Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/73

 every class of personal ornament. Yet the dolmens indicate that personal adornments were abundantly, if not profusely, employed by the ancestors of these same Japanese in prehistoric days. Indeed, the only features common to the fashions of the Japanese as they are now known and the Japanese as their sepulchres reveal them, are the rich decoration of the sword-hilt and scabbard and of the war-horse's trappings.

As to the food of these early people, it seems to have consisted of fish, flesh, and cereals. They used wine of some kind, though of its nature there is no knowledge, and their household utensils were of pottery, graceful in outline but unglazed and archaically decorated. Whether or not they possessed cattle there is no evidence, nor yet is it known what means they employed to produce fire, though the fire-drill appears to be the most probable.

That they believed in a future state is evident, since they buried with the dead whatever implements and weapons might be necessary in the life beyond the grave; that ancestral worship constituted an important part of their religious cult is proved by the offerings periodically made at the tombs of the deceased; and that idolatry was not practised or superstition largely prevalent may be deduced from the complete absence of charms or amulets among the remains found in their sepulchres.