Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/62

 itself completely on the nation, and there is no difficulty in conceiving that its representatives went down before the first rush of the southern invaders, but subsequently, by tenacity of resistance and by fortitude under suffering, recovered from a shock which would have crushed a lower grade of humanity.

Histories that describe the manners and customs of a people have been rare in all ages. The compilers of Japan's first annals, in the eighth century, paid little attention to this part of their task. Were it necessary to rely on their narrative solely for a knowledge of the primæval Japanese, the student would be meagrely informed. But archæology comes to his assistance. It raises these men of old from their graves, and reveals many particulars of their civilisation which could never have been divined from the written records alone.

The ancient Japanese—not the Koro-pok-guru or the Ainu, but the ancestors of the Japanese proper—buried their dead, first in barrows and afterwards in dolmens. The barrow was merely a mound of earth heaped over the remains, after the manner of the Chinese. The dolmen was a stone chamber. It had walls constructed with blocks of stone, generally unhewn and rudely laid but sometimes hewn and carefully fitted; its roof consisted of huge and ponderous slabs; it varied in form, sometimes taking the shape of a long gallery only; sometimes of a gallery and a