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extent to which rice cultivation and its use as a major food source was connected with ritual
practices and beliefs. Evidence for ritual practices and beliefs in Yayoi culture are mostly con-
nected with material culture—such as bronze bells and mirrors, and oracle bones—and spatial
arrangements—architectural spaces and the disposition of corpses. Toward the end of the period
we find some textual evidence that has shaped interpretations of Yayoi ritual practices and beliefs.
As with the Jōmon period, the notion of “Yayoi religion” is shorthand for a complex of rituals
and beliefs that assumed different forms and do not constitute a singular set of Yayoi practices.
Metallurgical technologies imported from the mainland were used to produce both tools and
ritual objects. Ritual items were made of bronze and included bells (dōtaku), mirrors, and weapons.
Bells were often illustrated with geometric designs and sometimes with daily- life scenes and
animal images. Similarly, Yayoi pottery includes incised animal images. There are numerous
theories to explain the ritual significance of Yayoi symbolism. For instance, deer are one animal
often represented on bells and pottery. Mark Hudson and others argue that there is sufficient
evidence—based, in part, on the number of deer representations relative to other depicted
animals—to support the claim that deer were revered as deities.^31 Harunari Hideji cites stories
circulating in eighth- century Japanese texts about the overnight germination of rice seeds planted
in deer blood as further support for the deer- as-deity interpretation.^32
Bronze weapons were also used as ritual objects, related both to ruling authority and to agri-
cultural rituals meant to benefit the larger community. At the Yoshinogari site in Saga prefecture
in northern Kyushu, burial sites associated with the ruling elite included bronze weapons.^33 At
the Kojindani site in Shimane prefecture, bronze weapons and other bronze objects were buried
in a hillside location some distance from the nearest settlement, which, according to Mark
Hudson, indicates agricultural rituals intended for the well- being of the larger community.^34
The Yoshinogari site is also significant to the study of religion in archaic Japan because of its
similarities to a kingdom on the Japanese archipelago described in a Chinese history, Wei zhi
(“History of the Kingdom of Wei”; J. Gishi), in a section known as the Wo ren chuan (“The People
of Wo”; J. Wajin den). This Chinese court history details events during the Wei Dynasty
(221–265 ce). Compiled in the late third century ce, it includes an account of a land (C. guo; J.
koku or kuni) referred to as Wo (Wa in Japanese) on the Japanese archipelago that corresponds to
the late Yayoi period. The Wei zhi says that this land, perhaps a kingdom of some sort, was ruled
by a woman named Himiko (alt., Pimiko), who resided in a place known as Yamatai.^35
Where exactly Yamatai was located on the Japanese archipelago has led to much heated debate
among Japanese scholars and the Japanese popular press that continues to the present. The Wei
zhi provides no evidence, but Kinai (central Honshū) and northern Kyūshū are the two regions
most often cited as likely locations. Some archaeologists who support the northern Kyūshū
region believe that the Yoshinogari site was the location of Yamatai. Those who see Yamatai as
the precursor to the early Yamato state, which was located in the area of current day Nara pre-
fecture, advocate the Kinai theory. The debate over Yamatai’s location is significant, then, also
because of its connection to ideological assertions of the imperial family’s direct lineage to the
Kinai and the Yamato state.^36
The textual evidence from the Wei zhi is often cited as evidence that Himiko was a shaman
and that therefore Yayoi culture did not distinguish between political and sacerdotal authority.
According to the Wei zhi, Himiko “occupied herself with magic and sorcery, bewitching the
people. Though mature in age, she remained unmarried. She had a younger brother who assisted
her in ruling the country. After she became the ruler, there were few who saw her.”^37 Mizoguchi
Kōji corroborates this view with archaeological evidence. He interprets the remains of a person
uncovered at the Yoshitake- Takagi site in Kyūshū as a shaman because the body was buried
along with a bronze mirror and bronze weapons. Mizoguchi views the mirror as symbolic of