Episode 49: Three Brothers, One Throne

September 16, 2021 Joshua Badgley

Crown Prince Uji no Waki Iratsuko (菟道稚郎子), as imagined in the 19th century.

The Dual Kingship Model

One of the discussion points in this episode is the dual kingship model, as presented by Kishimoto Naofuji in his article, “Dual Kingship in the Kofun Period as Seen from the Keyhole Tombs.” He builds on the previous theory of gendered co-rulers—the Hiko-Hime-sei—suggesting that the co-regents weren’t necessarily gendered, but simply had different functions. He explains this through the grave goods and the shapes of the various tombs: While they all have the same general “round-keyhole” or “前方後円” shape, there are slight differences in the tiers and shape, such as various protrusions, that seem to come from different “lineages” of tomb construction. Since these tombs are roughly equal in size and therefore assumed to be roughly equal in status, and the two lines continue through successive tombs, he suggests that they were for royal elites with slightly different functions.

Of course, it is hard to see any such model in the continental references. Nowhere do they explicitly reference multiple “kings”, though in the Wei Chronicles they do mention someone who helped with the administration while Himiko handled more sacred and mystical duties. One reason for this lack in the external sources may be that the continental chronicles just didn’t have a full understanding of Wa politics and therefore assumed that they governed under rules similar to the ones they themselves knew.

It is also possible that this whole thing is wrong. Without access to most of the kingly kofun, we may never know for certain who is buried there—and even with access there is likely to be debate. But it does keep us on our toes and should be a good reminder not to trust everything that the Chroniclers throw at us.

Prince Ō Yamamori (大山守皇子) and Prince Nukata Ō Naka tsu Hiko　(額田大中彦皇子)

The connection between the prince known as Ō Yamamori and Prince Nukata no Ō Naka tsu Hiko is still somewhat uncertain. It seems clear that they were conflated into a single character by the 8th century chroniclers, but it is quite possible that in truth, their stories were combined at a later date. This seems further emphasized by the fact that in the story about Ō no Sukune and the rice-lands of Yamato, the Prince in question is referenced consistently as Nukata (or Nukada) no Ō Naka tsu Hiko. However, in the scene after this, it is Prince Ō Yamamori who is referenced. The placement and the grudge would seem to indicate that the story of the rice-lands incident added to the frustration that Prince Ō Yamamori felt with his position, and there is even a mention that the reason Prince Ō Naka tsu Hiko felt entitled to the lands was because they belonged to the “Yamamori”.

However, I would be remiss not to note that there is a later story—some 60+ years later—that also mentions Prince Nukata no Ō Naka tsu Hiko. This is many decades after Prince Ō Yamamori’s death. Unfortunately, that simply leaves me with more questions.

Regardless, we maintain here Aston’s assertion that the two were actually one and the same, with Ō Yamamori being the title (Great Mountain Protector) and Nukata no Ō Naka tsu Hiko may have been the prince’s actual name, such as it is.

Ujigami Shrine (宇治上神社)

This shrine is well late of our narrative, as we don’t have evidence for it until some time between the 8th and 10th centuries, but it still is interesting and it is connected to our story because it enshrines three of the individuals we discuss: Homuda Wake, aka Ōjin Tennō, and two of his sons: Uji no Waki Iratsuko and Ōsazaki no Mikoto. On top of that it is an UNESCO World Heritage Site, and if you are ever in Uji city, you should check it out.

The honden, or main worship hall, of Ujigami Shrine—one of the oldest extant examples of shrine architecture, in this case dating back to the Heian period. This hall is a national treasure and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 49: Three brothers, one throne.
Quick content warning upfront in this one—there is some brief mention of suicide in this episode, as well as other forms of violence in this episode. We’ll add notes about it to the episode description when it is released if you need more specific details.
Also, before we get going a quick shout out to Craig and Shinanoki for donating to support what we do here. Also thanks to Shinanoki to making the suggestion to open “memberships” on Ko-Fi, which is a new feature, so now you can either drop us a one time payment or set up a monthly donation. That is all over at Ko-fi.com, that’s “K”-“O”-“DASH”-“F”-“I”, “dotcom”, “Slash” “sengokudaimyo”.
More on that at the end of this episode.So, when we left off at the end of our last episode, Homuda Wake was dead. The sovereign who had ruled over Yamato through so many eventful years was no more. Over the course of his reign, Yamato’s influence on the peninsula had expanded, along with its influence on the rest of the archipelago. Weavers, seamstresses, smiths, and more had made their way from the continent to the islands where the Wa lived, spurring advancements in a wide swath of different fields. The islands now had horses, and people could read and write. And one thing that seems true around the world: reading and writing greatly increase the speed at which a people can import new ideas, thoughts, and philosophy.
One thing was for certain: things were changing, and fast. Like the parable of the frog in a pot of water, we don’t always notice change until well after it has happened. In fact, we often tend to see change as though it wasn’t change at all—we project back on the past an image consistent with what we know. Maybe we make some comparative notes between how it was when we were growing up and how it is today, but there is a tendency to assume that anything quote-unquote “beyond living memory” was just some version of life like our grandparents told us about.
How that’s relative here is that we are watching change happen over some two hundred years—from the end of the Yayoi period in the 3rd century and the mention of Queen Himiko to the current era in our story. For comparison, as of this episode, recorded in September 2021, the US constitution is roughly 233 years old – and the Edo period in Japanese history lasted for a little over two and a half centuries, depending on how you count it. And both those periods have been marked by enormous change as well.
During the 200-year span in our narrative, we have seen the emergence of small countries, or perhaps proto-states, across the islands. It may not be fully correct to assume that they had complete control, even within the borders attributed to them, however. The polities that arose from the Yayoi period were based on a practice of wet-rice cultivation and trade that saw them spread out the plains and river deltas, as well as along the coastal regions, but at the same time various other lifeways continued in the mountains, which even then made up the majority of the archipelago’s landmass. Given that most fertile plains in Japan are around the deltas where rivers empty into the sea or large lakes, like Lake Biwa, it seems quite understandable that the waterways would also be an important means of travel and communication, which only further draws a distinction between the plains and the mountains.
Which isn’t to say there weren’t population centers built around other commodities, such as the jade-producing regions in the Koshi region, but these appear to have been exceptions, rather than the rule. Even the various mountain communities interacted with the rice-growing cultures on a regular basis, though they are clearly depicted as being outsiders.
Of all of these early states, Yamato appears to have been the largest and most powerful of these entities, but all the same it is questionable how much direct control it had beyond its own borders. Control, however, is different from power. Levers of power are complex, even today. There are many types of power that any individual or group can access and deploy to their benefit. Legal and military power are the ones we probably think of most often when we think of a modern state or country, but influence can be achieved through other means as well. Religions often wield considerable power through the influence they have on their followers, such that leaders like the Catholic Pope or the Dalai Lama might be seen as highly influential figures on the world stage, despite not having the typical trappings of a state apparatus. Economic and trade networks also create their own levers of power that can influence others. Or you might just be able to use logic and persuasion to get people on your side and to do what you want them to do. And then there is simply the force of tradition, and traditional relationships, which may generate influence between groups. There are so many ways that one can influence others, it isn’t just about being the person at the top of the legal pyramid. After all, what is a leader if nobody decides to follow them?
And whatever else we may say about the state of Yamato, it does appear to have become a leader in the archipelago. This had likely been accumulating through a variety of means, one of them possibly being the spread of the cult of Mt. Miwa and a burial ritual for elites based around monumental tomb structures – the giant kofun that we’ve been talking about, which by this time period were reaching truly impressive sizes. Whether this cultural practice was part and parcel of the spread of direct Yamato power, or a separate influence, I can’t really say, though they may have encouraged one another. Either way, as this ritual and the knowledge of its specifics was based in the area of Yamato, that seems to have given the Yamato elites a leg up in their dealings across the archipelago. These relationships, properly cultivated, and reinforced through marriage politics across the various countries, had grown into something more—perhaps a kind of confederation.
A similar process seems to have been going on over on the peninsula, within the areas of the Samhan, the three Han of Ma, Jin, and Byeon. Here, we know a little from the accounts in the Records of the Three Kingdoms, including the Wei Chronicles, as well as the stories from the annals of the Silla and Baekje kingdoms that eventually were recorded in works like the Samguk Sagi and the Samguk Yusa. In particular, in the Baekje Annals we are told that there was a single ruler, or King, of the Mahan confederation, but that position was replaced by Baekje as they began to conquer, assimilate, and subjugate their neighbors. Silla, we are told, grew up out of an alliance of six members of the Jinhan, eventually rising to power as the pre-eminent state in that region. Byeonhan looks to have been in a similar process, with various mentions of a King of the states known as Kara, or Kaya, as well as a ruler of Nimna—whether or not those were the same individual is hard to say, but the Chronicles seem to suggest that there were different positions. Kara, however, seems to have been late to the game—perhaps it never had the external impetus of others to bring the various communities together, or perhaps, trapped as it was between Silla, Baekje, and the Wa of the archipelago, it was pulled in too many directions, given that it was the crossroads across which the others would often march in their conflicts. This is a position the entire peninsula would find itself in, later, but for now it appears to have affected the growing states of Kara the most.
So, looking at the details of how these states on the peninsula consolidated their power, it is reasonable to assume that a similar process was at work in the archipelago – although the Chronicles, being the official record of the Yamato court written centuries after the fact, don’t go into the same level of detail of how their own sausage was made. This power consolidation wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision on any one person’s part. There was no great unifier to point to who was bringing these states together—no Oda Nobunaga with his armies, nor a Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. At least, not yet. And still, a shared culture was being built through various rituals and ties across the various countries of the islands.
Early on, we see this not only in the monumental tombs, but in the distribution of elite goods. Bronze mirrors seem to have been the most popular such item, at least early on. These were likely acquired from the continent, from groups like the Wei and the early Jin courts, and then distributed by a central authority, whom many assume to be the Yamato court. In addition to those acquired from the continent, local copies were also produced. The importance of these mirrors is further emphasized in the stories, such as when various local lords bring out their finery to meet envoys of Yamato, or even in the depictions of how Yamato’s own missions were decked out. Furthermore, the mirror’s place in the legend of Amaterasu also seems to be key.
But as the centuries went on, the 4th century, into the 5th, saw another item, also mentioned in the story of Amaterasu, which we start to see more of, even as incidents of bronze mirrors begin to decline. These are iron swords, and as we start to see more of them in tombs, especially as the bronze mirrors diminish, we can make some assumptions as to where the people of the archipelago were placing their values. Mirrors may represent ritual authority, but they also represent a kind of wealth. Mirrors have a use, but having many mirrors seems to be more about strict wealth—and access to the kinds of continental goods that would make someone important in the early periods. Swords, along with armor and other tools of war, are also signs of wealth, as iron was still largely obtained through continental trade, but these have a much more direct use, as well. After all, arm 100 people with mirrors and, unless you are constructing an Archimedean death ray, they aren’t going to do a whole lot in a fight. Arm those same 100 people with swords and armor, and you have a formidable fighting force, especially when previous forms of arms and armor consisted largely of bronze or stone and lacquered wood. It seems that there was, in this period, a greater emphasis on military might and achievements.
Which isn’t to say that it was all peace and love before—we certainly have examples of the kind of mass violence seen in inter-group conflict early on, but this doesn’t appear as one of the defining aspects of the social elite as it would come to be later on. This change may be understandable given the turmoil that had taken place on the continent. Goguryeo had destroyed the old commanderies, which no doubt caused disruption in the trade networks. That could help explain increased incidents of Wa raiders along the coast of the peninsula—though for all we know this may have been something that had been going on for much longer, with nobody around to record it. It is also possible that the concept of a warrior elite was coming over from the peninsula with waves of immigrants, many of whom were captives or refugees; victims of the violence that seems to have characterized this period.
Evidence of immigrants can be found across the archipelago. For one thing, immigrants are tied to many places in the archipelago, and specifically to the current dynasty. We’ve talked a little bit about immigrant influences in places like the country of Toyo, as well as Kawachi, Izumo, and Koshi on the main island of Honshu. Indeed, Kawachi, in the south of modern Ohosaka, is a hotspot in the chronicles for immigrant presence, and it seems to have been a the center of activity, as that is where this dynasty‘s tombs, and many of their supposed palaces, were located. The narrative of the royal family even claims ties back to Silla princes and there is evidence that they may have also had marriage ties to the Baekje royal line.
We’ve also heard about artisans brought over from the peninsula to revolutionize weaving and other crafts. In the 5th century we will see the rise of sue-ware pottery, a kind of high temperature fired stoneware that likely came over from Kara. You see the same techniques adopted in Silla for their pottery around the same time. These techniques required extremely high temperatures, requiring a new kind of kiln, built upon a hillside. These same high-temperature techniques would have been useful in the process of extracting iron, necessary for all of the arms and armor we are seeing.
But of course, when it comes to pottery, it isn’t just peninsular style stoneware that we see—local traditions were also evolving. In particular, we see more and varied styles of haniwa, those terracotta clay figures that adorned so many of the kofun, particularly the monumental kingly kofun. Eventually these figurines would come to be important windows in to what life actually looked like at this time.
And as we are talking about the march of time and things that were eventually forgotten, I’m also reminded of Professor Kishimoto Naofumi’s dual kingship model. We talked about this a little bit previously, but this model states that for a time, there were actually two sovereigns: one who ruled as a sacred authority, interpreting the signs of the kami and directing the spiritual well-being of the land, while another dealt with more secular matters, having to do with things like administration of the government as well as any military activities. This goes back to the description in the Wei Chronicles of how Queen Himiko ruled through her spiritual power, and others seemed to be handling the day to day work of administering Yamato, and it is further indicated in the shapes of the kofun themselves. In fact, Prof. Kishimoto points to aspects of their shapes like certain protrusions, and the number of tiers, that appear to show at least two parallel lineages for tomb construction. I wanted to bring this back up, because otherwise we get just the view of the Chronicles, which crams all of the rulers into a single, largely unbroken, patrilineal descent model, either because the 8th century chroniclers couldn’t conceive of anything different from their current model or possibly because they had drunk too much of the continental KoolAid in regards to what was a quote-unquote “proper” model of kingship.
So here we have the possibility for two separate lines stretching back to at least Himiko. When, with Homuda Wake, the power of Yamato moved from the Nara basin out to Kawachi, with its greater access to the sea, that could be a demonstration of another chiefly line taking control, or it could be indicative of a desire for easier access to the waterways that led to the peninsula and the rest of the continent. Either way it pulls the sacral ruler further west, away from the holy mountain of Mt. Miwa, and seems to turn the face of Yamato towards the trade connecting it with the continent.
And that brings us back to where we are in the narrative. The sovereign, Homuda Wake, was dead. His body may have been laid out for a time—mogari—before being entombed in one of the kingly kofun. Tradition says that this was Kondayama Kofun, and based on the size it was likely constructed well before his death, as some have estimated that construction of something that large would have taken at least a decade. Tomb construction was probably a business all unto itself, constantly in motion, organizing the labor, resources, etc. for both the tombs of the rulers but also other elites across the archipelago. The construction would likely have been taking place as the backdrop to Homuda Wake’s court.
Now from what we are told, the succession issue after Homuda Wake passed should have been pretty cut and dried. After all, Homuda Wake had set up his son, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, as the Crown Prince. As for his other two eligible sons, he had actually set them up as well. Oho Yamamori had been put in charge of the mountain areas, while Oho Sazaki, whom you may recall from last episode gave Homuda Wake the answer he had been looking for in terms of his succession decision, was made the Assistant to the Crown Prince and put in charge of administration—which sounds vaguely similar to idea that he may have been set up as a co-ruler, per professor Kishimoto’s model, while his brother, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, was set up to succeed Homuda Wake directly.
Whatever was actually going on, of course the story in the Chronicle maintains the story of a single throne and a single ruler, and Uji no Waki Iratsuko was supposed to be that ruler. But, as you might have guessed, that isn’t how everyone saw things. Now Oho Sazaki had no problem with this arrangement, we are told. He immediately turned over the reigns of government to his brother. Uji no Waki Iratsuko, on the other hand, well he didn’t actually want to take the reigns of power himself. He looked at his older brother, and everything he was doing to run the country, and he tried to turn everything over to him. Oho Sazaki wouldn’t hear of it, of course—their father had made his decision, and Oho Sazaki was determined that they would stick to it.
Meanwhile, their eldest brother, Oho Yamamori, aka Nukada no Oho Naka tsu Hiko, had other ideas. He wasn’t at all pleased with how things had turned out, and he was more than willing to take matters into his own hands.
The first we hear about Oho Yamamori gathering power is in the Nihon Shoki, and it is something of an ancient legal dispute. You see, he attempted to use his position to take administration of the official rice-lands and granaries in Yamato from a member of the court, Ou no Sukune, claiming that the lands had originally been a part of the Mountain Warden, or Yamamori, land. As Oho Yamamori, he believed that he should have governance over those lands and how the granaries were run. From a western perspective, this is like requesting the keys to the royal vault. From at least the 8th century, when the Chronicles were written, and probably going back to the early structures of wealth in the rice-growing Yayoi culture, control of the production and distribution of rice was one of the main features of elite administration. Owning rice-land, which is to say being entitled to the taxes on that land, as well as handling the granaries where taxed rice was stored would provide a tremendous income boost, as throughout most of Japan’s history, it was common for the one controlling the taxes to take some amount for themselves, as long as the state got what it was owed.
And so it is little wonder that Ou no Sukune was taken aback at having these fields and granaries removed from his administration. He went Homuda Wake’s designated heir, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, to submit a report and ask for a ruling, but Uji no Waki Iratsuko delegated—perhaps showing that he was cut out for leadership after all. He sent Ou no Sukune to his older brother, Oho Sazaki no Mikoto, to make the report to him, instead. Of course, Oho Sazaki had been administering the government for his father already, so he knew what needed to be done. In this case he went to a man named Maro, the ancestor of the Yamato no Atahe. He asked Maro if it was truly the case that that the granaries and rice-land originally belonged to the administration of the Yamamori. This was probably because much of the early Wa legal system seems to have been based on precedent and tradition. It is, of course, unclear how such precedent would be passed down originally—perhaps there were specialists among groups like the Katari-be who memorized not only genealogies but important events as well. After the advent of writing, court families would maintain their own diaries and records of what had happened, and why, and these would be passed down, creating private repositories of precedent that helped cement their family’s status and importance to the court.
In this case, however, Maro was at a loss, but he suggested that they contact his younger brother, Agoko, whom he was sure would have an answer for them. Unfortunately, Agoko was off on a mission in Kara, and so Ou no Sukune was sent to recall him. Ou was given command of some 80 fishermen—one might say a boatload of fishermen—from Awaji to act as oarsmen. There seems to be a correlation that the more oarsmen, the faster a boat will travel, and so this seems to indicate he was sent off with all haste.
Ou no Sukune made it to Kara and found Agoko and brought him back to the court. Agoko, who must have been quite the student of the old stories, told the court what he knew. According to Dr. John Bentley’s translation in the Sendai Kuji Hongi, aka the Kujiki, Agoko said: “Tradition says that during the reign of the Great King who ruled from the Makimuku Tamaki Palace—which is to say Ikume Iribiko, aka Keikou Tennou, the 11th sovereign and part of the previous dynasty—the authority was given to Heir to the Throne, Oho Tarashi Hiko, who established the granaries of Yamato. At that time, the edict read, ’All granaries of Yamato are to be the granaries of the Great King and not the property of the child of a Great King. If the Great King is not in power, then the granaries are not his.’ Therefore this land is not the land of the Yamamori.”
While that is likely an insertion by the Chroniclers—after all, we have no evidence of written edicts from the time of Oho Tarashi Hiko, for one thing—the answer that Agoko was giving was pretty clear: The granaries and rice land all were owned by the actual sovereign—the Oho Kimi, or Great King—so Prince Oho Naka tsu Hiko – aka Oho Yamamori - could get bent. Sure, Uji no Waki Iratsuko and Oho Sazaki were still vacillating on who should actually be running things, but it wasn’t Oho Yamamori , so he couldn’t just go around demanding control of the rice lands and granaries.
Oho Yamamori was at a loss. He apparently didn’t have anyone on his side to refute Agoko’s argument, and so he dropped his case. Specifically we are told that he “realized that he was in the wrong”, and because of his contrition his brother, Oho Sazaki, forgave him and didn’t do anything to further punish him for his actions.
The story goes on that Oho Yamamori was fuming. First, he had been passed over to inherit the throne by his father, Homuda Wake, and now he had been rice-blocked by his two younger brothers. *He* was the eldest and *he* was entitled to sit on that throne, and he would do whatever it took to make sure that came true. And so he started to raise an army in secret to kill his brother, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, the heir to the throne.
“Secret”, however, is a relative term. Word of Oho Yamamori’s plans reached their middle brother, Oho Sazaki no Mikoto, who immediately went and told Uji no Waki Iratsuko, who in turn raised up an army of his own. The Kojiki tells us that these men were concealed along the banks of what may have been the Kizu River, south of Uji, and that curtains were placed at the top of a nearby mountain or hill, to make it look like Waki Iratsuko was there, holding court. They even dressed a decoy up and placed him on a dais so that it would further seem like it was Waki no Irtasuko up there. The Nihon Shoki and the Kujiki suggest that this was the location of Waki Iratsuko’s own palace—hence the “Uji” in his name. Either way, Oho Yamamori approached with his men, expecting to catch him unawares.
Meanwhile, Waki Iratsuko had put on a disguise. This is one feature that all of the Chronicles agree on—he disguised himself as a common ferryman and set himself up on the side of the river. Some accounts even claim that he greased the boats to make them more slippery. And it wasn’t only Waki Iratsuko who had disguised himself—Oho Yamamori had concealed his troops and moved them in secret, while he, himself, wore clothing over his own armor, to hide his martial intentions. When he finally arrived at the river, he looked across and saw what he thought was Waki Iratsuko on the other side. Confident that his victory was a mere boat ride away, Oho Yamamori got into the ferry, not realizing that the commoner running it was none other than his own brother.
Glowing the confidence of a comic book supervillain just before his plans come to fruition, Oho Yamamori posed a cryptic question to the ferryman, asking him if he thought that he could take the “huge enraged boar” on the mountain on the other side. At this the Waki Iratsuko said that he would not take the boar, and then suddenly he tipped the boat, dumping his brother, Oho Yamamori, into the river.
As Oho Yamamori floundered in the river, fighting against the weight of his armor, he begged the ferryman to help him, still not realizing it was his brother. Of course, he was a royal prince, so this wasn’t just some exclamation, but it was sung out in lines of poetry. Or so we are told—that may just have been a narrative device to help remember and recount the dramatic part of the story. Either way, he called out, and, when no help was forthcoming, he tried to swim to shore. As soon as Waki Iratusko had tipped the boat, however, his own men arose on the banks of the river, bows in hand, and they kept Oho Yamamori from reaching either bank before he finally sank beneath the water. Later they would search the river near where he went under and eventually they found him as their poles hit his metal armor, and they dragged his body out of the river at a place known as Kawara, said to be part of modern Kyoutanabe city, just south of Uji. There is a poem of grief attributed to Waki Iratsuko, who *had* just thrown his own brother overboard and watched him drown, after all. Later, he would have Oho Yamamori buried in a tomb on Mt. Nara—traditionally identified as Sakaimedani Kofun, aka Narayama-baka, north of modern Nara city, south of the supposed site of the conflict. Oho Yamamori’s line didn’t end with him, however, and several families traced their lineage back to this figure.
So with that out of the way, one might assume that Uji no Waki Iratsuko had finally come into his own. He had shown that he could raise an army, outsmart a foe, and take the necessary steps to stay in power—even if it meant the death of his own older brother. One assumes he could have used his victory to cement his place in the lineage. And yet… he *still* insisted on making his older brother, Oho Sazaki no Mikoto, take the throne. And Oho Sazaki continued to defer, claiming he didn’t want to go against his father’s wishes. And so for a while there they were, each in their own private homes, which should have become the new court once Homuda Wake passed away, but each refusing to take up the mantle. Waki Iratsuko had his palace up in Uji and Oho Sazaki was probably living in Naniwa—modern Ohosaka.
Things were so bad, that people weren’t sure what to do. For example, one day a fisherman, or “ama” in Japanese, came to the Uji Palace with a mat filled with fresh fish to offer up to the sovereign. He approached Uji no Waki Iratsuko with the gift, since he had been named as Crown Prince and successor by the previous sovereign, Homuda Wake. But Waki Iratsuko refused the gift. “I am not the sovereign,” he told the fisherman, and anyone listening. He insisted that the gift should be presented down river at the Naniwa palace of his brother, Oho Sazaki no Mikoto. This was a journey of probably around 40 km, or 24 miles, and would have taken a day on foot—perhaps not quite so much on the river, but still something of a hike.
And so the fisherman dutifully took his catch down to Naniwa, where he presented it to Ohosazaki no Mikoto, but Oho Sazaki also refused it, just as had his younger brother. He would not go against their father’s orders, and so he commanded the fisherman to head back to Uji no Waki Iratsuko.
Now by this time the day had grown late, and the fish were starting to go bad with all of the travel, and so the fisherman tossed the whole thing and resolved to try again the next day with a new catch.
Sure enough, he caught the fish and wrapped them up, just as before. He went to the palace in Uji, this time prepared to explain that Oho Sazaki had sent him back, but it was no use. Just as before, Uji no Waki Iratsuko insisted that he was not the sovereign and that any offerings had to be made down in Naniwa to Oho Sazaki. Once again the fisherman made the treck, but just as had happened the day before, Oho Sazaki refused, claiming he was not the sovereign. Once again, with all the back and forth, the fish were rotten and no longer good for anyone to eat, and we are told that the fisherman just threw up his hands and wept, for there was nothing else he could do.
From this came a saying: “Ama Nare Ya, Onogamono kara nenaku”—“There is a Fisherman who Weeps on account of his Own Things”.
And it seems like things may have continued on like this, which couldn’t have been good for anybody. Somebody was going to have to budge, but who would it be.
According to the Nihon Shoki, it was Uji no Waki Iratsuko who finally took matters into his own hands. Seeing that his older brother would not give in, and realizing that this couldn’t continue like this or everything would fall apart, Uji no Waki Iratsuko, we are told, took his own life.
As soon as the shocking news reached Waki Iratsuko’s brother, Oho Sazaki, he raced upriver to Uji. As he got there, they were already preparing Waki Iratsuko’s body for burial, and we are told that he was lying in the coffin, dead, when Oho Sazaki arrived, weeping and wailing and pouring out his heart. It seems, however, that Waki Iratsuko was not quite ready to fully leave the mortal plane, however. Though he seemed to be dead as a doornail he suddenly sat bolt upright in his coffin and addressed Oho Sazaki. The zombie prince told his older brother not to grieve, because this was in the best interest of the country, and Waki Iratsuko then asked Oho Sazaki to take Waki Iratsuko’s sister—a daughter of Homuda Wake, but by a different mother than Oho Sazaki—as a wife and to install her in one of the side palaces. After saying all of that, he then fell down dead once more. Tradition states he was buried at Maruyama Kofun in Uji—also just known as Uji-baka—a round keyhole style tomb on the north side of the Uji River in modern Uji city.
And so it was that Oho Sazaki no Mikoto, also known as Nintoku Tennou, finally ascended the throne.
We’ll talk about his reign over the next few episodes, but let’s quickly take a look back at this story. One of the things that struck me as I was reading this in the different sources is that this seems to be one of the stories where there is generally agreement between the various chronicles. It isn’t something that just shows up in one or two, but all three, and the with similar beats in the action, with only small differences in the details. So either they were drawing from the same story or it was a fairly well known and popular one, I would assume.
Still, that doesn’t mean I fully trust all the details. For instance, were they really all siblings, sons of Homuda Wake? Or were they simply separate claimants to the throne? Even if they were all three sons of Homuda Wake, did they all have an equal claim to the throne? We’ve typically seen in the past that there is a single queen whose progeny are then eligible, but here we have three different potential sovereigns from three different queens. It is, of course, possible that the blood ties were fabricated, later, based on an assumption that it was needed to succeed the previous ruler.
Then there is the question of whether or not things were really this cut and dried. It seems like a lot, even when dressed in peasant garb, to assume that Oho Yamamori would not recognize his own brother. Things still have a somewhat fantastical bent to them, though it certainly is possible—the idea of lining the river with your men and having them shoot at someone so they could not swim to either bank seems like a tactic that someone might try.
Even if we take the whole thing at face value, though, it says something about just how perilous and chaotic the period after a sovereign’s death could be. Without a clear tradition that laid out who would succeed, fights could easily erupt between different claimants to the throne, even when a Crown Prince had clearly been named. In this case the eldest clearly thought that they deserved the throne, and the middle and youngest brothers continued to bicker over just who should have it. And while I wonder if some of that isn’t just a romantic face to a much more complex and, perhaps, bloody affair, it is probably the case that this was often what happened. Heck, even back in the stories about Queen Himiko it sounds as if there was often some chaos a ruler passed away as they tried to determine who would be next. So let’s keep that in mind as we see stories of seemingly “simple” succession stories.
I’ll end this episode with one more note, and that is actually about a rather famous shrine that is connected with this whole episode, and that is Ujigami Jinja, in, as you may have guessed by the name, Uji city.
Uji city, situated between Kyoto and Nara, is known for many things, tea being one of the more well known. Uji-cha has a long history, but not as long as what we are looking for. Uji is also home to the Byodoin, an ancient Heian aristocrat’s home along the Uji river that was turned into a Buddhist worship hall after his death. And just across the river from the Byoudouin is the relatively unassuming Ujigami Shrine.
If you didn’t already know about it, you might easily pass by this UNESCO world heritage site, and yet it features some of the oldest shrine architecture in Japan. Specifically it has a honden, or main shrine, that dates back to the late Heian period, demonstrating some interesting features of classic Heian architecture. Inside the building there are three bays, each one a shrine to the three main kami of Ujigami shrine, those being, chiefly: Homuda Wake no Mikoto and two of his sons: Uji no Waki Iratsuko and Oho Sazaki no Mikoto. Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, is considered the chief deity, and worshipped at the central shrine in the main building. Interestingly, this shrine, though worshipping Oujin Tennou, does not appear to be a part of the Hachiman cult—it is not considered a Hachiman-gu. Remember, we discussed last episode how Oujin Tennou became associated with Hachiman in later years, and this may have been an association that predates that connection. In the two side shrines, Uji no Waki Iratsuko is enshrined to the left while Oho Sazaki no Mikoto, is enshrined to the right. And while the main building is the oldest and goes back to the late Heian period, there are several other buildings on the shrine grounds that go back to the Kamakura period.
Now we aren’t exactly sure when the shrine was founded, except that it was before even the main shrine hall, or honden, was erected. The shrine is mentioned in the 10th century Engi Shiki—a collection of volumes on various ceremonies written down in the Engi era, including mention of many of the more important shrines that were part of the court system around the country at that time. It is said to have been mentioned in the Fudoki as well. That still puts it some 3 centuries after the events the Chronicles describe, but it would not be surprising to learn that a shrine had been built some time ago to a local elite, and that it is quite possible that the story that was passed down in the area would be connected with the shrine. We just don’t have any written records to confirm that this is the case.
But nonetheless, if you are in Uji, drop by and maybe pay your respects to the Prince who refused to be King.
And that’s all for this episode, until next time, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site, kofi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the link over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
And as I mentioned at the top of the episode, we are opening up recurring monthly payments and the option to become a “member”, but we are still looking at what that might entail, to include transcripts, early release, special episodes, and more. If you have ideas of what you think membership might entail, hit us up at Feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you and your ideas.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2013). The 'Silla annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Kishimoto, Naofumi (2013). Dual Kingship in the Kofun Period as Seen from the Keyhole Tombs. UrbanScope: e-Journal of the Urban-Culture Research Center, OCU. http://urbanscope.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/journal/pdf/vol004/01-kishimoto.pdf
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253
Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
Shultz, E. (2004). An Introduction to the "Samguk Sagi". Korean Studies, 28, 1-13. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23720180
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1

Episode 48: The Life and After-Life of Homuda Wake

September 1, 2021 Joshua Badgley

19th century depiction of Homuda Wake, aka Ōjin Tennō

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Who’s who?

Ajikki (阿直岐)

The Baekje subject who was sent over to Yamato with the tribute of two horses in 404. He helped care for them and teach the Wa what they should do. We are also told that he could read and write and he actually became the tutor to the Crown Prince, Uji no Waki Iratsuko. He is said to be the ancestor the Atogi (Ajikki) scribes.

Wang’in/Wani (王仁)

Baekje scholar sent to Yamato in the year 405. It is thought that he may have been an ethnic Han scholar, descended from those scribes and scholars who supported the Han Commanderies in the 4th century, or possibly even from somewhere across the Yellow Sea. As soon as he arrived in the archipelago he took over Uji no Waki Iratsuko’s education.

Takuso (卓素)

Mentioned in the Kojiki as a smith from Kara who was sent over by the Baekje. The Kara region seems to have long been known for smiths and iron, at least in the archipelago, and was probably where much of Yamato’s early iron products came from. This may explain, somewhat, the similarity of arms and armour between the two regions.

Susukori (須須許理), aka Nipo (仁番)

Mentioned in the Kojiki as a brewer sent over by the Baekje king along with or shortly after Takuso. He apparently made quite the brew for the sovereign and his court, which had Homuda Wake stumbling home. In the podcast we talk about a particular proverb, or kotowaza, that comes from this episode:

堅石避醉人也　ー＞　堅石（かたしわ）も醉人（えいびと）を避（さ）く
Katashiwa mo Eibito wo Saku -> Even a solid stone avoids a drunkard.

Maketsu (眞毛津)

Seamstress (縫衣工女) sent over by the King of Baekje in 404 to the Yamato court. She is claimed as the ancestor of the seamstresses of Kume.

Saiso (西素)

A weaver of Kure (呉服 - see below) whom the Kojiki tells us came over with the smith Takuso, sent by the King of Baekje. The Nihon Shoki gives a more detailed account of how weaving came from Kure, however.

Achi no Omi (阿知使主) , Tsuga no Omi (都加使主), and the Weavers of Kure

A father and son who came over with members of the “17 Districts” (十七県). We aren’t exactly sure where they came from, but it is said that they started the Aya clan of Yamato (倭漢), where “Aya” uses the character for the Han dyansty (漢). They would eventually head back to the continent and bring back four weavers of Kure with them.

A map of northern China around 406, during the 16 Kingdoms period. YOu can see a few of the kingdoms that were competing and vying for power at this time. Map by SY, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Regarding the 17 districts, I wonder if this is referencing some of the many divisions in the north of what is today the modern country of China. Though this period is called the “16 Kingdoms” period, those kingdoms were constantly shifting. Even the specific count seems to depend on what gets counted, with the name “16 Kingdoms Period” coming in around the mid-6th century. While I’m not sure of the accuracy of the specific boundaries, I think the map here, taken from Wikipedia, does a decent job of showing the confusion around the time that Achi and Tsuga would have been traveling.

Also, I’d note that the “Omi” here (使主) is interesting to me. Usually the kabane of “Omi”, which usually indicates either a minister or minister-level clan, uses the kanji for “minister”: 臣. In this case, though, they use two kanji, the first of which is often found to indicate “messengers” or “envoys”, and the second is “lord” or “master”. A more intuitive reading might be “tsukahi-nushi”, but universally it seems that “Omi” is the given reading. Dictionaries note that this is a kabane that is regularly found with foreigners. It is not uncommon to find titles that are similar in Japanese, but that use different kanji to differentiate their exact meaning.

To get to Kure, Achi and Tsuga are given two guides. Their names are Kure Ha (久礼波) and Kure Shi (久礼志). The meaning would seem to be clear, and yet their names are not spelled with the character for “Kure” (呉) used for the country.

Finally, we are actually given names for the four weavers that Achi and Tsuda are said to have brought back. They are:

Ye Hime (兄媛) - Elder Lady
Oto Hime (弟媛) - Younger Lady
Kure Hatori (呉織) - Weaver of Kure (aka Wu)
Ana Hatori (穴織) - Weaver of Holes

As you might notice, these names are not exactly informative. Two of them are little more than mentions of birth order—there is even another Ye Hime mentioned elsewhere in Homuda Wake’s own reign—and “Weaver of Kure” sounds purely descriptive. “Ana Hatori” is the only one that doesn’t immediately come to mind as an obvious place name, and yet who knows. There are places such as “Ara” on the peninsula—an “Ana” wouldn’t seem too far off. On a truly far stretch I could possibly draw a connection between the story of Amaterasu and the Heavenly Rock Cave, but that is a bit too far at this point, I think. Notably, there is nothing close to the name “Saiso”, given in the Kojiki.

King Jeonji of Baekje (腆支 / 直支)

Prince (and eventually King) of Baekje. He reigned from 405 to either 415 (the date given in the Nihon Shoki) or 420 (the date given in the Baekje records in the Samguk Sagi). His name is most popularly known as Jeonji (腆支), but is also recognized as Jikji (直支), though Aston posits that this later name is taken from the name of Ajikki, and is a mistake. The Samguk Sagi seems to also claim that “Jikji” is another name, but given its dating it is always possible that for some of these entries they were consulting the Japanese chronicles—though if that were the case I would expect more consistency between them on certain issues, to be honest.

Speaking of, the death of King Jeonji is odd for its disagreement between the sources. In large part, we can match up the sexagesimal dates between the Samguk Sagi records and the Nihon Shoki, at least when the same record exists. Occasionally they might be a year off, which could be explained by when they leave one court and eventually arrive at another. But in this case there are at least 5 years difference between the sources. So which one is correct?

On the one hand, we might assume that the Samguk Sagi is correct since it is the peninsular source. However, it was also written much later, compiled from earlier histories which, as far as I am aware, are no longer extant. The Nihon Shoki was written closer to the events—though still centuries out, and the compilers also appear to have had access to annals specifically from Baekje.

Personally, I suspect that the Nihon Shoki may be right, in this instance, or at least closer to the truth, and they may be in good company. Dr. Jonathan Best, in A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, notes that there is a record for Emperor An of the Eastern Jin (晉安帝), who, in 416, sent an envoy to bestow various titles on the King of Baekje. This shows up in the Nan Shi (南史) and the Song Shu (宋書 - compiled 492-493), where they refer to this king as “餘映” (Yú Ying in Pinyin or Yeo Yeong in modern Korean). Later, in 420, Yeo Yeong is given a new title by the Eastern Jin court, and in 424 that same King, King Yeo Yeong, is said to have sent an envoy to the court of Liu Song.

Now if the Nihon Shoki is correct, it is possible that the king known to the Eastern Jin as Yeo Yeong was Guisin, and perhaps 420 was the year that he attained his majority and even started ruling by himself, which could explain why the Eastern Jin bestowed him with a new title, celebrating his changed status. If, however, this was King Jeonji, as the Samguk Sagi claims, then that envoy arriving in 424 must have somehow been sent at least 4 years earlier, or else we get another contradiction.

My suspicion is that later Baekje records cleaned things up, so that Guisin’s reign began upon him attaining the age of majority, possibly overlooking or sweeping away a potentially embarrassing incident involving Mong Manchi, for whatever reason—either because he just wasn’t considered that important or because the story is less than flattering for the Baekje royal house.

Prince Hunhae of Baekje (訓解)

As the brother of King Asin, Hunhae was the uncle to Jeonji, and upon Asin’s death, Hunhae took the throne of Baekje, reportedly holding it until Jeonji returned, at least according to the Samguk Sagi. However, he was killed by Asin’s youngest brother, Jeomnye, who then usurped the throne. One has to wonder whether or not Hunhae actually had intended to hold the throne for Jeonji, or if he was just another claimant to the throne, despite the noble intentions ascribed to him.

Prince Jeomnye [Jeoprye?] of Bakeje (蝶禮)

Youngest brother of King Asin who killed Prince Hunhae and usurped the throne. Because of this, Prince Jeonji held off his return, holing up on an island with 100 Wa troops. Eventually the people overthrew him and welcomed Jeonji back. Or at least that is what the official records tell us.

King Guisin of Bakeje (久爾辛)

Son and heir to King Jeonji of Baekje. He was apparently too young to rule when he came to the throne, and Mong Manchi seems to have acted as a regent, at least according to the Nihon Shoki. The Baekje Annals of the Samguk Sagi ignore this altogether, which may partly account for why his reign starts many years later in peninsular chronicles.

Mong Manchi (木満致)

Mong Manchi is the son of the general Mong Nageunja (木羅斤資f) (or possibly Mongna Geunja? Given the names, the former is probably correct, though Aston had it in the latter form) and a Silla woman. He seems to have been a lord or even king in Nimna (任那) one of the states of Kara (加羅). When King Jeonji of Baekje died, the Nihon Shoki claims that he took over the administration of that state. The Japanese record claims that Mong Manchi had an affair—or at least improper relations—with the Queen Mother, and so he was recalled by Yamato. The section of the Baekje chronicle claims that he was recalled because of his violence. Of course, there remains a question: what power did Yamato have to recall him in the first place?

Continental Clans

There are three clans, or uji, that come up this reign, and I want to talk briefly about them. All three of these may even be found as surnames, today, and the kanji used for each comes from a particular dynasty, with various claims of connection. The strange thing is that the name associated—the way the name is pronounced—has no apparent connection to the dynasty or kanji in question, but it is thought that it may have something to do with a weaving technique or type of fabric or similar that may have been brought over and associated with each one, much like we associate porcelain with “China”. These may have originally been groups—probably with immigrant roots—who were dedicated to making the products in question. The names are:

Hata (秦) - This name references the Qin dynasty of the 3rd century BCE. Some sources would associate people of this name with the early attempts at finding the Island of the Immortals. Others claim that they traveled over to Jinhan during the Qin and later emigrated to the archipelago from there, possibly with the people of Yutsuki. Hata may reference weaving and looms.
Aya (漢) - This is less common, today, it seems. The name references the Han dynasty, and some stories connect them with Achi no Omi and his son, whom they claim descended from the Han ruling family before it fell. Aya likely refers to figured cloth.
Kure (呉) - This references the Wu kingdom, one of the Three Kingdoms that arose after the fall of the Han. I am less confident on what the word “kure” could have been referring to, but it seems obvious that much of what is called “Kure” in the chronicles would have to have been some other place.

Hachiman

The god Hachiman will be quite important in later centuries. For our purposes it is mainly the fact that he is associated closely with Homuda Wake that is of interest, though that is likely due to stories that came out around the 9th century.

If you are looking to read up on the early stories about Hachiman, his divinations, etc., Dr. Ross Bender did a lot of work in this area. You may want to check out his work on Hachiman and how it plays into the Dōkyō Incident.

Homuda Wake’s Kofun

Aerial photo of Kondayama kofun. Copyright © National Land Image Information (Color Aerial Photographs), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. — **Aerial photo of Kondayama kofun. Copyright ©** **National Land Image Information (Color Aerial Photographs), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.**

As with other early kofun, we are not positive that this one belongs to Homuda Wake, but it certainly is grand. It is the second largest kofun in size, but it is estimated that it has more actual material than any other kofun in Japan. There are several kofun around it, as well, crowding it, and earthquakes and erosion have done their fair share as well. By all accounts it does seem to be around the 5th century, and had an impressive number of Haniwa—though human figures would still be a little later on.

The informal name of the kofun seems to be “Konda Yama”, using the first two characters of Homuda Wake’s name: 誉田山.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 48: The Life and After-Life of Homuda Wake
This episode is probably the last episode for Homuda Wake—we’ve covered some of the points about his reign, from the events written down on the Gwangaetto Stele in the 5th century, to the hostages from Baekje and Silla living at his court, all of which seem to indicate that the Wa were a power of some sort in the region—if not quite as powerful as their own Chronicles make them out to be. We are also told that this is when writing, in the form of Sinographic characters, first came to the islands, along with horses and classic continental literature. We’ve also talked about a few of the other characters from this period, including Takechi no Sukune and Katsuraki no Sotsuhiko, who dealt with things on the continent as well as those back at home. This episode we’ll continue with a few other things between the archipelago and the continent, and discuss briefly what this means. We’ll also discuss matters on the archipelago, such as the division of Kibi, Homuda Wake’s choice of Crown Prince, and more. And then, of course, we’ll talk about what happened after Homuda Wake’s reign—and we’ll touch briefly on how he is connected to one of the most famous kami in the archipelago: Hachiman, the God of War. We’ll talk about all that and finish up with a brief description of the kofun said to be his—one of the largest kofun in all of Japan.
Now, as a reminder, based on all of the stories and some of the events that can be corroborated with the peninsular records, we can make the assumption that this was all went down sometime in the late 4th and early 5th century, which is also a period of change in the archaeological record. Swords and suits of armor start to replace the bronze mirrors that had previously been common in large tombs, which would also seem to indicate that soldiers and martial pursuits were well valued, which certainly seems in step with the various conflicts both on the peninsula and within the archipelago.
And thus through trade and conflict, continental culture was flowing across the straits to the archipelago, where it was mingling with the people and traditions already present. Given the close ties between the islands and the peninsula throughout the previous centuries, it may be difficult to say just when any particular thing came over, but during this reign, as we’ve seen, travel and immigration in both directions was particularly noted.
Most of the immigration appears to be through Yamato’s close ally on the peninsula, the Kingdom of Baekje. Of course, some of those who came to Yamato were only temporary residents. These are the envoys and high status individuals like Prince Jeonji, King Asin’s own Crown Prince. Others seem to have come over on a more permanent or at least semi-permanent basis—primarily scholars and artisans. For instance, we already talked about how Ajikki was sent over with the Baekje king’s gift of horses to teach the Wa how to care for them and eventually raise horses of their own. And then there was Wang’in, who was brought over specifically to help teach the continental classics and how to read and write.
The Kojiki notes a smith, named Takuso, who also came over during this reign, and then there was the man known as Nipo, aka Susukori. He was a brewer, which put him in good stead with the court, who appreciated a good drink. Now we know that Yamato had alcohol, so this wasn’t exactly new technology, and we aren’t even told if he introduced anything particularly new to the archipelago. But he was, apparently, quite talented. He brewed a stiff drink for the Sovereign and his court, and it seems that everyone drank their fill, singing songs and just having a grand old time—in other words, not that much different from certain types of Japanese celebrations, today. Homuda Wake even made up songs of praise for Susukori, he was so pleased. Later that evening, the sovereign, Homuda Wake, staggered down the road, where he came upon a large rock. We are told that he struck the rock with his walking stick and sent it flying away.
From this seemingly innocuous incident we are told there was a kotowaza, or proverb, that you might even hear today:
Katashiwa mo Eibito wo Saku.
In English we might say: “Even a solid stone avoids a drunkard.”
Of course, it isn’t as if this proverb led to any kind of temperance movement. People continued to enjoy their adult beverages, nonetheless.
The other major craft that is mentioned as coming over during this reign was that of fabric arts. We previously mentioned the seamstress Maketsu coming over—a seamstress, likely bringing over continental fashions and how to make them. And then, elsewhere, they mention weavers—those who make the actual fabric from which the clothes are put together—coming over as well. The Kojiki mentions a weaver named Saiso, who is said to be from Kure, while the Nihon Shoki gives us more details.
In fact, it is in the Nihon Shoki where we hear the story of Achi no Omi and Tsuga no Omi, a father and son team. Achi no Omi himself is said to have immigrated from the continent around 409, bringing with him his son, Tsuga. They came to Yamato with a retinue of people from what the Chronicles call the 17 districts. While there doesn’t seem to be anything that firmly identifies just *which* 17 districts we are talking about, Achi no Omi is said to be the ancestor of the Yamato no Aya, where the name “Aya” utilizes the character for the Han dynasty. Later genealogies would claim that he was a direct descendant of the Han royal family, which might make sense if we were using the uncorrected dating of the chronicles, but seems less plausible for the 5th century. Nonetheless, there is a clear connection between him and the continental mainland, suggesting he may, indeed, have been an ethnic Han immigrant. The Yamato court would later ask Achi no Omi and his son to travel back to the land they had come from and to ask for weavers to be sent to Yamato.
Indeed, they headed out on their mission, but when they reached the peninsula, they couldn’t find a way to their apparent homeland. We are told they were headed to the court of Kure, more commonly known as Wu, one of the three Kingdoms that arose after the fall of the Han in the 3rd century. Which might have been accurate if we took the Nihon Shoki’s dates at face value, but even the Wu had been displaced by the time of our current sovereign, given our corrected dates, so if this happened then it was likely that they were traveling to either Eastern Jin, whose court was, at that point, operating out of the area of modern Nanjing, or else to one of the other, northern states that had arisen—perhaps one of the Yan or Wei kingdoms. This is known, after all, as the era of the Sixteen Kingdoms—though even that number may be off depending on how you count. Suffice it to say there are a lot of possibilities here for where they ended up.
Regardless, to get from the peninsula to the mainland, it seems that these envoys would need more than just the assistance of Baekje, and the Nihon Shoki claims that it was only through the help of Goguryeo, who provided them guides, that they were able to make the journey to “Kure”, whichever polity that was—which is somewhat interesting given that Baekje had established relations with the Eastern Jin by at least 372. It is possible that, given the turmoil on the peninsula several decades later, during the reign of Gwangaetto the Great, any unilateral path to the Eastern Jin court had been blocked, making Goguryeo the ultimate interlocutors for relations with the continent. Or perhaps, as mentioned, they were going somewhere else altogether. Either way, they were successful in their mission, and Achi and Tsuga returned with four weavers who brought with them the traditions of the mainland. Of course, we don’t have any clear evidence for this in any of the court records from the mainland, though, again, that may be understandable if they were dealing with one of the outer states and not a formal envoy to the imperial capital.
All of these stories demonstrate the kind of contact that the archipelago had with the mainland, and the individuals who were coming over, often starting new families who would, one assumes, become responsible of the production of continental goods in the archipelago. Information may even be hidden in the names, here. The names “Aya” and “Kure” for instance, though spelled with the sinographic characters for the Han and Wu dynasties, use a native Japanese gloss in their reading that doesn’t clearly identify with anything on the continent, but which may instead refer to the type of woven fabrics that were associated with each dynasty.
It is also interesting to me how the court was relying on a lot of continental assistance in the form of allies or immigrants to undertake these missions for them. Achi and Tsuga are said to have come over to the archipelago less than a decade before they were back up and heading back to the mainland. Horses and writing were sent to Yamato by the King of Baekje. Even the muscle that was being used on the peninsula was apparently a Baekje general.
But of course, it isn’t just what Baekje could do for Yamato—it was also about what Yamato could do for Baekje. Enter the story of Prince Jeonji.
Just a quick recap from previous episodes, Prince Jeonji was a hostage at the Yamato court, sent in 397 by his father, King Asin of Baekje, who came to the throne after the death—some sources suggest overthrow and murder—of Asin’s own uncle, King Jinsa. Prince Jeonji may have been sent to keep him safe, given that Goguryeo had previously defeated Baekje and taken several members of its court back with them, or he may have been sent to appease an angry Yamato. Either way, young Prince Jeonji grew up in Yamato until the unwelcome tidings of his father’s death reached the court 12 years later, in 405 CE, a date that seems to correspond between the Nihon Shoki and the Baekje annals of the Samguk Sagi with a clean break of 120 years, or two sexagesimal cycles of 60 years each.
Immediately, Homuda Wake suggested that Prince Jeonji return and take the throne, which I’m sure was entirely altruistic and had absolutely nothing at all to do with making sure that Yamato had a known quantity and a friendly ruler in place in Baekje. Homuda Wake even gave him command of 100 Wa soldiers to help.
Of course, this may have been more than just some courtesy. The Tonggam and the Samguk Sagi appear to agree that when King Asin died, his brother, Prince Hunhae, took over as regent until Prince Jeonji could return, and he was likely the one who sent for Jeonji in the first place. However, before Prince Jeonji could arrive King Asin’s youngest brother, Cheomnye, took the throne. The Samguk Sagi seems to make this out as an usurpation, but I would note that from what we’ve seen of the period and penn-insular succession rules in general, neither primogeniture nor patrilineal descent appears to have been necessary to claim legitimacy. In fact, in many cases it seems to have only been a requirement that one be the eldest—probably male—member of the family, and even *that* hasn’t been a hard and fast rule. Forms of agnatic succession—where the throne passes to a brother, rather than the sovereign’s own children—are definitely in evidence. This is all well and good, of course, until you get a couple generations in and suddenly have a plethora of potential royal candidates.
Anyway, it may have been this usurpation by Cheonmye that caused Homuda Wake to provide some Wa soldiers to help out. And yet, they were hardly used. Prince Jeonji made his way to the peninsula, but upon hearing that his uncle had usurped the throne, he withdrew with the troops to an island. There he waited until the people themselves, fed up with Cheonmye’s rule, overthrew him and placed Prince Jeonji on the throne as the true successor.
Now did the people really just overthrow Cheonmye, or did the Wa forces see a bit of action? We aren’t entirely sure, though it seems that the Baekje people have a suspicious habit of nobly rising up against a king as soon as it is convenient to prevent any whiff of the Wa having a hand in regime change. For my part, I see the heavy hand of Yamato in continental politics once again.
Of course, none of this should be too surprising, given the close association between the Wa and the peninsula. And here is where we get into territory that will likely cause some people a bit of a headache. Because there is plenty of reason to believe that a lot more came over from the continent than just new technologies. With artisans coming over and bringing others, as did Achi no Omi, they likely did what immigrants around the world have done and brought their own ideas, beliefs, and spiritual practices. We’ve already seen how material evidence of Yayoi spiritual life echoes, in some ways, the spiritual life that we see on the peninsula, and so it would seem no great stretch if the residents of the archipelago continued to incorporate some of the beliefs of the people immigrating into Japan. And so it is with little surprise that we see similarities in the ancient myths and legends of the archipelago with those of the continent. Even some of the kami that would come to be central to later beliefs, have connections with the continent. Susanowo is actually said, in some stories, to have first come down from heaven to the peninsula, where he then made his way over. And some of the aspects of the story of even Amaterasu Ohokami herself, and her weaving hall, seems to have a connection with the various weaver deity cults that we see elsewhere on the mainland. This is not to suggest that these are exactly foreign—the stories as we know them were still developing. For example, the kofun burials of this time were largely pit burials, dug into the top of the main mound of the kofun. It wouldn’t be until some time later that they would being a practice of building a corridor into the mound, which itself would seem to inspire some of the imagery around the whole world of the dead—the dark world of Yomi. And by that time, local and foreign legends and stories were merged, and foreign aspects were localized to the archipelago.
And there is nothing to suggest that the transfer was simply one way. It is hard to know what went from the peninsula to the archipelago and what went from the archipelago to the peninsula. Importantly, though, is that many of these things were transnational, meaning they crossed the various borders, often blending foreign and native concepts together. This is why I spend so much time talking about the mainland as well as the islands, because none of it developed in an isolated bubble. This often causes problems when people would like to have a clean narrative, especially for nationalists who want to see Japan and the Japanese Imperial Household as more isolated, unique, and unadulterated than it ever actually was. In contrast, we have plenty of examples of high ranking court nobles, whose offspring would marry into the royal line, with claims of continental descent. There is even an example of a Baekje princess who was sent to Yamato to become one of the sovereign’s wives.
Looking in the other direction, material culture, such as pottery and even burial practices from the archipelago show up in the peninsula from at least the Yayoi period onward. In the late 5th century we even see round keyhole shaped tomb mounds, oddly similar to those in the archipelago, showing up in the Yongsan River Basin in the southwestern peninsular region. This was a highly dynamic time for the region, during which many of the things that we may take for granted as being fundamental to Japanese history and identity were still being forged in the fires of international trade and immigration.
Back to the story of King Jeonji, there is one more event that I want to touch on here before we take a look at the rest of what was happening in the archipelago, and that is the death of King Jeonji. It seems that he was not fated to outlive Homuda Wake, and the Nihon Shoki claims that he died in 414, only nine years after his father and his return to Baekje. Upon his death his son, Kuisin, was named king, but he was still a child. And so a regent came to power: Mong Manchi. Now Mong Manchi was the son of Mong Nageunja, whom you may remember as the Baekje general who had helped in the late 4th century Baekje-Wa Alliance and who later had gone to Silla to stop Katsuraki no Sotsuhiko—though sometimes it is questionable whether he served Baekje, Yamato, or was his own independent warlord of some sort who allied with both.
Anyway, the excerpt of the Baekje Annals in the Nihon Shoki claims that Mong Manchi had taken over Baekje forcibly. According to the Nihon Shoki, with apologies to Aston, the Baekje record states: "Mong-man-chi was the son of Mong-na Keuncha, born to him of a Silla woman when he invaded that country. The great services of his father gave him absolute authority in Nimna. He came into our country [that is, Baekje] and went back and forward to the honourable country, accepting the control of the Celestial Court. He seized the administration of our country, and his power was supreme in that day. The court, hearing of his violence, recalled him." The Japanese Chroniclers of course assume that the “honorable country”, or “Kui-guo”, is Japan, as is the “Celestial Court”. Their own entry embellishes this story further, claiming that Mong Manchi was a subject of Yamato and that his actual crime wasn’t forcibly placing himself on the throne but rather having improper relations with the widowed Queen Mother.
Now this isn’t clear evidence of any actual Yamato interference and influence, at least not to my mind. After all, we aren’t sure that the “honorable country” actually referred to Japan, and the idea that Homuda Wake was presiding over something that Baekje would call the Celestial Court also appears to be equally suspect to my eyes. However the idea that that the throne of Baekje was briefly usurped by someone, possibly the King of Nimna itself may not be too farfetched.
And perhaps that is where we would leave it if it weren’t for one *tiny* detail. You see the Samguk Sagi and the Dongguk Tonggam appear to refute this whole story. They claim that King Jeonji didn’t die in 414, as the Japanese chronicle would appear to suggest, but rather that he died in 420, and his son, Kuisin, then took the throne, without any evidence of the kind of trouble suggested by the Baekje record in the Nihon Shoki. So what, exactly, is going on here? Did the Chroniclers just insert that entire episode in there because they thought it sounded good?
And with that, I think we’ll turn aside from the continent for a bit and focus on what else was happening on the archipelago. Much of the events recorded in the Chronicles are fairly standard compared with what we’ve heard about from earlier reigns. For example, even while Yamato was flexing its muscle on the continent, there were still independent entities on the archipelago. Mention is made early in Homuda Wake’s reign of the eastern Emishi attending with tribute, and they were put to work building the Mumazaka road, similar to the way that continental envoys were put to work building ponds, bringing into question, in my mind, just what sort of “envoys” these all really were. Then there is discussion of Homuda Wake meeting with the Kuzu, who are, in the Hitachi Fudoki, equated with the Tsuchigumo. In this case, though, they appear to be the kuzu of the mountains areas of the Kii peninsula, which suggests to me that while Yamato held sway over the plains and river deltas, where rice farming could be particularly successful, there may have still been plenty of independent groups living in the mountains, possibly with their own culture and values, which focused more on the mountain lifestyle than that of the plain-bound farming culture that largely sustained kofun-era Yamato. Of course, these are peripheral cultures, and therefore largely invisible in the text except when they directly interact with the people and court of Yamato.
In this instance we are given some insight into their ways—particularly into their rituals. For Kuzu offered songs and sake to the sovereign. In particular we are told that after they sang they “struck their mouths like drums” and laughed. The Kuzu are described as a plain and honest people who gather wild berries and boil frogs as a delicacy. They lived amongst the steep cliffs and ravines of the Yoshino river area, and produced such things as chestnuts, mushrooms, and trout. All of this speaks to me of people with very different lifeways from those common in the large settlements of Yamato.
But it wasn’t just the people living in the Japanese hollers and tucked away in the mountain crevasses who were outside of the larger Yamato polity, but there were plenty of other rice-growing areas as well. Of course, in either case, the Chroniclers extend the cloak of national unity over everything, but in this case I think we get a very interesting story, and it is tied in to Homuda Wake’s last queen.
I say his last queen because, based on what we’ve seen of royal succession to date, there appear to have been several. Takaki no Iribime, for example, is said to have been a descendant of Ikume Iribiko. She gave birth to one of the princes and eventual claimants to the throne. Then there was Naka tsu Hime—the Middle Princess, whom most genealogies name as the primary wife and queen, though little is actually said about her. She was a sister to Takaki no Iribime, we know that much, and their father was, oddly enough, Homuda no Mawaka no Miko, a royal prince with a name eerily similar to that of the sovereign, Homuda Wake. Naka tsu Hime would give birth to another eligible Prince.
But it is the last lady, who gave birth to the youngest of Homuda Wake’s eligible sons, who is the subject of our current story. She is Miyanushi Yagawa no Ye Hime, or the Elder Princess of Yagawa.
Now of the three possible claimants to the throne, Takaki no Iribime’s son, Ohoyamamori no Mikoto—who may be the same as Nukata no Oho Naka tsu Hiko—was the eldest son. Naka tsu Hime then gave birth to Ohosazaki no Mikoto. He was also eligible to become Crown Prince, and is the middle of three children who seem to have been in the running. The third eligible prince was known as Uji no Waka Iratsuko (or Uji no Waki Iratsuko), and he was the son of Miyanushi Yagawa Ye Hime, who was the daughter of Wani no Oho-omi, the great minister of the powerful Wani clan.
Ye Hime herself is mentioned several times throughout the reign, while Naka tsu Hime and her sisters are really only mentioned in the various lists of names and genealogies. Regarding Ye Hime, on the other hand, we get the full Hallmark treatment, from her courtship in Chika tsu Afumi to her later travels to Kibi.
Now the courtship of Ye Hime is given primarily in the Kojiki, where we are told of how they met and got married with the typical feasting that seems common in these kinds of stories. Ye Hime’s father has her serve Homuda Wake a large wine cup, which seems to have been about as close to a betrothal as you could get.
It is interesting that the Kojiki places all of this in Chika-tsu-Oumi, and in the song, that he sang at the feast, Homuda Wake seems to make the claim that he is from Tsunoga—aka Tsuruga Bay. That was where he had exchanged names with the Kami, and the area where Ame no Hiboko had been worshipped, which again begs the question about potential links between Homuda Wake and the peninsula.
The Nihon Shoki, however, gives Ye Hime a slightly different place of origin. For in that case we are told that one day, while they were both looking out over the land from a high tower, Ye Hime had a longing to go home and see her parents. And so Homuda Wake, who loved her so much that he would do nearly anything, summoned up 80 fishermen and had them take Ye Hime to Kibi. He even composes a song as she leaves where he calls her, quite blatantly, his spouse of Kibi.
And this seems a rather intriguing disagreement between the sources. The Kojiki has them meeting in what was presumably her home of Chika tsu Oumi—which is to say around Lake Biwa. Meanwhile, the Nihon Shoki claims that she is from Kibi. Of course, it could be that some other Ye Hime is meant in one of these accounts.
Either way, the Nihon Shoki claims that Homuda Wake then followed Ye-Hime to Kibi, dwelling in the palace of Ashimori, in Hata. This is traditionally identified as being along the Ashimori river northwest of modern Okayama city. This is an area with large, keyhole shaped tomb mounds that rival those in Yamato, and it may have actually been the home to an independent kingdom, particularly in the early 5th century.
This is why it is interesting what else we are told: That, while dwelling at Ashimori, Homuda Wake took a particular liking to a gentleman named Mitomo Wake, who, along with his entire family, waited on the sovereign, hand and foot. Eventually, Homuda Wake decided to divvy up the land of Kibi. Five of the various lands went to the five sons of Mitomo Wake, while the district of Hatoribe is said to have been given to his wife, Ye Hime, as her own. Mitomo Wake himself was designated as the Kuni no Miyatsuko, and his sons as Agatanushi, and the divisions—which may reflect later political boundaries—would largely remain in use, either formally or informally, until the present day.
Once again, we need to look beyond what the Chronicle is telling us. For instance, we know that there are huge, round keyhole shaped kofun in that region. The largest is known as Tsukuriyama Kofun, and it was built sometime in the late 5th century. By the way, “Tsukuriyama” is actually the name of several kofun, largely because its name merely means “man-made mountain”. In this case, though, we are talking about the fourth largest kofun in all of Japan, larger than most of the so-called imperial tombs. Many believe that it belonged to a king of ancient Kibi, and based on the size of the kofun, one who likely rivaled Yamato in terms of the power and labor that they were able to mobilize. And not only that, but the Kibi region has some of the densest concentrations of kofun outside of the Kinai region of central Honshu, built between the 4th and 7th centuries. There are over 140 of the large keyhole tombs, with at least twenty of them in the region of Tsukuriyama and the modern city of Okayama.
And yet I can’t help but note that they were following in the tradition set by Yamato in building a giant, round-keyhole tomb.
From the earliest stories, Yamato is said to have conquered and subjugated Kibi. But then again, they were also said to have conquered and subjugated the Korean peninsula, and in that case we have both textual and archaeological evidence to the contrary. Here we only have archaeological evidence, but I wonder: would Yamato have really allowed a subject to build such a large and grandiose resting place if they could prevent it? I figure at the very least it shows that the local elites had a fair amount of autonomy. Still, there are so many things that we are missing, and I wish we had records from outside of the main narrative, but alas, we will have to console ourselves with what the archaeology tells us.
Perhaps this story about Homuda Wake was actually about another king altogether—a king of ancient Kibi. Or perhaps there is some evidence here of an ancient marriage link to Kibi through his wife, Ye Hime, and perhaps even with her son, Uji no Waki Iratsuko.
Speaking of whom…
Now we know that Homuda Wake himself was quite enamored of his youngest son, and he had decided to make him the Crown Prince, which would seem fitting if he was actually the product of two powerful royal families. That said, he had at least two other sons who were apparently eligible for the throne, and if they didn’t support Uji no Waki Iratsuko’s claim it could be problematic after Homuda Wake’s death. And so, in one of those epic bouts of parenting that the royal lineage up to this point is so known for, he questioned his two elder sons, Oho Yamamori and Oho Sazaki, to ask, in a roundabout way, their thoughts. Of course, you can’t be direct with this kind of question, right? You know, just come right out and say, “Hey boys, I’m thinking of making your youngest brother the next ruler. You cool with that?” Nope, instead he sets up this whole elaborate thing. First he pulls them over to him and he comments about how they both have children of their own already—so they were already fully grown adults, themselves, by this time. He then asks which of their own children is more deserving of their love, the youngest or the eldest. Basically playing a game of “who does dad love the best” with the two that you’ve already decided are out of the running. Really?
Now, neither of the two other sons seem to have had any idea what he was getting at, but Oho Yamamori thought that this might be the moment to put in a bid for the throne himself. After all, he was the oldest, and he was the most experienced, right? Anyway, Oho Yamamori expounded upon the virtues of the older brother and how they were the most loved.
As Oho Yamamori went on about this, I imagine Homuda Wake’s visage took on a dark cast. You know that feeling when the audience has soured on what someone is saying, but they just keep going, anyway? Yeah, awkward…
So while Oho Yamamori was busy bombing on pitching their pater, Oho Sazaki saw what was happening and realized this wasn’t what their father wanted to hear. So when it got to his turn, he took a different tack, and he basically told his father what he thought he wanted to hear.
First off, he talked about how older children have already grown up and discovered their way in life. They were adults and had experience and could fend for themselves. The younger children, however, were still children. They didn’t have as much experience and therefore they needed the most love and support.
Clearly this was the answer that Homuda Wake was looking for. In the end, neither Oho Yamamori nor Oho Sazaki, despite their seniority, would be named the Crown Prince—that honor would go to their youngest brother, Uji no Waki Iratsuko. However, perhaps in response to the brown-nosing, he did appoint Oho Sazaki as assistant to the Crown Prince, and asked him to help administer affairs of state. Meanwhile he gave Oho Yamamori, well, he made him Oho Yamamori, which is to say the warden of the mountains and forested areas. This is probably where his name, or more properly title, actually comes from. His actual name may have been Nukata no Oho Naka tsu Hiko, but this is largely a guess on our part, based on the lists of Homuda Wake’s many offspring.
Of course, I’m sure that there were absolutely no hard feelings, and when Homuda Wake passes away, everything will be fine, right? Well, for that you’ll need to wait for the next episode.
First though, there is one more thing I’d like to touch on, though it isn’t exactly mentioned in the chronicles, and that is the story of Homuda Wake after his death. No, I don’t mean to suggest that he rose from the grave like some undead revenant, though that would have been a cool. Rather, I mean how the idea of Homuda Wake continued and evolved after his death.
So, yes, Homuda Wake did eventually pass away, and we are told he is buried in one of the large, round keyhole style mounds in the Mozu-Furuichi tomb mound group. But his spirit lived on in an interesting and, perhaps, appropriate way.
You see, centuries after his death Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, would be worshipped as one of the most famous deities of the archipelago, for he came be associated with the famous god-slash-Boddhisatva, Hachiman.
Now most people are familiar with Hachiman due to his later connection to the Minamoto family. His shrine in Kamakura, once the headquarters of the early shogunate, founded by Minamoto Yoritomo, is still extremely impressive, and an easy daytrip from Tokyo. But Hachiman was important before the Minamoto ever existed. And to examine the origins of Hachiman we are going to have to travel away from Kamakura and all the way to the western island of Kyushu.
It was here, on the island of Kyushu, that the cult of Hachiman was born, likely sometime in the 5th or 6th century, and the processes that come together in the founding of the Hachiman cult are highly demonstrative of the changes that are happening in the archipelago in general during the time of Homuda Wake, and so it is not entirely without merit that the two are linked, in my opinion.
It is difficult, of course, to know when an idea or story first comes into being, and much of what we have is based on the later information in works like the Shoku Nihongi, the successor to our current chronicles, and the founding tales of Usa shrine, that were passed down through the ages and eventually written down. Scholars suggest that originally this new tradition centered around a deity of a place called Yahata or Yabata, the native Japanese, or kun’yomi, reading of the characters in the name “Hachiman”. Yabata probably meant something like “eight fields”—a quite plausible locative, which could be just about anywhere in the archipelago. Eventually, though, worship of this deity took hold in Usa, one of the ancient settlement sites of northern Kyushu.
From the records we know that there were three families associated with Hachiman from an early time. One of these was, unsurprisingly, the Usa clan, who were probably the chieftains of the place with the same name. Usa comes up from time to time in the Chronicles, such as during Iware Biko’s march from Kyushu to Yamato, and later they were known for their Buddhist priests, whom they would occasionally send to the court. They certainly appear to have been an important place, even if the connection with Hachiman isn’t mentioned until much later.
Also involved in the early Hachiman cult were the Karajima. They appear to have been based out of the country of Toyo, but their name suggests that they descended from people who came over from the peninsula and settled there. The scholar Nakano Hatayoshi suggested that between the 3rd and 6th centuries they pushed south into the area of the Usa clan and conquered that region.
The last family were the Ohoga, whose name is just a different reading for “Ohomiwa”. Indeed, it seems they claim descent from the family charged with looking after the ancient holy site of Mt. Miwa, and they may have been sent out to the region as an extension of the Yamato court to help provide oversight of the Yamato-centered rituals. In fact, it may have been through such ritualist envoys that Yamato was able to exert some measure of control, along with sending out specialists in, of all things, burial mound construction—hence why we see the proliferation of the round keyhole style and related burial mounds in the kofun period.
And so we see here a merger of the local traditions, through the Usa clan, the Yamato traditions in the form of the Ohomiwa, and peninsular traditions of the Karajima. Three different traditions coming together.
It is this syncreticism that make Hachiman so interesting to many scholars of Japanese religion. To an outside observer, the shrines and rituals of Hachiman may closely resemble other forms of Japanese Shinto practice, but in many ways it is its own unique thing. At Usa shrine, Hachiman was venerated along with an image of Maitreiya Bodhisattva, and the worship of both was carried out together. Later, Hachiman would be designated as the protector of the Great Buddha at Toudaiji, in Nara, and the oracles of Hachiman would have significant impact on Japanese history.
The earliest records we have of Hachiman, in the 8th century, depict him as helping to secure a military victory, though this seems to have been a relatively minor part of his portfolio, at least early on. Later, as the chosen deity of the Minamoto clan, his God of War aspect would definitely be further developed. Initially, however, it was his role as a protector and his oracular divinations that caused such a splash. These divinations are at the heart of the famous Dokyo Incident in the 8th century, and came through the voices of the priests and mediums of Usa Shrine, rather than divine visions of the sovereign or reading the cracks on burnt deer scapulae or turtle shells. This was different from the type of divination generally seen with other kami, and it has been suggested that it was the result of a combination of practices from the peninsula and on the archipelago. It also likely didn’t hurt that there was no one single family that could lay claim to Hachiman and his cult. He was, in a way, a free agent, meaning that he could be shaped by later courts and sovereigns into what they needed him to be.
The connection of Hachiman with Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, actually comes in rather late. It is in the 9th century that we get a text which tells us that Hachiman revealed himself to be Oujin Tennou to the sovereign known as Kimmei Tennou in the mid-6th century, after Hachiman had already been adopted by the royal house as a protector.
In all likelihood, Hachiman had nothing to do with Homuda Wake until centuries after the fact. But even then it is intriguing to think about just what Homuda Wake meant to people. By all accounts he seems to have been from a different dynasty than the 8th century ruling family, though his line was important enough for them to work into their own narrative, and his story is often tied up with the reign of his mother—where Okinaga Tarashi Hime was a conquerer and warlord, the story of Homuda Wake focuses more on assimilation of new people and ideas. This balance of martial prowess—Wu or Bu—with literary pursuits—Wen or Bun—is a common dichotomy in Asian thought and philosophy, and so it is unsurprising that the narrative might reflect that.
And yet, as Hachiman, Homuda Wake is often depicted wearing arms and armor, and as much a conquering hero as an administrative governor. Of course, these different aspects may better reflect the needs of the people at any given time, rather than any core aspect of Homuda Wake’s character.
And with that, we have just one more thing to discuss before we move on and say farewell to Homuda Wake, or at least his human incarnation—as Hachiman he will definitely be putting in an appearance in later episodes, don’t you worry. Now this wouldn’t be the kofun period if we weren’t talking about the giant kingly tombs that these sovereigns are said to be buried in, and in Homuda Wake’s case it is a grand tomb, to be sure.
Measuring 425 meters in length, the Ega-no-mofushi no Oka Kofun, also known as the Konda Gobyou Yama or just Konda Yama Kofun, is the largest of the Furuichi kofun group, which lies in modern Ohosaka, south of the Yamato River, and just west of the mountain pass leading to the Nara basin. Not only is it the longest in its group, but it is the second longest in all of Japan, and the largest by volume of any of the kofun in the archipelago. As for the largest kofun, at least by length, that distinction falls to Daisen kofun, which lies just a little ways to the west in the Mozu kofun group, and which is said to be the burial site of Homuda Wake’s son, the sovereign known as Nintoku Tennou. Together they are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Mozu-Furuichi Kofun group, which attained official status in 2019. This is the height of kofun construction in the archipelago, at least for sheer monumental size.
In addition to its size—and the impressive array of haniwa figures that adorned it--Kondayama Kofun is, predictably, also the site of a shrine to Hachiman—Konda Hachimangu. By the way, I should probably note, since you can’t tell through the microphone, that the “Konda” here is just another reading of the name “Homuda”. The shrine itself claims that it was originally built in the front of Homuda Wake’s mausoleum in about the 6th century, and then later moved to the present location (south of the mound) in the 11th century. I have reason to question this, but that is the claim that the shrine appears to make.
And that’s all that I really have for you this episode. I appreciate everyone who has stuck with it—there has been so much this reign, it has taken us roughly six episodes to get through it all. Next episode, though, we get to move on and we’ll see just who becomes the next sovereign. Is it young Uji-Waki-Iratsuko, who was the designated Crown Prince and Successor? Or perhaps Oho Yamamori, who was passed over by their father. Or perhaps Oho Sazaki will step up. You’ll just have to wait and find out next episode.
So, until next time, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site, kofi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the link over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Questions or comments? Feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.
That’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Lee, D. (2014). Keyhole-shaped Tombs and Unspoken Frontiers: Exploring the Borderlands of Early Korean-Japanese Relations in the 5th-6th Centuries. UCLA. ProQuest ID: Lee_ucla_0031D_12746. Merritt ID: ark:/13030/m52j7s88. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7qm7h4t7
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The Dual Kingship Model

Prince Ō Yamamori (大山守皇子) and Prince Nukata Ō Naka tsu Hiko (額田大中彦皇子)

Ujigami Shrine (宇治上神社)

Rough Transcript

References

Who’s who?

Ajikki (阿直岐)

Wang’in/Wani (王仁)

Takuso (卓素)

Susukori (須須許理), aka Nipo (仁番)

Maketsu (眞毛津)

Saiso (西素)

Achi no Omi (阿知使主) , Tsuga no Omi (都加使主), and the Weavers of Kure

King Jeonji of Baekje (腆支 / 直支)

Prince Hunhae of Baekje (訓解)

Prince Jeomnye [Jeoprye?] of Bakeje (蝶禮)

King Guisin of Bakeje (久爾辛)

Mong Manchi (木満致)

Continental Clans

Hachiman

Homuda Wake’s Kofun

Rough Transcript

References

Prince Ō Yamamori (大山守皇子) and Prince Nukata Ō Naka tsu Hiko　(額田大中彦皇子)