RELG 253 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Ujigami, Taika Reform, Empress Suiko

• School: McGill University
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: RELG 253
• Professor: Lisa M.Blake, Jingjing Li

Document Summary

Japan meaning: land of the rising sun, name taken from position in relation to china. Japan: nihon, nippon, riben, jihben, japan (general idea of how japan"s name came to be today) 552 to 710: yamato (asaka, early nara) period. We don"t know for sure, but we can deduce and our main clues come from the pottery and archeological records. Relatively simple, nomadic, you go wherever the food is, hunter-gatherer culture. Pottery was simple, clay, cord marking to create designs unsophisticated. Fertility symbol on a statue signifying a fertility ritual (potentially)\ We could guess that these statues are totems. Presence of pottery (evidence that it comes to japan from korea) Moving from nomadic society to a stationary culture. Legend of himiko, religious text, where we see first implications of religious life. Text is called wei chih from 297 ce. The story: himiko, connected to the unification of the tribes in early japanese history.