Published on April 17, 2019.
This piece criticizes the tendency of postwar Japanese historians and literary scholars to dismiss mythology and to narrate ancient Japanese history only through Chinese and Korean sources while neglecting the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki.
Through the debate over Yamanoue no Okura, the omission of Emperor Nintoku from historical timelines, and reflections on the importance of studying myth, it questions the fundamental defects of Japanese history education.

2019-04-17
There are historical situations that cannot be explained if mythology is ignored.
If mythology is denied, later explanations become impossible.
That is the position being taken here.

I am reposting the chapter I published on 2017-06-25 under the title.
“A recently awarded scholar of the Manyoshu published in Iwanami’s Literature the theory that the famous poet Yamanoue no Okura was an immigrant.”
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.

A recently awarded scholar of the Manyoshu published in Iwanami’s Literature the theory that the famous poet Yamanoue no Okura was an immigrant, and it caused a great reaction.
However, in the Manyoshu there is a poem by Okura praising Empress Jingu, who carried out the conquest of the Three Korean Kingdoms.
Moreover, Okura also composed a poem praising Japan, beginning, “From the age of the gods it has been handed down that Yamato, the land spread beneath the heavens, is the stern land of the imperial gods, a land blessed by the spirit of words…”
There is no way such an immigrant could have existed at that time.
He was probably one of those repatriated from the peninsula after the defeat at Baekgang.
Not noticing that means one is a scholar of the Manyoshu who has not even read the Manyoshu.

To that extent, postwar Japanese historians and literary scholars have been saying frighteningly poor things.
As Mr. Hasegawa says, if one merely says things that demean Japan and elevate China and Korea, Asahi and Iwanami will pick them up and praise them without even verifying them.
And then they spread among the Japanese people.
That is the structure.

Postwar textbooks decided not to deal with the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki.
That is why ancient history in textbooks is nothing but archaeology, such as the Stone Age, the Jomon period, and the Yayoi period.
If one looks at the chronology of the Japanese Historical Society, Emperor Nintoku does not appear, even though the Mausoleum of Emperor Nintoku exists.

Hasegawa.
Even though in reality there is a huge keyhole-shaped tomb in Osaka Prefecture.

Watanabe.
If you listen to left-wing people, archaeology does not require it to be an imperial mausoleum at all.

Mythology, they say, is out of the question, and the only things that can substantiate the existence of the emperors are Chinese and Korean historical materials, so if a figure resembling a Japanese emperor appears there, they begin writing from around that point.
But even by common sense, there is no way ancient Chinese or Koreans could have known what was happening in Japan.
So of course they would not write about it.

What is admirable is that the first course in Japanese history established at Tokyo University in the Meiji era began from mythology.
It is not saying that one must believe mythology.
It is saying that there are historical circumstances that cannot be explained if mythology is ignored.
It takes the position that if mythology is denied, later explanation becomes impossible.

Hasegawa.
Empress Michiko clearly states in her book Building Bridges that studying mythology is extremely important.
Myth itself is not reality, of course, but it reflects something about Japanese society, she says.

Watanabe.
What I find especially great about Empress Michiko is that, I believe she wrote this somewhere as well, she says that she is prepared in the spirit of Ototachibana-hime.
Ototachibana-hime was the one who threw herself from the ship in order to save Yamato Takeru.
Yamato Takeru lamented, “Azuma haya,” meaning, “Ah, my wife.”
Of course, neither Yamato Takeru nor Ototachibana-hime ever appears in left-leaning textbooks.
The excuse is that this was still not yet the historical age.
It makes no difference to them that there is a place-name “Azuma,” or that there is a city called “Yaizu.”
Because there are no Chinese documents that wrote about them.
(Laughs.)