the land, but not numerous.[2] In architecture there was probably little
but the primeval hut. Tools were of the rudest description; yet it is
evident that the primitive Japanese were able to work iron and apply it
to many uses. There were other metals, though the tell-tale etymology of
their names in Japanese metallurgy, as in so many other lines of
industry and articles of daily use, points to a Chinese origin. It is
the almost incredible fact that the Japanese man or woman wore on the
person neither gold nor silver jewelry. In later times, decoration was
added to the sword hilt and pins were thrust in the hair.

Possibly a prejudice against metal touching the skin, such as exists in
Korea, may account for this absence of jewelry, though silver was not
discovered until A.D. 675, or gold until A.D. 749. The primitive
Japanese, however, did wear ornaments of ground and polished stone, and
these so numerously as to compel contrast with the severer tastes of
later ages. Some of these magatama--curved jewels or perforated
cylinders--were made of very hard stone which requires skill to drill,
cut and polish. Among the substances used was jade, a mineral found only
in Cathay.[3] Indeed, we cannot follow the lines of industry and
manufactures, of personal adornment and household decoration, of
scientific terms and expressions, of literary, intellectual and
religious experiment, without continually finding that the Japanese
borrowed from Chinese storehouses. Possibly their debt began at the time
of the alleged conquest of Korea[4] in the third century.

In Japanese life, as it existed before the introduction of Buddhism,
there was, with barbaric simplicity, a measure of culture somewhat
indeed above the level of savagery, but probably very little that could
be appraised beyond that of the Iroquois Indians in the days of their
Confederacy. For though granting that there were many interesting