This episode we finally have some seeming correlation between the Chronicles and some of our historical and archaeological data.  So let's take a look at the 10th sovereign, Mimaki Iribiko, and his aunt, the female shaman,Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime--is this perhaps the elusive Himiko herself?

In the third century there was considerable activity around the base of Mt. Miwa, where Ōmononushi no Kami was enshrined.

Join us as we try to weave this story together.

For more go to: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-28

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 28: The Birth of the Miwa Cult .

So this episode we are going to try to bring things back into a historical perspective and merge the accounts in the Chronicles with what we know about this time from the archaeological and continental records.  A key piece of this is the corrected dating for this next sovereign’s reign, which would put him in the Terminal Yayoi period, just before or during the reign of Queen Himiko, from roughly 238 to 250 or so.  Furthermore, much of the action focuses around the activities around Mt. Miwa, which we have discussed previously, but if this truly is the first account that is actually drawing from some historical perspective, perhaps there is something here for us to pay attention to.  But before we get into all of that, let’s just start with a reminder of where we are.

Now,in the early to mid-3rd century, great changes were occuring in the archipelago.  The hub-and-spoke city-states of the Yayoi chiefdoms were more interconnected than ever before.  Ships plied the waters along the coasts, farmers converted marshland and areas around the rivers into fields.  Traders wandered between the various polities and cultural zones across the mountains and the waterways, and no doubt pirates and bandits wandered the same pathways, following their prey.

Early states pulled together from the smaller towns and villages and formed communities that could leverage even greater resources for agriculture, trade, defense.  Alliances were made—possibly through simple agreements and the exchange of goods, but also through marriage between elites. 

Amidst the rice paddies and other fields, were towns and villages, largely made up of circular pit-buildings, with some elevated buildings—some granaries, but others perhaps for private or communal use.  In the large towns there were watchtowers, and large, rectangular buildings appeared that stood well off the ground—sometimes towering over the rest of the community.  Were these quiet, secretive places—the seat of arcane and enigmatic ritual viewed only by the elite few?  Or were they places of music and feasting and communal activity?  Or something else altogether?

Though it may have been different in various parts of the country, they honored their dead, but how they did so was changing.  For a long time, common men and women might get a burial in the communal cemetery, and elites may have been interred together in a mound, visible, distinct, and separate.  But a new tradition saw a category of elites that were no longer buried alongside others, but they were buried alone.  This new burial mound was a monument to the life of a single individual, built just for them.  One can only imagine what this meant about not only the labor that was organized for such a purpose, but what it meant in the conception of the state and the individuals who sat at the apex of such as society.

And of course, those elites sought goods that would set them apart.  They set up alliances and networks that would allow them access to the goods that would affirm their status—their regalia—symbolizing secular or possibly even spiritual authority.  Such authority may even have been bifurcated and shared amongst different men and women in a complex class system.  The golden flash of bronze or the polished stone surface of bracelets or magatama beads may have been all it took to let you know a person’s status in the still evolving hierarchy.  And then there was iron—required for tools and weapons alike.  By this point, iron was being procured almost exclusively through Pyonhan, one of the Samhan, or three “Han” cultural regions, on the southern Korean peninsula.  You may recall that Pyonhan, along with Mahan and Jinhan, formed the three Han, or Samhan, and it was thought that at least Pyonhan, if not the other two, may have spoken a Japonic language and may even have been counted as part of the “Wa” people still on the peninsula.  Pyonhan, in particular, was centered on the Nakdong river, which flowed into the ocean near modern Pusan, which seems ot have been the jumping off point to cross the straits via Tsushima and Iki on the way to Kyushu.  Unlike the Wa in the archipelago, however, Pyonhan was in direct contact with the Han Commanderies in Lelang, meaning they had greater access to technology but were also more directly under the thumb of the commandery, which was not incredibly supportive of growing new states at the edges of its borders.  They were perfectly fine exploiting the local labor to their imperial designs, thank you very much. 

So, the iron from Pyonhan and the larger continent, whether through official channels or otherwise, was imported directly as forged items or ingots that were then forged in settlements across the archipelago.  Originally this meant Northern Kyushu or Western Seto, up to the very eastern tip of Shikoku, where we see some of the earliest evidence of stratification and state formation, but by the time of the early-to-mid-3rd century, you have a new iron forging technology connecting the Japan Sea, Kinai, and eastern Honshu, while the older settlements in Kyushu and the Western Seto region seem to have continued in an older ironworking tradition,.  They were still reliant, however, on the continental bloomeries and blast furnaces for their raw materials.

With reliance on external sources of production, we can assume there was some contention over access to precious goods.  When trade and diplomacy failed, the people of the archipelago had another tool at their disposal: the force of arms.  Sure enough, we know that there were moments of violence, and if continental sources are to be believed the clash of weapons, the confusion of the battlefield, and the screams of the dying may not have been all that unfamiliar along the archipelago. 

One can imagine the storytellers, the kataribe, memorizing the stories of individuals—the heroes, leaders, and chieftains—and transmitting them over and over again.  If other cultures with similar traditions are any indication, there would have been intense pressure to memorize the stories correctly, passing them down to future generations.  However, over the centuries, language drifts, and cultural norms change.  Details get forgotten or changed.  Words may even change meaning, or become archaic and forgotten.  How many people today go searching for the garderobe when there is a truly pressing need?  And how much moreso when there are different dialects and no culture of writing to help stabilize and standardize from place to place?

Centuries later, as writing became more common, these stories would be captured and written down, creating a collection of anecdotal tales that later compilers would put together with the traditional genealogies, attempting to determine the chronology and which stories went with which ancient figure.

It is with this in mind that we turn to our next subject, unsure what is fact and what is fiction.  How much of this next sovereign’s  reign is based on an actual person and how much is simply a retelling of the founding myth of the Yamato state?  An explanation of the forgotten.  Those tidbits that were passed down, and which people knew had to have happened, but may not have remembered exactly the who and the how of it.  In the same vein, the stories of the previous sovereigns may have truly been focused on other chieftains and groups, contemporaneous with our main focus.

And so let us peer back through misty veil of the centuries and gaze at the shadows before us and see just what we have for us, today.

Our story this episode starts in Yamato with the birth of a boy.  Whether his father was the ninth sovereign in the Chronicles, Waka Yamato Neko HIko Ohohihi, overseeing the entire archipelago, is perhaps a question we might ask ourselves.  Certainly his name is not so easily connected to his supposed forebears.  After three generations who were styled after some fashion of “Yamato-neko Hiko”, we have one who is known as Mimaki Iribiko Iniye—Iniye, the “Iri” Prince Mimaki.  What exactly is meant by “Iri” in the “Iri-biko” I can only guess, but it is found not only in the name of his successor, Ikume Iri-biko Isachi, but in various other members of the succeeding generation, many of whom are known as either Iribiko or Irihime, prefixing the “Prince” or “Princess” title with this construction of “Iri-“, which uses the character for “entering”, though that is most likely not the full or even actual meaning, and seems suspiciously like we may have entered a new cycle or group of rulers in the Chronicles.

Mimaki Iri-biko, as he is commonly referred to, is said to have been born with a particular power of discernment between good and evil, and even as a youth he had an affinity for what the Nihon Shoki calls, with its gendered worldview, “masculine strategies”.  It goes on to say that he was of a generous mind, moderate in all things, and he revered both the amatsu kami and kunitsu kami—the deities of heaven and of earth.  And of course, the administration of the throne was always on his mind.

Mimaki Iri-biko’s lineage through his father we know, but his mother is said to have been Ika Shiko’me, the Ugly Woman of Ika, just as Ohonamuji was known as Ashihara Shiko’wo, the Ugly Man of the Reed Plains.  She was the daughter, or so they say, of Oho-hesoki, an ancestor of the Mononobe and one of the descendants of Nigi Hayahi.  Ika Shiko’me’s aunt, Utsu Shiko’me, the Ugly Woman of Utsu, had also been Queen to the sovereign before that, indicating that, if true, the royal line was closely tied through marriage and descent to the line of Nigi Hayahi and the Mononobe clan.

When Mimaki Iri-biko came to power, he was already married.  His wife, who would be queen, is known merely as Mimaki Hime or Mima tsu Hime.  Her name, here, tells us little, since it seems to be merely a reflection of her husband—though it does fit the pattern of Hiko-Hime pairs that one regularly encounters in these chronicles.  The Kojiki gives us the details that she was the daughter of Arakawa Tohe, the Chieftain, or Kuni no Miyatsuko, of the Ki, the ancient kuni that sat due south from Yamato on the peninsula that still bears its name, even today.  He also had several other consorts, but the Chronicles do not all agree on the names of their offspring.

It is said that Mimaki Iribiko ruled from the Mizugaki Palace in Shiki, believed to have been located at the foot of Mt. Miwa, near the site of the Shiki-Mi-Agata-Suwa Shrine, or the Shrine of the Seat of the August District of Shiki, in Sakurai.  A shrine dedicated to who else but our friend, Ohokuninushi, and whose history is uncertain but seems to have been considered an ancient shrine by at least the Heian period if not earlier.  A stone memorial to the Mizugaki Palace was erected there much more recently, in the Taisho era.  His successor would settle nearby, in what would be known as the Tamagaki Palace at Makimuku.

Mizugaki, by the way, is the name of the innermost fence of a shrine complex, and is typically surrounding the innermost area—the location of residence of the spirit, which, given what we’ve seen in terms of “palace” in reference to both  the gods and men, would seem certainly natural as a reference to the palace building of the sovereign, which may, itself, have been behind a fence or even a moat of some kind.  The next two fences out from that would be the inner and outer tamagaki, or jeweled fence—suspiciously similar to the name of the next sovereign’s palace, at least in the Kojiki: the Tamagaki Palace.

The Nara Basin remains an interesting place, archaeologically speaking—while we find various remains and traces, it has been inhabited for so long, with settlement over settlement, including the modern cities, that various layers where we would expect to find some traces have been removed as new buildings or, perhaps more commonly, new rice paddies, have been built over the years.  Oddly enough, however, those same rice paddies have also sealed in the various layers beneath them, often under a layer of hard, packed earth, and relatively constant building and construction has kept numerous archeologists well-employed for decades.  So even while many of the monumental tombs remain off-limits, that has not stopped a quite thorough examination of the area in which they reside.  Still, for many of the reasons just mentioned, you are unlikely to see large reconstructions of any of these ancient Yayoi or Kofun settlements, and we’ll need to satisfy ourselves with the site reports and various dioramas.

What those reports tell us, however, is interesting.  For instance, the area in the shadow of Mt. Miwa, the Makimuku district, has a good amount of late Yayoi and Early Kofun pottery.  But key is that some 15~30% of the pottery is nonlocal, meaning they came from elsewhere in the archipelago.  Primarily that appears to have come from the region of eastern Honshu, with a smaller amount from the Japan Sea Coast—the Izumo region—and an even smaller amount from the area of the Seto Inland sea.  Similarly, we see a clear commonality of ironworking technology between Izumo, the Kinai, and Eastern Honshu, focused on the Kinai region.  This could indicate a loose federation of friendly chiefdoms, at the very least, who interacted and traded with one another.

Now early in Mamaki Iri-biko’s reign, the Chronicles all seem to agree that the land was beset with a malady that may hit a bit too close to home in the current year, for a plague settled in the land.  Many people died—the Nihon Shoki says as many as half.  Of those who didn’t die, many wandered the countryside, and there was violence and rebellion.  To tell the truth it sounds pretty apocalyptic.

Even though it was a natural disaster, Mimaki Iri-biko took responsibility, but without an understanding of epidemiology, he could only turn to the gods and request punishment for whatever he had done wrong.  As he lay down upon the kamu-doko, or divine bed—possibly a place that the sovereign went to receive revelations from the kami—he began to dream.  In the dream, he saw a figure, who identified itself as Ohomono Nushi, or alternatively as Ohokunidama, and this figure took responsibility for the plague.

At least, that is what the Kojiki tells us.  The Nihon Shoki says that Mimaki Iri-biko turned to some good old fashioned plastromancy—which is to say, tortoise shell divination.  This seems to have been conducted by his aunt, who was apparently an accomplished shaman:  Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime.  They assembled the 80 deities to inquire as to what they could do to end the plague and the answer that she brought back: simply worship Ohomono Nushi (or Ohokunidama).

But why?  What reason could there have been? Well, the Nihon Shoki even provides a possible reason.  It turns out that Ohokunidama was originally worshipped in the palace together with Amaterasu Ohokami, but Mimaki Iri-biko seemed to be worried about what would happen if they stayed together.  Apparently it isn’t good to have two powerful deities co-located like that, so he had them separated.  He had his daughter, Toyosuki Iri-bime, take the goddess Amaterasu Ohokami out to the village of Kasanuhi, establishing the sacred enclosure of Shiki.  Here she would be worshipped until later moved again, this time to her permanent home in Ise.

The worship of Ohokunidama, on the other hand, was given to another daughter of Mimaki Iri-biko, named Nunaki Iri-bime, but she was apparently not cut out for the role.  Perhaps the rites were too strenuous for her.  Or Ohokunidama was just as judgmental as any of the other kami we’ve met so far.  All we really know is that Nunaki Iri-bime was bald and lean, and couldn’t perform the rites.

The implication here seems to me, at least, that Ohokunidama was not pleased with how he was being worshipped, and so had apparently sent the disease in retaliation.

So Mimaki Iri-biko set up worship of Ohomono Nushi in the palace, but that wasn’t enough.  No, instead, a handsome stranger came to him in a dream and told him “be not afraid”!  Or words to that affect.  He was to search throughout the land for a man named Ohotataneko, a descendant of Ohomono Nushi himself, and place that person in charge of his worship. 

Now, on top of that, the weird, creepy dream-stalker—apparently the same stranger, whom we can assume that it was Ohomono Nushi or his messenger—appeared to three women, who all came to the sovereign to tell him the same thing:  He needed to find Ohotataneko and have him worship Ohomono Nushi.  And, while he was at it, he needed to also get Ichishi no Nagaochi to come and be the master of worship for Yamato Ohokunidama—which really doesn’t make sense to me if Ohokunidama—the Great Spirit of the Country—was, as the Chronicles previously stated, the same as Ohomono Nushi.  Then again, it could have just been an aspect of Ohomono Nushi, who was really just an aspect of Ohokuni Nushi, because, well, kami.

Searching throughout the land, they did eventually find Ohotataneko—in one account he was found in Sue in the district of Chinu, but in the other it was Mino, in the ancient province of Kawachi, neither one too far from Shiki and the site of the Mizugaki palace.  And so they brought him and Nagaochi—whom they found somewhere in all of that—and set them in charge of the worship of the two deities, and just those two deities, mind you—until things were set right, divination said it was best to play it safe and just focus on them.  Mimaki Iri-biko’s uncle, Ika Shiko’wo, the brother of the Queen Dowager herself and a Minister in his own right, in charge, according to the Kyujiki, of “religious things”, assisted with the ceremonies.  He had “Heavenly Flat Vessels” made and distributed offerings—initially only to Ohomono Nushi and Yamato Ohokunidama.  Once that was completed satisfactorily, so that the pestilence would end, then and only then, did they make offerings to all of the heavenly and earthly deities, together.

Ohotataneko continued to be in charge of the worship of Ohomono Nushi at the sacred site of Mt. Miwa, while Nagaochi was to continue the worship of the spirit of the country, Ohokunitama, but we aren’t told where—possibly worshipping him, in his aspect as the soul of the country, at the royal palace itself.  We don’t tend to hear much from him, however, and it is quite clear that Ohotataneko and the cult of Mt. Miwa take pride of place.

So we see here a great pestilence and a lawless time—that could explain the descriptions of the archipelago given to us by the Wei Chronicles, which indicate that before Himiko there was some kind of disturbance, though those seem to have been going on for a much longer time, in the later half of the 2nd century.  So I see little reason not to think that this was a plague of some kind—though even then it seems to have run its course rather quickly.  More likely than not, the dates are not trustworthy, as there would have been nothing written down about this in the archipelago at the time, and so it simply remembers a tumultuous times and the resulting consolidation afterwards—in this case around the cult of Mt. Miwa.  And of course we do have some sizeable buildings around the base of Mt. Miwa, especially over in Makimuku, which we discussed earlier, and this is one of the reasons that this reign is assumed to be properly around the 2nd or 3rd century.

There is also mention that the court set up other religious institutions at this time.  They set up shrines to both the Heavenly and the Earthly deities, and I wonder if that didn’t represent merging two different religious traditions into one.  The Heavenly Precious Symbols that had been given to Nigi Hayahi were enshrined at the newly established shrine of Isonokami, the ancestral shrine of the Mononobe family in the district of Yamabe.  They also set up red-painted shields and spears and offered them to the god of Sumisaka, in Uda, while Black shields and spears were offered to the deity of Ohosaka, all based on another prophetic dream, though this one is less well explained.

Religious events at this time seem to have been quite the affair.  An example is given when a brewer offered to make sake for the god of Mt. Miwa—Ohomono Nushi.  The offering was made in a huge celebration, where it appears the sovereign and his court partied throughout the night—or at least so it was implied in their drunken songs, where they threw open the morning doors of the Hall of Miwa.  It must have been quite the kegger, to receive its own mention in the Chronicles.

But life at this time wasn’t entirely about getting drop-dead drunk with your favorite mountain kami.  There were more secular matters to attend to.  Whether it was due to the disturbances caused by the years of pestilence, or whether the archipelago just hadn’t been quite subdued, yet, Mimaki Iri-biko decided to send forth four generals to pacify any wild and unruly areas.  Oho Hiko—the Great Prince, and the sovereign’s own uncle, went North to the Koshi region, along the Japan Sea coast.  His son, Take Nukawa Wake was sent eastward along the Eastern Sea Path—what would one day become the famous Tokaido—to subdue the east.  Meanwhile, Isaseri Hiko, aka Kibi tsu Hiko—the Prince of Kibi—may have in fact taken his name from the fact that we went along the Western road, by the Seto Inland Sea, to subdue the land of Kibi and the other areas to the West.  Finally, Tamba no Chi-Nushi, whose name I can only assume refers to the fact that he was—or at least he would become—the Lord of the Land of Tamba, went northwest, to subdue the land of the same name.  Together, these four are known as the Shidou-Shougun, aka the Yotsu no Michi no Ikusa no Kimi, or the Generals of the Four Roads.

Now Oho-hiko, the Great Prince, seems to have been the first one out the gate—well, at least in the Nihon Shoki, but we’ll get to that. So Oho-hiko starts his trip towards Koshi, but doesn’t get very far when he meets a woman in a koshi-mo, a waist skirt, and she is singing some sort of song.  The song implied that someone was coming to kill the sovereign, Mimaki Iri-biko, which made Oho Hiko understandably curious—what was some woman in the countryside doing singing a song about the death of the ruler of Yamato?  Clearly something wasn’t right.  When he interrogated her about the song, she claimed that it was just a song, and nothing special, and then she wandered off.

Oho Hiko was a bit unnerved at all this and decided to turn around and head back to the palace.  He told them about the woman and the song.  One can imagine the court listening to the tale, and following with worried nods among the assembled members of the court.  It seems to have been the belief—at least in later times, when this story was transferred to a written record—that this kind of spontaneous song could arise as an omen.  Perhaps the kami were inspiring the song, or perhaps it was simply considered a natural reaction to events of great importance.  Either way, it garnered a fair amount of attention.  The court’s resident shaman, Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime listened to his story, and she eventually deciphered its meaning.  Take Haniyasu Hiko, son of the Kunikuru and Oho Hiko’s half-brother, uncle to the current sovereign, and nephew to Totohi Momoso Hime, apparently had designs on the throne.  He seems to have had a royal lineage, just as Mimaki Iri-biko had, but his brother, Mimaki Iri-biko’s father, had succeeded to the throne instead.  Now it looked as if he had enough.  After all, in the current reign, hadn’t there already been a plague and the deaths of who knows how many people, followed by rebellion and disorder?  On the continent, those would be pointed to as events indicating that the sovereign had lost the Mandate of Heaven, or the right to rule.  But even though they were in contact with the mainland, there is no clear indication that such theories were being practiced at this time.  No, more likely this was simply a case of opportunity knocking, and Take Haniyasu Hiko decided that he should be the one in charge, and not his nephew.

This may not have been a great spiritual leap.  Totohi Momoso Hime apparently had heard rumors that Haniyasu’s wife, Ata Bime, had secretly made her way into Yamato to steal earth from the sacred Mt. Kagu.  She had wrapped the earth in her hiré—a long, scarf-like piece of fabric, worn primarily by women—and then, whispering over it the words “This earth represents the Land of Yamato”, she turned it upside down, which as we’ve already seen several times, is a form of a curse.  Mt. Kagu, of course, had been the mountain that Iware Biko sent men to get earth from to make clay vessels for his rites before conquering the region, and even further back in the Chronicles, the Heavenly duplicate of Mt. Kagu, Ame no Kaguyama, played a key role in the preparations to lure Amaterasu Ohokami out of the Heavenly Rock Cave.  It was clearly important in the chronicles, and indeed it is one of the three mountains of Yamato, known as the Yamato Sanzan, which were within the city limits of Temmu’s capital Fujiwara-kyo, along with Mt. Unebi and Mt. Miminashi.

Knowing that Take Haniyasu Hiko, who had been residing in the ancient state of Yamashiro, wished him ill, Mimaki Iri-biko called back his four generals and their forces.  Sure enough, shortly after doing that, Take Haniyasu and his wife arrived with their forces.  Apparently they had split their forces, and were coming from different directions, intending to meet up and then march on the palace.  Isaseri Hiko was sent out to meet the forces coming from the direction of Ohosaka, led by Ata Bime, and to stop them before they could join up.  Now, it is unclear just how many soldiers made up an “army” in these early days.  Certainly we know that later battles would often be exaggerated, and 20 or 50 soldiers would become 200 or even 2000.  We do know that they were on foot—horses had not arrived in the archipelago, it seems—though there are some who claim they had.  Regardless, they do not appear to have been significant in their numbers, so we can assume that these soldiers marched across the land on foot.  Soldiers were likely responsible for their own arms and armaments, which may have varied from person to person.  Unfortunately we just don’t have a lot of information on these earliest soldiers, and whether they went to war clad in metal or wood, though perhaps most wore no real armor at all.   Whatever they may have looked like, the two armies eventually clashed, and Ata Bime was killed, and her force was wiped out.

Against her husband, Take Haniyasu Hiko, were sent Oho Hiko and another, Hiko Kunibuku, ancestor of the Wani no Omi.  They stopped briefly, near the start of their campaign, at the slope of Takasuki, in the Wani district, and there they planted jars into the earth and conducted a ritual of some sort.  Whether the jars were left empty or whether they were filled with some sort of offering, such as rice or sake, we are not told, but it seems to have been an important ritual to appease the gods and pray for a successful campaign.  It may also have had something to do with delineating boundaries and seeking safe passage across them.  Later the forces headed for Kibi and the Western Road would perform a similar ritual.

Having made their spiritual preparations for the battles to come, Oho Hiko and Hiko Kunibuku continued north, eventually arriving at the Wakara River, where they met Take Haniyasu and his forces.  Separated by the water, and no doubt cognizant on both sides that the first to attempt to cross would be subject to attack in a weakened position, the forces glared at one another across the waves, and issued challenges towards each other.  Finally, Hiko Kunibuku suggested that Take Haniyasu take the first shot with a ceremonial arrow.  These would have likely been hummingbulb arrows, or an early version of them, much as the arrow that Susanowo had shot into the field and told Ohonamuchi to go and retrieve.  The sound of the arrow in the air was said to call down the attention of the kami, much like ringing the bell at a shrine.  This tradition, whenever it started, would inspire generations of warriors to come, even though the samurai, as we know them, were still centuries off.

Take Haniyasu fired the first arrow, and it no doubt whistled gloriously across the water, but in the end, it missed.  And so it was Kunibuku’s turn.  His arrow found its mark, and immediately struck Take Haniyasu square in the chest, killing him.  Their raison d’etre for going to war having fallen in the first exchange, Haniyasu’s forces broke, and began to fall apart.  At this, Oho Hiko and Kunibuku pressed their advantage and charged across the river, attacking the fleeing soldiers.  They say that the enemy forces were so frightened they literally defecated in their own trousers, such that the ford there on the Wakara River became known as Kusobakama, which later became simply Kusuba.  The Yamato forces wouldn’t let up, and it is said that they cut down the enemy such that their bodies floated on the river like cormorants.  Finally, when there was no more fighting to be done, the forces returned triumphantly back to Yamato.

With the threat of Take Haniyasu out of the way, one suspects that there may have been great celebrations and feasting, but if so, it goes unmentioned in the chronicles.  Rather, they take a more somber tone, as it seems the celebrations may have been short-lived.  The sovereign’s great-aunt, the shaman who had helped discern the meaning of the song, and before that had interpreted the will of the kami on how to stop the great plague, Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime, died.

Now this story is found in the Nihon Shoki, and in it they tell of how Totohi Momoso Hime had, in fact, become the wife of Ohomono Nushi no Kami, the god of Mt. Miwa.  Ohotataneko may have been in charge of his worship, but it is clear that she enjoyed a special relationship with him.  The god of the mountain would come to her chambers in the night, always in darkness, and thus they would have their liaisons.  This kind of assignation would become a common romantic trope, with men visiting women at night in their chambers and slipping out before the sun rose. 

One night, Totohi Momoso Hime asked Ohomono Nushi if he couldn’t stay until it was light out, so that she could actually see his face—remember, there was no electricity, and there would have only been firelight to see by in the dark of the night.  I would also note that, at least in Heian times, there was special significance to a man staying quote-unquote too long at his lover’s house—the poetry of the time is filled with the concept of dew drenched sleeves, indicating, among other things, that the man has stayed—gasp!—too long and the dew has already condensed in the early morning air.  So here is Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime asking Ohomono Nushi to stay “too long” as well, so that she may get a clear look at him.

The kami of Mt. Miwa agrees, but warns her that she should not be alarmed when she sees him.  Rather, he would secret himself inside her toiletries case, and stay there until the morning.

Of course, this must have been somewhat puzzling, as such a case would have been far too small for any human to fit, but this is a kami we are talking about.  And so Totohi Momoso Hime went to sleep, and when she awoke the next morning, she found her toiletry case and opened it, just as she had been instructed.  As soon as she did so she beheld a beautiful little snake, or worochi, the length and thickness of a garment cord. 

Totohi Momoso Hime was shocked: Was this truly the god of Mt. Miwa, Ohomono Nushi, who had come to her each night?  And indeed it was, but Ohomono Nushi was embarrassed by her shocked reaction, he returned to his human form, and took his leave of her.

At once, Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime realized she had just made the biggest mistake of her life, and she knew she would never see him again.  She was so distraught that she flopped down onto a seat and grabbed a nearby chopstick, striking herself in her own genitals so hard that she died.

And so it was that there was much grieving throughout the realm.  She was so well thought of by both the people and the gods that they built for her an earthen mound in which she was to be buried.  Men worked on it by day, and the gods continued the work in the evening.  The stones came all the way from Ohosaka and were handed from one person to another, stretching from that mountain all the way across the Nara Basin to her tomb at the foot of Mt. Miwa.  This tomb, situated as it is at the foot of Mt. Miwa, does appear to have been built in the 3rd century, and it is known today as Hashihaka Kofun—so named for the way that Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime killed herself.

Now of course, this whole story brings up a lot of questions.  First and foremost:  is there a connection between this shaman, Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime, and the Queen, Himiko, who many believe is the actual occupant of that tomb?  Perhaps there was some memory of a female shaman, but if so, her story has been greatly changed, it would seem.  Certainly there isn’t much to directly marry up, one with the other.

This is the first time we really see a lot of work go into the burial mound.  In the other entries it is simply noted where they are buried, but the actual construction and burial practices are ignored, except in a few of the myths surrounding the stories of the heavenly and earthly kami.  The Kojiki also has a burial, but it is not for Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime, but rather for a prince who is simply known as Yamato Hiko, or Prince Yamato.  The Kojiki provides less about the actual building of the tomb, but more about another gruesome detail: the concept of the “hitogaki”, or “Human Wall.”  This is an idea that is found in the historical writings but which archaeological research has yet to fully corroborate, which states that in the early tomb burials there would often be servants or others who were sacrificed and entombed along with the ruler or other elite individual.  This is certainly a practice found on the continent, and as we’ve mentioned before, there are other accounts of human sacrifice found in the written record, but whether or not it was actually carried out is not fully clear.

We do know that round, cylindrical clay structures, known as Haniwa—literally clay rings—were placed on and around these mounded tombs, and later on the chronicles tell us that they were used in place of human sacrifice.  However, we find them fairly early on, and the story of their origin may be continental in nature, and could be related to the later haniwa, which were often topped with figures of humans, animals, and various objects from boats to shields to buildings.

Another theory suggests that these haniwa originally started out as something similar to the jars buried by Ohohiko and Kunibuku when they started out on their campaign, and may have been meant to mark a sacred border or boundary.  As far as I know, however, we have not found these haniwa deliberately placed like this outside of these monumental burials, so that theory has its own problems.  Regardless, it seems clear that these stories, at least, are from the Kofun Period, even if they may be mixed in with anachronistic details.  In fact, assuming we have our dating correct, it seems that haniwa may have still been in development:  Hashihaka Kofun actually has a type of cylindrical jar stand, as found on burials in the Kibi region, and which may have been the forerunner to the later Haniwa tradition.

Another feature of this story with the death of Totohi Momoso Hime is Ohomono Nushi’s appearance as a snake, or worochi.  You may note that this word for snake—worochi, rather than the more common modern word of “hebi”—is the same one found in the name of the giant beast slain by Susanowo, Yamata no Worochi.  There also is the description of his size and shape like that of a garment cord, which draws to mind the story of Ikutamayori Bime, the mother of Koto Shiro Nushi, and supposed ancestor of Ohotataneko.  You may recall that she was visited by Ohomono Nushi at night, inside a locked room, and when she left to be with him tere was the whole story about the red cord that they eventually follow from Chinu to Mt. Miwa.  There are many who propose that an early form of cultic worship in the archipelago saw snakes as the incarnation of the kami.  Certainly they are plentiful in the islands, and across the globe snakes have often been attributed supernatural powers.  Their ability to shed their skin led some cultures to think they knew the secrets to eternal life and constant rejuvenation.  And of course, it is a serpent who tempts Eve in the Judeo-Christian story or Genesis.  Finally there is the connection between snakes and wyrms or dragons—particularly in the Asian tradition: powerful, sinuous beings associated with water and rain—important for the harvest.

Truth be told, of course, there is no “smoking gun” on just what early worship looked like on the archipelago, and it likely varied from place to place—even today, different shrines in different regions can have quite divergent local practices and beliefs, outside of the core values and form of worship.  So this may have just been an expression of early beliefs and cultic practices of the Miwa cult, or it may have been part of something larger, we can’t be entirely sure.

After all, where is Himiko?  How does this jive with what we find in the Wei Chronicles or in the archaeological record.  There are too many inconsistencies for us to take this at face value, but it is a start.

There is a thought that Yamato Totohi Momoso Hime was Himiko.  Both are described as shamans—Himiko is said to have ruled through the “power of the spirits” and our princess here is certainly familiar with at least one.  Furthermore, the burial that is described would not have been for just anyone.  In this section of the chronicles there are maybe three women, total, for whom mounded tomb burials are mentioned, and of those, only Totohi Momoso Hime is not a Queen or Consort.

Personally, I think that the evidence is fairly strong that we may have found Queen Himiko, but there is nothing concrete to prove it.  But let me lay out a case, nonetheless.  Assuming we have a dual kingship model at this time, with a secular and spiritual ruler—something that could fit with the idea that Himiko ruled the land with the help of an unnamed “brother”—well, if that model is correct, then it is possible that Mimaki Iri-biko represents the other part of that ruling pair.  It could be that she was not his aunt at all, or that the Chinese chronicles misunderstood.  Certainly Makimuku has enough evidence to support that it was a major hub for various goods that were coming in from outside of the Nara Basin.  Furthermore, we should remember that the data the chronicles were relying on was already some 250 to 300 years old when it was written down the first time, and one of the major sources was a genealogical record.  I could see how, especially if patrilineal descent was considered important when the genealogies were written down, how Himiko—who seems to have not been married nor had any direct heirs—may have been written out of the genealogical history and only retained in an anecdotal fashion.

As to the missions to the Wei court, it seems clear that the Japanese did not write down or record any of that, and perhaps from their perspective it was not the most important and pressing concern.  The scribes did pull some of the text from the Wei Chronicles, but they used it in service of a much later sovereign, whose regnal dates in the Nihon Shoki more conveniently match the time period, even if her actions do not.  And there are plenty of times where we know that the people of the archipelago were much more interested in recording the activities in the archipelago itself rather than what was going on beyond its borders, and there are many times that we’ll need to look to an external source to see just what was going on.

We do know that there was a lot of activity in the southeastern Nara Basin, around the base of Mt. Miwa, and the myths, history, and court ritual that have survived all tell us that it was important for the early court.  Accounts such as that of Take Haniyasu Hiko may serve to show that there still wasn’t total, unquestioned hegemony, even within the Nara Basin itself.

Of course, as I’v said, we may never know.  As for the rulers before and after her mentioned in the Wei chronicles?  Nobody especially shows up that can be directly matched in a one-for-one fashion with any of them.

And so we’ll leave Queen Himiko here, for the most part.  We’ll assume we’ve moved on, until new evidence arises to retcon our understanding.   Next episode, we’ll continue with the story of the Four Generals and the ultimate pacification and the rest of Mimaki Iri-biko’s reign, and we’ll talk about the odd name he has, given his place as the 10th sovereign, at least according to the chronicles:  The August Founder of Yamato  We’ll also talk about what this so-called “state” looked like and delve a bit more into what we know about the political relationships.  Remember, we are only getting the stories that survived.  How many would-be hegemons and chieftains just never made it to the prime time and are therefore lost?  Keep that in mind as we continue.

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