Agriculture and food productionHono- Ninigi, being entrusted by Amaterasu with heavenly “rice ears” and bringing them down
to the Japanese archipelago. Yet, according to our reading, the original text does not, in fact,
mention rice at all, but refers instead to the ears of all graminae. This is confirmed by another
episode given in both the “Chronicle of Ancient Matters” (Kojiki, 712) and the Nihon shoki that
narrates the beginning of agriculture with the “Birth of the five grains” from the body of the
goddess Ōgetsuhime or Ukemochi. It names foxtail millet, silkworms, barnyard millet, wheat or
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their cultivation: cereals and beans in dry fields (hata), rice in irrigated rice fields (ta).”^14
Thus, in the early eighth century, both dry and irrigated cultivation were envisioned as parallel
practices by the compilers of the imperial mythology. The same is true for the rituals associated
with agriculture. We should be aware that the protocols of court ceremonies during the Heian
period enlist rituals devoted not only to rice but to the “five grains.” No ritual prayer (norito)
NFOUJPOTSJDFBMPOF BMMDJUFUIFimWFHSBJOTw gokoku). And the Engi shiki prescribes the annual
Thanksgiving Ritual as an offering of both rice and foxtail millet (awa) in equal volume.^15
Although the original primary sources point to polycultural practices, the prevailing under-
standing today still holds to the conventional view of a predominant role for rice in Japanese
culture, mythology, and ritual. Yet Japanese historians and archaeologists have been distancing
themselves from this idea since the late 1990s. To Senda Minoru, the mythology of the rice ears
is a mere illusion created by modern interpretations, and to Tokoro Isao, the general view of
ancient Japanese culture needs to be revised altogether.^16 Both authors have not received their
due attention, although research in agricultural history has actually made important advances in
their sense. Some milestones in this field should be mentioned.
Japanese agrarian historiography: a long and laborious path
The first generation of agronomist- historians scrutinized premodern sources and especially the
materials from the Heian and Edo periods. Building on early work by Hōgetsu Keigo, Furushima
Toshio published The History of Agricultural Techniques (1947) that is today still the standard refer-
ence for agrarian history in Japan. Marked by an evolutionistic approach, Furushima’s work
identifies significant technical progress and generalized increases in rice yields during the late
medieval period.^17 In the closing decades of the twentieth century, Furushima’s data were used
and expanded by Kimura Shigemitsu and Kuroda Hideo, and both scholars much modified and
toned down the image of increased yields and the dominance of rice. They sensitized academic
circles to dry cereal cultivation after Amino Yoshihiko had drawn attention to the existence of
dry fields alongside rice fields on the medieval estates. Subsequently, in 1981, the archaeologist
Terasawa Kaoru published his discoveries of the remains of dry fields and dry grains in the Jap-
anese sites of the Yayoi period.^18
After this initial stage, marked by a growing awareness of the existence of dry cereals, Amino
Yoshihiko began to conduct a veritable offensive. In 1980, Amino criticized in very explicit
terms the “rizicentric” view (suiden chūshin shikan) then current among scholars. In his view, rice
predominated in tax levies but not in the diet of the general population. In the countryside,
argued Amino, rice appeared only on festive tables. He continued to criticize what he called the
“rizicentric theories” (inasaku ichigenron) well into the 1990s, his views giving impetus to numer-
ous debates.^19
Two conferences specifically re- examined the conventional image of agricultural practices in
history, both bringing together historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists. The first, organ-
ized in 1988 by the anthropologist Sasaki Kōmei, featured evidence of dry grain cropping in both
archaeologic and ethnographic research. The second conference, organized by Tanigawa Kenichi