Key Concepts in Japanese History and Culture

Edo

Edo

Tokugawa period with baku-han system

Hyakki yagyō

procession of one hundred demons

Yamato

Japan's first dynasty; yamato clan made themselves the first imperial bloodline

Shintō

Religion centered around kami worship

Tennō

'Heavenly Sovereign' or name for the Japanese emperor

Nara (Heijōkyō)

The capital of Japan during the Nara period

Kami

worshiped supernatural forces; result of pacification of Tama

Heian (period)

period with the birth of samurai and shoen

Kyōto (Heiankyō)

Longest capital to remain in power

Monogatari

serial texts written by court women

Shōen

private estates; sources of power for clans

Ikiryō

living spirits of sleeping people

Shōgun

military leader in charge of military and administrative affairs

Kamakura (period)

bakufu system where the shogun controls the emperor and samurai; dual system, the imperial system existed and samurai made sure the system worked

Minamoto

nominated himself shogun and made the Kamakura bakufu

Bakufu

tent government or shogunate

Muromachi (period)

bakufu system entirely based on loyalty; samurai took over, skeleton of dual system, samurai held the most power, weak, local samurai family ruled as governor over provinces, ignored the shogun and did what they wanted 

Daimyō

Feudal lord in charge of the territory

Sengoku (Warring States; period)

Japan became ununified independent states

Tokugawa Ieyasu

founding shogun of Tokugawa shogunate; unified Japan

Baku-han System

compound system of government with shogunate and central government;  Tokugawa system, historiographical category, a mixture of centralized authority and local government

Semiotics

Study of signs and symbols

Jōmon

largest settlement of hunter-gatherers in Japan

Yayoi

archaeological phase designated by the emergence of wetland paddy agriculture and social specialization.

Kofun

archaeological phase designated by the emergence of large burial tombs.

Kojiki

record of ancient matters

Tama

a spiritual force from nature

Samurai

military aristocracy

Onryō

evil dead spirit

Genji monogatari

serial tales of Genji written and read by court women

Goryō

neutral spirits of the dead

Amidism

Buddhist sect worshiping Amida Buddha.

Bushi

another word for samurai

Nō

theater performance linked to Shinto religion

Nanban

Portuguese and Europeans who arrived in Japan

Tokugawa (family)

shogunate family with largest territories

Tokugawa (period)

samurai ruled territories and pledged loyalty to the shogun; completely new, centralized government, controlled all inter-domain operations, gave license to mercantile operation, daimyo ruled in semi-autonomy

Tsukumogami

living objects that reached their 100th birthday

Jomon 14,500-300 BCE

• Jomon Village 11,000- 400 c.a 

  • Made up of hunter gatherers

  • Pretty large settlements spread in the archipelago largely in the north east

  • A settlement in Saannamairu is considered the largest settlement of hunter gatherers in early Japan

Yayoi 300 BCE - 300

• Organized housing distribution that seemed to follow a hierarchy based on division of labor brought by Asia’s main continent 

• “rice cultivation techniques spread throughout the Wa kingdom, encompassing approximately western and central Japan. Early Yayoi paddy engineering was relatively sophistic” 16

• “Yayoi cultivators that designed elevated storehouses to tackle the threats of mould, moths, and mice in stored rice supplies.”16

Kofun

• A more sophisticated development of the Yayoi culture

• Huge tomes to the King

Nara Period 710-94

• Nara-period texts: written on strips of bamboo bound together 

  • Kojiki (712, “Record of Ancient Matters”)

  • Nihon shoki 

• Nara court’s conquest of the Emishi, a tribe of hunter-gatherers in the northeastern section of the archipelago

• Nara court constructed an elaborate Buddhist theocracy and Chinese-style administrative bureaucracy, which it relied upon for managing the affairs of state.

• relocation of the capital from Nara to Kyoto

• Just as in the court bureaucracy, where proximity to the emperor meant political power, so too did geographic proximity to the imperial palace signal power

• not only did the emperor rule, but he or she served as supreme priest and, as we have seen, as a ‘very god’ in the courtly imagination

Heian Period 794-1185

• Kyoto is now the capital

• The emergence of Japan’s vernacular also led to the rise of women poets and writers

• The classical era of Japan

• Retired emperor could now exercise power as a regent 

• Houses were delegated to run imperial operations

• Sheon: private estates; sources of power for clans (middle period)

  • Lands held by imperial family and a small number of aristocratic ffamilie

  • Lands granted to great temples and shrines 

  • Newly developed fields which vy 743 could be retained inperpetuity

    • Peasants had to pay taxes

    • Public land belonged to the emperor and was given to Peasants to live off and to pay part of the proceeds to the government 

  • The opening of new fields by killing monsters is an exception to publicly own land

    • The land is given to people who put in the work to cultivate the land and clear off monsters

    • It was easier for aristocratic families to do this as they could send workers to do so

• Samurai 

  • Military aristocracy

• Female prose monogatori

  • Female education was encouraged 

  • Increased their liklihood of marrying major aristocratic families especially the imperial family

  • Tale of genji

• The Heian Court was developed and modeled after the Chinese court

• Samurai

  • military aristocracy

• Emperor “play an important role in legitimizing samurai rulers by granting titular authority; samurai, however, came to control much of the land and its revenue during the so-called ‘age of widespread land clearance’.”45

• “The transfer of governance to samurai paralleled a privatization of control over land, producers, and tax collection, which saw land slip from the court’s grip into the hands of temples and shrines, aristocrats, and, eventually, provincial warriors. In essence, public lands controlled by the court evolved into feudal manors”45

Muromachi 1337-1573

• “characterized by delicate sensibilities, tea ceremonies and No drama, Zen Buddhist austerity, and a nearly maniacal adherence to aesthetic simplicity.”81

• Muromachi bafuku

  • New bafuku: Ashikaga Takauji

  • Now based in Kyoto

  • This military rulership was more enhanced and the control of government was solely on the shogun

  • The two systems disappeared 

    • But the emperor remained in name only

  • The shogun was now in charge of military and administrative affairs

  • The bafuku control Became weaker

    • Entirely based on bonds of loyalty 

    • Increased warfare/skirmishes

  • Emergence of the daimyo

    • Feudal lord

    • Upper elite samurai 

    • In control of territory (fief)

    • After the onin war of 15th century, they became to act more independently as they controlled their domains 

    • Each of the daimyo embraced  different cultures/rituals 

      • Some embraced chinese culture, war culture, buddhist culture, heian culture

Warring States period 1467-1573

• Began End of Onin war (late 1500s-1600s) and ended in 1600s

• Warfare and instability is a constant

• There was a boom in trade

  • Each province tried to increase their power through trade with the mainland and southeast asia 

  • Nanban (southern barbarians)

    • St. francis from Europe is believed to have arrived in 1543

    • The spanish and the portuguese soon arrived

    • They brought christianity

    • Spanish Jesuits soon arrived

• Battle of Nagashino (1575)

  • Oda Nobunaga vs Takeda Katsuyon

  • The importation of weapons and trade allowed Oda Nobunaga force, a smaller domain, to win

• Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi

  • The two were able to unify Japan

  • Nobunaga was soon killed during another campaign

  • After Hideyoshi died, he installed regents until his son came of age

  • 1600: Battle of Sekigahara

    • One of the regents defeated the other four opposing regents

    • A very large battle

Tokugawa founds Edo bakufu

• Baku-han system

  • miced  compound system that combined central government (bakufu) and local governments (han)

  • Daimyo’s power was reduced

  • The system of the emperor is still intact; just had very little power 

  • He controlled the relationship between bafuku and daimyo

  • Made three groups of daimyo who were family: Shinpan Daimyo

  • Fundai daimyo: daimyo vassals of Tokugawa before Sekigahara 

  • Tozama daimyo: allied to Tokugawa after Sekigawara

    • Were not allied with Tokugawa in the battle but did not fight against him

    • All daimyo who fought against Tokugawa in the battle were killed 

  • Samurai kept betraying each other to maximize their power

    • There was little trust or loyalty

    • If they didn’t trust their domain lords, they may have impoverished them

  • There was one castle for each daimyo 

    • Made it easy to invade Tokugawa

    • All retainers and samurai had to live there

    • The number of retainers that a daimyo could have is dependent on the productivity of the domain

    • The daimyo’s army size depeneded on productivity

    • If the shogun liked the daimyo, they would have a larger retainer size and a larger army 

  • Sankin kotai

    • Alternatae attendance 

    • Each daimyo was required to in aspects of governmental processes 

    • For certain amounts of time (months-years), daimyos were required to stay in the main palace to serve

    • Similar to a political hostage; kept daimyos in check

    • The first wife and heir would run the domain in their absence 

  • No one wore armor after the Senigara Wara 

    • It became symbolic

  • Tokugawa social period

    • Samurai (rulers) (the only nobles in the social pyramid, the rest were commoners)

  • Emperor formally appoints the title to shogun in a ritual

    • A ritual for show just to display symbolic/fake power

  • Tokugawa

    • Strongest and most powerful daimyo

    • Centralized government of bakufu

    • New central miliary government

    • Reinstalled tradition ritual where the emperor would give the shogun power

      • The emperor had no actual authority

      • Aim was to reconceptualize the shogun in the legalistic language of the japanese 18th central political and legal sector 

      • Shogun had the right to exploit peasants, artisans, and merchants

  • Limits to samurai power; no centralise power, army, tax system; no (very little) control over economic life

  • Limits to shogunal power: shogun’s power over domain lords is linked to arbitrage; shogun has direct control over foreign relations but no control over the borders; no national army

  • Strong resilience of self-governance; no sense of national unity, no common language or culture; strong regional identity; strong sense of class identity

  • Samurai

    • After 1636 rebellion, there stopped to be any need for military power

    • Samurai began to transition into diplomatic civil servants 

    • They were still trained but there was little need 

  • 17th century also led to agronomical innovations

    • Better financial systems 

    • Reduction of waste

    • Better tools 

    • Emergence of surplus productions

  • City streets became consumer based

    • City markets were born 

    • Cities became center of shops

    • Industrial revolution is accompanied by a consumer revolution 

    • Sake brewing, salt making tc.

    • One of the most complicated unit of money in the world 

    • Language became for unified

  • Literacy (hanko)

    • Estimated that 70 % of city dwellers were literate

    • 55% in country side

    • Japan became the most literate population in the world in 17th century

    • Free education and obligatory for samurai

    • One of the highest rates in the world at that time

    • Female offspring of samurai retainers and commoners went to school at templar schools (terakoya)

  • Bookmaking became a trade

    • Largely for entertainment

  • Hanamachi

    • Pleasure quarters