Keiko's Kumaso Campaign

This episode we start the reign of Ōtarashi Hiko, aka Keikō Tennō.  Specifically, this episode we will be focusing on his campaigns in Kyushu against the people known as the Kumaso, as well as others:  so-called "brigands" and "tsuchigumo".

For more go to: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-33

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 33:  Keiko’s Kumaso Campaign.

This episode, we are moving on to the third of what we can maybe refer to as the Miwa sovereigns:  Mimaki Iribiko, Ikume Iribiko, and now Oho-Tarashi Hiko, known today as Keikou Tennou.  Name-wise, you can see some patterns, because the next three will be Waka-Tarashi Hiko, Tarashi-Nakatsu Hiko, and Okinaga Tarashi Hime.   There seems to be some debate over the exact meaning of “Tarashi”, but it does appear to mark a hereditary lineage—whether that lineage was actual or massaged by the various Chroniclers.

The Nihon Shoki opens this reign in the year 71 and ends it around the year 130, with the sovereign reigning some 60 years.  More likely, though, this all takes place some time in the late 3rd century and early 4th, but we won’t get any events we can check against other records for at least another several reigns, so we are still in that “Dark” period of Japanese history, where our only source of guiding light is the Chronicles and archaeology.

What we do read at this time gives us an idea, though, that the country still wasn’t settled under any one particular ruler.  In fact, Oho Tarashi’s reign would be dominated by his wars both in Kyushu and in the Kanto and up to the Tohoku regions, indicating that they were still quite independent of Yamato, though of course that isn’t quite how it comes across in the Chronicles.  These wars gained him some notoriety, as events of his reign are recalled not just in the official histories, but also in the Fudoki, the local gazetteers that were ordered in the 8th century, where Oho Tarashi is mentioned even more than his predecessors.  I find this telling, as these documents often contain tidbits that aren’t necessarily found elsewhere in the records.  That could be a red flag—additions biased towards local politics and tradition—or it could be indications that they had access to other records, stories, etc.  We’ll be adding the stories to the mix as it makes sense and hopefully that will help.

One more curious note before we dive into everything—we really have two major stories of conquest.  In the Nihon Shoki we get both the conquests of Oho Tarashi Hiko, but also of his son—one of the more famous princes in the Chronicles, Wo’usu no Mikoto, more commonly known as Yamatodake or Yamato Takeru, the Brave of Yamato.  We’ll devote the entire next episode to Yamato Takeru, but in summary, he in many ways defined the early cultural imaginary of the warrior.  He was strong and merciless and intelligent.  His stratagems were hardly what one would consider orthodox, even in later times, but one could not refute the results.  And, like Icarus, he warns us against pride, and is the first in a long line of tragic heroes lionized throughout Japanese history.  In fact, his story is so powerful, that in the Kojiki it overshadows almost everything else about this period.  Truly, the authors of the Kojiki would have us believe that this should have been the reign of Yamato Takeru, not Oho Tarashi, for he was the true actor.  Today, we are left with questions, chief among them:  Did Yamato Takeru even exist, and if so, can we really attribute all of these accounts to him?  Was he perhaps an aggregate of various stories, where the hero is simply given as a “Brave of Yamato”?  Or is there something else going on?  We’ll take a look at this as we examine this period, but also try to better understand what it means for our study of history.

But for now, in this episode, let’s look at the other conquest story and the life of sovereign #12, Oho Tarashi Hiko Oshiro Wake no Mikoto, aka Keikou Tennou.  This account will mostly be from the Nihon Shoki, with some tidbits from the Fudoki and others as appropriate.

We already know something of Oho Tarashi Hiko’s origin story.  He was a son of Ikume Iribiko and Hibasu Hime, Ikume’s wife after the tragic affair with Saho Hime and her brother.  Interestingly, Homutsu Wake, Saho Hime’s son who we discussed previously, seems to have not been even considered for the position of Crown Prince—perhaps for his lack of speaking ability and implied mental immaturity, but it is never even raised.  Rather it is Oho Tarashi Hiko and his brother, Inishiki Hiko, who seem to be offered the chance to take on the royal dignity of Yamato, and it is only Oho Tarashi Hiko that takes it.

Of course, we could look at this in a slightly different light.  Given what we know of paired rulers, where one was responsible for the spiritual and the other seems to have been responsible for the martial, could that have been happening here?  After all, Inishiki *was* given mastery of Isonokami shrine, while Oho Tarashi Hiko, well… we’ll get to that.

Remember, Yamato may have ties to Izumo, Kibi, and Koshi, but their rule is far from absolute.  There are apparently others claiming that they are the true kings of the Wa, and possibly even keeping the Seto Inland Sea trade to themselves, controlling the straits of Shimonoseki.  Of course, the Chronicles only take the faintest nod at such disunity, indicating only that there were still those who resisted the royal authority, and often acting as if the Yamato kings were already the natural rulers of the entire archipelago by divine right.  Therefore, if any opposed them, it was as if they were opposing the natural order of things.  The royal forces weren’t sent out to “conquer” land, according to the royal narrative—how could they be?  That would imply that the land did not already belong to Yamato, regardless of what the people living on it might have to say about that.  This despite the fact that they’ve already acknowledged that there were other Divine Descendants in the world, who would theoretically have had just as strong a celestial claim to rule as the descendants of Ninigi no Mikoto

Unfortunately, we only have one lineage that we are given in any detail, so we’ll have to see what we can see of the rest of the archipelago, even if just through that limited frame.

So Oho Tarashi Hiko Oshiro Wake, son of Ikume Iribiko, was promised the Royal Dignity by his father, but he didn’t just get the throne right away.  In fact, it was some time after that before he was finally made Crown Prince, which was his position until his father passed away.  It seems there wasn’t really much of a tradition of abdication at this point, something that we will see later on, though presumably he had already been working in the court of his father in one way or another, working to help run the fledgling state.

When he did take the throne there is an interesting note in the Nihon Shoki—they say that there was “kaigen”, or in the words of Aston, “the chronological epoch was altered accordingly.”  Of course, for many students of Japanese history, this is a familiar tradition—in fact, we only recently entered the Reiwa era with the enthronement of the most recent emperor.  And it is the case that our early dates are all relative to the reigning sovereign, though typically it is expressed as a given year in the reign of the prince of such-and-such palace—or at least that is what we dsee in the Fudoki and the Kujiki.

The era names, or “Nengo” that really define later Japanese date systems, won’t come about for another four and a half centuries—around 645, and the next time we see this term, “kaigen”, isn’t until the entry for 650, when the Hakuchi era replaces “Taika” during the reign of Kotoku.

I assume this is just another example of the 8th century chroniclers using terms common to their own time to describe era transitions in the past.

But why am I going on about obscure references about regnal dates in an era that was probably all oral history, anyway?  Let’s get to the good stuff, shall we?

And by good stuff, I mean the sex and fighting, right?

Well, this episode that will mean mostly fighting—though there is some sex as well.  Honestly, there is enough to do an entire episode just on Oho Tarashi’s marriage conquests - we have at least 14 different women with whom he had children scattered across the various records, and supposedly something like 80 kids.  There is just a lot to get through with Kyushu alone.  But for right now we will focus on the fighting part of things.

After sealing a possible marriage with the people of Owari, around modern day Nagoya, Oho Tarashi came back to Yamato and set up a new palace at Makimuku, the same region as his predecessors.  No sooner had he done so, however, but word came in that the Kumaso, over in Kyushu, had rebelled.

So we’ve talked about one group of people down in Kyushu, the Hayato, who were said to be descended from the elder brother of Hiko Hohodemi—see episode 23 for that whole story—but we’ve only really mentioned the Kumaso once or twice.  They appear to have been another ethnicity in the islands—possibly even related to the Hayato, but just as likely that they were entirely different.  It is unclear who they were, though the “Land of the Kumaso” generally seems to refer to the land of Hyuuga, also known as Himuka, which is where Ninigi no Mikoto, ancestor of the royal line, is also said to have first landed, on the southeast quadrant of Kyushu.  Some have suggested that they were actually two peoples, the Kuma and the So.  Others have suggested that “Kuma” specifically refers to “bear”, and even make a connection to the Bear Worship of the Ainu and suggest that there may be a connection to pre-Yayoi beliefs.

Still others note the continued use of “Kuma”, even today.  Kumamoto in Kyushu, for example, and the Kuma district, which is noted as having a distinct dialect of Japanese, though not so much as to be called a separate language like Ryukyuan or even the Hachijo dialects.  They appear to be referred to in texts up to the Nara period, lending some credence as to their existence as more than just southwestern bogeymen of the Yamato court—but then again, the Fudoki are also replete with stories of the Tsuchigumo, or Earth Spider, people, so you may want to take this all with a grain of salt.

Regardless, the Kumaso were clearly a people set apart from Yamato and their allies.  They are portrayed as subjects—after all, the narrative is that all of the Japanese archipelago was under the Divine authority granted to the Heavenly Descendant and his progeny—but they are typically shown as rebellious, thus requiring the sovereign to chastise them.

Of course, I think by now we can easily see that this is little more than a polite fiction.  There is no evidence of any kind of extensive control of the archipelago at this time, let alone Kyushu.  The court isn’t punishing rebellious subjects, but rather it is taking military action against people that it finds to be counter to its own interests.  If the ensuing campaign, as described in the Chronicles, is at all based on reality, I would suggest that this was part of a military push by Yamato to gain more complete control over the islands—particularly the pathways to the mainland, still the source for so much that the archipelago themselves could not easily produce domestically.

Interestingly, this Yamato dominance may have had something to do with the technological advantage of iron armor imported from the mainland: because in the early 4th century we start to see examples of early iron armor in the archipelago.  Previously, armor had been made of wood or other organic materials, and surviving examples vary between extremely simplistic designs of hanging plates to elaborately carved wooden cuirasses that may have had as much, or more, of a ceremonial function—it certainly is more than is strictly needed for the purpose of protection on the battlefield.

Wood armor is all well and good, but wood has its disadvantages, including its weight.  Pound for pound, wood is not as strong as metal, and so you need more of it and larger pieces.  Iron armor, on the other hand, can be made with relatively thin plates, greatly reducing weight and also allowing for protection over more of the body.

From what we can tell, the early iron cuirasses that appear in the archipelago likely came from the mainland—specifically from the Kara, or Gaya, region.  These were solid armors of vertical plates, which seem to have been laced together with leather thongs—I’ll have an example in the podcast page.  The early versions found in the archipelago seem to be exactly like the ones found in Kara, leading to the conclusion that they were likely imports, though it is possible that they were manufactured locally—it is hard to tell.  Surviving armor generally was passed down to us, today, as grave goods, and there are still a lot of questions, including just how widespread armor was on the ancient battlefield.  Iron was, itself, a precious commodity, and no doubt an entire cuirass of iron was, at least early on, only available to the most elite warriors.  Even the rivets, at this point, were made of leather. 

Now, I’m aware of no records of just what, exactly, a warband of the time would have looked like in the early 4th century.  I suspect that some were armored in iron, while others may have had armor of wood or similar, and still other warriors may have had no armor at all.  There do seem to be a plethora of iron weapons, such as swords and the like, so maybe there was more armor than I’m giving credit for.  Still, in an age where there is still no definitive evidence of iron manufacturing—that is, smelting iron from raw iron ore—in the archipelago, it must have been really prestigious to have iron armor, whether imported or made from imported raw materials.  Moreover, to see a band of warriors in iron armor must have been quite a sight for the time.

Horses still seem to be a ways off in the historical record, so these warbands likely traveled on foot.  This would mean crossing overland along footpaths and trails, or else taking long, slender boats, putting me in mind of the large canoes of Polynesia and the Pacific Northwest.  I can easily imagine them, plying the waves, their iron cuirasses and helmets lacquered black to protect against the elements, possibly sporting a young sapling or similar decoration on the bow.

Now as I said, the Chronicles claim that the Kumaso were in “rebellion”—which implied they had previously been under Yamato’s authority, otherwise what were they rebelling against?  There is no real evidence outside of the chronicles for any kind of subordinate relationship between Yamato and the other groups on the islands—alliances and cultural sharing, yes, but still no sign of a Japanese “state” as such.  So then, assuming these assaults did occur, it must have been for some other reason.  Perhaps to secure trade routes or other alliances.

There’s also always the possibility that these conflicts had nothing to do with Yamato, and that it was some other conflict between other groups that was later attributed to Yamato to help explain their hegemony over the archipelago.

But enough dithering about, let’s take a look at what the Chronicles—or at least the Nihon Shoki and the various Fudoki—have to say about this campaign.

So when the sovereign, Oho Tarashi Hiko, decided to head west to punish the Kumaso, he gathered up his forces and headed to Saba, in the country of Suou.  This was probably in the area of the Saba River in Houfu City, in modern day Yamaguchi Prefecture.  I mean, come on, the modern city’s name basically reads as “Suou Government Seat”, and indeed it apparently was the capital of the old province of Suou—and likely would have held a similar role even earlier, back in the early 4th century.  There are certainly plenty of kofun clusters in and around the area.  So it might make sense for Oho Tarashi Hiko to stop there, especially if they had some kind of alliance with Yamato, to regroup and plan for the campaign before heading into Kyushu.

Oho Tarashi is said to have looked south from Saba, and claimed to see smoke billowing up, indicating the presence of bandits.  Now, first off, this would have meant meant looking out over more than 20 miles of ocean in the Seto Inland Sea down to Kyushu, and then picking out smoke in the sky over the distant mountains, which is certainly possible—signal smoke can be visible for at least 50 miles, and if it is a settlement of any size, one imagines it would have been the smoke from several fires.  Still, while I’m sure smoke was a good indication of people and a settlement, in what way does it specifically indicate “bandits”—unless, of course, you are an invading foreign power, in which case they are probably all “bandits”, i.e. “enemies”, until proven otherwise.

And so Oho Tarashi dispatched some men to go scout out the region.  One presumes they set out with a small force while Oho Tarashi continued to take advantage of his hosts in the country of Suou.  This must not have been a stealth mission, though, because the chieftain of that far country—likely the country of Toyo—took to the water in a ship of her own to come out and meet the Yamato forces.  We are told that she—and, yes, this chieftain, we are told, was, specifically, a woman—had a branch of hard wood that had been taken from Mt. Shitsu, on the northern coast of Kyushu, and placed it at the bow of her ship, placing on it a sword, a mirror, and a jewel—similar to the three items of the royal regalia, and reminiscent of the tree that had been set up to lure Amaterasu out of the Heavenly Rock Cave.  In addition, she also raised up a white flag—apparently even in ancient Japan, that was a sign of truce.   This chieftain’s name, we are told, was Kamuhashi Hime, and she was the ruler of her country.  She told the Yamato forces that she and her people were not in rebellion—which could be taken as a sign of submission—but there were some brigands in the area apparently causing trouble.  These were Hanatari, who was camped out at the headwaters of the Usa River; Mimitarai, who was up at the headwaters of Mi-ke; Asahagi, at the head of the Takawa, and Tsuchiwori-Wiwori, who was hiding out at the headwaters of Midorino.  According to Kamuhashi, these four and their followers were causing mischief, each one declaring himself and his relations chieftains, and Hanatari himself had assumed an unauthorized title—we aren’t told which, but do you remember how, in the last reign, someone was calling themselves King of the Wa and suggesting that Korean vessels stop at their country and go no farther?  Well, I suspect we may have a similar situation.

And of course, who is to say whether or not these were “unauthorized” claims or not?  They may all have been just as “legitimate” as our protagonist, Oho Tarashi, but they were on the wrong side of our current narrative.

So hearing all this from Kamuhashi Hime, one of the Yamato advance scouts, Take Morogi, came up with a plan.  He invited one of the four, Asahagi, to come see him and enticed him with the promise of various presents, and encouraged him to bring his friends.  Sure enough, all four of these local leaders and their followers came to see what it was that these Yamato envoys had to offer.  There was talk of red trousers, and other such things; and I guess for some reason, red trousers were a thing?  But of course, this was one of the oldest tricks in the book—like offering fugitive criminals a free cruise.  And just like with the free cruise, as soon as they showed up, they were taken prisoner and subdued.  Perhaps not the most “honorable” means of defeating one’s enemies, but certainly practical.

With those four groups subdued, it must have been deemed safe to bring the big guns, because the advance force sent a message to Oho Tarashi, presumably still hanging out in Suou, and he sailed down, landing at Nagao in the country of Toyo—possibly in the area of modern Yukuhashi city.  This was apparently the capital of that country, the seat of Kamuhashi Hime.  Did she welcome Oho Tarashi Hiko as a fellow sovereign to her lands?  Or was she coerced by his military might?  We aren’t really told, but this seems to have become the beachhead for the rest of their campaign.

From Nagao they marched onto the country of Ohokida, modernly known as Ohoita prefecture, and came to the village of Hayami, which might have been the area of Hayami district on the north of Beppu Bay.  It was there that they met another chieftain, Haya tsu Hime.

Haya tsu Hime met with Oho Tarashi’s men and reported that there were two “Tsuchigumo”—the Earth-Spider people—living in a place called “The Rat’s Cave”, but it isn’t entirely clear.  These Tsuchigumo were known simply as Awo and Shiro—Blue and White.  Hayatsu Hime also told him about three others in Negino, in the district of Nawori, named Uchizaru, Yata, and Kunimaro.  All five of these men were said to be quite large and strong, with numerous followers, apparently in the western regions of modern Oita Prefecture.

This account is confirmed in the Bungo Fudoki—or at least that Fudoki used the same sources—which said said that after leaving Saba, Oho Tarashi and his men traveled to Miyaura in the Ama District, which is where he met Hayatsu Hime, who told him about all five of these Tsuchigumo.  Oho Tarashi thought about what he would do, and he had his men stop at Kutami, where they built a giant muro or pit building which they could use as their council chambers while plotting their next move.  Oho Tarashi had his men cut down camellia trees to make mallets as their weapons, and they then used these to attack the two Tsuchikumo living in the caves, defeating them near the headwaters of Inaba.

I’m not really sure what the mallets were all about, but since the Tsuchigumo are implied to have lived underground—these ones specifically, it also feels like they were playing some kind of giant and violent game of whack-a-mole.  Of course, the description of the aftermath was much more gruesome, with claims that there was so much blood it soaked the soldiers’ feet up to their ankles, and they called that area the Blood Fields—Chida—because of the gory aftermath.

But they weren’t done yet—there still was more.  After defeating Awo and Shiro in their caves, the army crossed Mt. Negi, seeking Uchizaru, but they stopped when they came under heavy attack from multiple sides, caught in what appears to be a cross-fire ambush of some kind.  This caused Oho Tarashi to pull his men back to figure out what to do next.  And of course, what else do you do when you have a big decision to make and aren’t sure what is best?  That’s right!  He pulled out the magic eight-ball of the Kofun era:  Divination. 

And so, armed with this occult intelligence, Oho Tarashi decided that they should maneuver around Uchizaru, and first attack one of the other Tsuchigumo, Yata.  The Yamato forces descended on the moor of Negino and defeated Yata and his forces.  This unnerved Uchizaru, who was losing allies left and right, and so he attempted to submit, hoping that he and his men would be spared, but Oho Tarashi Hiko was having none of it, and he refused Uchizaru’s submission.  And so Uchizaru and his men—including, one assumes, the last Tsuchigumo leader, Kunimaro—decided that it would be better to die than to fall into their enemies’ hands, and they threw themselves into a ravine, where they perished.

There follows a story about Oho Tarashi Hiko kicking a giant stone into the air as though it was a leaf on the wind as part of an oath that he would destroy the Tsuchigumo, though, since he had just done that, it seems a bit out of order.  It also goes into the three deities that he prayed to, I guess attributing his victory to them.  We may come back to this, but for now it appears to have little relevance to our immediate story as we try to understand what might be going on.

Speaking of, what is going on here?  Oho Tarashi Hiko comes to take on the Kumaso, but first has to fight off bandits, and *then* fights off Tsuchigumo?  That seems rather out of place—though they were on his way to the land of the Kumaso, so I guess there is that.

If I try to look beyond the narrative of the Yamato court, I could see it a little differently.  For instance, from Saba, he sends out an advance team who meets the titular ruler of the land of Toyo—or at least that part later known as Buzen—Kamuhashi Hime.  Yamato and Toyo come to an agreement and they offer military aid in securing control of the nearby territory.  This then repeats itself to the south, in the land of Ohoita, where they meet with Haya tsu Hime.  While Haya tsu Hime is only credited with running a village—or mura—she may have been an ally similar to Kamuhashi Hime, but her problem seems to have been with people living in the interior part of the island, up in the mountain valleys, and again Yamato forces lend their aid, possibly in return for an alliance.  In this light, it is less simply conquest, and more like consolidating alliances with various groups and helping to ensure that they would be in positions to be useful to Yamato—such as allowing trade through the straits, and protecting the sea lanes of the Seto Inland Sea—after all, most of these allies are coastal, while their enemies appear to be up at the headwaters—that is, up in the mountains.  Conflicts, then, between coastal and interior polities.

And I can’t pass by without also commenting on the fact that the two allied leaders, so far, are both women.  Women who are in charge of settlements, communities, and even entire countries.

Having secured the countries of the Northern Toyo and Ohoita—which would later be part of Toyo before the two were split into Buzen and Bungo in the 7th century—Oho Tarashi Hiko and his men continued south in their pursuit of the Kumaso, coming to Himuka—aka Hyuuga—the land where Ninigi no Mikoto himself is said to have descended to earth.  They set up a residence—specifically a “traveling palace”, which seemed to be the norm in their journeys—in a place called Takaya, believed to be the location of modern Takaya Shrine, in Saito city, Miyazaki.   Saito city itself has an impressive number of kofun—a collection of over 300 in the western plain, built between the 3rd and 7th centuries, known as the Saitobaru Kofungun.  It even includes two large tombs that are identified by the Imperial Household Agency as the tombs of the mythical Ninigi no Mikoto and his wife, Konohana Sakuya Hime.  However, let’s face it, I am highly skeptical of any ancient Yamato ancestors in this area, and figure that was a later addition to the lineage.  Still, a somewhat intriguing connection.

Keeping his men at Takaya, Oho Tarashi Hiko consulted with his generals on just how they would approach this next task.  From what they knew, the Kumaso led by two men, known as Atsu-Kaya and Sa-Kaya.  Between the two of them they had at least 80 warriors, or “Braves”—Kumaso-takeru.  That may not sound like much in modern terms, but it was likely quite the warband for the time, especially given how far the Yamato forces were from their home base.

Oho Tarashi Hiko wanted to try to get through this as best he could without fighting, if at all possible.  One of his ministers proffered a rather radical suggestion.  It seems that one of the Kumaso braves had two daughters, Ichi Fukuya and Ichi Kaya.  What if the Yamato sovereign were to offer presents and let them know he was seeking marriage.  Using this ruse, they could infiltrate the Kumaso, get to know their strengths, and attack them when they were least expecting it.  Oho Tarashi liked this plan and so it was put into motion.

The two Kumaso women were lured into this Yamato version of the Bachelor, and Oho Tarashi immediately made love to Ichi Fukaya, who apparently fell for him something hard.  She suggested that she could get the Kumaso to submit—she would just need a couple of soldiers to accompany her back home.

And so, she brought the soldiers back to her father’s house, and she got her father so drunk on wine that he passed out.  Then she cut his bowstring, so he couldn’t defend himself, and called in the Yamato soldiers, who killed him straight away.

This had the desired effect—the Kumaso were apparently subdued quickly after that, though the details beyond that one incident are obscured.

As for Ichi Fukaya, what happened to her?  Well, if she thought  that the Yamato forces would reward her for her actions she was sadly mistaken.  Rather than being pleased with her ruthless act of loyalty, Oho Tarashi Hiko was disgusted.  After all, how could she so easily participate in the murder of her own father?  And if she was willing to do that, what else would she do?  What loyalty could he really count on?  No, Ichi Fukaya’s reward for betraying her father and, indeed, all of her people, was death.  Her sister, Ichi Kaya, on the other hand, was given to the chieftain of the country of Ki, south of Yamato.

With the Kumaso subdued, Oho Tarashi found the land of Himuka rather peaceful, and he stayed there with his court for six years, we are told.  He even took a local bride, Miwakashi Hime, and together  they had a son—Toyokuni Wake no Miko, or the Royal Prince, Lord of the country of Toyo, who was, in turn, the ancestor of the chieftain of the country of Himuka—later Hyuuga.

Of course, what they don’t mention in this are all the little details.  One big logistical question that I’m going to explore a bit is, if Oho Tarashi was spending all this time outside of Yamato, then who was tending to the court rituals?  Were they performing the Niinamesai and other such rituals at Takaya, or was there a stand-in back in Miwa that was doing all of this for them?  How many court members were with him and who was “minding the store”, so to speak, back home?  I mean, while six years doesn’t exactly hold a candle to some monarch’s absences—I’m looking at you Richard the Lionheart—they at least had regents and robust systems in place to manage things while they were gone.  What did Oho Tarashi have? 

In fact, later on in his reign, back in Yamato, Oho Tarashi Hiko would hold a feast for his ministers, which lasted several days.  During the feast, his son and eventual successor Waka Tarashi Hiko, as well as a trusted minister, Takechi Sukune, were conspicuously absent.  When Oho Tarashi tracked them down and asked why they were keeping themselves apart, they explained that somebody had to be guarding against the crazies.  What would happen if, while everyone was drunk and incapacitated, some madmen were to take the palace?  So they were keeping watch.

If things were so bad they couldn’t leave the store without a minder for several days, what made them so confident they could be gone for six years?

And while Himuka isn’t the Holy Land—they were still within a few weeks boat ride back to Yamato—faster if it was an emergency, I have to wonder about much of this.  Several theories come to mind that could explain what was going on.

First, perhaps this is a good example of the co-ruler idea, where one ruler focused on the rituals at home while the other handled military matters, such that one might go on an expedition and still leave a functioning administration—such as it was—back home.

Second, there is always the possibility that Oho Tarashi Hiko was not the ruler when he went on campaign, but perhaps simply a prince, and without context the story of his expedition against the Kumaso just became part of his reign, since we don’t tend to get much of the sovereigns lives outside of their reigns.

Then there is the possibility he was never there at all.  That it was some other general leading the armies.  Of course, that always brings its own set of potential problems, even if we are only talking about warbands, moreso than large groups of armed forces.

Of course, there may have been a regent left back in Yamato that we just don’t hear about.  After all, this isn’t about them, or even about the state—it is about the royal line.

And then the whole thing about 6 years may have been nothing more than an exaggeration as well.  Or perhaps, rather than sitting there in comfort, the wars with the Kumaso actually did drag on.  Maybe the story we aren’t seeing is of supply lines all the way back to Yamato supplying men and goods while they fought with their allies against an entrenched opponent who would not go quietly.  But a military quagmire is not the epic narrative that anyone wants to read about—least of all the royal descendants.

Then, finally, there is the outside possibility that Oho Tarashi wasn’t originally from Yamato at all, but that he was actually a ruler in Kyushu, or at least in Western Japan.  That could explain the sudden change from two sovereigns named “Iribiko” to several sovereigns styled Tarashi—Tarashi the Elder—Oho Tarashi—and his son and eventual successor, Tarashi the Younger—Waka Tarashi—followed by Tarashi Nakatsu Hiko, who is also known for his campaigns in Kyushu.

Who knows the truth, but this definitely seems to be the first time that the territories in Kyushu really are shown entering the Yamato sphere, so I still find it an important story.

Now after six years, Oho Tarashi Hiko decided to pack it in and head back home, but not before finishing a circuit of Kyushu.  And so they crossed overland, through what is believed to be the territory of the Kumaso.  As they neared what is believed to be the modern sight of Kobayashi, they saw a group gathered at the banks of the Iwase River.  Cautiously—after all, they were basically in a foreign land—Oho Tarashi Hiko sent two of his retinue ahead.  These were Hinamori the Elder and Hinamori the Younger.  Hinamori the Younger brought back word that everything was good—the crowd gathered there was summoned by the local lord, Izumi Hime, the lord of Murokata, which would seem to indicate she was the local ruler of the area around modern Kirishima up to the Iwase River.  Interestingly, the Nihon Shoki specifically calls this area “Hinamori”, and there is a local peak known, today, as Hinamori Dake.  You may also have a vague memory of Hinamori from the days of Himiko—it was the title given for the deputy governors in Tsushima, Iki, Ito, Na, and Fumi—basically all of the states mentioned in the Weizhi between the Korean Peninsula up through Kyushu.  Whether or not this Hinamori was at all related, who knows, but it is an interesting connection.

By the way, if you go to Kobayashi, today, they have a stone where they said Oho Tarashi took his ease, presumably during the feast.  Of course, how one would even prove such a thing I have no idea, but it is yet another connection in the minds of the people between that place and this story.

Continuing on their way, the Yamato forces arrived at the district of Kuma, and they summoned the princes of Kuma:  Kuma tsu Hiko the Elder and Kuma tsu Hiko the younger.  As is so often seen in these stories—so much so that it is almost cliché—only one of them accepted the invitation.  In this case it was Kuma tsu Hiko the Elder.  And so Oho Tarashi Hiko sent his forces to kill Kuma tsu Hiko the Younger.

The district of Kuma was quite possibly the heart of Kumaso territory—or at least the heart of the Kuma of the Kuma and So.  Indeed, they were probably moving north towards the Kuma river and modern Kumamoto Prefecture, possibly through the area of Hitoyoshi, and perhaps nearby Kuma-mura.  They didn’t keep to the mountains, though.  They eventually made it to the Yatsushiro Sea, along the southwest edge of modern Kumamoto prefecture.  There they acquired or built boats—the Chronicles doesn’t specify which—and took to the water.

We are told they stopped for a meal at an island at near Ashikita, and then headed north.  The Hizen Fudoki records that the left Ashikita from Hinagare no Ura, specifically, and both the Fudoki and the Nihon Shoki mention that as they were on the water, the sun started to go down.  Now of course, traveling in the dark was never ideal back in ancient times, when torches and the like were your best source of illumination, but I can only imagine what it must have been like to realize they were going to be caught in the dark in an unknown area.  The men on the ships would have scanned the shores for any sign of village or settlement where they could pull in and take advantage of the local hospitality, but they saw nothing until dusk began to settle in.  Suddenly, Oho Tarashi Hiko glimpsed a light up in the sky, and told the pilot to steer in that direction.  Following that light, like the magi following the Christmas star, they made their way safely to land.  Sure enough, they found a village, but nobody there knew what the light could have been that they had seen.  Awed by this, Oho Tarashi assumed that it must have been a fire set by the kami to help guide him and his men to safety.  According to the Nihon Shoki, this was Toyo Mura, the Bountiful Village, in the land of Yatsushiro.  The Hizen Fudoki provides it a more romantic name, however:  Hi no Mura, or the Fire Village, and likewise attributes this story to why the entire country was called Hi no Kuni—though given the Wa and their penchant for the sun, it is just as likely that it was named to be the “Country of the Sun”.

Departing Toyomura, they traveled on to Tamakina, in the district of Takaku, which is thought to be the area of modern Tamana city, northwest of modern Kumamoto city.  There they were apparently not met with the warmest of welcomes, and we are told that the Yamato soldiers killed a Tsuchigumo named Tsudzura.

From Tamakina, they seem to have traveled east, back towards the center of the island.  Traveling through the land, they apparently headed through Aso—the area around Mt. Aso, an active volcano in Kyushu on the border of modern Ohoita Prefecture.

From there they traveled to north Kyushu—Tsukushi—visiting numerous other places.  I swear, just do a search of monuments in Kyushu and you’ll find a slew of what amounts to “Keiko Tenno slept here” (Keiko Tenno being Oho Tarashi Hiko’s posthumous name, of course) all over the place.  The Nihon Shoki seems to take his route back up to Toyo no Kuni, including Mi-ke and the like, but the Hizen Fudoki puts him more in Yame, east of Chikugo, and Kurume, where there is mention of him in regards to staying in the “Kaura palace”.  He is also said to have passed through Ukiha.  The long and short of it is that it seems somewhat confused, and since all it would be is learning a bunch of different place names, I think we can leave it at that.  There are some other stories that I skimmed or glossed over for time, and because they largely are focused more on the mythology than anything that would seem to connect us to an historical or geographical time period.

And with that, the Kyushu campaign was finished. ōŌū

Well… mostly finished.  There would be another round with Oho Tarashi’s son, Oho Usu no Mikoto, but that was not nearly as detailed and more directly dealing just with the Kumaso.  But if we get into that, we may as well look at the rest of his story, and that will be an episode unto itself.  So let’s save that for a future date.

As for this episode—whew, that was a lot.  Many new faces popping up—the country of Suou in eastern Yamaguchi prefecture, and then the countries of Toyo and Ohoita—later Buzen and Bungo.  And then Kuma and up to Tsukushi.  It was quite the ride.  Also, let’s not forget how many women we saw running things in the era before Confucian misogyny rolled into town and set up shop.  Next episode we’ll look at the rest of the military campaigns in this reign and that legendary figure, Yamato Takeru.

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That’s all for now.  Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.