Japan -- History; Japan -- Politics and government
In the fifth generation after “Ten sho dai jin,” was born “Zinmu” or
“Jin mu” (Chin: Shinwu--_i.e._, spirit of war). He was the first of
the earthly or human rulers. He is said to have been born in Fiuga, a
mountainous province on the east side of Kiu siu, on the west coast
of the Boo ngo Channel. This part of the islands is well suited for
trading purposes, and it is also well adapted for the landing of an
invading force, and it is not unlikely that Zinmu either originally
came from China, or was the son of some Chinese who had settled there,
and who started thence on a design of conquest. At the time when he set
out upon his career, the people of the country are said to have been
hairy and uncivilized, but under the rule of a headman in each village.
The Japanese have to this day a great contempt for the people of Yezo,
who may be thus described, and they allege that similar tribes occupied
the whole of the islands, and that they were gradually driven back
before the armies of Zinmu. It is more likely that they were conquered,
and gradually amalgamated with their conquerors by the intermarriage of
these with native females, and that in this way, and by the effects of
the warm climate of the south, they lost that hirsute appearance which
is so characteristic of the people of Yezo.--Aino, the name given to
the hairy inhabitants of Yezo by the Japanese, means “between,” and has
reference to a contemptuous idea of the origin of these people from
a dog.--There are two strongly-marked varieties of feature in Japan,
which are always strikingly portrayed in their own pictures. There is
the broad flat face of the lower classes, and the high nose and oval
face of the higher. The difference is so marked as to be some argument
in favor of a previous mixing of two different races; the one of which
had extended southward from the Kurile Islands and Siberia, hairy and
broad-featured; while the other had originated from the south, with
Indian features and smooth skins.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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