After years and years of conflict among the Yayoi in Japan, the kingdom of Yamatai arose
victorious.
There’s huge debate over where Yamatai was.
This debate is DIRTY and has resulted in numerous deaths, orphans, and the occasional amputee.
We don’t want that chaos here, so we’ll just let the experts fight it out.
Thirty Yayoi kingdoms had contact with China at the time, probably the most powerful kingdoms
in Japan.
These kingdoms all got together and acknowledged Queen Himiko as their leader.
She’s actually the earliest named person in Japanese history.
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Himiko means Sun Child, or Sun Daughter, or Sun Princess in old Japanese.
This tells us how much people revered her.
Remember that Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, is the most important kami in Shinto.
Not commie, kami!
All Japanese emperors claim to be directly descended from Amaterasu.
Yamatai ruled over a confederation of 30 kingdoms, but probably did not rule over all the Yayoi.
There were reports of conflict between Yamatai and other kingdoms, suggesting that Japan
was controlled by a handful of powerful states rather than just one state.
Queen Himiko was quite the badass.
She lived unmarried from 170 AD to 248.
The people chose her to rule.
She had 1000 female attendants, 100 male guards, and 1 male attendant who we shall name...
Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop.
So Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop served her food and served as the link between her
and the rest of the world.
Why did she need that communication link?
She was a shaman, and lived isolated from the people, choosing to practice shamanism
and converse with the kami.
Her palace was walled, with lookout towers and armed guards.
Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop relayed her commands and wishes to the outside world.
Now, this is not written, but he may have been her lover.
Think about it.
An unmarried queen, having one guy who always served her food?
It’s a good chance they were lovers.
Does this matter?
Not really, but it gives me an excuse to draw nice things.
She also had a younger brother who, according to the Chinese, either handled affairs of
the state or shared the responsibility with her.
So it seems like her brother actually ran the kingdom, and she mostly lived in seclusion.
This is where we should remember that this history was written by the Chinese.
The Yayoi had no writing system.
At the time, it was common for Japanese rulers to NOT meet with ambassadors from other states,
and instead choose an underling to treat with foreigners.
So it’s possible that the Chinese mistakenly thought her brother ran the kingdom politically,
because they only interacted with her brother and not directly with her.
Hard to say which was true.
We should also understand that even if she did only handle religious affairs, that didn’t
mean she was just a figurehead and less powerful than her brother.
Oh no, shamans had ultimate power.
The Yayoi were deeply religious and followed everything their shaman said.
Himiko’s rise was possibly due to religious reasons rather than military or secular reasons.
She took power during her early teens, and so did a female leader that came after her.
This lends credence to the idea that Himiko’s power was derived from religion, at least
initially.
Some historians suggested that the kingdoms under Yamatai rule each had a shaman leader
who delegated the tedious military and administrative tasks to an underling, so they could focus
on the more important religious tasks.
The Chinese texts said Himiko ruled Yamatai with magic and sorcery.
However, at least one historian portrayed Queen Himiko as a cunning political player.
Whatever the reason for her rise, she must have been an astute and talented leader to
hold on to power for so long.
We don’t have records of contact between Yamatai and the Han Chinese.
During Himiko’s reign, the Han Dynasty collapsed into three states, one of which was Wei.
And we do have records of Yamatai sending diplomatic missions to the Wei.
Yamatai did this as a tributary state, as was the custom when interacting with the Chinese.
Himiko’s legitimacy was bolstered when the Wei court gave her a title: "Queen of Wa (Japan),
friendly to Wei."
They also gave her a golden seal and a whole bunch of the Yayoi’s precious drug...
bronze mirrors.
The social structure of the Yayoi and later periods consisted of uji, or clans.
Yayoi politics was all about religious interaction between clans.
Back then, they didn’t have the concept of a separation between church and state.
The people did not split the world into a spiritual world and a physical world.
The two were one and the same.
Like the iPhone 8 and iPhone X. Exactly, the same.
A clan was not just a social and political group, it was also a religious group.
Each clan had a kami representing it, and the leader of the clan derived power from
this kami.
Himiko being the "Daughter of the Sun" wasn’t just a cool title.
It implies that her clan worshipped some kind of sun deity, perhaps Amaterasu herself.
If so, this would have made Himiko’s clan powerful, and her vassal clans powerful by
association.
This idea of power flowing from kami, to clan head or emperor, to subordinate clans formed
the basis for political legitimacy throughout Japan’s history all the way up to the 1950s.
Queen Himiko ruled peacefully for 50 or 60 years, although there WERE reports of Yamatai
warring with other kingdoms.
There's not much detail about her rule, but her people seemed to like her.
The Chinese, in their writings, admired her ability to keep control over so many states.
They also thought the people lived pretty good lives.
Wives were not jealous, there was no theft, taxes were collected easily, and granaries
and markets existed in every province.
When she died in 248 AD, they built a huge burial mound 100 meters in diameter.
Over 100 attendants followed her to the grave.
That’s a nice way of saying they were sacrificed, by burning.
What happened after this?
Unfortunately, info about Yamatai is sparse, like my social life, but we do know that a
male ruler took her place.
He wasn’t very good.
Chaos and infighting rocked the kingdom until a 13-year-old girl name Iyo, a relative of
Himiko’s, took the leadership role and restored peace.
And after this?
We don’t know!
There are no records!
How frustrating is THAT bulls--!
Did Yamatai end?
Is Yamatai the same as the Yamato state that eventually became Japan, or were they unrelated?
See the next video to NOT find out, because we don’t freaking know!
Hey you, I wanna give a shoutout to a commenter who sent me his audio series on Japanese myths
called “Japan: A Mythosymphony” and it’s great!
I think you’d like them.
I put the link in the description, show them some love!