a much more complex and, perhaps, bloody affair, it is probably the case that this was often what happened. Heck, even back in the stories about Queen Himiko it sounds as if there was often some chaos a ruler passed away as they tried to determine who would be next. So let’s keep that in mind as we see stories of seemingly “simple” succession stories.
I’ll end this episode with one more note, and that is actually about a rather famous shrine that is connected with this whole episode, and that is Ujigami Jinja, in, as you may have guessed by the name, Uji city.
Uji city, situated between Kyoto and Nara, is known for many things, tea being one of the more well known. Uji-cha has a long history, but not as long as what we are looking for. Uji is also home to the Byodoin, an ancient Heian aristocrat’s home along the Uji river that was turned into a Buddhist worship hall after his death. And just across the river from the Byoudouin is the relatively unassuming Ujigami Shrine.
If you didn’t already know about it, you might easily pass by this UNESCO world heritage site, and yet it features some of the oldest shrine architecture in Japan. Specifically it has a honden, or main shrine, that dates back to the late Heian period, demonstrating some interesting features of classic Heian architecture. Inside the building there are three bays, each one a shrine to the three main kami of Ujigami shrine, those being, chiefly: Homuda Wake no Mikoto and two of his sons: Uji no Waki Iratsuko and Oho Sazaki no Mikoto. Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, is considered the chief deity, and worshipped at the central shrine in the main building. Interestingly, this shrine, though worshipping Oujin Tennou, does not appear to be a part of the Hachiman cult—it is not considered a Hachiman-gu. Remember, we discussed last episode how Oujin Tennou became associated with Hachiman in later years, and this may have been an association that predates that connection. In the two side shrines, Uji no Waki Iratsuko is enshrined to the left while Oho Sazaki no Mikoto, is enshrined to the right. And while the main building is the oldest and goes back to the late Heian period, there are several other buildings on the shrine grounds that go back to the Kamakura period.
Now we aren’t exactly sure when the shrine was founded, except that it was before even the main shrine hall, or honden, was erected. The shrine is mentioned in the 10th century Engi Shiki—a collection of volumes on various ceremonies written down in the Engi era, including mention of many of the more important shrines that were part of the court system around the country at that time. It is said to have been mentioned in the Fudoki as well. That still puts it some 3 centuries after the events the Chronicles describe, but it would not be surprising to learn that a shrine had been built some time ago to a local elite, and that it is quite possible that the story that was passed down in the area would be connected with the shrine. We just don’t have any written records to confirm that this is the case.
But nonetheless, if you are in Uji, drop by and maybe pay your respects to the Prince who refused to be King.
And that’s all for this episode, until next time, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site, kofi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the link over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
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And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2013). The 'Silla annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Kishimoto, Naofumi (2013). Dual Kingship in the Kofun Period as Seen from the Keyhole Tombs. UrbanScope: e-Journal of the Urban-Culture Research Center, OCU. http://urbanscope.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/journal/pdf/vol004/01-kishimoto.pdf
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253
Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
Shultz, E. (2004). An Introduction to the "Samguk Sagi". Korean Studies, 28, 1-13. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23720180
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1

The Iron Shields of Goguryeo

Individuals referenced:

The story of Tamichi

The story of the Giant Tree of Tōtōmi (遠江國)

Water torture in the Harima Fudoki

Sukuna of Hida

The Pool of Agatamori

Shiratori Tomb

Rough Transcript

References

Rough Transcript

References

Ice Houses of Ancient Japan

Daisen Kofun

Rough Transcript

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The Dual Kingship Model

Prince Ō Yamamori (大山守皇子) and Prince Nukata Ō Naka tsu Hiko (額田大中彦皇子)

Ujigami Shrine (宇治上神社)

Rough Transcript

References

Prince Ō Yamamori (大山守皇子) and Prince Nukata Ō Naka tsu Hiko　(額田大中彦皇子)