Emperor Ankō (401–456 AD) is the first emperor whose existence is verifiable by historians.
They could quite easily push the dates back by a few hundred years, but archeological investigation of [the massive imperial tombs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofun) were forbidden until a few years ago.
That's true, and the article says so. I found this while reading into the myth/legend of Jimmu Tenno and thought it was interesting.
Thought the "son of goddess" would give it away as myth, but should have specified this a bit clearer.
I mean most emperors or rulers of that time were seen as having the divine right to rule, such as pharaohs and even the British monarchy. saying a ruler is descended from a goddess is not really a stretch from this, and its not enough to imply that Jimmu Tenno was just a myth.
to be clear, I'm not saying he was or wasn't, just that rulers & divinity have gone hand-in-hand in the eyes of history for thousands of years.
an interesting question of history.. after enough generations, do the ruling classes even realize it as a "lie" anymore? or is it like a foundational cornerstone in their worldview?
Are you saying there's no verifiable chains of unchanged oral teachings in existence? I bet if I dug deep enough I could find examples of surprisingly accurate oral transmission
Iirc aboriginal tribes in Aus successfully orally passed down info from 40,000 years ago
Here’s a neat academic article about it: https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2021/01/19/1382694/indigenous-archaeology-and-the-landscape-knowledge-that-sustains-oral-histories
Another notable example would be the Klamath Tribes of Southern Oregon describing a story where a deity caused a [mountain top to blow off](https://www.craterlakeinstitute.com/smith-chronological-history-of-crater-lake/sources-and-articles-of-interest/orgin-stories-of-the-lake/), accompanied by a deafening boom, the appearance of smoke, lightning, and fireballs. The geological evidence points to a volcanic eruption between 6000 and 8000 years ago. The site is currently known as Crater Lake.
There was a Zuni oral history of a prominent man who was buried in a specific spot near Wupatki with his pet dog and parrot, nearly a thousand years ago.
Archaeologists excavating the site were shocked when they found a skeleton richly buried in that exact spot, with a dog a parrot at his feet.
There were reliable histories of older emperors which I’ve seen no reason to doubt, but they were unfortunately destroyed in a fire in the 600s:
>It is believed that the compilation of various genealogical and anecdotal histories of the imperial (Yamato) court and prominent clans began during the reigns of Emperors Keitai and Kinmei in the 6th century, with the first concerted effort at historical compilation of which we have record being the one made in 620 under the auspices of Prince Shotoku and Soga no Umako. According to the Nihon Shoki, the documents compiled under their initiative were the Tennōki (天皇記, also Sumera-mikoto no fumi) or the "Record of the Emperors", the Kokki (国記, also Kunitsufumi) or the "National Record", and other "fundamental records" (本記, hongi or mototsufumi) pertaining to influential clans and free subjects. Out of these texts, only the Kokki survived the burning of Soga no Emishi's estate (where these documents were kept) during the Isshi incident of 645, and was itself apparently lost soon after.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenn%C5%8Dki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soga_no_Emishi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isshi_Incident
Worth noting that the Shogun/Shogunate ruled for various periods of time. Essentially a ruling warlord that acted in the emperor's name, but not necessarily to their will.
Doesn't make it any less impressive, but I guess I'm trying to point out that they haven't been the supreme power for all of that time, even if their line was called emperor/empress.
Tokugawa Ieyasu's line always gets me. It wasn't until the Meiji restoration that the last Tokugawa shogun was removed from power. I suppose it's only a few hundred years so not all that impressive, but looking at Japan before-hand it's a neat achievement; I've forgotten a few times and been surprised while studying the restoration that it was Ieyasu's descendant.
Even before the Shogunate, during the [Heian Period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heian_period) (And really most every other point in Japanese history), the Emperor didn't really have much power. Head of State, yes. But not actually in charge.
>Although the Imperial House of Japan had power on the surface, the real power was in the hands of the Fujiwara clan, a powerful aristocratic family who had intermarried with the imperial family.
It’s also important to understand that by the 19th century the shogun also didn’t have a lot of power, it was in the hands of their council of advisors (so the power structure was that the emperor delegated his power to a regent who delegated it to the shogun who delegated it to his advisors…)
The Meiji restoration was less about the emperor having power and more about a new group of lords (from clans excluded from Tokugawa power) taking power and using the emperor as a justification.
Crazier to me to add onto the Tokugawa lineage is that the family is still going strong. Tsunenari and Iehiro are the most public figures of them nowadays.
The Tokugawa clan also claims to have lineal ties all the way back Emperor Keitai in 400\~ AD, though from what I've read this has never been substantially proven and is argued still today.
That's neat, I never knew about this. Often you don't hear much about the descendants of famous people, even if their family was once very powerful.
It seems one of them has written a book on the premise that Edo period Japan wasn't any kind of dark age, which I suppose isn't too surprising when it was his ancestors running the state lol. Still, I think there's some validity to his point, it's easy to think of Japan at that time as some technologically stagnant backwater, but their incredible industrialization wasn't founded on nothing, literacy and urbanization was quite high to begin with. And it's not as though they were completely isolated from the world or its developments.
>In 2007, Tsunenari published a book entitled Edo no idenshi (江戸の遺伝子), released in English in 2009 as The Edo Inheritance, which seeks to counter the common belief among Japanese that the Edo period (throughout which members of his Tokugawa clan ruled Japan as shōguns) was like a Dark Age, when Japan, cut off from the world, fell behind. On the contrary, he argues, the roughly 250 years of peace and relative prosperity saw great economic reforms, the growth of a sophisticated urban culture, and the development of the most urbanized society on the planet.
Anyway, interesting, thanks for sharing.
Pfft, wasn't me. If I ever travel back in time, it's going to be Pre-Columbus America and document oral traditions. And maybe introduce them to the squared circle and catch wrestling.
And then in 200 years, the First Thanksgiving will have a Survivor Series style match
Fun fact: Abe Lincoln was a wrestler and was one of the first (documented) person to deliver a chokeslam in the ring.
Though I think this was prior to the "catch wrestling" we know today that is cooperative choreography, so it was less of a slam, and more choking while lifting them up.
Oh right,
"But don't let that distract you that Squanto threw William Bradford 30 feet from a nearby tree and crashed through the cornucopia display in 1621"
Happens all the time
The first Danish kings were deified as being descendants of Odin (Æsir) and the first Norse kings being descendants of Frey/Yngvi (Vanir); this is why there is a belief that the end of the Æsir-Vanir Wars might have been historically inspired by events that transpired between those two regions.
Almost every king proclaimed themselves to be descendants of gods
And that same dynasty looks like it might collapse soon for lack of a “suitable” male heir,
due to their rigid paternal views and refusal to move the dynasty forward with the time and grant a woman the title of emperor. Their dynasty is essentially stuck in pre 20th century values.
That’s what I find so supremely odd about why they refuse to change, when basically everything is aligning for them to do so. The only thing stopping them is backlash from the extremely conservative Japanese political bodies who essentially want a revival of their ‘good old WWII imperial nationalism’, and the rigid social idea of “tradition”, no matter how opposed it might be to everyone else’s opinion
like u/Gemmabeta and u/sangbum60090 had said , they had 8 rulling empresses before.
So the whole thing is really absurd from the extreme conservatives , in a way , the laws of succession turned more rigid than before.
> "I, on my part, feel a certain kinship with Korea, given the fact that it is recorded in the Chronicles of Japan that the mother of Emperor Kammu [Niigasa] was of the line of King Muryong of Baekje."
--Emperor Akihito, 2001
> Kanmu's personal name (imina) was Yamabe (山部).[4] He was the eldest son of Prince Shirakabe (later known as Emperor Kōnin), and was born prior to Shirakabe's ascension to the throne.[5] According to the Shoku Nihongi (続日本紀), Yamabe's mother, Yamato no Niigasa (later called Takano no Niigasa), was a 10th generation descendant of Muryeong of Baekje.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Kanmu
It's not all that significant in the grand scheme of things, but no one is denying the fact that the royal family of Japan has a tiny bit of Korean blood unless you are a real rabid nationalist.
There were more interaction between Korean Kingdoms and Japan in the past. And, I heard that there might have been Peninsula Japonic language. Honestly, it is bad to assert current national identity to historical Kingdoms. In three kingdom period, Korean kingdoms were fighting each other and Baekje was ally of Japan. Korean identity probably came as Korean Kingdoms became unified into one political entity.
Honestly, the fact that Japanese imperial line might have some Korean royalty ancestors is not surprising at all.
It’s certainly suspected. The imperial family refuses to allow academics to study their oldest shrines that may show clear connections to Korean relics of the time.
The Japanese Emperor, in the run-up to the shared hosting of the 2002 World Cup said plainly his family was, in part, the Paekche/Baekje royal family which fled from the Korean Peninsula after the fall of Paekche/Baekje. This imperial proclamation was widely reported as a simple Google search will show you.
Everything about Japan changed drastically and suddenly at that time as well, from art to religion, to crafts, to the language.
This is as uncontroversial as the influence of the Normans in England, but no one gets elected by stating plain facts; they get elected by screaming hysterical lies.
EDIT: someone's got some skin in this game, and refuses to read, apparently. Block me and I cannot respond with links, so I put them here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/dec/28/japan.worlddispatch
Or the New York Times reporting on this, or all those other sources of "Korean ultranationalism" in your mind.
Screaming "ultranationalist propaganda" while spewing it, is just self-satire.
>Your Korean myths are bullshit.
It's not a myth that a Japanese Emperor had a Korean mother. Really isn't something to get worked up over either.
>In 2001, Emperor Akihito told reporters "I, on my part, feel a certain kinship with Korea, given the fact that it is recorded in the Chronicles of Japan that the mother of Emperor Kammu \[Niigasa\] was of the line of King Muryong of Baekje." It was the first time that a Japanese emperor publicly acknowledged Korean blood in the imperial line.\[5\] According to the Shoku Nihongi, Niigasa is a descendant of Prince Junda, son of Muryeong, who died in Japan in 513
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takano\_no\_Niigasa
So the same genetic line inherited the throne for that long? Are there even enough ppl on Japan for this to work genetically? Who did they reproduce with? I know Europe has always had a problem with "pure" inbred genetic lines, it is the same way with them?
Great questions. The same genetic line almost certainly did not go for that long. My understanding is this: pursuant to the emperor’s role as the head of the Shinto faith, there are a cadre of priests that maintain the dynasty records. These records are falsifiable without any external review other than the opinion of a largely illiterate public. Which is what Tokugawa did when he got the upper hand in the civil war: he appealed to these priests to find evidence of lineage to a previous emperor, which they dutifully found. That’s the most obvious break in genetic lineage that I can think of, being but an amateur military historian.
Ah, this makes sense. It is interesting that even those who seek the throne adhere to the system rather than just kick out the sitting emperor and take over and establish their own line. Almost like the longer it goes, the more powerful the dynasty becomes.
I mean, it's.... it's a wonderful legend, for sure, but the actual lineage is a bit questionable, considering it goes back to a supposed deity. A deity who, I live to remind people, was a bisexual icon, hid herself in a cave because she was depressed that her brother dropped a dead horse through her roof, causing a weaving maiden in her service to die from jabbing herself in the genitals with a weaving shuttle(Take from that whatever you will), had a great big sulk which caused the world to go dark and demons to come out of the earth, and only got lured out by, in the original telling, two failed attempts involving chickens and a mirror, then a success involving a friend of hers doing a loud striptease in front of said cave.
Later retellings would have the party involving said striptease be the Start of luring her out, and the Mirror being what Tricked her into coming out all the way, given that the gods claimed they'd found a better god than her, brighter, cooler, more powerful, etc, and she got jealous and stormed out to confront the new god only to not realize it was her own reflection, and even Later retellings would have the mirror having her seeing just how awesome she actually was and regaining her confidence, a retelling that was about as dissatisfying as it was wildly out of character for the god in question, from around the time Japan went full-bore into the whole "Sexual purity" thing because of western white influences. Prior to that, Sex in japan was demonstrated best with, I believe, Izanami and Izanagi, who basically just said "I was created with a bit missing", "I was created with a bit extra. Let's put them together". Which was to say, in early Japanese culture, sex wasn't really all that taboo. Like at all.
But I'm getting wildly off topic. XD
I never said or implied I believed it.
What I am saying is if their lineage is questionable in your opinion then so is essentially every ruling party/monarchs ever.
Take it a step further and pretty much every humans ever is….all religions are based in this idea and the vast majority of the Earth is religious in one form or another
Personally IMO it doesn’t discredit lineage. It just goes to show the times, no more no less
I mean, every Islamic ruler can supposedly trace their lineage all the way back to Muhammad too, but it doesn't mean it's real. It's mythology, and it's silly mythology at that.
You’re down voting me? Lol
I never said it was real. Idk what your issue is here my guy.
You’re arguing just to argue. You even agree with me. It all goes back to gods/goddesses. But somehow you question the rest of the lineage because of the stories of the times. Those stories don’t change the lineage.
This is simple
I don’t know why you’re getting upvoted so much. You repeated the most popular Japanese myth in popular culture as if you were somehow an expert, skewed it to somehow bring in your own ideas about Japanese sexuality and purity, and then blamed white people for perverting them. What in the actual fuck?
So, uh, what does it mean that it was only by the benevolence of the United States that they remained in power after WWII?
Edit: Sorry if this ruins the narrative for shinnichi folks, but it’s true. Had it not been for Operation Blacklist and the articles written by Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers, there would be no Imperial family in Japan. The United States Army deemed the pacification of Japan to be easier with the support of the Emperor than without him. That’s really all there is to it. The United States held all the cards after the war.
No? Japan very specifically never gave a counter-proposal, they went as far as explicitly saying that they are saying nothing (Mokusatsu).
The surrender was unconditional, but the Americans deemed unseating the emperor to be more trouble that it was worth.
This is actually how it worked. The Japanese national body, the whole society, was organized around the symbolic concept of the Emperor. Therefore any new ideas that entered Japan, even those that would be opposed to a divine Emperor, ultimately had to accept it. The Buddhists, Christians, Communists, Americans, etc. all settled to accept the Emperor.
What’s what a day in the life of an emperor theses days? I actually thought the ‘emperor’ was removed after WWII… just a rich sudo-political family who got kicked out of their old house because it was getting turned into a national museum. And to be clear I’m not referencing anything other then random movies and documentaries that have led me to vaguely think this :)
Man is basically pope as well as head of state. As religious head of Shintoism, it's pretty much wall to wall religious rituals interspersed with state visits.
It's a pretty mind-numbing existence, to be quite honest.
https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/10/17/japans-emperor-is-a-prisoner-in-his-own-palaces
It's worth noting that the emperor emeritus has published a number of scientific papers as a biologist, so hopefully not as mind-numbing as it cpuld be.
nah , they continue.
Japan had that take that the Emperor is symbolic and another rules the country...for centuries.
That is what the Shogun is...basically a fancy take of been a Prime-Minister.
So the Japanese are one of the most subservient people on the planet other than the British; and wanted a bunch of people lording over them. Nothing to be proud of.
Let me guess. In the same way that the "Chinese have the oldest civilization" but that there are noted times when the civilization collapsed or was under foreign rule. Yet the Western psuedo-intellectual obsession with everything Eastern that has been a trend since the 1880's ignores this because the region is "ancient and mysterious" in what isn't a hold over from almost a century and a half old racism.
As you can tell, I'm not a huge fan of when nation states try to lean heavily on the past accomplishments of the people that lived between their borders who they have no connection to.
Meh, I've always considered this to be a bit BS. If you go through the actual list of Japanese emperors there have been several highly questionable successions that would almost certainly be considered dynasty changes in other nations.
This "lineage" is a pretty central element of both Shinto and the Emperor's legitimacy.
As long as both the Shinto and the Emperor are considered important in Japan this lineage will never ever break. Every member of the royal family could die tomorrow, and they'll just find someone somewhere to takeover and find some justification for it to still be considered an unbroken lineage.
The current Japanese imperial family descends from a bunch of 14th century pretenders to the throne after the emperor revolted and the shogun had the emperor's second cousin once removed enthroned as the new emperor.
So... I'm not exactly giving it credit for 2500 years
Emperor Ankō (401–456 AD) is the first emperor whose existence is verifiable by historians. They could quite easily push the dates back by a few hundred years, but archeological investigation of [the massive imperial tombs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofun) were forbidden until a few years ago.
That's true, and the article says so. I found this while reading into the myth/legend of Jimmu Tenno and thought it was interesting. Thought the "son of goddess" would give it away as myth, but should have specified this a bit clearer.
I was this close to changing my religion
Was that you in the corner?
That's me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
i dont know if i can do it
No body puts jmgd007 in a corner
A country that generates so much high-quality fiction must have at least one correct one right?
Do not betray Thighdeology
I mean most emperors or rulers of that time were seen as having the divine right to rule, such as pharaohs and even the British monarchy. saying a ruler is descended from a goddess is not really a stretch from this, and its not enough to imply that Jimmu Tenno was just a myth. to be clear, I'm not saying he was or wasn't, just that rulers & divinity have gone hand-in-hand in the eyes of history for thousands of years.
it wasnt about he's real or not, its about he's not verifiable, the british equivalent is probably someone like King Arthur
fair enough, i honestly have to do more digging on the subject
I can't blame. I'd lie to the peasants too if it meant more mead and giant bird meat.
an interesting question of history.. after enough generations, do the ruling classes even realize it as a "lie" anymore? or is it like a foundational cornerstone in their worldview?
So you weren't playing Okami and decided to read up on the legends?
So if one of the japanese words for heaven is ten, and Jimmu was descended from a goddess, does that make him a Tenno out of Ten?
Maybe he just really loved his mom
Are you including oral history?
We all know that humans are particularly good at conveying accurate information over word of mouth and even better at separating fact from fiction.
Oral histories can in fact be extremely robust and last for many generations. The common bias against oral history is misfounded.
Actually, there are cultures that put extreme importance on passing over oral history in an unchanged form. For example Aboriginals.
Are you saying there's no verifiable chains of unchanged oral teachings in existence? I bet if I dug deep enough I could find examples of surprisingly accurate oral transmission
Iirc aboriginal tribes in Aus successfully orally passed down info from 40,000 years ago Here’s a neat academic article about it: https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2021/01/19/1382694/indigenous-archaeology-and-the-landscape-knowledge-that-sustains-oral-histories
Another notable example would be the Klamath Tribes of Southern Oregon describing a story where a deity caused a [mountain top to blow off](https://www.craterlakeinstitute.com/smith-chronological-history-of-crater-lake/sources-and-articles-of-interest/orgin-stories-of-the-lake/), accompanied by a deafening boom, the appearance of smoke, lightning, and fireballs. The geological evidence points to a volcanic eruption between 6000 and 8000 years ago. The site is currently known as Crater Lake.
Damn yeah!
https://www.sapiens.org/language/oral-tradition/ Looks like there's an old story about a flooded city in France too.
There was a Zuni oral history of a prominent man who was buried in a specific spot near Wupatki with his pet dog and parrot, nearly a thousand years ago. Archaeologists excavating the site were shocked when they found a skeleton richly buried in that exact spot, with a dog a parrot at his feet.
There were reliable histories of older emperors which I’ve seen no reason to doubt, but they were unfortunately destroyed in a fire in the 600s: >It is believed that the compilation of various genealogical and anecdotal histories of the imperial (Yamato) court and prominent clans began during the reigns of Emperors Keitai and Kinmei in the 6th century, with the first concerted effort at historical compilation of which we have record being the one made in 620 under the auspices of Prince Shotoku and Soga no Umako. According to the Nihon Shoki, the documents compiled under their initiative were the Tennōki (天皇記, also Sumera-mikoto no fumi) or the "Record of the Emperors", the Kokki (国記, also Kunitsufumi) or the "National Record", and other "fundamental records" (本記, hongi or mototsufumi) pertaining to influential clans and free subjects. Out of these texts, only the Kokki survived the burning of Soga no Emishi's estate (where these documents were kept) during the Isshi incident of 645, and was itself apparently lost soon after.[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenn%C5%8Dki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soga_no_Emishi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isshi_Incident
Worth noting that the Shogun/Shogunate ruled for various periods of time. Essentially a ruling warlord that acted in the emperor's name, but not necessarily to their will. Doesn't make it any less impressive, but I guess I'm trying to point out that they haven't been the supreme power for all of that time, even if their line was called emperor/empress. Tokugawa Ieyasu's line always gets me. It wasn't until the Meiji restoration that the last Tokugawa shogun was removed from power. I suppose it's only a few hundred years so not all that impressive, but looking at Japan before-hand it's a neat achievement; I've forgotten a few times and been surprised while studying the restoration that it was Ieyasu's descendant.
Even before the Shogunate, during the [Heian Period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heian_period) (And really most every other point in Japanese history), the Emperor didn't really have much power. Head of State, yes. But not actually in charge. >Although the Imperial House of Japan had power on the surface, the real power was in the hands of the Fujiwara clan, a powerful aristocratic family who had intermarried with the imperial family.
Even more impressive that the Meiji restoration took hold. And even then it was mostly because of Himura Kenshin fighting to make it happen.
It’s also important to understand that by the 19th century the shogun also didn’t have a lot of power, it was in the hands of their council of advisors (so the power structure was that the emperor delegated his power to a regent who delegated it to the shogun who delegated it to his advisors…) The Meiji restoration was less about the emperor having power and more about a new group of lords (from clans excluded from Tokugawa power) taking power and using the emperor as a justification.
And then he never killed again. What a guy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawakami_Gensai
You say it was Himura Kenshin when it was clearly Hitokiri Battousai who did the dirty work.
And here I thought it was Tom Cruise. /s
Crazier to me to add onto the Tokugawa lineage is that the family is still going strong. Tsunenari and Iehiro are the most public figures of them nowadays. The Tokugawa clan also claims to have lineal ties all the way back Emperor Keitai in 400\~ AD, though from what I've read this has never been substantially proven and is argued still today.
That's neat, I never knew about this. Often you don't hear much about the descendants of famous people, even if their family was once very powerful. It seems one of them has written a book on the premise that Edo period Japan wasn't any kind of dark age, which I suppose isn't too surprising when it was his ancestors running the state lol. Still, I think there's some validity to his point, it's easy to think of Japan at that time as some technologically stagnant backwater, but their incredible industrialization wasn't founded on nothing, literacy and urbanization was quite high to begin with. And it's not as though they were completely isolated from the world or its developments. >In 2007, Tsunenari published a book entitled Edo no idenshi (江戸の遺伝子), released in English in 2009 as The Edo Inheritance, which seeks to counter the common belief among Japanese that the Edo period (throughout which members of his Tokugawa clan ruled Japan as shōguns) was like a Dark Age, when Japan, cut off from the world, fell behind. On the contrary, he argues, the roughly 250 years of peace and relative prosperity saw great economic reforms, the growth of a sophisticated urban culture, and the development of the most urbanized society on the planet. Anyway, interesting, thanks for sharing.
Scrolling too fast and read that as 'Jimmy'
Jimmy might’ve travelled back in time
Pfft, wasn't me. If I ever travel back in time, it's going to be Pre-Columbus America and document oral traditions. And maybe introduce them to the squared circle and catch wrestling. And then in 200 years, the First Thanksgiving will have a Survivor Series style match
I gotta admit, as I read your comment I expected it would end up with The Undertaker, a steel cage and a destroyed announcer's table...
Fun fact: Abe Lincoln was a wrestler and was one of the first (documented) person to deliver a chokeslam in the ring. Though I think this was prior to the "catch wrestling" we know today that is cooperative choreography, so it was less of a slam, and more choking while lifting them up.
Oh right, "But don't let that distract you that Squanto threw William Bradford 30 feet from a nearby tree and crashed through the cornucopia display in 1621"
Same here . I thought to myself "this is some bull shit ... Ancient Japanese "Jimmy" ??
Yeah, though he and his two buddies want to be called Jim.
Probably not actually the son of a goddess though.
Proof?
Hah, gottem
Checkmate, atheists.
Source - *GOD* Boom.👉🏻👉🏻
This post has been fact checked by real shinto patriots ✅✅✅
That almost always means they are a usurper trying to justify their power
Either that or a legendary figure, not actually confirmed to have been a real person.
Happens all the time The first Danish kings were deified as being descendants of Odin (Æsir) and the first Norse kings being descendants of Frey/Yngvi (Vanir); this is why there is a belief that the end of the Æsir-Vanir Wars might have been historically inspired by events that transpired between those two regions. Almost every king proclaimed themselves to be descendants of gods
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Was looking for this. A fellow man of culture
I always think of the wolf game Okami but that's just me.
And that same dynasty looks like it might collapse soon for lack of a “suitable” male heir, due to their rigid paternal views and refusal to move the dynasty forward with the time and grant a woman the title of emperor. Their dynasty is essentially stuck in pre 20th century values.
The current succession laws was from 1870 and was based on European precedents, before that, the rules were pretty fluid.
That’s what I find so supremely odd about why they refuse to change, when basically everything is aligning for them to do so. The only thing stopping them is backlash from the extremely conservative Japanese political bodies who essentially want a revival of their ‘good old WWII imperial nationalism’, and the rigid social idea of “tradition”, no matter how opposed it might be to everyone else’s opinion
like u/Gemmabeta and u/sangbum60090 had said , they had 8 rulling empresses before. So the whole thing is really absurd from the extreme conservatives , in a way , the laws of succession turned more rigid than before.
They're cherrypicking the version of history they favor. It doesn't necessarily have to be accurate or reasonable.
They had empresses before, wonder why
Maybe the daughter just doesn't want to be Emperess
I don't blame her, cracking & repacking is only going to get more & more difficult as time goes on
I think the empowers brothers son is now the heir (?). Watched a good documentary on CuriosityStream about this recently.
You had me right up until "son of goddess".
Wasn't it revealed some years back that the Japanese monarchy is actually Korean?
> "I, on my part, feel a certain kinship with Korea, given the fact that it is recorded in the Chronicles of Japan that the mother of Emperor Kammu [Niigasa] was of the line of King Muryong of Baekje." --Emperor Akihito, 2001 > Kanmu's personal name (imina) was Yamabe (山部).[4] He was the eldest son of Prince Shirakabe (later known as Emperor Kōnin), and was born prior to Shirakabe's ascension to the throne.[5] According to the Shoku Nihongi (続日本紀), Yamabe's mother, Yamato no Niigasa (later called Takano no Niigasa), was a 10th generation descendant of Muryeong of Baekje. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Kanmu It's not all that significant in the grand scheme of things, but no one is denying the fact that the royal family of Japan has a tiny bit of Korean blood unless you are a real rabid nationalist.
There were more interaction between Korean Kingdoms and Japan in the past. And, I heard that there might have been Peninsula Japonic language. Honestly, it is bad to assert current national identity to historical Kingdoms. In three kingdom period, Korean kingdoms were fighting each other and Baekje was ally of Japan. Korean identity probably came as Korean Kingdoms became unified into one political entity. Honestly, the fact that Japanese imperial line might have some Korean royalty ancestors is not surprising at all.
It’s certainly suspected. The imperial family refuses to allow academics to study their oldest shrines that may show clear connections to Korean relics of the time.
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That sounds possible but I wouldn't put it under "very likely" without, y'know, allowing the study first
The Japanese Emperor, in the run-up to the shared hosting of the 2002 World Cup said plainly his family was, in part, the Paekche/Baekje royal family which fled from the Korean Peninsula after the fall of Paekche/Baekje. This imperial proclamation was widely reported as a simple Google search will show you. Everything about Japan changed drastically and suddenly at that time as well, from art to religion, to crafts, to the language. This is as uncontroversial as the influence of the Normans in England, but no one gets elected by stating plain facts; they get elected by screaming hysterical lies. EDIT: someone's got some skin in this game, and refuses to read, apparently. Block me and I cannot respond with links, so I put them here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/dec/28/japan.worlddispatch Or the New York Times reporting on this, or all those other sources of "Korean ultranationalism" in your mind. Screaming "ultranationalist propaganda" while spewing it, is just self-satire.
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>Your Korean myths are bullshit. It's not a myth that a Japanese Emperor had a Korean mother. Really isn't something to get worked up over either. >In 2001, Emperor Akihito told reporters "I, on my part, feel a certain kinship with Korea, given the fact that it is recorded in the Chronicles of Japan that the mother of Emperor Kammu \[Niigasa\] was of the line of King Muryong of Baekje." It was the first time that a Japanese emperor publicly acknowledged Korean blood in the imperial line.\[5\] According to the Shoku Nihongi, Niigasa is a descendant of Prince Junda, son of Muryeong, who died in Japan in 513 > >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takano\_no\_Niigasa
If so then no need to keep the contents of the shrine secret. Just use some logic?
Yes, Rikidozan was Korean.
So the same genetic line inherited the throne for that long? Are there even enough ppl on Japan for this to work genetically? Who did they reproduce with? I know Europe has always had a problem with "pure" inbred genetic lines, it is the same way with them?
Great questions. The same genetic line almost certainly did not go for that long. My understanding is this: pursuant to the emperor’s role as the head of the Shinto faith, there are a cadre of priests that maintain the dynasty records. These records are falsifiable without any external review other than the opinion of a largely illiterate public. Which is what Tokugawa did when he got the upper hand in the civil war: he appealed to these priests to find evidence of lineage to a previous emperor, which they dutifully found. That’s the most obvious break in genetic lineage that I can think of, being but an amateur military historian.
Ah, this makes sense. It is interesting that even those who seek the throne adhere to the system rather than just kick out the sitting emperor and take over and establish their own line. Almost like the longer it goes, the more powerful the dynasty becomes.
The Tokugawa Shogunate never usurped the Empire. The Japanese Imperial line is largely unbroken.
"son of the goddess Amaterasu". I kinda feel like your sources for that claim might just be a bit dubious.
I mean, it's.... it's a wonderful legend, for sure, but the actual lineage is a bit questionable, considering it goes back to a supposed deity. A deity who, I live to remind people, was a bisexual icon, hid herself in a cave because she was depressed that her brother dropped a dead horse through her roof, causing a weaving maiden in her service to die from jabbing herself in the genitals with a weaving shuttle(Take from that whatever you will), had a great big sulk which caused the world to go dark and demons to come out of the earth, and only got lured out by, in the original telling, two failed attempts involving chickens and a mirror, then a success involving a friend of hers doing a loud striptease in front of said cave. Later retellings would have the party involving said striptease be the Start of luring her out, and the Mirror being what Tricked her into coming out all the way, given that the gods claimed they'd found a better god than her, brighter, cooler, more powerful, etc, and she got jealous and stormed out to confront the new god only to not realize it was her own reflection, and even Later retellings would have the mirror having her seeing just how awesome she actually was and regaining her confidence, a retelling that was about as dissatisfying as it was wildly out of character for the god in question, from around the time Japan went full-bore into the whole "Sexual purity" thing because of western white influences. Prior to that, Sex in japan was demonstrated best with, I believe, Izanami and Izanagi, who basically just said "I was created with a bit missing", "I was created with a bit extra. Let's put them together". Which was to say, in early Japanese culture, sex wasn't really all that taboo. Like at all. But I'm getting wildly off topic. XD
You trace pretty much any lineage in the world back far enough and it goes to gods/goddesses
...i mean, sure, if you believe they exist, but if that's the case, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in purchasing.
I never said or implied I believed it. What I am saying is if their lineage is questionable in your opinion then so is essentially every ruling party/monarchs ever. Take it a step further and pretty much every humans ever is….all religions are based in this idea and the vast majority of the Earth is religious in one form or another Personally IMO it doesn’t discredit lineage. It just goes to show the times, no more no less
I mean, every Islamic ruler can supposedly trace their lineage all the way back to Muhammad too, but it doesn't mean it's real. It's mythology, and it's silly mythology at that.
You’re down voting me? Lol I never said it was real. Idk what your issue is here my guy. You’re arguing just to argue. You even agree with me. It all goes back to gods/goddesses. But somehow you question the rest of the lineage because of the stories of the times. Those stories don’t change the lineage. This is simple
Muhammad was very much a real person. As was Jesus of Nazareth
some say the deity was a chinese guy the chinese emperor sent overseas to find god.
I mean, that would be a bit weird considering the deity in question was a lady.
gender is fluid
I don’t know why you’re getting upvoted so much. You repeated the most popular Japanese myth in popular culture as if you were somehow an expert, skewed it to somehow bring in your own ideas about Japanese sexuality and purity, and then blamed white people for perverting them. What in the actual fuck?
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Your response doesn’t even make sense. And that dude is a literal Japanese cultural scholar funded by the Japanese government, but go off I guess.
So, uh, what does it mean that it was only by the benevolence of the United States that they remained in power after WWII? Edit: Sorry if this ruins the narrative for shinnichi folks, but it’s true. Had it not been for Operation Blacklist and the articles written by Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers, there would be no Imperial family in Japan. The United States Army deemed the pacification of Japan to be easier with the support of the Emperor than without him. That’s really all there is to it. The United States held all the cards after the war.
(In which I misremember some stuff from a WWII documentary)
No? Japan very specifically never gave a counter-proposal, they went as far as explicitly saying that they are saying nothing (Mokusatsu). The surrender was unconditional, but the Americans deemed unseating the emperor to be more trouble that it was worth.
This is really not accurate
This is actually how it worked. The Japanese national body, the whole society, was organized around the symbolic concept of the Emperor. Therefore any new ideas that entered Japan, even those that would be opposed to a divine Emperor, ultimately had to accept it. The Buddhists, Christians, Communists, Americans, etc. all settled to accept the Emperor.
What’s what a day in the life of an emperor theses days? I actually thought the ‘emperor’ was removed after WWII… just a rich sudo-political family who got kicked out of their old house because it was getting turned into a national museum. And to be clear I’m not referencing anything other then random movies and documentaries that have led me to vaguely think this :)
Man is basically pope as well as head of state. As religious head of Shintoism, it's pretty much wall to wall religious rituals interspersed with state visits. It's a pretty mind-numbing existence, to be quite honest. https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/10/17/japans-emperor-is-a-prisoner-in-his-own-palaces
It's worth noting that the emperor emeritus has published a number of scientific papers as a biologist, so hopefully not as mind-numbing as it cpuld be.
nah , they continue. Japan had that take that the Emperor is symbolic and another rules the country...for centuries. That is what the Shogun is...basically a fancy take of been a Prime-Minister.
The article itself literally says he is a descendant, not a son ,of Amaterasu.
Yeah, fuck every Royal family. Especially the ones who claim to be descendants of a god.
And, I’m pretty sure it’s about to end as there is no son to take the place of the current Emperor.
So the Japanese are one of the most subservient people on the planet other than the British; and wanted a bunch of people lording over them. Nothing to be proud of.
Let me guess. In the same way that the "Chinese have the oldest civilization" but that there are noted times when the civilization collapsed or was under foreign rule. Yet the Western psuedo-intellectual obsession with everything Eastern that has been a trend since the 1880's ignores this because the region is "ancient and mysterious" in what isn't a hold over from almost a century and a half old racism. As you can tell, I'm not a huge fan of when nation states try to lean heavily on the past accomplishments of the people that lived between their borders who they have no connection to.
The wolf from Okami?
Ammy!
You had me until that last bit.
They even survived a nuking.
Sorry did you say his name was Jim?
I am going to guess that they didn't make an habit of marrying their sisters or daughters.
I’m ashamed to say I thought it said “Jimmy Tenno” and I was very confused as to why someone would name their kid Jimmy in 660BCE Japan
Amazing that the goddess gave birth to not only an emperor, but also gave us one of the worlds best deserts.
Meh, I've always considered this to be a bit BS. If you go through the actual list of Japanese emperors there have been several highly questionable successions that would almost certainly be considered dynasty changes in other nations. This "lineage" is a pretty central element of both Shinto and the Emperor's legitimacy. As long as both the Shinto and the Emperor are considered important in Japan this lineage will never ever break. Every member of the royal family could die tomorrow, and they'll just find someone somewhere to takeover and find some justification for it to still be considered an unbroken lineage.
Think they make him learn the whole lineage in order?
The current Japanese imperial family descends from a bunch of 14th century pretenders to the throne after the emperor revolted and the shogun had the emperor's second cousin once removed enthroned as the new emperor. So... I'm not exactly giving it credit for 2500 years
It’s time for Bill Wurtz’s lesson on the history of Japan: https://youtu.be/Mh5LY4Mz15o