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Heavenly Princes Behaving Badly

Heavenly Princes Behaving Badly

Released Sunday, 16th August 2020
Good episode? Give it some love!
Heavenly Princes Behaving Badly

Heavenly Princes Behaving Badly

Heavenly Princes Behaving Badly

Heavenly Princes Behaving Badly

Sunday, 16th August 2020
Good episode? Give it some love!
Rate Episode

CW:  Men disrespecting/not listening to women

This episode we finish the story of Ninigi and move on to the story of Hiko Hohodemi.  We'll touch on the stories, where we've tried to combine the elements of the various chronicles into one narrative. 

And there are definitely some themes in these stories about the men of the Heavenly lineage not listening to the women in their lives, which shouldn't be much of a shock at this point.

For more go to: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-23

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is episode 23:  Heavenly Princes Behaving Badly, or Cursing your own siblings for fun and profit.

Last episode we followed the descent of Hiko Hononinigi no Mikoto, the Heavenly Grandchild, the grandson of both Amaterasu Ohomikami and Takami Musubi no Kami.  He was granted the sacred regalia—the jewel, mirror, and sword—and sent down with a retinue, including the five ancestral kami of the great clans of the early Yamato court.  On the way they met Saruta Hiko Ohokami, who left with Ame no Uzume no Mikoto to live in the province of Ise, where Uzume becam the ancestor of the Sarume clan, who were traditionally led by a lady as the clan head.

Eventually the heavenly party made their way down to earth, coming to rest in Kyushu, where Ninigi set up a palace just above the high tide mark on the shore, and where he found his wife, Konohana Sakuya Hime.  Of course he was also offered the hand of Sakuya Hime’s elder sister Iwanaga Hime, but Ninigi declined, not because he was a devoted monogamist, but simply because he found Iwanaga Hime to be not quite up to his standards in the looks department.  Because this shallow decision, his descendants would not endure as long as the rocks, but would disappear like the sweet but ephemeral blossoms of spring.

And that pretty much catches us up to where we are.  We’ve traversed many miles—and several stories—to get here already.  In fact, I have a suspicion that the tale of the Heavenly Grandchild is made up of at least three, if not four, different stories, merged into one.  There is the Amaterasu story, which likely described the descent of Oshihomimi and was centered around the province of Ise.  Then there is the story of Takami Musubi’s grandson, Hononinigi, whose descent was likely more an allegory for an abundant harvest and connected closely with the royal rites of the Daijosai, and probably the closely related Niinamesai.  Then there is the descent of Ninigi—or perhaps some other chieftain—to southern Kyushu, the home of the later Yamato court’s nemeses, the Kumaso and the Hayato.  Finally, we have this story of Konohana Sakuya Hime and Iwanaga Hime, which sounds like it could have been about just about anyone , as the actual man is unimportant, for all of his apparent status as the protagonist in the story.  One of the reasons I suspect the latter is that Sakuya Hime has another, less fantastical name that she goes by, and while it is given in various fashions it is basically some form of “Atatsu Hime”, or “the lady of Ata.”  Conveniently, Ata happened to be right there, in Southern Kyushu.

So in Kyushu, Ninigi and Sakuya Hime or Atatsu Hime had met and she had immediately taken him home to see dad.  Rather than meeting him with the ancient Japanese equivalent of a shotgun, Ohoyatsumi, her father, brought him inside and greeted him with a feast.  This was apparently what amounted to a wedding feast at the time, and Ninigi and Atatsu Hime were considered married from that point forward.

Of course, getting married was more than just a lot of good food.  There was also the traditional consummation of the marriage, which is not exactly described, but the consequences definitely are evident, as Atatsu Hime shortly thereafter told her new husband the good news—she was pregnant, and since Ninigi was Amatsu Hiko, that is, Heavenly Prince, his children shouldn’t be kept a secret, but it should be public knowledge that they were his, for their own sake if nothing else.

Ninigi was incredulous.  Like so many young men that haven’t quite figured out how this whole sex thing works, he insisted that there was no way that the kids could be his.  After all, even as the Divine Descendant, it was highly unlikely that he could have gotten Atatsu Hime pregnant in just one night.  Surely, he protested, these must be the children of some earthly deity that Lady Atatsu had had relations with before they met.

This went over with Atatsu Hime like a lead balloon.  Who was this man to come into her life, get her pregnant, and now he was denying it all?  And so she made a vow—an Ukehi vow, much like Susanowo had made to Amaterasu, but in this case with somewhat more of a personal stake.  She claimed that if they were children of a heavenly deity, they would be unharmed by something as simple as fire.  But if they were the children of an earthly deity then surely they would be burned and perish.

Saying that, she had built for her a special building, and when it was time to give birth she went in and then had herself sealed inside.  Then, as she started to give birth, she set fire to it.

Just as the light of the fire started to grow, Ho no Akari was born—but he wasn’t alone.  As the fire reached its height, Ho no Susori—aka either Ho no Suseri or Ho no Susumi.  Then, as the flames died down, another brother was born, and his name was Ho no Wori.  Finally, as the flames settled down into fiery hot coals, radiating heat, the last son was born:  Hiko Hohodemi.

All four of these brothers survived the fire, proving their Heavenly lineage.  Though, admittedly, we don’t quite know how their mother, Atatsu Hime, made it out, though she was the daughter of Ohoyatsumi, the Mountain God, which would make her the granddaughter of Izanagi and Izanami, so a little fire was probably not top of her worries.

And after all of this, they don’t say it, but I imagine Ninigi giving it the slow clap with a smirk on his face.  As Atatsu Hime pulled herself out of the ashes and presented herself to Ninigi, the proof of her fidelity written in the ashes and soot covering her face and newborn children, one imagines the fiery steel in her eye growing to rage as Ninigi casually remarks that, yeah, yeah, HE knew all along that they were his kids, he just didn’t want people gossiping and trying to claim that they were someone else’s, and that’s why he had to protest so hard.

Atatsu Hime was livid—so mad that she refused to speak to him.  She cared for and raised the children, but would not say a word to Ninigi, nor in any way return any of his affections.  He was pining for her and tried to win her back with a poem  , but there’s no clear evidence if it worked.  In any case, he must have remained in the doghouse, because the story from here mostly ignores him and focuses on the youngest child Hiko Hohodemi and one of his older brothers.

Before we get into that, though, let’s talk about this.  First off a couple of the discrepancies—not all of the accounts give the same names of the children, let alone suggesting they were all born at the same time.  That certainly would have been something—quadruplets are not unheard of, but certainly not usual, by any stretch of the imagination.  So I rather doubt the story as given.

Let’s start with the number of children—stories vary between 2 and 4 siblings.  Three actually seems the most common, with Ho no Wori often being just another name for Hiko Hohodemi.  Ho no Akari shows up in a few other places in the Chronicles, and, indeed, seems to have little to do with the next few passages, though some accounts note them as the ancestor of either the Wohari no Muraji, or the Chieftains of Takumi—the Takumi no Miyatsuko.  One assumes that the Chieftain of Takumi was of the Wohari no Muraji.

To confuse things further, the Kojiki suggests that one Ame no Ho Akari no Mikoto was the older sister of Ninigi, not one of his sons—and of course, “son” may often be an assumption, as the original may simply state “child” and expect gender to be known by context in the rest of the story.  And so we may keep an eye out for Ame no Ho Akari, later.

As for their birth, many of the stories reference the building that they were born in.  In the Kojiki they call it a palace, like the one made for Ohokuninushi in Izumo, while in the Nihon Shoki it is referred to as a “muro”, which Aston suggested was a kind of pit house.  Interestingly they do not use a term found elsewhere:  ubuya, or parturition hut.  We’ll talk about these later, but they were basically detached buildings used for giving birth.  Given the terminology, it is unclear if something else other than childbirth is actually going on—and that may be related to the fact that in some stories the children are already born before Atatsu Hime goes through with her vow.

Speaking of which, we’ve seen and talked about these Ukehi vows a couple of times, now, so we should have an idea of what is going on here.  It has been suggested that this is also an example of the kind of trial by ordeal—in this case a trial by fire.  The idea being, of course, that if you are guilty of some offense you would be burned, but if you were innocent, then you would come out unscathed, as she and the children did.

And I don’t think I need to talk too much about Ninigi’s role here as douche-canoe supreme.  About as charitable as I can be is to say is that this may have been a teaching lesson for young men about just where babies come from and that yes, even if you are a Prince of Heaven, you can get someone pregnant on your first go.  Still, I don’t think too highly of him in this instance, not that we are necessarily supposed to.

Nonetheless, we can see Atatsu Hime’s motivation, because she wanted to make sure that her children were legitimized as descendants of the Heavenly lineage.  And with that we largely get to put Ninigi in the eight-fold rear-view mirror  as we proceed with our story, which in this case involves only two of the brothers, one of whom is typically Hiko Hohodemi, who—spoiler alert—will go on to continue the royal line, while the other one—usually Ho no Susori, but the names aren’t always clear—he’s often credited as the ancestor of the Hayato, or at least the Hayato of Ata, their mother’s territory.  We’ll talk a little bit more about them later in this episode, and we mentioned them briefly, before, but the key thing to understand is that the Hayato were considered by the people of Yamato to be a separate ethnicity from their own, who lived in Southern Kyushu, and they are mostly referenced during the reigns of the later historical sovereigns.

Given some of the ambiguity in the various sources about who the brothers are, I’m mostly going to use the tactic they seem to take in this next piece, which is to refer to the Older Brother and Younger Brother.  Indeed, I highly suspect that much of the story may have simply been about an unnamed Older Brother and an unnamed Younger Brother, and then it was grafted in here, for reasons we shall discuss, later.  But for now, let’s get on with our story.

So there were two brothers.  Well, actually there were three—or maybe four.  But there were two whom we are talking about here.  They were each gifted with a Sachi, or lucky fetish —and now get your minds out of the gutter.  That is fetish as in an item believed to have some sort of mysterious or magical powers not, well, the other thing.  Unless you happen to be in to items with mysterious or magical powers, in which case, whatever works for you, I’m not here to judge. 

So because of his lucky fetish, the Elder Brother was also known as Umisachi Hiko, the Prince of the Sea-Luck, and he had a fishhook that allowed him to catch anything in the sea, so he would always bring in a bountiful catch.  In like fashion, the younger brother was known as Yamasachi Hiko, the Prince of the Mountain-Luck, and he had a set of bow and arrows that were so potent, every time he would go out hunting, he would never fail to bring back game, and this made him a consummate hunter.

Now the Younger Brother—whom we are told was Hiko Hohodemi—he thought it would be fun if each of them were to swap their lucky tools.  Initially, his Elder Brother refused, but the Younger Brother wore him down and eventually he did agree.  And so the Elder Brother took the bow and arrows, and the Younger Brother took the fishhook, and they each went off to try their hand at the other’s craft.

Of course, luck isn’t something that can just be given, and try as he might, the Elder Brother could find no game in the mountains, and he eventually returned emptyhanded.  The Younger Brother, likewise, could catch nothing, and after a while he even lost the fishhook altogether.  When the two of them met up once again, the Elder Brother handed his younger sibling his bow and arrows back, and then demanded the return of his fishhook.  The Younger Brother, however, could only apologize that he had lost it, and he could not find it.

Well this would not do, and the Elder Brother demanded that he produce the fishhook he had let him borrow.  The Younger Brother made platter upon platter of fishhooks for his brother—he even had his long sword melted down and made into thousands of fishhooks, but nothing would satisfy his Elder Brother, for none of them were the fishhook that held his sea-luck within it. 

Dejected and depressed, the Younger Brother wandered along the shoreline, lamenting that he had no way to please his Elder Brother.  As he was crying and wailing, he was spotted by the Old Man of the Salt Sea, Shihotsutsu no Oji, whom some say was the same person as Nagasa, who had given over the land to Ninigi.  The Old Man approached, addressing the Younger Brother as “Soratsu Hiko”, the Prince of the Sky, and asked him just what was the matter.  And so, the Younger Brother laid out everything that had happened, and how he had lost the fishhook, and how his Elder Brother would not accept any of his attempts to replace it.

The Old Man thought about this for a while and then he came up with an idea.  He took out a black comb and threw it on the ground, and it immediately grew up into a grove of bamboo.  The old man harvested the bamboo, and from the stalks he made a loosely woven vessel, like a basket or a boat, and he told the Younger Brother to get into the boat and he would send him down, under the sea.  There he would come upon a sand bank, and if he followed it, he would eventually come to gates of the palace of the sea god, Watatsumi no Kami.  Outside the gates was a well, and besides the well was a large katsura tree.  The Younger Brother should climb up into the branches of the Katsura tree and wait for Watatsumi’s daughter to emerge.  She would then see him in the tree and be able to help him out of this situation.

And so the Younger Brother did as he was told.  Sure enough, everything was just as the old man had described, and the Younger Brother found the Katsura tree and he climbed up in it.  He then waited for a very long time until a beautiful woman came out of the gates, carrying a jeweled vessel, and she went to the well, intending to draw some water.  This was Toyotama Hime, the daughter of the sea god, Watatsumi no Kami  But as she looked down in the water of the well, she saw the Younger Brother’s shining visage reflected in it, and this startled her so much she ran back inside.  And can you really blame her?  What would you do if you popped out your front door to get the paper and suddenly saw some guy up in your katsura tree, smiling at you?  Stalker-vibe, much?

So Toyotama Hime ran inside and immediately told her father that there was a beautiful man outside the gates, up in the tree.  He didn’t have any of the dirt of Heaven or the dirt of the Earth upon him—could he be from the Sky?  Indeed, a Prince of the Sky, or Soratsu Hiko?  She decided to send out her handmaiden to find out who he was and what he was doing here.

And so the handmaiden did as she was asked and went out to inquire just who this beautiful Sky Prince must be.  When she came back in she explained that he was a son of the Heavenly Deity—by which the chronicles mean he was Hiko Hohodemi, son of Ninigi no Mikoto.

Toyotama Hime’s father, the Sea God, listened to all of this and thought he would test this Prince to see that what he said was true.  And so he set out three platforms and a many-folded mat for him to sit upon.  He then went out and invited the Prince into his palace.  The Younger Brother accepted the invitation, and at the first platform he wiped both of his feet, at the second platform he wiped his hands, and then finally he sat upon the blanket in the third—a blanket not unlike the coverlet that Takami Musubi had placed over Ninigi no Mikoto when he was sent down to earth.  By these acts, he thus proved his status.

And no, I don’t know how that proved his status, but according to the Kujiki, it did.  You know, didn’t your mother teach you that when there are three chairs you wipe your feet on one, wipe your hands on the other, and then sit on the third?  No?  Well, you must not be a descendant of the Heavenly Deity is suppose.

Anyway, back to our story.

As you might guess, the sea deity, Watatsumi, was thrilled to have a descendent of the Heavenly deities stopping by, and so, much like the mountain deity, Ohoyatsumi, had done for Ninigi, he had a grand feast prepared and he offered his daughter’s hand in marriage, which the Prince gladly accepted.  And as they sat there, Watatsumi asked the young Prince just what had brought him down to his realm, under the sea, and the son of the Heavenly descendant went on to tell him the whole story, and how he had lost his Elder Brother’s fishhook and now he was searching for it.

Hearing this, the Sea Deity called all of the fish together and asked if any of them had seen the fishhook.  Nobody had seen anything, but there was one who had a sore mouth, and maybe the hook was stuck in there.

Now here’s where most stories say it was the Red Woman, or Akame, aka the Red Tai, or Sea Bream, who had the hook in her mouth.  In those stories, they generally take out the hook and give it to our protagonist.

But there is another version where it is “Kuchime”, literally “mouth woman”, the Gray Mullet, who had the fish stuck in her mouth.  This time, as the sea deity had the hook taken out of her mouth, he admonished Kuchime, saying that they would never again swallow fishing bait nor be among the items offered to the Heavenly Grandchild, which is why grey mullet is never offered to the sovereign.  And I don’t know about you, but that hardly seems like an admonishment, but more like a reward, but whatever.

At this point, I think we all understand that this whole episode is a patchwork of different stories, or at least different variants of the stories.  Like a bunch of variant comics, except that instead of just changing the covers, they change the characters, kind of like the various Tenchi Muyo series.  It isn’t just the different fish, or different ways of getting under the sea or how the story unfolds, but the names of the two brothers also differs.  Perhaps most common are the names Ho no Susori and Ho no Wori, but most of the narrative seems to simply refer to the Elder Brother and Younger Brother, which is why I’ve told it as I did, above.  I wonder if these weren’t originally Umisachi Hiko and Yamasachi Hiko—which really just refers to them as the Prince of the Sea Luck and the Prince of the Mountain Luck.

In part because of these inconsistencies, I’m intrigued by this idea of Hiko Hohodemi being a “Prince of the Sky.”  As I mentioned earlier this is very specifically “Soratsu Hiko” as opposed to the more common “Amatsu Hiko”, or “Heavenly Prince”.  “Sky” appears to be a third realm, different from the earth, “Kuni”, and Heaven, “Ama”.  It is just one more thing that makes me think this whole story is added much later, after the fact, possibly coming from an entirely different cycle  than the other stories, at least up to this point.

But anyway, they had found the fishhook.  So the Heavenly Grandchild could go back and finally give his Elder Brother the fishhook, so they can live happily ever after, right?  That would seem to make sense—which is how you know it probably isn’t going to happen.

Yup, instead, the Younger Brother decides to just stay at the Sea Deity’s palace and chill with his new wife, Toyotama Hime.  And it isn’t too bad—they don’t mention it, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the seafood was on point.  Well, except for the grey mullet.  Three years passed like this, but as the years dragged on, the Heavenly Grandchild began to think about home and let out a tremendous sigh.  His wife heard this sigh, which was the first time she had heard anything like regret since her husband had arrived at the palace, and she went to her father.

Watatsumi, the Sea God, brought his Son-In-Law into his chambers and he asked him what was wrong, and told him that, as much as he and his daughter loved having him around, they would help him return to the land if that is what he so desired.  The Prince admitted he missed his homeland, and so the Sea God agreed to send him back.

First, however, he prepared him to return to his Elder Brother.  He gave him the fishhook, but he also told him how to curse the fishhook as he gave it back.  Because, you know, you can’t just, like, give it back.  Nope, gotta be a jerk about it.

Anyway, he was to give the fishhook back, behind his back, and secretly saying to the hook:  “This hook is a gloomy hook, an uneasy hook, a poor hook, a dull hook.”  With that he would destroy its power of luck, and destroy his brother’s prosperity.

Furthermore, if his Elder brother were to get upset at all of this—you know, for *some* reason—the Sea deity also gave the Prince two jewels:  One that would cause the tides to ebb and the other that would cause the tides to flood.  If his elder brother opposed him he could use the tide-flowing jewel to raise the waters and drown his brother, but if his Elder Brother capitulated, he could use the tide-ebbing jewel and save him.   In addition, if his Elder Brother were to take to the seas against him, then his Father-in-Law would churn up the seas and cause them to roil and turn against him.  If he did as he was told, then his Elder Brother would submit to him and pledge his obedience.

With all of the sea deities’ gifts, the Prince was ready to return, but Toyotama Hime had one more thing for him.  She told him that she had become pregnant, and that after he had returned to the land he should prepare for her to come following, since his children should be born in the earthly realm, not under the sea.

And with that, there was only one thing left to do:  To get this Sky Prince back to the land.  So The Sea God summoned all of the sea monsters—the wani—and asked who could get him back to the surface the fastest.  Of the large monsters, they said that they could get him back in as little as 8 days, but the smallest one there, merely 1 fathom in length, said that he could do it in just one single day, instead.

So the smallest wani took the Prince back to the land.  In return, it is said that Hiko Hohodemi took out his knife, or sahi, and tied it around his steeds’ neck in gratitude, which is why that particular sea monster is known today as Sahimochi no Kami.

Back on shore, the Younger Brother did just as the Sea Deity had said, and, as one might predict, when he cursed the fishhook and gave it to his Elder Brother in a backwards, or reverse, manner, his Elder Brother was immediately upset.  His hook wasn’t simply lost, it had now been turned against him.  And so he came to attack his Younger Brother, who then used the tide-flowing jewel, bringing the waters up to his Elder Brother’s neck.  As he was threatened with drowning, just before the waters covered him, the Elder Brother repented.  He promised to serve his Younger Brother, and so his Younger Brother took out the Tide Ebbing Jewel and caused the waters to recede.

And so, for a time, his brother obeyed his commands, but he soon rankled at his subservient position.  After all, he was the Elder Brother, it did not seem right that he would be ruled over by his own Younger Brother. But once again, as his Elder Brother began to challenge him, the Younger Brother used the tide flowing jewel.  This time, the Elder Brother climbed a mountain, but the waters still came for him.  So he went to the very top of the mountain and climbed a tree, but the waters still came.  Finally, the Elder Brother had nowhere left to go and so he gave up.  He promised he would serve his Younger Brother, and that even his off-spring would serve the offspring of his Younger Brother, to the point of serving as guards-slash-performers in the court.  To finally appease him, the Elder Brother smeared clay on his hands and face and debased himself.  He danced around, imitating his own anguish as he was drowned by the tide-flowing jewel.

And apparently, this is why you should never bother someone about returning a needle—or, I guess, a fishhook—lest they try to curse you and drown you in the rising surf, I guess.  By the way, given this story and the story about Saruta Hiko, it certainly feels as though there is a particular connection between the rising tides and people dying—or almost dying.  There were certainly some later punishments where people were staked out in the surf during low tide, only to have them drown as the tide came in—a particularly slow and gruesome punishment, to be sure.   I am not sure if that has any relation to what we are reading about, here.

Alright, so let’s break some of this down.  After all, why is Hiko Hohodemi portrayed as such a bully and what does the submission of his Elder Brother have to do with anything? Well, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that his Elder Brother is said to have been the ancestor of the Hayato—or at least the Hayato of Ata.

Earlier this episode I briefly mentioned that the Hayato were a people of Southern Kyushu.  In the 7th and 8th century there are three groups that are generally named as living on the archipelago, and from south to north they ran roughly as:  The Hayato, the Yamato, and the Emishi.  Now we already know the Yamato—a Wa people, whose kingdom was based in Yamato.  The Emishi are still a bit of an enigma, but appear to be largely descended from the Epi-Jomon people of Tohoku, in northeastern Japan.  I’ve seen some suggestions that they were likely a mix of the original Jomon inhabitants and also various Wa people who remained outside—or purposefully fled—the Yamato polity.  Regardless, it appears they would have been different culturally, ethnically, and even linguistically.

The Hayato are even more of an enigma.  The Hayato  appear to have lasted well into the historical period, but past the Nara Period we really don’t hear much about them, as they appear to have been subsumed into the larger Yamato polity.  Some have theorized that the Hayato were an Austronesian speaking people, connecting them with theories of a southern migration up from Taiwan along the Ryukyu island chain.  There is no evidence that they were Austronesian, and DNA taken from skeletons in the regions and time periods associated with the Hayato don’t show any clear distinction from the other Yayoi descendants.  While it is possible that some mixture of Yayoi and Jomon or southern island culture formed and persevered in the south of Kyushu as the Wa that would become Yamato flourished in the north, it is hard to say exactly how they were different.  They have left some distinctive cultural artifacts, such as their painted shields, which have been incorporated into various Yamato rituals, but then again, much of the archipelago was culturally diverse.  It is even quite possible that they shared enough of a linguistic distinction to have some trouble communicating, but without contrary evidence I would still assume that their language was at least related to Japonic, if not a direct offshoot.

Now their placement in the Chronicles is rather interesting.  In particular, their connection with the Elder Brother, Umisachi Hiko, of this story.  Theoretically, this story is taking place well before the formation of Yamato, but interestingly, other than this story, the Hayato don’t show up until much later.  The earliest account of the Hayato appears to be in the early 6th century, and the greatest mention of them appears to be in the accounts for the 7th century.  And then, in the early 8th century, as the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki were being compiled, it seems that the court was still working on incorporating the Hayato under Yamato control, to include sending colonists from Bizen into Hayato lands to, quote unquote, “Lead them on the proper path.”

Furthermore, by the 8th century, the Hayato were supplying guards for the Yamato palace, where they were expected to “bark” as people entered on special occasions, such as coronations and the visits of foreign envoys.  They were sometimes referred to as “dog-men”, and the Nihon Shoki says that this was directly meant to be done in place of guard dogs.  Furthermore, during certain rituals, they were expected to perform a dance which, according to the chronicles, was meant to mimic the actions of their ancestor being drowned by his Younger Brother, the ancestor of the sovereign of the Royal Court. 

The dance is even described as follows:

              First, the dancer shuffled, as the tide first reaches the feet.

              Next, they raised their feet, as the water reached the knees.

              After that, as the water reached the thighs, the dancer ran around in a circle.

              The dancer then rubbed his loins, as the water reached that high.

              They placed their hands on their breasts to represent the water coming up to their sides

              Finally, the dancer would throw up their hands, waving their palms.

Evidence of these practices is even found in the Engi Shiki in the 10th century, so it would seem it wasn’t just some artifact of the 8th century, but continued on as a tradition even beyond the Nara period.

I can’t really express how messed up this seems to me—not that similar things aren’t found  but at least we have some explanation for this whole episode, as this was effectively Yamato’s case for why they were naturally superior to the Hayato people, a position taken by every colonial and conquering power, always justified in their own way.

Now, I couldn’t tell you if this story was originally used to relate the Hayato and Yamato people in this manner, if it was another story that was just used in this way, or if it was even related, originally, to some dance by the Hayato people.  I tend to think that the Hayato would not have been too keen on acting out their ancestor’s submission in what sounds like a humiliating manner.  Perhaps the dance, and maybe even the barking, were based on customs of the Hayato whose meanings were twisted by the Yamato court, but then again, perhaps they were just trying to humiliate a subjugated people.  After all, if there is anything that history has proven, it is that, as human beings, we can be pretty crappy towards one another.

Regardless, it seems clear that the Hayato lands, even if they were in a subordinate tributary status, had not been completely absorbed into the Yamato polity and were still seen as culturally and ethnically distinct, even when compared to the various cultural differences in other provinces, like Izumo, etc.  Perhaps we’ll dive in a bit more when we start to see them in the historical record, but for now we will leave the story as it is and move on.

Now where were we?  Ah, yes.  The Elder Brother had clearly, and humiliatingly submitted to his Younger Brother.  But there was still one thing left to resolve.

Remember, before he had left the Sea God’s palace his wife for the past three years, Toyotama Hime, told him she was pregnant, and as the time for her delivery grew nigh, on a day when the winds and waves were heavy, she came up from below the waters to join her husband on shore.  At that time she brought along her sister, Tamayori Hime, to assist her.

There, they built for her a parturition hut—that is a temporary structure made for giving birth, also called a birthing hut—but in this case they used cormorant feathers in place of the normal thatching.  They were still finishing the roof when the time came for Toyotama Hime to give birth, and so she warned her husband, Hiko Hohodemi, that when she gave birth she would revert to her true form, for she was not human, but a daughter of the sea god.  Therefore, to avoid embarrassment, he should not look at her.

Of course, given the track record thus far of the line of the Heavenly sovereign for listening to and respecting the women in their lives, you might guess what came next.  Of course HIko Hohodemi had to have a look.

As he did so, he saw that his wife’s true form was that of a humongous sea monster, or wani.  However he would have reacted to this, we are left to wonder because he apparently rolled a one on his stealth check, and Toyotama Hime knew that he had done the very thing that she had asked him not to do.

After giving birth she was saddened and angry.  She told Hiko Hohodemi that because he had broken his promise, she would return under the sea, and the path between the land above and the land under the sea would be henceforth blocked.  She was not entirely heartless, however, and left her sister, Tamayori Hime, on shore with him to help raise their child.  When Hiko Hohodemi realized what he had done and that he would never see her again, he sent Toyotama Hime a poem, and she replied, but still she left as she said she would.

The child that was born was named Hiko Nagisatake Ugaya Fukiaezu—often just shortened to Ugaya Fukiaezu.

There’s a lot of information in here.  First off, I don’t know if this was originally connected to the story of the fishhook or not, but it definitely is used to explain the royal lineage, as we’ll see in a bit.  The birth of Ugaya Fukiaezu seems to have little narrative purpose other than to continue that dynastic lineage.

Speaking of birth, let’s talk about these so-called birthing huts.  Now, we’ve encountered the idea of a parturition, or birthing, hut before—Remember when Izanagi promised to build fifteen hundred of them every day to offset Izanami’s promise to kill one thousand people in the same time?  Referred to as “Ubuya”, this custom of women going into temporary confinement during the birthing or even menstrual periods is a common theme in many parts of the archipelago and persisted up until modern times in various places and forms.  Ohobara Jinja—a Shinto shrine whose name means “large fields” but could also sound like “large womb”—this shrine is believed to have a particular focus on the area of pregnancy and birth, and they have a permanent birthing hut, or ubuya, on the premises.  The structure is low to the ground, with nothing more than a thatched roof and a wall on either end, much like a low, thatched A-frame tent, and its construction would not look terribly out of place in a village of Yayoi pit houses.

Many connect Ubuya and similar places with the idea of kegare, or natural pollution, associated with the blood that accompanies the menstrual period and childbirth.  Though natural, and without the moral judgment associated with any kind of actual “sin”, per se, the idea of pollution does feature heavily in Shinto belief, where many of the rituals are focused on some form of ritual purification.  Building a temporary structure would both mean that it was untouched by previous pollution and it would keep any pollution away from elsewhere.

Of course, it is unclear if these ubuya were always temporary.  In some cases there seem to have been birthing huts set up for the village, not just for one person, though there also seems to be a tradition of building them as they are needed.  It is also unclear, to me, if they were necessarily built because of the pollution of blood that was associated with things like childbirth or if they were built more as a pure space for the woman.  Was this a matter of excluding the mother-to-be during the birthing process or was it, as some have suggested, more of a place made especially for women.  It is possible that it was even both depending on the time and place.

Ubuya were not universal, by the way, and not everyone used them.  They were certainly common enough throughout the archipelago, but their use seems to be highly localized, and I suspect the traditions associated with them were as well.

As to the particular parturition hut built for Toyotama-hime, the thatching is certainly unorthodox.  After all, cormorant feathers seem less than practical as a roofing material.  And no wonder it took them so long to prepare it—I mean, how many cormorants do you need to catch to thatch a building, even just a small one?  However, this appears to be connected to the name of the child, Ugaya Fukiaezu, whose name references the cormorant feathers.

So Ugaya Fukiaezu would inherit his father’s lineage.  Hiko Hohodemi lived a good long time—the legends say  it was some 580 years.  Hardly the “brief” lifespan promised by Iwanaga Hime and her father, but well shy of immortality.  Some stories say that he was buried on the summit of Mt. Takaya or Mt. Takachiho.

Ugaya Fukiaezu inherited his father’s throne, and, in a move that Freud would no doubt have a field day with, he had his aunt and wet nurse, Tamayori Hime, appointed as his consort.  There are various lineages listing out their offspring, but in all of them is one name in particular that we should pay attention to:  Kamu Yamato Ihare Biko no Mikoto.  He would eventually be known by his posthumous title, Jimmu Tenno, and he is credited for traveling to Yamato and founding the royal dynasty.

But we will talk about him more in the next episode.  For now, I think this is good. 

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 we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on this episode.  Questions or comments?  Feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.

That’s all for now.  Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

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