Guest Column: Big Mounds, Little People
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| Tomb of Emperor Nintoku, late 4th/early 5th centuries, Osaka |
Japanese Art with Chelsea, Part 3
Or, Big Mounds, Little People
THE KOFUN PERIOD
Two very opposite objects exemplify the Kofun Period — a few very large, and many very small. In the Kofun period, we find for the first time written records of the people of this period, and also for the first time a people who associate themselves specifically with the continent of Japan. The word they used was Yamato. Also essential is the fact that these people had leaders, as evidenced in the huge tombs built for their rulers, like the one to the left.
Emperor Nintoku’s tomb remains unexcavated, possibly because of the modern Japanese government’s nervousness over evidence within that would reveal that Nintoku, the sixteenth emperor of Japan, may have not been indigenously Japanese, but instead Korean — oops. In any case, this tomb is also called a tumulus (that’s Latin, not Japanese), which just means tomb, as does the Japanese word kofun (guess where they got the period name? Bingo). This complicated and immense man-made structure is roughly 5 football fields long! In addition, every time an emperor died, custom dictated that not only a huge structure be built for his body and for all his effects (including some very special guards, which I’ll talk about below), but that the entire civilization must move to a new place.
So, who guarded these structure? The following little guys:
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| Haniwa, 6th-7th c., Asia Society | Haniwa, 6th c., British Museum | Haniwa Horse, 6th c., Tokyo National Museum |
I LOVE haniwa!! They actually aren’t so little; they range from about 2 or 3 feet tall. In fact, these guys range from people — soldiers that you see above, down to priests and all sorts of types of people — to animals, like our horse above, and even a monkey — to objects and places, like the house you see here to the right.
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| Haniwa House, 6th c., Tokyo National Museum |
Thousands of these objects have been found, and they were buried all around the mounds. Low-fired, porous ceramics that reflected on the patron, they probably showed the person’s wealth and power because of the sheer number of them that were made. Often simplified, they show the “essence” of the thing it depicts (as my professor said about a haniwa monkey, “They captured the essence of monkey, here!”). My favorite part about haniwa? Their image is so popular today that the Japanese manufacture haniwa stuffed animals, which are absolutely adorable, and something I’m dying to own!
Coming Up: Buddhism Arrives!! Japan’s Two Religions — the Asuka Period.
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