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These provinces were ruled by chieftainesses, who declared
themselves loyal to the Imperial cause, and gave information about
the haunts and habits of the "brigands," who in Suwo had no special
appellation but in Buzen were known as Tsuchi-gumo, a name to be
spoken of presently. They were disposed of partly by stratagem and
partly by open warfare. But when the Yamato troops arrived in Hyuga
within striking distance of the Kumaso, the Emperor hesitated. He
deemed it wise not to touch the spear-points of these puissant foes.
Ultimately he overcame them by enticing the two daughters of the
principal leaders and making a show of affection for one of them. She
conducted Japanese soldiers to her father's residence, and having
plied him with strong drink, cut his bow-string while he slept so
that the soldiers could kill him with impunity. It is recorded that
Keiko put the girl to death for her unfilial conduct, but the
assassination of her father helped the Japanese materially in their
campaign against the Kumaso, whom they succeeded in subduing and in
whose land the Emperor remained six years.

The Kumaso were not quelled, however. Scarcely eight years had
elapsed from the time of Keiko's return to Yamato when they rebelled
again, "making ceaseless raids upon the frontier districts;" and he
sent against them his son, Yamato-dake; with a band of skilled
archers. This youth, one of the most heroic figures in ancient
Japanese history, was only sixteen. He disguised himself as a girl
and thus gained access to a banquet given by the principal Kumaso
leader to celebrate the opening of a new residence. Attracted by the
beauty of the supposed girl, the Kumaso chieftain placed her beside
him, and when he had drunk heavily, Yamato-dake stabbed him to the
heart,* subsequently serving all his band in the same way. After
this, the Kumaso remained quiet for nearly a century, but in the year
193,** during the reign of the Emperor Chuai, they once more
rebelled, and the Emperor organized an expedition against them. He
failed in the struggle and was killed by the Kumaso's arrows.
Thenceforth history is silent about them.

*The Chronicles relate that when the Kumaso was struck down he asked
for a moment's respite to learn the name of his slayer, whose prowess
astounded him. On receiving an answer he sought the prince's
permission to give him a title, and declared that instead of being
called Yamato Oguna, the name hitherto borne by him, he should be
termed Yamato-dake (Champion of Japan) because he had conquered the
hitherto unconquerable. The prince accepted the name, and then gave
the Kumaso his coup de grace.

**It should be understood that these dates, being prehistoric, are
not wholly reliable.

Who, then, were they? It is related in the Chronicles that, after
breaking the power of the Kumaso, the Emperor Keiko made a tour of
inspection in Tsukushi (Kyushu), and arriving at the district of
Kuma, summoned two brothers, princes of Kuma, to pay homage. One
obeyed, but the other refused, and soldiers were therefore sent to
put him to death. Now Kuma was the name of the three kingdoms into
which the Korean peninsula was divided in ancient times, and it has
been suggested [Aston] that the land of Kuma in Korea was the parent
country of Kuma in Japan, Kom in the Korean language having the same
meaning (bear) as Kuma in the Japanese. This, of course, involves the
conclusion that the Kumaso were originally Korean emigrants; a theory
somewhat difficult to reconcile with their location in the extreme
south of Kyushu.

The apparent silence of the annals about the subsequent career of the
tribe is accounted for by supposing that the Kumaso were identical
with the Hayato (falcon men), who make their first appearance upon
the scene in prehistoric days as followers of Hosuseri in his contest
with his younger brother, Hohodemi, the hero of the legend about the
palace of the sea god. Hohodemi according to the rationalized version
of the legend having obtained assistance in the shape of ships and
mariners from an oversea monarch (supposed to have reigned in Korea),
returned to Tsukushi to fight his brother, and being victorious,
spared Hosuseri's life on condition that the descendants of the
vanquished through eighty generations should serve the victor's
descendants as mimes.

"On that account," says the Chronicles, "the various Hayato,
descended from Hosuseri to the present time, do not leave the
vicinity of the Imperial palace enclosure and render service instead
of watch-dogs." The first mention of the name Hayato after the
prehistoric battle in Kyushu, occurs in the year 399, when Sashihire,
one of the tribe, was induced to assassinate his master, an Imperial
prince. This incident goes to show that individual members of the
tribe were then employed at Court; an inference confirmed fifty-one
years later, when, on the death of Emperor Yuryaku, "the Hayato
lamented night and day beside the misasagi (tomb) and refused the
food offered to them, until at the end of seven days they died."

It can scarcely be doubted that we have here a reversion to the old
custom which compelled slaves to follow their lords to the grave. The
Hayato serving in the Court at that epoch held the status generally
assigned in ancient days to vanquished people, the status of serfs or
slaves. Six times during the next 214 years we find the Hayato
repairing to the Court to pay homage, in the performance of which
function they are usually bracketted with the Yemishi. Once (682) a
wrestling match took place in the Imperial presence between the
Hayato of Osumi and those of Satsuma, and once (694) the viceroy of
Tsukushi (Kyushu) presented 174 Hayato to the Court.

THE TSUCHI-GUMO

In ancient Japan there was a class of men to whom the epithet
"Tsuchi" (earth-spiders) was applied. Their identity has been a
subject of much controversy. The first mention made of them in
Japanese annals occurs in connexion with the slaughter of eighty
braves invited to a banquet by the Emperor Jimmu's general in a
pit-dwelling at Osaka.* The Records apply to these men the epithet
"Tsuchi-gumo," whereas the Chronicles represent the Emperor as
celebrating the incident in a couplet which speaks of them as
Yemishi. It will be seen presently that the apparent confusion of
epithet probably conveys a truth.

*This incident has been already referred to under the heading
"Yemishi." It is to be observed that the "Osaka" here mentioned is
not the modern city of Osaka.

The next allusion to Tsuchi-gumo occurs in the annals of the year
(662 B.C.) following the above event, according to the chronology of
the Chronicles. The Emperor, having commanded his generals to
exercise the troops, Tsuchi-gumo were found in three places, and as
they declined to submit, a detachment was sent against them.
Concerning a fourth band of these defiant folk, the Chronicles say:
"They had short bodies and long legs and arms. They were of the same
class as the pigmies. The Imperial troops wove nets of dolichos,
which they flung over them and then slew them."

There are four comments to be made on this. The first is that the
scene of the fighting was in Yamato. The second, that the chiefs of
the Tsuchi-gumo had Japanese names--names identical, in two cases,
with those of a kind of Shinto priest (hafuri), and therefore most
unlikely to have been borne by men not of Japanese origin. The third,
that the presence of Tsuchi-gumo in Yamato preceded the arrival of
Jimmu's expedition. And the fourth, that the Records are silent about
the whole episode. As for the things told in the Chronicles about
short bodies, long limbs, pigmies, and nets of dolichos, they may be
dismissed as mere fancies suggested by the name Tsuchi-gumo, which
was commonly supposed to mean "earth-spiders." If any inference may
be drawn from the Chronicles' story, it is that there were Japanese
in Yamato before Jimmu's time, and that Tsuchi-gumo were simply bands
of Japanese raiders.

ENGRAVING: AINUS (INHABITANTS OF HOKKAIDO, THE NORTHERN ISLAND)

They are heard of next in the province of Bungo (on the northeast of
Kyushu) where (A.D. 82) the Emperor Keiko led an army to attack the
Kumaso. Two bands of Tsuchi-gumo are mentioned as living there, and
the Imperial forces had no little difficulty in subduing them. Their
chiefs are described as "mighty of frame and having numerous
followers." In dealing with the first band, Keiko caused his bravest
soldiers to carry mallets made from camellia trees, though why such
weapons should have been preferred to the trenchant swords used by
the Japanese there is nothing to show. (Another account says
"mallet-headed swords," which is much more credible). In dealing with
the second, he was driven back once by their rain of arrows, and when
he attacked from another quarter, the Tsuchi-gumo, their submission
having been refused, flung themselves into a ravine and perished.

Here again certain points have to be noticed: that there were
Tsuchi-gumo in Kyushu as well as in Yamato; that if one account
describes them as pigmies, another depicts them as "mighty of frame,"
and that in Kyushu, as in Yamato, the Tsuchi-gumo had Japanese names.
Only once again do the annals refer to Tsuchi-gumo. They relate
curtly that on his return from quelling the Kumaso the Emperor Keiko
killed a Tsuchi-gumo in the province of Hizen. The truth seems to be
that factitious import has been attached to the Tsuchi-gumo. Mainly
because they were pit-dwellers, it was assumed for a tune that they
represented a race which had immigrated to Japan at some date prior
to the arrival of the Yemishi (modern Ainu). This theory was founded
on the supposed discovery of relics of pit-dwellers in the islands of
Yezo and Itorop, and their hasty identification as Kuro-pok-guru--the
Ainu term for underground dwellers--whose modern representatives are
seen among the Kurilsky or their neighbours in Kamchatka and
Saghalien. But closer examination of the Yezo and Itorop pits showed
that there was complete absence of any mark of antiquity--such as the
presence of large trees or even deep-rooted brushwood;--that they
were arranged in regular order, suggesting a military encampment
rather than the abode of savages; that they were of uniform size,
with few exceptions; that on excavation they yielded fragments of
hard wood, unglazed pottery, and a Japanese dirk, and, finally, that
their site corresponded with that of military encampments established
in Yezo and the Kuriles by the Japanese Government in the early part
of the nineteenth century as a defence against Russian aggression.

Evidently the men who constructed and used these pit-dwellings were
not prehistoric savages but modern Japanese soldiers.