Page:Kojiki by Chamberlain.djvu/72

into view. Then at once we hear of chieftains in every locality, who lead their men to battle, and are seemingly the sole depositories of power, each in his microscopic sphere. The legend of Jim-mu itself, however, is sufficient to show that autocracy, as we understand it, was not characteristic of the government of the Tsukushi tribes; for Jim-mu and his brother, until the latter’s death, are represented as joint chieftains of their host. Similarly we find that the “Territorial Owners” of Yamato, and the “Rulers” of Idzumo, whom Jim-mu or his successors are said to have subjugated, are constantly spoken of in the Plural, as if to intimate that they exercised a divided sovereignty. During the whole of the so-called “Human Age” we meet, both in parts of the country which were already subject to the Imperial rule and in others which were not yet annexed, with local magnates bearing these same titles of “Territorial Owners,” “Rulers,” “Chiefs,” etc.; and the impression left on the mind is that in early historical times the sovereign’s power was not exercised directly over all parts of Japan, but that in many cases the local chieftains continued to hold sway though owning some sort of allegiance to the emperor in Yamato, while in others the emperor was strong enough to depose these local rulers, and to put in their place his own kindred or retainers, who however exercised unlimited authority in their own districts, and used the same titles as had been borne by the former native rulers,—that, in fact, the government was feudal rather than centralized. This characteristic of the political organization of Early Japan has not altogether escaped the attention of the native commentators. Indeed the great Shintō scholar Hirata not only recognizes the fact, but endeavours to prove that the system of centralization which obtained during the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and part of the twelfth centuries, and which has been revived in our own day, is nothing but an imitation of the Chinese bureaucratic system; and he asserts that an organized feudalism, similar to that which existed from the twelfth century down to the year 1867, was the sole really ancient and national Japanese form of government. The translator cannot follow Hirata to such lengths, as he sees no evidence in the early histories of the intricate organization of mediæval Japan. But that, beyond the immediate limits of the Imperial domain, the government resembled feudalism rather than centralization seems