Episode 65: The Party King of Wa

June 1, 2022 Joshua Badgley

19th century artist’s depiction of Shiraga, aka Seinei Tennō

This episode we are looking at the rule of Shiraga (aka Shiraka), aka Seinei Tennō. His reign, according to the Nihon Shoki, is fairly short, and, to be honest, mostly concerned with his successor—an important subject given that he never seemed to marry or have any children of his own. But rather than worry too much about that, this episode asks the question of just how much can we trust the Chronicles?

In particular, there is still the mess of the Five Kings of Wa, with Kō sending an embassy in 462, and then Bu sending an embassy in 478 that arrives in 479. The 462 embassy lines up nicely with what we read in Wakatake’s lifetime, but everything else lines him up with Bu. However, what if “Bu” were really Shiraga? What does that tell us? This is one of the things we’ll go into in the episode.

Not much more, here, I’m afraid. Go listen to the episode and feel free to reach out with any questions or let me know your personal theories? Whom do you like for Bu and Kō? Or do you subscribe to one of the other theories, such as the idea that they were from Tsukushi or even from the Korean Peninsula?

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 65: The Party King of Wa.
This week I want to talk about Shiraga Takehiko Kunioshi Waka Yamatoneko, aka Seinei Tennou, the son and successor of Wakatake or Yuryaku Tennou. And along with discussing Shiraga’s life, we will also revisit some of the continental historical sources that we’ve touched on previously, looking at how they line up with what we’ve learned about these past couple of sovereigns.
In looking at Shiraga’s life, I can't help but think of the contrast between expectations and reality. It is often easy for us to discuss historical subjects when we already know the outcome. We talk up the English king Henry VIII and even Henry V quite a bit, because we know what they did. But then there are others who are perhaps not as well known, or whose reigns were not such a success. How much attention do we pay them? After all, Wakatake could have been killed early on in the fighting with his brothers, and then he would be remembered merely for an attempted coup, rather than the larger-than life figure we know him as.
Also, it is often hard to see the details of those standing behind a shining light in history. Sometimes that light illuminates, but often it blinds us to the potential of those around them, much as the Chronicles’ focus on the royal line often obscures the details of the other people who were working, often just as hard, to build Yamato and the culture of the archipelago.
So I want to keep in mind here the potential that Shiraga demonstrates as much as what he actually accomplishes, and try, somehow, to look beyond the bright light cast by his father, Wakatake.
Okay, so what do we know about how Shiraga came to the throne, and why? Last episode we left off with the death of Wakatake and then Crown Prince Shiraga securing the throne through the assistance of his prime minister, the Ohomuraji, Ohotomo no Muroya, as well as Yamato-Aya no Tsuka. Their forces had surrounded the royal Treasury, where a would-be usurper, Prince Hoshikawa, and his brothers had barricaded themselves in and then set the whole thing on fire, burning everyone inside. And with that, Crown Prince Shiraga was able to take the throne himself, becoming the ruler known to us, today, as Seinei Tennou.
Of course, the Chronicles also suggest that Shiraga wasn’t exactly new to the throne. Well, maybe. The Nihon Shoki claims that he was appointed at the end of Wakatake’s reign, as Wakatake was on his deathbed. This contrast in accounts is a good reminder of how the organization of the Chronicles—particularly the Nihon Shoki—isn’t always something we can take for granted. I don’t necessarily trust all of the dates as given, and, while it does seem that more was getting written down at this time, there isn’t necessarily agreement between the different sources. I attribute this to a few things. First of all, without any other evidence, I suspect a lot of this was still being transmitted orally, stories about the period that were passed down. Although the Chronicles seem to aspire to the idea of an official history of the era, it is really focused on these stories—though sometimes the format of those stories is that they get broken up across different months and years and there is a bit of a detective work and even assumption that needs to go in there. We’ll talk about that a little later when we look at the continental sources.
But back to the Chronicles. Shiraga has now taken the throne, one way or another. But what is he inheriting, and what kind of monarch is he going to be? As we know, he was the son of Wakatake, whose exploits have become legendary. There were courtiers serving the Yamato court from across the archipelago—from Musashi in the east to the land of Hi in the west. They laid claim to rights over Kara, Nimna, Silla, and Baekje—however much those same states may have protested, if asked. Furthermore, Shiraga was entering with some background and experience. And advisors: He had Muroya to help him run things, as well as Matori, the Oho-omi of the Heguri.
And at the same time, there was a certain chaos in the world. Baekje was still finding its footing after being devastated by Goguryeo, and even the mighty Liu Song would fall around the time of Wakatake’s death, in 479. A savvy leader may have looked to such a power vacuum and seen an opportunity for growth and further expansion of the power of the state.
Alas, none of this would come to be. Whatever Shiraga’s ambitions were, it seems clear that he was unable to fulfill them, as his reign would only last a brief four to five years after the death of Wakatake. He did not exactly spend that time idly, however.
At first, his reign was similar to any other—he went about establishing a palace for himself at Mikakuri in Iware, in modern day Sakurai, traditionally held to be near the site of the eventual Fujiwara palace of Temmu. Here he affirmed the various court officials in their offices, and raised his mother, Kara Hime, up to the status of Grand Consort.
He also ensured that the burial rites for his father, Wakatake, were carried out and is said to have had his father buried in the Takawashihara Tumulus, in Tajihi, in the land of Kawachi. The tomb traditionally assumed here is a relatively small tomb—as far as kingly tombs go—in Fujiidera. Kishimoto suggests that the actual tomb referenced may in fact be slightly to the southeast—the Misanzai Kofun attributed to Tarashi Nakatsu Hiko, aka Chuuai Tennou. They say that there were Hayato who lamented night and day at the tomb. During this time it is said they refused food and water, and after seven days like this, they died. A special tomb was created for them just north of the main tomb mound, where they were buried with great ceremony—an act that sounds suspiciously like the act of offering human sacrifice at a burial.
And with that rather depressing episode of his father’s burial out of the way, there were some good times in the reign of Shiraga Ohokimi. For instance, there was a banquet thrown in the winter of 482, when the Omi and Muraji were both feasted in the great court and Shiraga just gave away presents of silk floss. The assembled nobles were allowed to take as much as they wanted. It is said that they went forth exerting their “utmost strength”. I can picture it now—bellies full of meat and heads full of sake, these nobles trying to find how they can lift and take out of the court as much silk floss as possible, draping it over their arms, rolling it into balls, and generally trying to find ways to make it manageable so that they could be the one to take as much as possible back, where it could then be used to weave silk fabric and more.
And then, a month or so later, came envoys from territories across the sea with gifts, and they, too, were feasted and received various presents—probably in emulation of the imperial Chinese courts, which seem to have placed great value on the idea of providing more to their guests than they actually received as a way to demonstrate their own wealth and power.
Of course, as if these parties weren’t enough, the entire realm would get in on it. In the summer of 483, Shiraga instituted a nation-wide drinking festival, which lasted five days. That’s not exactly Oktoberfest, but I can only imagine the wonders it did for the sake industry at the time. This may have been in imitation of the Han emperor Ming Ti, who reigned from 58-75 CE, or it just may have been an excuse to drink. This festival hasn’t exactly made it down to us intact, possibly because it was held in an intercalary month, so it really wouldn’t come around that often. That said, it isn’t like you need much of an excuse to go drinking in Japan, today.
There are other stories of Shiraga releasing prisoners, possibly Emishi and Hayato, who are said to have rendered homage, possibly in thanks for letting their people out of bondage.
And then finally, we once again see him partying with the functionaries and envoys from overseas, this time in the Hall of Archery, which was apparently a thing. They all shot arrows and apparently had a grand old time, with even more gifts being given out. And honestly, I don’t know where he’s getting all of these gifts. After all, didn’t they basically burn down the royal treasury after Shiraga’s brother, Hoshikawa, had basically gone in there and disbursed a lot of it already? But times must have been good.
To read the Nihon Shoki account, Shiraga seems like a party animal, and maybe he was—and is that such a bad thing? We at least aren’t given any reason to think he was just randomly killing people because he had a bad day, unlike his father—he isn’t even shown raising normal armies for much of anything. He seems to just be enjoying himself.
And of course, the problem, at least from the point of view of the royal line is concerned, was that he was only enjoying himself. There is no mention of a wife or consort. He doesn’t even seem to have had women that he longed for. Perhaps he just wasn’t into women—or possibly he was even what we might call asexual, today. Or perhaps there was something else altogether. All we know is that he is not mentioned as having taken a wife, let alone producing any heirs, and that was going to be a problem.
Sure, Shiraga could create a few Be groups—there’s the Shiraga no Toneri Be, the Shiraga no Kashiwade Be, and the Shiraga no Yugehi Be. And so he knew that his name would live on, but that didn’t help him with his main predicament. His half-brothers had died in Prince Hoshikawa’s attempted revolution, and Wakatake had killed all of his own brothers, so it wasn’t as if there was a first cousin out there that he could pass it to.
The line of Wakatake was coming to an end, and they had done such a good job of pruning the family tree, that it was hard to see how the royal lineage would survive. This may not have been front and center of Shiraga’s mind—no doubt he thought he had plenty of time left to figure something out, but the fates would have other ideas. He would die in the first month of 484, childless, probably around 40 years old.
He didn’t leave the throne without an heir, however. He may not have expanded the territory of Yamato through conquest, nor had any great technological leaps during his reign, but he does appear to have kept things together and performed at least the most basic of functions of a dynastic monarch: Secure the throne for the next generation.
But who was the next generation? If Shiraga didn’t have kids, where did they come from? Did he just find some kids out in the street and say, “Hey, you… Wanna be the next sovereign of Yamato?” After all, there were rules to these things, weren’t there?
Well, we will discuss all of that in the next episode, when we talk about the brothers Woke and Ohoke and their sister, the would-be sovereign. So, that’s a little bit of a cliffhanger to leave you on.
But before that, I mentioned that we’d take another look at other records and resources of the time – those from the continent as well as the Japanese Chronicles, and also archeology – and see what they tell us in light of everything we’ve learned about Anaho, Wakatake, and Shiraga’s reigns. I know I’ve mentioned some of this before in episode 58, but it is once again very relevant, in addition to being pretty darn interesting, when we think about Shiraga taking the throne in 479 and leaving it in 484. So let me lay it all out again.
So first off, we have archeological evidence of the reign of Wakatake, aka Wakatakiru, through a couple of swords, one from Eta-Funayama kofun in Kumamoto, and the other from Inariyama kofun in Saitama. The latter is dated to either 411, 471, or 531 – that’s that wiggle room because of the sixty-year calendrical cycle - and claims that the individual referenced in the sword inscription served in Wakatake’s court. So one assumes that by 471, at least, there was a sovereign named Wakatakiru in Yamato, and he had enough influence to attract courtiers from across the archipelago. Wakatake’s entry in the Nihon Shoki has him ruling from 456 to 479, so that tracks with the 471 date so far.
Furthermore we previously discussed the Five Kings of Wa named in the records of the Liu Song. There are two kings that could theoretically reference Wakatake, assuming the dates of his reign in the Nihon Shoki are correct. Those are the Kings named “Kou” and “Bu”.
Here’s what the History of the Song has to say for both of them. This translation is largely thanks to Massimo Soumare’s translation in his book, “Japan in Five Ancient Chronicles”. It goes something like this:
“Sei died.
“His heir was Kou, who sent ambassadors and offered tribute. In the sixth year of the Daming era of Shizu (which is to say, the year 462), it was proclaimed by imperial edict: “Heir to the king of Wa, Kou – for generations you have shown your devotion and have built a domain in the open sea. You have received the influence (of China) and you pacify your borders. Respectfully, you bring tributes. Recently you have inherited the kingdom. It is our duty to benevolently grant you courtly rank and make you general and pacifier of the east and King of the Land of Wa.”
So that was Kou. It is implied that he was the heir to Sei, who sent their last embassy around 451, some eleven years prior. And the court granted the titles of general and pacifier of the East and reaffirmed his title as the King of Wa. And then we have little more. There is simply a note that he died and then we get the next entry:
“His younger brother Bu then rose to power. By himself he took the titles of regional military governor for the military affairs of all of the seven lands of Wa, Baekje, Silla, Nimna, Kara, Jinhan, and Mahan; great-general and pacifier of the east; and king of the land of Wa. In the second year of the Shengming era of Shundi (which is to say, 478) he sent ambassadors and had the following letter delivered: “My land is in a land far away, and I have built a domain in a remote place. From ancient times, my ancestors, donning armour themselves, travelled and crossed mountains and rivers. Without a single moment of repite in the east they conquered fifty-five countries of the hairy people, and in the west they subdued sixty-six countries of many barbarian people. Crossing the sea, they pacified ninety-five countries of the northern sea. They made the royal roads secure, extended the land, and brought far the borders of the emperor’s domain. For generations, they have been granted audiences and they have never strayed from the straight path. Despite being unworthy, I gratefully inherited the achievements whose measures reach the boundaries of the heavens, and passing along my road far away through Baekje, I armed the ships. And yet Goguryeo has no virtue, and craving destruction, assaults the people on the borders and does not cease to kill. We always delay, and therefore we lose glory.
“And even if we proceed on the road, sometimes we pass and sometimes we do not. My late father, Sei, grew greatly angry that the enemy was holding the heavenly road and assaulting us. One million bowmen were moved by the voice of justice and gathered, but I suddenly lost my father and my older brother, and even though the enterprise was at hand, I had to desist. I observed the mourning and did not move the army. Therefore, lying down, I slept and still I achieved no victories. Now making armour and deploying the army, I wish to proclaim the will of my father and senior brother. Justice-loving men, heroes, men of letters, and warriors ply the whole of their valour, and even in front of naked swords do not retreat. If, with the protection of the virtue of the emperor, my difficulties are solved by destroying this strong enemy, there will be no change in the previous acts. By myself, I set up a governing office and a titles similar to the one of Sangong was granted to me, and a charge given to my underlings: Even more will my fealty be strengthened.
“By imperial act were given to Bu the offices of regional military governor for the military affairs of all of the six countries of Wa, Silla, Nimna, Kara, Jinhan, and Mahan; great-general and pacifier of the east; and King of Wa.”
So based on these Liu Song records, King Bu was the brother of King Kou, and son of Sei. Kou appears as an inheritor of a rather martial lineage, making claim to peninsular rights, and claiming to wish to chastise Goguryeo itself—currently a powerful force that had only recently destroyed their rival, Baekje.
So why does this matter in an episode ostensibly about Shiraga?
Well, if Bu is Wakatake, as many take him to be – for understandable reasons, given how martial his reign is described as - then honestly, not much. But there is at least one theory out there that proposes that Wakatake was actually Kou, and Shiraga was Bu, which opens up a whole new series of questions and possibilities.
Now, as we heard, King Kou sent an embassy to the Liu Song which arrived in 462, while the embassy from Bu arrived in 479. Both of these dates do fall within the window of Wakatake’s reign, and on the face of it I have to admit that Bu as Wakatake makes some sense. After all, he did take over from his brother, Anaho, according to the Chronicles—though that does skip over Ichinohe and whatever his position was. Furthermore, the warlike and expansionist nature feels very much like Wakatake.
Furthermore, many people associate “Bu” with Wakatake, since the character “Bu” can be read as “Take” or “Takeru” in Japanese. And so people make the seemingly logical conclusion that the Liu Song chroniclers must have been using the latter part of Wakatake’s name to refer to him.
Except, that neither of the inscriptions we have of Wakatake’s name actually use that character—they both spell “Wakatakiru” phonetically. Furthermore, these were court officials, so one imagines that if there was anyone who knew how to spell Wakatake’s name, it would have been them. Even with the Chronicles, it isn’t certain: in fact, only the Nihon Shoki uses the same character for “Take” as the Song records do for “Bu”. The Kojiki uses something else entirely. This doesn’t mean Wakatake couldn’t be the same as Bu, just that I find the reasoning somewhat shaky.
However: Shiraga’s full name is given in the Nihon Shoki as Shiraga Takehiro Kunioshi Waka Yamatoneko, and the “Take” in Takehiro *is*, in fact, the same character as King “Bu” from the Liu Song records. We don’t have any swords with his name inscribed, from the period, so we can’t actually judge how they spelled it at the time, but could the King Bu, whose embassy arrived in 479, actually be Takehiro, aka Shiraga?
If we try to say that Bu is actually Shiraga, then we are left with a conundrum: was Shiraga actually Wakatake’s brother, vice his son? Or was Wakatake the one here termed “Sei”, instead? After all, Bu says it is his father who grew angry and gathered men to fight Goguryeo after they had “assaulted the people on the borders”—possibly referring to their destruction of the Baekje capital of Wiryeseong. Wakatake had certainly attempted to subdue Silla, at least, and there were the troops sent to help put the Baekje heir on the throne.
There are a couple ways to square this circle, and with it I think we get more information not just on Wakatake, but possibly on his heir, Shiraga. First off, let’s return to the idea that Wakatake is actually Bu. That would imply that Kou was actually Anaho, who must have reigned for a good bit longer than we are otherwise led to believe. Or perhaps Kou was Ichinohe, his cousin in the Chronicles—it may even be that Ichinohe or Anaho reigned alongside Wakatake for a bit as co-rulers. If that is the case, then we expect that Anaho or Ichinohe had just come to the throne in 462. That throws off a lot of our dates in the Nihon Shoki, and cuts Wakatake’s reign down even further—but it isn’t impossible.
Our second option is to take Wakatake as the last of the five kings, Kou. Per the Nihon Shoki, he would have still been somewhat new to the throne in 462. Realistically, that embassy was probably sent in 461, and would have taken a while to organize, so it is possible that it was sent while he was, indeed, new to the throne. This also appeals to me for its sense of timing. Multiple rulers had, at this point, sent tribute to the Song court and been recognized as Kings of Wa.
Which raises the question: Why would they have done such a thing? What was in it for them?
From what I can tell, we don’t seem to be in the era of regular communication and official diplomatic trade, though that likely did happen on these trips. It had to have been quite the journey, particularly at the time. Fortunately, we do have some information on these, mainly from the Song records themselves. While these records make some mention of tribute, they seem primarily concerned with the matter of titles. Kings of Wa would often declare their titles and ask for the court of the Liu Song to affirm them. These were often titles granting nominal overlordship to the Japanese archipelago and parts of the Korean peninsula. Multiple rulers had, by this time, received titles from the Song Court.
It would make sense that a sovereign would organize an embassy in the beginning of their reign to help solidify and legitimize their rule. In fact, I suspect it was becoming somewhat routine that when a new ruler would take the throne, there would be a period of internal shuffling while the court made sure that the ruler would last, probably putting down several attempts by various chieftains to break away or other royal family members to take the throne—a process that could take several years. After all of the dust settled, an embassy would be gathered and sent out—in this case to the Song court. That would allow for external validation of Yamato’s kingship process and likely bring back a healthy amount of continental goods that could be doled out in return for loyalty, as well.
It makes less sense to me that there would have been an embassy sent by Wakatake near the end of his reign, around 478. By the way, the history of the Southern Qi actually records that this embassy was in 479, which may be accounted for if one reads the Song records as saying when it was sent, vice the Southern Qi records as to when it arrived. Given that it was in 478, it is certainly possible that Wakatake’s illness may not yet have set in, and he may have still been quite healthy. It is also possible that, with the failure against Silla, he was indeed looking for the Song to support his ambitions on the peninsula, hence a second embassy was a smart political and diplomatic move.
Alternatively, one could also read this as a mission sent under Shiraga. Again, it would have been around the start of his reign, which makes sense—especially if he was made a co-ruler early on. Much of the violence ascribed to King Bu could be attributed to Wakatake’s reign and earlier, and it is entirely possible that Shiraga had planned to continue Wakatake’s campaigns on the peninsula and was looking for assistance from the Song or anyone else at the time. If that is the case, however, then perhaps either the Nihon Shoki or the Records of the Liu Song made a mistake in the familial relationship between either Kou and Bu or Wakatake and Shiraga.
Personally, I’m somewhat inclined towards the idea of Kou as Wakatake and Bu as Shiraga. While Wakatake certainly was the more warlike of the two, that may not have been known at the time that he sent his embassy. Similarly, Shiraga may have had grand plans to emulate Wakatake, who had certainly done his part to bring everything together. Who knew how it would turn out? At the same time, I acknowledge that there is a large amount of consensus around the idea that Wakatake is Bu, perhaps writing to Song at the height of his power.
Of course, either way, these embassies mattered little in the outcome, for, as I mentioned before, the days of the Liu Song were numbered. Their dynasty would fall, replaced by the Southern Qi dynasty. The actual record of the Song Dynasty was then compiled in this time; the first edict to record the history of the time was in 488, and it may not have been completed until sometime around 492 or 493. Given that it was building a story from the Song Records, it is entirely plausible that certain details may have been misremembered or misquoted.
How about what the Japanese Chronicles have to say on the matter? There is mention during Wakatake’s reign of contact with the continent and embassies to what we can assume was the Liu Song court around 462, but none after that. This leads me to believe that either the Chroniclers knew about the Song records and decided to associate Wakatake with Kou, or else there was another record of a visit around 462. In either case, it appears that the Chronicles, drawing from the Liu Song records, are associating Wakatake with Kou, if anything.
There is also the issue of Wakatake’s dates. There seems to be a general consensus that the dates from at least 462 to 479 would belong to Wakatake’s rule. If Wakatake is Kou, the dates in the Nihon Shoki would seem to work out just fine, especially if we assume that he and Shiraga were co-rulers for some period of time. On the other hand, if Wakatake is Bu, then there had to be some other ruler in 461 who had just come to the throne—again, possible if it was one of his relatives whom Wakatake then killed, possibly shortly afterwards.
And at this point I feel a bit like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern attempting to tell if the wind is southerly. In truth, there probably is no way of knowing unless some new and miraculous piece of evidence comes to us from the depths of the past.
It does, however, speak to my point, early on, about potential. It is so easy to forget about the potential and only to look at what was accomplished. The picture the Chronicles paint of Shiraga pales in comparison of their description of Wakatake. Whereas Wakatake was mercurial and violent and known for many great deeds, Shiraga feels only a little better than a placeholder. He is almost like Waka Tarashi Hiko, aka Keiko Tennou, who also died childless and would have to pass the throne to a different line. In fact, his biggest accomplishment, which we’ll go into next episode, was finding an heir. And so it is easy to overlook him.
But what if—what if he is Bu? What if that fiery speech and arrogant assumption of titles was this very same Shiraga Takehiko? He may not have lived as long, and his ambitions may never have lived up to his potential, but that doesn’t mean we should discount him altogether.
Similarly, there are all those we hear little to nothing about. Which of the supposed usurpers might have actually been the rightful heir to the throne, much as Ichinohe, only to have their potential stolen by another? Remember, history loves a winner, and it is the winners who get to shape it. But when we actually put ourselves there, not in the time of the chroniclers but in the time when these actions were taking place, history was not yet written. It was still to be. And for the countless people living in this time, there was no certainty of what was to come. The person they saw as their hero may come down to us as a villain. The person they were sure would be “most likely to succeed” may never be written about. Perhaps they didn’t live up to their potential, or perhaps they just didn’t live—it wasn’t necessarily the safest time to be alive.
So many stories out there, but we only have the one here, so that’s what we will continue to focus on.
Anyway, thank you for listening and letting me take this little diversion. It has honestly been something sitting in the back of my head for most of Wakatake’s reign and especially as I read through Shiraga’s own story. And now I can leave it here and move on to the next part of our narrative, as we figure out just who was going to succeed the childless Shiraga.
So until next episode, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us 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 on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links 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.
Kim, P., Shultz, E. J., Kang, H. H. W., & Han'guk Chŏngsin Munhwa Yŏn'guwŏn. (2012). The Koguryo annals of the Samguk sagi. Seongnam-si, Korea: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Soumaré, Massimo (2007), Japan in Five Ancient Chinese Chronicles: Wo, the Land of Yamatai, and Queen Himiko. ISBN: 978-4-902075-22-9.
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
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 64: The Prince in Waiting

May 16, 2022 Joshua Badgley

19th century artist’s depiction of Ōtomo no Muroya, the Ōmuraji who oversaw the transition from Wakatake to his son.

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This episode we take stock of where things are by the end of Wakatake’s reign, summarizing how we got where we are, and look at the transition of power to his son, Prince Shiraga.

First, here’s a reference list of the sovereigns so far, including some of the possible sovereigns that don’t get posthumous regnal names by the Chroniclers. I’ve tried to give approximate dates based on what my own assumptions have been, but these are likely inaccurate:

	Name	Posthumous Regnal Name	Reign Dates per Nihon Shoki	Suspected Actual Regnal Dates	
	Iware Biko	Jimmu	660 – 585 BCE	Likely Fictional*	
	Kamu Nunakawa Mimi	Suizei	581 – 549 BCE	Likely Fictional*	
	Shiki tsu Hiko Tamatemi	Annei	549 – 511 BCE	Likely Fictional*	
	Ōyamato HIko Sukitomo	Itoku	510 – 477 BCE	Likely Fictional*	
	Mima tsu Hiko Kaeshine	Kōshō	475 – 393 BCE	Likely Fictional*	
	Yamato Tarashi Hiko Kunioshihito	Kōan	392 – 291 BCE	Likely Fictional*	
	Ō Yamato Neko Hiko Futoni	Kōrei	290 – 215 BCE	Likely Fictional*	
	Ō Yamato Neko Hiko Kunikuru	Kōgen	214 – 158 BCE	Likely Fictional*	
	Waka Yamato Neko Hiko Ōbibi	Kaika	158 – 98 BCE	Likely Fictional*	
	Yamato Totohi Momosu Hime**	(Himiko)	NA	189-248	
	Mimaki Iribiko Inie	Sujin	97 – 30 BCE	Mid-to-Late 3rd Century	
	Ikume Iribiko Isachi	Suinin	29 BCE – 70 CE	Late 3rd Century	
	Ō Tarashi Hiko Oshiro Wake	Keikō	71 – 130	Early 4th century	
	Wo’usu	Yamato Takeru	NA	Early 4th century	
	Waka Tarashi Hiko	Seimu	131 – 190	Early 4th century	
	Tarashi Naka tsu Hiko	Chūai	192 – 200	Mid 4th century	
	Okinaga Tarashi Hime	Jingū	201 – 269 (regent)	Mid-to-Late 4th century	
	Homuda Wake	Ōjin	270 – 310	Late 4th/early 5th century	
	Ōsazaki	Nintoku	313 – 399	Early 5th century	
	Ōeno Izaho Wake	Richū	400 – 405	Early 5th century	
	Mizuha Wake	Hanzei	406 – 410	Early-to-Mid 5th century	
	Oasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune	Ingyō	412 – 453	Mid 5th century	
	Anaho	Ankō	454 – 456	Mid 5th century	
	Ichinohe no Oshiwa	NA	NA	Mid 5th century	
	Ō Hatsuse Wakatake (Wakatakiru)	Yūryaku	456 – 479	Mid 5th century - 479	

* These rulers are likely fictional, or possibly based on some local lineage groups, given their short entries.  They are believed to be there to pad out the history even further.

** Himiko is never directly mentioned in the Chronicles, but may correspond to Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime, who is said to be buried in Hashihaka Kofun.

Of course, Kishimoto, as of 2013, had his own theory of the lineage, based on kingly kofun that he identifies through shape as part of either the “Main” or “Subisidiary” line of co-rulers. As you can see, none of this yields a perfect correlation. It should be noted that the kofun Kishimoto assigns each ruler is not necessarily that which is assigned to them by the Imperial Household Agency. As such, he has Oasazuma, not Ōsazaki, in Daisen kofun. Without further archaeological evidence to tie specific rulers to various tombs, much of our knowledge remains speculative.

	Main Line	 	Subsidiary Line	 	
	Himiko	d. 248	 	 	
	Toyo	(Late 3rd century)	Unknown (Sakurai Chausuyama)	Late 3rd Century	
	Mimaki Iribiko	Late 3rd to Early 4th Century	Unknown (Mesuriyama)	Late 3rd Century	
	Ikume Iribiko	Earl to Mid 4th century	Ō Tarashi Hiko	Early to Mid 4th century	
	 	 	Unknown (Saki Misasagiyama)	Early to Mid 4th Century	
	Unknown (Gosashi)	Late 4th century	Unknown (Saki Ishizukayama)	Late 4th century	
	 	 	Homuda Wake	d. 394	
	Ōsazaki	d. 432	Izaho Wake	d. 427	
	 	 	MIzuha Wake	d. 437	
	 	 	Ichinobe Oshiha Wake	Early 5th Century	
	Oasazuma	d. 454	Kinashi Karu	Late 5th century	
	Wakatakeru	d. 479	Shiraga	Late 5th century	

Who’s Who

Ōhatsuse Wakatake

Of course, Wakatake is the sovereign we’ve been discussing the most. Aka Yūryaku Tennō. While there are some that suggest earlier sovereigns are historical, Wakatake is the earliest to have wide agreement as to his existence and a high likelihood that at least some of the events in his reign are considered accurate.

Iware Biko

Aka Jimmu Tennō. Many believe him to be a fabrication to help justify Temmu’s own rebellion. In the story he displaces the descendants of another “Child of Heaven”, Nigi Hayahi no Mikoto. Those were the ancestors of the Mononobe and Owari families, possibly hearkening back to stories of ancient conflicts. Iware Biko started out in the land of Himuka—later known as Hyūga—in Kyūshū, and the conquest details his trek up the Seto Inland Sea.

The nine sovereigns who follow Iware Biko seem fairly clearly fabrications, meant to fill in the lineage. They may have been references to actual names or titles known in ancient stories, but for the most part they are given no import other than as a list of “begats” down to Mimaki Iribiko.

Mimaki and Ikume Iribiko

Aka Sujin and Suinin Tennō. Mimaki is actually given the title of “Founder of the Country”, which seems odd if he were actually the 10th sovereign to reign. Many of the events of Mimaki’s reign correspond with what we know of the latter 3rd century, from the location of his palace at the foot of Mt. Miwa, where we know there was a large early kofun settlement and palace, to the construction of Hashihaka Kofun, widely thought to be the resting place of Queen Himiko. While nothing can be directly confirmed, this period likely reflects the early creation of the state of Yamato as a major power in the archipelago, and may correspond with the time of Queens Himiko and Toyo, mentioned in the Wei Chronicles.

Much of the initial contact with the peninsula seems to be placed around this period, as well. This could simply be the spot where it was most convenient to place all of these stories, of course.

Ō Tarashi Hiko and Yamato Takeru

Aka Keikō Tennō and Wo’usu no Mikoto. This reign is remembered more for the stories of Yamato Takeru (Wo’usu no Mikoto) than anything else, but there is a lot here about apparent conflicts and conquests across the archipelago.

Waka Tarashi HIko

Aka Seimu Tennō. He seems to mark a break in the lineage, since after his death, the line passes to Tarashi Naka tsu Hiko, son of Yamato Takeru.

Tarashi Naka tsu Hiko

Aka Chūai Tennō. Descendant of Yamato Takeru, he continues the tradition of fighting the Kumaso, during which time he is killed. His Queen, Okinaga Tarashi Hime, takes over and begins her invasion of the Korean Peninsula.

Okinaga Tarashi Hime

Aka Jingū Kōgō, though later authors would give her the status of full sovereign, naming her Jingū Tennō. There are some who claim that she is an entirely fictional character, and she is certainly controversial. Given the timing of her reign, she is clearly meant to be the stand-in for Queen Himiko, and some of the references from the Wei Chronicles are directly mentioned, indicating that the compilers of the Nihon Shoki certainly knew about it as a source.

There is a lot of controversy over her supposed conquest of the Korean peninsula, especially as this was later used to justify Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula during subsequent raids. Even today this often clouds issues surrounding her.

She seems to have been assisted greatly in her reign by Takeuchi (aka Takechi) no Sukune, the Ōmi, or Prime Minister. Takeuchi’s presence suggests that aspects of stories from the reign of Ō Tarashi Hiko to Ō Sazaki all took place in the span of roughly 80 years, during his lifetime.

Homuda Wake

Aka Ōjin Tennō. Many of the details around him are legendary. For example, it is said that he was born three years after he was conceived, his mother holding him in the womb until the invasion of the Korean peninsula was complete. He appears to have solidified relations with Baekje, beginning a tradition of Baekje princes coming to stay at the Yamato court. Writing and horses both come in during this reign, which would have allowed the influence of the central state to grow. He may also have been in charge of Wa forces on the peninsular during the time outlined in the Stele of Gwangaetto the Great.

He would later be enshrined as the god Hachiman, in Usa, where his spirit’s pronouncements would be used to political effect in the capital. Later, Hachiman would be taken as the patron kami of the MInamoto house, and the Hachiman Shrine is still central to the ancient samurai capital of Kamakura, even today.

Ōsazaki

Aka Nintoku Tennō. He came to power after three years of deferring to his younger brother. This may actually be an example of co-rulership, as he was appointed to administer the realm during the reign of their father, Homuda Wake. Eventually, however, he took sole rulership, according to the Nihon Shoki, anyway.

Izaho Wake and Mizuha Wake

These brothers, known as Richū and Hanzei Tennō, respectively, seem to have had relatively minor impact, based on the reading in the Chronicles, though it is possible that some of the accomplishments of their reigns were included elsewhere, especially if, as Kishimoto posits, they were part of the subsidiary line of co-rulers. According to the Nihon Shoki, during their short reigns they had no children of age to pass on the throne to, and so they passed it on to their siblings. This was likely not that rare of an occasion, as there was no clear tradition yet of succession, and theoretically the throne could be passed on to any qualified individual in the royal house, which also made transitions so tricky.

Oasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune

Aka Ingyō Tennō. Said to be brother to Izaho and MIzuha Wake, but there remains some doubt, partially in the naming—especially in the use of “Sukune”—but also in the “Kings of Wa” mentioned in the Liu Song dynasty, where there are only two brothers actually mentioned. He is said to have been disabled from a young age due to disease, but appears to have been healed by continental medicine.

Anaho

Aka Ankō Tennō. HIs brief reign came to an end when he was assassinated by his own stepson upon the latter learning of how his father had been slain on Anaho’s orders. This would kick off the turmoil that would eventually see Wakatake take the throne.

Ichinohe

Also transcribed as Ichinobe, This was the son of Izaho Wake, who had been too young, we are told, to take the throne upon his father’s death. Anaho reportedly wanted him to take the throne after his own reign ended, but this never happened. Or at least the Chroniclers don’t record it as happening. That could be a salve to avoid having Wakatake kill an enthroned sovereign to take power, claiming that he was never actually a sovereign to begin with, or it may be that they never got to the enthronement ceremony.

Ichinohe had two sons who fled into hiding when their father was killed, escaping to Harima.

Shiraga

The son of Wakatake and Kara Hime, he would eventually take the throne as Seinei Tennō. His mother, Kara Hime, is descended from the Katsuraki lineage, which has been a powerful lineage over the centuries. That she was never a Queen brings into question Shiraga’s legitimacy, to some extent, but the Queen Kusaka Hime, never produced an heir, and so Kara Hime’s children filled that void.

Katsuraki Lineage

The Katsuraki family appears to be a powerful lineage in ancient Japan. Okinaga Tarashi Hime may have come from them, as did Katsuraki no So tsu Hiko, a powerful noble and possibly even a king in his own right, who had significant dealings with the peninsula. His daughter, Iwa Hime, would become a Queen of Yamato, ensuring that future sovereigns were descended, in part from the Katsuraki house. Tsubura no Ōmi was apparently of the Katsuraki family, and held the granaries of Katsuraki, as well as his daughter, Kara Hime. Wakatake took both when he killed Tsubura no Ōmi for housing fugitive princes during Wakatake’s rise to power.

Some have suggested that “Kara Hime” may refer to her connections to the peninsula, as often many things from the continent were labelled in that manner.

Takuhata Hime

Although only briefly mentioned, Takuhata Hime was the Ise Priestess. She was also the daughter of Kara Hime and Wakatake, and thus sister to Prince Shiraga. Her status as Ise Priestess, along with Shiraga becoming Crown Prince, suggests that perhaps her mother was more than just a consort.

King Gaero of Baekje

King Gaero reigned from 455 to 475, so he was king of Baekje for most of the reign of Wakatake. He would have been the one to send Iketsu Hime, and eventually Prince Konji, of Baekje. He would die in the fall of the Baekje capital at Hanseong at the hands of Goguryeo.

Iketsu Hime

A woman of the Baekje court sent to be an uneme in Yamato. She had an illicit affair on her way to the court, and was eventually sentenced to death. This caused some diplomatic issues with Baekje, who refused to send other uneme, but they did still send Lord Kun, aka Prince Konji.

King Munju of Baekje

The Nihon Shoki claims he was the brother to King Gaero, while Korean records make him out to be Gaero’s son. However, the same Samguk Sagi and Samguk Yusa accounts claim that all of the sons of King Gaero were captured and taken to Goguryeo, and they also say that Munju rose to the position of Senior Counselor, a position that he was unlikely to be appointed to if he was a son of the sitting King, but would have made more sense if he was the King’s brother.

After the fall of Wiryeseong at Hanseong (Seoul) and the death of King Gaero, Munju would com to power. He set up the capital further south, at Gyongju in a place called Gomanaru, which then became Ungjin. The Japanese name for Gomanaru appears to be “Kumanari”, and the Nihon Shoki claims that this was Wa territory that Yamato granted to Baekje so that they could rebuild. This claim cannot be proven, however, and is not noted in the Korean sources.

Konji

Aka “Lord Gun” in the Nihon Shoki, he is said to be the younger brother of King Gaero who was sent to Yamato in 461. The Samguk Sagi doesn’t mention this, but instead claims that he was King Munju’s younger brother. Of course, if Munju was Gaero’s brother, it is possible that both those things are true, whereas if Konji was the Munju’s brother and therefore also Gaero’s son, then it would be odd that he wasn’t also taken by Goguryeo when they took “all of Gaero’s sons”.

Konji’s own son was Modae.

King Samgeun of Baekje

King Munju’s son. He came to the throne when he was only 13 years old.

Hae Ku

No, not a short poem. He was King Munju’s Minister of War, who rebelled and killed King Munju and then claimed the role of regent for the young Samgeun. He eventually tried to take over entirely, but was eventually stopped by the Baekje court.

King Modae

Also written as king “Mute” in the Nihon Shoki (and several other ways, all similar, in different Chinese sources), he was the son of Konji and came to power after the death of King Samgeun, who died without any heirs. The Nihon Shoki claims that he rose to power through the assistance of 500 men sent with him from the archipelago.

Ōtomo no Ōmuraji no Muroya

Muroya was the Ōmuraji of the Ōtomo no Muraji, which is to say he was the family head. He was also effectively the Prime Minister. Previous prime ministers were noted as Ōmi, which is to say the “Ō-omi”, where “Omi” meant “Minister”. But here we see a difference, as “Omi” became a kabane rank attached to a family rather than simply an individual. Since the Ōtomo had the Muraji rank, their head was “Ōmuraji”. One might wonder why the clan was not elevated to Omi status, and I suspect that the answer comes down to court politics. We see something similar with the Mononobe.

Muroya has had a long career up this point, generally assisting the sovereigns ever since Oasatsuma, where he helped set up his tryst with Sotohori Hime, against his Queen’s wishes. He would carry out several tasks for Wakatake before taking on administration of the court.

Heguri no Ōmi no Matori

We don’t actually know too much about him, but the Heguri themselves claim descent from Takeuchi no Sukune through his son, Heguri no Dzuku. They would appear to have been a powerful family, given that they were of the Omi kabane, but that may be misleading.

Mononobe no Ōmuraji no Me

According to the Nihon Shoki, he is made Ōmuraji during this reign, but in the Sendai Kuji Hongi, he doesn’t become Ōmuraji until the reign of Prince Shiraga. Either way, he is not one of those entrusted with the realm at this time.

Ki no Woyumi

Yamato general who was given an uneme to look after him as payment for taking the field. He negotiated this through Muroya, demonstrating the latter’s influence at court. He would eventually die on the Silla campaign.

Yamato-Aya no Atahe no Tsuka

Tsuka is often mentioned in the same breath with Muroya, and yet their kabane indicate they were of vastly different ranks. Accordingly we often see Muroya commanding Tsuka to take this or that action. His family name, Yamato-Aya or Yamato no Aya references that they were part of the Aya weaving families brought over from the continent. In this case it seems to be quite specifically the Aya who were settled in Yamato..

Kibi no Omi no Oshiro

Oshiro is mentioned elsewhere as a loyal general, taking the fight to Silla and all that, but he’s also a member of the Kibi no Omi. This would seem to imply that he was part of the family in charge of Kibi, although this brings into question much of how he is portrayed. Is he loyal to Yamato, or merely friendly? What is the relationship between Kibi and Yamato? There are many questions.

Prince Hoshikawa and Kibi no Waka Hime

One of the sons of Kibi no Waka Hime and Wakatake. Kibi no Waka Hime was previously the wife of Tasa no Omi, of Upper Kibi, with whom she had two sons: Yegimi and Otogimi (literally just the “elder lord” and the “younger lord”, we probably shouldn’t take these as actual names). Tasa no Omi was either killed or sent off in exile to be governor of Nimna. In the latter instance it was said that he convinced his son, Otogimi, to help him rebel, along with Silla and NImna, but Otogimi’s own wife got word and put a stop to it, and they both perished.

And so now Kibi no Waka Hime had her son by Tasa no Omi, Yegimi, and her two sons by Wakatake, Princes Iwaki (sometimes read Iwashiro) and Hoshikawa. Of course, one of the outcomes of marriage politics was attempts by various families to ensure that they were connected to the next sovereign, whatever that took, even if a Crown Prince had already been named.

And that should do it for most of players in this most recent episode. I hope that you enjoy, and feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan! My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 64: The Prince in Waiting.
In this episode, I’m going to focus on the very end of Ohohatsuse Wakatake, aka Yuryaku Tenno’s, reign, and the question of his successor and the various high-ranking individuals that helped out that successor. But I’m going to start off this episode with a recap of sorts – of all the sovereigns we’ve talked about so far, at least the notable ones, that have brought us up to this date. Of course, this focuses on the sovereigns because that is the information we typically have. For the most part, particularly in the more legendary parts of the Chronicle, only the birth and death of the sovereigns are worth mentioning, and other characters appear only when they impact the story of the royal line, but we should take the time to realize that there were so many different individuals who were actually working to take things forward. This is often an issue for us, as we try to tell a story that people will actually be able to follow—the more names, the more difficult it can be to track what is going on, but that is also the complexity of real history. And so I hope you’ll forgive a summary that focuses largely on the reigns of different sovereigns that the Chroniclers found to be important during their time.
As we’ve heard throughout our tour of the Chronicles to-date, certain rulers stand out. Iware Biko, aka Jimmu Tennou, purportedly founded Yamato through conquest, marching—or perhaps rowing—his way up the Seto Inland Sea from Himuka, in Kyushu, and making a claim to the Nara Basin, displacing the locals, the ancestors of the Mononobe and Owari families. After nine truly unremarkable sovereigns, we then found ourselves in the time of the legendary sovereigns Mimaki and Ikume, the Iribiko dynasty, aka Sujin and Suinin Tennou. They ruled at the base of Mt. Miwa, associated with a powerful early Kofun era culture with links across the archipelago. Their reigns were filled with building early structures of statehood, conquest, and intercourse with the continent—in all likelihood based on events surrounding the rise of Yamato around the time of the historical Queen Himiko.
At this time, we know that intercession with spiritual powers was important to rulership, and the role of sovereign may have even been shared with co-rulers, who handled more of the mundane administration aspects. We regularly saw pairs of rulers, either male and female hiko-hime pairs, or else elder and younger ye-oto arrangements. It is not entirely clear what the actual relationship between these individuals were—if they were blood relatives, or married, or if it was some other power sharing arrangement.
Ohotarashi’s reign, meanwhile, was overshadowed by the warrior-prince, Wo-usu, more popularly known as Yamato Takeru, the Brave of Yamato. Though Yamato Takeru perished and never ruled, we are told that the new lineage that came to the throne after the death of Waka Tarashi Hiko, aka Seimu Tennou, claimed descent from the Brave of Yamato.
Of this next lineage, the Sovereign Okinaga Tarashi Hime, aka Jinguu Tennou, was credited with her own controversial military campaigns. Some claim she was a fictional character, created to explain continental claims of Himiko, and the official Chronicles only give her the status of regent—not of sovereign proper. However, they still have her ruling well into the time of her son, Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, with the help of her close advisor and prime minister, Takeuchi no Sukune.
Homuda Wake seems another pivotal figure, and he would eventually be canonized as the kami, Hachiman. Besides apparently sharing rule with his mother, Okinaga Tarashi Hime, Homuda Wake would later give administrative responsibility of the realm to his son, Ohosazaki, while appointing another son as Crown Prince.
Eventually, Ohosazaki, would come to the throne, where he is known to us as Nintoku Tennou. He is traditionally said to be buried in Daisen Kofun, one of the three largest mausoleums in the world—though there are those who question this designation. The next several sovereigns are said to be sons of Ohosazaki—Izaho Wake, Midzuha Wake, and Woasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune, aka Ritchuu Tennou, Hanzei Tennou, and Ingyou Tennou. Then there is Woasatsuma’s son, Anaho, aka Ankou Tennou, and while there are certainly various interesting stories during these reigns, none of these sovereigns seem to measure up to the sovereign who follows—Ohohatsuse Wakatake, aka Yuuryaku Tennou, who is the sovereign we’ve been discussing for the last few episodes.
Or at least the next official sovereign. Prince Ichinohe may have actually ruled for some period of time, but Wakatake killed him and his other brothers on his bloody climb up to the throne.
Somewhere in all of this was a series of envoys sent to the Liu Song court, which we assume came from Yamato, but which may have been from various other Wa groups—though the narrative certainly seems to indicate that they were all seen as rulers over the same territory and groups.
So, now where do things stand at the end of Wakatake’s reign?
Well, early on, Wakatake had taken the territory of Katsuraki—the area associated with individuals like Katsuraki no Sotsuhiko and his daughter and eventually royal queen of Yamato, Iwa Hime. In so doing, as he burned down the house of Tsubura no Oho-omi, he took Tsubura’s daughter, Kara Hime, as his own consort. Later we hear of various miraculous events that occurred in and around Katsuraki, further foot-stomping its importance. Of course, while never recognized, officially, as a queen, Kara-hime’s daughter Waka Hime, aka Takuhata Hime, was sent to be the Priestess at Ise, and her son, Prince Shiraga, would become Crown Prince and would eventually be given the keys to the kingdom even during his father’s reign, much as Ohosazaki had been given administrative control while Homuda Wake still reigned.
Before that, though, Wakatake apparently consolidated Yamato control of various industries throughout the archipelago, organizing various industries into the familial “Be” structures, putting disparate individuals together under a centralized organization based on constructed familial ties. Some of these were groups of people from the continent, bringing in new technologies, but some were local industries, such as clayworking, or even raising horses or keeping game birds. And that always gets me, because it just seems so wild from a modern perspective—to just gather up various people of a given industry and making them all relatives by simple fiat, setting up a family head that then reports to the court. In this way, even without direct control over the various local rulers, Yamato influence is further expanded.
And, of course, those other rulers still had some influence. Kibi, in particular, is mentioned time and again in ways that run counter to the interests of the Yamato court, both in the archipelago and on the Korean peninsula. Now, unsurprisingly, the Chroniclers don’t exactly mention any victories by Kibi or others—the lopsided view of what is going on in the archipelago is going to be a constant blind spot for us, at least up through the 8th century and even beyond, as so many of our sources come from those in the center and not on the peripheries.
Although many of the stories from this period still focus on the areas around Yamato and Kawachi, it is also clear, both from the Chronicles and from the reports in the history of the Liu Song, that the Wa—by which we suppose Yamato—was still very active on the Korean peninsula as well. Clearly, the animosity with Silla continued, but towards the end of Wakatake’s reign, attempts to chastise Silla seem to have failed, falling apart due to the bickering and infighting of the various generals—an issue that would plague Hideyoshi’s attempts to take the peninsula over a thousand years later.
And so, despite their apparent military might, it seems that towards the end of the reign, Wa power may not have been seen as quite as powerful as before, such that when their ally, Baekje, suffered an existential threat from Goguryeo they sent out a request not to Yamato, but rather to their adversarial neighbor, Silla. Granted, this could have been as much to do with distances, or even the possibility that there were already Wa troops in Baekje assisting with its defense.
Unfortunately, whatever help Baekje had been able to gather, it wasn’t enough. Baekje’s capital at Wiryeseong, near modern day Seoul, fell to Goguryeo in 475 in fighting that resulted in the death of King Gaero and the capture and imprisonment of all of his sons. Still, the Wa had a role to play, and the Nihon Shoki describes how Yamato once again helped restore the broken Baekje dynasty by supporting King Munju, King Gaero’s younger brother on his mother’s side,whom the Samguk Sagi claims was the one sent to negotiate with Silla for assistance.
This whole episode led to Baekje re-establishing their capital farther to the south, at Ungjin, in modern day Gongju. Ungjin is also apparently known as Gomanaru, which bears a striking resemblance to the name “Kumanari”, which the Nihon Shoki claims was given by Yamato to Baekje at this time. This is, as one can imagine, a bit of a controversial statement. It is more likely that “Kumanari” referred to some part of Nimna, and may have been territory controlled by “Wa” or their allies without necessarily being directly controlled by the distant Yamato court. However it came to be, King Munju ascended the Baekje throne, and kept the dynasty going from the new southern capital.
As a side-note, both the Samguk Sagi and the Samguk Yusa claim that Munju was actually the son of the late King Gaero, but as noted, early, the Nihon Shoki states that he was actually Gaero’s brother, instead. That is backed up by the fact that the Samguk Sagi claims that all of Gaero’s children were imprisoned and taken to Goguryeo, as well as the fact that Munju is said to have “Risen to the position of Senior Counselor, something typically not done for princes at the time, as their status as princes and possible heirs to the throne would have been enough.
There is also the little fact of Konji, sent to the archipelago in 461, who was said to be the younger brother of King Gaero, at least according to the Nihon Shoki and later Japanese sources. In the Samguk Sagi they claim that Konji was actually the younger brother to Mujun. If the Samguk Sagi is correct, and Munju was Gaero’s son, then perhaps we have here another son of Gaero, who also wasn’t taken to Goguryeo, by some chance. On the other hand, if the Nihon Shoki is correct, then Konji may have been brother to both Mujun and Gaero, which all lines up nicely.
Despite successfully setting up the new capital, things in Baekje were not going well. Even with the recent attacks by Goguryeo, politics in Baekje were cutthroat—quite literally in this case. In 477, in the third year of King Munju’s rule, he was assassinated by his own Minister of War, Hae Ku, who set himself up as regent for the reign of Munju’s thirteen year old son, King Samgeun. That would only have been a temporary solution, and in 478 Hae Ku revolted and the Baekje court had to twice send armies out to subdue him, eventually putting him to death. But Samgeun would not get long to enjoy this victory, as he perished around 479.
Word of Samgeun’s death reached Yamato, who once again offered their support. As Samgeun had apparently died childless, Yamato supported Tongseong for the throne. Tongseong, who would be known as King Modae, was a son of Konji, younger brother of King Munju—and possible King Gaero. The Nihon Shoki claims that Modae was born in Yamato when his father was sent there back in 461, and when they heard that Samgeun had died they sent Modae back with some 500 soldiers as reinforcements—once again supporting their ally militarily. Of course, this is not mentioned in the Samguk Sagi, who merely mentions that Modae, son of Konji, took the throne.
And so we can see that between 475 and 479, Baekje wasn’t doing so great, going through three sovereigns in only four years. This was clearly a violent and turbulent age.
Back on the archipelago, Wakatake had certainly been hotheaded in his youth, going to war at the drop of a hat, and quick to respond with violence to the slightest offense. Over time, however, this mellowed, and Wakatake is pictured as even having regret in some of the later stories.
Towards the end of his reign, Wakatake also had gathered around him a court of powerful nobles. At the head of his government may very well have been Ohotomo no Muroya no Ohomuraji—interesting in that the Ohotomo were Muraji and not Omi, but so were the powerful Mononobe family at this time, at the height of their power.
At the start of the reign, Wakatake actually elevated the ranks of three individuals. First there was Heguri no Oho-omi no Matori, who would seem to be the highest ranking of the three. He was a descendant of the legendary Takeuchi no Sukune, the first Oho-omi. That said, he seems to have relatively little impact, and he really doesn’t get much mention until later reigns.
Second was Mononobe no Ohomuraji no Me—whom we’ve mentioned previously as the head—eventually at least—of the powerful Mononobe family, who were coming to the height of their power. He had several mentions throughout the reign, but mentions of him go silent towards the end. Perhaps he passed away, or was out of favor with the court. Unfortunately, as I noted earlier, the information on many of these individuals is fragmentary at best, and so we really don’t know what happened.
Finally there was Ohotomo no Ohomuraji no Muroya—sometimes referred to as “Muruya” or “Moriya”, but in looking at the spelling in the Nihon Shoki, Muroya seems to be appropriate. Muroya was no newbie to the court. Back in the reign of Woasatsuma, aka Ingyo Tennou, Wakatake’s father, Muroya had helped set up the Fujiwara-Be for Woasatsuma’s mistress, Sotohori Hime—that woman that his wife could not stand but whom Woasatsuma kept making excuses to go and see.
In the reign of Wakatake, Muroya was taking on a larger role, as indicated by his rise in rank to the head of the Ohotomo house and title of Ohomuraji. Muroya would be the one to put to death Iketsu Hime of Baekje, sent to be an Uneme, but she had an affair before reaching the court.
Later, when the Imaki artisans were brought over from Baekje, Muroya was responsible for resettling them after disease broke out and they needed to socially distance the survivors.
Muroya also had a peripheral role in Wakatake’s great campaign against Silla. He interceded with Wakatake to get an Uneme for Ki no Woyumi, and later is involved with requests for the burial mound of the same. One of the generals, the ill-fated Ohotomo no Katari, who would die in the early assaults on Silla, was no doubt related—possibly even his son.
In all of this, with perhaps the exception of the story of Sotohori Hime, Muroya and the Ohotomo in general are involved with various things involving the continent—be it Silla or Baekje. Of course, there are some mentions of the Ohotomo and their ancestors before this, often in a military context, but this reign seems to really see their rise with Muroya.
It was into this mix that Wakatake, feeling his age, is said to have handed over the reigns of government to his son, Prince Shiraga, and, at the same time, Ohotomo no Muroya was raised up above the other courtiers, despite the power and influence of the Mononobe. Shiraga was put in charge of rewards and punishments, as well as financial matters—in other words, he held the purse strings as well as control over any possible promotions. Muroya, on the other hand, was given general administrative command, along with Yamato-Aya no Tsuka no Atahe, who had previously helped Muroya move the Imaki families of Baekje. In this case, though, Tsuka appears to be little more than a general dogsbody for Muroya, and it was Muroya who was truly in power.

And so, where do we stand at the very end of Wakatake’s reign?
Wakatake is still sovereign, but his age and health are failing. No longer is he the dynamic, hot headed youth whose hand needed to be stayed by cooler, wiser heads. He is leaving Yamato, if not the entire archipelago, in an arguably more solidified state, with more centralized control through a growing force of family and corporate group leaders that controlled key military and economic sectors of society.
Meanwhile, despite apparently strong military operations on the peninsula, Yamato’s own influence seems to have wavered, there. This may have been as much due to growth of the peninsular powers as any missteps on Yamato’s end.
As Wakatake withdraws, he iss ensuring his legacy by placing his son, Shiraga, in charge, with the expert aid of senior, experienced couriers, such as Ōtomo no Muroya. And yet, this is still a tumultuous time.
Baekje had been devastated in 475, relocating their capital and rebuilding after Goguryeo’s punishing attack that saw the death of King Gaero. The Liu Song would not be too far behind, falling to their own internal pressures.
And so the death of Wakatake in 479 comes during a period of great uncertainty, and despite all the precautions that had been taken, the threat of violence continues to hang over the transition.
In the countryside, the Nihon Shoki tells us that the Emishi grew restless. These weren't the Emishi of Tōhoku, however. These were Emishi around Kibi. It is unclear if they were Emishi who had been enslaved in the east and resettled in Western Honshu, or simply groups living outside of the Yamato hegemony; certainly in later centuries that would seen to be the definition.
Either way, they saw their chance to establish some kind of independence. Five hundred of them gathered together, and we are told they began raiding nearby districts.
Around this same time, Oshiro, of the Kibi no Omi, was returning home. Oshiro had been one of the Wa generals in the expedition against Silla, and one can imagine that he did not return alone.
Nonetheless, 500 Emishi is a daunting number for this period. You may recall that a punitive force against a rebellious Kibi lord was comprised of only about 30 individuals. On the other hand, peninsular conflicts were being recorded that would seem to involve much larger forces.
Oshiro must have felt he had enough, though, as he began to pursue the Emishi, starting in the West, at Port Saba, in Suwo, near the modern day city of Houfu, towards the western end of the Seto Inland Sea. As he and his men fired on the Emishi with their bows, the Emishi skillfully jumped out of the way, which almost sounds like something out of a Loony Tunes show. He continued shooting, blowing through two cases of arrows, until he completely ran dry, at which point he kept shooting the bow—and apparently he took out two companies of Emishi. This latter feat, a clear exaggeration of Oshiro’s martial prowess, was a common trope in old stories, where some archers were so skilled they could take out enemies with just the sound of the bowstring. Let's see Hawkeye try that trick shot!
By the way, dry firing a bow like this would also be used to pacify spirits, and in later centuries we’ll see stories of archers twanging their bows at night to keep evil spirits at bay.
And so there Oshiro was, dry firing his bow, but he knew that would only go so far. He called on his boatmen to bring him resupplies, but they were afraid—as I noted, earlier, 500 Emishi was not an insignificant number. And so they fled, taking their boats with them.
And so there was Oshiro and his men. They were out of arrows, except perhaps those fired at them by their enemies. His boatmen had fled, taking any spare arrows and hope of escape. One can imagine Oshiro’s men wondering if the sailors didn't have the right idea. The general had to push his men onward in the fight, and so he got in front of them, turned his bow upside down, and composed a poem on the spot.
Michi ni Afuya / Wosiro no ko / Amo ni koso / kikoezu arame / kuni ni ha / Kikoete na
“He met them on the way, / The Child of Oshiro! / It is only in Heaven / that he will be unheard of / For you will hear of him / Here on Earth!”
The translation may not trip forth as cleanly as Shakespeare’s words in the mouth of Henry the V on St. Crispin’s Day, but the defiance and sheer will and intent ring out clear as day, so that even today he is remembered and heard of once more, as we speak of him, now.
Oshiro’s men rallied to their leader’s boasts, and they took the fight to the enemy in hand to hand combat. Eventually they pushed the Emishi back and caused a rout, pushing their foes eastward, all the way to the shores of Uragake, in Tamba, modern Kyotango city in Kyoto prefecture, where Oshiro’s men slew all the remaining Emishi in what Aston translates as a “massacre”.
This incredible campaign is placed at the very end of Wakatake’s reign in the Nihon Shoki, after the death of the sovereign himself. It is a fantastical account that very likely was much more limited in scope than the expansive take we are given. On the other hand, there likely were such attempts to shake the rule of Yamato or any of the other early states that were forming. This could even be more a story of Kibi, who were at the height of their own power at this time. If so, it indicates possible Kibi influence across much of Western Honshu and all the way to the Japan sea
Either way, it seems a fitting end to the reign of Wakatake; a book end of violence, capping off a reign that began in murder and fratricide.
Speaking of which, it wasn’t merely the Emishi that were plotting something at this time. You see, even though Wakatake had transferred the government before his death, investing his son, Prince Shiraga, as his clear successor, and giving administration of the government over to the Ōtomo no Ōmuraji, Muroya, not everyone was pleased. Even Wakatake seems to have warned of it in his deathbed: the royal family of Yamato still had a tradition of challenging the successor to the throne, a tradition that even Wakatake had upheld in his own way, despite his attempts to prevent it.
In this case the threat came from none other than the Kibi side of the family: Prince Hoshikawa. Hoshikawa’s mother was none other than Kibi no Wakahime, the former wife to Tasa no Omi of Upper Kibi. You may recall that Tasa was sent away—or possibly killed—because Wakatake sought to take his wife for his own. Of course, Wakahime had never been the Queen, but so what? Neither had Shiraga’s mother, Karahime. So why shouldn't her son, Hoshikawa, take the throne?
She planted this idea in Hoshikawa's head, suggesting that if he wanted to take the throne for himself, Prince Hoshikawa should take over the Treasury. Hoshikawa listened to this plan and ran with it. When his older brother, Prince Iwaki, heard about it, he urged his brother not to do anything, but Hoshikawa would not be dissuaded.
And so he took the Treasury, locked the doors, and fortified his position. He then began to act as the sovereign ruler, handing out disbursements and generally depleting the Treasury, probably in an attempt to buy the loyalty of enough powerful court nobles that they would recognize him as the rightful ruler, rather than his brother.
Immediately, once he heard what was happening, Muroya reached out to his trusty aide de camp, Tsuka, of the Yamato no Aya, and had him draw up men to resist this usurpation. They gathered men loyal to the court of Shiraga and they besieged the Treasury building.
Now perhaps Kibi no Wakahime and her son, Prince Hoshikawa, figured they were safe. After all, if Muroya and his forces attached, they risked destroying the total treasures as well. But if that was their thinking, they had really misjudged Muroya.
And here’s where we perhaps get a glimpse of just why Wakatake had chosen Muroya in the first place. He was a military man, accustomed to war and a loyal pragmatist. Treasure in the hands of enemies to the throne was all but worthless, and he may have just considered it already lost. In any event, he had his men light a fire and burn the entire structure to the ground, along with everyone inside. That included Prince Hoshikawa and his entire family, including his mother, Kibi no Wakahime, and his brother, Prince Iwaki, as well as his half-brother, Yegimi. They even had Ki no Okazaki and his forces, possibly enticed by the promise of reward. They all perished in the flames.
Once again, we see a conflict involving Kibi, lending further credence to the idea that Kibi may have been pushing against Yamato power and flexing their own military might. And it is worth remembering that it was anything but a foregone conclusion that Yamato would emerge the sole ruling authority in the archipelago. Of course, we only have Yamato’s point of view for all of this, and even that was coming well after the events in question, with the full benefit of knowing just how things would play out, but at the time I doubt it was quite that clear cut.
And with that, I think we can bring this to a close. Shiraga is on the throne, and was probably co-ruling some time before that, and the Chroniclers will name him Seinei Tennou. We’ll look more at his reign and what comes next, soon enough.
And, so, until next episode, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends—word of mouth really is the best way to let people know about things like this. Also feel free to rate us 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, find us on Patreon, or find links 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.
Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2013). The 'Silla annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Kim, P., Shultz, E. J., Kang, H. H. W., & Han'guk Chŏngsin Munhwa Yŏn'guwŏn. (2012). The Koguryo annals of the Samguk sagi. Seongnam-si, Korea: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Soumaré, Massimo (2007), Japan in Five Ancient Chinese Chronicles: Wo, the Land of Yamatai, and Queen Himiko. ISBN: 978-4-902075-22-9.
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
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 63: Immigrants, Gods, and Movie Studios

May 1, 2022 Joshua Badgley

Crew hard at work on set at Toei Eiga Mura, in Uzumasa, Kyoto. Photo by author.

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This episode is perhaps a bit less straightforward than I would have liked, so apologies if there is any confusion. Next episode should get us back on track if there is too much confusion. That said, a few things here that I really couldn’t get into in the depth I wanted in the episode.

Wakatake and the Liu Song

So I’ve mentioned this before, but while there are a fair number of scholars that understandably suggest Wakatake is Bu (武) in the Song Chronicles, more and more I am inclined to suggest that he is actually Kō (與). After all, the date of Kō’s envoy in 462 matches up just too well with the Chronicle for this time, and the envoy from Bu arrived in 478, less than 2 years before Wakatake’s recorded death. Of course, it is likely that one of the sources we read is wrong, as they don’t exactly match up entirely, but if that is the case, I am inclined to go with the Song histories. It is a bit odd that an envoy would be sent towards the end of Wakatake’s reign, but we do know that he eventually put the Crown Prince, Shiraga, in charge of many of the functions of government. In the Chronicles this is placed shortly before his death, but what if it occurred earlier? It is possible that Shiraga was then sending out the mission asking for assistance in completing his father’s objectives, in which case it would be Shiraga who is known as “Bu” and who gained the title of “King of Wa”.

Of course, a big question in all of this is what did it mean, in a practical sense? We tend to assume that because they gained a great title and various concessions that they must have done a lot. However, it is also possible that the titles were the culmination of a series of actions by the Wa that led to greater and greater titles being issued by the Liu Song, but there is no guarantee that any ruler that received them would necessarily reign for a long time. Death could come swiftly and unexpectedly, even to those in power, so we have to be careful of translating grand titles and what it actually means. Was it some kind of lifetime achievement award, or more like a recognition of the state?

Foreign Lineages

One of the things we talk about are the foreign lineages in Japan. One of the most prominent is the Hata (秦), who were weavers and whose name expressly references the continent. Then there were others like the Aya (漢), another group named for their weaving expertise who are described with the character for the Han dynasty rather than the Qin. These are expressly foreign lineages, founded by people who came or were brought over from the Korean peninsula.

However, there were also foreign ties with various “indigenous” lineages. The powerful Mononobe (物部) are known to have accepted foreigners into the family, likely bringing various advantages in terms of continental wealth and technology with them. Even the royal lineage has multiple mentions of both mythical and historical ties to continental descent. This idea has been further bolstered by research into DNA, showing clear links between the people of the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago by the later Kofun period.

Immigrant Gods

One of the more controversial topics of Japanese history at this time would seem to be the idea of “immigrant” gods, or kami. Now, it isn’t controversial—or shouldn’t be—that there are kami that are worshipped in the archipelago that claim to have come from the Korean peninsula. After all, we had Ama no Hiboko who supposedly came to Tsuruga, and we have others in Naniwa and elsewhere, all claiming to be from the Korean peninsula. However, there are other deities, or just aspects of them, where it seems we often meet resistance on this topic. In particular when we discuss the origins for kami like Amaterasu and Susano’o. These are major figures in the Shinto pantheon, and are often considered just about as Japanese as one can get. And so it may be understandable when people balk at the idea that there might be elements from the continent and even other cultures—making them, as some might say, “transnational” deities.

But there is definitely evidence of the same kind of influences that were exerting pressure on the Wa in the archipelago similarly reshaping how they saw the world, including the world of the supernatural. And so we see elements, like the popularity of the Queen Mother of the West, found in the early mirrors from the continent, but also in similarities in how deities like Amaterasu are portrayed. This isn’t to say that Amaterasu is a stand-in for a continental deity, but rather that she is an amalgamation of various stories and ideas—much as the Chronicles themselves and just about any modern culture is the product of every influence that came before.

If anything, early kami seem to be represented as snakes, arrows, etc. We see this in the deity of Mt. Miwa in early stories and even the giant serpent captured by Sukaru that is identified as Ikazuchi (the Thunder God). There is also the description of the rainbow that illuminates the site of Takuhata’s death as looking like a “giant serpent”. Of course, there are other visible-kami-as-animal examples, such as in the stories of Yamato Takeru, but snakes seem to have a particular place of prominence in the stories.

On the other hand, the world of Takamagahara, the Heavenly Plain, is filled with rice fields and silk weaving, among other things. Even the mirrors hung in the trees, and even swords, were things that came, originally, from the continent. Particularly, though, there seems to be an emphasis with weaving, which, of course, explains the title of Michael Como’s book: “Weaving and Binding: Immigrant Gods and Female Immortals in Ancient Japan”. Here he also places a lot of emphasis on the Weaver Maiden figure that we see in things like the Weaver Maiden and the Oxherd story of Tanabata fame. But rather than trying to summarize all of his arguments, I am going to recommend that if you are interested, check out his book on the subject and come to your own conclusions.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 63: Immigrants, Gods, and Movie Studios
Last episode we looked at how Wakatake, aka Yuryaku Tenno, and the court backed up their will in the archipelago as well as on the continent—using the Mononobe, their enforcers, in the areas near the court and further afield. As we discussed, this was a period with plenty of violence and turmoil, but one thing it wasn’t was a period of isolation. Besides the military entanglements on the continent, there were also accounts of more diplomatic efforts on farther shores—namely with the court of Liu Song.
And even though over the course of the reign Yamato power waned on the peninsula, as it would seem based on evidence in the Samguk Sagi, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t still people moving from one locale to the other. In fact, if Yamato influence did wane towards the end of Wakatake’s reign, that may have been impetus for more people—namely Yamato’s closest peninsular allies—to make the trip across the straits to the archipelago. So this episode we are going to focus on those people and the innovations, especially ideas they brought over, and—in a true illustration of how the historical processes described in the Chronicles continue to resonate down to the present day—we’re going to conclude with just what all of this has to do with a modern day movie studio-slash-theme park in Kyoto.
Now, as for people, we have plenty of evidence in this period of individuals coming across the straits and staying in the islands. We’ve talked about some of these people already, such as the Imaki, who were artisans brought over from Baekje, to join groups that we already know, like the Aya, and a few we’ll talk about this episode.
And these people were bringing new technologies. Some are obvious, like methods of weaving fabric, or even pottery. For example, there is a particular type of pottery, known in Japan as sueki, or Sue ware. It is unlike the terracotta used for the haniwa figures that famously decorated the kofun. Sue ware vessels tend to be blue-grey stoneware, and are the same—or at least extremely similar—to ones found on the Korean peninsula, particularly in the Kara and Silla regions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a fair amount of it shows up in the area of modern Ohosaka, near Naniwa, likely Yamato’s main port, even when the court was elsewhere, indicating that there were likely potters there who had come over with the technology from the continent.
But beyond the tangible innovations imported from the continent and the peninsula, there were less tangible ones as well. We have writing, of course, but even just the basics of statecraft and how to organize and administer larger territories and diverse groups of people—things likely passed on from the dynasties in China.
And then there is another step beyond that in the realm of the metaphysical. And there were plenty of continental ideas on that front as well, bringing in foreign deities—or karakami—to be worshipped locally, as well as importing foreign concepts that were absorbed into local practice. In some cases these may have retained some connection to the continental practices that spawned them, but in others they may just as easily have become localized to the needs of the people. All of this would have a profound impact on the make-up and belief systems in the archipelago, such that there are many things that even today are regarded as indigenous to Japan or Shinto and yet would seem to have roots outside of the archipelago.
This didn’t all happen during the reign of Wakatake, of course, but there are enough things that did that this is as good a place as any for us to look at what was happening in this regard in the late 5th century.
So, backing up a bit. At this point, what exactly was going on on the peninsula and the continent? Of course, a big part of it – and something we’ve touched on in recent episodes – is the conflict between and among Silla and Goguryeo—as well as Baekje and Kara—over on the Korean peninsula. It is somewhat difficult to say how active Yamato was, but at least there appears to have been members of the greater Wa ethnic sphere who were a part of the conflicts going on.
Beyond the peninsula, of course, were the successive dynasties laying claim to some part of that area that had been known as the “Middle Kingdom” since ancient times. To the Japanese Chroniclers, this all was all simply labeled as “Kure”, the Japanese pronunciation of the character for Wu—one of the states that arose after the fall of the Han dynasty. While it only lasted until the 3rd century, it became the de facto name for just about any interaction with the mainland “Middle Kingdom”. And if the Korean peninsula was considered valuable for its continental goods and learning, “Kure” was considered the motherlode. A center of authority, sophistication, and learning. If something came from Kure, one can only imagine the prestige that brought with it.
At this point the dynasty that held sway over Wu’s ancient territory, from the Shandong peninsula all the way down into the northern reaches of modern day Vietnam, was a dynasty known to us as the Liu Song. In the north, in the Yellow River Basin, was the Northern Wei, a dynasty descended from the nomadic Xianbei people. While I suppose it is possible that any connection could have been drawn to either of these two powers, it seems likely that much of what is mentioned in the Yamato chronicles refers to the southern, Liu Song dynasty.
Our first contact with the Liu Song, then, is recorded by the Japanese Chroniclers as taking place in the year 462. Per the Nihon Shoki, this is when “The Land of Wu”—aka the Liu Song dynasty—sent envoys to Yamato with tribute. Of course, this lines up remarkably well—perhaps too well, in fact—with the information in the Song Shu, where they make the claim that this was actually the first envoy from the archipelago to the Liu Song court, and not vice versa. It’s pretty evident that from either perspective has recorded the “lesser” power sending tribute to the “greater”, in a sense. But either way, it seems likely that the Chroniclers had access to the Song Shu or similar works, and were fitting those dates together, though why they didn’t mention the other six embassies since 421 is anybody’s guess.
And then there are the missions that the Nihon Shoki claims were sent that we have no record of in the Chinese sources. For instance, in 464, in response, it would seem, to the mission of 462, Musa no Suguri no Awo and Hinokuma no Tamitsukashi no Hakatoko were sent as emissaries of Wakatake no Ohokimi.
Now Awo and Hakatoko have surfaced in our narrative before, though it was kind of a blink and you’d miss it kind of deal. They came up two episodes back when we were talking about Wakatake’s mean streak, where it was noted that, at least at one point these were the only two nobles in the whole of Yamato that held any love for Wakatake—his only friends. Of course, neither was anyone of particular note, with relatively minor kabane—far from the Omi and Muraji, and even the Atahe.
Of course, it is probably easy to be friends with the sovereign when you spend most of your life on the road for him. Not to mention that they likely owed him a great deal—members of more prestigious households would have had their own power base, whereas Awo and Hakatoko would have been more reliant on Wakatake’s pleasure. This also made them perfect for the task of representing him to the continent, since one expects they would not have their own agendas that might conflict with his own.
Granted, it is questionable just how well this mission went. The two envoys returned two years after they had been sent, in 466. This seems reasonable given the distance of such a journey.
In earlier periods, we were told of the goods that would be taken on these embassies, including fabric and enslaved people, only to return with even more valuable goods in return. However, we aren’t told what Awo and Hakatoko took with them, only what they brought back—two geese presented by Liu Song. Somehow I suspect this wasn’t the only thing that they brought back, but it was what the Nihon Shoki bothered to mention, mainly because of the odd story that goes along with it. It seems that when the envoys arrived back in the archipelago they put in at Tsukushi—modern Kyushu—and there they must have brought the geese and anything else ashore. Seems they did a poor job of looking after things though, and a dog got into the geese and killed them both.
Minuma no Kimi, the dog’s owner, realized he would need to pay some sort of restitution. After all, these weren’t just any old geese—they were gifts from the Liu Song emperor to Wakatake no Ohokimi. And so Minuma no Kimi quickly offered up what he could—he offered up ten geese and the bird-keepers to look after them. Wakatake accepted the payment and had the bird-keepers in particular resettled into two villages—in Karu and in Iware.
This was certainly better than what had happened in another case of a dog killing royal birds, which took place only a year later. In that case the owner, who could not pay restitution, ended up branded and made a part of the Torikahi Be, or Bird-keeper’s Be. This would also be the fate of those who questioned Wakatake’s judgment on this matter, so you know, paying up was probably a good thing.
But surely the continent had more to offer than birds, right? And so Awo and Hakatoko went back in 468. This time they came back—once again two years later—and this time they brought something better than birds. This time they brought craftspeople, namely Aya and Kure weavers.
Now some of this mirrors previous accounts, such as in the reign of Homuda Wake, when tailors of Kure were also said to have come over. They even brought specific tailors—one in particular they name as “Ane-hime”, who is given to the service of the god Ohomi, much as in Homuda Wake’s time they claim that an “Ane-hime”, which likely is more of a description than a name, was given to the god of Munakata. These could easily be two separate individuals, given the vagaries of the name-slash-descriptor, but it is also possible that the same stories got told slightly differently in different places in the Chronicles.
Now, this dedication of some of these foreign workers to shrines will bring us around to another topic in a bit—the connection between weaving and ritual life—but for now, let’s continue to pull on just one thread at a time—in this case the actual individuals and how they were incorporated into Yamato. All of these craftspeople from the continent were split up into various familial Be groups and sent to different places throughout the country, or at least that’s the official story. We will often see where members of a Be are mentioned as living in farflung lands, under the sway of local authorities.
Which brings us to the larger question of —how did these foreigners integrate into Yamato Society? The answer seems to be: on the whole, quite well. In fact, in this period, while there are certainly remembrances of continental origin that remain in various names or simply stories, many of these groups of people were either accepted as familial groups – Be - on their own, or placed into new or existing family groups and made a part of the citizenry of Yamato. This would later be codified into law, but for now the process seems vague.
The Chronicles do like to make the claim that creation of these family groups belonged to the sovereign, something that I’m not so sure about in these early times. Still, since that seems to have been a later prerogative that the royalty asserted, the Chroniclers were unlikely to countermand that in compiling their history. And so we see efforts to organize people, both foreign and local.
These Be had various purposes and types. We’ve already seen a few examples of Be created around certain occupations, such as the creation of the Imaki from Baekje artisans, or the Umakai Be and the Torikai Be—the Horsekeepers’ Be and the Birdkeepers’ Be, to look after various animals that had some value: horses, for likely obvious reasons, and birds, possibly like game wardens. Then there were less obvious groups, like the Wina Be, who apparently were a family group of carpenters, at least based on the stories about them, though their name may have simply referred to their original place of origin.
Sometimes these family groups were created simply for a specific person or purpose, such as the upkeep of a tomb, or to support a particular family. Others are less clear, and their origin stories may just be apocryphal.
For example, you might remember that brave—or perhaps foolhardy—individual who had gone up Mt. Miwa to obtain the kami for Wakatake, from Episode 61. There was a man named Chihisako Be no Sukaru, and there is another story about him on how he got that name. And it all has to do with silkworms and a slight misunderstanding.
The year was 462—The same year as that mission that was said to have arrived from the Liu Song—or possibly had been sent.
Back in the archipelago, we are told that Wakatake was trying to boost the native silk industry. We know from archaeological evidence that the people in the Japanese archipelago had been weaving silk locally since at least the Mid-Yayoi and earlier, using silk cocoons imported from the continent. Of course this technology was not a recent one. The section of the Wei Chronicles regarding the Wa claimed they were, in fact, raising their own silkworms and weaving silk even back then. It is uncertain just how widespread this was or even if it was actually happening—it could be that sericulture was simply considered a mark of civilization and therefore part of a common refrain about certain cultures. Still, certainly by the latter half of the 5th century we can say that sericulture was fairly well known and practiced in the archipelago.
However, given the importation of more and more craftspeople, I suspect that silk was in ever greater demand. After all, it did one very little good to have all of these weavers and tailors coming over if you didn’t have anything for them to actually weave, let alone sew up.
Furthermore, raising silkworms could be done on an individual basis. You didn’t need to manage large plots of land, as with rice farming – silkworms are, of course, small, and as long as you have access to one or more mulberry trees for the leaves, you can generally keep them fed. Often this was seen as being in the realm of women—to raise the silkworms and process the cocoons and eventually weave the silk. To scale up production at this point there was really only one thing to do: Get more people to grow silkworms and harvest the resulting silk.
And so it made sense that if Wakatake wanted to see more silkworm cultivation occur, he should encourage it in the palace itself and amongst the women of the palace. Who better than his own Queen and consorts to take up this task. And so Wakatake conscripted the brave Sukaru to go and collect silkworms throughout the country so that they could be raised in the palace.
Unfortunately, it seems there was a bit of a communication problem. The term used for silkworms was “Kahi-ko”, which also sounded remarkably similar to a phrase that meant to “nurture children”, and so Sukaru did not realize that he was supposed to collect silkworms and, instead, he went around the countryside collecting babies and young children and eventually presented those to the sovereign, thinking that is what he was supposed to do.
When he realized what had happened, Wakatake laughed and then decreed that Sukaru would need to raise the children himself. And, in case you are wondering, no, there is no mention of the children’s parents or what happened to them. Perhaps they were orphans? That is perhaps the most charitable way to look at it.
Anyway, that is why the sovereign then created an entire family structure: the Chihisako Be—the Be of Little Children.
Of course I take most of these family creation stories with at least a grain of salt. This seems like quite the story, here, and while I enjoy a good pun as much as the next podcast host, the idea that someone would just go about collecting children because of a misunderstanding seems a bit much. And besides, a lot of this feels like more continental imperial trappings being placed on the sovereign, even having his consorts raise silkworms in the palace.
But the fact that the creation of the Chihisakobe is also connected with this story of raising silkworms draws an interesting connection, and they were likely more closely related to something to do with silk raising or weaving than little children.
And let’s not also forget Sukaru’s feat of wrestling a thunder god down from Mt. Miwa—combining silk industry and spiritual power.
Other families and/or Be were created during this time as well, or were organized together. Again, remember, these are not necessarily blood relatives, but individuals brought together into organizations designed around the familial framework. And although we’ve talked about Be being formed to help organize foreigners, there are plenty of examples of the same practice being applied to people and groups in the archipelago as well. In some cases this was likely done as a means of control as much as anything else—bringing an industry under a single head and therefore providing control even over disparate groups throughout the islands.
A good example is the Nihe no Hanishi Be—the clayworkers Be. According to the Nihon Shoki, an ancestor of the Hanishi no Muraji presented private subjects of various villages to be part of the Nihe no Hanishi Be to make vessels for the sovereign’s table. The fact that his family became the Hanishi and this was the Hanishi Be is not uncommon—there are often, but not always, corresponding families to some of the Be groups. I also find it interesting that he could just “give” private subjects—this likely refers to the idea that while he may have been collecting some tax or product from these villages, I suspect that production is now being redirected to a new recipient—in this case the royal family. Of course, the Hanishi family would likely retain some part in that, which would be key to their own wealth and status in the community of Yamato elites.
That the villages named are from all over is what I find truly interesting, however. The individuals being placed in this group were from Settsu, Yamashiro, Ise, Tanba, Tajima, and Inaba. Rather than suggesting that a single individual already had such a reach, this may have been more about putting various clayworkers in those areas under a single organizational unit, and a single organizational head. Thus their production could be more centralized as well. Still, how much of this was actual and how much was aspirational is hard to say..
So, Be could, in fact, be created around just about any craft, and it’s not so much the creation of a Be, but more where that craft came from, that clues in modern historians as to whether a given group were part of a continental tradition.
Now as all of these new groups were being created and as people were coming in from the continent, they were merging together various ideas and concepts. In some cases, as we mentioned, it was technologies, from writing, to horses, to pottery, and even various fabric arts. But in other cases it was ideas—statecraft, for one, but also religious and spiritual thought.
Of course, at the time, people really did not distinguish between the natural and the supernatural. Kami and spirits were as natural to them as the mountains and seas. And, from what we see in the record, it would certainly seem that spiritual practices were seen as an important tool of statecraft. Of course, while there were similarities, it is likely that there was a lot of variation in ritual practices across the archipelago. Different groups would have their local deities and specific rites. If those rites were seen as effective in some way—whether curing illness, helping the crops, or just generally bringing good fortune—then those rites were propagated.
At the same time, that made the ritualists in charge of those rites powerful as well. As such we often see local deities, ritual centers, and family groups intertwined. Queen Himiko, after all, was said to have held power through her ability to commune with the spirits
As examples of this, think about how those women named Ane-hime were dedicated to this or that shrine or deity, and then consider some of the other mentions of spiritual and ritual power. Even the Mononobe, who are often talked about in a martial context, clearly had some authority through their connection to Isonokami.
Control of various ritual elements would be crucial in later periods—indeed, it would be one of the fundamental ways that power structures would be challenged. And remember how we talked about how Homuda Wake would be eventually morphed into the god Hachiman, from a group in Northern Kyushu? And later we’ll talk about groups like the Nakatomi, and even the Soga, who would wield Buddhism to their family’s benefit.
Even in the Heian period, families would keep diaries which would be used as precedent for various rituals and decisions. If you were seen as having control over some kind of ritual, that was a form of power on the archipelago. Perhaps this is part of why, as Yamato expanded its authority, it required various ritual centers to turn over their ritual tools, such as mirrors and jewels and swords, to the court. We’ve talked about some of this already with Wakatake’s predecessors, as they broadened the sphere of Yamato influence.
At the same time as all of this was happening within the archipelago, you had an influx of individuals from the continent who brought with them not just new ways of making things, but they brought their own gods, their own stories, and their own rituals. Gina Barnes has made note of how stories of the Queen Mother of the West made their way into the islands, and it is easy to see trappings of Chinese thought in various rituals. This is sometimes seen as the importation of Taoism, though there seems little evidence that it was brought in in such a structured manner. After all, many things we consider “Taoist” today were likely originally local traditions that existed alone before later being brought under a larger conceptual roof. So it may have just been isolated practices, not necessarily connected with the sage Laozi.
Likewise, there were foreign deities, or karakami, brought into Japan as well. Some of these seem obvious, like Ame no Hiboko, who is explicitly said to have come over from the Korean peninsula. Others are more controversial. Susanowo is often pointed to as likely originating on the continent, and even Amaterasu has been suggested as having elements of continental influence.
No doubt these new gods and rituals offered something novel to people on the archipelago. Much like other technologies, including statecraft, medicine, writing, etc., why wouldn’t these foreign systems be something to try? They likely were seen as exotic, and without the burden of a history of unanswered prayers or ineffective rituals. It seems reasonable to assume that people may have adopted some of these continental beliefs and made them their own, or simply used them for a touch of the exotic and to appear more cultured and erudite.
Michael Como makes a point about this in his 2009 book, Weaving and Binding: Immigrant Gods and Female Immortals in Ancient Japan. There, Como points out many of the connections between the immigrant groups coming into Japan, the weaving technologies that they brought with them and upon which they built their fortunes and economic power, and the influence they had on religious thought and practice in the archipelago, both by importing certain rituals and beliefs, but also by importing their own gods, or kami.
For example, one of the families that was of some import in the early Heian period were the Hata, a group with a foreign lineage, whose name specifically references woven cloth, and who had considerable ritual control over various sacred sites, including Buddhist temples and also the famous Kamo shrines. That the capital of Heian-kyo—modern Kyoto—was built in their ancestral stronghold is likely not a mere coincidence. The Hata are an important enough example of everything I’m talking about that we’re going to spend most of the rest of the episode talking about this particular family and how they tie into several places in the Chronicles at this point.
In particular, one of the stories that Como uses to illustrate the connections between immigration, weaving and ritual comes from our current reign, the reign of Wakatake, and it is about Takuhata no Himemiko, the Ise Princess. Make a note of the “hata” in her name – I promise we’ll return to it soon.
Now for some reason—the Nihon Shoki doesn’t seem to explain why—Kunimi of the Abe no Omi apparently started a rumor that the royal Ise princess, Takuhata no Himemiko, had been having an affair with the bath official, Takehiko of the Ihoki-be no Muraji.
Takuhata no Himemiko, aka Waka Tarashi Hime, was the daughter of Wakatake and Kara Hime, and the sister of Crown Prince Shiraga.
And so it is understandable that when Kikoyu, Takehiko’s father, heard about the rumor, he immediately thought about what that might mean for him and the family. It was unthinkable for someone of his family’s status to have an affair with a royal princess, let alone the Ise Princess, who was supposed to be the Priestess at Ise Shrine. And we’ve already seen how quickly Wakatake could take action at even a perceived slight against himself or his family. And so Kikoyu invited his son out to the Ihoki river—from which the Ihoki-be no doubt take their name—where they were to go out cormorant fishing. For those not familiar, this is a practice that continues to the present day, where cormorants are tethered to the fisherman’s boat and trained to dive down for fish and bring them back to the boat.
Now, no doubt going out fishing with your old man would have been a great bonding experience, but Kikoyu had other plans for Takehiko. Once they were at the river, rather than going out fishing, Kikoyu slew his own son, hoping that by doing so his family could avoid the stain of slander that was starting to circulate.
When word of all of this reached Wakatake, he began to make inquiries into what was going on, and he sent people to question Takuhata Hime. Of course, she was ignorant of any of this—she apparently hadn’t even heard the rumor that Kunimi had started—and it seems it all came as quite a shock. After the inquisitors left, Takuhata was distraught. She went to Isuzu no Kawakami, near Ise shrine. She had taken a divine mirror, which she buried, and then she strangled herself.
Eventually word got around that the Princess was missing and so Wakatake sent people to find his daughter. When they came to the area of Kawakami, they saw a rainbow like a serpent, about forty to fifty feet long. At the end of the rainbow, much like a leprechaun’s pot of gold, they found the sacred mirror that Takuhata hand buried, and nearby they found her body.
In examining the body, they noticed something odd, and they cut open her corpse in some kind of kofun era autopsy. Inside her belly they found something like water, and in the water there was a stone. Through this bit of CSI:Yamato they were able to deduce that Takehiko was innocent.
This news devastated Takehiko’s father, Kikoyu, who realized that he had killed his own son for nothing. In rage, he went after and killed Kunimi, the one who had started the vicious rumor, which had set this whole drama in motion—something reminiscent of a Shakespearean tragedy. Kikoyu, his own son dead, and his revenge taken, fled and hid in the Isonokami shrine.
This whole story may seem like simply a tragedy, included because it is about the daughter of the sovereign and the Ise Priestess. But for those of us today, looking back, this actually tells us a lot—and perhaps even more because of what is not being said.
But how does this tale connect with the rest of our narrative?
Well, for one, Amaterasu, the deity of Ise, is also connected with weaving. After all, it was her weaving hall into which Susanowo threw the backwards flayed colt, killing her maiden as she made the ritual garments for the kami of Takamanohara. That was the incident that sent the sun goddess herself into the cave.
I would also point out that when Takuhata decided to take her own life, she buried a mirror. Of course, a mirror is a symbol of the sun and of Amaterasu, but again, it is also a prestige item from the continent.
Now this isn’t to say Amaterasu is a Korean deity; there are factors that make her distinctly Japanese, in my opinion. Rather, I think it helps us see the melting pot of ideas and concepts that came over from the continent at this time and merged with local tradition.
Furthermore, this happened in ways that were relatively seamless compared to later importation of ideas, and perhaps that had to do with the less centralized nature of power at this time. After all, what does it mean to be “Wa” or “Japanese” at a time when there are still multiple states with their own ritual centers and even their own sovereigns?
And then there is the name—Takuhata. “Hata” certainly refers to woven cloth, but you may also remember back in Episode 22 that Takuhata Chichi Hime was the name of a kami—the daughter of Takami Musubi, wife to Amaterasu’s son Oshihomimi, and mother to none other than Ninigi no Mikoto. Takuhata’s name references myriad bolts of silk—or hata, and she is one of the deities said to be enshrined along with Amaterasu at Ise Shrine. And so it seems that Princess Takuhata is using the name of one of the deities of Ise Shrine—specifically the daughter of Takami no Musubi, one of the more important deities of the early stories—possibly even more important than Amaterasu herself.
So, according to Como, we see in this story a connection, coming from continental traditions, between weaving – Hata or Takuhata- and spiritual beliefs. The Queen Mother of the West, for instance, is often depicted with a headdress of weaving implements, and then there are stories such as the Weaving Maiden and the Cow-herd boy—the story of Tanabata—which shows up in different ways from the continent to the archipelago.
And then there is the power that we see some immigrant groups wield, in this case the Hata family. The Hata family was probably not a new lineage group in the time of Wakatake—though whether it was a formal lineage group or simply a description of people who claimed some descent from the peninsula is hard to say. The Nihon Shoki indicates that there were members of the Hata dispersed in various places. Now, “Hata” is the pronunciation of the sinograph used for the ancient Qin dynasty. There is a claim that the first Hata people were people of Qin who moved to the Korean peninsula. They are sometimes said to be the progenitors of the Jin-han people, who then became Silla.
More likely, there were later people of ethnic Han descent who did move into the Korean peninsula, possibly with the various commanderies. This may be the origin for the “Hata” name, which at the very least demonstrates that they came from the continent, possibly of ethnic Han but at least of peninsular origin—even later works agree with that.
Anyway, as I mentioned, the members of the Hata were dispersed, and here the Nihon Shoki uses interesting language. Per Aston’s translation it basically states that the Omi and Muraji—that is the higher ranking noble houses—enforced their services at their pleasure and would not allow the Hata no Miyatsuko to control them.
This gives us some insight into how some of these family groups worked. Even though family or Be members might be dispersed, it seems that their production was expected to be overseen by a central authority. I can’t help but think of some of the work by Dr. Paula Curtis on the metalworkers in later periods, where there were individuals who had particular rights, granted by the court, to oversee and authorize production, for which they were due some not insignificant amount of recompense. The Miyatsuko appears to have occupied a similar position. What I am not sure of is just how new an innovation this would have been in the 5th century. I suspect that it wasn’t nearly so much about asserting traditional privilege as it was creating those same privileges as part of the continuing consolidation of control and authority across the archipelago.
In this case it was Sake, the Hata no Miyatsuko, who is said to have requested consolidation of the Hata under his authority.
But who was Sake, and why would the sovereign listen to him?
Well, Sake seems to have his origin story in about 468, when Wakatake had requested the work of a carpenter, to construct what Aston translates as a “lofty edifice”. It is said that this skilled carpenter nimbly ascended the high building and ran round as if he were flying.
An Uneme from Ise looked up as the construction was going on and marvelled at his work as she was walking. She got so caught up in what was going on above her that she failed to watch where she was going and she fell flat on her face in the courtyard, upsetting the dish of meat that she was bringing to serve Wakatake.
Wakatake jumped to the logical conclusion—or logical to him, anyway—that this meant that the Uneme must have been having some kind of an affair with the carpenter, and he immediately charged the Mononobe with executing the hapless woodworker.
And that would have been the end of him, it seems, if a nearby musician, Hata no Sake no Kimi, hadn’t heard what was going on. He quickly grabbed a nearby zither and started to play a song, talking about Prosperity to the maid of Ise, and wishing for long life for the carpenter. Though I don’t know that I can really piece together the specifics, the song seemed to bring Wakatake to his senses, and he realized that he had overreacted.
Wakatake quickly pardoned the supposed offense and, it seems, the construction went on without further incident.
More importantly to our own story, perhaps, is Sake’s ability to help assert himself with the sovereign and to help calm a tense situation. This likely is meant to equally reflect his political acumen and know-how, which is why, a few years after this, when Hata no Sake requested authority over the other members of the Hata lineage group, Wakatake granted his request.
When that authority was granted, it is said that Sake, attended by the various kinds of Be workmen, presented taxes of fine silks piled up to fill the court—no doubt further ingratiating him and his people with Wakatake.
I don’t think it is too far fetched to assume that the economic—and thus political—power of the Hata came, in part, from their specialization in the silk industry. It was, after all, an area where continental expertise could easily be leveraged in terms of new technological advancements. By consolidating that under a single administrative unit, that also provided greater access to these goods by the court, and in the records of the following year we are told that all of the provinces were ordered to plant and grow mulberry bushes, with members of the Hata dispersed again to make sure they continued to produce silk for the court.
Unsurprisingly, this was quite lucrative, and it would serve the Hata well. In fact, they would be a powerful noble family in the Nara and at least early Heian periods, gaining ritual authority through several prominent shrines, as well as their economic industry.
Now, Sake himself was rewarded with a new personal name for all of his troubles. He was henceforth known as Uzumasa—or possibly Uzumorimasa. And if that sounds familiar, you might be a bit of a film buff.
You see, the Hata would later be involved with a little family temple, known as Hachiokadera—the temple of the bee mound. That temple had a Buddha statue from Korea that is said to have been brought back by none other than Shotoku Taishi himself. Now Hachiokadera was not exactly in a prominent location in the 7th century. It was on the banks of the Omuro river, on a large plain between the larger Katsura and Kamo rivers. It wouldn’t be until the late 8th century that this area, a Hata family stronghold, would become the site for a new city, to be known as Heian-kyo—modern Kyoto. The area around the Hata temple—known today as Koryuji—is still known as Uzumasa, spelled with kanji indicating the “Great Hata”, indicating the family that used to live there and their purported great ancestral family head.
That neighborhood on the western outskirts of Kyoto eventually became home to a fledgling movie industry, including the backlot and sets for numerous movies, particularly by the Toei film company. You can still go and visit them at Uzumasa Toei Studios—like a little Hollywood studios for Chambara and other films, where they are still shooting, even today. Thus the name of the 2014 film about the tradition of filming Samurai movies: Uzumasa Limelight.
And that is, briefly, how a modern movie about chambara films is connected all the way back to the head of a house of immigrants in the 5th century, a house whose connection to weaving also raises interesting connections with ritual practices imported from the continent, and whom we will no doubt see more of in episodes to come.
And with that, I think we will bring this whole thing to a close. We continued our look at the interactions between the archipelago and the continent, and saw how people were coming over and settling, bringing their ideas and technologies with them as they did so. And we saw how these technologies weren’t always just how to make physical things, but could just as easily be ideas.
Next episode we will start to move on from Wakatake and look at what happened at the end of his reign—and the sovereign possibly known as “BU” in the Song chronicles.
And, so, until next episode, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends—word of mouth really is the best way to let people know about things like this. Also feel free to rate us 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, find us on Patreon, or find links 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

— (2022). Inabe Jinja Website. http://www.inabe-jinjya.or.jp/index2.html. Last checked 3/31/2022.
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.
Kim, P., Shultz, E. J., Kang, H. H. W., & Han'guk Chŏngsin Munhwa Yŏn'guwŏn. (2012). The Koguryo annals of the Samguk sagi. Seongnam-si, Korea: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Como, Michael (2009). Weaving and Binding: Immigrant Gods and Female Immortals in Ancient Japan. ISBN: 978-0824829575.
Soumaré, Massimo (2007), Japan in Five Ancient Chinese Chronicles: Wo, the Land of Yamatai, and Queen Himiko. ISBN: 978-4-902075-22-9.
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
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 62: Crime and Punishment

April 16, 2022 Joshua Badgley

19th century artist’s interpretation of Ki no Oyumi, one of the generals sent to chastise Silla in the late 5th century. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

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Mononobe Family

This episode we talk a fair bit about the Mononobe, and there will be more in the future, as the Mononobe were major players in the court. While here we focus on their military aspect, they were also seen as ritualists who would eventually resist the influence of the foreign Buddhist thought and practice vice “indigenous” ways of ritual and worship. At this point they were still fairly dominant, however.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 62: Crime and Punishment
So in recent episodes we’ve had a lot of talk about the less desirable qualities of Wakatake no Ohokimi, aka Yuuryaku Tenno. And yet, it seems clear from the chronicles that the reign of Wakatake wasn’t all about his personal character flaws—some of which may not have even been considered flaws by people of the day. After all, for all of his own penchant to resort to violence, this was not necessarily a forgiving time, and it seems that this is what kept him on top, but also a trait that he brought to bear in further growing and strengthening Yamato rule in the archipelago and its influence abroad. So in this episode we are going to explore what the Chronicles have to say about the ways that Wakatake and those who served him asserted royal authority throughout the archipelago and even onto the peninsula. In doing so we will also explore the importance of the Mononobe, the court’s enforcers, and what they tell us about the court’s punitive and peacekeeping authority.
By the way, just a quick note that we will be covering a variety of topics dealing with death and violence, including mentions of violence against women and sexual assault. While we should be able to avoid the more gory details, I just wanted to put that out there for anyone who might be sensitive to any of those topics.
Now, we mentioned back in Episode 60 some of the evidence that Yamato still wasn’t entirely unchallenged in their hegemony of the islands. Even in the mid-fifth century, when Wakatake came to power, the lords of Kibi were building kofun to rival those in Yamato. While it does seem that Yamato may have had some sort of primacy, there was no guarantee that they would be able to keep it indefinitely, and Kibi was a particular threat.
This comes across most clearly in a story from the Nihon Shoki, set during Wakatake’s reign: the story of the Sakitsuya, Omi of Lower Kibi, known in another work as Yama, of the Kibi no Omi, the Kuni no Miyatsuko—in other words the ruler of the land of Kibi.
Now there were men of Kibi serving at the Yamato court. One of these was a Toneri, or male attendant, known as Ohosora of the Yuge-Be, or Bow-Maker’s Be, of Kibi. While in service to Wakatake, Ohosora was called back home on a matter of some urgency. However, once back in Kibi he was detained by Sakitsuya, who refused to let him return. In fact, he held Ohosora back for several months, until Wakatake started to wonder that he had not returned. After all, Kibi is really not so far from the lands of Yamato and Kawachi, all things considered—about 170 km from modern Ohosaka to Okaayama, which is probably a week or so on foot or by boat, but perhaps a couple days on horseback, and only 48 minutes or so by Shinkansen.
So Wakatake sent another person, Mike no Kimi to go find him, and Mike was, indeed, able to get Ohosora back to Yamato. When he did, Ohosora had quite the tale. If the Nihon Shoki’s account is to be believed, Sakitsuya was apparently obsessed with Wakatake—in a pretty creepy and disturbed way.
For example, this one time, he took a bunch of young girls and make them fight grown men. The girls were all meant to represent the men of Wakatake while the grown men represented Sakitsuya’s own troops. This was all going well until the girls started to get the upper hand, at which point Sakitsuya, in a rage, drew his sword and started to kill them.
In another episode, Sakitsuya took a rooster and had it plucked of its feathers, its wings clipped, and he called it Wakatake’s rooster. Then he choose a large rooster of his own and used precious iron to create even more deadly spurs, like some kind of early mecha-veloci-rooster. He then pitted the two against each other.
Once again, however, things did not go as planned, and when the naked bird representing Wakatake started to get the upper hand, just has had happened before, Sakitsuya drew his sword and killed the offending cock.
When Wakatake heard all of this one can only imagine his reaction. He sent thirty soldiers from the Monono Be to Kibi, where they found Sakitsuya and put him to death along with seventy other members of his household.
Of course, we have to remember that the Nihon Shoki isn’t exactly a reliable narrator when it comes to the actions of Yamato and its sovereigns—after all, they had a vested interest in making Yamato out to be the good guys, even if they weren’t. Still, we can see the echoes of conflict with Kibi, Yamato’s neighbor who controlled a not insignificant strategic location along the Seto Inland Sea and whose rulers were being buried in style comparable to Yamato’s own royalty. I see little reason to doubt that there was some ruler over Kibi, perhaps even an independent king, who tried and failed to stand up to Yamato.
In this story we also see the use of the Mononobe, specifically, as the military arm of Yamato. The Mononobe—descendants of Nigi Hayahi no Mikoto, the Other child of Heaven—were connected to the Isonokami Shrine, dedicated to Futsunushi, and clearly were a large part of the military arm of the Yamato court. In fact, much like the sovereigns themselves, they seem to have had both military and spiritual authority, with Isonokami ranking alongside Izumo, the holy Mt. Miwa, and Ise in the stories in the Chronicles. In Wakatake’s reign we often see the Mononobe chastising individuals for the court.
It is intriguing to me that here they are only said to have taken thirty soldiers to chastise Sakitsuya, and those thirty killed Sakitsuya and seventy members of his household. I must say, this strikes me as quite the event, and while we may be rounding to the nearest power of ten, it is actually a remarkably reasonable number. Even later historical accounts tend to exaggerate numbers of soldiers. Comparatively, 30 sounds like a fairly decent group, to be honest—even though it isn’t even as many as the 47 ronin of Edo period infamy. Still, does that number include all of the soldiers that Wakatake sent, or just the Mononobe? Or was it the number of noteworthy warriors, and did each one have other warriors under their command?
And how does that compare with the warbands that, as we’ve discussed, Yamato periodically sent against the Korean peninsula? Unfortunately there is still a lot we just don’t know about this period. On the one hand, since this feels like a much more local squabble, this size a group may have been more like a raiding party. Campaigns against the Korean peninsula, on the other hand, with the possibility for more loot and greater reward, might have easily drawn from much farther afield, gathering more warriors together for those raids.
I also have to admit the possibility that the numbers here are deliberately under played—the point may have been as much or more about the idea that this was a small, seemingly weaker force, which would balance well with the story of Sakitsuya’s ill-advised murderfests, where the seemingly underpowered opponent, representing Wakatake, nonetheless gained the upper hand in each instance.
Again, even with the uncertainties and less than believable narrative of obsessive megalomania, this seems to describe some sort of conflict between Kibi and Yamato, with Mononobe dishing out the pain on behalf of Wakatake—something that we have plenty of other examples of. You may remember last episode when the Carpenter, Mane, was handed over to the Mononobe for execution, and that is just one example.
In 474 the Nihon Shoki tells us about a special campaign by Mononobe no Ushiro no Sukune and Mononobe no Me no Muraji, who were sent out to smite Ise no Asahi no Iratsuko for some offence. Asahi met with Ushiro at Aowaka, in Iga. There he boasted about his skill and strength with a bow, making the claim that he could pierce two thicknesses of armor with his powerful shot.
Incredible as such a boast may have been, Ushiro no Sukune took a pause, refusing to advance for two days and a night, waiting until his fellow Mononobe, Me no Muraji showed up. Me immediately took up his sword and then ordered a third Mononobe, Mononobe no Ohowonote—whose name literally means “Great Axe Hand”—to take up his shield as he advanced into the army. This may have been a large shield made of wood, or even covered in iron plates, more like a pavise than what we might typically call a shield, and used as a screen to protect from arrows as troops approached. After all, as we’ve seen, archery was quite common, even if it wasn’t necessarily the mounted archery of later periods.
As the Mononobe came closer, Asahi decided to follow up on his boast. He fired an arrow towards Me, but Ohowonote screened him with the shield. Even then, the arrow was indeed quite powerful, piercing entirely through the shield and even getting through the armor, so that Ohowonote was just pierced by the tip, which entered only an inch. Still, Ohowonote continued to advance, screening for Me the entire way, until finally they reached their quarry, and Me slew Asahi no Iratsuko.
When it was all over, Ushiro no Sukune – the one who had waited for his compatriots - was too embarrassed by his cowardice and delayed his report to Wakatake for seven days. Eventually, though, Wakatake started asking questions about just where he was—something of a theme in many of these stories is that you can’t be too long out of court without something like a doctor’s note, or whatever the Kofun era equivalent might be. Eventually, even without Ushiro’s official report, the sovereign got word of what had happened—particularly regarding Ushiro’s cowardice and hesitation.
His punishment was not execution, however, despite what we’ve seen of Wakatake’s temper up to this point. Instead, Ushiro was stripped of his rights to the Wina Be, in Ise—the same Be that Mane the carpenter, from last episode, was from. Instead, these were given to Mononobe no Me, who had been the one to push the attack and eventually kill Asahi no Iratsuko.
By the way, we’ve actually encountered Mononobe no Me before. The Sendai Kuji Hongi – the history of the Mononobe - claims that Me was eventually made Ohomuraji, and he was the one who intervened when Wakatake wouldn’t recognize his own daughter, Kasuga no Ohoiratsume, teaching Wakatake about the birds and the bees as it were in the process.
Perhaps one of the most detailed stories of Mononobe no Me comes from an account of Hadane no Mikoto.
Now Hadane no Mikoto was the many times great grandson of none other than Saho Hiko. This is another guy we’ve encountered before, back in the days of Ikume Iribiko—Saho Hiko was the brother to Saho Hime, and he tried to have Ikume Iribiko assassinated so that he and Saho Hime could go off together. He eventually burned to death in an inaki, or rice castle—usually depicted as hastily made fortifications made of rice bales.
So fast-forward to now, and in about 469, Saho Hiko’s descendant, Hadane, was getting into his own kind of trouble. He had apparently seduced one of the court serving women or Uneme, named Yamanobe no Koshimako. While the Uneme were serving at the court they were at the pleasure of the sovereign, though we have seen before where they were at least suspected of having a dalliance with someone else and they weren’t punished. So it is unclear if this was a mutual affair or if perhaps the issue was that Hadane’s advances and eventual intercourse were unwanted by the Uneme in question.
Whatever they considered the actual crime, either violating the sovereign’s will or the will of Koshimako herself, Hadane was given for punishment into the charge of Mononobe no Me. Hadane pleaded for leniency and offered payment: in lieu of a more deadly form of atonement, he agreed to hand over eight horses and eight swords, and the Nihon Shoki even includes a song he is supposed to have made, requesting leniency.
All of this, swords and horses both, was brought to the area of Ega, near the Ishi River, in the land of Kawachi, at the western base of the mountains in the southeast corner of modern Ohosaka prefecture. There it was all laid out under an orange tree—a Tachibana, which for some reason is particularly noted.
This bringing of Hadane to account brought further honor to Mononobe no Me, and Wakatake gave him the village of Nagano, in Yega. Indeed, even now this area along the Ishi River is modernly called Kawachi-Nagano city.
And so, in summary, we do see quite a lot of Mononobe no Me, eventual head of the Mononobe clan, performing what we might call military or law enforcement powers and getting rewarded for doing so. This no doubt helped contribute to the rise of the Mononobe, who would definitely take on the mantle of one of the most important family groups in the fifth and into the sixth century. That said, the Mononobe were not exclusively responsible for dishing out royal chastisements—I hesitate to call it “justice”. For example, there is a case where a man named Katabu went with an Uneme to sacrifice to the deities of Munakata. This was in Yamato, as opposed to the famous Munakata shrine in Kyushu. When they arrived at the place where they were to perform the rites Katabu apparently decided that his carnal appetites were more important and he forced himself on the Uneme.
When Wakatake heard of this, he was incensed—though I’m not sure it was for the right reasons. He seems to have been less concerned with the rape and more concerned with the fact that such behavior was not appropriate while performing the rites. At some point we’ll get into this more, but it definitely was a pervasive attitude in early Japan that rape and romance were seen as basically the same thing—and even today there are still large, systemic problems with sexual assault in Japan.
In Wakatake’s day the circumstances of this particular incident made it a capital crime, and he initially sent Naniwa no Hitaka no Kishi out to find Katabu and put him to death. We’ve also heard of Hitaka before: back in Episode 60 he was sent to Silla to find out what had happened to Otogimi and bring back artisans from Baekje.
Hitaka searched high and low, but could not find the culprit, as Katabu had fled and hid. When Hitaka returned empty-handed, Wakatake sent Yuge no Muraji no Toyoho to go scour the land and see what he could find. Eventually he uncovered Katabu’s hiding place at Awi no Hara in the district of Mishima, where Toyoho finally caught and slew Katabu.
Many of these incidents seem to involve Uneme, and the next one I have for you is not much different—except that in this case the Uneme wasn’t from just another land. No, this time the Uneme was from Baekje, on the Korean peninsula.
Now the Nihon Shoki makes it seem like Uneme were regularly sent from the continent, which would seem to imply Baekje’s subservient status in regards to Yamato. The excerpt from the Baekje annals, however, seems to refer to Wakatake asking for a “nyeorang”, which seems to have a slightly different meaning in Baekje, and may have been viewed more as a typical form of marriage alliance at the time. Women at the time might have to travel great distances, along perilous routes under the guise of diplomatic relations.
In the case of Wakatake’s request, it appears that it went to King Gaero of Baekje, and he sent back Cheokke, the daughter of Lady Moni. In Japanese she is referred to as Princess Iketsu.
At some point on her journey across the perilous seas and through the various lands of the archipelago, Princess Iketsu met a man named Tate, from Ishikawa. The two had an affair, and word of this pairing reached Wakatake.
And by this point I suspect we all know what this means. Besides, he had specifically asked for Baekje to send someone, and he apparently desired to have her all to himself. And so, enraged, he called on Moriya, the Ohotomo no Ohomuraji. Moriya headed out with members of the Kume Be—the army—to find Princess Iketsu.
I don’t really want to go too much into the details—you can read the chronicles yourself and see what it says—but suffice it to say that Princess Iketsu met a brutal and tortuous end.
King Gaero of Baekje was none too pleased when he heard about what had happened, and he gathered up his counsel to determine an appropriate response. In the end their response was tempered—possibly because they still needed their Wa allies to help them against Silla and Goguryeo. Baekje decided that they would no longer send women as Uneme to the Yamato court, but that didn’t mean they cut off relations. Indeed, just after that Gaero told his own younger brother, Lord Kun, to go to Japan and serve there as a kind of hostage, so clearly Baekje wasn’t exactly punishing Yamato for this incident. At least not too harshly.
By the way, quick note here: When Lord Kun left for Japan, King Gaero gave him one of his consorts who was reportedly pregnant. Gaero said not to worry, but that if she delivered on their journey they could just send the child back to Baekje, since it would have been one of Gaero’s children. Basically they were sending a woman who was probably in her third trimester on a dangerous voyage overseas to a foreign land, and if she gave birth they were immediately send a newborn child back across the sea again. It sounds unbelievable.
Which leads me to suspect that it is. The Nihon Shoki claims that she did give birth on the island of Kahara in Kyushu, and the child, named Lord Shima, or Syeom in modern Korean, was then sent back to Baekje where he eventually grew up to become King Muryeong. This all feels like an attempt to tie King Muryeong to Japan, but why?
Well, it could just be an extra attempt to claim that the Baekje royal family were more closely indebted and connected to Japan, much as we had seen with Baekje princes living in Japan in the reign of Homuda Wake. There is also an interesting connection between Muryeong and the Royal Family, but it wouldn’t come until later. You see Yamabe no Sumera no Mikoto, aka Kammu Tenno, who reigned from 781 to 806, claimed descent through a royal Baekje bloodline that traces back to King Muryeong. It seems that Yamabe’s mother was descended from a son of King Muryeong who was living in the Japan archipelago in the early 6th century.
Muryeong, who would reign between 501 to 523, is also known through his tomb, which was excavated in 1971. There he is known through his personal name, as recorded in the Samguk Sagi, of King Sama. Here I can’t help but note the similarities between “Sama” and the Japanese word “S(h)ima”, which is the name they seem to give to him. Regardless, I am highly doubtful of this whole story that claims he was born on an island off of Kyushu, as the logic just doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.
So: back to the Korean peninsula. Of course, it wasn’t just Baekje that Wakatake was dealing with, and during his reign, Wa troops would see a tremendous amount of action over there. We had already talked about how Wakatake’s actions during his father’s funerary rites had started things off on the wrong foot when he briefly imprisoned a Silla delegation over a misunderstanding. And then there was the issue we talked about just two episodes back, in Episode 60, with Tasa no Omi being sent to govern Nimna, but then ending up in Silla after he realized it had all been a ploy for Wakatake to steal his wife. That was all said to have happened in or around 462.
Two years later, in 464, Silla was apparently looking to Goguryeo for help against future Wa attacks. According to the Nihon Shoki, they had been given over to “vain talk”—which sounds like a diplomatic way to say that they were talking trash about Yamato and others. They had stopped sending any kind of gifts to Yamato. And now, at least according to the Nihon Shoki, which is hardly the most reliable narrator, they were quaking in their boots and requesting support from Goguryeo in the north in case Yamato decided to do something about these perceived insults—which, given Wakatake’s track record on controlling his temper, seems a reasonable enough concern.
And so, sure enough, Goguryeo sent a contingent of about 100 men to Silla for their protection, but it turned out that this force might also have had other aims—after all, this wasn’t exactly the era of selfless philanthropy. During a furlough period, one of the Goguryeo soldiers left to go home, taking with him a Silla servant. As they were traveling, he let slip to his servant that the way things were going, Goguryeo would occupy and control Silla before too much longer.
The servant could hardly believe what he had heard, and he knew he would have to get word back to his own people. And so he pretended to be sick, and through this ruse he was able to escape back to Silla, where he told the court everything he had heard.
Well the Silla King—likely King Jabi, assuming the dates are correct—was upset, but in a bit of a pickle. The Goguryeo troops had already insinuated themselves into key positions and fortifications. And so he sent out a secret message to his people, telling them to “kill the cocks in their own houses.” Sure enough, the people of Silla rose up and killed the Goguryeo warriors, and only a one man escaped back to his homeland, where he told the King of Goguryeo everything that had happened.
Now it was the King of Goguryeo’s turn to be apopleptic. He raised an army, determined to punish Silla.
Eventually, the Silla court came to hear the sounds of Goguryeo music on all sides, and they quickly realized they had a fight on their hands. Despite the fact that this started because of their treatment of Yamato, they apparently had only one recourse left: They sent a messenger to the King of Nimna to request assistance from none other than our good friends, the Wa.
The King of Nimna was able to persuade three men of Wa to help Silla, to include Ikaruga, of the Kashiwade no Omi; Wonashi, of the Kibi no Omi; and Akameko, a Kishi of Naniwa.
These three generals set off with their troops and marched north to Silla, where they eventually spied the Goguryeo encampment. Here it seems they found themselves in a stalemate with the Goguryeo troops. Neither side seems to have wanted to engage directly, and so they sat there, watching each other, for 10 days.
Finally, one night, the Wa troops found a steep place, where Goguryeo could not see them, and a path through it. So they passed all of their baggage that way, including the wagons. From the Goguryeo perspective, it looked like the Wa troops were retreating, so they gathered up their men and headed after them, hoping to catch the Wa troops from behind.
When they caught up with the departing baggage train, I imagine that the Goguryeo men were in good spirits. After ten days of tense waiting they were finally going to see an end to these interlopers. However, that mood soon soured as the Wa troops who had been hiding burst out in an ambush on Goguryeo’s left and right flanks. Suddenly, the predator became the prey, and soon the entire Goguryeo army was put to rout, saving Silla—though that was the beginning of a major falling out between Silla and Goguryeo.
Meanwhile, Kashiwade marched up to the King and warned Silla that maybe they should lay off the trash talk for a bit. Perhaps they might want to stay on good terms with the Wa court, or else maybe they wouldn’t answer the call in the future.
Now this whole episode is rife with questions for me. For one, there is very little actual interaction with Wakatake, or even some otherwise unmentioned “sovereign”. Also, it seems like it is the King of Nimna who is negotiating and sending Wa troops to help fight Silla. This would seem to give credence to the idea that Nimna was more closely allied with Wa, and perhaps these generals were already in the area. I do raise an eyebrow at the fact that one of them was apparently from Kibi, and then there are no Mononobe mentioned—perhaps their activities were still largely confined to the areas of Yamato and its immediate surroundings. Meanwhile it was others who were handing out chastisements on the Korean Peninsula.
It is also possible that these individuals were not actually from Yamato proper. Perhaps these each represent other lands in the archipelago, sending their own troops to assist, much as Yamato’s own expeditions were likely a coalition of different groups. Once again we are at the mercy of our limited sources, which are hardly unbiased in their interpretation of events.
One more thing of note—literally. Aston has a footnote to this fight where he tells us that this whole thing doesn’t appear in any of the Korean histories, and the tactics and even the speech to Silla seem lifted straight out of a Chinese history of the Wei period—a source that we know the Chroniclers had some access to.
Now despite the warnings to Silla to keep playing nice—including sending tribute to Yamato—Silla apparently remained, shall we say, independent minded. And so, in the following year, 465, Wakatake decided to chastise Silla. He wanted to go in person—something that feels totally in character for this sovereign—but pre-travel divination revealed a kami who told him not to go. And so he instead gave orders to four others to go in his stead, claiming that Silla had taken the “Western Lands” on the peninsula, and that they were preventing Goguryeo from sending tribute while also devouring walled cities belonging to Baekje.
And so he appointed four men as generals, including Ki no Woyumi no Sukune and Wokahi no Sukune. In particular, Ki no Woyumi was suggested to lead the forces.
Ki no Woyumi agreed, but with a weird conditional flex to his going. He reached out to Ohotomo no Moriya—the same Moriya who had been sent out to punish Princess Iketsu, the Baekje Uneme who had an affair on her way to the Yamato court. Woyumi mentioned to Moriya that he was happy to go but, you know, his wife had passed away and, well, he was a bit lonely. After all, there was nobody to take care of him. I mean, other than his children, his servants, and all the rest.
Woyumi must have had some clout, as Moriya passed this along to Wakatake, who sent an Uneme from Kibi to go and quote-unquote “look after him”, if you know what I mean. And so Wakatake “sent him off with a shove to his axle”.
It does appear that did the trick. The four generals made their way to Silla, violently butchering their way through the districts as they went. King Jabi of Silla got word of the Wa advance into the land of Tok and apparently high-tailed it out of there. Ki no Woyumi in particular pursued Silla and ended up killing the enemy general, though the King survived.
Now most of Tok was under control, but a portion would not submit. There is some confusion here as Tok may have been counted as a part of Nimna, but if Nimna really was equivalent to the Kara confederacy, then it was really more of a collection of independent lands loosely associated under a single banner, probably similar to the situation in the archipelago. Either way, it seems that not all of Tok was happy with their new overlords—possibly something to do with how they had “butchered” their way up there in the first place.
And so the four generals met up and together, as a single force, went out to deal with the remaining band of resistance. This fighting, however, was not nearly so easy as routing the Silla forces, and the Wa took heavy losses. Men of the Ohotomo and the Ki were both slain. One man, Tsumaro, went looking for his lord, Ohotomo no Katari, one of the four generals, only to find he had been slain. Tsumaro, grief-stricken and without hope, flung himself into the fighting, and perished against the enemy.
It soon became clear that the fighting was too heavy, and the Wa forces—which are labelled in the Nihon Shoki specifically as “government forces”—had to fall back.
Some time in this campaign, Ki no Woyumi, the general-in-chief, fell ill, and shortly after this battle he passed away while there at the front.
Command of the troops fell to Wokahi no Sukune, who took over as general-in-chief. At least, he held command for a time. You see, word must have traveled quickly, for Woyumi’s son, Ki no Ohiha no Sukune, heard of his father’s death and proceeded to Silla. Once there, as his father’s heir, he took over his father’s command, taking it over from Wokahi no Sukune.
Well this pissed off Wokahi no Sukune to no end. After all, he had been the one out there, fighting and bleeding, and here comes this, this CHILD, and just because he was Woyumi’s son, he takes over, taking complete authority of the troops. Who wouldn’t be infuriated about that?
And yet, from what I can tell, that was the way of Yamato at the time. It was families, more than individuals, who controlled things. The head of a family might have particular duties, and those duties were likely to then fall to his son. It is possible that responsibilities—and the prestige, influence, and even financial incentives that came with them—could be transferred to someone else, but even then it was likely to be inherited by members of their own family.
Nonetheless, though this may have been one of the cultural norms of the period, it didn’t mean that people were always happy with it. Certainly Wokahi was less than thrilled. He contacted the other remaining original general, Karako no Sukune, and warned him that eventually Ki no Ohiha would eventually take his command away as well. This bred suspicion in Karako no Sukune, who also began to distrust Ohiha and his attentions.
This rivalry between the three Wa generals—apparently nobody had been sent to replace Ohotomo no Katari—grew obvious enough that soon word reached the king of Baekje, an ally of Wa in pushing against Silla. He invited all three of them to join him, hoping to put an end to the tensions between them.
However, as the three were on their way to them, Ohiha stopped to let his horse drink from a river. Karako saw this as an opportunity, and tried to shoot Ohiha from behind, hoping to take him out of the equation, but he missed. His arrow stuck in the saddle frame, and startled Ohiha and his horse. Ohiha looked around for the culprit and returned fire, shooting down Karako mid-stream, where he died.
And with that, any pretense at working together again was shot. Wokahi and Ohiha could no longer trust each other, and so the army broke up. They never reached the palace of the King of Silla, and they returned home.
This is quite the episode, and it could easily be taken as one of the many invasions by Wa recorded in the Samguk Sagi—after all, we have raids recorded in 459, 462, 463, 476, and 477—throughout the reigns of King Jabi as well as Wakatake. Of course, all of these raids ended in the Wa’s ignominious defeat in one way or another.
This is also one of the reasons why some suggest that Wakatake is not King Bu, in the Liu Song chronicles, but rather King Kou. After all, it is Bu who requested assistance so that he could continue Kou’s desire to subjugate the Korean peninsula. Certainly there are no further great invasions of Silla noted in the Nihon Shoki. If there was anything that was a particularly likely candidate for this in other sources I would suggest, perhaps, the events of the year 477, when the Samguk Sagi claims the Wa mobilized troops to invade using five routes, but, in the end, they did not succeed and returned from whence they came. That could square with the idea of multiple generals, and even the idea that they ended up departing after a falling out. Still, nothing is quite certain, and Baekje’s position in particular may have been more tenuous, leading to questions about the Baekje king’s involvement. The Goguryeo annals do have some notes about attacks into Silla, but nothing about being invited in to protect against the Wa or the later slaughter of their soldiers. The Baekje Annals of the Samguk Sagi, meanwhile, have tremendous lacunae from this period—missing information that makes it hard to construct a full narrative.
There definitely seems to have been a decline in Yamato power on the peninsula, since in 475, as Goguryeo was descending on the Baekje capital of Hansong, Baekje sent requests for help not to the Wa, but rather to their neighbor and erstwhile rival, Silla.
Of course, this isn’t exactly depicted in Yamato’s version of events—perhaps due to some selective memories on the part of the Chroniclers, or just a different perspective. But still, it seems clear that Wakatake’s own ambitions were not to be realized.
By 479, Wakatake had taken ill, and he handed over the reigns of government to his son, and Crown Prince, Prince Shiraga—who may very well have sent the emissaries to the Liu Song court attributed to King Bu.
But we’ll leave some of that for next episode. For now, I think we can close out this look at the military dealings of Yamato in the reign of the fierce Wakatake. From his chastisement of Silla and other individuals, often with the help of the local Mononobe, to the campaigns on the peninsula, which may or may not have been under Yamato control, there was certainly plenty of blood spilt during this time.
Next episode, I’d like to look at some of the results of all of these campaigns of expansion, especially as regards contact with the Korean peninsula. War and other factors often creates migratory actions in population groups, and so we see people of Baekje and Silla arriving in the archipelago, bringing with them their technologies and beliefs of statecraft, religion, and more. In fact, it seems that many things that we might think of as “indigenous” to Japan actually spring from continental sources. But what does that mean for us? We’ll discuss that next 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

— (2022). Inabe Jinja Website. http://www.inabe-jinjya.or.jp/index2.html. Last checked 3/31/2022
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.
Kim, P., Shultz, E. J., Kang, H. H. W., & Han'guk Chŏngsin Munhwa Yŏn'guwŏn. (2012). The Koguryo annals of the Samguk sagi. Seongnam-si, Korea: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Soumaré, Massimo (2007), Japan in Five Ancient Chinese Chronicles: Wo, the Land of Yamatai, and Queen Himiko. ISBN: 978-4-902075-22-9
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
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 61: Bad Behavior and the People that Excuse It

April 1, 2022 Joshua Badgley

19th century artist’s interpretation of Yūryaku Tennō, aka Ōhatsuse Wakatake no Ōkimi, formally the 21st sovereign in the official imperial lineage, defeating a boar on the slopes of Mt. Katsuraki. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

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A lot of chapters focus on various hunting expeditions, indicating that this was a popular pastime of the sovereigns, and likely other elites. Hunting would have likely been an integral part of the lifeways of people in the archipelago from time immemorial. Whether during Jōmon, the Yayoi, or the Kofun period, hunting or fishing was often necessary for subsistence, providing needed protein in the diet. That said, it seems clear that the hunts the sovereigns are going on are much more social and status-conscious affairs. They are proceeding out with a retinue, often quite far from their base of operations—this would have been quite the undertaking.

In many cultures, this kind of hunting is often a type of practice for war. After all, many of the skills—teamwork, riding, strength, endurance, skill with the bow or other weapons, etc.—would have been useful analogs for the kind of skills required of a warrior. Prowess in the area of hunting might therefore be analogous to martial prowess—certainly it seems that some of the same types of praise are heaped on both hunters and warriors.

It is also clear that these were elite activities, with the mobilization of numerous others who would be helping the elites to flush the game, capture it, and, eventually, deal with the carcasses once a hunt was successful. This was a large undertaking, and strikes me as much as a display of wealth and power as an enjoyable outing, which is perhaps one of the reasons they are so often memorialized in stories, along with similar activities, such as state banquets.

It is not, perhaps, dissimilar from the Academy Awards, where enough people of status are gathered and others are watching. Something that happens there is going to just be that much more memorable—even if it would have made the papers, anyway, an event at the Oscars ceremony is going to naturally be more memorable and receive more attention than something that happened at, say, a private party or other less public venue.

Just something to think about as we talk about these events, which are not exactly a modern or even subsistence style of hunting. This isn’t about getting up before dawn, sitting in a blind, waiting for game. This is a hunting party—emphasis on the party.

Dramatis Personae

Keeping up the Dramatis Personae. Some of this may be repetitive from last episode. Further down there will be talk of various locations as well.

Ōhatsuse Wakatake no Ōkimi

Aka Yūryaku Tennō (雄略天皇), formally listed as the 21st sovereign of the imperial lineage. He was the Great King, or Sovereign, from about 457 to 479. We also have his name on two iron swords found in tombs from around the period, which confirm his name as something like “Wakatakiru no Opokimi”. Despite the fact that a fair amount seems to have been accomplished during his relatively long reign—20 years is nothing to sneeze at—he seems mostly remembered for his cruelty and violence. Granted, it is unclear just how different this was from the norm at the time—not to excuse what he was doing so much as to place it in context. From everything we’ve seen, after a sovereign’s death there was a lot of chaos and violence, and so it is unsurprising that the one who would rise to the top might just be the one best at dealing with the violence and demonstrating authority in some way.

Woasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune

Aka Ingyō Tennō (允恭天皇) , and possibly “Oasazuma”. Officially the 19th sovereign in the line, and, according to the Chronicles, the father of both Wakatake and Anaho. That said, if the records of the Liu Song dynasty are accurate, it is entirely possible that some of this got mixed up, and it is possible that the lineage up to this point is a little confused.

Osaka no Naka tsu Hime

Woasatsuma’s queen, and purported mother of the current sovereign, Wakatake. When the “Dowager Queen” is mentioned, is it referencing her or is it referencing Nakashi Hime? While, strictly speaking, it would likely point to Nakashi Hime, who was wife to Prince Anaho, it isn’t exactly clear to me that this is the case, and it seems equally likely that the person to talk down Wakatake would be his mother, rather than his step-daughter. One thing is certain—there are some strange relationships formed through the incestuous marriage practices as detailed in the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki.

Kusaka no Hatahi Hime

Also known as Kusaka no Hatabi, given that Old Japanese didn’t really have an “H” sound and so what we render as “H” was more likely a “P” or “B” sound. She was the sister to Prince Ōkusaka, and therefore the daughter of Ōsazaki no Mikoto, aka Nintoku Tennō, officially the 16th sovereign, and his consort, Kaminaga Hime of Himuka. She was originally married to her half-brother, Izaho Wake, with whom she had a daughter, Nakashi. After Izaho Wake's death she and her daughter went back to live with her brother. But she was then married off to Wakatake, her nephew through her half-brother, Woasatsuma, while her daughter married Anaho. That put her in the unique situation of being the queen twice, both before and after her own daughter. This causes some confusion when the narrative only refers to people by titles, and so we get the “Queen” actually being the mother of the “Dowager Queen”, at least if the Chronicles are to be believed.

Nakashi Hime

Princess Nakashi was the daughter of Izaho Wake and Kusaka no Hatahi. She was married off to her uncle, Prince Ōkusaka, and gave birth to a child, Prince Mayuwa. After Ōkusaka was killed, she was taken as a wife and made queen by the sovereign, Anaho no Ōkimi, but they had no children together, leaving the question of an heir up for debate.

Mononobe

We’ve mentioned the Mononobe before—a powerful house that was connected with Isonokami shrine. Their name and their exploits indicates that they were largely known for their role in the military affairs of Yamato. In the reign of Wakatake they are often called upon as guards, soldiers, and executioners as needed to enforce Yamato’s laws and traditions.

Ōtsu no Umakahi (大津馬飼)

This name is purely a locative and job description—the horse-keeper (likely a member of the Umakahi-Be) from Ōtsu. We know little more about him—he seems to have merely been an attendant, and not from a particularly powerful family. See below for information on Ōtsu.

Hi no Hime (日媛/日之媛)

We know that Hi no Hime was from Yamato, likely of the Yamato no Atahe, the Yamato kinship group. She was an Uneme of the court, meaning a female attendant. She seems to be the younger sister of Agoko no Sukune, given over to court service as an Uneme in the reign of Izaho Wake, aka Richuu.

Agoko no Sukune

Agoko is listed here as the Yamato no Kuni no Miyatsuko, but we’ve seen him before. He first showed up at the start of the reign of Ōsazaki, aka Nintoku, Wakatake’s grandfather. Back then he was helping to settle the dispute over who had rights to certain rice granaries, as you may recall. Initially he is just referenced as Agoko, but later in that same reign he has been elevated as Yamato no Atahe. His elder brother, Maro, is listed before this as the “ancestor of the Yamato no Atahe”, but up to this point, Agoko seems to be the first to actually hold that title or name directly, and not just as an ancestor, which would imply that he may have been the first, possibly because of the deeds committed for Ōsazaki. Later, he kept that position, even though he sided against Izaho Wake and with Prince Nakatsu, he quickly gave in and offered to send his younger sister, Hi no Hime to the court as an Uneme. Now here they are again—for what appears to be the last time, and we see that he is not just Yamato no Atahe, but now he is Yamato no Kuni no Miyatsuko, and he has been granted the personal title of Sukune as well.

Shishihito Be (宍人部)

A Be group created, ostensibly of those in charge of “fleshing”—that is to say the rendering and preparation of a carcass. The Nihon Shoki makes it seem as if their creation is almost accidental, to cover up for a royal faux pas by Wakatake, though that feels apocryphal.

Uda no Mito Be no Masakida, Takame

Two members of the Mito Be of Uda who were attendants on the Queen Dowager. Mito Be (御戸部) seems to be the “Be” of the “Honorable (or Holy or Royal) Door.” It could be just one person, Masakida no Takame, but it seems more likely that it is two, as Aston has translated it.

Saho no Kotori Wake

There is little we know about Kotoriwake beyond that they were apparently some kind of servant or vassal to Agoko no Sukune. “Saho” was the name of the wife of Ikume Iribiko (aka Suinin) and her brother (Saho Hime and Saho Hiko). Here it may be as much a locative as anything—much as it probably was back in the reign of Ikume. What intrigues me is that there is only one other mention of “Saho” that I found in the Nihon Shoki, and that also occurs in this reign when a descendant of Saho Hiko, Hadane no Mikoto, seduces an Uneme. The fact that he is using the kabane of “Mikoto” and that here this is Saho no Kotori “Wake”—which we’ve previously been told was supposedly an indication of royal lineage—suggests that me that Saho Hiko was not just some random prince and that his family line still held some amount of remembered authority, if not actual authority at this time.

Fumu Be no Musa no Suguri no Ao

The “Fumu Be” would appear to be the scribes and historians. Ao would appear to be the “Suguri of Musa”—which is written with characters indicating that he is the “village master” of Musa. It isn’t clear if that is the head of a single village or various villages. Given the pronunciation that comes down to us, it is quite likely a continental title, which would fit with the individual being tied to a scribal Be. Ao will show up later as we talk about Yamato’s dealings on and with the continent.

Hinokuma no Tamitsukashi no Hakatoko

Hakatoko was the Tamitsukashi (“Employer of People”) of Hinokuma. Aston notes that this seems like a fairly low title, especially for someone who is supposed to be a close friend of the sovereign. Hakatoko will also come more into play in discussions about Yamato’s dealings with the continental powers.

Hitokoto Nushi

The “One Word Master” is the name of a kami of Katsuraki. Supposedly this kami could bring good or bad fortune with a single word, which, to be honest, doesn’t seem that different from any other kami that we’ve encountered. There is some thought that this was actually a kami that was popular in the 8th century, and while he doesn’t appear elsewhere in the Nihon Shoki, references do pop up in later 8th and 9th century sources. The main shrine for Hitokoto Nushi is, unsurprisingly, in Gose in modern Katsuragi.

Chiisako Be no Muraji no Sukaru

Sukaru is, we eventually learn, the first member of the Chiisako Be no Muraji. Based on the kabane of Muraji, it was not an insignificant house, at least not by the 8th century. I doubt it started out as a Muraji level household. The name means the “Be of Little Children” and I expect to get into that in episode 62, though I suspect that this is a false etymology to explain the name and origins of a family that was more important in the 7th and 8th centuries, since we don’t see the family again in the Nihon Shoki until an entry from Temmu’s reign in 672.

Ikazuchi

Earlier in the Nihon Shoki there was mention of Ikazuchi being born from the pieces of Kagutsuchi, the fire spirit. Kagutsuchi, you may recall, burned his mother, Izanami, when he was born, so that she died in childbirth. Izanagi was so upset that, according to some of the stories, he slew Kagutsuchi and cut him up into three pieces. One of those pieces became Ikazuchi, which is just the word for “lightning”. There are actually a fair number of lightning and thunder kami who could easily be amalgamated together, and it is unclear in the Nihon Shoki whether they intended Ikazuchi as the kami of Mt. Miwa or if he was just a kami.

Nonetheless, his appearance as a snake fits in well with many of the stories we have of encounters with kami like this. Later, the god of lightning and thunder would be known as raijin—just another reading of ikazuchi no kami—and given a more humanoid makeover, which is how most of us know him, today.

(W)ina Be no Mane

The Inabe (in old Japanese it would have been “Winabe”) are said to come from the land of Settsu near the Ina River. Mane was an expert carpenter, and that seems to be what the Inabe were known for—they were involved in various construction projects in the Nara period.

Locations

It isn’t just the people, but the places that are important. So here I’ll try to bring up some of those that we encounter with links to the area where they may be in the modern day. Taking a look, you may notice that most of these places were in the area of the Nara Basin, which is probably where the court had the most direct control, even if they had considerable influence in much of the rest of the archipelago.

Akitsuno

The “Dragonfly Field” (Akitsu being an old word for dragonfly, spelled tonbo in kanji: 蜻蛉). We know it was in Yoshino, and there is a modern “Akitsu no Ono” park that seems to hearken back to this incident, but whether that is actually the place referenced I am not sure.

Asakura Palace

Traditionally, Wakatake's palace is said to be the Asakura Palace in Hatsuse--known today simply as Hase--which, by tradition was said to be in Sakurai.

Awaji Island

Awaji is the largest island situated entirely in the Seto Inland Sea. Not only was it a popular hunting location for sovereigns, but it was also thought to be part of the initial creation story of the Japanese archipelago, with Onogoro Island situated just to the south.

Hinokuma

A district of the ancient land of Yamato, somewhere near modern Asuka, where there is still a Hinokuma district.

Katsuraki

Aka Katsuragi. This area on the eastern edge of the Nara Basin is still there as the modern city of Katsuragi. It was the home of Sotsu Hiko, whom some suggest may have been an early ruler in his own right, given some of his exploits and the fact that his daughter, Iwa no Hime, ended up as Queen and giving birth to future sovereigns even though she was not, per the Chronicles, descended from the royal line. Later we would see something similar with the daughter of Tsubura no Omi, Kara Hime, who would marry Wakatake and give birth to the Crown Prince and one of the Ise Princesses. In the latter part of the 5th century, this also appears to be a popular hunting spot, along with Awaji and Yoshino, likely because of the mountainous forest regions that would have been ideal for game.

Mie

The modern prefecture of Mie covers the old land of Ise. The actual district of Mie is in the north of the modern prefecture and the old country/province.

Mt. Mimoro aka Mt. Miwa

Mt. Miwa is the sacred mountain in the southeast corner of the Nara Basin. It was likely the main holy site for the early Yamato courts and continues to hold a special place even to this day.

Musa

An area just south of Mt. Unebi, probably in southern districts of modern Kashihara city, between modern Toriyachō and Misechō. It may have one time been under the Miwa no Kimi—the family connected with the sacred Mt. Miwa, aka Mt. Mimoro. Various other individuals from the narrative also are attached, including Musa no Suguri, who may have been a local village or district head in the area.

Ōtsu (大津)

Mentioned merely as the place that one of the Umakahi Be was from, one presumes it is the same as the modern Ōtsu at the southernmost shore of Lake Biwa.

Uda

Likely referencing an area in or near the modern city of Uda, which uses the same name but different kanji, in the mountainous region southeast of the Nara Basin and Wakatake’s Asakura palace in Hase.

Yoshino

Aka Yeshino, which appears in many of these earlier stories. Yoshino is a large area in the heavily forested mountains and valleys south of the Nara Basin. There was reportedly a royal villa in the area where the court went, and later sovereigns likewise would travel to the “Yoshino Miya”, which some believe to be in the area of modern Miyataki, on the banks of the Yoshino River. There was at least one other palace built in the area in the 14th century, emphasizing the continued popularity of this area, which is known for its beautiful cherry trees among other things.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 61: Bad Behavior and the People that Excuse It.
First off, quick shout out to Owen for donating to support the show. If you want to join Owen, you can donate over on Ko-Fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or check us out on Patreon. More information at the end of the episode.
We have been talking about the reign of Ohohatsuse no Wakatake no Ohokimi, aka Yuuryaku Tenno, in the latter part of the 5th century. As a quick reminder, this is the first sovereign for whom we actually have real corroborating evidence from the Chronicles and other sources.
Either way, we do know that there was a sovereign named Wakatake—or Wakatakiru—in the latter part of the 5th century, and while many of the entries in the Chronicles are still doubtful—this is still several hundred years before it would all be compiled—in general the dates in the Nihon Shoki are considered more reliable, at least for things that one could reasonably expect would have been officially recorded, as opposed to just stories that were passed on orally.
If you’ve been listening to the past few episodes, you might have gotten the general vibe that Wakatake wasn’t a particularly nice guy. Indeed, despite a literally glowing description of his birth—and I mean that, the Kojiki and the Sendai Kuji Hongi claim that the palace was filled with a bright light when he was born—Well, despite such a description, it is clear in the Chronicles that Wakatake had his shortcomings, namely a famous temper and a penchant for cruelty.

So this episode we’ll dive even more into some of this bad behavior, which even the premodern commentors take a negative view of. The Nihon shoki is more critical in general, but even the Kojiki paints him in a pretty bad light sometimes – and what is also interesting in these tales are the ways in which others try to mitigate Wakatake’s shortcomings, reinterpreting his behavior to smooth things over. So let’s get into it, shall we?
One of the first and best examples is a story out of the Nihon Shoki, which took place, we are told, in 458, early in Wakatake’s reign. He and the court had gone to the Yoshino Palace, and from there he went out hunting in the area of Mimase. This was around the southeast corner of the Nara basin. This had apparently become a new popular destination for hunting, much as Awaji island was with Wakatake’s predecessors.
In the morning, Wakatake went out with his retinue of ministers and stewards, and by all accounts they had a fruitful hunt—in fact, they were so successful they had just about depleted the local fauna.
As was typical in one of these official hunts, the stewards that were brought along were expected to dress the game brought in by the sovereign and his ministers. They would skin, clean, and render the game down into component meat, skin, et cetera. It was bloody work, and in later centuries, at least, would be considered a polluting activity that would require ritual ablutions, and was often left to others to handle whenever possible.
And so it was somewhat shocking when Wakatake suggested to his high-born ministers that they get their hands dirty and take part in the work of dismembering the carcasses themselves.
Nobody knew how to respond to this. One can imagine the pall of awkward silence that fell over the assembled crowd. After all, nobody really wanted to get elbows deep into the blood and guts of the game they had taken—they had people to do that for a reason. But neither did anyone want to tell that to Wakatake, who, one must remember, only a year or two earlier had murdered his own family in a deadly play for the throne.
Of course, this silence only further angered Wakatake, who was upset that nobody would say anything, and so he took out his anger on one of the stewards, the horse-keeper of Ohotsu, and killed him right there, in front of everyone.
One can imagine that things remained tense around the encampment after that, and when the rest of the royal court, including the current and previous Queens, Hatahi Hime and, one assumes, her daughter, Nakashi Hime, though perhaps they are referring to Wakatake’s mother, Osaka no Naka tsu Hime, who had been queen to Woasazuma Wakugo.
When they showed up it was clear that everyone was on edge, and no doubt a few discrete questions allowed them to quickly discern what had happened. The two women, the Queen and the Dowager Queen, chose an Uneme, Hi no Hime, who was the daughter of the Atahe of Yamato. They had her take the sovereign, Wakatake, a drink of sake. The sake, being served by a beautiful woman, was enough to distract Wakatake’s anger and get him to calm down enough so that the two royal women could talk with him.
They listened as he recounted his version of events. He said that he had wanted to cut up the meat and have an impromptu banquet there on the moors to celebrate the huge success they had had, but everyone had just gone silent.
The Queen Dowager mollified the petulant Wakatake—I imagine there were a few “there there” moments—and suggested that the rest of his retinue didn’t understand how Wakatake really wanted to create a new family Be group—the Shishihito, or Fleshers’, Be—who would be dedicated to this kind of field dressing and general butchery. She praised this initiative that she claimed Wakatake had clearly intended, offering up two of her own attendants to be a part of this new group: Masakida and Takame, both from the Mito Be of Uda.
This gesture, which allowed Wakatake to save some face for his murderous behavior, seems to have worked, and others joined in. The no doubt by now aged Agoko no Sukune, the governor, or Miyatsuko, of Yamato, who had served through several reigns, now, offered up some of the Kotori Wake of Saho and the other elite houses—the Omi and the Muraji, as well as the Tomo no Miyatsuko and the Kuni no Miyatsuko—all offered someone to form this new family.
Of course, this was hardly an isolated incident, but just a particularly memorable one. The Nihon Shoki goes on to comment that apparently Wakatake killed a great many people due to his mercurial temperament, and the court itself censured him, such that he was known to later generations as the “Greatly Wicked Sovereign”. This may be a note more of the Chroniclers than his contemporaries, however, as the term used—Dai’aku tenno or perhaps the Dai’aku Sumera no Mikoto—is clearly anachronistic to this period. Regardless I think we get a good idea of just how he was judged by history. The Nihon Shoki goes on to say that Wakatake’s only real “friends” in the court were Awo Musa no Suguri of the Fumu Be and Hakatoko, the Tamitsukashi of Hinokuma, though even this is something of a backhanded compliment:“Suguri” is likely a word from the Korean peninsula, and the characters used imply a meaning of Village Master, while “Tamitsukushi” appears to mean an “Employer of people”. Both of these were rather low class designations for people said to be friends of the sovereign himself, and one has to wonder that he didn’t have any other friends within the court. They would later be two of his primary ambassadors to the Liu Song court on the continent.
Yoshino or nearby Katsuraki, provide the backdrop for a fair number of the stories about Wakatake, from finding a maiden there that he apparently wed (though we have no further information on that from the Kojiki) to meetings with gods and near death experiences. Many of these stories take place while hunting.
One of the stories that shows up in both the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki is the story of the dragonfly and the gadfly. In both cases, Wakatake was on the Yoshino plain when a gadfly came down to bite him. But then a dragonfly came and, in turn, bit the gadfly and flew off. The dragonfly was likened to a loyal attendant, helping his sovereign, and there is a long poem, which I won’t recount here at the moment. Suffice it to say, the incident referenced in the poem was claimed as the primary reason for how the area, the Akitsu Plain, received its name—“Akitsu” being an old name—possibly the original Japanese name—for “Dragonfly”, which is, today, more commonly known by the on’yomi reading of the kanji used in the text: tonbo.
Needless to say, it is unclear if this was originally about Wakatake, or simply attributed to him later. Both the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki mention the incident, but in slightly different places in the story.
Another story found in both works is intriguing because it is clearly the same story with two different outcomes. According to the Nihon Shoki, as Wakatake was out hunting on Katsuraki, there was a strange bird, only the size of a sparrow, but with a long tail that dragged upon the ground. As it flew it let out a cry that sounded like a warning: “Have a Care! Have a Care!”
Suddenly, a raging wild boar emerged from the foliage, and Wakatake’s retinue ran and climbed trees to get away. Wakatake tried to encourage them: “When a savage beast meets with a man, it immediately stops. Shoot it with an arrow and then stab it.” However, they were all afraid, and stayed up in the trees, unable to will themselves down to face the fearsome beast.
Only Wakatake stood his ground. As the boar came charging forward, he nocked an arrow in his bow and let it fly. The arrow pierced the boar’s hide, but it kept charging, seemingly unphased. It made an attempt to gore Wakatake, but he gave it a kick that killed the beast.
After killing the boar, Wakatake was furious, and he was determined to also kill every single one of his attendants. After all, they had all fled, leaving Wakatake alone with the beast. He had them rounded up for formal execution.
Apparently, by way of apology, the attendants sang a song about climbing up into the trees, and how sorry they were. Fortunately for them, the Queen heard their lament, and tried to intercede to stay their execution.
Now, at first, Wakatake was stubborn, and he was even upset that his queen was apparently taking the side of the attendants. However, she laid out the political ramifications, and mentioned how people were generally talking about how much Wakatake loved the chase and loved hunting game, as opposed to tending to his duties as sovereign.
Here the Nihon Shoki inserts a clear passage from continental sources that basically states that if the sovereign put his attendants to death, he was no better than a wolf. Eventually Wakatake relented and stayed the execution of the attendants, and as they were leaving, Wakatake heard shouts of “Long Live the Sovereign”, which pleased him to no end. As he put it: while everyone had caught game, he had caught words of praise, which were much better. This seemed to change his mood around entirely.
There is a lot here that mirrors the previous story, once again showing a quick-tempered Wakatake who was quick to order that people be put to death, and only through the intercession of some outside trusted advisor—in the two cases we’ve seen so far, it was the women in his life-- who display the true political savvy necessary to rule. This kind of influence and political involvement would be a hallmark of ambitious women well into the Nara and early Heian periods, even as the court adopted a more patriarchal model from the continent.
The story also demonstrates Wakatake’s physical prowess. Few men would be able to stand their ground against a charging, wild boar, who are renowned for their ferocity and tenacity. In Europe, the traditional hunting implement was a specialized boar spear, which included a cross-piece partway up the shaft. That way, if the hunter successfully speared the boar, the cross-piece would help prevent that boar from continuing to move forward along the spear and gore the hunter, which they were known to do. To take one out with an arrow and a kick would be quite the feat. It is almost as if Wakatake were some kind of super hero, like a Captain Yamato, but without all of the redeeming moral and ethical qualities.
The Kojiki gives a slightly different version of this story, though built around the same core, which is probably that poem that was mentioned, earlier. Here, though, the poem is put in the mouth of Wakatake, for it was he who climbed the tree to get away. In the Kojiki version there is no warning, and the boar suddenly appears. Wakatake immediately shoots at it with a hummingbulb arrow. Of course, that just pisses it off—the humming bulb on those arrows was likely meant for flushing birds and game, and given the bulge and the typical style of crescent-shaped arrowhead used on those arrow, it would have cut, but wouldn’t have really pierced the boar’s hide. That suggests that it was a mistake—perhaps Wakatake already had it readied, as they expected to take birds or he mistakenly pulled it in his haste.
Either way, he now had an enraged boar headed his way, and so he ran away and climbed a black alder tree, where he—not his attendants—sang the song.
Given that song, it seems that the verse was actually the core of this story as it was passed down, and was probably somewhat well known in parts of the archipelago. This points to an oral history that may not have been well remembered, in truth, and so all of the other details are a bit fuzzy when it comes right down to it.
The Kojiki chooses to tell this story as a mistake by the sovereign, rather than taking another opportunity to highlight his cruelty.
This story about the boar, by the way, appears to be one of the enduring images of Wakatake, and many of the later depictions of him show him killing the boar, as in the Nihon Shoki tale, almost as a way to know that it is him. So that is at least how he was known by the 19th century.
There is another tale that goes along with this—a bit more fantastical, and depending on the source it either happened just before or just after the incident with the boar, and that was when Wakatake met a god and his retinue.
It went something like this:
One day, Wakatake and his retinue went forth to go hunting game with bow and arrow on the slopes of Mt. Katsuraki. All of his attendants were wearing a formal hunting outfit—presumably over their regular clothing—that was dyed blue with red cords attached. As they were ascending the mountain, Wakatake and his retinue suddenly saw another group out with them. This was also a retinue of hunters, dressed in the exact same way as the members of the Yamato court. In fact, they were dressed so similarly we are told that you could not actually tell them apart.
This was a problem because apparently the dress of Wakatake and his retinue were meant to indicate that they were members of the court out with the sovereign of the land, so who were these supposed imposters?
When Wakatake asked this of the dopplegangers, claiming that there was only one ruler in the land of Yamato, he received back only an echo of his own question back from the other group.
Well, as we’ve seen, Wakatake wasn’t one to play games, and he started to get upset, so he had his men fix their arrows—at which point their dopplegangers did exactly the same.
Wakatake, not backing down, demanded that the other group say their names. After that, he would announce his name, and that of his retinue, and then the shooting would commence.
This time the reply that came back was not a mimic of his question, but a name from the one who was in charge. In form he looked like Wakatake, but when he spoke he said his name was Hitokotonushi no Ohokami of Kazuraki—the Great god of Katsuraki, Hitokotonushi—the One Word Master, which, as much as that sounds like One Punch Man, apparently referred to the deity would could induce good fortune with one word or bad fortune with another.
At that point, Wakatake realized he wasn’t dealing with any old mortal imposter, but instead with a visible kami—that is a local spirit in corporeal form. This put the literal fear of god into Wakatake, and he quickly changed tactics. He had his men put down their weapons, and he took off his own sword and bow and offered it to Hitokotonushi. He had his attendants take off the outer hunting garments they had—those blue garments with red cords—and he offered those up as well.
After this act of obeisance, god and his retinue decided to join Wakatake and his crew in their hunt. One presumes that they allowed them their bows and arrows again, as the they continued, Wakatake and Hitokoto Nushi galloping together, bit to bit. When they came upon a deer, they each deferred to the other, to let them take the shot, and they each used respectful language with each other—something that a sovereign would likely have had little reason to do in most circumstances.
As night fell, the hunt came to a close, and the kami accompanied Wakatake to the Water of Kume, at the entrance to Mt. Hatsuse, at which point the people observed Wakatake and the kami together and remarked on how Wakatake must be a sovereign of “great virtue”.
Of course, this is hardly an “historical” account—somehow I don’t think that there were actually “visible kami” wandering around and greeting people, and, if there were, I’ll leave that to more of a spiritual and religious podcast to discuss. And yet this account is one of the few that show up in both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, though with slightly different flavors. The introduction, given here, between Wakatake and Hitokoto Nushi is largely taken from the Kojiki, including the colors of the attendants’ garments, the exchange between the two parties, etc. In the Nihon Shoki they are less descriptive of the actual meeting, claiming only that Wakatake recognized the kami for what he was and having Wakatake give his name first. It is also the Nihon Shoki, oddly enough, that goes more into details of the apparent camaraderie between the two, while the Kojiki seems to imply more of a supplicant attitude. This may have something to do with the overall treatment that each work gives Wakatake.
In both instances—but most explicitly in the Nihon Shoki version—I would say this looks to me like they are attempting to clean up Wakatake’s image a bit. After all, being seen in the company of a god apparently can do wonders for your image.
And that makes me wonder if there isn’t some grain of truth to this. I’m not suggesting that Wakatake actually met a kami named Hitokoto Nushi on Mt. Katsuraki, and that they then went on to become best bros—though I think I just might be willing to binge watch that series on Netflix. Rather, I wonder if this story wasn’t some religious tie-in to help legitimize Wakatake’s rule, possibly in connection with the elites of Katsuraki. You might remember that Wakatake had previously taken the granaries of Katsuraki from Tsubura no Ohomi, along with Tsubura’s daughter, Kara Hime, and so he had clearly made ties with Katsuraki—though how the people there felt about him after he up and killed one of their most prestigious ministers is kind of difficult to ascertain. Still, perhaps he did put in the effort with Katsuraki and their own beliefs as a way of appeasing local sentiment—and perhaps more.
Or perhaps Hitokoto Nushi wasn’t a kami at all, but some local elite. The line between kami and human beings is more than a little bit blurred, after all. Perhaps there was some local lord that Wakatake needed to appease. I somewhat doubt this, however—Wakatake hardly seems like one to take the political option when violence could serve him just as well.
Of course, this is all just speculation. I do think it interesting how even the sovereign bows to the will of a kami, and this could provide some idea of the hierarchy in place. If there really are co-rulers, one in charge of more mundane and secular aspects of rule, it may be that even if that person were a warlord, there was still a certain amount of power that was available to those who were charged with communicating with the supernatural that even they would have a hard time touching. This suggests to me that it wasn’t enough to just be the best in terms of physical and military violence, but that having a connection to the kami was also an important factor in ancient Japanese society.
And, in fact, we’ve already seen this at work many times over in the Chronicles, but it is still interesting as we get into more and more verifiably historical territory to see just what stories and what role the kami are going to play directly—at least in the minds of the people of the time.
It is also good to note that interactions with the kami did not always go smoothly. The Nihon Shoki has another account, which it claims happened after Wakatake and Hitokoto Nushi reportedly became best bros.
According to the story, there was a man known as Chihisako Be no Muraji no Sukaru, who was remarkably strong. Wakatake, for whatever reason, desired to see the form of the deity of Mt. Mimoro—aka the holy Mt. Miwa. And so he sent Sukaru to go and seize the deity and bring him back.
Sukaru agreed to try, and so he climbed up Mt. Miwa and there he caught a large serpent, presuming that to be the form of the deity. He brought the snake back down to the court and presented it to the sovereign.
Turns out Wakatake had not prepared to meet a god—he had not practiced abstinence in the way that was required before performing religious exercises—and suddenly the thunder rolled and the serpent’s eyes lit up in flames.
This was Wakatake’s Ark of the Covenant moment, and he was afraid, covering his eyes, and refusing to look on the kami. He had Sukaru release the serpent back on the mountain and thereafter they referred to it as Ikadzuchi, aka Thunderbolt.
Once again we see kami—specifically the kami of Mt. Miwa—depicted as a serpent of some kind. This is a theme running through a lot of these early stories about the common forms that kami might take.
Also, we can see in this a much less complimentary interaction between Wakatake and the supernatural, which implies, to me anyway, that he wasn’t really seen as a major interlocuter with the kami and other supernatural forces. But then again, there are so many stories—some seemingly contradictory—that it can be difficult to tell what was the actual Wakatake like. Was this all just because he was a complex individual? Or did someone later try to tarnish or rehabilitate his image? Since all of this comes at us at once we can’t quite judge how the stories changed over time, just how it had come together by the early Nara period.
It is interesting that Mt. Miwa pops up again in the story of Wakatake, as previous reigns appear to have been more focused on the coastal areas of Naniwa—modern Oosaka. However, it shouldn’t be too surprising, as this sovereign’s activities seem to focus much more on the southern Nara basin, in general. In fact, we talked a little last episode about how the sovereign’s palace was supposedly in Asakura in the land of Hatsuse—aka Hase. This was an area in the valley east of modern Sakurai city, and Mt. Hase sits due east of Mt. Miwa, somewhat secluded from the rest of the Nara basin. It is an interesting location from which to run the affairs of the archipelago, and I have to wonder whether this was actually the court, or just where Wakatake had his base of operations. It does seem that it may have been relatively defensible, which may have been an asset given the nature of Wakatake’s own rule and his own tendency to resort to violence.
Various stories place Wakatake in Hase or its vicinity. On a somewhat minor note, there is a song that he makes about the mountains while visiting a small moor—“ono” in Japanese. This moor is now known to us—according to tradition—as the Michi no Ono, or the Small Moor of the Road.
In the Kojiki, they talk about how Wakatake was celebrating a state banquet in Hase, outside, under a luxuriant tree. There was an Uneme present who hailed from Mihe of the land of Ise. She was apparently in charge of the sovereign’s sake cup, and as she lifted up the great sake cup to present it to him a leaf from the tree above floated down and landed in the cup.
When the uneme offered the cup to Wakatake, he immediately noticed the leaf floating on the surface and grew incensed. He tossed the uneme to the ground and held her there as he drew his sword and placed it against her throat, clearly intending to kill her for the perceived insolence of offering him a cup of wine with a dirty leaf in it.
It is said that the uneme was able to compose a poem about the palace of Hishiro at Makimuku, the tree above them, and more, which moved the heart of the sovereign such that he pardoned her and spared her life.
The Kojiki then recounts two other songs—one by the Queen which spoke of Yamato and the Hall of First Fruits, and another, said to be by Wakatake himself, about the courtiers of the palace. In the end the Uneme was not only forgiven, but greatly rewarded—which sounds more like a payment for putting up with Wakatake’s violent mood swings.
The songs, by the way, appear to be official songs for state ritual, or at least that is what Phillipi theorized. Once again it is unclear if they actually were connected to the event described, or if that was just a convenient place to put it all.
Wakatake could truly be problematic, at times. It wasn’t just his temper that got him into trouble.
There was a carpenter, Mane of the Wina Be, who planed timber with his axe, using only a stone as a ruler. All day long he would do this, making the boards that would be made into so much else, and so skilled was he that he never made a mistake. Every board came out perfectly.
One day the sovereign was visiting and watched him at work. He asked Mane if he had ever made a mistake and struck the stone, which would likely have been bad for his blade, as well as the work he was doing. Mane replied, however, that no, he never made a mistake—a bit cocky, perhaps, but apparently his work spoke for itself.
Well Wakatake didn’t take kindly to Mane’s response, and felt that he needed to take the carpenter down a peg or two. And so he generated a bit of a distraction. He had two of his Uneme come down where Mane was working, strip off their clothing, and wrestle in plain view in nothing more than fundoshi—waistcloths used as underwear. It was pay-per-view soft-porn brought straight to Mane, and even the expert craftsman paused briefly in his work to look up at the spectacle. Then, however, he went back to his work—back to planning the boards.
Wakatake’s gambit had worked, however, and Mane was unable to shake the image of the two, and sure enough his mind wandered as he worked and he made a slight slip of his hand, striking the stone he was using and ruining the edge of his axe.
At this point I can imagine Wakatake jumping from his seat and immediately pointing out what had happened. Wakatake then rebuked Mane, and said that he had lied to the sovereign—after all, he said that he *never* struck the stone. And so he handed the carpenter over to the Mononobe for execution.
Mane’s fellow carpenters were aghast at what was transpiring. One of them cried out, lamenting his friend’s fate, and this reached the ear of Wakatake, who seems to have had a moment to calm down. Apparently the grief in the other carpenter’s voice was such that, at least for a moment, Wakatake was struck with an empathetic twinge of regret. He seems to have realized just what an ass he was being, since, after all, it was only through his efforts to distract Mane that he had slipped in the first place.
“How many men I have destroyed!” he cried out. Immediately sent a messenger on a black horse from Kai and he made him gallop all the way to the place of execution and deliver a pardon. The messenger arrived just in time, and the cords with which Mane had been tied were unbound, and he sang his own song, one of relief, which I think we can all understand:
“As the night / Black was the horse of Kai-- / Had they but saddled him, / My life were lost-- / Ah! That horse of Kai!”
This story is placed in 469—only three years before Wakatake’s death, and perhaps captures some measure of growth in Wakatake, as there are no further stories of him with such wanton and, frankly, manufactured cruelty. Perhaps, as sovereign, he did grow, such that he eventually came to realize and regret the harm that he had done to so many. Of course, it is all hard to tell, but I do like to think that these stories were at least placed in an order to suggest a growth of character as Wakatake aged.
And with that, I think we’ll call it good for this episode. There are still more stories—this is one of the longer chapters in the Nihon Shoki, even though the actual length of the reign is not excessive. This is likely just due to more records being available, though, as I mentioned before, It may also have been a well known reign and therefore a convenient dumping ground for anything that was thought to have occurred in the mid to late 5th century.
And, so, until next episode, 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

— (2022). Inabe Jinja Website. http://www.inabe-jinjya.or.jp/index2.html. Last checked 3/31/2022
Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Osawa, et al. (2008). ワカタケルの剣　「図説日本の古墳・古代遺跡―決定版 (歴史群像シリーズ)」pp 134. ISBN:978-4-05-605064-6.
Soumaré, Massimo (2007), Japan in Five Ancient Chinese Chronicles: Wo, the Land of Yamatai, and Queen Himiko. ISBN: 978-4-902075-22-9
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
Shichirō, M., & Miller, R. A. (1979). The Inariyama Tumulus Sword Inscription. Journal of Japanese Studies, 5(2), 405–438. https://doi.org/10.2307/132104
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 60: The Impulsive Loves of Wakatake no Ōkimi

March 16, 2022 Joshua Badgley

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Dramatis Personae

This is probably going to take another Dramatis Personae list to help keep things straight, so here we go:

Ōhatsuse Wakatake no Ōkimi

Woasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune

Anaho no Ōkimi

Aka Ankō Tennō (安康天皇). We don’t actually know this sovereign’s given name, unless he really did have the given name of the location of his palace in “Anaho”. He was a son of Woasatsuma, and he reigned only a few short years, we are told, before he was killed by his adopted son. It is said that he named a cousin, Prince Ichinohe, as his successor, but Prince Ichinohe was killed by Wakatake in his own bid for the throne.

Prince Mimuma

Little is known about this Prince. This may be the same as Prince Mima mentioned elsewhere, a son of Izaho Wake (the “17th” sovereign in the official lineage) and Kuro Hime. He likely had some claim to the throne, due to his parentage, as there were, as of yet, no clear rules for lineal succession.

Miwa no Kimi

Mentioned mostly in passing as lord of land in Musa. This seems less of a name than a title, however—Miwa being the name of the area of Mt. Miwa, and “kimi” meaning lord. It may be that the Miwa family also had rights to the lands of Musa. Later we are introduced to others who are also tied to Musa in some way or another.

Kusaka no Hatahi

Prince Ōkusaka

Son of Ōsazaki and Kaminaga Hime, like his sister, Kusaka no Hatahi, he was apparently not considered a candidate for the throne, although he is mentioned as a son of Ōsazaki when the nobles instead chose Woasatsuma, so he may have had a claim. There is plenty here to suggest, to me, anyway, that he may not have actually been a descendant of Ōsazaki, though. The name “Kusaka” feels very much like a place name, and there is a “Kusaka” (spelled with the same characters from the Prince’s name) on the island of Awaji as well as a “Kusaka-cho” (with characters indicating the bottom of a slope, or downslope) over in the the old area of Kawachi, but there is no clear indication of a connection between either of these places and these two individuals that I have seen, so for now it is just speculation. Ōkusaka had married his own niece, Nakashi Hime, and they had a son, named Prince Mayuwa.

Ne no Omi

A noble of a high ranking family. He was sent to broker the deal with Prince Ōkusaka regarding the hand of the latter’s sister, Hatahi. Ōkusaka gave him a crown to take to the sovereign, Anaho, as a sign that he agreed to the terms. Covetting the crown, however, Ne no Omi lied and said that Ōkusaka had refused, and mentioned nothing about the Crown. This led to the death of Ōkusaka, and eventually to many others.

Wone no Omi

Also “One no Omi”, he is called out as the son of Ne no Omi and, quite literally, as “Little Ne no Omi”, aka “Ne no Omi, Jr.”

Prince Mayuwa

Sometimes rendered as “Mayowa”. This was the son of Nakashi Hime and Ōkusaka, and by most accounts he wasn’t much more than 7 years old when his father was killed by Anaho’s forces. He was taken in by Anaho when the latter married Mayuwa’s mother, Nakashi Hime. When Mayuwa overheard a conversation wherein he learned that Anaho had had his father, Ōkusaka, killed, Mayuwa decided to avenge his father and he killed Anaho in his sleep. This eventually led to Wakatake’s own rise to power.

Nakashi Hime

Roof at Ise Shrine showing the crosswise “logs” on top known as *katsuogi*. These may be the feature that is alluded to in the Kojiki with the verb *katsuwo* to refer to “raised logs”. Phillipi notes that it may not have been an actual sumptuary law so much as just the apparent insolence of this “district chief” to demonstrate affluence rivaling the sovereign’s own.

Shiki no Ōagatanushi

This is actually a title, not a name: 大県主. “Ō” means great, and in this case probably means someone with authority over several districts, or “agata”—in this case in the Shiki district of the central Nara Basin. An “agata” (県) is the term later used for “prefecture” (ken) and was an old division of area. “Nushi” (主) indicates some kind of authority—often translated as “Master” or “Lord”. The story, here, then, is interesting in that it doesn’t name the individual, and I’m not sure that it really names the sovereign, so it probably could have come from just about anywhere. The issue is that we don’t know what source material it was being pulled from, and unless we find other stories in other records, it is hard to say whether this story had actually been part of Wakatake’s tale from the beginning, or if it was just conveniently added in here. It is still neat for what it tells us about architectural traditions, though even that is still a little unclear.

Koshiwaki

Relative of the Ōagatanushi of Shiki, who was given to the sovereign along with the gift of the white dog. I assume that he was effectively given as an enslaved hostage to prove the Ōagatanushi’s sincerity.

Chinu no Agatanushi

Another example of a district leader or district chief known to us only by their title. Once again, this is a district that is fairly local to the court, sitting in the south of Kawachi.

Ōkusaka Be no Kishi

This would appear to be the head of the Ōkusaka Be corporate family group. He was originally a descendant of the Naniwa no Kishi no Hikaka—which is to say the Hikaka Kishi of Naniwa. In this case it looks as if they may be transferring him over with the same kabane.

Now, we’ve mentioned, earlier, how these “Be” families are not necessarily true family groups, but rather groups of workers who are placed into a family-unit style organization. This is the perfect example of just such a creation, with many of the members coming from Ne no Omi’s household, but the leader in charge of the Be group is clearly from another line. It is likely that they would have owed their production to the Kusaka line (possibly just for the upkeep of Kusaka no Hatahi and Nakashi Hime, as well as any of their descendants), or it may have been more regionally focused, supporting some other institution.

Prince Shiraga Takehiko Kunioshi Waka Yamato Neko

Wakatake’s son by way of Kara Hime. His name—especially the “Yamato Neko”—hearkens back to names of various legendary (and likely fictional) sovereigns. We’ll talk more about him in the next couple episodes, I’m sure.

Kara Hime

Daughter of Katsuraki no Tsubura no Ōmi, who, in turn, was responsible for sheltering Prince Mayuwa and Prince Kurobiko during Wakatake’s rampage. Tsubura no Ōmi’s kabane would seem to indicate that he was the Prime Minister, or at the very least he was the head of his Minister-ranked family. That he was from Katsuraki is also telling, as that was the same location where we got Katsuraki no Sotsu Hiko and his daughter, Iwa no Hime, meaning that it was doing a decent job of producing consorts whose offspring would go on to become sovereigns.

Of course, Kara Hime did not become a consort willingly, we are told, but rather in a failed effort to spare the life of her father. The fact that her son became Crown Prince and her daughter, Waka Tarashi Hime (aka Takuhata no Iratsume), became the Ise Princess. This would seem to actually make her the Queen, if that position had not already been taken by Kusaka no Hatahi.

Kibi no Waka Hime

Kibi no Waka Hime was originally the wife of Tasa no Omi of Kibi no Kamitsumichi. With him she had two sons, only known to us as the Ye Gimi and Oto Gimi—the Elder Lord and the Younger Lord. She was coveted by Wakatake, who, depending on the story, either killed Tasa no Omi or sent him off to the continent, taking Waka Hime as his own. She gave birth to two sons Prince Iwashiro (aka Prince Iwaki) and Prince Hoshikawa no Wakamiya. We will discuss both in later episodes.

Here the interesting thing to me is that she is from Kibi, a rival state to Yamato in the archipelago, making me wonder if there isn’t more going on here.

Kibi no Kamitsumichi no Tasa no Omi

A noble from the “upper road” of Kibi, likely indicating the eastern areas, closer to Yamato. He was married to Waka Hime, and had two sons. Later he was, according to one story at least, sent out to be the governor of Nimna (aka Mimana in Japanese and Imna in Korean) on the Korean peninsula. He would eventually attempt to cut off Yamato’s trade with the continent, at least according to one story in the Nihon Shoki. His connection with Kibi makes me wonder if this wasn’t a reworking of some political manuevering by Kibi to try to cut Yamato out of the continental trade routes, which seems to have a been a large part of Yamato’s power and influence among the other Wa groups.

Otogimi

The youngest son of Tasa no Omi. We aren’t given much on him other than that he was sent to chastise Silla and bring back more artisans from Baekje.

Kibi no Ama no Atahe no Akawo

Akawo, the Atahe (a lower ranking kabane) of the Ama (fishermen) of Kibi. He was sent with Otogimi to help chastise Silla. Here it makes sense that a leader of fishermen would be recruited for an ocean voyage, and it is likely that the “Ama” were both fishermen, traders, soldiers, and pirates as required of them. That he is said to have been from Kibi goes along with the idea that perhaps the entire excursion was actually a Kibi enterprise, not a Yamato one.

Kusu Hime

Said to be the wife of Otogimi. When she gets wind that he would betray Yamato she kills him and then goes to hide out for a while on a large island—possibly the actual Ōshima.

Kwan’in and Chiri

These were both individuals of the Western Aya, one of the various Aya groups on the archipelago. “Aya” was the name given to some of the groups descended from Baekje expats who had moved to Yamato. Given that and the distinctly un-Japanese nature of the sinographs used for their names suggested to Aston that they be read with a modern Korean reading, rather than Japanese. They requested to travel with Otogimi and Akawo so that they could bring back more artisans from Baekje. The new artisans were formed into their own group, the Imaki.

Imaki and the Aya

Neither the Imaki nor the Aya are a single individual, but rather familial groups made up of individuals from the Korean Peninsula—mostly Baekje. These groups are treated as families even though the individuals likely cannot trace to a single remote ancestor. It is interesting in how they are incorporated into the Yamato polity, however, effectively given full status as subjects. There is no indication that they are treated differently or as inferior. Compare that with, say, the way the Emishi of the Northeast or even the Hayato in the south are treated by the court.

Something we didn’t go over in the episode—after the Imaki were initially settled, disease broke out in the community. Of those who survived, they were sent to different areas around Yamato—possibly to different areas of the archipelago—to serve as local artisans.

Hitaka no Kishi no Katashiwa and Ko Anjeon

These two individuals, one with an apparently Japanese name and the other whom Aston identifies with a Korean pronunciation, were sent to find the missing expedition of Otokimi. They eventually found Kusu Hime and Akawo no Atahe and from there helped escort the Imaki back to Yamato proper.

Hiketa Be no Akawiko

Other than the mention of her in the Kojiki, there is very little to know. She is clearly of one of the Be groups, but that didn’t stop Wakatake from thinking about taking her on as a wife. She apparently lived near the Miwa River, though this could have several meanings. There is a Miwa River up in modern Hyōgo Prefecture, but I could not find “Hiketa” as a placename. There are several rivers around Mt. Miwa that this could indicate. And then for “Hiketa” itself, which is mentioned in the poems, there is a Hiketa of the same name over on the northeast side of Shikoku. Of course, it could be that, despite her name, she was not actually from Hiketa, but merely part of the Be household that supported the Hiketa family, or something along those lines.

Woguna Kimi

Woguna was an uneme, one of the ladies of the court. She was the daughter of Kasuga no Wani no Omi no Fukame, and as such her name might have been more properly Kasuga no Woguna. The kabane “kimi” or “gimi” I suspect was her later title, after being raised up. She was the mother of Kasuga no Ōiratsume. As a daughter of the Wani no Omi, she was still the daughter of a high-ranking family, even though she was nominally in a “servant” role within the palace. This is something that we’ll see that those who are “servants” in the palace are often still a good deal higher in rank and position than those who are outside. In fact, in later periods you would need to be of a certain rank to even be allowed up into the actual palace buildings. Otherwise you would be relegated to the palace grounds—assuming you were at least of a high enough rank to even get on the compound in the first place!

Kasuga no Ōiratsume

The daughter of Woguna Kimi and Wakatake no Ōkimi. We have little more at this point other than that she was recognized as Wakatake’s child, which forced him to acknowledge her mother and raise her up to the rank of an official consort.

Mononobe no Me

Mononobe no Me was a prominent noble—as we can tell by the conversations he has with the sovereign. He was at one point made Ōmuraji of the Mononobe—basically the head member of the family, similar to Ōmi, but the Mononobe were, according the Chronicles, anyway, only ranked as Muraji, which was apparently just a step below the Omi families. There is some question about this, as it isn’t clear that the kabane ranks stayed the same, and there is evidence that early on the Mononobe were one of the most powerful families in the Yamato court.

Locations

Asakura Palace

Traditionally, Wakatake's palace is said to be the Asakura Palace in Hatsuse--known today simply as Hase--which, by tradition was said to be in Sakurai.

Mt. Unebi

This mountain resides in the Kashiwara area of the southern Nara Basin, and is one of three mountains known as the Yamato Sanzan—literally “Three mountains of Yamato”. The other two are Mt. Miminashi and Mt. Ama-no-Kagu. Together they formed the border for Fujiwara-kyō the first continental style permanent—if short-lived (694-710)—capital city to be built in the archipelago. It would have still been an important place in the minds of the Nara era courtiers, since it was the capital no more than 10 years before the Nihon Shoki came out, and only two years before the publication of the Kojiki. It was therefore part of the landscape where these stories were being told by Hieda no Are in response to Temmu’s request.

Musa

Shiki

The district of Shiki has come up before in the stories. It probably corresponds somewhat with the modern district of Shiki, though it is hard to be certain and unlikely that the borders were that fixed in early days.

Takanukuhara in Isonokami

Possibly Takanuki no Hara. There appears to be a tradition that states that this is somewhere up in Tottori, on the Japan Sea side of Honshū. I’m having a hard time with that, since why would the continental delegation be sent all the way up there rather than somewhere in the Nara Basin. Furthermore, up to this point we have no reason to think that Isonokami is anywhere other than around the Isonokami Shrine, in modern Tenri city, which has generally been the assumption about any mention of Isonokami up to this point. So it seems a stretch to place Takanukuhara so far away from the core of Yamato.

Chinu

This is written in the Nihon Shoki as 茅渟 and I assume it was a district that stretched along the western coast of the land of Kawachi, possibly from around modern Sennan, which is where we find the Chinu Shrine, and up to the area of Naniwa in modern Ōsaka. This was first mentioned in the Nihon Shoki with the legend of Iware-biko’s invasion and the death of his brother, Itsuse, claiming that “Chinu” meant something like “Field of Blood”. In fact, it comes up regularly in the Chronicles, and the places identified with it almost seem to stretch across the coastal regions of the land of Kawachi, between the Seto Inland Sea and the mountain range that forms the western edge of the Nara Basin.

Katsuraki

Kibi

A land, similar to Yamato, with its own apparent sovereigns, or kingly class, such that they were building their own giant mounded keyhole tombs at the same time that Yamato was, and they rival in size those of the kingly tombs in Yamato. It is unclear just how much independence they held and what kind of territory Kibi expanded to, but it generally is viewed as having included most of modern Okayama Prefecture as well as much of the eastern half of modern Hiroshima Prefecture.

Kibi no Kamitsumichi

The “upper” part of Kibi, indicating an area closer to Yamato, so probably either the area around modern Okayama city or further east, towards the district of Bizen.

Nimna

Aka Imna (in Korean) and Mimana (in Japanese), this was a polity on the Korean Peninsula, probably somewhere near the Nakdong river, near or even part of the Kara confederacy. We have even seen it called “Nimna-kara”. It is controversial as the Chronicles claim that it is a Japanese colony on the peninsula, even going so far as to appoint governors, such as Tasa no Omi. However, it also seems to have had its own local ruler. It may very well have been a state of ethnic Wa on the continent, as there appear to have been Wa on both sides of the Korean straits, but just how subservient it was to Yamato is questionable. If they shared a common language and culture, it would make sense that they would have at least been closely allied. As to where it was, exactly, is difficult, if not impossible, to say.

Ōshima

This could just refer to a “big island”, but it is also the name of a specific island: possibly Azuchi-Oshima, which used to be one of the stops on the route between the archipelago and the Korean peninsula.

Mt. Mimoro aka Mt. Miwa

Mt. Miwa is the sacred mountain in the southeast corner of the Nara Basin. It was likely the main holy site for the early Yamato courts and continues to hold a special place even to this day.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is episode 60: The Impulsive Loves of Wakatake no Ohokimi.
Let’s start with a quick recap of where we are—so this is the latter part of the 5th century, and our current sovereign is Ohohatsuse Wakatake—though perhaps Wakatakiru would be more accurate, since we have what appear to be two contemporary inscriptions of that name on swords from different parts of the archipelago, indicating that he was recognized well outside of the core Yamato homelands around the Nara Basin and the Kawachi plains. That said, I think I’ll stick with Wakatake for consistency for now. He is very likely one of the five Kings of Wa mentioned in the records of the Liu Song dynasty—many believe he is the fifth ruler known as “Bu”, as that name uses the same character found in his name, also pronounced “take”, though I suspect that he was probably the 4th ruler, “Ko”, based on both the timing of the entries as well as some of the details provided.
The name “Ohohatsuse” is likely a locative, drawn from the location of his palace in Asakura in the area of Hatsuse, while Wakatakiru seems to have been his given name. He was clearly a sovereign of some import, but his legacy is somewhat marred by stories of violence and cruelty. The chronicles here are clearly divided in the picture they are attempting to paint of him—the Nihon Shoki lays bare episodes of cruelty and capriciousness that often turn the sovereign into little more than a villain, tossing his weight around, often for his own pleasure. He reminds me not a small bit of Peter the Third in Hulu’s series, “The Great”. And yet we also see growth over time.
In many ways, the stories about Wakatake—if you strip the more fantastical elements—come off as a remarkably human experience: the image of a complex, flawed individual with an inordinate amount of power and authority. If the general story is to be believed, it would not seem entirely implausible that he truly helped strengthen the State of Yamato and its hegemony. On the other hand, it is also fairly clear that he was lauded perhaps a bit overmuch. All of the Chronicles talk about how, upon his birth, there was a great light, and he is universally described as strong and handsome, if not necessarily kind-hearted. The Kojiki, in particular, seems to go to great pains to show him in a positive light, leaving out many of the less savory details given elsewhere.
Of course, the Kojiki, in general, tends to often be light on details. It rarely deals with events that were not happening on the archipelago, and even then it seems to prefer stories of sexual and romantic conquest over others. This all makes sense for what the Kojikiclaims to be: a narrative extolling the virtues and lineage of the royal family back to time immemorial. It is meant to be a story, and we tend to want our stories to be more simple and clear-cut.
In contrast, the Nihon Shoki revels in bringing us details from different sources, so of course that’s where we find snippets from the Baekje Annals and various other works. It seems to have been leveraging a much larger corpus from which to draw on, so we get a much richer and darker picture of the tapestry of Wakatake’s reign.
The Kujiki—or at least the Sendai Kuji Hongi—seems to fall somewhere in between, though in this case it seems rather sparse on details. In fact, based largely on the account in the Kujiki, it almost feels as if very little of import happened during this reign. But one should remember that, much like the Kojiki, the Kujiki was more interested in lineages and the basic flow of the royal family—not to mention the Owari and Mononobe families—and often acknowledges that it is skipping over large stories that it felt were not germane to its overall goal.
And all this makes me a little more cautious than usual about what we see during this reign. It seems clear that Wakatake no Ohokimi had some not inconsiderable sway in the archipelago, and certainly there was a lot that was happening in the 5th century in general. What isn’t entirely clear is not just how many of the stories are true, but whether they all belong to the same reign. Certainly some sources, like the Baekje Annals, likely had dates that could fit into this regnal period—and for the most part it does seem like the dates for this reign, which likely started in the 450s and ended around 479, are more concrete than any others up to this point—but how many of the sources that the scribes were drawing from had such information? It is entirely possible that stories passed down in family records simply mentioned the “Ohokimi” without clear mention of which one, and so it would not be too hard to imagine how, if Wakatake were truly remembered by later generations as a figure of some great renown.
To use an American example, think about if a modern movie maker wishes to make a fictional period piece—or even steampunk—and needs a President for some part of the story. Are they more likely to grab Harrison or Taft or will it be a Lincoln or Roosevelt? And that is with an extremely extensive corpus of knowledge from which to choose. Imagine you didn’t have that.
And so I tend to believe that the events and achievements of Wakatake are a bit hard to assign to him or even this time period for certain, but clearly someone in the 7th or 8th century thought that they at least fit this period—so I’m willing to assume that the stories were told as at least having come from this century, sometime around the reign of this particular sovereign.
All of this makes this reign a bit tricky to handle—much like it was for Homuda Wake. But we’ll see what we can do.
Now to start with, let’s go back and take a look at what we’ve already seen about Wakatake before he came to the throne. If you remember back in Episode 56, at the death of Wakatake’s father Woasatsuma, aka Ingyou Tennou, a delegation from Silla came to pay homage. According to the Nihon Shoki, on the way back, they cried out words of praise for Mt. Unebi, but apparently were misunderstood, and it was then Prince Ohohatsuse Wakatake that had them arrested and interrogated. They were eventually let go, but it didn’t help Wakatake’s relationship with the continent. This is a theme we’ll see coming back to us later when we take a look at Wakatake’s dealings with Silla and Korean Peninsula in general.
We next encounter Wakatake during his murderous rampage following the death of his brother, the sovereign of Anaho Palace, aka Ankou Tennou. He waded through the corpses of his own family to eventually take the throne, killing off not only his own brothers, but also his uncle, Ichinohe, the actual heir to the throne and possibly even the sovereign at the time of his death, though he is never accorded that title by the Chroniclers.
Most of that is fairly well agreed upon by the Chroniclers. Even the Kojiki couldn’t really reconcile the deaths in a way that would allow them to place it all in a better light. That said, the Nihon Shoki throws one more body onto the pyre with another prince: Prince Mimuma. It is short, but we are told that Prince Mimuma was heading out to Musa, which belonged to Miwa no Kimi, when he met with forces sent against him by Wakatake around the well of Iwa. He was taken prisoner, and to be executed, but before he was executed he pointed to a well and pronounced that, from now on, only common people could drink from it—no royals would be allowed.
It seems unsurprising that this snippet wouldn’t end up in the Kojiki—Mimuna wasn’t the heir, though I do believe we are talking about Ichinohe’s brother, so it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that he could have made a claim. And yet I wonder if he even existed. This sounds suspiciously to me like one of those stories trying to explain why a certain place has a given name or legend, and it is possible that the death of a Prince just made the most sense here—this is exactly the kind of thing that the Nihon Shoki seems to do a lot of.
Once Wakatake had dealt with his rivals and took the throne, the various chronicles generally agree as to a few things. First off, he dwelt in a palace in Asakura, in Hatsuse—which no doubt explains his moniker of “Ohohatsuse” Wakatake. They also agree that he married Kusaka no Hatahi and that she was crowned queen. The Nihon Shoki claims that Ohohatsuse requested her hand in marriage through his brother, Anaho, who was the sovereign at the time. Of course, that kicked off the whole thing discussed in episode 57 where a slanderous messenger, Ne no Omi, had falsely reported Kusaka no Hatahi’s brother’s Ohokusaka’s acceptance of the suit, because he wanted to keep a crown that Ohokusaka had offered along with the hand of his sister. As such, Anaho had Ohokusaka killed, and eventually Ohokusaka’s son, Mayuwa, sought revenge and assassinated Anaho—which led to Wakatake taking the throne, and making Hatahi his queen.
The Kojiki presents the story of Wakatake’s marriage differently. They tell a story of Wakatake wooing Hatahi, and proceeding to Kawachi over the Tadagoe road of Kusaka—presumably on his way to visit her. As he climbed to the top of the mountain and surveyed the land—which Phillippi suggests was a form of Kunimi or “land-viewing”, something which sovereigns are described as doing a lot of, which would seem to indicate that at this point Wakatake was already in charge—his eyes caught sight of a building with raised logs on its roof—by which they likely meant the cross-wise round logs that can often be seen atop shrine buildings, like the shrine at Ise. Back in this period, though, it seems that this kind of roof decoration was restricted in a kind of sumptuary tradition to only the royal family, so it would have been odd for him to see one like this just sitting out there.
When he inquired as to whose house it was, the locals told him that it belonged to the Oho-agatanushi—a local elite, who likely oversaw at least several other district leaders. Wakatake complained that this scoundrel had built his house like the palace of the sovereign, and so he ordered it to be burned down.
Now, the Ohoagatanushi was afraid and begged forgiveness. He claimed that he had done it by mistake, not realizing it was restricted. He then offered up a white dog, tied up with a cloth and a bell attached, along with one of his own relatives, Koshiwaki, who held the dogs leash. Apparently this—and, one assumes, the dismantling of the roof feature—was enough to get Wakatake to abandon his idea of setting fire to the house.
Later, when he finally arrived at Kusaka no Hatahi’s house, he gave her the dog, telling here that it was “something unusual that I picked up on the road today”, almost as if he had just found it somewhere, tied up to a tree or something. He also specifically offered it as a ”betrothal gift”—tsumadohi no mono.
For her part, Hatahi seems a bit overwhelmed. She told him that it was an “awesome thing” that he would come to her, rather than her coming to him, and she asked that he return back home so she could do it properly. He did, and, sure enough, she made the trip back.
Of course, as usual, the Kojiki adds a song that Wakatake sang for her.
These two stories seem at odds, and of the two, I’m more inclined to go with the Nihon Shoki version, the one with the stolen crown and more murder. As we’ll see, it feels out of character for Wakatake to have just forgiven the Ohoagatanushi just because he offered up a dog as payment.
You may recall that even before the courtship of Kusaka no Hatahi, Wakatake had a reputation for cruelty. It was somewhat glanced over, but when we originally covered the courtship story, about how then Prince Ohohatsuse Wakatake had requested that his brother, Anaho Ohokimi, aka Ankou Tennou, secure for him the hand of Kusaka no Hatahi, he first asked for the hand of his cousin, one of the daughters of Midzuha Wake, aka Hanzei Tennou. He had been rejected, however, because he was prone to violence—a definite trend in the stories. Because of this violent temperament, the princess did not feel she would be appreciated. Of course, this isn’t what she told him—she waived off the betrothal by claiming that it was really about her—that she was not nearly clever or witty enough. It was after this that Wakatake instead asked for the hand of Hatahi hime, instead.
So from early on we can see that he had a penchant for cruel and violent behavior.
Now speaking of the courtship of Kusaka no Hatahi, the Nihon Shoki has a bit of a Chekov’s gun moment in regards to that crown that Hatahi’s brother Ohokusaka had offered up and which Ne no Omi had absconded with. In 470, over a decade and change from that entire incident, Ne no Omi—the crown thief—was appointed to host a banquet for a delegationfrom Kure—the general term in the Chronicles for any of the various dynasties in modern-day China, using the characters for the Wu dynasty. We’ll touch more on these embassies later.
This banquet was held at Takanukahara in Isonokami—which was a stronghold of the powerful Mononobe clan.
Now a toneri—one of the palace attendants, was sent to observe the proceedings, and he reported back that Ne no Omi in particular had worn a headdress that was extremely noble and lovely, and he wore it when receiving the men of Kure. Hearing about this, the sovereign sent for all of the Omi and Muraji—in other words the high ranking elites—who had been in attendance, and he asked them to all wear the clothing they wore to the banquet.
As they gathered at court in their finest, the Queen, Kusaka no Hatahi Hime, saw the headdress that Ne no Omi was wearing and wept, as she recognized it as the headdress of her brother, Ohokusaka. These headdresses, based on what we’ve found in various tombs, were all quite different, made, one assumes, specifically for a given person. So it would be very odd to have two that look exactly the same.
Perhaps Ne no Omi figured nobody would recognize it—it had been more than a decade since he stole it, after all. But when pressed about it, he eventually confessed to what he had done.
And of course, it wasn’t just that he had stolen a fancy hat. He had sown the seeds that led to the death of Ohokusaka and, eventually, Anaho. Of course, Wakatake had then taken care of the rest of the family but, well, details.
Anyway, Wakatake declared that death wasn’t enough for Ne no Omi. He first off stripped Ne no Omi of his rank, and declared that his children, his descendants, and all of his 80 connections—by which I assume was meant any member of his household, blood relatives or no—would be prevented from attaining high court office. Specifically we are told that they would “have no concern with the order of Ministers of the State”. Only then did he order Ne on Omi to be executed, however, he ran away before the order could be carried out. He didn’t get far, however. He built a rice-castle, much as Saho Biko had done, and defended it, but he was eventually slain by the government forces.
Quick aside—I am wondering if there is ever an instance where the rice castle tactic works? So far in the Chronicles we are 0-2, but one assumes that it must have been at least nominally useful or why would people keep doing it?
With Ne no Omi dead, the court rounded up all of his descendants. Half of them were given to the Ohokusaka Be and allotted to the Queen’s service. The others were given to the Agatanushi of Chinu and made into sack-bearers—a job with little description, but I’m not sure it is exactly needed, as I figure it is likely safe to assume from the name that this wasn’t exactly a prestigious posting.
On top of all of this, they sought out a descendant of Hikaka no Kishi of Naniwa. If you go back to the story of Ohokusaka in Episode 57, we talked about how this loyal servant of Prince Ohokusaka had chosen to join his lord in death, rather than live without him. Now, as they were posthumously rehabilitating the Prince and his memory, they chose one of Hikaka’s descendants to lead the Ohokusaka Be, becoming the Ohokusaka Be no Kishi.
Not all of Ne no Omi’s family were willing to take this lying down, including his son, Wone no Omi, whose name is basically “Little Ne no Omi”, or in other words, Ne Junior. Little Ne no Omi was reported to have said that the sovereign’s castle was weak while his own father’s castle was strong. This seems an oddly treasonous thing to say, but it was enough justification for Wakatake to investigate the late Ne no Omi’s house and, sure enough, he found the evidence he needed and, well, I think we know how that likely went.
There is a final note that tells us this punishment wasn’t forever, apparently, as some of Ne no Omi’s descendants apparently founded a new house, the Sakamoto no Omi.
Returning to the question of the Queen, Kusaka no Hatahi Hime, while she is noted as the Queen, she never had any children—or none that the Chronicles acknowledge. In fact, the eventual Crown Prince, Prince Shiraga, had a different mother who is only peripherally mentioned -- her name is Kara Hime, and we actually touched on her back in Episode 57, too. Her father, Tsubura no Ohomi of Katsuraki, had provided shelter for the young Prince Mayowa and, possibly, to Prince Kurobiko as well, when they were both on the run from Wakatake. Tsubura had offered his daughter, Kara Hime, as well as various granaries, in the hope that Wakatake would spare him for sheltering the two princes.
Alas, it was not to be, and Tsubura no Omi perished and Wakatake took his daughter and the various granaries anyway.
But in the end, Kara Hime ended up giving Wakatake an heir, despite the fact that she did not appear to be of particularly royal blood—and therefore not a queen. She is from Katsuraki, though, and that may count for something. After all, that was where Sotsuhiko and his daughter, Iwa no Hime, had hailed from, so the area does have a history with the Royal Family.
Kara Hime’s son, Prince Shiraga, was not Wakatake’s only offspring, however. There was also Prince Iwaki—sometimes read as Iwashiro—and Hoshikawa no Wakamiya, who are both said to be sons of Kibi no Waka Hime, another of Wakatake’s wives.
Waka Hime, for her part, came to the royal line in a bit of a round-about way. You see, when Wakatake came to know of her there was one problem: She was already married. In fact, Wakatake learned about Waka Hime through her husband, Tasa, of the Kibi no Kamitsumichi no Omi—the noble house of Upper Kibi, in the area of modern Okayama prefecture. The two of them, Tasa no Omi and Waka Hime, had been married for some time and had two children, known only as Yekimi and Otokimi, the Elder and Younger lords.
Despite the fact that she was married with children, Wakatake wanted her to himself. And so he called on Tasa no Omi and he appointed him as governor of Nimna, on the Korean Peninsula, and he was to depart at once—without his wife and children, it would seem. And so he made the long and dangerous trip, but shortly after he arrived he received word that, in his absence, Wakatake had taken Waka Hime to be his own wife in the court. Tasa, realizing this was all just a ploy to get him away, must have known that if he went back then he’d have to confront what Wakatake had done, and in all likelihood that would not go well for him. No doubt resentful, but also realizing that Wakatake could always decide that he needed a more permanent option to get him out of the way, Tasa no Omi instead sought out the Silla court, who at that time was also cold on Yamato, and refusing to send tribute, ostensibly because of how Wakatake had treated their envoy to his father’s funeral, though the Silla annals also mention a fair number of continuous raids by Wa forces, so, there was that as well.
Now Wakatake seems to have been unaware that Tasa no Omi had gotten wind of the fact that Wakatake had taken his wife, or else he didn’t care. Some time passed; we know that they had at least one son together. If Wakatake was thinking of Tasa no Omi at all, there is no indication. In fact, he was instead preoccupied with other matters. Primarily—and apparently coincidentally—with the fact that Silla was not sending the expected protection money—I mean tribute—as they had apparently done previously. And so he selected Otogimi, one of Tasa’s sons, as well Akawo of the Ama no Atahe—that is the fishermen—of Kibi to lead an expedition and chastise them, like the warbands of old.
At the same time there were several skilled artisans named Kwan’in and Chiri of the Western Aya—which is to say they were of Baekje descent. They asked to be allowed to tag along with the mission so that they could go to Baekje and bring back more skilled artisans.
And so they all went together, along with a number of soldiers, and headed across the straits to the peninsula. Once there, they headed for Baekje, where Kwan’in and Chiri went about recruiting artisans. Meanwhile, Otokimi was supposed to head over to Silla, but as he entered Baekje he encountered a local spirit in the guise of an old woman. When he asked her if Silla was far or near she told him it was another day’s journey. And apparently, after what was undoubtedly an arduous, multi-day or even multi-week journey to get to the peninsula, another day was just a day too many. And so he decided to heck with it, and he gathered up the newly recruited artisans, who would be added into the Imaki family, and turned the army around.
Otogimi did tarry for a while, however. Perhaps he was thinking of how it would look back home that he failed to actually do his job of getting Silla to send tribute, and so, rather than taking another day to march into Silla he spent several months in Baekje, ostensibly waiting for favorable weather so that they could ensure a safe trip back to Yamato. While he was waiting there, a messenger came from his father, Tasa no Omi, from Silla. Tasa told Otokimi of how he had learned about how the sovereign had treated him—how he sent him away so that Wakatake could marry his wife, Otokimi’s mother, and they even had a son, Prince Iwaki. Tasa no Omi then suggested that together they could get revenge and isolate Yamato from their allies. Otokimi could go back to Baekje and convince them to break off relations with Yamato, while Tasa no Omi would go back to Nimna and use his nominal authority there to likewise break off relations. As Silla had already broken communications, Yamato would be entirely cut off from the peninsula—and thus from the entire continent and the precious prestige goods that it provided.
Otokimi seems to have considered this plan, but his own wife, Kusu Hime, was apparently quite loyal to Yamato. When she heard of the plot to cut off Wakatake and the Yamato court, she could not stand by. She secretly killed her own husband, Otokimi, and then she stayed on Ohoshima with Akawo of the Ama no Atahe and the Imaki artisans.
Eventually, Wakatake began to wonder what had happened to the expedition, since there hadn’t been any word on it in a while, and he sent Hitaka no Kishi Katashiwa and Ko Anjeon to try to find out what was going on. They eventually found Kusu Hime and Ama no Atahe no Akawo at Ohoshima and found out what had happened. After they reported back to the sovereign, he gathered up all those newly-recruited artisans, the Imaki, and settled them in Yamato, and eventually in other locations as well.
Now this whole episode is called into question by Aston. He suggests that this may have been taken from another reign entirely. It certainly shows some internal inconsistencies, the least of which is the fact that Nihon Shoki acknowledges a much simpler story, in which Tasa no Omi was straight up killed so that Wakatake could marry Waka Hime. Later, Otokimi went to Baekje and came back with workmen, tailors, and fleshers—or perhaps a better term would be “butcher”, as in someone to help carve up a carcass after a hunt.
Other inconsistencies abound—such as the question of why Tasa no Omi would depart without taking his wife, despite the fact that he was being posted as governor for an extended period of time. Meanwhile, Kusu Hime is supposed to have just tagged along with her husband on a military excursion to punish Silla? Granted, it may have been that Kusu Hime was also armored up and ready to fight, but still, it doesn’t quite explain why Waka Hime would have stayed home.
And the fact that Otokimi is really just a generic name would seem to make it easy to confuse multiple stories about them.
Finally, though, there is the connection of Tasa no Omi, his son Otokimi, and even Akawo, with the land of Kibi. Kibi was likely still largely independent around this time—they were certainly still quite powerful. And so I would not be at all surprised if there was a concerted effort by Kibi to change the dynamics with the continent. After all, if they were able to capture the trade routes from Yamato somehow, perhaps they would have been able to take Yamato’s place as the chief hegemon within the archipelago. And so perhaps there were some political maneuverings to try to isolate Yamato which are remembered in this particular reference.
Reading through it all, it can be a mess. A few things that I take away, however, is that, (1) Waka Hime—and thus her children, Prince Iwaki and Prince Hoshikawa no Wakamiya—would seem to have ties to Kibi, one of Yamato’s likely rivals on the archipelago for prominence and prestige, and (2) we are getting one more story about Wakatake’s personality and motivation. Or at least we are getting what people believed to be Wakatake’s personality and motivation, which may or may not do justice to the individual, but does help us understand how he was viewed later. Mostly the takeaway seems to be that has little problem doing whatever it takes to get what he wants. Does he want the throne? Sure, he’ll kill his siblings and cousins to get it. What about that beautiful woman? If he needs to get her current husband out of the picture, so be it. Whether these are accurate characterizations or not, it is clear that there were plenty who did not see Wakatake’s character in a positive light.
This makes me think of another courtship story, this one from the Kojiki, and apparently from the early part of the Prince’s life, though the Kojiki is not nearly as detailed as the Nihon Shoki in keeping up with any kind of chronological consistency. As the story goes, Wakatake was walking along the Miwa River when he saw a beautiful maiden on the bank washing clothes. When he asked her name she told him it was Akawiko of the Hiketa-be.
Immediately, Wakatake told her not to take any suitors, for when he returned from his travels he would summon her to the palace. And so saying, he departed.
And here’s where things get messed up. You see, by the time he got back to the palace Wakatake’s fickle memory had completely forgotten Hiketa Be no Akawiko. He went on with life as normal, not thinking a single thing of it. Years went by—the Kojiki says 80 years, but as we’ve seen, that pretty much just means “some number of decades”—and Akawiko heard nothing back. Still, she remained faithful.
Eventually, though, Akawiko found herself an old woman, having given up who knows how many chances. So despite her respect for the throne she grew melancholy, and decided that she had to confront Wakatake and at the very least force him to acknowledge her faithfulness. And so she had hundreds of tables laden with betrothal gifts made up and she took them and presented them to the court.
Of course, Wakatake had no idea what was going on, and demanded an explanation. But as Akawiko laid out her story, explaining all that she remembered, Wakatake was reminded of what had happened. He admitted that he had forgotten about his promise, and then he praised her faithfulness while, at the same time, pitying that she had given up the prime of her life. And then he said that, despite his desire to wed, apparently it could not be, because with her—or perhaps his—advanced age, there was not way to consummate the marriage. He then praised her with two poems, and she returned the favor on the spot. And then he rewarded her in other ways—though the Kojiki doesn’t exactly say how.
Of course, this story—typical of the narrative in the Kojiki—feels much more like a parable about faithfulness than any kind of historical account, and probably could have been placed just about anywhere, but, again, I suspect it conforms with what the people of the 8th century thought about Wakatake in general.
Perhaps more important than the question of some kind of authenticity in the narrative is more the set of four poems or songs that went along with it. Of course, where these poems actually originate is unclear—it is possible that they are actually the crux of what was remembered about this story, and the rest of the details were pulled from the story around them. It is also possible that they come from somewhere else, but were added in later, perhaps affecting some of the story elements. In either case, they seem to fit naturally here, as they are related not just to the story, but to each other:
First there are the two from Wakatake, which Phillipi translates as follows:
Under the oaks / the sacred oaks / of Mimoro // How awesome-- / O oak-forest maiden
And then:
The field of Hiketa / where young chestnut trees grow: / When she was young // Would that I had slept with her-- / But now she is old.
The first of these, talking about the Sacred Oaks of Mimoro—aka the trees of the Sacred Mt. Miwa—could be religious, though one commenter, Tsuchihashi (????), suggested that it was more about taunting the poor Akawiwo for being unapproachable—which hardly seems fair given everything in the story, but there you go.
Akawiko is recorded as responding with two poems of her own, each linked in some way to Wakatake’s own. First:
At Mimoro / They built a jeweled fence, / but left part unfinished: // On whom will you rely, / Courtier of the deity?
And then:
In the bay of Kusaka / Grow lotuses of the bay, / Flowering lotuses: // Ah those in their prime-- / How I envy them
Here, the first poem and its response both mention Mimoro—aka Mt. Miwa. And then the second poem pairs the Fields of Hiketa—after all, Akawiko was said to be of the Hiketa Be—with the Bay of Kusaka, which would have been taken as a reference to Wakatake’s Queen, Kusaka no Hatahi.
Besides the references in each poem to the other, there is also, here, a bit of synchronicity in the structure of the poems, as well, since in the third line of each one they repeat an element of the preceding line. That all four poems should follow that same pattern and that they should be linked to one another certainly suggests that they were known as a set, at the very least, regardless of whether the story around them was originally part of their lore or added in at a later date.
Once again it is also useful to remember that poetry and song were an important part of Japan’s linguistic and courtly traditions, going back to well before these Chronicles were compiled. This tradition continues even today, though perhaps not quite to the same extent.
Now Wakatake’s carelessness with women is hardly unique to the Kojiki, and the Nihon Shoki, while not mentioning at all the faithfulness of Akawiko, nonetheless brings up another woman, who was treated by the sovereign in a less than stellar manner.
Her name was Woguna Kimi, and she was an Uneme in the court of Wakatake. The Uneme, you may recall, were maidens sent by certain families to attend upon the needs of the court. Unlike the queen and various consorts, they had a lower position in the court, but were still members of the nobility in that they had access that was not allotted to common women. I imagine that having a daughter as an Uneme afforded a family a certain amount of political leverage, as she would likely know what was going on in some of the more intimate areas of court, similar to the role of the male Toneri.
Now, while they were not officially considered wives of the sovereign, Uneme were in a particular position, and if they happened to catch the sovereign’s eye, who knows what might develop. So it was that we are told that Woguna Kimi was “given one night”, a bit of euphemistic phrasing that, given the power dyamics, we would consider rape in a modern context. At the very least there was likely little say that Woguna Kimi had in the affair, something that the Chronicles gloss over.
And, of course, soon after this encounter, as will happen, Woguna Kimi became pregnant and she gave birth to a girl, known to us as Kasuga no Ohoriatsume. Now it does seem that Wakatake had his suspicions about all of this, but nonetheless he refused to acknowledge the child nor raise up the rank of her mother. I guess the best that can be said is that neither did he send them away, and so the young girl was brought up in the palace, with her mother.
One day, when the little girl was able to walk, Wakatake was in the Great Hall, talking with one of his more prominent court nobles, Mononobe no Me. We haven’t discussed him, yet, but Mononobe no Me shows up several times in the Chronicles. Anyway, as they were talking, the young daughter of Woguna Kimi walked across the courtyard, and Mononobe no Me asked Wakatake who the father was.
Now this made Wakatake curious. Why would Monoboe no Me ask such a question? Well, according to Me, he was curious because she walked in a way that made her resemble the sovereign, Wakatake himself.
I must say that I hardly would imagine that a young child that was just learning to walk would be so similar to someone that one would call out the parentage at a glance. Rather, I suspect that word had been traveling around the court for some time. Very little in the court would have been truly private, as people were likely stacked on top of each other, and even the sovereign’s private quarters would have been regularly cleaned and organized by lower ranking servants, at least if later court life is any indication. As such, it was likely not a secret that they had slept together, nor that her child had been born only nine months after—people could do the math. Furthermore, it would probably have been known if she had slept with anyone else.
Still, the sovereign balked at such an implication—and here we get into an area that Aston, with his late `19th century upbringing, considered too scandalous for the hoi-polloi, and so he instead transcribed it into Latin.
Wakatake protested: “It seemed unusual that after only sleeping together one night that she should conceive and give birth to a daughter. As a result, I’ve suspected that something else was up, and that she could not be my daughter.”
“Ahh,” said Mononobe no Me, “But on that one night, how many times did you actually have sex.”
“Seven times,” said Wakatake—who was either remarkably virile or at least wanted to seem such.
At that point Mononobe no Me chastised his lord, asking why, if she had been nothing but pure in body and mind, why would Wakatake not trust her and her claims of chastity? “After all,” he added, “I have heard that women who become pregnant can easily conceive even by the touch of the undergarments—and Much more, when spend the whole night.”
Now despite the seemingly juvenile tone of this discussion—women getting pregnant just because of something touching their undergarments is the kind of conspiracy theory I’d expect to hear in a high school locker room or an abstinence-only sex education class—Wakatake was brought around to the idea that this girl was his, and he came to accept that fact. As such, he made the younger girl, Kasuaga, a royal princess—hence the title, Ohoiratsume. And her mother, Woguna Kimi was raised up from an Uneme of the court to an official concubine.
Again we have some rather familiar themes here. First is just the apparent disbelief by royalty that, yes, a woman can get pregnant even if you only slept with her for one night. Of course, assuming ignorance is the generous interpretation: In a time where parentage mattered a great deal it wasn’t just about being a deadbeat dad—in fact, I wonder how much a noble father had to do with raising children until they were of a certain age, and even then, only if the father felt it was important. No, there were also issues of rank and position. I doubt that Woguna Kimi had a warm reception being raised up and given quarters in the women’s area of the palace—someone who had previously been a servant or attendant was now being treated as a full-blown consort. Of course the Chronicles don’t get into this, as they are focused more on the actions of the sovereign.
A theme here seems to be the degree to which Wakatake’s less pleasant moods and decisions would be influenced by those closest to him. We’ll see this time and again, and much of Wakatake’s story appears to be more about him making, well, mistakes in the heat of the moment and, through the counsel of his close family and senior advisors—or simply a particularly moving entreaty by one of his subjects—he would change his mind and reverse his decision. That said, his first impulse is often not what one would expect of a kind and beneficent ruler, and you have to wonder how many stories never made it into print where there wasn’t a calming factor to assuage his more rash decisions.
At the same time, I find this all extremely human, and of the sovereigns we’ve discussed up to this point, Ohohatsuse Wakatake seems like the most human of all of them. He is still depicted as larger than life, but in his decisions, his rage, his ambition, and his interactions it feels like we have a more developed character than just about anyone else, which also lends some additional credence to the idea that this may not all be bluff and bravado from the Chroniclers, which goes along with the rest of the evidence that this sovereign did exist, even if some of the stories attributed to his reign are questionable, and this is likely in about the right timeframe. In fact, it is generally assumed we can take events from this reign at more or less face value when it comes to their dates, at least if it happened after about 461 or so.
But this episode is already a bit on the long side, so I think this is probably a good place to stop. We’ve gotten a picture of Wakatake and his interactions—at least his interactions with the various women in his life. Next episode we’ll talk about more stories of Wakatake’s character, and also about some of the events and dealings between Yamato and the mainland, including interactions with the various courts of what is today “China”, which were all lumped under the designation of “Wu”—or “Kure” in the Japanese reading. But we’ll deal with that in the future.
And, so, until then, 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
Osawa, et al. (2008). ワカタケルの剣　「図説日本の古墳・古代遺跡―決定版 (歴史群像シリーズ)」pp 134. ISBN:978-4-05-605064-6.
Soumaré, Massimo (2007), Japan in Five Ancient Chinese Chronicles: Wo, the Land of Yamatai, and Queen Himiko. ISBN: 978-4-902075-22-9
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
Shichirō, M., & Miller, R. A. (1979). The Inariyama Tumulus Sword Inscription. Journal of Japanese Studies, 5(2), 405–438. https://doi.org/10.2307/132104
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 59: Urashima Tarō and Other Stories

March 1, 2022 Joshua Badgley

Detail from a late 16th century or early 17th century scroll depicting the story of Urashima Tarō, depicting him entering the undersea palace in the Land of the Immortals. The original is from the The Bodleian Library, Oxford and is used here under CC BY 4.0.

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Three Stories…

This episode focuses on three stories in the Nihon Shoki—fantastical stories about ghosts, shapeshifting bandits, and the famous Rip van WInkle of Japan: Urashima Tarō.

The write-up here is going to be pretty short, but we hope that you enjoy these more lighthearted tales. I’m sure I’m not the only one who could use a distraction given everything going on as this comes out at the start of March, 2022.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 59: Urashima Taro and other stories.
First, thanks to Lauren for supporting us over on Ko-Fi.com, and a belated thanks to Gaijin Historian for supporting us on Patreon. If you would like to join them, go check out SengokuDaimyo on either platform, or see the links on our own home page at SengokuDaimyo.com.
With that out of the way, a quick apology: this episode is a little short. I had intended to jump into the life of our current sovereign, Ohohatsuse, aka Yuryaku Tenno, but there is still a lot of information I’m trying to get through, and I’d rather make sure that I have as much as I can before I start jumping into all of that, because it is a lot. But I don’t want to leave you hanging, and there are a few fun stories that don’t really impact the overall story, so I thought I would pull on those.
To be honest, these stories would probably fit better in a Halloween episode. They are full of ghosts and werewolves and fantastical stories—and some of them you may even know. They hearken back to some of the stories we’ve already heard: from the isle of the immortals to stories about the great Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, and I think they also help tell us a few things as well.
For one thing, it is interesting that they exist at all. For the most part the Nihon Shoki was compiled as a dynastic history, telling the story of the royal family. Rarely do we get glimpses of others unless they are directly involved, somehow, in the royal lineage. Most of the time the stories of the fantastical are built around the stories of the sovereigns themselves—and certainly we have those stories in this period, too.
Of course, stories of ghosts and magic can’t exactly be taken at face value, and it does make us wonder about the rest of the narrative. We can’t even be sure that these stories are set in the proper time. Were these stories that were being told in the 5th century? Or did they come about later, and just get added in here? Certainly some of the stories of continental exploits seem like they may actually be more appropriately attributed to an earlier sovereign, so while we can probably start to make some assumptions as to the accuracy of some dates, other events may have simply been placed in the time that seemed to best suit the lesson that was being communicated. Either way, we can’t necessarily claim that these are actual fifth century stories—what we really know is that they existed by the eighth century and were well-known enough to have been written down in the compilation that became the Nihon Shoki.
The three stories I want to focus on each deal with slightly different themes and events. To start with, perhaps it may be best to talk about the ghostly horse from the tomb of Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou. As you may recall, his reign was credited with the arrival of the first horses from the Korean peninsula, along with their keeper, Ajikki.
Next, we’ll dive into something of a werewolf story. Well, kind of—it may not exactly be a Lon Chaney style story, but there is definitely the idea of fantastical shapeshifting, which is almost its own genre in traditional Japanese stories.
Finally, we’ll touch on what I suspect is the most famous of the stories—perhaps one of the most famous stories in Japan. That is the story of Urashima Taro, or, as he is known in these early stories, Urashima-ko, the Child of Urashima. This is Japan’s own Rip van Winkle story, and it also shares a fair amount with some of the earlier stories of the Nihon Shoki, during the legends of the very first heavenly descendants. This early version also relies on the use of the famous Peng Lai, or Isle of Immortals, from stories of the famous Qin dynasty.
All of that, and perhaps a little bit more, in this episode. Let’s get into it, shall we?
Our first story in today’s triple feature comes, we are told, from the reports from the Kawachi area as recorded in the Nihon Shoki. If the Chronicles are to be believed, one of the earliest purposes for writing in the archipelago was to collect information from around the countryside and relay it back to the central government. Reports like this—the later fudoki—often give us intriguing insights into life outside the center, and can be quite illuminating.
The report from Kawachi tells of a man in Asukabe named Hakuson of the Tanabe no Fubito. Hakuson—and that name is odd, as it doesn’t look like a Japanese name, but I’ll touch on that later. Anyway, Hakuson had a daughter, and she was married to a man named Karyu of the Fumi no Obito. Together, they lived over in Furuichi, just a short distance away, across the Ishi River.
Anyway, as he was on his way home that night, the moon shining bright in the night sky, he was passing by Ichihiko Hill—better known as the tumulus of Homuda Wake, the great-grandfather of our current sovereign. As he passed the giant mound, he saw a rider mounted on a red courser, which was dashing along light a dragon in flight. Hakuson became envious of such a horse, and he whipped his own piebald horse into a gallop and brought him along side, until they were riding bit to bit. But then the red courser sped up, like a little Nash Rambler to Hakuson’s Cadillac. Pretty soon, Hakuson realized there was no way that he’d be able to catch up, and he was about to give up, when the other rider slowed and turned back around.
He realized that Hakuson had been coveting his ride, and the stranger agreed to swap horses with him. Hakuson was overjoyed and couldn’t believe his luck. He thanked the stranger, and then he quickly made his way back home, in Asukabe. There he tied his new horse up in the stables and went to sleep.
The next morning, Hakuson woke, no doubt with a spring in his step. He had never seen a horse like the one from the previous night, and now it was his. He went straight to the stables to take in his newly acquired equine.
One imagines that he might have brought others from his house to take a look, or perhaps he wanted to bask in his fortune alone. Alas, his good mood was not to last—and perhaps you know where this is going. For when he got to the stables, there was no horse to be found—or at least not in the stall where he had placed the red courser. Instead, the only thing he found, standing there in the light of day, was a clay horse statue, made of the same red clay used for funerary statues.
A chill swept over Hakuson, who suddenly realized what had happened. He loaded up the clay horse and he took it back to Ichihiko Hill. Climbing the tomb mound, he found his own piebald horse, sitting there, amidst a gathering of haniwa horse statues, placed there for the spirit of the long dead sovereign. Respectfully, Hakuson took back his piebald horse, and left, in its place, the haniwa statue of the red courser that he had apparently ridden all the way home the prior evening.
This story does, I guess, at least mention the ancient ruler, Homuda Wake, and so may make some sense in the narrative, but otherwise it just feels like a kind of cool story that was put in, maybe the break up the monotony, otherwise.
It does seem to mention the continued influence of Homuda Wake, though whether this was part of his connection to the Hachiman cult or not is unclear. Certainly, the Nihon Shoki seems to be attributing to that ancient 4th century sovereign some miraculous powers if he’s able to ride about at night on the back of his clay haniwa horses.
Of course, there is a connection with Homuda Wake, as it is his regime during which Baekje is said to have sent horses to the archipelago, along with Ajikki, whose knowledge of both animal husbandry and continental literature were equally admired. We talked about him back in Episode 43.
Now there is some question about this. If Homuda Wake died in the early 5th century, it is possible that his tomb was surmounted by horses. Haniwa, which means “clay cylinder”, were originally just that, clay cylinders, sunk into the ground, some of which may have been surmounted by pots or other vessels, possibly for containing some kind of ritual offering. In the 4th century, we see some early sculptures starting to be added, such as houses and boats. In the 5th century, however, the technique had evolved to the point where both humans and animals were being depicted. Depending on when and where Homuda Wake was buried it is possible that there were haniwa horses on his tomb, though I suspect this entire story is a bit anachronistic. It does appear to be the case that horses make up the largest percentage of animal figures found at ancient tomb mounds, and so it would have made sense to anyone listening at the time that horses would have been there, but it isn’t actually clear that they were.
This also brings up a question of just where the tomb actually was. While there is certainly the kofun next to Konda Hachimangu has been traditionally identified as Homuda Wake’s grave in more recent times, most of those designations came about in the Edo period or later, as scholars tried to piece together just which tombs were being discussed in the ancient histories. Though people had lived in the area, not everyone recalled just what one pile of earth was supposed to be as opposed to another, especially after various centuries of strife and warfare, during which some times the people were just struggling to get by. And so we cannot be entirely certain of the modern designation as the tomb of Homuda Wake.
Kishimoto Naofumi provides an alternate hypothesis, suggesting that Homuda Wake’s tomb was actually a late 4th century tomb known as Tsudo-Shiroyama. This is known as the oldest of the kingly tombs in the Furuichi area, and if Homuda Wake really was the first sovereign of his dynasty in the Kawachi area, then it would make sense that it could be his. Of course, that runs us into some other chronological issues, such as the events on the Gwangaetto Stele, which may then have actually happened during the reign of Homuda Wake’s apparent son and heir, Ohosazaki, aka Nintoku Tennou.
Unfortunately, neither of these tombs appear to have haniwa horses, from what I can tell. Tsudo Shiroyama did have haniwa swans, however, and so it is possible that there were horses that just were destroyed before archaeologists could find them, but so far I have not seen evidence of horses back quite that far. It then begs the question as to whether or not the “Ichihiko Hill” could have been identified, at least by the eighth century, and whether or not there were haniwa horses on it that perhaps have not survived into modern times. Unfortunately, there are just too many questions.
And speaking of questions, these names, am I right? Hakuson and Karyu neither look nor sound like any of the Japanese names in the Chronicles so far. It is entirely possible that they were simple sinographs to record the sound of the name in the record, and as such may have been mangled in one way or another through transliteration from one source ot another. It is also possible that these originally were not ethnic Japanese at all, and that these were the names of individuals of Baekje or similar continent descent. Certainly the Kawachi area had a fair number of individuals from all over the Korean peninsula, and possibly the rest of mainland east Asia. As such, it may be that these individuals were being subtly identified by their names. Or it could just be a scribal artifact.
Hakuson, it should be noted, is considered by some to be the founder of the Tanabe house. At the very least he is the first person mentioned in conjunction with it by name.
And so that is our first story: The ghost horse of Ichihiko Hill.
Our next takes a slightly more martial tone. It takes place, or so we are told, in the latter months of the year 470, some five years after the encounter with the ghost horse. Now at that time, there was a man in the area of Miwikuma in the land of Harima, which lay to the west of modern Ohosaka, and bordered the land of Kibi, one of Yamato’s early rivals in power and prestige. This man was a bandit and a pirate, and quite strong, and he was known far and wide as Ayashi no Womaro. He robbed people both at land and in the water as they passed through the Seto Inland Sea. He was accused of committing robberies, preventing traffic, plundering merchants, and, last but not least—not paying his taxes. And, come on, we always know that the government is going to get you on your taxes, so what was he thinking?
Anyway, the court had had enough of this scoundrel, and Ohoki, of the Wono no Omi family of Kasuga, was sent out at the head of 100 fearless soldiers to deal with this threat to archipelagic commerce. The soldiers marched out and surrounded Womaro’s house, and, rather than risking men fighting the bandit, they simply set fire to his house and waited outside to either cut down or arrest anyone who came out.
Suddenly, from inside the midst of the flaming house, a giant beast burst forth. It looked like a white dog, but it was as large as a horse. The giant beast went straight after Ohoki, who was leading the government forces, but Ohoki held his ground. Drawing his sword from its sheath, he cut down the giant monster, which fell to the ground.
As it lay there, dying, the giant dog’s form began to shift, and suddenly they saw it was no dog at all, but instead it was the bandit, Ayashi no Womaro.
Now, okay, it may be a bit of a stretch to really consider this a true werewolf tale. After all, they specifically said he had turned into a dog, not a wolf, and there is no indication that this was a regular occurrence. It could have been some supernatural event that happened just at that time. More likely, I suggest that it was simply a narrative tool to dehumanize the antagonist and thus remove any ambiguities about the righteousness of Ohoki’s—and by extension, the court’s—actions in this matter.
Of course, how such a story gets started is not entirely clear. Was this just a story that got modified over time until it was downright ridiculous? Or was there some grain of truth in it to begin with, which then grew more and more fantastical as time went on? Who can say for certain.
There definitely is a connection with traditional Japanese myths and legends, however, as shapeshifters are quite common. In fact one of the words for ghosts and other monsters, “bakemono”, specifically references their ability to change shape. Foxes, or kitsune, as well as the raccoon dog, known as tanuki, are both thought to possess shapeshifting abilities, though they each tend to use them in different ways. Even cats and other animals can sometimes get in on the action.
As for why this merited a place in the Nihon Shoki, I’m not entirely clear. I guess, yes, technically Ohoki was dispatched by the sovereign, so that may have been enough. Furthermore, he may have been an important figure in some later courtier’s family tree, but he doesn’t appear to show up in the rest of the narrative about Ohohatsuse, aka Yuryaku Tenno.
The story does suggest a few things for us, though they may be things we already know from previous books. For example, we can see that bandits were still a problem, both on land and on sea. We’ve talked about the issue with the Seto Inland Sea before, and how it makes up for its seemingly calm waters with many possible coves and islands in which pirates could potentially lurk. Furthermore, I highly doubt that it was simply a single man who was causing all of these problems. It was probably him and his band, but that often gets translated as though it was just one man of exceptional strength.
And so that is the story of Wono no Omi no Ohoki and the werewolf—so to speak—of Miwikuma, in the land of Harima.
And that brings us to the main tale of the evening, the tale of Urashima Taro. It goes a little something like this.
In the year 478, the child of Mizunoye no Urashima, a man from Tsutsukawa in the district of Yosa in the land of Tamba—which is to say modern Kyoto Prefecture, decided to shove off from land in a boat to go fishing. There he caught a turtle, which eventually changed itself into a beautiful woman. The child of Urashima—also known as Urashimako—fell in love with this turtle-woman, and made her his wife. Togetehr, they went down into the sea, where they reached the mythical Mount Hourai, aka the Land of the Immortals, Mt. Penglai, where they saw many kami.
Now it may be more accurate that this man’s name was actually Shimako, from Midzunoe no Ura—the shore of Midzunoe—but this isn’t certain.
In the Nihon Shoki, this story ends rather unsatisfactorily with the note that the rest of the story is in another book, though we are not told which and I highly suspect it is no longer extant. And so we are left with a fragment of the story, like a television series cancelled just after the big cliffhanger ending. Fortunately, this was apparently a popular story, and so it has cropped up in a few other places. Notably, we have two other sources from around the same time that give us details. The first is the Man’yoshu, a collection of thousands of poems, in which we get this story, told in poetic form, including notes about Urashima-ko’s eventual return from the land of the immortals some three years later—or at least three years for him.
The other ancient source for this story is fragments of the Tango Fudoki, which was actually which was ordered to be compiled in 713, some seven years before the Nihon Shoki was published.. The Tango Fudoki itself is no longer extant, but some passages, including the Urashima legend, were recorded in the “Shaku Nihongi”, a commentary on the Nihon Shoki compiled in the Kamakura period.
In the fragments of the Tango Fudoki we are told that Mizunoe Urashima no Ko, also known as Tsutsukawa no Shimako, was not only a fine looking man, but he was an ancestor of the Kusakabe no Obito. As with the Nihon Shoki’s version, the Tango Fudoki agrees that this took place during the reign of the sovereign Ohohatsuse, identified here by his palace of Asakura no Miya. Urashima no ko went out fishing in a small boat, and he was out there fishing for three days and three nights, but didn’t catch any fish. He did, however, catch a strange looking turtle.
Urashima no Ko woke the next day to find that the turtle had transformed into the most beautiful woman Urashima no Ko had ever seen. As they were talking, the woman told Urashima no ko her story, saying she was from a heavenly, immortal place. She then told him to go to sleep.
When he awoke, it was a marvel. They had arrived at a big island, but not like any island Urashima no Ko had heard of, for this island was under the very sea itself. When they entered the gates of the palace there, he saw two groups of children—seven on the one hand, and eight in the other. They claimed to be the stars of Subaru and Amefuri—the constellations known to the Greeks as the Pleiades and the Hyades cluster—the latter in the larger constellation known as Taurus.
The family of the woman welcomed Urashima no Ko, and during the entertainment, she told him about the differences between the human world and the world of immortals. And so he stayed there with them for three years.
After a while, however, he began to get homesick, yearning for the mundane world.
His wife gave him a tearful goodbye, handing him the gift of a jeweled casket, warning him that if he ever wished to return to the land beneath the waves he should never open it.
When he arrived back at his village, things had changed, so that he didn’t recognize it. He found a man in the village, and upon inquiring as to what had happened he was told the story of Urashima no Ko, who went to sea but never came back.
Urashima no Ko eventually opened the jeweled casket, and it was as if something flew out into the clouds. Urashima no Ko realized that what he had been told was true, and that he would never be able to go back and meet his beloved beneath the waves in the land of the immortals.
There is one more book, from the Kamakura period, which tells us that Urashima no Ko’s return was in the year 825—in other words, while three years had passed in the realm of the Immortals, some three hundred had passed in the human world, above the waves.
This story has since been told many times, changing as it went. Instead of Urashima no Ko, which means the Child of Urashima, he would eventually be named Urashima Tarou—literally the eldest son of Urashima. And the land of the immortals was eventually equated with the palace of the Dragon King.
Of course, that last bit is hardly surprising. If you remember the story of Hiko Hohodemi and his brother, which we visited back in Episode 23, one notices more than a few similarities. In both cases they end up descending beneath the waves, and they both find women who are daughters of the lord of that land beneath the sea. They are both welcomed in and entertained. And in both cases—at least in some of the stories—they tire of their paradise in three years, each wishing to return to the land.
Of course, that is largely where similarities end. After all, Hiko Hohodemi returns, bests his brother, and ends up continuing the Heavenly line. Urashima no Ko, on the other hand, finds himself tossed three hundred years into the future. Everyone he knows has passed away, and he eventually disobeys what his wife and her family told him and loses any hope of returning to the Island of the Immortals.
Speaking of which, that seems a nice continental touch, referencing the ancient island of Mt. Penglai, which I talked about back in Episode 10. This mountain was said to be far in the Eastern Sea, and during the reign of Qin Shihuangdi there were attempts to find it and the herb that grew there, which was said to grant immortality. Of course, some equated that island with Japan itself.
It is interesting how these various elements, both local and continental, can be found time and again in these stories. I suspect that tropes like these provided storytellers a kind of shorthand with which to better remember and record details. By drawing on similar experiences, there were actually fewer unique details to remember, and even the audience would find familiarity in what was going on and what was happening. Still, it makes me wonder whether these were evolutions of some ur-story, which developed differently in different parts of the archipelago, or if they were simply borrowing common elements from stories at the time.
But that concludes our stories for now. I have to admit that the first story, about Homuda Wake’s ghost horse, is probably one of my favorites. That may simply be the idea of the haniwa horse, however, which I particularly enjoy. Regardless, I’m glad for all of them—a bit of something different to break up what is going on. Of course, it is quite likely that these stories are not actually related to the fifth century, but rather come from a much later period, when the time of Ohohatsuse no Ohokimi was the ancient past—which in and of itself says something about Wakatake’s reign.
Speaking of Waketake, we *will* be touching on him more next episode. I’m still working out in just what way, but have no fear, he will be making an appearance. And you, yourself, can judge his actions—or at least those we have been told about.
Until then, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. Ratings do help people find the show, and thus is one way to share it with others. 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

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
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4

Episode 58: The Five Kings of Wa

February 16, 2022 Joshua Badgley

Detail from a replica of the sword found in the Inariyama Tumulus, where you can see the date claiming it was made in a Xinhai year.

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The Five Kings of Wa

The five kings of Wa in the Song Shu are shown below, with potential sovereigns from the Chronicles. Dates for the sovereigns are the traditional dates from the Chronicles and may be as much as 120 years off, as has been discussed in previous episodes.

讃 (Embassy in 421 and 425)

Modern Japanese: SAN
Middle Chinese: /t͡sɑnH/
Later annals use 「賛」
Titles conferred: None
Potential Sovereigns: Homuda Wake (Ōjin Tennō, r. 270-310), Ōsazaki (Nintoku Tennō, r. 313-399), Izaho Wake (Richū Tennō, r. 400-405)

珍 (Two embassies, no dates—Younger Brother of SAN)

Japanese: CHIN
Middle Chinese: /ʈˠiɪn/
Later annals use 「彌」
Titles conferred: “General and Pacifier of the East”, “King of the Land of Wa”
Potential Sovereigns: Ōsazaki (Nintoku Tennō, r. 313-399), Midzuha Wake (Hanzei Tennō, r. 406-410)

濟 (Embassy in 443 and 451)

Japanese: SEI
Middle Chinese: /t͡seiH/
Later Annals use 「齊」
Titles conferred: “General and Pacifier of the East”, “King of the Land of Wa”, “Military Governor of Wa, Silla, Nimna, Kara, Jinhan, and Mahan
Potential Sovereigns: Woasatsuma Wakugo (Ingyō Tennō, r. 413-453)

興 (Embassy in 462; heir to SEI)

Japanese: KŌ
Middle Chinese: /hɨŋ/
Titles conferred: “General and Pacifier of the East”, “King of the Land of Wa”
Potential Sovereigns: Anaho (Ankō Tennō, r. 453-456), Ichinobe no Oshiwa, Ōhatsuse Wakatake (Yūryaku Tennō, r. 456-479)

武 (Embassy in 478; younger brother to KŌ)

Japanese: BU
Middle Chinese: /mɨoX/
Titles conferred: “Regional Military Governor of Wa, Silla, Nimna, Kara, Jinhan, Mahan”, “Great General and Pacifier of the East”, “King of Wa”
Potential sovereigns: Ōhatsuse Wakatake (Yūryaku Tennō, r. 456-479), Shiraga Takehiro Kunioshi Waka Yamatoneko (Seinei Tennō, r. 479-484)

Kishimoto Dual Kingship Lineage

According to Kishimoto Naofumi, he suggests the following two lineages of co-rulers. There is a Sacred and Secular lineage, and in some cases he assigns to each one different kofun than are traditional, and death dates that may be different from traditional death dates.

Subsidiary Line

?? - Sakurai-chausuyama
?? - Mesuriyama
Ōtarashi-hiko - Shibutani-mukaiyama (Keikō-ryō)
?? - Saki-misasagiyama (Hibasu Hime-ryō)
?? - Saki-Ishizukayama (Seimu-ryō)
Homuda Wake (d. 394) - Tsudōshiroyama (Tsudō sankōchi)
Izaho Wake (d. 427) - Kamiishizu-misanzai (Richū-ryō)
Midzuha Wake (d. 437) - Konda-gobyōyama (Ōjin-ryō)
Ichinobe Oshiha Wake - Ichinoyama (Ingyō-ryō)
Wakatakeru (d. 479) - Oka-misanzai (Chūai-ryō)

Main Line

Himiko - Hashihaka Kofun
Toyo - Nishitonozuka Kofun
Mimaki Iri Biko - Andon’yama (Sujin-ryō)
Ikume Iri Biko - Hōraisan (Suinin-ryō)
??? - Gosashi (Jingū-ryō)
Ōsazaki (d. 432) - Nakatsuyama (Nakatsu hime ryō)
Oasazuma (d. 454) - Daisen (Nintoku-ryō)
Kinashikaru - Haze-nisanzai (Higashi-mozu sankōchi)
Shiraga - Maenoyama (Hakuchō-ryō)

Episode 58
Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 58: The Five Kings of Wa.
Before we get started a quick shout out to Lyndon for donating to support the show over on Patreon! You can join Lyndon on Patreon or contribute via Ko-Fi—just look up SengokuDaimyo or check out our links on our podcast web page at sengokudaimyo.com/podcast. Every little bit helps us keep this thing going.
And with that, let’s move on with the show!
In the last episode we talked about the chaos that followed the death of Woasatsuma Wakugo, aka Ingyou Tennou. We talked about Prince Anaho, aka Ankou Tennou, who defeated Crown Prince Karu to take the throne, but was later killed by the son of Prince Ohokusaka, Mayuwa, who learned that Anaho had killed his father and then married his mother. Using this pretense, Ohohatsuse Wakatake went on a rampage, murdering his own brothers, as well as Mayuwa, and eventually even killing the new heir presumptive, Prince Ichininobe. Only his two sons, Oke and Woke, seem to have avoided the carnage, largely by fleeing to Harima and disguising themselves as regular servants.
All of this was happening in the mid to late 5th century, and brings us up to this episode’s topic. Up to this point we’ve been using the Chronicles, with some evidence from the Korean annals, to try to figure out just where we really are—though, admittedly, we haven’t seen much correlation with the Korean annals since the days of Homuda Wake. There are, however, a couple of more pieces of evidence that can help us situate everything.
To start with, I want to talk about a discovery made back in the late 70s. It was an iron sword, and technically it was found in 1968 in a tumulus in the Saitama prefecture. The tomb was known as Inariyama Kofun, and it was one of several tombs that are part of the Saitama Kofun group in Gyoda, some 64 kilometers northwest of Tokyo proper, at the confluence of the Kyushinobu and Shinshinobu Rivers. And though they found the sword in 1968, it wasn’t until about a decade later that they realized its true value. You see, as they started their preservation work, it became apparent that there was writing along the entire length of the long, straight iron blade. The front had 57 characters, and the back had 58, for a total of 115 characters total.
Now, as you may recall, this isn’t the first sword—or at least, sword like object—that we’ve found with some sort of writing. We previously talked about the seven branched sword that was discovered in the treasure house of Isonokami shrine in the Nara basin. That sword appears to have been commissioned on the continent by the rulers of Baekje as a gift for their allies on the archipelago. In the case of the Inariyama Kofun sword, the writing on the sword had a slightly different purpose. We are told that the inscription was written in the seventh month of the “Shikai” (or “Xinhai”) year, and it gives the name of its owner, Wowake no Omi, a distant descendant of Oho-Hiko. You might dimly recall that name , Oho-Hiko, as having been given to one of the four generals under Mimaki Iribiko back in the 3rd century—perhaps some two hundred years before the sword was created. Oho Hiko had been responsible for subduing Koshi and the eastern provinces, at least according to the Chronicles. As we mentioned before it could be a name, or just as easily be referring to some generic title, just as the sovereigns were known as Oho-Kimi. Either way, the connection between this Isonokami sword and this eastern commander seems intriguing, especially given the rest of the inscription, which goes on to describe Wowake’s own children, and makes the claim that their family were the sword bearers for the sovereigns. Quite specifically they are noted as the sword bearers—the Jintoujin no Kashira—who served the court of one “Wakatakiru Ohokimi” when he dwelt in the Shiki palace.
Now let’s break down this inscription a little more. First, we are told this inscription was written in a Xinhai year. “Xinhai”, colloquially known as the year of the Metal Boar in the system of the 10 heavenly stems and 12 earthly branches, only occurs every 60 years, much as how we just recently, in 2022, entered the year of Water Tiger. Specifically, “Xinhai” could refer to the years 291, 351, 411, 471, 531, or 591, in the western calendar. The dating of the tomb seems to place everything in the later 5th century, and so our best guess for which Xinhai year the sword mentions is our year 471.
Next, we are told that the sovereign was dwelling in the Shiki palace—in this case likely referring to the fact that he was in the Nara basin.
Finally, the name Wakatakiru no Ohokimi feels remarkably close to Wakatakeru no Ohokimi—the personal name and title of Ohohatsuse no Wakatakeru, which is sometimes transliterated as simply Wakatake.
And so it seems, through this artifact, we have actual confirmation of the name of one of the sovereigns of Yamato, and it matches up quite conveniently with the name of a sovereign said by the Chronicles to have been living in the late 5th century. This is further confirmed on another sword of this time, this one found across the archipelago on the island of Kyushu. It is known as the Eta Funayama sword, taking its name from the tomb mound in Kumamoto where it was discovered. Originally excavated in 1873, it dates to the 5th century, much like the sword found at the Inariyama tomb, and it also has an inscription, this one burned into the sword in silver characters. Unfortunately, there are plenty of places in that inscription where characters are missing or illegible. Nonetheless, there is mention of the Ohokimi, or sovereign, and the characters would appear to be consistent with those found on the Inariyama sword, naming the Great King, once again, as Wakatakiru.
The Eta Funayama sword inscription is, overall, shorter, but still has some interesting points that we may wish to take note of. First off is the fact that the sword appears to have been made by someone named “Itaka”, which appears to be a local smith of some kind, but the individual who wrote the inscription is listed with characters that seem to most likely refer to the name Zhang An—likely an individual of Han Chinese descent. So then, was an individual of Han descent living in Kyushu and helping people with their writing requests? Was this some early form of the JET program, but for sinographic writing, instead? Or did they send away for their inscription, like a mail order request, to the continent somewhere?
Personally, I think it makes the most sense that he was probably there, resident in or around the area of Kumamoto, possibly serving the local administrators there.
Besides the insight this gives us on who was actually doing the writing, it also gives us an idea of the influence of the Yamato court. While we may debate the amount of authority that it exerted, it seems clear that the Great King, or Oho-Kimi, was recognized from Kyushu to Kanto—and presumably in between. This is big for looking at how the state that we will come to know as Japan was shaping up.
Now I wanted to take a look at these archaeological finds because they really help to tie a bow on the idea that there really was a sovereign in the 5th century known as none other than Wakatakiru no Ohokimi. The only strange feature here is that the name on both swords is spelled out phonetically, with what appear to be the same characters in each case, though for the Eta Funayama sword we only have the first and last characters of the name. This isn’t entirely strange—the Kojiki often spells things out phonetically while the Nihon Shoki often opts for characters more associated with the name’s meaning than for its pronunciation. Here, however, none of the readings in the Nihon Shoki nor the Kojiki appear to use the characters found on the swords.
This could simply be due to the continuing evolution, at this time, of sinographic characters and their use in the archipelago. It is possible that centuries afterwards, different characters were now in common use. Regardless, it seems odd to me that two inscriptions, found at such a distance from one another, would match so well with each other.
And yet there is one other thing that we have to consider in all of this, and that is the account in the book of the Southern Song—sometimes known as the Liu Song—about the so-called “Kings of Wa”.
Now the Liu Song dynasty was so called to differentiate it from the later, more well-known Song dynasty of the tenth to thirteenth centuries. This Liu Song arose at the beginning of the 5th century.
The Jin dynasty had suffered numerous setbacks in the 4th century, leading to a period known to some as the period of 16 kingdoms, though the exact count is somewhat debated. The actual Jin court was pushed south and east, becoming the Eastern Jin. Meanwhile, various states arose in the northern areas of what is today the modern state of China. The Eastern Jin pushed back, with attempts to retake the north, as well as other breakaway states. There were constant struggles, and by the end of the 4th century, the Jin emperor had even fallen into the hands of a rebel, who had set himself up as regent.
There were campaigns by Jin loyalists to put down this rebellion, and one of the most successful generals of these campaigns was Liu Yu. He helped put a stop to the rebellion and then took his place as regent as he helped reconquer many of the areas that had been lost to the Jin, bringing them back and consolidating power. By 420, he had consolidated power, and he eventually deposed the emperor and took the throne as his own, thus replacing the Jin dynasty with the Liu Song dynasty.
This state of Liu Song controlled the areas of the Han heartland along the Yangtze river, but never really managed to reconquer the northern, Yellow River territories, which eventually consolidated under the northern Wei. Nonetheless, they had control of the eastern seaboard from the northern edge of modern Vietnam up through their capital near modern Shanghai, all the way to the Shandong peninsula.
Now, throughout all of this turmoil, the Wa, Baekje, Silla, and others had continued to send the occasional embassy to the Jin, even as the court’s home had moved east, and I doubt that they would have stopped just because of a change in management. After all, if it is true that Yamato’s influence was manifested largely through their dominance of trade with the continent, it was less important who was in charge than that the goods kept flowing. Besides, from the sounds of it, there was likely little change to the basic administrative features of the empire, just a new man in charge.
From reading the Chronicles, it would be easy to wonder just what contact was happening. After all, we’ve had a dearth of entries recording embassies of any kind since the reign of Ohosazaki no Mikoto. For the reigns of Izaho Wake, aka Richu Tenno, through his brothers Midzuha Wake and Oasatsuma Wakugo, aka Hanzei and Ingyou Tenno, all the way to Prince Anaho, aka Ankou Tennou, we’ve had little to no mention of the continent besides embassies from the nearby Korean peninsula—primarily Silla. And yet, the Chronicles from the Liu Song dynasty – the other side of the exchange – tell us a different story.
In those Chronicles, the Song Shu, written in 488, there is mention of some eight or more embassies sent from the various kings of Wa between the years 421 and 478. These were from a variety of sovereigns, over different reigns throughout the entirety of the Liu Song dynasty, which was founded in 420 and ended in 479, and, perhaps most importantly, they recorded the names of the sovereigns that interacted with them.
Well… kind of. You see, here’s where we run into a big of a snag. There are five kings of Wa that are noted in the Liu Song chronicles, but for the names, each ruler is given a single sinographic character. Traditionally, these monarchs are known in Japanese by the on-yomi readings of these characters, so San, Chin, Sei, Kou, and Bu. Now, I’ll probably use these terms, but just so that you’re aware, it appears as though the Middle Chinese readings were something like “Tsan”, “Tchin”, “Tsei”, “Hing”, and “Mio”, though that isn’t exactly clear. Either way, there is a question as to how these could possibly relate to any of the sovereigns mentioned in the Chronicles.
The only one that seems somewhat clear is the last one, “Bu”. That character is also read as “Take”—as in our “current” Sovereign, Wakatake, aka Yuryaku Tenno. In fact, it is the same as the character used in his name in the Nihon Shoki, though the Kojiki uses a different character, as do the sword inscriptions mentioned earlier. But given the character and the timing, it sure seems like it refers to Wakatake.
As for the others, there is significant debate on just who they were. At one end of the debate is the attempt to match them, one for one, with the successive rulers in the Chronicles that we’ve been talking about for the past few episodes. That would make San equivalent to Izaho Wake, aka Richuu Tennou, and map the remaining generations onto the sovereigns mentioned in the Chronicles up to Wakatake, aka Yuryaku Tenno. On the other side there are some scholars who eschew any connection with the Yamato dynasty whatsoever. They claim that these were actually some other group of ethnic Wa kings—possibly based in Kyushu—with no relationship to the legendary kings of the Chronicles.
To explore this some, let’s take a look at what the Song Shu has to say about these kings of Wa and their relationship to each other.
The first of these was San of Wa, offering so-called tribute to the Song Liu dynasty in 421, just a year after they had come to the throne, and about seven years after the erection of the Gwangaetto stele in 414. Much as with previous Wa rulers, I suspect that this was hardly coincidence, and they may have specifically sent a mission upon hearing that the area of the Yangtze river was under new management. We have another embassy just four years later, in 425, when San sent an ambassador, whose name might be read as Shiba Sotatsu. So we have our first king reigning from before 421 to some time around 425—I’d suggest that more likely we could say between 420 and 424, since we’ve already seen that it could take a while for an embassy to actually make the trek from Yamato to the Chinese court.
We are told that some time after this, San died—we don’t know when—and his brother, Chin, came to the throne and started sending tribute. So this claims that San and Chin were brothers. Chin didn’t just send tribute, though, he proclaimed himself the military governor for the countries of Wa, Baekje, Silla, Nimna, and even Jinhan and Mahan, as well as the King of Wa, specifically. It is interesting that they claim Jinhan and Mahan, and I have to wonder if Silla and Baekje had truly not consolidated their rule over these areas, or if, perhaps, this was an archaic way to include all of the territories of the Korean peninsula. Regardless, Chin requested that the Song court recognize his authority. Initially they seem to have refused, only granting him the titles of “General”—as opposed to “Great General”—"and Pacifier of the East” and “King of Wa”, seemingly indicating Chin’s authority merely upon the archipelago. Chin would try again later, however, and asked for titles of “Pacifier of the West”, “Vanquisher of Barbarians”, “Great-General”, and “General who supports the state” to be given to Zui of Wa and some twelve other individuals. Apparently these titles were recognized, I suspect because they did not call out specific countries and make claims of sovereignty over them.
Massimo Soumare suggests that the fact that this second request was for titles for Chin’s vassals, rather than for the sovereign himself, may have been to bolster his own position, both at home and at with the Song court. After all, if Yamato’s position relied on their ability to acquire prestige goods from the Continent, perhaps these titles and positions were similar to the mirrors of earlier times—status symbols from the continent that not only recognized their own authority, but then provided similar continental honors on those who supported the sovereign, both boosting his own position while helping to keep other local lords dependent on him for their own status. This likewise demonstrates the continental courts’ own use of titles as a prestige good of their own, which they could give out in return for goods in the form of tribute, which again boosted their own position. It was a win-win for both sides.
Now, unfortunately, we don’t get dates for Chin, and even the name of “Zui of Wa” gives us little to go off of, but we do know that in 443 there was yet another sovereign from Wa sending an embassy, so presumably Chin reigned sometime between 424 and 443.
This third sovereign was Sei, and he was also granted titles of his predecessor, being pronounced the General and Pacifier of the East and King of the Land of Wa. Eight years later, in 451, he was also appointed as the regional military governor for the countries of Wa, Silla, Nimna, Kara, Jinhan, and Mahan, as well as keeping his previous titles. In addition, 23 people were appointed as “district general”.
I would note that of the six countries listed for military governorship, “Baekje” is conspicuously absent, having been replaced by Kara, instead. The reason is unclear, but I suspect had to do with the shifting political realities at the time. Also, the fact that there were now 23 individuals being granted titles along with the sovereign would seem to indicate the growing power of Yamato in the archipelago.
Sei would die at some time after this, and was followed by Ko, who is specifically named as Sei’s heir. Ko sent tribute in 462, so we know that Sei must have ruled sometime between 451 and 462. Ko was likewise granted the titles of General and Pacifer of the East as well as King of Wa. Unlike previous reigns, however, there was no follow up mission to request titles for his subordinates. This may be because Ko died before he could follow up, though when he died is, once again, not clear from the Song Shu, which focuses merely on the dates when the embassies arrived at court.
The next ruler to come to the throne, and the final one in the Liu Song chronicles, was Bu—whom we have already identified as Wakatake no Ohokimi—and he is said to have been the younger brother to Ko. In 478, he is said to have taken for himself the title of regional military governor for the lands of Wa, Bakeje, Silla, Nimna, Kara, Jinhan, and Mahan, as well as claiming the title of Great General and Pacifier of the East and King of the Land of Wa. It sounds as if he assumed these as hereditary titles, rather than titles that would need to be validated by the Song Court. It is also interesting that he had elevated himself from General to Great General, as well as assuming control of Baekje, which does not appear to have been previously granted.
Bu’s entry is perhaps the most loquacious of all of them, and in the Song Shu’s recreation of Bu’s missive he talks about how he and his ancestors donned armor, traveled and crossed mountains and rivers, conquering the fifty-five countries of the so-called “hairy people” in the east—possibly referring to the Emishi—and then the 66 countries of the barbarians of the west—perhaps referring to groups like the Kumaso and the Hayato of Kyushu, though it is not clear. He also claims that they extended control over the “ninety-five countries” of the Northern Sea—presumably talking about their claims on the peninsula.
He then goes on to claim that Goguryeo continued to attack them, and though the Wa were on the brink of responding, Bu suddenly lost his father, Sei, as well as his older brother—presumably Ko—forcing him to stop to mourn for a time, but yet he promised to continue his father’s vision and prosecute the fight against Goguryeo.
In response to this long and moving missive, the Song court confirmed him as military governor for six of the countries—Wa, Silla, Nimna, Kara, Jinhan, and Mahan—once again leaving off Baekje, whom I suspect had their own tribute missions to the court. He was also confirmed as Great General—not just General—and pacifier of the East, and King of Wa.
Now I don’t want to get too far into the story of Wakatake, as we’ll be getting more into that later down the road, but all of this does seem to make it hard just how to look at him and the other kings in this list. But let’s try and see if we can find some evidence to link them together.
As we do that, I’d ask you to remember something we had discussed, previously, and that is the familial ties of the various sovereigns, which may have been less concrete a lineage than the Chronicles would have us believe. So brothers may or may not have been truly related, and we aren’t even always certain that one sovereign following another were necessarily related. Then there is the complexity of the dual kingship model, which is not exactly mentioned in the Song Shu, unless, in passing, names like Zui of Wa might refer to someone such as a co-ruler. I do find it interested that they are known in this fashion and not by some phonetic transcription—though this may be because their name was relayed in writing and not directly known to the Song court.
And I should quickly note that even our initial foundation, the identification of Bu as Wakatake, while generally accepted is not without its detractors. Kishimoto, writing in 2013, references Kuranishi’s work from 2003 in which she had assigned Wakatake to “Ko”, who sent the embassy in 462. This is due in part to the dates given for Wakatake in the Nihon Shoki, which have him coming to power in 457 and then dying in 479—just a year after the embassy of Bu, and, coincidentally, the same year as the fall of the Liu Song dynasty.
Kishimoto notes that Bu’s missive talks about how he has been in a period of mourning over the loss of his father and brother. If this was Wakatake, was he mourning his brother, Prince Anaho, and his father, Woasatsuma, who had presumably died around 454, some twenty years later, or was he making note of that occurrence?
On the other hand, Prince Shiraga, who would, spoiler alert, succeed his father is definitely listed in the Nihon Shoki as Wakatake’s son, not his brother, leading us to question just what aspects of the Nihon Shoki do we accept and what do we discard?
If Bu were Wakatake, and Ko were, instead, Anaho, then the brotherly relationship would be maintained between them, and that would suggest that Sei would be Woasatsuma, which could be reasonable regardless, as his dates in the Nihon Shoki, where he reigns from about 413 to 453, conveniently align him to the dates of Sei’s embassies, though if that is the case, it is possible that he actually came to power not in 413, but perhaps closer to 443, turning an incredible reign of some 40 years into a reign of only 10 years, which is still plenty of time to have an impact.
Ko as Anaho is suggested by Soumare as the character “Ko” might be a variation of the last character of Ana-ho. Likewise the character for “Sei” can be seen as a variant for a character also read as “Tsu” found in the name Woasa*TSU*ma. I have to admit that all of this seems somewhat tenuous, and yet the dates do seem rather convincing.
Now Sei, as you’ll recall, took over from Chin after he passed away. Chin is not directly noted as being related to Sei, though there does seem to be a presumed father-son relationship. It is possible that the lack of a direct connection is due to the intervening sovereigns, who perhaps were too embroiled in intra-archipelago conflicts to send missives to the mainland. Or perhaps, as seen by some, Chin and his predecessor, San, were actually part of another line, which was replaced by Sei.
Certainly the Song Shu indicates that San and Chin were brothers. The only pair that seem to fit that mold in the Chronicles are Izaho Wake and Mizuha Wake. The “Za” of Izaho could be where we get “San” and there is some suggestion that the character for “Chin” was a mistake for the character used in the Nihon Shoki for the “Mi” of “Midzuha Wake”.
On the other hand, some have suggested that the character “San” is related to the character for “Homu”, as in Homuda Wake, but that would drag Homuda Wake from a death in or around 394 and up to 425 and possibly later. Meanwhile, there are those who also suggest that Chin might indicate the “Oho” of “Ohosazaki”, Homuda Wake’s successor. And yet Ohosazaki is said to be Homuda Wake’s son, and not his brother.
In all of this, Soumare points out that it is also possible that the characters used in the names may not be related in any way to the personal names that were handed down to us in the Chronicles. Rather, they may have been given by the Song court based on characteristics that they attributed to the kings themselves. This kind of name-giving may have been yet another part of the complex system by which the court handed out their titles. If that is the case, then all of the speculation around connecting the characters in the names with specific individuals may be worthless.
On top of everything else, Kishimoto’s dual-kingship theory continues to raise its head. He also takes into account the five kings, and suggests that there is actually significant overlap in some of the reigns, at least from the time of Homuda Wake through Prince Shiraga. This could be explained if Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tenno, did not simply raise up Uji no Waki-iratsuko as his heir, but rather made him his direct successor while making Ohosazaki the new secular ruler. In this scenario, Izaho Wake and Mizuha Wake, aka Richu and Hanzei Tennou, would have continued in the main line, while Woasatsuma might have inherited his position through Ohosazaki. According to this hypothesis, the line from Mizuha Wake actually continued to Ichinobe no Oshiwa Wake and then to Wakatakeru, aka Yuryaku, while the line of Ohosazaki, aka Nintoku, continued through Oasazuma, aka Ingyo, to Prince Kinashi Karu and then Prince Shiraga.
And that is probably a lot to take in. I’ll try to lay some of this out on the podcast website if I get the chance, but it is quite confusing. The fact that none of these entries in the Chronicles bother to talk about asking for—let alone receiving—any kind of titles from the continental courts makes it even more confusing.
Personally, I think it makes some sense that San and Chin might relate to Izaho Wake and Mizuha Wake, who definitely appear to be named similarly and to have likely come from the same line, even if they were not, as the Chronicles suggest, brothers. Sei might then, indeed, be Woasazuma, who may have been a brother or, much like Prince Ohokusaka, he may have been of a different lineage altogether that then got added in more firmly at a later date.
That leaves us with the possibility that Ko and Bu are Anaho—or possibly even Ichinobe Oshiwa-wake—and Ohohatsuse Wakatakeru, but it could also be that Ko is Wakatakeru and that Bu is actually his successor.
Does your head hurt yet?
Regardless of exactly which king represents whom in the lineage, I think we can see a few things here that we should remember—things that the Japanese Chronicles aren’t talking about, for whatever reason.
First, the Wa clearly had relatively close contact with the mainland, especially given the timing of their visits and with their request for titles. Second, that request for titles and recognition from someone outside of the Japanese archipelago and the Korean peninsula really does seem to have been important, and it may be that, at least for a while, these “virtual” titles replaced the physical bronze mirrors that had heretofore been so popular as burial goods.
Finally, we can see that the state is coming together, and that it isn’t all peace and love, but seems equally to be built on the back of armed conquest—and some of that fighting was likely still going on over on the peninsula, despite the lack of mention of it in our sources—or at least in anything prior to Wakatakeru. You might recall, listeners, how we had some similar gaps in the record around the time noted on the Gwangaetto Stele.
And so we’ll continue to move forward, but I just wanted to make sure we covered this piece of intriguing historical data—even if it may just end up leaving us with more questions than answers. I do think that we can be fairly confident from this point on that our dates are getting significantly more credible, the further we continue in our story.
And so we’ll look more into the life of Ohohatsuse Wakatake, aka Yuryaku Tenno, next episode, and we’ll see what else that tells us. At least we have some confidence that he actually existed, even if there are still some questions about how he fits into the overall historical picture.
Until then, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. Ratings do help people find the show, and thus is one way to share it with others. 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
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
Osawa, et al. (2008). ワカタケルの剣　「図説日本の古墳・古代遺跡―決定版 (歴史群像シリーズ)」pp 134. ISBN:978-4-05-605064-6.
Soumaré, Massimo (2007), Japan in Five Ancient Chinese Chronicles: Wo, the Land of Yamatai, and Queen Himiko. ISBN: 978-4-902075-22-9
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253
Piggott, J. R. (1997). The emergence of Japanese kingship. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Shichirō, M., & Miller, R. A. (1979). The Inariyama Tumulus Sword Inscription. Journal of Japanese Studies, 5(2), 405–438. https://doi.org/10.2307/132104
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 57: Blood and Chaos

February 1, 2022 Joshua Badgley

Artist interpretation of Ankō Tennō, successor to Ingyō Tennō.

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Archives

Who’s Who

Previous Sovereigns

Homuda Wake, aka Ōjin Tennō
Ōsazaki, aka Nintoku Tennō (Son of Homuda Wake and Naka tsu Hime)
Izaho Wake, aka Richū Tennō (Son of Ōsazaki and Iwa no HIme)
Mizuha Wake, aka Hanzei Tennō (Son of Ōsazaki and Iwa no Hime, and brother to Izaho Wake)
Oasatsuma Wakugo, aka Ingyō Tennō (Son of Ōsazaki and Iwa no Hime, and brother to Izaho Wake and Mizuha Wake)

Sons of Oasatsuma Wakugo and Osaka no Ōnakatsu Hime

Kinashi Karu
Sakahi no Kurobiko [aka 黒彦, the Black Prince]
Anaho
Yatsuri no Shirobiko [aka 白彦, the White Prince]
Ohohatsuse Wakatake

Prince Ōkusaka

Son of Ōsazaki and Kaminaga Hime—mentioned as a possible heir after the death of Mizuha Wake.

Kusaka no Hatahi no Hime

Daughter of Ōsazaki and Kaminaga Hime. Wife to Izaho Wake and, later, Ōhatsuse Wakatake. Mother of Nakashi no Himemiko.

Nakashi no Himemiko

Daughter of Izaho Wake and Kusaka no Hatahi no Hime. Wife of Ōkusaka, with whom she had a son, Mayuwaka. Later married to Anaho.

Important Court Nobles

Ōmahe no Sukune of the Mononobe

Sheltered Prince Kinashi Karu, but eventually convinced him to give up. Later would be made Ōmi.

Ne no Omi

Minister under Anaho, sent to request Hatahi Hime for Ōhatsuse Wakatake

Tsubura no Ōmi

Great Minister (Ōmi) under Anaho, who sheltered princes Mayuwaka and, possibly, Kurobiko

Warning: Spoilers! If you need it, though, here is a chart of some of the family relations from Ōsazaki to the current generation in our stories.

Poetry Between Anaho and Ōmahe no Sukune

When Anaho surround Ōmahe’s residence, it is said that he called out:

Ōmahe / Womahe Sukune ga / Kanato kage / Kakutachi yora ne / Ametachi yamemu

To Ōmahe / Womahe Sukune’s / Metal-gate’s shelter, / Thus let us repair, / And wait till the rain stops

And then, Ōmahe no Sukune replied:

Miyahito no / Ayuhi no ko suzu / Ochiniki to / Miyahito to yomu / Satobito mo yume!

Because the courtier’s / Garter-bell / Has fallen off, / The courtiers make a noise: / Ye country-folks also beware!

Clearly there are a few things that I am not necessarily pulling out of this, but it is full of allusions that no doubt meant something to an 8th century audience.

The Oshiki Crown

The Oshiki Crown is one of the more interesting aspects of this story, in part because it seems to fit with something that we know from the archaeological record. Gold or gilded crowns from Silla and Gaya in the 5th century bear a striking resemblance to similar crowns found in tomb mounds in the archipelago, leading many to conclude that Korean style crowns had become fashionable in the archipelago around this time. See the gallery below for several examples from the Tokyo and Seoul National Museums (photos by author).

5th C Gilt Bronze Crown, Japan

Gilt bronze crown found at the 5th century Eta Funayama Kofun

5th C Gold Crown, Silla

5th century gold crown from Silla.

5th C Gilt Bronze Crown, Japan

Another gilt bronze crown from Eta Funayama Kofun

5th C Gold Crown, Gaya

Example of a gold crown from the Gaya (or Kara) region.

5th C Gold Crown, Silla

This crown remains a national treasure of Korea.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 57: Chaos and Bloodshed.
Content warning: Along with the violence typical throughout human history, this episode also contains mention of rape and misogyny, as well as suicide.
Last episode we ended with the death of Woasatsuma Wakugo, aka Ingyou Tennou, the last of the sons of Ohosazaki no Mikoto, aka Nintoku Tennou, and Iwa no Hime, daughter of Katsuraki no Sotsuhiko. By now we are reaching the middle of the 5th century, or so it would seem. Now one thing that we didn’t focus on in that last episode was just how prolific Woasatsuma and his wife, Osaka no Ohonakatsu Hime, really were. He certainly didn’t die childless, that’s for sure. In fact, they had at least nine children—five of them male. And so for princes you have Prince Kinashi Karu, Prince Sakahi no Kurobiko, Prince Anaho, Prince Yatsuri no Shirobiko, and Prince Ohohatsuse Wakatake. They also had several daughters, including Nagata no Ohoiratsume, Karu no Ohoiratsume, Tajima no Tachibana no Ohoiratsume, and Sakami.
And no, there won’t be a test. Some of these names will get more air time than others, but I just wanted to give you an idea of the number of individuals here, and, well, you may hear about them later.
By the way, quick side note, did you catch the names Kurobiko and Shirobiko—literally black prince and white prince? I honestly have no idea what’s up with that—are those actual names or is something else going on? After all, we do see names like “Kuro Hime” in the record. At the same time, something seems fishy to me, but whatever. That is what we have to work with.
That said, they are going to be important to the story later, but for now we’ll just leave them here as Chekov’s Princes.
Now, the sovereign Woasatsuma, aka Ingyo Tenno, was dead, but during his life he had, in fact, named an heir. This was Prince Kinashi Karu—or sometimes just Prince Karu.
And all might have gone smoothly—well, alright who am I kidding. I think we are maybe about 50/50 on the named heir actually taking the throne at this point, at least ever since Homuda Wake came to power.
Still, this wasn’t your average succession issue. You see, as Crown Prince, Karu came pre-loaded with a scandal, at least according to the Nihon Shoki. In modern times we might say that he had been cancelled. But what was it that had earned him such approbation? Well it might not be what you expect.
You see, Kinashi Karu, Crown Prince of Yamato, was accused of the most dishonorable activity: Incest.
Alright, now, hear me out. I know this may have many of you furrowing your brows and wondering just what I mean. After all, hasn’t incest been a hallmark of the royal line up to this point? We’ve seen brother and sister marry in the past, and nobody has raised a fuss, not to mention all of the relations between cousins, nephews, nieces, step-relations, etc. As I’ve noted before, the Royal Family Tree is perhaps more of a saguaro than an expansive oak.
So why weren’t those considered incestuous? Well, you see, it all comes down to the definition of lineage in Yamato. Because it wasn’t enough to just have the right father, but matrilineal descent was also key. And so children of the same father and mother were considered true siblings, but as long as you weren’t full siblings—that is, if you had at least one parent different—then it was no longer considered incest by Yamato standards, bringing a whole different meaning to “kissing cousins”.
Now we are told that Kinashi Karu was fair to look upon, and the people apparently used to love him. The problem came about because of his sister, Karu no Ohoiratsume, who was equally as beautiful, and for whom Kinashi Karu had lustful desires, but for a long time he avoided taking any action. However, eventually he failed to control himself, and he met with his sister, secretly uniting with her—that is, they had sex. And, to be honest, it isn’t clear that this was consensual. In fact, the Kujiki actually accuses him of rape. As too often happens, it seems that the chronicle only focuses on the male heir to the royal line, and pays scant attention to anyone else—especially the women. Not to mention, even had she consented, the power dynamics were such that one has to ask: could she have refused if she wanted to?
And you know, he might have gotten away with all of it had he kept their forbidden union secret, but Prince Karu had to shout from the rooftops what they had done, bragging about the event in song. If they’d had Instagram or TikTok I can only imagine what he would have put out there.
Fortunately for him, his father Woasatsuma wasn’t exactly following the latest streams, apparently. In fact, it wasn’t until a year later that something happened to raise his awareness. As the sovereign sat down to his meal, his soup suddenly froze—a curiosity to be sure. A divination was held to determine what was going on, and it was determined that there was a “domestic disorder”, by which they meant some form of incest. On further investigation, someone spilled the beans about Prince Karu and his own sister, Karu no Ohiratsume.
Well, this put the royal family in something of a pickle. Apparently there were no real punishments for the Crown Prince—I suspect that the sovereign could have designated someone else, but for whatever reason, he didn’t. Instead he decided to have his daughter punished, instead—so, both great parenting and a dash of misogyny. Awesome.
And so Princess Karu no Iratsume was banished to the land of Iyo, on the western edge of Shikoku. They figured that as long as the two were separated, nothing more could come of the union.
But that didn’t fix the problem with the members of the court, who knew all too well what had happened. And when Woasatsuma Wakugo died, the court decided that they didn’t exactly want Prince Karu to take the throne. The Nihon Shoki gives as the reason that he was guilty of “debauching a woman”, and says the ministers would not follow him.
As I mentioned earlier, the Kujiki goes further. Though it doesn’t give the details of the Nihon Shoki, it claims that Prince Karu was cruel and accused of rape, which is why nobody would follow him.
Whatever the exact details of the case, the ministers refused to follow him. Rather, they looked to another of Woasatsuma’s progeny—and since he had a proper bench to choose from, they had plenty of options. Of all those heirs available, the ministers chose Prince Anaho, and sided with him.
Kinashi Karu was incensed. He secretly went about raising an army, planning to take his rightful place on the throne by force, but Anaho and his ministers were ready for him, and they prepared themselves for battle as well. Here we get a small glimpse, perhaps, at the changes that were still happening in the 5th century. We are told that the forces of Prince Karu were using an older style of bronze arrowhead, while Prince Anaho’s forces apparently used arrowheads made out of precious iron. Thus, arrows with bronze heads were known as Karu arrows, while arrows with iron heads were known as Anaho arrows, which probably also tells you something about the way this whole thing is going down.
Eventually, Prince Karu realized his forces were not enough, and he fled to the home of Ohomahe no Sukune of the Mononobe. Interestingly, the Kojiki names Mononobe no Ohomahe no Sukune as Oho-omi, or Prime Minister, but the Kujiki, who focuses strongly on the Mononobe lineage, suggests that he did not achieve such rank until a later reign.
Prince Anaho and his forces surrounded Ohomahe no Sukune’s house—possibly amidst a hail storm—and he called out a verse which, along with its response by Ohomahe, is recorded, but abstract enough that I am not sure it is worth getting into here, exactly. I may put that up on the podcast page for anyone who is interested in the exchange.
Anyway, after the exchange—which may have been poetry, or that may simply have been the way that people remembered the story later on—Ohomahe no Sukune begged some time from Prince Anaho and his forces, while he talked with the Crown Prince, Kinashi Karu. They agreed, and Ohomahe returned inside.
We don’t know what was said, but one assumes that Ohomahe got Prince Karu to realize that his case was hopeless. There was no way he was getting out of this alive, and the only question was this: how many people would he take with him?
Whatever Ohomahe actually said, it worked, and Prince Karu, resigned to his fate, ended up taking his own life in the house of Ohomahe no Sukune. When they learned of what he had done, both armies wept at his fate.
Or at least that is one story. The Kojiki, along with what we are told is another record, the “Criminal Register”, which is no longer extant, contends that he gave himself up, and since the court didn’t exactly have a concept of a prison, he was exiled, instead, to the land of Iyo. Presumably, he was then united with Princess Ohoiratsume—assuming that was something she wanted—though there is some confusion on this as it may be that the banishment of Kinashi Karu and of Karu no Ohoiratsume is confused in the Chronicles.
Either way, whether through Karu’s death or banishment, the war was over, and Prince Anaho ascended the throne. The Chroniclers then gave him the name of Ankou Tennou, which is how he is more popularly known, today.
Anaho is said to have dwelt in the Anaho palace at Isonokami. And here is where I suspect Anaho might not actually be the Prince’s given name. You see, most of the early sovereigns are known, particularly in records like the Fudoki, are known by their palace names. So we get the “Sovereign who ruled at the Toyora Palace at Anato”, or the “Sovereign who ruled at the Hishiro Palace at Makimuku”. Some of the legendary sovereigns are simply known by a location, like Iware Biko, but up to this point, I don’t know if I can really think of any other case where the Chronicles claim that the name of the prince and their palace are the same like they are here, especially without giving some other personal name with it, leaving me to wonder just what is going on.
Now after securing the throne and setting up the court, Anaho was left with his mother as Queen Dowager, but no queen of his own. However, before he went looking for love himself, he was approached by his brother, Wakatake no Miko.
At first we are told that Wakatake wished to marry his cousin, the daughter of Midzuha Wake, uncle to Wakatake and Anaho, and previous sovereign himself—the one known as Hanzei Tenno. However, Wakatake was rebuked. His cousin, the princess, said that he was prone to violence, and she did not feel he would appreciate them. Then she claimed that she was neither beautiful enough nor witty enough to be satisfy him.
Undaunted, Prince Wakatake then asked the newly crowned sovereign for the hand of Hatahi no Himemiko, the younger sister of Ohokusaka no Miko. She had previously been married to the sovereign Izaho Wake, or so we are told, and their daughter, Nakashi Hime, apparently married her uncle, Ohokusaka, or at least that’s what it looks like. Yeah, this is all more tangled than a string of lights that’s been
Now, Prince Ohokusaka, you may recall, was the only remaining son of Ohosazaki no Mikoto. He was from a different maternal lineage than the previous three sovereigns since—Izaho, Midzuha, and Woasazuma—and by the rules we’ve been given so far should not have been a contender for the throne, but that does seem to be somewhat in doubt. After all, he seemed to be mentioned after the death of Midzuha Wake as a possibility, at least until Woasazuma was convinced to take up the royal mantle.
And so one imagines Ohokusaka’s sister, Hatahi, would have been a prestigious bride, hence why she had been married to Izaho Wake, previously.
Unlike his brother’s previous marriage request, Anaho no Ohokimi apparently didn’t have any problems with this one – so he sent Ne no Omi to request Hatahi’s hand for his brother Wakatake. Now it turns out that Ohokusaka was ill—quite possibly because he was not only of their father’s generation, but possibly even their oldest uncle. And yet he had kept his sister safe and unmarried, presumably looking for a good match for her, worthy of her royal bloodline.
The Kojiki claims that Ohokusaka made many bows and humbled himself, but both the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki agree that he not only submitted his daughter’s hand for marriage, but also that he sent in a special present to assure the sovereign of his willingness: a jeweled headdress, called in the Chronicles the “Oshiki” crown—possibly indicating that it was made with pressed wood of some kind, though this may have been something else. It may have been a crown in the Korean style, examples of which we see in tomb mound mounds and are known from the 5th century onwards. How it came into Ohokusaka’s possession is not quite clear, but it was definitely something special, despite his own insistence that it was an inconsequential object of no value whatsoever. Even today, this kind of traditional deprecating phrase might accompany gifts in Japan when people describe something as “tsumaranai mono”—literally a “dull” or “boring” thing. And so the crown was sent along with Ne no Omi.
Now, as he was returning to the capital, Ne no Omi coveted the crown, and he decided to steal it, and keep it for himself. And so when he reached the capital he made no mention of it. In fact, he slandered Ohokusaka, and told Anaho that Ohokusaka had refused his orders to send his sister. According to Ne no Omi, Ohokusaka had rebuked the offer, saying “Is my younger sister to be the sleeping mat for an equally ranking family?”
That line, from the Kojiki, only emphasizes the idea that Ohokusaka was probably more legitimate as an heir than the Chronicles let on.
Now the sovereign had no reason not to trust the word of a trusted minister, and so he grew angry at this supposed insolence. He immediately raised an army and sent it after Ohokusaka. They surrounded Ohokusaka’s house and slew him. Ohokusaka had servants of the Hikaka family, the Kishi of Naniwa, in the center of modern Ohosaka, where Homuda Wake and Ohosazaki had their capitals. These servants gathered up his head and legs in hand and wept, for they knew the truth and knew that he had died without committing any crime.
They then said they would not be true servants unless they followed their lord in death, and so they slit their own throats.
The army of the sovereign, Anaho, saw this and wept. It is perhaps the first account we have in the Chronicles of junshi, the act of willingly following a lord in death—a concept that would later take hold amidst the romanticism of warrior culture, to the point that it was specifically outlawed in the Edo period, yet it occasionally still occurred.
With Prince Ohokusaka’s death, the sovereign took Ohokusaka’s wife, his cousin Nakashi Hime, as one of his own consorts, and Ohokusaka’s sister, Kusaka no Hatahi, was finally given to Wakatake no Miko.
Now there is a lot going on here, but let’s briefly step back from some of the blood and death and take a look at what might be going on. Of course the story itself is violent enough, and seems somewhat plausible, except that there had been other examples where someone refused the sovereign and the answer typically wasn’t to raise an army and go kill them. I suspect that there was something deeper at play here.
For one thing, we know that Ohokusaka was a senior male heir to Ohosazaki—or at least he would have been if not for his mother’s supposed position as simply another consort, and not the actual Queen. And yet, even that is unclear—was there actually such a requirement for determining succession? He was, after all, named as one of two potential heirs to the throne on the death of Midzuha Wake, and even the Kojiki’s slander works generally because he would have had to at least conceive of the idea that his lineage was just as grand as Anaho’s—perhaps even more so. After all, this was not yet a period of primogeniture—inheritance did not automatically pass down the paternal line to the eldest son, but rather seems to have been passed along horizontally within the same generation. And so it seems reasonable to assume that Ohokusaka had a viable claim to the throne.
This could also provide another explanation for what was going on. It is quite possible that Ohokusaka's death was part of an active succession dispute, and only later was he declared completely illegitimate. At the very least, this could possibly explain the desire by members of the new generation of rulers for marriage to Ohokusaka’s sister and even his wife, to further strengthen their claims to the throne.
And of course, we shouldn’t forget that for all that the Chronicles make this out to be a dispute kept inside the royal family, there is plenty of speculation that the relationships were not so concrete. There is no guarantee that Anaho was the son of Woasazuma, and if he was, then was Woasazuma actually a son of Ohosazaki, and brother to the previous sovereigns? That all makes some sense, and may be accurate, but there is enough archaeological evidence to suggest that things were much more complex than all of that, and so what we are seeing is an attempt to fit these bits of memory into a story that worked with the prevailing Truth (with a capital T) that Ohoama and his descendants wanted to show.
Regardless, what we have to go on for now are these stories, and this one isn’t quite finished, yet.
I mentioned above that when Anaho’s brother came to him with marriage requests, Anaho didn’t yet have a queen of his own. And so, also as mentioned above, after Ohokusaka’s death, and after Wakatake was betrothed to Kusaka no Hatahi, the sovereign also decided it was time to take a wife – and he took Ohokusaka’s wife, Nakashi Hime, as his own. Of course, she had been married previously, and not only that, but she and Ohokusaka had a son: Prince Mayowa. And when Anaho took Nakashi Hime for his wife, he took Mayowa and had him raised in the palace. The Kujiki mentions that he was “not punished”—something of an odd phrasing, possibly referring to the generous treatment he had, or possibly talking about the fact that he was allowed to live. Either way, he was allowed free range of the palace.
Now we are told that Mayowa was just a boy, maybe as young as 6 or 7 years old, though possibly older given some of what we learn. And it seems he was not even fully aware of the circumstances behind his father’s death. And that worried Anaho. As time went on, he started to worry more and more about just what would happen if Mayowa were to discover the truth.
One day, Anaho and the court had gone up into the mountain palace to enjoy the local hot springs. He was there with his wife, Nakashi hime. In the Kojiki they say he was on the royal bed, taking his mid-day siesta, and in the Nihon Shoki he was up in a tower of the palace looking out at the beauty of nature while ordering up sake for a banquet. In either case, he decided to confide in his wife the worries he had for her son, Mayowa. More and more he worried that Mayowa would grow up and learn that Anaho had been the one to have ordered his father, Ohokusaka, killed. If that were to happen, would not some evil start to form in his heart?
As he said this, no doubt believing it to be in confidence, he did not realize that Prince Mayowa was actually quite near. He had gone underneath the palace, which must have been built up off the ground, and he was playing by the pillars, and he heard Anaho’s confession. That night, when the sovereign was fast asleep, the young prince took the sword from the sovereign’s side and slit Anaho’s throat with it. He then ran away from the palace.
Now to quickly recap where we are—and we are only halfway through and I warn you that there is plenty of blood to come. So first, we had the Crown Prince Karu, who was rebuked by the court, who backed Prince Anaho. Anaho defeated Prince Karu. Later—possibly because of a misunderstanding—Anaho defeated and killed Prince Ohokusaka, the last of his father’s generation of potential heirs. But then, Prince Mayowa, Ohokusaka’s own son, had killed Anaho, to get revenge or his own father’s death.
Are you with me so far?
Word must have spread quickly about the sovereign’s death, and one of the first to hear of it was Wakatake, younger brother to Anaho, and the guy who had requested the hand of Kusaka no Hatahi and thus possibly kicked off the whole bloodbath with Ohokusaka. It’s actually not the first time we’ve heard of Wakatake, either: before that he was the one who had punished and tortured the Silla envoys when he thought they had been misusing the women of the court. Now he was fired up, and determined to find justice for his older brother. Or at least, that’s what he said—one can hardly doubt that he must have realized that there was suddenly a power vacuum, one he would have to work quickly to exploit.
And so Wakatake put on his armor and girded his sword, claiming that he was worried that his elder brothers might try to start something—though I highly suspect that if he felt this way, it was probably more than a little bit of psychological projection.
What happened next is a little different in the different Chronicles. The Kojiki tells it with relative simplicity: Wakatake went to the house of his older brother, Kurobiko, the Black Prince, and he asked what was to be done about Mayowa, who had just killed their father. Kurobiko seemed unphased and indifferent, however, which merely enraged Wakatake, who scolded him, saying: “How can you be so lazy on hearing that the sovereign, your brother as well as mine, has been killed?”
Then in a fit of rage, he grasped his older brother by the collar, pulled out his sword, and killed him.
He then stormed off to the house of his other brother, Shirobiko, the White Prince, but his other brother was likewise unconcerned, which just made Wakatake more angry. He had Shirobiko placed in a pit on the Owari fields and buried upright. When Shirohiko was buried up to his waist, both of his eyes popped out of his head, and he died.
And might we pause for a moment to notice what was going on? According to the Kojiki, Wakatake was upset about his brother’s death and so he… killed his brothers? Yeah, that doesn’t exactly add up. Not that he killed them, but his supposed reasoning.
In the Nihon Shoki it is told a little bit differently. There, Wakatake approached Shirobiko first, bringing a large army. He started interrogating his brother, but Shirobiko knew right away that Wakatake was just looking for some kind of an excuse, and so Shirobiko remained silent and refused to say anything. Finally, Wakatake had had enough, and in this version it is Shirobiko whom he ran through with his sword. He then went on to Kurobiko, where the same thing happened but, for whatever reason, he didn’t kill Kurobiko. Instead he traveled on to Mayowa and interrogated him. Mayowa claimed that he never wanted the throne, he just wanted revenge for the death of his father, Prince Ohokusaka.
While Wakatake was apparently deciding what he should do with the two of them, Kurobiko passed a message to Mayowa, and they both ran away together, taking shelter with Tsubura no Oho-omi—who, by his title, appears to have been the Prime Minister, as it were, of his day.
Here is where the narratives come together, mostly. In the Kojiki, you see, Mayowa had already run off to Tsubura no Ohoomi.
Wakatake raised an army and surrounded the house of Tsubura no Ohomi. He sent in a messenger to talk to Tsubura no Ohomi and to ask him to turn over the Princes he was protecting. Tsubura no Ohomi apologized, however, as he could not comply. As he explained, in antiquity there were plenty of times that an Omi or a Muraji might take shelter in the house of a prince, but a royal prince hiding in the house of a vassal, well wasn’t that unheard of? And he was mostly correct, at least if you don’t count Prince Karu hiding in the house of Omahe no Sukune, but hey, what’s a plothole or two between friends?
In this case, though, Tsubura no Ohomi was not Omahe no Sukune. Where Omahe had given up Prince Karu, Tsubura no Ohomi was not about to give up the princes under his care. Instead, he came out and tried to bargain.
He offered up his own daughter, Kara Hime, as well as the granaries of Kadzuraki. But he could not give up the Princes. The Nihon Shoki places in his mouth the words of no other than the venerable Confucius himself as Tsubura no Ohomi said that “The will of even a common man cannot be taken from him.”
Wakatake took the tribute, but he was not appeased. He had his men burn Tsubura no Ohoomi’s home to the ground, along with everyone inside, including the Minister and both of the Princes. As it was still burning, apparently one of Kurobiko’s servants, Nihe no Sukune, the Muraji of the Sakahibe, ran in and took the Prince’s still burning corpse in his arms, and so also burnt to death. Later, the Sakahibe would attempt to sort out the bones, but they could not, and they were all deposited together in a single coffin and buried together.
And with that, Wakatake suddenly found himself the only remaining heir to the throne—funny that.
Or, well, at least, he was the only heir from Woasazuma’s line. There was at least one more prince we are told. Ichinobe no Oshiwa no Miko of Iwazaka was the son of Izaho Wake and Kurohime. When his father had passed away, the throne went to his uncle, Midzuha Wake, perhaps because his mother was not considered a queen, but I figure it is more likely that succession at this time was more likely to run to the next head of the household—typically from brother to brother—before it went to the next generation. It could also have just been the case that Ichinobe no Oshiwa was too young at the time of his father’s death.
Whatever the reason, apparently Anaho, who had no children of his own, had named Ichinobe no Oshiwa as the Crown Prince, should anything happen to him. So that meant that technically, for all of the blood he had spilt, it was almost meaningless, since none of the other brothers were actually in line for the throne. Technically, for all that his brother, Anaho, had succeeded their father, it looked like the line was reverting back to a previous branch of the family tree.
Of course, this was a bit of a fly in Wakatake’s ointment. He had successfully disposed of most of his rivals—also known as “family”—but there was one more left. And so he came up with a plan. He sent a servant to invite Ichinobe no Oshiwa on a hunting excursion to the land of Afumi, where a local lord had told him the deer were particularly plentiful.
Now I don’t know about you, but if I was the next in line to the throne, and my ambitious cousin had just killed all of his family and potential rivals, before then inviting me to do a bit of hunting… well, I like to think that I might have had an inkling something was up. But perhaps Wakatake had come up with a really good explanation for all of that, or perhaps Ichinobe just hadn’t received word of the fratricide that had recently taken place. I also have to wonder whether or not Ichinobe had actually taken the throne, though the Chronicles don’t mention anything about that. But if he was the sovereign, I supposed it could be entirely possible that Wakatake had pledged his loyalty to him in some way.
Whatever the reason, Ichinobe trusted his cousin, and together they went out on the moors, hunting for deer.
As they rose to go hunting, Ichinobe no Oshiwa rose first and called for his cousin. He then headed out on the moors ahead. Wakatake, on the other hand, girded himself in armor under his clothing—not exactly the kind of get up one usually dons when going hunting, unless you are, perhaps, hunting the Most Dangerous Game.
Sure enough, Wakatake spurred his horse onwards and eventually overtook Ichinobe no Oshiwa, and as soon as they were side by side, Wakatake drew back his bow and shot his cousin. Then, in a particularly gruesome display, he had the body chopped up and added to the feedbuckets of the horses—I guess they didn’t have any pigs handy, yet. Whatever remained was unceremoniously buried in the ground, without even a small mound to mark the would-be-sovereign’s memory.
When word got back to Ichinobe’s house of what had happened, his two sons, Oke and Woke—yes, those are their names as given—fled, fearing for their lives. They ended up in Harima and hid as servants, so that they would not be found.
And with that, the way was clear. Ohohatsuse no Wakatake had no more rivals to contend with. In a pageant of blood, he had wiped clear any opposition, and as such we are told that he ascended the throne. Later Chroniclers would name him Yuuryaku Tennou, and his cruelty would be legendary.
But that is a legend that we will relate at a later date. In addition, next episode, I’d really like to get into some of the interesting evidence we have that may be direct references to Wakatake no Ohokimi in Continental sources as well as in archaeological evidence found in the archipelago itself—evidence that many believe refers directly to this sovereign by name. All of that we will discuss in our next episode.
And, so, until then, 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
Kawagoe, Aileen (2009). “Uji clans, titles and the organization of production and trade”. Heritage of Japan. https://heritageofjapan.wordpress.com/following-the-trail-of-tumuli/rebellion-in-kyushu-and-the-rise-of-royal-estates/uji-clans-titles-and-the-organization-of-production-and-trade/. Retrieved 1/11/2021.
Confucius, ., & Legge, J. (2008). The Analects of Confucius. Adelaide: The University of Adelaide Library.
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 56: What's in a Name?

January 16, 2022 Joshua Badgley

North gate of Ichinoyama Kofun traditionally identified as the resting place of Oasatsuma Wakugo, aka Ingyō Tennō, though Prof. Kishimoto’s analysis suggests that Oasatsuma may have actually been buried at Daisen Kofun—traditionally associated with Oasatsuma’s father, Ōsazaki, aka Nintoku Tennō. Photo by Saigen Jiro and available through Wikimedia Commons.

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Much of this episode focuses on the idea of names. Nadia Kanagawa, in a Zoom talk she gave in December, 2021, used the term “designator” for the various ways in which people are called, and I tend to agree that is a good way of looking at this. It isn’t just about a person’s name, but it is what those various names, or designators, say about them.

Many of the earliest names we have appear to be designators of one kind or another—often titles. Even a name like Iware Biko can be broken down into “Iware”—which is a place—and “Biko” (or “Hiko”), meaning “child of the sun”, aka a Prince. The name of the famous “Himiko” herself is likely just this kind of title.

Sometimes we see names that are not necessarily titles. For example, Ōsazaki, aka Nintoku, whom we’ve discussed previously. He is often Ōsazaki no Mikoto, where “Mikoto” is a title or honorific, but we don’t immediately have an explanation for his name other than what is given in the Chronicles. Likewise with the fisherman we discuss later, “Osashi”.

On the other hand, many times we only know people by their title. So “Sotsuhiko” is likely just “Lord of [the land of] So”. It has been transformed into a name in how we use it, but it is unlikely that this is how his parents would have known him. Likewise we see things like “Naka tsu Hiko” or “Naka tsu Hime”, which mean little more than the “Prince” or “Princess” of the Middle—possibly indicating their birth order amongst several siblings or some other feature about where they were.

By the way, for those Japanese speakers out there, think of “tsu” in many of these names as an old equivalent to “no”, which itself can be seen almost like adding “ ‘s” to the end of word. So Yamato no Atae would be “Yamato’s Atae”, or “[the] Atae of Yamato”. Because of the way these names are constructed, I find it difficult to see just what is a title or position and what is a name.

There would be a parallel of this in the Edo period, when many people would take court titles as part of their name. So someone named naninani-no-suke isn’t necessarily claiming that they are a “no-suke” of some actual place or office. Likewise the various “Uemon” and “Saemon” aren’t really saying they work in the court guards of the right or left gatese.

And for the most part it doesn’t matter, though it is useful to keep in mind that the “names” by which people are remembered are likely not how they referred to themselves with their close friends and family, but we usually have little more to work with beyond how they were remembered to history.

Now over time, we see the tradition of designators that are not directly tied to your rank, position, or even where you are from, but rather it is more about the group that you belong to. This appears to start with the idea of the “-Be” (部) groups. For instance, the Umakaibe (馬飼部), the Horse-keeper’s ‘-be’, means literally just that, and likely comes from what they were supposed to do. Others may not be so easily recognizable, with their names seemingly related to a particular location or a family.

There is some thought that it is through these kinds of organizations of individuals, membership in the organization being continued through familial lines, that the families themselves began to develop. These large groups, often considered clans, as they claimed to be related through ancestors back in the legendary past. Groups like the Wani, the Katsuraki, the Yamato, and the Izumo all appear to be using locatives—that is to say surnames derived from placenames. This would have been a natural transition: “Katsuraki no XXXX” is still “Katsuraki no XXXX”. Others, like the Mononobe (物部) and Imbe (忌部) appear to have arisen directly from the corporate “-Be” groups themselves. And then there are groups like the Nakatomi (中臣), whom we will see more prominently in later centuries, whose name appears, at least to me, to derive from their position as “middle ministers” (naka tsu omi).

Added to these names are various titles, honorifics, etc. Some of these appear to be titles or honorifics that are no longer remembered as such—thus a lot of the -mimi titles we see early on. Others, like Iribiko and even Tarashi seem to be recognized as titles, but are still unclear. The title of “Wake” is often seen, and there is an explanation that it indicates and individual of royal blood who has been otherwise separated (wakeru) from the royal lineage. This seems to be a false etymology, however, and the most we can say is that they appear to be of elite status.

These early titles do not all appear to be equally distributed, geographically, in the Chronicles, with some elements being found more commonly in certain areas of the archipelago. But over time, the designators do seem to coalesce, likely as the influence of Yamato and the idea of a central authority also grew. And so around the 5th century we are seeing some things with some regularity. “Sukune” appears to be a personal designator, indicating a person of considerable rank in the court. Meanwhile “Mikoto” is reserved for sovereigns and kami. Titles such as “Miko”, meaning Prince, and “Iratsume”, indicating a woman of royal blood, are more frequent as well. Hiko and Hime also appear, but with seemingly less authority than in days past.

Some titles appear to move from a personal title to a familial one. Thus we get things like Omi and Muraji. “Omi”, in particular, seems to indicate a minister in court, but later we see that there are entire families designated as “Omi”, and it is highly unlikely that everyone in that family was a minister. Instead you get the Ō-omi and the Ō-muraji, who appear to be the heads of their respective clans and also hold a position of authority at court.

And that is key. As Omi, Muraji, Atae (later Atai), and other kabane are formalized, they tend to apply not just to the individual, but to everyone in their clan. So if the clan rises in prestige, and if they were given a more prestigious kabane, then everyone is lifted by such a pronouncement. This likely indicated the work that individuals could do in the court, as well, and how far they would rise. Your own place in society was determined by not just your deeds and what you did, but by your entire family—including your extended family.

We’ll see more of this in a later episode, where we will get a more formal definition of the kabane at the court. For now we see them, but they haven’t really been explained in the narrative. Most of the 8th century authors and readers would likely have already been familiar with the concept, so they may not have felt the need to explain it here.

I will mention one more thing that may be worth noting, though, and that is the tendency for titles and ranks and even surnames in the narrative to be more than a little anachronistic. There are cases where people are noted not as members of a particular clan, but simply as their ancestors. In that way they are connected, but it is not directly indicated that they used the uji, or clan name. Where we do see an uji used, though, it is sometimes used with a kabane that actually wasn’t awarded until some later point in time. So just because someone is named XX no Omi or XX no Muraji does not mean that such was their rank during the events that are being described. Most of the time this isn’t an issue, but occasionally it does make one wonder if knowing the actual ranks at the time wouldn’t help us to better identify the trends and what was happening around this time.

Free Diving for Pearls in Ancient Japan

A Japanese woodblock print showing men and women in boats along the shore with women diving into the water. In the mid- and backgrounds are the shoreline. In the foreground is shown rocks underwater and a woman prying a shell off with a small knife — Women diving for abalone—and their pearls—in an 1830s woodblock print by Utagawa Kunisada and published by Yamaguchiya Tobei. Image in the public domain courtesy of the Cleveland Art Museum.

One of the other stories in this episode focuses on the idea of pearl diving. Now it does strain credulity that someone in that period dove down 100 meters or more to pull up an abalone and made it back to the surface, but it is not necessarily impossible. As we mention in the episode, people have been known to free dive to more than 100 meters—and assisted free dives even further, using weights and other such things to go down and come back up. Furthermore, free diving doesn’t come with quite the same risks of the “bends” that you get with, say, SCUBA diving, where you are taking in pressurized air—though there are dangers for those who do continuous dives, but overall the risk seems much lower.

So the idea that someone was able to dive down exceptionally deep, get an abalone, and then would make it back up is not entirely far fetched.

Black and white image of the inside of an abalone shell. The shell is round, with three natural holes visible in the upper left. Even in black and white the inside of the shell displays the smooth glossy mother-of-pearl finish . — Inside of an abalone shell.

This is a practice that goes back to the earliest writings about the archipelago. Even the accounts in the Weizhi appear to reference this very feat, and we see examples of it straight through to modern times, where we have the tradition of ama pearl divers, though much diminished, still practiced by a handful of individuals. While the ama today are traditionally women, it is unclear if it was limited to that in ancient times. By the name, Osashi (男狭磯), which starts with the character “man”, we assume that we are talking about a male fisherman, but it is quite possible—even likely—that those characters were assigned well after the event had happened and was being passed down orally. Without other markers, I don’t know that I could definitively say if they were actually a man or a woman,

A collection of abalone pearls, showing irregular forms, from square to conical and even teardrop shaped. They range in hue from cream to blue-green and even purple and orange. — Examples of abalone pearls. Photo by Worldexplorer82, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Now the pearls they were bringing up were very likely more along the lines of the abalone pearls. Abalone only have a single shell, that spirals outward. Technically they are a gastropod, and a type of marine snail, though you might know notice that at first glance. As a consequence of their biology, the pearls they generate tend to be less spherical and are more likely to be irregular. However, they also have an iridescent sheen similar to the inside of their shells, which gives them their own beauty, which over the years has sometimes been prized more highly than the spherical, white pearls generated by oysters and similar bivalves.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 56: What’s in a name?
Now before we get started I have a few shoutouts this episode as I want to thank Pedro, Thaddeus, Lyndon, and Lewis for supporting the show and the rest of the work that we are doing here at Sengoku Daimyo. If you’d like to join then, you can go over to our Ko-Fi site, Ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo or check us out on Patreon. Every dollar goes back into the show and to keeping the website up and running, so thank you so much.
And with that, let’s move on to the episode itself.
Now, in the last episode—before the New Year’s recap—we were talking about Woasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune no Mikoto, aka Ingyou Tennou. He was the brother of the previous two sovereigns, Inaho Wake, aka Richuu Tennou, and Midzuha Wake, aka Hanzei Tennou. All three of them were sons of Ohosazaki no Mikoto, aka Nintoku Tennou.
We talked about how Woasatsuma had been injured by disease, so that he couldn’t, or at least he had trouble, walking, and how his attempts at a cure through somewhat dubious methods had invalidated him to succeed to the throne in the eyes of his parent and siblings. And yet, by tradition he seems to have been the last man standing, as it were, at least of the offspring of Ohosazaki no Mikoto and his primary wife and queen, Iwa no Hime. The one other possible male heir—and I stress male because the Chroniclers seem to just ignore most of the women—was Ohokusaka no Miko, the son of Ohosazaki no Mikoto and Kaminaga Hime.
Despite the court’s apparent insistence that Woasatsuma take the throne, he kept pushing it off, saying that it couldn’t be him, until finally his wife, Osaka no Ohonakatsu Hime, stepped in, and almost died for her trouble.
Of course, there are all sorts of questions here. It seems that the Chroniclers really wanted to point out the presence of Ohokusaka no Miko, even though we hadn’t honestly heard anything about Kaminaga Hime since the reign of Homuda Wake, and almost nothing about her progeny. It seems telling that the Chroniclers specifically make mention of him as one of two sons of Ohosazaki no Mikoto who are left.
In the end, however, Woasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune did indeed take the throne, and he made his wife, Osaka no Ohonakatsu Hime, queen. And lest we forget, Osaka no Ohonakatsu Hime was quite likely his senior, as she was the daughter of Woasatsuma’s grandfather, Homuda Wake, and the princes Kaguro Hime. So yes, in true royal fashion, Woasatsuma had married his own aunt, though since they weren’t related through maternal connections it was okay, I guess?
Anyway, Woasatsuma, to show his love, is said to have created the Osaka-be. We may have touched on this before, but these “-be” are often referred to as corporations. They were individuals gathered up and placed into a group, often for an express purpose – either the production of a particular type of good for the court, or a group whose production went to the support of a given individual, family, or institution. These “-be” corporations were hereditary, and they operated as an extended family, with actual or fictitious familial bonds, all gathered under a particular name.
All of that gets to the heart of one of the events I want to discuss this episode. You see, by at least the 6th century, if not earlier, names and relations were rather important. The ancient kabane system, for instance, often applied rank and status to an entire family or at least to a cadet branch, as well as to particular individuals. This is the oldest form of titles and ranks that we know of in the Chronicles, and it is unclear to me just what came about, when. I suspect it is entirely possible that there are titles that pre-date the kabane system, and that different areas of the archipelago may have even had or used titles slightly differently, as there is no evidence that cultural and linguistic elements were homogenized prior to the spread of the round-keyhole tombs. What were the differences between terms like Wake, Hiko, Mimi, Sukune, Atahe, Agatanushi, Kimi, etc. throughout the centuries, and why did some titles attach themselves to individuals while others were more familial? Some titles even seem to have faded into little more than name elements well before the system was properly codified. At some point, soon, I’ll try to address all of that, but for now it is enough to know that it exists.
And because they had these titles—and because the rank and title often applied to the entire family, not just an individual. Then, as they say, a rising tide lifts all boats. It is easy to see why someone would want to make a claim to a prestigious family background.
Now, of course, from generation to generation, people likely had a good idea of where the family lines went, but it wasn’t that difficult for people to insinuate themselves into a lineage. After all, does everyone really remember how many kids that great-grandfather had and where they ended up? And how much more difficult out in the countryside. Someone showing up in Kochi and claiming to be related to a well-connected family in Harima, you might not even question it. If your lineage wasn’t quite as shiny as you’d like it to be, just add in a few prestigious ancient ancestors that nobody was likely to have heard of, and suddenly you can gain some unexpected honor and prestige.
And, in fact, that is a lot of what we see going on in the Chronicles. Not only is it about the lineage of the royal family and making sure that they are connected to all of the right personages back to time immemorial, thus creating the image of an unbroken chain, but it is also about the various court nobles and families trying to make sure that their ancestors—whether real or imagined—are properly accounted for and, where possible, tied into the royal family in an official record.
That was all happening in the 8th century, however, when the Chronicles were actually being written, and presumably many different people had input into just exactly what was being recorded. In the 5th century, remember that reading and writing had really just come over in the past few generations. Prior to that, lineages were likely remembered through oral traditions passed down from family to family. Also, as we’ve seen, many characters were simply remembered by their titles—the lord or lady of this or that—rather than by some personal name. Even family names are recorded in the Chronicles as a relatively recent thing in the archipelago, likely borrowing from continental tradition.
And so, perhaps it is little wonder that we see a complaint in both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki about the “disorder of names”, and both chronicles put this complaint in the reign of Woasatsuma. The Kojiki puts this argument in the mouth of Woasatsuma himself, when he proclaims that “the titles of various families,” by which they mean the uji and the kabane by which they were ranked, and “the names”—or ‘Na’—“of the people” were confused. The Nihon Shoki claims this as the reason there wasn’t good government, which seems a bit of a stretch, to my mind. Nobody is, I guess, talking about the fact that nobody apparently wanted to run the government in the first place? And of course the royal family and the court don’t exactly take any blame for this on themselves.
The Nihon Shoki goes on to claim that some people had taken surnames that were not theirs in order to claim high position. And so it was up to the sovereign to put everything back in order, and to quote-unquote “correct” the names, all of which suggests, to me, a few things.
First: As we’ve already mentioned, at some point groups of supposedly related individuals were taking clan names, known as uji. The term “clan” is often used here, as members in an uji were only notionally related, usually through some common mythical ancestor. It isn’t clear that they were necessarily all blood related. Later, these uji would break up into cadet families, known as “ie”. While the Uji came to be regulated by the court, the cadet family names were under much less strict controls.
Prior to the development of these Uji names, individuals are mentioned as the ancestor of this or that family, but they really aren’t identified as having an uji, per se. However, we do see some proto-Uji in the form of placenames, since many of the Uji were derived from just this kind of construction. And so where Izumo no Yebito might have originally meant “Yebito of the land of Izumo”, later the same name might be interpreted as “Yebito of the Izumo family”—a slight but important difference.
Aston, in notes to his translation of the Nihon Shoki, claims that at this point the uji themselves still didn’t exist, but we do see what appear to be clan names on a few items from around the mid to late 5th century.
Now there are different theories as to where these clan names actually came from. Early Japanese scholars provided a variety of theories based on proposed etymologies for the word “uji” itself. Others claim that the first formal familial groups came from the Korean peninsula. In fact, some even suggest that they came from the idea of the corporate “-be” familial groups, which we discussed earlier in this episode. I suspect that there was not a small number of individuals who also brought their own tradition of family from the continent in one way or another.
Second: This suggestion in the Nihon Shoki that people were taking names to take on powerful positions emphasizes the idea that lineage carried with it influence, as individuals were taking names in order to claim a high position. This is something where the archipelago would differ slightly from many continental traditions. In Confucian influenced systems there was at least the nod towards a meritocracy—that one’s position and rank should be based on one’s individual skills and moral character. In the archipelago, lineage and family were still quite important factors.
And that brings me to the third thing: The way that the families and ranks were tied together provided another means of Yamato extending its grasp over the entire archipelago. Early on, we talked about the power that local elites had consolidated power over various settlements and then spread their influence, creating a kind of hub and spoke system of related communities, tied together in one way or another, but exhibiting similar cultural traits in the archaeological record.
I suspect, based on what we have seen, these elites tied themselves together with a combination of elite trade goods, marriage alliances, and shared rituals. In fact, control of particular ritual sites may have been another important factor in the influence of groups like Yamato. And of course there was also plenty of military action that took place, based on what we see of weapons and armor, and the stories don’t have it confined to action on the peninsula.
Eventually, however, if Yamato really was to consolidate power, it would need a means of administration beyond the center. The various elites and the newly created lineage groups provided a decentralized form of administration across the archipelago. These family groups—the uji—had charge of various resources, such as rice land, granaries, mountain areas, etc., recognized by the court, who provided prestige in a novel way that went beyond just access to continental prestige goods. The system of titles that were handed out—the kabane—also provided a carrot that the court could use. And later, it would become a stick—much as in the case when the queen, Ohonakatsu Hime, had someone stripped of their titles and busted down in the rank system, as mentioned in episode 55.
Thus we can see the importance of insisting that the uji owed their position—even their very existence—to the court and, more specifically, to the royal family. Now how far this authority actually extended is something I would wonder about—I suspect that plenty of uji existed outside of formal recognition, especially the farther you went from Yamato proper. We see an example of this in the late Heian period with the Osshuu Fujiwara—a clan in the Tohoku region that claimed Fujiwara lineage and set up their own rule in the northeast partly on the basis of those claims. It wasn’t until the court in Heian-kyo got wind of it that they sent people out to investigate what was going on.
Which all comes around to another point to be made about the current topic, to ensure that the names of the people were correct, and that is the continental flavor of all of this. I’m actually reminded specifically of the Confucian concept of the Rectification of Names. This comes from the Analects. As translated by James Legge:
If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect.
Now on the one hand we may see here that “names”, in this instance, might just as easily be described as “words”—that is, it seems not to simply refer to the names of people, or families, but to the names given to anything at all—from something as simple as an apple to something as philosophical as justice. However, on the issue of governance it seems that it often fell squarely onto the idea of names, ranks, and titles, and ensuring that the people of the “hundred names” were well ordered.
By the way, quick side note, even that phrase, the “hundred names” is a very continental reference to the names found in the various regions of China, referring to the various family surnames that were commonly used, and often used as a reference to the entire citizenry. In the Nihon Shoki it is used in this same way, which is another indication that they were also drawing very much on continental ideas and sources.
And so we get at the heart of the control and assignment of names as a legitimizing act—something that is done by good sovereigns to keep order in the realm. There may indeed have been a need to ensure that people weren’t abusing the system by falsely claiming a lineage that they did not have, but it also feels like an exercise in authority. Because for all of the local power that a family might hold, a sovereign able to invalidate their name and title would have a significant lever against the various families. Whether or not the court actually originated the concept of the uji and the kabane or not, gaining control no doubt further strengthened the central government’s control over the archipelago.
In fact, we’ll see similar edicts in later reigns.
One last thing to throw out here is the curious fact that these names and designations only affected a certain portion of the population: the nobility. Commoners had no family names nor rank—though they may have belonged to a group, like the corporate -be structures we discussed. On the other end of the spectrum, however, there is no family name given for the sovereigns or the rulers, either. In some cases they have been referred to as the “Yamato” dynasty, but “Yamato” was never their surname. In fact, there were nobles identified as Yamato—like the Yamato no Atae—but they weren’t any more connected to the royal line than anyone else. Rather, the royal line seems to have had no need for a surname, as their titles were enough to identify them as separate and apart.
Now in the case of Woasatsuma Wakugo no Ohokimi and rectifying the names of the people during his reign, the Kojiki claims that he was able to handle it all through divination—specifically using kukabe divination pots and requesting the assistance of specific deities, through which he established the families and ranks throughout the kingdom.
In the Nihon Shoki, the process was a little more in depth. First, he garnered the assistance of the various ministers, and they worked on a plan. Three weeks later, they came up with a solution that was much practical than simple divination. Well, at least it was more participatory. The solution that they set up was not exactly a calm debate or pouring over ancient stories or records. What they actually came up with was a bit more, well, medieval.
They decided the best way to test people’s claims to parentage was to put them through an ordeal: Trial by boiling water.
Each person was to purify themselves, practice abstinence, and then plunge their hands into the boiling water. If they were claiming a surname that wasn’t theirs, then the kami would judge them and burn them. Otherwise, they would make it through unscathed.
This is not exactly the only time such an ordeal was used. For example, there was one where mud, rather than just plain water, was boiled, and person was supposed to stir it around with their bare arms. In another version, an iron axe head was heated up to glowing red hot and placed in the palm of the hand. In both cases, there was an idea that the kami would protect the innocent.
These are all frighteningly similar to ordeals that people were put through over in Medieval Europe, and likely just as effective, were they actually ever employed. For reasons I feel are quite obvious it is unlikely that everyone in the various uji—or even just the various family heads—would have been subjected to such tortuous and inhumane treatment. That said, there does appear to have been some belief in its efficacy, at least in extreme circumstances.
Whatever the actual reckoning methods that were used, the outcome was that the court did acquire, by hook or by crook, some authority over the various uji. Eventually—perhaps not quite in the 5th century—they would gain complete control of the uji, including the authority to create new ones. And this continued – this was the case, for example, with the creation of the Toyotomi, in the 16th century. Of course, this power would not stop new families from arising, and many cadet branches of powerful uji would simply form their own houses, or “ie”, maintaining ties to the uji. This was, in fact, something being lamented during this part of the Chronicles, meaning that at least by the 8th century this was already a factor complicating some of the relationships.
Now, Woasatsuma’s reign wasn’t just about names, and there were a few other things that happened during this reign.
For one, we are told there was an earthquake. Now this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. We’ve talked about Japan’s place on the ring of fire, and earthquakes could not have been a too infrequent occurrence. Even in recent years, the area around modern Nara averages over 9 earthquakes a year that people can sense—that’s between a 3 to a 5 on Japan’s “shindo” scale, a slightly different measurement from the Richter scale people may be familiar with. So it is almost more remarkable that we don’t hear about them more often.
In fact, the only reason this one merits a mention at all appears to be what happened around it. You see, apparently Midzuha Wake, the previous sovereign, had not yet been buried. We’ve talked about this practice of mogari before, where the body lay in state, possibly in a temporary burial or even exposed to the elements—perhaps in little more than a temporary hut or enclosure. This could go on for weeks, months, or even years.
For Midzuha Wake, his body was still lying in this state of temporary burial, which was overseen by Tamada no Sukune, who was either the son or grandson of the late Katsuraki no Sotsuhiko. Sotsuhiko was, of course, also the father to Iwa no Hime, and thus grandfather to both Midzuha Wake and Woasatsuma Wakugo.
On the evening of the earthquake, Aso, of the Owari no Muraji, went to examine the shrine of the temporary burial. There he found everyone that was expected to be there except one: Tamada no Sukune, the man who was supposed to be in charge of the whole thing. Long story short, Aso set out to find him, and when he did he discovered that Tamada no Sukune was at home hosting a revel.
Aso found Tamada no Sukune and explained what had happened—and how he had basically been caught pulling a Ferris Beuller and shirking his duties. Of course, Aso would need to go back and report all of this to the court, and that got Tamada no Sukune’s attention.
Taking Aso aside, Tamada no Sukune offered him a fine horse if he could just forget this whole episode. He could tell the court something else—anything other than the truth that Tamada no Sukune had gone AWOL to throw a bender with some of his friends. And it seemed to have worked. Aso agreed, and took the horse, but Tamada was paranoid, and didn’t trust that Aso would follow through on his end of the bargain. After all, why should he? He had the horse, what was to really stop him from denouncing Tamada to the court? And so he quickly sent his own men out and they caught up with Aso and cut him down on the road.
Then, Tamada no Sukune made himself scarce, hiding out in the area around Takechi no Sukune’s tomb, presumably hoping the whole thing would just blow over. Of course, it didn’t, and word did reach the court of Aso’s death, though the details were apparently still a bit fuzzy, and the sovereign called for Tamada no Sukune to try to figure out what was going on.
When Tamada no Sukune responded to the summons—I guess hiding out just wasn’t an option anymore—he was more than a bit nervous. Woasatsuma saw how he was acting and also noticed something else. Tamada’s clothing didn’t seem to fit quite right—there was something underneath. Curious as to what was going on, Woasatsuma had one of his handmaidens—known as “uneme”—go check it out. Sure enough, Tamada had come dressed in a suit of armor underneath his clothing, presumably in case he had to fight his way out. Immediately he found himself surrounded, but his armor worked and Tamada fled back to his home. There, soldiers from the Yamato court surrounded his house and eventually found him and put him to death.
And you thought your boss was strict about timecard fraud!
There’s one last story that I want to hit on this episode, and that takes place in what should by now be a somewhat familiar setting for us: The Island of Awaji. As so many had done before him, Woasatsuma Wakugo no Ohokimi decided to take part in the royal sport of hunting, a common pastime of the sovereigns of Yamato. And as he and his retinue walked the island it should have been an epic haul. There were animals everywhere: Deer, monkeys, wild boar, you name it.
And yet, no matter how many arrows were shot, spears thrown, or traps set, they couldn’t catch a single thing. All of their efforts were for naught. Now I’m sure that everyone has a bad day, but this was apparently epic levels of fail, such that they called off for the day to regroup and figure out just what was going on.
And if you are going to ask questions, then who better to ask questions of then the locals? By which I mean the local kami. Yup, they performed a divination to try to figure out why they felt like Elmer Fudd on a bad hare day.
Sure enough, they performed the rituals and the kami of the island, none other than Izanagi himself, answered their call. He told the sovereign and his band that it was through his actions that no beast was caught. He demanded a tribute of sorts—there was a large pearl at the bottom of the sea of Akashi—which is to say the area of the Seto Inland Sea just north of Awaji.
Now the Seto Inland Sea is generally described as shallow, which it is when compared to the nearby Pacific Ocean, but it can be deep enough. In the area where the pearl was located the waters are over 100 meters deep. This was too deep for most people to dive. In fact, most people rarely go more than 6 or 7 meters on their own, and even for trained ama, the famous Japanese pearl divers, it is rare that they go more than 25 meters deep. Modern recreational SCUBA diving rarely goes below 30 meters. Even in modern free diving—the art of diving without assistance, such as scuba gear—the deepest someone has gone without assistance appears to be just over 120 meters. Part of the problem is just the logistics of the amount of time one can hold their breath, even with training to regulate their metabolism. Many of the world record holding divers to get to that depth took three to four minutes to complete the dive. While people have been known to hold their breath for longer—10 to 11 minutes, with some world records claiming 20 to 24 minutes—that time would have likely been shortened due to the sheer exertion of getting down and coming back up. And that’s just for the dive, let along the time to find and retrieve something. Just to get down to the bottom of the Seto Inland Sea would have likely required an amazing athlete.
Fortunately, they had one on hand: a fisherman named Wosashi from Nagazato in the province of Awa, over on Shikoku. And he excelled at what he did. He tied a rope to his waist and dove down to the bottom, coming back up after some time. We aren’t told how long, but he had to have time to not only go down, but have a look around, which would have been a feat in and of itself, as he would not have had access to any artificial light sources, so seeing things would have been its own issue. Regardless, he reported that he had found a huge abalone—a primary source for the kinds of pearls that were mostly used at that time. Abalone pearls, you see, are often not as symmetrical and round as oyster pearls, and they can be much more opalescent, since they are made from the same coating as the inside of the abalone’s shell. To acquire them, the abalone has to be pulled away from the rock, which can be quite a feat in and of itself, not to mention the dive down and back.
So after locating where the abalone was, Wosashi was determined to go down and get it. He tied a rope to his waist and dove down again, likely with a knife or some other tool to help him pry the abalone from its rocky home. He was down there for a long time—longer than before. No doubt people were getting worried he would not make it back up.
But then, suddenly, they saw him, rising up through the waters, the abalone in his arms. He finally made it to the surface, but he was no longer breathing, and they say he died just as he reached the surface, sacrificing his life for that abalone. Later, they would lower a rope down where he had gone and they measured the depth at 60 jin, or 360 shaku, which is roughly 110 meters, by my calculations. Regardless, it was an amazing dive.
Inside the abalone they found a pearl the size of a peach, we are told. That may be an exaggeration—or else peaches were much smaller back then—but the point is made: it was big. And more importantly, it was big *enough*. Izanagi was satisfied with the offering, and from thenceforward the hunt was successful.
They did not forget about the sacrifice of Wosashi, however. Although he was simply a common fisherman, it was determined that he should be buried in style, and so a proper tomb was built for him. Tradition holds that you can go and visit that tomb to this day by going to Ishinoneya Kofun on the island of Awaji.
Woasatsuma’s reign continued to be successful. He and his wife had many children, and the land appears to have prospered. When he finally died in what the Nihon Shoki claims was the year 453—not an unreasonable date from what we know, so I’m willing to go with it—he was well respected at home and abroad. It is said that even Silla sent a tribute mission, with eighty tribute ships and eighty musicians of all kinds. Upon arriving in Tsushima they let out a great wail of lamentation, and they did the same when they arrived in Tsukushi. In Naniwa, they put on garments of pure white—the color of death, and they brought articles of tribute and proceeded to the capital in Asuka, in the southeast corner of the Nara Basin. As they traveled they sometimes wept and wailed, sometimes danced, and finally they assembled at the shrine of his temporary burial—which we discussed earlier regarding the temporary burial of Midzuha Wake.
Now it is unclear just when this actually would have happened—let alone if it even did. After all, we haven’t exactly seen great relations between Silla and Yamato, and there is nothing in the Silla annals to suggest that relations had improved much. This could just be trying to show that Silla was a dutiful vassal state, which could be nothing more than Yamato propaganda. That said, there is a lot going on that we don’t see in the annals or the Chronicles, so it is possible that we’ve just missed a lot of key moments.
Either way, the time to learn about the sovereign’s death, gather the musicians, and coordinate such a parade likely took some time, and one wonders if it didn’t happen a year or two later—possibly in the reign of another sovereign.
Which may be the case, and it could be that this is more important for regarding a later sovereign’s foreign relations, and this has to do with what happened when the envoys were headed home.
You see, as the Nihon Shoki tells it, on their way back, the envoys passed by the holy mountains of Unebi and Miminashi. So they yelled out: “Uneme Haya!” and then then “Mimi haya!”
This caught some of the Yamato officers off-guard. Specifically, a member of the Horse-keepers, the Yamato no Umakahibe, thought that they were yelling obscenities about having sex with the Uneme—the handmaidens at court. Shocked and appalled, he made the embassy turn around and return to the court. There they told Prince Ohohatsuse about the Embassy’s supposed improprieties. Prince Ohohatsuse was understandably shocked in turn, and had the embassy thrown into prison, where he then questioned them. Imagine the egg on his face, though, once he realized that it was all just a translation issue, and that they were actually complimenting the two mountains. Well, the Prince released the embassy, but the damage was done, and relations with Silla soured after that.
And we may come back to all of that during a later reign, but for now, this brings the reign of Woasatsuma Wakugo, aka Ingyou Tennou, to an end. Of course, you can probably guess some of what is coming next—after all, Woasatsuma was the last son of Ohosazaki and Iwa no Hime, but he had plenty of his own sons, and even a designated heir. So I’m sure that will just work itself out—you know, like it has in the past. But that can wait for now—come back next episode and see just what happens!
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References

Kanagawa, Nadia (2021). Zoom Talk: The Name Game in Nara Japan: Immigrant Origin and the Court Status System;
Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Kawagoe, Aileen (2009). “Uji clans, titles and the organization of production and trade”. Heritage of Japan. https://heritageofjapan.wordpress.com/following-the-trail-of-tumuli/rebellion-in-kyushu-and-the-rise-of-royal-estates/uji-clans-titles-and-the-organization-of-production-and-trade/. Retrieved 1/11/2021.
Confucius, ., & Legge, J. (2008). The Analects of Confucius. Adelaide: The University of Adelaide Library.
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253
BAKSHEEV, Eugene S. (2001). THE MOGARI RITE THROUGH THE HISTORY OF JAPANESE CULTURE; Japan Penomenon: Views from Europe: International Conference; http://ru-jp.org/yaponovedy_baksheev_01e.htm
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Steinkraus, W. E. (1980). Socrates, Confucius, and the Rectification of Names. Philosophy East and West, 30(2), 261–264. https://doi.org/10.2307/1398850
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

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References

Who’s Who

Ōhatsuse Wakatake

Iware Biko

Mimaki and Ikume Iribiko

Ō Tarashi Hiko and Yamato Takeru

Waka Tarashi HIko

Tarashi Naka tsu Hiko

Okinaga Tarashi Hime

Homuda Wake

Ōsazaki

Izaho Wake and Mizuha Wake

Oasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune

Anaho

Ichinohe

Shiraga

Katsuraki Lineage

Takuhata Hime

King Gaero of Baekje

Iketsu Hime

King Munju of Baekje

Konji

King Samgeun of Baekje

Hae Ku

King Modae

Ōtomo no Ōmuraji no Muroya

Heguri no Ōmi no Matori

Mononobe no Ōmuraji no Me

Ki no Woyumi

Yamato-Aya no Atahe no Tsuka

Kibi no Omi no Oshiro

Prince Hoshikawa and Kibi no Waka Hime

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References

Wakatake and the Liu Song

Foreign Lineages

Immigrant Gods

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References

Mononobe Family

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References

On Hunting

Dramatis Personae

Ōhatsuse Wakatake no Ōkimi

Woasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune

Osaka no Naka tsu Hime

Kusaka no Hatahi Hime

Nakashi Hime

Mononobe

Ōtsu no Umakahi (大津馬飼)

Hi no Hime (日媛/日之媛)

Agoko no Sukune

Shishihito Be (宍人部)

Uda no Mito Be no Masakida, Takame

Saho no Kotori Wake

Fumu Be no Musa no Suguri no Ao

Hinokuma no Tamitsukashi no Hakatoko

Hitokoto Nushi

Chiisako Be no Muraji no Sukaru

Ikazuchi

(W)ina Be no Mane

Locations

Akitsuno

Asakura Palace

Awaji Island

Hinokuma

Katsuraki

Mie

Mt. Mimoro aka Mt. Miwa

Musa

Ōtsu (大津)

Uda

Yoshino

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References

Dramatis Personae

Ōhatsuse Wakatake no Ōkimi

Woasatsuma Wakugo no Sukune