This episode we’ve returned to the archipelago from the continent, and we return at a moment of change. According to the Chronicles, the sovereign was dead and there were no immediate heirs designated for succession. We are on the cusp of a new dynasty—a new line of rulers. But before we get too much into that, let’s pull out and look at how we got here. As head down in the individual stories as we’ve been, sometimes as they say: “you don’t see the forest for the trees.”

So this episode we look at a larger story—the story we’ve been telling, page by page, but look at where we’ve come. This is the story of the formation of the State.

It would be easy to simply say that the State started with Queen Himiko. After all, she’s a queen, right? Except, “Queen” and “King” were thrown around with some abandon by those Han and Wei courts. It was a mark of respect, but there is the question of just what it meant in terms of control. What is it that we mean by “state”?

While I don’t try to promote it as a primary resource, in this case people may want to read the Wikipedia article on State formation for an overview. Among other things are the various categories and qualities that people point to. One of the key definitions, though, is that the State is the only authorized dispenser of violence in its territory. In other words, nobody else can legitimately commit physical violence against other people in the territory without state backing or approval.

Why violence? Shouldn’t it be something else—a sense of belonging, or perhaps rules and laws? And yeah, that’s true—and it doesn’t even mean that the state has to be extremely violent, nor even cruel. But that sense of belonging typically means that there is an “othering”. There are those who are part of the state and those who are not, and even in that, there is a certain amount of violence that is often involved. Then there are the rules and laws—the social contract between people. But what happens when that social contract breaks down? Who enforces those rules and laws? At the end of the day, there is a threat of violence backing up those rules and laws, in one form or another.

This is part of where people see Yamato as an early state, but doubt its authority throughout the archipelago. Sure, it may have had influence—in business today, a common thing is to talk about “leading from where you are”, exerting influence over other people through a variety of means, but that doesn’t make you the boss. Influence may lead to authority, but they aren’t necessarily one and the same thing.

So what do we actually see in the record. Control of legitimate violence and influence may be there, but what does that look like in the history or in the archaeological record?

Well, things like the spread of the keyhole shaped mounded tombs demonstrates a certain affinity that groups in the archipelago had with Yamato and the state at the heart of that movement. In fact, we explicitly see some other shapes, including square mounded tombs, circular round tombs, and those particular square tombs up in Izumo. If you look, you can see some of the untold stories of influence and control that play out in the different tomb mounds of the early and middle kofun periods.

Complex trade is another indicator of connectedness. Early on, the fact that sites in the Miwa region demonstrate examples of artifacts from around the archipelago is something that we can point to regarding their reach. Trading for goods is one of the things that is thought to drive complexity in societies. There are structures and bonds and agreements that are struck so that goods can travel from one point to another. There are also hierarchies that often form in the management of goods and just who gets them—the creation of elite structures.

There is also warfare. We see evidence of warfare on the islands, but also with the peninsula. Interestingly, for Yamato to launch raids against Silla, they would have to have relationships with the communities between the two of them. It seems a rather massive feat for Yamato to simply take to the seas, particularly with any sizeable number of warriors. I tend to believe that these battles must have been coalitions of multiple groups, of which Yamato may or may not have been the head. Certainly by later centuries they were, but early on it may have been the case that other proto-states were just as likely to be leading men off on a profitable raiding trip.

All of these activities take an evolution of government structures—of statecraft. Some of this was no doubt homegrown, but some of it was just as likely imported. Writing helps immensely with communication—no longer do you need to rely on someone hopefully communicating your intent when you can write it down and show them. Horses not only provide an advantage in battle, but also make it much easier to travel from place to place.

Then there are foreign relations. The ability to engage with other states at that level. After all, why would they even deal with you if they didn’t agree you had some level of authority over others in your group? This is a problem that plagues the Ming court in the 16th century, as numerous daimyo in Japan’s Sengoku Period would attempt to represent themselves as the legitimate government representatives. At one point the court had to institute something of a first-come-first-served rule, refusing to recognize other embassies that arrived in the same year, requiring that they sort it out back in the islands. This happened during a time when the authority of the state was, of course, quite weak, leading to a period of warlordism.

In the end, I don’t know that there will be consensus around any one particular year or event for the formation of what would become the Japanese state. It was, rather, a complex evolution, and there were times when the state was ascendant, and times when it was in decline, especially in the early days. It was, after all, a new idea and a new concept, and it would take some time to work out the kinks.

Generally, I tend to see the early state in the time of Wakatake, aka Yuryaku Tenno. He seems to have had control over a wide swath of the the archipelago. I imagine that control slipped somewhat after him, but I see something else that is important—the elite families. The nobles and the courtiers who supported the state. By tying themselves and their fortunes to it, they bolstered it. That meant they also vied for power, but in that context. Importantly, they could keep the structures in place and moving forward, even during times of weak or even non-existent sovereigns. It was more than just having a powerful, charismatic ruler—it was about having those institutions that were larger than individuals, and which people tied themselves to. And so when the next ruler comes to the throne—however that actually happened—his dynasty would already have the infrastructure in place to move it forward.

Still, we are only talking at this point about the growing power of Yamato. We have not yet come to the point where we first see the term “Nihon”, or “Japan”, but that is coming. For now, we’ll continue looking at the paramounts of Yamato and their rule and keep an eye out as we enter more and more reliably historic periods.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is episode 74: Yamato and State Formation.
We are finally back on the archipelago, after taking a few episodes to look a little more in depth at the continent, particularly at the culture that grew up in the Yellow and Yangzi rivers between the 3rd and late 6th centuries—the same period, generally, as the Mounded Tomb Culture in the Japanese archipelago and the Korean Peninsula. We’ll probably be going back there, especially as the 6th century is going to see the arrival of several new things from the continent, including Buddhism and various aspects of material culture.
This is going to be a shorter episode, and mostly recap, as we are going to re-ground ourselves in the archipelago and try to set the stage for the rest of the 6th century. To start with, let’s look back what we know, so far. A lot of this is going to be things we’ve covered before, but sometimes it helps to step back and look at the larger picture of what is going on in the story, especially in terms of state formation.
This topic – state formation, or in other words, exactly when “Japan” came to be - is something we’ve touched on, but it is an important point as we try to piece together the history of Japan. Of course, the Chronicles claim that Japan is and always was a state, more or less. They even use the term “Nihon” well before its attested existence, as well as the term “Sumera no Mikoto” for the rulers—something that basically claims the sovereigns were not mere rulers, or kings, but heavenly emperors, equal to those who sat upon the Tang dynasty throne, over on the continent.
But states don’t just appear out of nothing. Groups of people gather together, create systems by which to govern themselves, and then, at some point, come to see themselves as a nation. When and how this happens is often murky, however, and there is rarely a single moment when one can definitively say that a polity is a state, short of a written document declaring it so—and even that can’t always be trusted. In fact, there may be multiple peaks where a polity starts to show the traits of statehood, but then there is the question of whether or not they are sustained beyond just a single strongman and his—or her—ideas and cult of personality. To that end, let’s look at what we know of the Kofun period and what evidence we have, besides just what the Chronicles try to tell us.
First off, in the 3rd century, we have reference in the chronicles of the Cao Wei dynasty to Himiko, the so-called “Queen of Wa”, in Yamateh, the largest of several Wa states—for more on her, go back to Episode 13.
From what we know of this period, “Wa” was more an indication of ethnicity than any kind of state, and ethnic Wa people were likely still resident with other ethnic groups on the Korean peninsula at that time. In addition, there are other groups on the archipelago that are mentioned later in the Chronicles, and we know that there were descendants of the Jomon populations still resident in parts of the islands. Whether or not the Kumaso, the Hayato, the Emishi, or Tsuchigumo refer to simply different Wa groups or to individuals of other ethnicities, speaking another language isn’t necessarily clear, as the Chronicles seem more focused on their position vis-à-vis Yamato. Still, we see enough evidence that there are both common practices and diversity throughout the archipelago.
While we have no direct evidence of Himiko in the islands—or nothing that the scholarly community as a whole can come together around—we do have physical evidence that this was a period of change, and there is a lot to point to Yamato, and specifically to the area at the base of Mt. Miwa. Not only do we have the remains of the palace found at Makimuku, and archaeological traces from around the archipelago, but it is also where we see the first of the monumental keyhole shaped tombs.
To be clear, this wasn’t the start of the mounded tomb culture. On the archipelago, that goes back to the funkyubo, mounds with multiple burials, which began back around the middle Yayoi period. And we also see mounded tombs on the peninsula as well. For the funkyubo, these were typically communal burials—even if only for a portion of the community. These mounds eventually became tombs for individuals, and the keyhole tombs, with their rounded, circular rear mounds and the trapezoidal front were a particular feature of the Yamato region, at least at first.
The existence of these large tombs is generally taken as an indication that the community—and by extension the leader of that community—was able to organize considerable amounts of labor. Many have theorized that the organization of such labor arose from the need for communal agriculture, but once such labor exists it can be used in various ways, from building and expanding agricultural fields, but also for military and other state actions.
The expansion of the keyhole shaped tomb mounds is seen as an expansion of the influence of what Gina Barnes refers to as the Miwa Polity, our early Yamato community. Here a lot of people struggle to refer to it as a state. Sure, they can organize labor and make things happen, but what really is a “state”? Typically it consists of government, defined territory, a set of belonging by the people in it, laws, that sort of thing—you know, the sorts of things that don’t show up in the archaeological record all that well. Exact definitions of when something becomes a “state” can vary from person to person, depending on whom you talk to, but it is something other than simply a familial or clan structure. The people in the state are connected by something more than kinship. Max Weber described the state as a body that monopolized the use of legitimate physical violence in a given geographic territory. In other words, the state can arrest people, incarcerate them, and even put them to death, and it is generally considered “legitimate”. Meanwhile if one person were to try to do that to another—or even one group, or gang—then that is typically considered illegitimate. You can’t just go and hit your neighbor, no matter how many “hit-me” pheromones they might be putting off. Unless, of course, you can claim to be part of the state and you have a good reason, like they looked at you funny.
Many have built on Max Weber’s theories, and there is more nuance than just the person with the biggest club, though many still fall back on his definition as the baseline.
The general theory in the archipelago at the time we are looking at it is that we are still working on a more tribal basis, with groups associated through bonds of real or fictional kinship. Earlier scholars linked these bonds with the “uji” structure of groups like the Mononobe and the Ohotomo, but more recently this appears to be a late development.
Early authority may have stemmed from spiritual authority, emphasizing the Yamato sovereign’s connection to the deity of Mt. Miwa, though it was also likely based on their position in a complex trade network that ran from the continent, through the peninsula, and on to the archipelago. The development of trade networks are one of the theorized mechanisms for how societies get more complex. Here many people point to the mirrors that Himiko has said to have received, and there have been efforts to connect mirrors found at various tombs around the archipelago with common batches that likely came over from the continent at the same time. In effect, the Miwa polity was setting itself up as an authority on not only spiritual matters, but in what made someone “elite”.
Still, evidence of influence is not the same as evidence of control. Just because mirrors and tombs show up in different areas does not meant that Yamato had direct control over that region like some kind of vassal state. Later on it may have actually been the case that there were regulations on different types of tombs for different individuals, but early on it may have been simply related to how much labor a single group could organize.
Early on, many kofun appear to be carved out of the landscape, from existing ridges and hills. This would certainly have cut down on labor costs. Effectively these early tombs, impressive as they are, are little more than a platform, with a standard burial dug into the round back half of the mound, and decorated with a variety of haniwa—circular, terracotta decorations. As we previously mentioned, these haniwa were probably originally pillars for other kinds of vessels, possibly for offerings of some kind, but they morphed into various shapes. From the fourth century we have figures of birds, houses, and various weapons.
Then there are the various goods found inside different kofun. While those tombs designated as belonging to ancestors of the current Japanese imperial house have been largely been off-limits to full-on, intrusive excavations, there are others that have been made available, or tombs that have been opened in previous centuries, either officially or otherwise, and the grave goods deposited with individuals have also given us some idea of what life was like.
Early on we see bronze mirrors and elite items, as well as beads and jewelry, sometimes from quite far away, indicating extensive trade routes. And in the third to fourth century we also find armor and weapons. Trading—or raiding—for elite goods was likely an important part of the culture, and possibly something that helped encourage groups to work together, particularly when it came to raids on the Korean peninsula. Based on stories in the islands and on the continent, the kinds of attacks that the Wa are said to have launched appear to have required a number of groups to band together. Ishimoda Sho suggested that these attacks were one reason that different groups worked together, and lists it as one of the causes for eventual state formation.
In the latter part of the 4th century, things were changing. In the islands we see the arrival of horse equipment showing up in the tombs, and the tombs themselves change. They grow large—the largest that the archipelago will see. This era is associated with Homuda Wake and Ohosazaki no Mikoto, as well as the massive Daisen Kofun—which we generally covered in episodes 40 to 52. From Homuda Wake onward is generally considered the second dynasty, sometimes referred to as the Kawachi court, given that many of them are said to have ruled from Naniwa and their monumental tombs are in the land of Kawachi.
The changes during this era have led people like Egami Namio to postulate that there must have been some kind of new rulers that made their way to the Kinki region from Kyushu, or possibly all the way from the peninsula. Proponents of the Horse-rider theory pointed to the new assemblages in the tombs and the connections to Baekje and suggested that a new warrior culture had come in and defeated the existing rulers, setting up their own, paramount state. Stories of conquest from Kyushu certainly are not uncommon. After all, that is the story given for Iware Biko himself, aka Jimmu Tenno, as well as Homuda Wake—or perhaps more appropriately his mother, Okinaga Tarashi-hime.
Either way, it does seem that there was a new dynasty in place, and they seem to have been at the height of their power under Ohohatsuse Wakatakeru, aka Yuuryaku Tenno. This dynasty is better attested to than the previous, with actual names on swords and other such things. We also see various changes in the archaeological record, some of which we’ve mentioned in terms of the placement of the tombs and the horse-riding gear, but there is also an increased presence of people and items from the continent in general.
Note that I’m not hawking the horse-rider theory, here. While certainly horses changed the archipelago, that doesn’t mean that some Buyeo prince came galloping through on a campaign of conquest. It is just as likely that this was all part of the archipelago’s increased contacts with the peninsula. In addition, the build-up is gradual, and so even though we talk about things like a new dynasty and changes in the kofun, this didn’t happen overnight. The rate of change that we do see is consistent with a society that is simply more connected with their neighbors, and who were taking on those things—particularly technologies—that were the most beneficial to them.
Some of those technologies were not necessarily physical, which makes them hard to verify or track down—at least until the history gets a little more reliable. For example, some of these are religious ideas; Gina Barnes has pointed to the cult of the Queen Mother of the West, popular on the continent during the time of the Cao Wei and Queen Himiko, as one example. Most of the physical evidence for this belief coming into the archipelago is in the form of those bronze mirrors I’ve already mentioned, that were imported, likely in large batches as part of the diplomatic missions sent by Himiko or someone from the islands. Many of these mirrors contain depictions of the Queen Mother of the West and her counterpart, the King Father of the East. Furthermore, some similarities can be drawn with later Japanese beliefs and religious ideas, but that still isn’t solid evidence.
We likewise have other evidence of connections in various stories and legends with the Korean peninsula—Susanowo, comes to mind, as do stories of Ame no Hiboko, whom we discussed in episode 16 and episode 30, respectively. Some of these contain details that may date them, such as the descriptions of the underworld that liken it to later kofun styles, with their horizontal entrances rather than vertical shaft burials.
It isn’t all just stories, however. New techniques for governing large amounts of people also were likely imported into the archipelago, probably along with the ethnic Han scribes that were coming over from places like Baekje. Once again, new tools of statecraft don’t necessarily show up clearly in the archaeological record, but we have some evidence for their use.
For example, we can see the Wa playing on the world—or at least regional—stage during the Liu Song dynasty. At least five rulers sent missions to the Liu Song court. Previous missions had gone to the Cao Wei and Jin courts from Himiko and Toyo, but most of the concerns seem to have been localized to the archipelago and focused on the goods that were being brought over as part of the missions. However, the missions during the Liu Song seemed more focused on the claims of the Wa to the Korean peninsula in general. Regardless of how realistic such claims may or may not have been, they show a concern, at least, with the type of political structures created in the Yellow River region, and which Han scribes and officials spread to outlying areas along with Sinitic written culture. In fact, it is highly likely that there were descendants of Han bureaucrats who, themselves, were assisting these emerging polities in the finer points of statecraft as they also brought in other ideas from the Sinitic corpus of knowledge. Furthermore, trouble on the Korean peninsula was pushing refugees to the islands, who would likely have further supported these cultural changes.
Written culture would not only have opened up the archipelago to ideas about governance, but it also would have helped provide methods to better control large areas of land. While local magnates would still be required, written edicts and orders could be carried to the far reaches of one’s influence. With the advent of horse-riding, that would have only helped bring groups closer together, making distances shorter and increasing the ability to communicate clearly between center and periphery.
Despite all of this development, I can’t help but notice that we are still talking about the “Wa” in general. This appears to be an ethnonym, applied to Japonic-speaking groups by the Han and Wei dynasties, and it may have even been how they referred to themselves as a group. However, it isn’t the same as the name of a state, like Yamato, or even Baekje and Silla. This could be purely apathy on the part of the Han scribes writing this down on the continent, but then again, those other states emerged to be known as themselves, so it is hard to say what is going on. Perhaps they had simply adopted the name “Wa”—certainly it has continued to be a general term for Japan down to the modern day. Things like “Wafu”, meaning “Japanese style” is used for anything from food to clothing. A “washitsu” is a Japanese room, while “wagyu” is the term for a special (and delicious) breed of Japanese beef cattle. Still, “Wa” as used outside of Japan seems to refer to a broad swath of people, not all of whom were necessarily under the direct authority of a centralized court in the islands.
In the period between Ohosazaki and Wakatakeru, covered in episodes 53 to 56, we see a clear rise in the power of the Kawachi dynasty, but if the Chronicles are to be believed, it is regularly plagued by succession disputes. Therefore, each reign is almost a one-off—a charismatic and powerful ruler, perhaps, but with very little control—and possibly even little care—for what happens after they pass away.
And so, by the end of the 5th century, the Wa polity in the Kawachi region was certainly commanding tremendous forces—just look at tombs like Daisen, as I mentioned before. But as a state it was still growing and evolving.
We also see a continued evolution in the archaeological record, and in the Kinai region certain changes appear to coincide with the end of the Kawachi court and the rise of a new dynasty. Whereas previous burials were vertical pits, dug straight into the tops of the mounds, these changed to horizontal stone chambers, with a corresponding corridor leading in from outside. These chambers were, themselves, often made of giant stones, over which the dirt was placed.
Horizontal corridor-chamber tombs are seen at least as early as the Han dynasty on the continent—so by the 3rd century at least. Han dynasty style tombs with horizontal corridors leading to burial chambers were brought to the Korean peninsula along with the Han commandries. This corridor-chamber style was subsequently adopted and integrated into the tomb mounds of Goguryeo, and then eventually spread to the rest of the peninsula—to Baekje and Silla. Finally, it crossed the straits to the archipelago.
Horizontal corridor-chamber tombs allowed easier access, as they could be sealed with a door that could later be removed if anyone needed to get back in. We also see horizontal tombs evolve with multiple chambers, also with some evidence of multiple burials—such as a wife and husband being buried together. This likely indicates a change in the type of burial customs and rituals.
These changes are first seen in Kyushu by about the 4th to mid-5th century, showing up in the Kibi region by the late 5th and early 6th, and then in the area of Kawachi and Yamato by the 6th century—roughly the time of our next dynasty. From this point on we also see more human-like figures and different types of objects and animals displayed among the haniwa. There are, of course, more equestrian goods and continental-style swords—some of which we do find earlier, meaning there is no clear, consistent break where we can definitively state that there was a sweeping change, like one might expect if there was a military conquest and cultural replacement. Rather, these are all changes that could be attributed to the natural changes in culture, though with clear indications of continental influence. For example, when we see mural paintings emerge, these would seem to have obvious connections to continental traditions.
Tomb mounds would eventually decline in popularity. Rather than building giant tombs, labor would be shifted in support of the new religion that would arrive in the 6th and 7th century: Buddhism. Over time, the building of temples, which was, itself, an act of merit-making in the Buddhist system, took the main focus of state-sponsored labor. Eventually, even Buddhist burial practices, including cremation, would be adopted, the and the building of giant mounded tombs would largely subside until a resurgence in the late Edo period in mounded tombs—at least for imperial mausoleums. Mausoleums for Emperors Taisho and Showa can be found in Hachioji city, for example. But I digress.
The change in burial practice in the late 5th to early 6th century also hints at changes to some of the religious practices, or at the very least the stories around them. We mentioned Susanowo and the depictions of traveling into the underworld, often by an entrance in a hillside. Then there are some connections between the story of Amaterasu and the heavenly rock cave. Amaterasu herself in those stories is connected with weaving, an activity that came over from the continent, as Michael Como points out in his book, “Weaving and Binding: Immigrant Gods and Female Immortals in Ancient Japan”. Add to that her apparent death—indicated by her entering the cave—and then eventual “resurrection” when she comes out, which also seems tied to the concept of these horizontal style stone rooms. Finally, there are the various kami present, representing families like the Imbe and the Nakatomi—powerful ritualist families whom, to be honest, we haven’t seen too much of up to this point. Rather our narrative up through the first two dynasties has been more focused on the likes of the Mononobe no Muraji, the Wani no Omi, and the Heguri no Omi—and more recently the Ohotomo no Muraji. Spoiler alert: Expect to see further changes as different families vie for and achieve political prominence. Certain names will become more common in the narrative while others might decline. In some cases, such as with the Soga and the Fujiwara, these may be more explicit than in others.
This is the changing state of things in the beginning of the 6th century, which is where we will next pick up our narrative in the chronicles. The emerging state, centered in the Kinai region, between the lands of Kawachi and Yamato, certainly has influence and precedence with many of its neighbors. However, there seems to have been some kind of crisis in the late 5th or early 6th century. Interestingly, Wakatakeru despite his own record of cruelty, does not appear to take any real blame for it. Rather, it is a descendant of Prince Oshiwa, whom Wakatakeru assassinated, who is the last sovereign of that dynasty. Ohatsuse Wakasazaki, aka Buretsu Tennou, is described as young, immature, cruel, and, most importantly, without issue. So when he dies at a relatively young age, the throne is left open—see episode 69.
Next episode, we’ll deal with how the court fills the gap left by Wakasazaki, and by what twisted logic they are able to claim a so-called “unbroken” lineage from today all the way back to the Heavenly Grandson and Amaterasu, herself.
Until then, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
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And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

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References