The , also known as or , are a set of characters discovered around 1886 on the
Japanese island of
Hokkaido
is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel.
The lar ...
. At the time of their discovery, they were believed to be a genuine script, but this view is not generally supported today.
[Harada Minoru says of these "Ainu characters", as well as ''jindai moji'' in general, that ]
Discovery and research
Heikichi Shōji, a member of the , collected various
Ainu artifacts in Hokkaido, including some antiques with characters written on them. Among these, a piece of bark and a sash were introduced in the September 9, 1886 issue of the , a local newspaper in
Aomori Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku region. The prefecture's capital, largest city, and namesake is the city of Aomori. Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan's main island, Honshu, and is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the eas ...
, and three days later in the Sendai paper .
Enomoto Takeaki opined that these must have been characters used by the
Emishi a thousand years before. At the 25th meeting of the Tokyo Anthropological Society in December of that year, Shōji displayed pieces of leather, stone fragments, ''
washi
is traditional Japanese paper. The term is used to describe paper that uses local fiber, processed by hand and made in the traditional manner. ''Washi'' is made using fibers from the inner bark of the gampi tree, the mitsumata shrub (''E ...
'' (Japanese paper), and a sheath, all inscribed with the characters.
The anthropologist Tsuboi Shōgorō published an article in 1887 in the 12th issue of the Tokyo Anthropological Society Report that used the Hokkaido characters, along with carvings in Temiya Cave and Oshoro Stone Circle in
Otaru City, to support his own
Koro-pok-guru
Korpokkur ( ain, コㇿポックㇽ; ja, コロポックル, translit=Koropokkuru), also written Koro-pok-kuru, korobokkuru, korbokkur, or koropokkur,Ainu-Grammatik, vol.2 Hans Adalbert Dettmer, O. Harrassowitz, 1997 koro-pok-guru, are a race of ...
theory. This theory argued that the Koro-pok-guru, a legendary race of small people in Ainu mythology, were in fact residents of Japan predating the Ainu themselves, and had been forced to the northeast by the immigration of the Ainu's ancestors.
In August 1887, Tsuboi went on to publish an article in the 18th issue of the Tokyo Anthropological Society Magazine entitled . In addition to stating that the characters were systematically arranged, unlike those at Temiya Cave, and thus represented a script, he further suggested the possibility that these characters were used by people who came to Japan from
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...
.
In October of the same year, this time in the 20th issue of that same Tokyo Anthropological Society Magazine, Shōji himself released an article called . Although he admitted that there was no proof, Shōji expressed the view that these characters were likely used by the Emishi in ancient times.
In 1888, the
Kokugaku
''Kokugaku'' ( ja, 國學, label= Kyūjitai, ja, 国学, label=Shinjitai; literally "national study") was an academic movement, a school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Tokugawa period. Kokugaku scholars worked to r ...
scholar Naosumi Ochiai wrote a book entitled . Therein he posited that the Hokkaido characters were used by the Emishi people, who neither understood Japanese nor used Kanji. He further produced 14 symbols, combinations of which supposedly composed 50 of the characters, but supposed that it would prove impossible to understand them without knowing their readings. In the appendix on dubious characters in
Hirata Atsutane
was a Japanese scholar, conventionally ranked as one of the Four Great Men of Kokugaku (nativist) studies, and one of the most significant theologians of the Shintō religion. His literary name was , and his primary assumed name was . He also ...
's , he suggested a connection between the Hokkaido characters and
Izumo characters, as well as other supposedly ancient characters.
In 1975, Kiyohiko Agō wrote , in which he connected the Hokkaido characters with not only the carvings in Temiya Cave but also those in Fugoppe Cave, in the town of
Yoichi.
The , headed by Takahashi Yoshinori, claims a connection between ''jindai moji'' including the Hokkaido characters and an advanced prehistoric society, and further between the Hokkaido characters and the ancient
Sumerian and
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
n civilizations of
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
. Furthermore, they claim that the carvings in the Fugoppe Cave themselves consist of the Hokkaido characters.
In 2007, the author Harada Minoru, a member of the skeptical group Togakkai (the "Academy of
Outrageous Books"), offered the following evaluation:
Overview of inscribed artifacts
The names and descriptions of these are mostly from Shōji (1887).
Related characters
Temiya cave drawings
![Temiya kodaimoji](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Temiya_kodaimoji.jpg)
By one theory, the
rock art discovered in 1866 in Temiya Cave actually consists of written characters. These carvings in
Otaru
is a city and port in Shiribeshi Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan, northwest of Sapporo. The city faces Ishikari Bay and the Sea of Japan, and has long served as the main port of the bay. With its many historical buildings, Otaru is a popular to ...
are relics of the continuing
Jōmon culture which persisted in the region from the 3rd century BC until the 7th century AD, when it was replaced by
Satsumon culture
The is a partially agricultural, archeological culture of northern Honshu and southern Hokkaido (700–1200 CE) that has been identified as Emishi, as a Japanese-Emishi mixed culture, as the incipient modern Ainu, or with all three synonymously. ...
. In 1921, they were designated a national historical landmark.
[ and ]Kyōsuke Kindaichi
was a Japanese linguist, chiefly known for his dictations of yukar, or sagas of the Ainu people, as well as his study of the Matagi dialect. He is the author of the dictionary '' Meikai Kokugo Jiten''.
Biography
Kindaichi was born in Morioka, ...
theorized that the carvings were fabricated by subordinates of , but later research has denied the accusation. They became public knowledge after an 1878 investigation conducted by
Enomoto Takeaki, the secretary of the
Kaitakushi (Hokkaido Development Commission) Yamanouchi Teiun, and the British geologist
John Milne
John Milne (30 December 1850 – 31 July 1913) was a British geologist and mining engineer who worked on a horizontal seismograph.
Biography
Milne was born in Liverpool, England, the only child of John Milne of Milnrow, and at first raised ...
.
In October 1913, the archaeologist
Torii Ryūzō contributed an article to Volume 22, Issue 4 of entitled . He claimed that the letters were in the
old Turkic alphabet
The Old Turkic script (also known as variously Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script, Turkic runes) was the alphabet used by the Göktürks and other early Turkic khanates from the 8th to 10th centuries to record the Old Tu ...
, representing a
Tungusic languages
The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu-Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the doz ...
used by the
Mohe people
The Mohe, Malgal, or Mogher, or Mojie, were an East Asian Tungusic people who lived primarily in the modern geographical region of Northeast Asia. The two most powerful Mohe groups were known as the Heishui Mohe, located along the Amur Rive ...
. Moreover, the linguist Nakanome Akira contributed an article to the 71st issue of , published in February 1918, entitled . Adopting Torii's Turkic theory, he claimed to have deciphered the carvings in Temiya Cave, and that in the Mohe language they read: In that month's ''Otaru Shinbun'' newspaper, Nakanome asserted that the
Mishihase
The , also read as Ashihase and Shukushin, were a people of ancient Japan, believed to have lived along the northern portion of the coast of the Sea of Japan. The term Sushen, rendered 肅愼, is found in Chinese records, but is annotated as M ...
people subjugated in the ''
Nihon Shoki'' by
Abe no Hirafu
was a Japanese military strategist and commander of the Asuka period.
Some sources say he lived from c.575-664
Biography
Events in his life are accounted in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki, both written several decades after his death. His father ...
were in fact Mohe people, and that Temiya Cave is the ruins of the burial place of their chief, who died in the conflict.
On the other hand, in 1944, the
local historian
The British Association for Local History (BALH) is a membership organisation that exists to promote the advancement of public education through the study of local history and to encourage and assist the study of local history throughout Great Bri ...
Fumihiro Asaeda published , in which he propounded a theory that the carvings in Temiya Cavern represented ancient Chinese
hanzi. By his theory, they were made by people of the
Zhou dynasty
The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by ...
court, and record that a fleet dispatched on an expedition was visiting the area when the who led them died and was buried. After some calamity occurred, the Zhou held a bloody ritual. He further conjectured that ships from
Shang
The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and f ...
and later Zhou
China frequently visited Hokkaido to obtain deer antlers for use in rituals.
In 1972, Asaeda published a further work in which he indicated three more items he believed to contain characters of the same type. He supposed that all of these were ancient records of ceremonies conducted for the dead.
The ''jindai moji'' researcher Tatsuo Sōma offered another theory in 1978, when he published . He argued that the carvings in Temiya Cave were made by members of a group of people chased from the
Hokuriku region by another group of originating in
Baekje
Baekje or Paekche (, ) was a Korean kingdom located in southwestern Korea from 18 BC to 660 AD. It was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, together with Goguryeo and Silla.
Baekje was founded by Onjo, the third son of Goguryeo's founder Jum ...
. He also shared his interpretations of the meanings of the carvings; Unoke, Noto, Kaga, and the other places he refers to by name are all located in modern
Ishikawa prefecture.
Fugoppe cave drawings
![Fugoppe Cave](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Fugoppe_Cave.jpg)
In October 1927, rock carvings were discovered on stone walls inside a hill in Fugoppe in the town of
Yoichi, by a railroad worker who dug a path through it. Nishida Shōzō, a professor at the , called these carvings the "Fugoppe ancient characters", forming a pair with the "Temiya ancient characters" and associating them with the
Tsushima characters and
old Turkic alphabet
The Old Turkic script (also known as variously Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script, Turkic runes) was the alphabet used by the Göktürks and other early Turkic khanates from the 8th to 10th centuries to record the Old Tu ...
. However, the ethnic Ainu folk researcher
Hokuto Iboshi argued that the "deformed letters" were instead more recent forgeries, citing their lack of weathering compared to those at Temiya Cave.
Tatsuo Sōma opined that these carvings, like those at Temiya Cave, were made by people driven from the northeast of Honshū. He interpreted their meaning as
In 1950, further rock art was discovered in Fugoppe Cave in the same town. These were confirmed, like those at Temiya Cave, to be relics of the continued Jōmon period, and designated as national treasures in 1953. These carvings, like those at Temiya Cave, are sometimes referred to as "ancient characters".
Tatsuo Sōma considered these too as made by the same group that created the carvings at Temiya and at the 1927 Fugoppe discovery. Part of his translation is as follows:
The Japan Exploration Association, chaired by Takahashi Yoshinori, contends that the inscriptions on the northern wall of Fugoppe Cave read as "iishishirai" and "kawasakanahakitsu", and mean respectively "edible beasts live here" and "freshwater fish come here".
[These interpretations are based on the tracings in Ochiai (1888).]
Notes
References
Further reading
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*{{cite book , last=Harada , first=Minoru , script-title=ja:図説神代文字入門-読める書ける使える , publisher={{Nihongo, Being Net Press, ビイング・ネット・プレス , year=2007 , isbn=978-4-434-10165-6 , language=Japanese
History of Hokkaido
Japanese writing system
Jindai moji
Undeciphered writing systems