Religion in archaic Japanreligious authority and the weapons as symbolic of social or political authority. He interprets this
combined role as an indication of a shaman- ruler “mediating the relationship between the com-
munity and the supernatural as an Other.”^38
This perspective is consonant with Gina Barnes and other archaeologists’ perception of a shift
in religious sensibilities by the latter part of the Yayoi period. The shift focused on what Barnes
refers to as “ritual replacement,” in which ritual activity once focused on agriculture and rice
production was replaced by worship of rulers.^39 Worship of the “spirit of the rice” was ritually
replaced by worship of the “spirit of the ruler” as society became increasingly hierarchical.
Importantly, the transfer from rice to ruler as the object of worship happened concurrently with
incipient notions of a state as the primary political identity.
According to the Wei zhi, the Japanese archipelago was comprised of multiple small king-
doms. Yoshinogari was itself a large, well- developed area, and may have been one such kingdom
or its center. Yoshinogari included protective moats, a large burial mound, elevated granaries,
and other evidence of a community with at least a simple class structure and a ruling elite.^40 Yayoi
sites like Yoshinogari include features suggestive of new notions of sacred space. For instance, the
construction of raised- floor buildings at some sites has been interpreted as efforts to demarcate
sacred space. Such buildings, it is argued, constitute an early form of religious shrine that would
later become associated—rightly or wrongly—with Shintō shrines. J. Edward Kidder and others
identify these structures as intended for use by rulers in a period in which there was no distinction
between political and sacerdotal authority. According to Kidder, a raised- floor building “per-
sisted as an elite dwelling and was the structural form adopted for the first of the religious
shrines—Izumo Taisha and Ise Jingu both have elevated floors—presumably because it was the
shaman’s house.”^41
Kofun period (300–600) ritual practices and beliefs
From the perspective of ancient religion, the transition from the Yayoi to the Kofun period is
charted in part by the further development of an elite ruling class representing its religious and
political authority through large mounded tombs. According to the Wei zhi, when Himiko died,
she was interred in a great mound of raised earth.^42 The Kofun period marks the further develop-
ment of burials symbolic of ruling power. The name for the period is derived from the construc-
tion of kofun (literally, old tomb), or large keyhole- shaped tombs, that were expressions of an
incipient state and ruling power, especially in the Kinai region of the central Japanese archipelago
(the modern day Kansai region). This period witnessed the development of a complex agrarian
society and the beginnings of early state society in the form of chiefdoms legitimated through
imperial genealogies.^43
The construction of kofun spanned some four centuries, beginning around 300 ce and ending
around 700 ce, when they were replaced by Buddhist symbols of ruling power. The amount of
time, wealth, and human labor required to build the largest of these tombs indicates the level of
symbolic significance attached to these constructions. The largest, supposedly the tomb of Great
King Nintoku, is 486 meters long. These tombs also included a variety of valuable items, includ-
ing bronze mirrors and weapons, and beads known as magatama. Often made of jade in the Kofun
period, magatama were, according to many accounts in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, objects con-
nected with the gods, the lineage of great kings and queens, and ruling authority.
Kofun construction not only symbolized political power, but was connected to religious
practices and beliefs. There are a number of theories about the religious ideas expressed by kofun
burial practices. Among them are notions about deity (kami) worship, the existence of a ruler-
kami relationship, and the extent to which such a relationship may be linked to later identification