to Wu) was first officially noticed by the historians, it was
recorded by the Chinese annalists that part of Fu-ch'ai's personal
following had escaped in ships towards the east, and had founded a
state in Japan. But it must not be forgotten that then (473 B.C.)
orthodox China had never yet heard of Japan in any form, though of
course it is possible that the maritime states of Wu and Yiieh may
have had junk intercourse with many islands in the Pacific.
We have already ventured upon a few remarks upon this subject in
Chapter XXIII., but so much is apt to be made out of slight
historical materials-such, for instance, as the pleasure
expedition of a Chinese emperor in 984 B.C. to the Tarim Valley--
that it may be useful to suggest the true proportions, and the
modest possible bearing of this "Japanese" migration--assuming the
slender record of it to be true; and the basis of truth is by no
means a broad one; still less is it capable of sustaining a heavy
superstructure.
Any one visiting Japan will notice that there are several distinct
types of men in that country, the squat and vulgar, the oval-faced
and refined, and many variations of these two; just as, in
England, we have the Norman, Saxon, Irish, and Scotch types of
face, with many other _nuances_. It is also clear from the
kitchen-midden and other prehistoric remains; from the presence,
even now, in Japan of the bearded Ainus (a word meaning in their
own language "men"); and from the numerous accounts of Ainu-
Japanese wars in both Chinese and Japanese history, that there
were (as there still are) manners, and possibly yet other men, in
ancient Japan, both very different from the manners and appearance
of the cultured and gifted race, viewed as a homogeneous whole, we
are now so proud to have as our political allies. But that brings
us no nearer a historical solution, It is a persistent way with
all ethnologists to search out whence this or that race came. Of
course all races move and mingle, and must always have moved and
mingled, when by so doing they could better their circumstances of
life; but even if movement has taken place in Japan as it has
elsewhere, there is no reason why, if comparatively uncivilized
Japanese displaced Ainus, Ainus should not have, before that,
displaced quite uncivilized Japanese; or, if other races came over
the seas to displace the people already there, the natives already
there should not have, later on, ejected these new-comers by sea
routes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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