英译本《中国上古审美文化对日本绳文时代的影响》（二）

Influenceof Ancient Chinese Aesthetic Cultures on

JapaneseJomon Aesthetic Culture  

ZhiguangKong

(School of Literatureand Journalism, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250100)

Abstract

Based on the Chinese and Japanesearchaeological cultural relics, ancient documents and the legends of theancient history, it can be concluded that the ancient Chinese aestheticcultures had great influences on the Japanese Jomon aesthetic culture. Suchinfluences can be divided into three stages: early, middle and late. Theinfluence in the early stage was represented by the radiation of the Chineseaesthetic culture in the Taihao Era, typically the Houli Culture in Shandong, to theJapanese aesthetic culture in the Incipient and Initial Jomon Periods. Theinfluence in the middle stage was represented by the penetration of the Chineseaesthetic culture in the Shaohao Era, typically the Dawenkou Culture, into theJapanese aesthetic culture in the Early and Middle Jomon Periods. The influencein the late stage was represented by the condensation of the Chinese aestheticcultures in the Period of the Shang-Zhou Dynasties, mainly the Bronze Cultureand the Jade Sculpture Culture, in the Japanese aesthetic culture in the Lateand Final Jomon Periods. Due to the influences from the ancient Chineseaesthetic cultures, the Japanese Jomon aesthetic culture changed accordinglyboth in the deep-level cultural concepts, such as sun worship, fire worship,phoenix worship and cock worship, and in the aesthetic forms, such as theoverall shape, pottery ornamentation, abstract cord pattern, etc.. That is whythe style of the Jomon aesthetic culture was firstly mysterious, primitive andunskillful, then miraculous and gorgeous, and finally dignified and elegant.

Keywords: Jomon Culture, TaihaoCulture, Shaohao Culture, Shang-Zhou Culture, Aesthetic Culture Exchange

II

From 4,000 B.C. to 2,000B.C., the influence of the ancient Chinese aesthetic culture on the Jomonaesthetic culture was at the middle stage. This period also corresponded to theEarly and Middle Jomon Periods, as well as the period of the Yangshao Culture(Middle and Late Stages), the Dawenkou Culture, the Liangzhu Culture and theLongshan Culture in China.According to the legends of the ancient history, it was the “Shaohao CulturePeriod” in China and the“Sun God Period ” in Japan.

The potteries in the EarlyJomon Period maintained the shape and cord patterns of the Initial Jomon Periodand evolved with new features. The development may be expressed in differentforms, including increasingly eminent ornamental buttons on the mouth rims andmore additional decorations adopted for the pottery assemblage dominated by thetube kettles. The most commonly seen decorations included comb ears andsnake-head–shaped ears signifying totem worship as well as the handles withanimal face patterns signifying the nature worship concept. So it became thetransition to the Middle Jomon Period. The latter period was the peak of theoverall Jomon arts and culture, which embodied the concentrated reflection ofthe imagination, creativity and ideal dreams of the Jomon people, and markedthe pinnacle of the Jomon aesthetic levels. Despite the aesthetic culturerelics throughout the Japanese Archipelago, the potteries with flame patternsand applique pattern unearthed from the Umataka ruins in Niigata,the Katsusaka ruins in Kanagawa and the Senri ruins in Nagano were the predominant representativesof the Jomon aesthetic culture.

The creativity of such potterieswas displayed in two aspects: 1. deepened spiritual contents, 2. enhancedabstract forms. Regarding the deepened spiritual contents, the witch culturalconcepts of sun worship, cock worship, bird worship, fire worship, etc. in theInitial and Early Jomon Periods grew completely mature in the Middle JomonPeriod. The creative potteries under these cultural concepts sprang up likevolcanic eruption. Especially the large-scale piled-up applique, which werereal and fantastic as well as solid and hollow simultaneously, decorated at themouth rim, the neck and the shoulder of the potteries unearthed from the ruinsaround Niigata prefecture formed a mysterious motional world, like sun rising,flame leaping up, phoenix turning and flying and cock crowing. It is worthnoticing that the sun worship was directly conveyed through the sun gods withhuman faces, in addition to the ways of fire worship, phoenix worship and cockworship. The progenitor sun god was applied for the piled-up applique at themouth rim. The human faces were mostly round. Some looked vigorously withprominent eyes and eyebrows; some looked dignified with big mouth; some lookedlike dignified young ladies with small mouths and noses; some were abstract andlooked amicable with only eyes and mouths. Crown-shaped sunlight patterns weredecorated around the nearly round human face. Such an expression form of sungod with human face is similar to the image of the sun god with human face onthe frescoes in Ningxia, Gansu,and Inner Mongolia in Chinaas well as the sun god on the Liangzhu Jade Ritual Cong. They all embodied thesun worship, progenitor worship and the harmonization of the human and thedivinity.

The enhanced abstract formcan be found in numerous potteries in the Middle Jomon Period. Around5,000-6,000 years ago, people’s abilities to abstract artistically had leapt toa new level. This could not only be seen from the highly developed geometricpatterns on the potteries in the Banpo Culture, the Dahecun Culture and theMajiayao Culture in Chinabut also be really experienced from the abstract patterns in the Middle JomonPeriod in Japan.Although the flame pattern, feather pattern, comb pattern, etc. on the piled-upapplique were to some extent specific, the specifics were not real but withabstract ideas. The various presentations,including the meandered and twisted lines of the pile-up applique like combs,flames or feathers, the sun god and the human god, the phoenix and the cock, aswell as the flame and the cyclone, merged together to give an uncertainimpression. If the potteries decorated with flame pattern, feather pattern andcomb pattern unearthed from the Umataka ruins would remind people of the related thingsdue to the certain concreteness, among the potterieswith so-called applique, twisting line patterns and spiral pattern, abstractwas predominant despite the concrete decorations of dragon pattern, snakepattern and frog pattern. The cultural contents of those geometric patternswere deeply merged in the forms, which may be considered as a type of “meaningful forms”. The undulating flowing lines like a snake or a dragon brokethrough all the limitation of time and space to make you feel the vigor offreedom of life. In general, the miraculous and gorgeous style of the Jomonpotteries of this period is both connected with and distinctive from theprimitively simple and dignified style in the previous Jomon Period.

If we trace the progenitorworship to about 8,000 years ago, which was the period of the Houli Culture, thePeiligang Culture, the Cishan Culture and the Laoguantai Culture, the tortoiseshell used for divining, the symbols similar to the Oracle Bone (Jia-gu wen)and the flutes made from animal bones unearthed from the Jiahu ruins of thePeiligang Culture were most probably the cultural relics of the legendaryperiod of Fuxi, the forefather of the human culture, who created the Eight Diagrams and deedengraving on the wood or bamboos, while in Japan, the cultural concept ofnature worship was still prevailing. But at around 5,000-6,000 years ago, when China entered into the Shaohao Era and theHuangdi Era from the Taihao Era and then the Shennong Era, Japan enteredinto the Sun God Era. The potteries with human faces and sunlight patternprobably represented their progenitor, the Sun God in their mind. Although alegendary figure, this Sun God somewhat reflected the history and was closelyrelated to the worship of Jintianshi, the sun god of the Shaohao tribe.According to the Japanese scholars, the forefathers of the modern Japanese werethe Yayoi immigrated from the mainland around 2,300 years ago.  The Yayoi conquered and displaced the indigenousJomon. This also laid a foundation for the development of the Kofun Culture.That meant the Yayoi differed dramatically from the Jomon in cultures. So,where did the Jomon originate? The Japanese scholars held different views: fromthe north, or the south, or west, or the north, the south and the west. In theprevious chapter, we have stated the relationship between the the HouliCulture, the Majiabin Culture as well as the Xiaoshankou Culture in China and theJapanese Jomon Culture. In essence, such connections between the Chinese andthe Japanese cultures have continued for 5,000-6,000 years up to now. Based onthe analyses on the relics from the Xishuipo ruins in Puyang Henan, the Chinese historians andarchaeologists held that the Central Plain of China entered into thepatriarchal society 6,000 years ago. (4) Basing on the studies on the DawenkouCulture in Haidai area of East China around 6,000-4,600 years ago, Lan Tang, ahistorian and archaeologist, held that China established slave system at least5,500 years ago. (5) The development of social productivity and theaccumulation of material wealth enabled the wars between different tribes. Thelegendary story about the victory of the alliance of Yang Di and Huang Di overthe Shaohao tribe proved this point. After the defeat, some Shaohao peopleprobably sailed eastward to the Korea Peninsula and further to Japan. They took with them thecultural worship of Jintianshi (the god of Autumn), the sun god of the Shaohaotribe.

It is worth noticing that similarlegends existed in Japan.In “Aesthetic Japan-Genealogy of the Jomon” (6), Sosakon described as follows.Asobe tribe had lived around Tsugaru in Aomori. About 5,000 years ago, some people of the Emperor Fuxishi sailed to Tsugaru andsettled down there. They were called Tsuboketribe. There were wars between these two tribes. Later the two tribes weremelted together. In our opinion, this legendary story corresponded to theChinese legends. But the only difference was that around 5,000 years ago, itwas the Shaohao Era instead of the Taihao Era. Probably some people of theShaohao tribe crossed the sea to migrate to the east. In addition, as in The Origin of the Japanese (7), Takayasu Higuchi, aJapanese archaeologist stated that the tooth extraction custom was not merelyrelated to the customs in Southeast Asia (theview of some scholars). As tooth extraction custom also existed in the DawenkouCulture, which was located in the nearest place to the Japanese Archipelago.The connections between the Jomon culture and the Dawenkou Culture still neededfurther studies. The linkage between the legends in the ancient history and therecognition of the tooth extraction custom unveiled by the archaeologicalculture proved the actual significant influences on the Early and Middle JomonCulture from the Shaohao Culture.

Shaohao learned from the doctrines ofTaihao and pursued sun worship. They based the official titles on the birdnames, and therefore called Bird Doctrine. Some people from the Shaohao tribecrossed the sea to Japan and were fully committed to promoting the culturalconcepts of sun worship, fire worship, phoenix worship, cock worship, etc.. Itwas just like a tiger added with wings. Despite the big difference in theshapes of potteries between the Shaohao aesthetic culture and the Early andMiddle Jomon aesthetic culture, some of the main patterns for the jadewares ofthe Dawenkou Culture, the Liangzhu Culture and the Longshan Culture werereflected in the decorative patterns of potteries. These Chinese patternsincluded the round design of Jade Bi from Dawenkou , the symmetric designs liketwo big eyes beside the Chiwen (a mythical-animal shape) on the Liangzhu JadeRitual Cong and the brilliant design of the sun god. These designs could becommonly seen in the Early and Middle Jomon Period. This meant that the Shaohaopeople took not only the witch cultural concepts of sun worship, fire worship,bird worship, etc. but also the jade design patterns of the Dawenkou Culture,the Liangzhu Culture and the Longshan Culture. They, along with the indigenousinhabitants, expressed the witch cultural concepts by the creative ways ofpiled-up apllique from the circles of clay as well as ingeniously absorbing thedesigns of the jade sculptures. Thus they pushed the Middle Jomon aestheticculture to the pinnacle of historic development.

         
   （本文曾在由中华全国美学学会、中国社会科学院、北京第二外国语学院举办的国际美学大会上宣读，并载《文史哲》2002年第4期）