slavery (nuhi) existed in ancient Japan as in so
many other countries. The slaves consisted of prisoners taken in war
and of persons who, having committed some serious offence, were
handed over to be the property of those that they had injured. The
first recorded instance of the former practice was when Yamato-dake
presented to the Ise shrine the Yemishi chiefs who had surrendered to
him in the sequel of his invasion of the eastern provinces. The same
fate seems to have befallen numerous captives made in the campaign
against the Kumaso, and doubtless wholesale acts of self-destruction
committed by Tsuchi-gumo and Kumaso when overtaken by defeat were
prompted by preference of death to slavery. The story of Japan's
relations with Korea includes many references to Korean prisoners who
became the property of their captors, and that a victorious general's
spoils should comprise some slaves may be described as a recognized
custom. Of slavery as a consequence of crime there is also frequent
mention, and it would appear that even men of rank might be overtaken
by that fate, for when (A.D. 278) Takenouchi-no-Sukune's younger
brother was convicted of slandering him, the culprit's punishment
took the form of degradation and assignment to a life of slavery. The
whole family of such an offender shared his fate. There is no
evidence, however, that the treatment of the nuhi was inhuman or even
harsh: they appear to have fared much as did the tomobe in general.

THE LAND

There are two kinds of territorial rights, and these, though now
clearly differentiated, were more or less confounded in ancient
Japan. One is the ruler's right--that is to say, competence to impose
taxes; to enact rules governing possession; to appropriate private
lands for public purposes, and to treat as crown estates land not
privately owned. The second is the right of possession; namely, the
right to occupy definite areas of land and to apply them to one's own
ends. At present those two rights are distinct. A landowner has no
competence to issue public orders with regard to it, and a lessee of
land has to discharge certain responsibilities towards the lessor. It
was not so in old Japan. As the Emperor's right to rule the people
was not exercised over an individual direct but through the uji no
Kami who controlled that individual, so the sovereign's right over
the land was exercised through the territorial owner, who was usually
the uji no Kami. The latter, bei