Land of the Rising Sun

In the beginning, there was emptiness. Then Heaven and Earth began to separate and gods came to life. 
 Two gods---Izanagi and Izanami

decided to create  islands on the oceans.  Izanagi and Izanami  stood together on the Floating Bridge of Heaven and talked. “There should be a country beneath us !” So they decided to create the islands of Japan.

 Izanagi reached down from heaven and put his jeweled spear into the ocean. When he took out the spear, drops fell from its point forming the islands of Japan.

This is how the world began, according to Japanese mythology. 

Then the two gods decided to create a new god - the Sun Goddess, who was called Amaterasu.  The child's beauty shone brilliantly.   

The stories go on to tell how the the Sun Goddess and her brother struggled for power.

The Sun Goddess  gave life to everything around her.

But her brother, the Storm God, was wild and fierce. He ruined his sister’s rice crop.

  The Sun Goddess Amaterasu  was so upset that she hid in a cave. Without her, heaven and earth went dark.

Other gods brought the Sun Goddess a beautiful bronze mirror and a sparkling jewel to bring her out of the cave. When she came out  and told what the Storm God had done,

the other gods threw him out of Heaven and forced him to live on the Earth. There he had children who were as wild and violent as him. His children were the first to live on the Japanese islands.

Eventually Ninigi’s grandson Jimmu conquered the Storm God’s descendants

and in 660 B.C. Jimmu became the first emperor of the Japanese people.Today, the  objects described in the legend--- the mirror, the jewel, and the sword are the symbols of the emperor’s godly power.

Many years ago, volcanos pushed up out of the Pacific Ocean. The tops of these mountains are the islands of Japan. As you can see from the map, Japan has 4 large islands---- Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Japan also includes many smaller islands.

      If you squished all the land of Japan into one place it would be about the size of Montana. But the four main islands are spread out north- south about 1,200 miles. If the islands were placed next to California, they would reach from the top of California to the Mexican border.

     The Japanese islands are very unstable . Each year Japan has over 1,500 earthquakes, most are minor . And 60 volcanoes are still active. Typhoons also cause heavy winds, rains, and floods.

     Most of Japan is mountains and hills.There is very little farmland. Japan has very little coal, iron or other minerals. The sea has always been Japan’s greatest help - it provides most of their food ! Japan’s seas are also a natural barrier, keeping Japan in isolation, or setting it an apart from much of the world. Warriors like the Mongols found the seas around Japan to be too dangerous .

            Because they live on islands, the Japanese controlled who and what came into their country.  And they didn't let many people onto their islands.Illegal immigrants were usually killed !

The Early People of Japan

            But in the early history of Japan many people did come there. 

     
The Ainu still live on the island of Hokkaido.

Later, people from Korea and northern Asia came to Japan.

 They were replaced by people known as Yayoi. 

 The Yayoi settled in the farmland on the largest island, Honshu. 

         

Early Religion

            The religion of early Japan was called SHINTO. It worshipped nature and teaches that the world is filled with divine spirits called kami.  The highest kami, the Sun Goddess, was believed to be the ancestor of Japan’s emperor.

            (Historians believe differently -that after 400 AD, one warrior family from Honshu became the most powerful on the island.  From this family came Japan’s first emperor.)

   Buddhism spread from China into Korea.  

            but it  had little effect on the lives of the peasant, or poor farm workers.  A poet described peasant lives.

 A National Culture

     This description tells us a lot about the Japanese Emperor's court around the year 1000 AD. For women at the Emperor's court, one important physical characteristic was her hair ! People thought the longer a woman's hair, the lovelier the woman.

Because light colored skin was admired, both women and men covered their faces with  white powder. Women even blackened their teeth to improve the effect. They also shaved their eyebrows and painted false ones high on their foreheads.

Members of the court wore clothing made with gold, silver, and multicolored thread. A woman might wear 12 or more silk robes at one time, all tied with a single sash. The sleeve of each robe would be a different length so that the woman’s arm was a rainbow of colors.

 
A Court of Refinement
But 84 years later the capital at Nara was abandoned because  the Buddhist priests began to interfere in politics.
 

So the Emperor set up a new capital in Kyoto.

The finely dressed women and men of the Emperor's court lived in the new capital of Kyoto,

a life of luxury.

At the capital of Kyoto, leaders of the Fujiwara clan

became the most powerful of the emperor’s advisers.

To make sure that their power would grow, members of the clan married into the Emperor's family.

 

 Fujiwara men

                  

The Fujiwara clan took all the important government jobs . And the Emperor, with nothing to do any more, became more a religious symbol than a government leader.

There were also many men and women known as courtiers, people who took part in the  social life of the Emperor's court.

Courtiers created the culture of the period, much of it borrowed from China.
They dressed and talked very carefully. Good manners were the most important thing.

             Buddhism taught the importance of art and learning. Poetry and literature, became very important at the court of Kyoto.
                                                    

The Literature of the Court

           Japanese courtiers loved poetry, and poetry contests were very popular.

New Writing Systems
One thing Japan borrowed from China was its writing system.

But because they wanted to express feeling in their own language, the Japanese developed their own characters called hiragana to represent Japanese.  Hiragana symbols represent syllables rather than words.   Women, who were not expected to learn Chinese, used hiragana to write some of the greatest literature of the age.

Diaries and Tales

        Diaries were also a favorite form of writing.   Because she was a girl, Murasaki Shikibu was not taught to read or write Chinese.  She tells how she found a way to learn:
            When my elder brother Shikubu no Jo was a boy, he was taught to read the Chinese classics.
             I  listened, sitting beside him, and learned wonderfully fast, though he was sometimes slow and
             forgot.  Father, who was devoted to study, regretted that I had not been a son.

The best literature of this time was Murasaki’s Tale (story) of Genji, a long story of the life and loves of a prince.  Genji is handsome and romantic.  But the mood of the story is often one of sadness. This picture shows two ladies of the emperor's court watching Prince Genji as he walks in the garden by moonlight.

            The courtiers  lived in luxury because farmers paid part of what they grew to the courtiers. Courtiers also had large private farms. But being busy in the life of the court, courtiers often ignored their estates and left them in the hands of local nobles.

    Small landowners didn't want to pay taxes or serve as soldiers in the Emperor's army, so many gave their land to the nobles and paid them rent to stay on as farmers or carpenters or laborers, on the estates which they used to own ! 
    Peasants remained as poor and as miserable as ever, spending their days at backbreaking work and their nights in crowded huts.

     The Kyoto courtiers were out of touch with all of this. They lived in a world of luxury at Kyoto. They looked upon lowly workers as barely human.

      The Power of the Shoguns.

Tomyo Meishu. was dressed in a dark blue  suit of black-laced armor, and a five-plate helmet. At his waist he wore a sword with a black lacquered hilt and scabbard…   He let loose a fast and furious barrage from his twenty-four-arrow quiver, …Then He abandoned the weapon and fought with his sword. –                                from "The Tale Of the Heike", 1100’s

A Warrior Government

             The Emperor was out of touch with the needs of the average people, and crime began to spread.  The government put down many rebellions . 

            The Fujiwara family controlled the government, depending on warriors for help in putting down rebellions.  It was a dangerous age, one in which men, and even a few women, became famous as warriors. This story is about  one of those warrior women:

Tomoe was especially beautiful, with white skin, long hair, and charming features.  She was also a remarkably strong archer…. Tomoe galloped into the enemy , rode up alongside a warrior, seized him in a powerful grip, pulled him down against the pommel of her saddle….

     In the 1100s, the Minamoto warrior clan won control of the government.  Yoritomo was the Minamoto clan leader. The Emperor gave him the title SHOGUN, meaning “great general” .

   
Because Yoritomo didn’t want his warriors to be distracted by court life in Kyoto, he made his headquarters at Kamakura, near present-day Tokyo.  The Emperor continued to live at Kyoto.  But the real power was in the shogun’s headquarters at Kamakura.

The Rise of the Samurai

The shogun was the head of the government in all Japan. He was supported by nobles who owned large estates. These nobles were called daimyo.  Each daimyo needed warriors to protect him. The warriors were called samurai, which means “those who serve.” As reward for their service, the samurai received small pieces of land.

 The samurai became a new class in society---armored warriors on horseback who often became controlled the provinces.  You can read more about a samurai warrior in A Moment in Time .

The Impact of Foreign Invasion

            For many years Japan traded peacefully with China.  In the late 1200s, however, Japan received an unusual offer . The Mongols, led by Kublai Khan, had taken over China  and now they wanted to rule Japan as well. Kublai sent a message to the Japanese with an opportunity to join his empire and be ruled by him. When the Japanese said "No", the Mongols attacked . In 1274 the Mongols sent 25,000 soldiers on hundreds of ships from Korea across the Sea of Japan, but most of the soldiers drowned because of a terrible typhoon ( hurricane). 

     In 1281, the Mongols tried again. This time they sent over 4,000 ships with 150,000 soldiers.  

The Mongols used crossbows that shot farther than Japanese arrows, and catapults that hurled flaming bombs.  But the samurai, trusting in their swords, fought fiercely.

After 50 days of battle, another powerful typhoon helped the Japanese.  The winds and rains destroyed the Mongol ships.

The Japanese called the typhoon the "kamikaze" or “divine wind,” believing that their gods had helped them.

Although the Japanese had won against the Mongols two times, there was another problem after the war:
NO MONEY !

The samurai wanted to be paid for their military services, but the government didn't have enough money.  A large, angry army of samurai marched into the capital city of Kamakura and burned it to the ground.

After a series of battles, a new shogun from the Ashikaga family took over Japan.

In 1392, it moved the shogun’s headquarters back to Kyoto. There the warriors settled down, married into noble families, and began to live like  courtiers, receiving instruction in good manners, literature, and music.

Development of Religious Denominations

     During medieval times, Buddhism changed too. Different religious groups, or denominations, of Buddhism developed.

Amida was a Buddha who lived thousands of years ago who was supposed to have created a paradise in the west, beyond the setting sun.  "Pure Land" Buddhism became a new denomination of Buddhism which believed a person should speak over and over (chant) the name of Amida Buddha while watching the sunset. They hoped for happiness - a blissful, pure land, or paradise- in an afterlife rather than here on earth.     Amida Buddhism became popular in Japan because, as problems increased in the countryside, a hope for something better in the next world looked very good.

Another Buddhist denomination in Japan was started by a monk named Nichiren in the 1200s. Nichiren taught that the only truth was in Buddha’s last teaching. He taught that all other beliefs were false, and unless Japan turned from false religions, Japan would be destroyed.

Another Buddhist denomination was Zen Buddhism. Followers of Zen were concerned with individual enlightenment more than their country's safety.

Zen taught that physical and mental exercise would produce a sudden understanding of all things.

         Samurai warriors liked Zen  because the spiritual and physical discipline made them better warriors.

  

Also, some Zen masters did not appreciate  book learning and other mental skills. They taught that enlightenment would come only by meditation.  Zen students were required to sit still while they thought for hours on  absurd puzzles such as “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”  Some samurai warriors who could not read liked this  religion.

A Unified Culture

Zen also taught that a person who is in a hurry to complete something will not enjoy or understand the world completely.  Zen studied the way, or the process, things were done.

For example, the tea ceremony was first developed by Zen priests.  It has continued into modern times. It is about appreciation for the tea, the room with its sounds and smells,  the people and the good manners, and the calm and friendly conversation.

For samurai warriors the tea ceremony would help remove the tensions of training and before battle.

Japanese drama called "Noh" also uses Zen Buddhism as well as Shinto ideas with singing and colorful masks and costumes .

The  movements and dance steps are all very carefully performed exactly the same way each time on a bare stage telling a simple story .

Another example of Zen is the Japanese garden.  Buddhism teaches that people are a part of nature, and Buddhist gardeners create art in nature.

Rock gardens are often found at Zen temples. The gardens are a calm, quiet place for meditation.  Zen appreciates simple and natural forms.  The gardens have only rocks and  sand which is raked in patterns. The rocks are placed  to look like a mountain canyon, a beach, or islands in the sea.

Gardeners sometimes search for years for just the right rock to place in a garden.

Flower arranging (called Ikebana) is also a Zen excercise.

calligraphy was another Zen excercise.

and Zen also encouraged painting.

                         These art forms are still popular in Japan today.

 Japan: Unified Yet Isolated
The easy court life in the capital of Kyoto made the warriors weak and lazy. The Ashikaga shogun was unable to keep control. The daimyos nearly destroyed the capital in a struggle for power .

     Wars of Unification

     In the middle of all this came Oda Nobunaga – a powerful leader, fierce and stubborn.
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He began to put his war-torn country back together.

One of his major battles was against a Buddhist monastery whose monks dared to help an enemy army.    He ordered his warriors to destroy all 3,000 buildings of the monastery and kill all 20,000 people inside. His officers pleaded with him not to do this, but he remained firm. Nobunaga’s soldiers surrounded the monastery. With ferocious shouting, they attacked, burning the buildings and destroying everything-  priceless books and art, monks, soldiers, even children.

 Nobunaga said: "I have devoted myself to the hardship of warrior life in order that I might have peace within the land. [But these monks] are traitors to the country. If they are not destroyed now, they will again become a danger to the nation."

Violence was common in Japan. By the late 1400s, It was the daimyo with their armies who controlled Japan.

             An All – Powerful Shogunate

    Muskets, brought to Japan by Portuguese traders, were far superior to swords and arrows, So Nobunaga armed his warriors with these new weapons and soon took back more than a third of the country.

Oda Nobunaga  built a large castle  in 1576 called  Azuchi Castle

After Nobunaga's death one of his generals, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, took control and within five years conquered all the rest of Japan.

In 1592 and 1597, Hideyoshi invaded  Korea. He then prepared  to conquer China.  But he died, and all his plans died with him. Over 300 years later (1910 and 1937), the Japanese would again attack Korea and China . This time they would win !

    Toyotomi wanted to build a castle like Oda Nobunaga's, but even greater : his castle would have a five-story tower, with three extra floors underground, and gold on the sides of the tower to impress visitors. By 1598 it was completed.

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When Hideyoshi died in 1598, another power struggle followed.

The Tokugawa Shogun In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu was victorious. He became shogun in 1603.

Tokugawa Ieyasu became shogun in the city of Edo, which is now called Tokyo.

In 1605, he declared his son to be the next shogun. By doing this, Ieyasu began a line of succession, or inheritance, of the shogunate, much like kings in Europe. The Tokugawa shogunate lasted for more than 250 years.

Under the Tokugawa each daimyo was required to swear an oath of loyalty to the shogun and to give  military help when called upon.

And each daimyo had to spend part of every other year in Edo, serving the shogun. The daimyo were forced to leave their wives and oldest sons In Edo when they returned to their farms.  Families left in the capital became like hostages . Daimyos would not try to overthrow the shogun while their families were at court.

    Foreigners in Japan
When Portuguese traders reached Japan in 1542,

     they also brought Catholic missionaries.

The most famous of the missionaries was Francis Xavier.

By the early 1600’s the shoguns saw these foreigners as a threat. These were the problems they saw:

1. Europe was always at war and they were afraid these European wars might spread to Japan.

2. They were afraid Japanese Christians would obey the Pope in Rome instead of the shogun.

and all Christians must leave Japan or be killed

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People were not allowed to travel  and almost all European trade was stopped.  Japan decided to  isolate itself  from everything that was western .       The islands of Japan were off limits to other countries. New ideas, inventions, art, the entire history of other countries went on for 200 years without touching the Japanese people.       If outsiders came to Japan they were thrown out or killed. Japanese people were not allowed to leave the islands or they would be imprisoned or killed. It was easier for the Japanese to enforce this because it is an island .       Other countries have tried to limit the influence of outsiders on their culture, but it usually doesn't last as long as the Japanese isolation.

Control of the Classes

Restriction on Each Class

            To control the daimyo, the shogun took away the samurai's lands and instead paid them money for their services.  Samurai also became educated, learning to read and write.

             Artisans- makers of goods- didn’t threaten the shogun’s control. They became successful in towns, selling their goods to samurai and merchants.

            Peasants were the largest group.  The government placed many restrictions on them.  Peasants could not travel. Tax collectors took about half of their crops, leaving just enough to survive.
       At the bottom level were the merchants.  Merchants had to live within towns and were not allowed to wear expensive clothes or to live in luxury.

The Rise of the Merchant Class

           But merchants became wealthy.  More merchants were needed to bring food, cloth, and other things to the capital at Edo (modern day Tokyo).  They also set up shops in cities where the daimyo and their followers stopped to rest.

           Money was not used much in Japan.  But merchants saw that money was easier to carry than the bushels of rice that was used for trade.
 By 1600, Japan was using gold and silver coins, and by 1700, everyone was using money. 

Merchants set prices and charged interest on loans.  And they grew rich and powerful !

A New and Different Culture

            Now the merchants had time and money.  They spent it on new entertainment  such as theaters, teahouses

gambling houses, wrestling, and public baths

They liked  the old-fashioned entertainments such as Noh theater

and the tea ceremony .

             A new kind of theatre was the Kabuki theater. Actors told romantic stories or adventures of brave samurai in colorful costumes.  Kabuki is still popular today.

            New novels about samurai and short poems called haiku became popular too.  A haiku is a poem of three lines which creates a mood or helps to understand a human experience.  A haiku has 17 syllables.  The first line has five syllables, the second seven, and the third five. 

            During the 1500s and 1600s, education spread to all classes.  When Japan reopened its borders in 1854,  the  West saw a new and successful country.

Many countries pushed for Japan to enter the modern age and begin trading with them.  The Dutch had been given special trading rights for many years, but other countries now wanted to join in the trade.

President Millard Fillmore of the United States finally sent several warships led by Commodore Matthew Perry to force Japan to accept trade with America. 

          

Japanese had never seen warships this powerful. They  were soon convinced to make a trade treaty with the Americans and soon after with the rest of the world.

Japan's isolation was over for ever !

And the world was eager to learn more about this beautiful hidden country with its unique customs.