An Introduction to the History of Japan. Katsuro Hara

the lord of the land, and that of the latter on his being the chieftain of the people. How did such a difference come into existence?

      The fact that there were many landlords who were not of the same stock as the imperial family, might be regarded as a proof that they were descendants of the chiefs who held their lands prior to the coming over of the Japanese, or, more strictly, before the immigration of the predominant stock. They acquiesced afterwards in, or were subjected to, the rule of the Japanese, but the relation between the Emperor and these landlords was of a personal nature, and the right of the latter over their own land remained unchanged. Later on many members of the imperial family were sent out to explore new lands at the expense of the Ainu, and they generally installed themselves as masters of the land which they had conquered. These new landlords assumed, as was natural, the same power as that which was possessed by the older landlords mentioned above. The power of the imperial family was thus extended into a wider sphere by the increase in the number of the landlords of the blood royal, but at the same time the power of the Emperor himself was in danger of being weakened by the overgrowth of the branches of the Imperial family.

      As to the chieftains of groups, they must have been of later origin than the landlords, for to be a virtual possessor of land only as the consequence of being chieftain of the people who happened to occupy the land shows that the relation between the people and the land inhabited by them was the result of some historical development. Moreover, the grouping of people according to their handicrafts must be a step far advanced beyond the pristine crowding together of people of promiscuous callings. It is also an important fact which should be taken into consideration here again that the greater part of the craft-groups consisted of immigrants. From all these data we may safely enough assume that the chieftains who were at first placed at the head of a certain group of people perhaps came over to this country simultaneously with the predominant stock, or came from the same home at a time not very far distant from that of the migration of the predominant stock itself, and that they distinguished themselves by their fidelity to the emperor; in short, these chieftains might have been mostly of the same racial origin as the imperial family, except in the case of groups formed by peninsular immigrants of later date. The increasing organisation of such groups, therefore, must have led to the aggrandizement of the power of the imperial family; but there was, of course, the same fear of a relaxation of the blood-ties between the emperor and the chieftains akin in blood to him.

      Such are the general facts relating to the social and political life of Japan before the seventh century. If its development had continued on the lines described above, the ultimate result would have been the division of the country among a large number of petty chieftains, heterogeneous in blood and in the nature of the power which they wielded, and with very relaxed ties between themselves and the emperor. We can observe a similar state of things even today among several uncivilised tribes, for example, among the natives of Formosa and in many South Sea Islands. Japan, however, was not destined to the same fate. How then did it come to be consolidated?