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6/27/2025, 2:41:34 PM
I had a really long and in-depth discussion about early Japanese history and religion in Japan with someone who both was pretty fluent in English and had in-depth knowledge of these kind of things.
About very early Japanese history, the earliest known styles of Japanese architecture are strikingly similar to Southeast Asian styles. Both Japan and certain areas in Southeast Asia have "bird gates", but in SEA they have survived closer to a more original, literal form, gates with sculptures of birds on top of them. The Japanese at some point abandoned the bird sculptures, and were left with torii as we know them. Birds were considered to be a kind of "soul of the rice"
Shrines evolved from kind of community halls of early farmer societies. Originaly holy sites were just marked sites in nature, but as they become built, the community hall became the pattern to build on. I think this shows a line of southern, austronesian influence.
There's a popular pattern in Japanese art which is a simple sawtooth pattern, it can be found in shrine fences, ritual mirrors, but also clothes and such. It's from snake scales. Snakes were thought to be sacred, and this is likely related to how they ate mice who would eat crops.
The kofun were built as kind of artificial mountains. Originaly the tribal chieftains were buried high on mountains, as the thought was that ancestors went up to mountains and became kami there. Haniwa were originaly painted in red lacquer, and buried people were also covered with red dyes. This is thought to be because red has strong associated with blood, thus life. I remember there being also European archeological findings of buried people being covered with red dyes.
There's a type of jar-like haniwa that was used to demarcate sacred territories such as the kofun. They holes poked into them. This evolved from a kind of lemniscate type of pattern that was formed by alternating series of triangles and holes. However, as the kofun became larger, they had to start mass producing the jar haniwa, and this led to shortcuts. Different haniwa craftsmen would leave small carvings on haniwa as signatures.
Kofun era Japanese society produced incredible amounts of pottery, they had basicaly an organized industry making both haniwa but also all kinds of other practical earthenware. They were also actively trading with the Korean kingdoms and the two competing Chinese dynasties. The large kofun around Mozu were originaly close to shoreline, and might have been built to essentially flex on Korean and Chinese merchants and emissaries. Mozu area in Sakai was basicaly Nara's, back then capital, trading port.
Large matsuri evolved from kind of yearly thanksgiving rituals for harvests. About more modern religious stuff, there's some people who see Shinto in modern form as an essentially post-19th century invention that doesn't have much to do with historical Japanese indigenous religion. I don't know how true this would be. A popular line of thinking in Japanese popular religion is this kind of all religions are the same. They guy summarized this thinking as "kami and buddhas are the same and Jesus was some kind of buddha". So many do not particularly care about what particular manifestations of this "all the same" are.
About very early Japanese history, the earliest known styles of Japanese architecture are strikingly similar to Southeast Asian styles. Both Japan and certain areas in Southeast Asia have "bird gates", but in SEA they have survived closer to a more original, literal form, gates with sculptures of birds on top of them. The Japanese at some point abandoned the bird sculptures, and were left with torii as we know them. Birds were considered to be a kind of "soul of the rice"
Shrines evolved from kind of community halls of early farmer societies. Originaly holy sites were just marked sites in nature, but as they become built, the community hall became the pattern to build on. I think this shows a line of southern, austronesian influence.
There's a popular pattern in Japanese art which is a simple sawtooth pattern, it can be found in shrine fences, ritual mirrors, but also clothes and such. It's from snake scales. Snakes were thought to be sacred, and this is likely related to how they ate mice who would eat crops.
The kofun were built as kind of artificial mountains. Originaly the tribal chieftains were buried high on mountains, as the thought was that ancestors went up to mountains and became kami there. Haniwa were originaly painted in red lacquer, and buried people were also covered with red dyes. This is thought to be because red has strong associated with blood, thus life. I remember there being also European archeological findings of buried people being covered with red dyes.
There's a type of jar-like haniwa that was used to demarcate sacred territories such as the kofun. They holes poked into them. This evolved from a kind of lemniscate type of pattern that was formed by alternating series of triangles and holes. However, as the kofun became larger, they had to start mass producing the jar haniwa, and this led to shortcuts. Different haniwa craftsmen would leave small carvings on haniwa as signatures.
Kofun era Japanese society produced incredible amounts of pottery, they had basicaly an organized industry making both haniwa but also all kinds of other practical earthenware. They were also actively trading with the Korean kingdoms and the two competing Chinese dynasties. The large kofun around Mozu were originaly close to shoreline, and might have been built to essentially flex on Korean and Chinese merchants and emissaries. Mozu area in Sakai was basicaly Nara's, back then capital, trading port.
Large matsuri evolved from kind of yearly thanksgiving rituals for harvests. About more modern religious stuff, there's some people who see Shinto in modern form as an essentially post-19th century invention that doesn't have much to do with historical Japanese indigenous religion. I don't know how true this would be. A popular line of thinking in Japanese popular religion is this kind of all religions are the same. They guy summarized this thinking as "kami and buddhas are the same and Jesus was some kind of buddha". So many do not particularly care about what particular manifestations of this "all the same" are.
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