Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/282

 and sometimes as the Taihō (or Daihō) reform, the former term being derived from the name of the year-period (645—649) when the new legislation commenced; the latter from that of the period (701—703) when it terminated.  —A residence built for himself by the Soga chief Iruka is said to have been surrounded with a palisade and provided with storehouses for weapons and armour, and each gate had buckets hung near it as a precaution against fire. The residence of the same Minister's father was encircled with moats and had arrow-magazines.  —In the reign of the Empress Jito (690-696), for example, no less than seven waves of immigrants are said to have flowed to the shores of Japan, and all these strangers were hospitably welcomed and their services utilised.  —The Empress Kōken (749-758) issued an edict that every house throughout the realm should be provided with a copy of the Classic of Filial Piety, and should regard it as the primer of morality; and from her time onwards successive sovereigns employed their influence to popularise Confucianism, bestowing liberal rewards upon women who distinguished themselves by fidelity to their husbands, upon children conspicuous for piety to their parents, or upon servants noted for loyalty to their masters.  —The Mara of the present day lies mainly to the eastward of the old capital, but the temples occupy their original site.  —A couplet written at that era embodied the popular conception of a journey: "The grandest rice-bowl used at home becomes for the traveller an oak-leaf."  —Temmu (673-686).  —The method of treating children's hair in the Nara epoch was picturesque. At the age of three the little one's hair was cut short but of equal length all over. It was then allowed to grow until it reached the shoulders, at which length it was kept, the hair over the forehead, however, being trimmed so as to form a fringe hanging to the eyebrows. A few years later, a boy's hair was looped up on each side in the shape of a gourd-flower, and a girl's was suffered to grow thenceforth without restraint.

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