The date ascribed to this incident cannot be depended on. “Chinese accounts speak of the custom of human sacrifices at the burial of a sovereign as in full force in Japan so late as A.D. 247,” says Aston. Probably all the events of this part of Japanese history are very much antedated. But of the substantial accuracy of the narrative there can be no doubt. Some of these clay figures (known as _tsuchi-ningio_) are still in existence, and may be seen in the British Museum, where they constitute the chief treasure of the Gowland collection. The Uyeno Museum in Tokio also possessed specimens, both of men and horses. None, however, remain _in situ_ at the tombs. The _hani-wa_ (clay-rings), cylinders which may now be seen embedded in the earth round all the principal _misasagi_, are so numerous that they can hardly have all been surmounted by figures. But they are of the same workmanship and of the same date, and no doubt some of them are the pedestals of images, the above-ground part of which has been destroyed by the weather or by accident. [Illustration: TSUCHI-NINGIO. CLAY FIGURE SUBSTITUTED FOR HUMAN SACRIFICE—JAPAN (REPRODUCED FROM “TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE JAPAN SOCIETY,” VOLUME 1)] [Illustration: CROCK CONTAINING REMAINS OF SACRIFICED CHILD. UNEARTHED AT TELL TA’ANNEK (REPRODUCED FROM “LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT”)] “A similar substitution of straw or wooden images for living men took place in China in ancient times, though by a curious inversion of ideas, the former practice is described as leading to the latter.”[109] While neither the lion or the tiger ever troubled Japan and her most carnivorous and destructive animals have been wolves, tradition has ascribed the sacrifice of human beings in Japan to the desire to placate the god of wild animals. The victim was always a girl, and from the earliest ages the manner of selecting her was to affix to the roof of a house a bow and arrow. When the householder arose in the morning and discovered what was accepted as a divine intimation, the eldest daughter of the family was buried alive, it being supposed that her flesh served as a meal for the deity. Later the priests of Buddha found a more profitable method of disposing of these girls by selling them as slaves; thereby following out the fundamental tenet of the Buddhistic religion, which is the sanctity of human life, and at the same time increasing their wealth. Some writers refer to this practice as being a sacrifice to an animal in the service of Shakamuni, which would have made it a Buddhistic rite, but the idea is scoffed at by Brinkley.[110] Even up to recent times it is said the habit of sacrificing human beings in order to make the foundation of any great work more stable was common. The corpses of two human beings were said to be under the scarps “of the futile forts hurriedly erected for defence of Yedo [Tokio] in the interval between Commodore Perry’s first and second coming.”[111]