The Matrilineal Emperors Existed: New Insights from Ancient Historians #1
I share two books on "Female Emperor" published in Japan in early this year.
Both books are authored by established
ancient history scholars and can be trusted. Here, the succession of the throne
is completely different from the tradition of "succession to the throne by
men of male lineage", which has been believed with the basis of the
historical books "Kojiki" and "Nihonshoki"(hereinafter sometimes collectively described as “Kiki”) compiled in the early 8th century. Also, it
is already a popular theory in the ancient history academia, according to these
books.
Their argument can be summarized as
follows.
-In ancient Japan, female kings and
female lineage kings both existed until around 500 AD. --The idea of a single
male line of succession for all time is a creation of the "Kiki”.
-There was a mixture of male and female
lineages at that time.
-Until a certain point in time,
hereditary succession was not emphasized, and a well-liked elder in the tribe
became the king.
-Female emperors played an important
political role rather than being only a successor.
At the next hearing of the government’s
advisory board on Succession to the Throne, which is scheduled to take place on
the 31st of this month, it has been announced that historical researchers will
be invited. I don't know if it includes these ancient historians. (Personally,
I feel like praying for them to be included.) If these researchers make
presentations there, the conclusions of the Council of Experts on ‘female
emperors’ and ‘emperors of female lineage’ will be completely different.
The two books are as follows
(unfortunately, both are in Japanese only):
『女系天皇――天皇系譜の源流』工藤隆
"Emperor of Female Lineage: Origin of
the Emperor's Genealogy" by Takashi Kudo
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4022951052
『女帝の古代王権史』義江明子
"History of the Female Emperor’s
Ancient Kingship" by Akiko Yoshie
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4480073817
It is suggestive that two such books were
published this spring, when the government's Council of Experts was discussing
succession to the throne.
Let's see what these claims are. It will be
long, so start with the former book.
The author of the former book, Takashi
Kudo, born in 1942, is an emeritus professor at Daito Bunka University. He
first moved to playwrights and theater critics, and later to study ancient oral
literature, and has written many books on ancient Japanese myths and culture.
He says:
The Constitution of the Empire of Japan
(promulgated on February 11, 1889 under Meiji government), the former
Constitution of Japan, stipulated that " The Empire of Japan shall be ruled over by Emperors of a single dynasty from time immemorial."
However, it is the creation of a new 'myth'
by the Meiji government that there has been no disconnection in the genealogy
of the Emperor of Japan since the first Emperor Jimmu神武天皇 (Okimi大王).
When expanding the horizons from the
genealogy of the ancient emperor to the issue of succession to the emperor in
the 21st century, it is necessary to make a distinction as follows:
1) <Ancient Ancient era古代の古代> (Jomon, Yayoi, Kofun period)(Note: Refers from around 14000 BC
to the 7th century AD)
2) <Ancient Modernity> The ideal
period of the Emperor Tenmu and Empress Jito around 700 AD when the shape of
the ancient emperor system was completed in the
(7th and 8th centuries).
3) The way of the early modern period when
the female principle part was excluded by the Meiji government,
It is supposed that male (patrilineal)
and female (matrilineal) coexisted (during the period of <Ancient
Ancient> in 1)), and both were probably used flexibly, and the character of
the succession seems to have reached to that of Ookimi 大王great king (chief) rank.
After that, the maleism of the 8th and 18th
centuries was not absolute but flexible, and although of male lineage, there
were several female emperors.
However, as mentioned above, the Meiji
government completely excluded the appearance of the female emperor by the old
constitution and the former Imperial House Law.
The Taiho Code of 701 states, "Make
the emperor's brothers and sons all princes (qualified to succeed to the
throne). The female emperor's sons are also the same." It means that the 'child
of the female emperor', who was born between the emperor and her husband, was
also qualified to succeed to the throne.
Kudo describes the deceptiveness of
"Kiki" regarding ‘male inheritance’ from the standpoint of ancient
history research as follows:
There are many non-existent emperor names
between the "first" Jimmu and the "25th" Buretsu described
in "Kojiki" and "Nihonshoki", and the order of inheritance
from father to son cannot be swallowed is common sense in the current study of
ancient history. The hereditary throne by one lineage was not established until
the end of the 5th century.
[…]
The title "Emperor" was adopted
around the time of Emperor Tenmu (40th generation), and during the compilation
of "Kojiki" (712) and "Nihon Shoki" (720), all the Ookimi,
great kings (chief) before Tenmu. Since it was also crowned, it became easy to
create the illusion that the "Emperor" clan had existed since Jinmu
(the first generation).
Under such circumstances, the credibility
of the early emperor is highly doubted, especially since it is based on the
oral story of the non-literal culture era.
At the time of compiling "Kojiki"
and "Nihonshoki", the imitation and transfer of the imperial
succession system in Tang, which was a major developed country at that time,
which to limit the throne into males of male lineage, was being promoted. However,
the king of Japan already had 5 female emperors, including Suiko (33s).
Therefore, "Kojiki" and "Nihonshoki" decided to imitate
only the "male" part of the inheritance of the Tang emperor. As a
result, it is probable that all the inheritances were arranged (including
fabrication) as if they were male, even to the early Emperor's genealogy, whose
credibility is remarkably suspected as mentioned above.
Thus, from the standpoint of ancient
historians, the credibility of "Kiki", which are absolute scriptures
for maleists, is questioned.
So how did ancient times inherit the
throne?
Kudo says that male and female lineage were
mixed.
One reason is the existence of Queen Himiko卑弥呼 of Yamatai邪馬台国, which is recorded in
China's "Gishi-wajin-den 魏志倭人伝" (280-297 AD).
There, Himiko was a female shaman, whose
younger brother was a male chieftain, a dual-structured kingship system.
In addition, there are descriptions in "Kiki" that the founder of the family was a woman. The existence of female leaders is recorded in various places around Kyushu. In the Amenoiwayato myths of "Kiki", the goddess Amaterasu presides over "Onie大嘗" and "Niiname新嘗", which are now presided over by a male emperor.
According to Kudo, the queen's qualities
were defined by shamanic nature and were not hereditary. It is said that Queen
Toyo台与, who succeeded Himiko, was not a child or
grandson of Himiko.
Kudo speculates that it was a matrilineal
society in ancient Japan, and it is possible that special respect was given to
women as beings who gave birth, as shown by the fact that most of the clay
figurines of the Jomon period were women. In such a society, it is possible
that female dominant customs such as "all the important things in the
village were decided by women" were also established. However, in the late
Yayoi period, the "king" became commonplace and gradually
strengthened the patrilineal genealogy. If so, in a society that was originally
matrilineal, it is highly possible that at the stage when the male king / male
chief with the patrilineal genealogy became dominant, it was a bilateral system
in which the maternal /female and paternal/male were interlaced.
This is the end of the quotations from Kudo's book. Next time, let's listen to the arguments in Yoshie's book.
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