relics of their earlier, far wider, occupation, before they were driven out by their successors, the people who, free from invasion themselves, forged a strong and homogeneous culture, going back some 2,000 years.
(4) The crater of Mt Aso. This volcano, in Kyushu, is still active.
The native Japanese religion, now called shintō, “the way of the gods,” has some elements that may derive from the shamanism of northern Asia, but it also includes simple animistic cults, in which trees and rocks, sometimes whole mountains or islands, are worshipped (7). It had as its culmination a set of creation-legends, which include an account of the divine origins of the Imperial family.
(5) Flooded rice-fields, with terracing on the left. The wide, straight roads are, of course, modern.
One important sector of shintō is concerned with food-production and fertility, rice-wine and jollity. Shintō is also very preoccupied with cleanliness and the avoidance of defilement, and prefers not to have anything to do with death. On the other hand Buddhism, which came to Japan from China through Korea some 1,500 years ago, brought with it, along with glamorous elements of Chinese civilization and artistic achievement, a new introspection and withdrawal from the world, a concern with the afterlife and an acceptance of death (8).
(6) Forest of sugi, a large tree, like the cedar, near Kyoto, the old capital.
For many centuries these two religions had been complementary: the gods of shintō were incorporated into the Buddhist system, even though the two priesthoods and the centers of worship, Buddhist temples and shintō shrines, usually retained their independence. Between them the two religions provided, and to a large extent still provide, a background for almost all human activity in Japan, but only a background, not a morality. Morality, the rules of conduct within society, was defined in secular principles, largely derived from Confucianism. These principles included a system of loyalties, in which one’s lord came before one’s family, and parents before spouse and children, together with an unquestioning acceptance of authority. Sobriety and frugality were required of superior men, while extravagance, whether in dress, emotion, or expenditure, was to be deplored, although no more than could be expected from the lower classes, especially from those whose aim was the amassing of money, rather than service to one’s lord or one’s country. Although the money motive is less reprehensible today, these attitudes are still to be found among the Japanese, and are demonstrated in loyalty to their employers and to their country.
(7) Miyajima, with its outer gate (torii) set in the sea. The whole island, of which some is visible on the left, used to be worshipped as a god, and women and agriculturalists were not allowed on it.
The End of Civil War
Since the twelfth century, when the old rule by the emperor or his courtiers had been replaced by that of military overlords, there had been periodical civil wars in Japan, either between opposing clans or factions, or sometimes involving an emperor trying to regain the authority that his ancestors had enjoyed. These wars had hindered the development of trade, had been an ever-recurring danger to crops, and had depleted the country’s manpower. It is true that a certain amount of literature had been produced, but it was concentrated in the Imperial and military courts and great religious centers. Nō plays, the tea ceremony and its equipment, the reformation of poetry that led to the 17-syllable haiku, all owe their development to this period, but all were restricted to small aristocratic and religious circles.
(8) Stone Buddha, one of a group of unusually large rock-carved Buddhas near Usuki in Kyūshū.
By the middle of the sixteenth century, however, even though fighting was to continue on and off for another 50 years, conditions began to settle down, and the advancement of commerce and the arts became possible. In 1573, rule over virtually the whole of Japan came into the hands of one man, Oda Nobunaga. He was a passionate and ruthless man; for example, he burnt a whole monastery complex of temples, with all its inhabitants, as part of his plan to take power away from the Buddhist warrior-priests who had been so great a destructive force in preceding years. At the same time he was devoted to the arts, and when he was killed in 1582 by one of his generals (whom he had slighted), the attack on the temple where he was staying occurred while he was dancing a piece from a nō play. His successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who continued the work of unifying Japan, is almost as famous for the splendor of his cherry-blossom viewing parties as for his good government of the country and his unsuccessful invasion of Korea.
(9) Gion Festival. The wagons, with the shoulder-borne floats that alternate with them, date from the Tokugawa period, though the Festival is much older, having been started in the tenth century in an attempt to terminate an epidemic. Each vehicle belongs to a ward of the city, whose men don traditional dress for the occasion. Those on the roof are there to fend off overhead wires.
The wars had dispersed many of the adherents of the Imperial court, so that there were far fewer who resided in the capital, now called Kyoto, and the great annual festivals which had been carried on by these courtiers came to a halt. They were restarted by the townsfolk, and a wave of enthusiasm for participation in this sort of gay ceremonial spread through the cities—the Gion festival, which still trundles its great wagons through the Kyoto streets in July, is an instance of this (9). Other new entertainments were developed: the fūryū dances were among these and spread far and wide. They were great jollifications, often connected with the Buddhist bon festival in the height of the summer, when the spirits of the dead come back to earth and are entertained with singing and dancing. In the fūryū, disguises and fancy dress were assumed, and there was dancing in the streets. Women’s fashions became much simpler in form so that movement was easier, but the materials were more elegant in pattern, especially for the wives of merchants.
It was a time when a lively trade was being carried on with the outside world. In 1543 the first Europeans, some Portuguese, had landed in Tanegashima, an island to the south of Kyūshū, and Francis Xavier came in 1549 to start the Jesuit mission. This was so successful that soon the Jesuits had virtual control of the city of Nagasaki, and churches were established even in Kyoto and Osaka. Christian emblems became popular as decorative motifs, and among the disguises worn in the fūryū, foreign garb, and foreign headgear in particular, had considerable vogue. Strange beasts were exhibited in menageries, and in Kyoto and elsewhere sideshows and puppet-shows were given, as well as crude dramatic performances. Farmers were doubtless less happy than the rest, but the spread of settled government, and a spirit of national unity, partly aroused by the contact with foreigners and in reaction to the threat against national security which their presence seemed to offer, led to an improvement in public morale. The painted screens that were a feature of the period very often illustrate the life of the times, mainly in the towns, with frequent scenes of much activity and jollity.
These entertainments and festivities carried
