In the _Kojiki_, or “Records of Ancient Matters,” dictated by Hide-no-are and completed in A.D. 711 or 712, we have a record of the mythology, manners, language, and the traditional history of Japan; this “history” purports to give the actual story of Japan from the year 660 B. C., when the first Emperor Jimmu, “having subdued and pacified the savage deities and extirpated the unsubmissive people, dwelt at the palace of Kashiwabara.” Modern Japanese scholars as well as Western scholars are inclined to say that there is really no authentic history before A.D. 461 but as a picture of the customs of early Japan, the _Kojiki_ is still the only authentic document that we have. Inazo Nitobe, in dividing the history of his country into periods, groups the legendary age and all that went before the political reforms of the seventh century as the first period, under the name of the “ancient period.” These ancient people, the mythical people of the _Kojiki_, had passed through a genuine Bronze Age and had in general attained a high level of barbaric skill. Of their many curious customs, both in the _Kojiki_ and in the equally important _Nihongi_ or “Chronicles of Japan,” prominent notice is made of the “parturition house”—“one-roomed but without windows, which a woman was supposed to build and retire into for the purpose of being delivered unseen.” Here is evidence that the infant was “taboo” until it had been received by the head of the house. Even up to recent times in the island of Hachijo the custom survived according to Ernest Satow, who visited this island in 1878.