AS 201 Wei Dynasty Chronicles (魏志) (297 AD)

The first historical records of Himiko are found in a Chinese classic text, the ca. 297 Records of Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Zhi 三國志). Its "Records of Wei" (Wei Zhi 魏志), which covers the Cao Wei kingdom (220-265) history, has a Worenchuan (倭人傳 "Account of the Wa People," Japanese Wajinden 倭人伝) section with the oldest description of Himiko (or Pimiko 卑彌呼) and Yamatai.

The people of Wa [倭人] dwell in the middle of the ocean on the mountainous islands southeast of [the prefecture of] Tai-fang. They formerly comprised more than one hundred communities. During the Han dynasty, [Wa envoys] appeared at the Court; today, thirty of their communities maintain intercourse [with us] through envoys and scribes. (tr. Tsunoda 1951:8)

This early history describes how Himiko came to the throne.

The country formerly had a man as ruler. For some seventy or eighty years after that there were disturbances and warfare. Thereupon the people agreed upon a woman for their ruler. Her name was Himiko [卑彌呼]. She occupied herself with magic and sorcery, bewitching the people. Though mature in age, she remained unmarried. She had a younger brother who assisted her in ruling the country. After she became the ruler, there were few who saw her. She had one thousand women as attendants, but only one man. He served her food and drink and acted as a medium of communication. She resided in a palace surrounded by towers and stockades, with armed guards in a state of constant vigilance. (tr. Tsunoda 1951:13)

The "Records of Wei" also records envoys travelling between the Wa and Wei courts. Himiko's emissaries first visited the court of Wei emperor Cao Rui in 238, and he replied.

Herein we address Himiko, Queen of Wa, whom we now officially call a friend of Wei. [… Your envoys] have arrived here with your tribute, consisting of four male slaves and six female slaves, together with two pieces of cloth with designs, each twenty feet in length. You live very far away across the sea; yet you have sent an embassy with tribute. Your loyalty and filial piety we appreciate exceedingly. We confer upon you, therefore, the title "Queen of Wa Friendly to Wei," together with the decoration of the gold seal with purple ribbon. The latter, properly encased, is to be sent to you through the Governor. We expect you, O Queen, to rule your people in peace and to endeavor to be devoted and obedient. (tr. Tsunoda 1951:14)

Finally, the "Records of Wei" (tr. Tsunoda 1951:15) records that in 247 when a new governor arrived at Daifang Commandery in Korea, Queen Himiko officially complained of hostilities with Himikuku (or Pimikuku卑彌弓呼) the King of Kunu (狗奴, literally "dog slave"). The governor dispatched "Chang Chêng, acting Secretary of the Border Guard" with a "proclamation advising reconciliation," and subsequently,

When Himiko passed away, a great mound was raised, more than a hundred paces in diameter. Over a hundred male and female attendants followed her to the grave. Then a king was placed on the throne, but the people would not obey him. Assassination and murder followed; more than one thousand were thus slain. A relative of Himiko named Iyo [壹與], a girl of thirteen, was [then] made queen and order was restored. Chêng issued a proclamation to the effect that Iyo was the ruler. (tr. Tsunoda 1951:16)

Commentators take this "Iyo" (壹與, with "one", an old variant of ) as a miscopy of Toyo (臺與, with "platform; terrace"), paralleling the Wei Zhi writing Yamatai 邪馬臺 as Yamaichi 邪馬壹.

Two other Chinese dynastic histories mentioned Himiko. While both clearly incorporated the above Wei Zhi reports, they made some changes, such as specifying the "some seventy or eighty years" of Wa wars occurred between 146 and 189, during the reigns of Han Emperors Huan and Ling. The ca. 432 Book of Later Han (Hou Han Shu 後漢書) says "The King of Great Wa resides in the country of Yamadai" (tr. Tusnoda 1951:1), rather than the Queen.

During the reigns of Huan-di (147-168) and Ling-di (168-189), the country of Wa was in a state of great confusion, war and conflict raging on all sides. For a number of years, there was no ruler. Then a woman named Himiko appeared. Remaining unmarried, she occupied herself with magic and sorcery and bewitched the populace. Thereupon they placed her on the throne. She kept one thousand female attendants, but few people saw her. There was only one man who was in charge of her wardrobe and meals and acted as the medium of communication. She resided in a palace surrounded by towers and stockades with the protection of armed guards. The laws and customs were strict and stern. (tr. Tusnoda 1951:2-3)

The 636 Book of Sui (Sui Shu 隋書) changes the number of Himiko's male attendants.

During the reigns of the Emperors Huan and Ling, that country was in great disorder, and there was no ruler for a period of years. [Then] a woman named Himiko attracted the populace by means of the practice of magic. The country became unified and made her queen. A younger brother assisted Himiko in the administration of the country. Queen [Himiko] kept one thousands maids in attendance. Her person was seldom seen. She had only two men [attendants]. They served her food and drink and acted as intermediaries. The Queen lived in a palace, which was surrounded by walls and stockades protected by armed guards; their discipline was extremely strict. (tr. Tsunoda 1951:28-29)

Could these observers be describing:

--the Makimuku Tomb Cluster at Ishizuka c. 190-220 AD; or the

--Hashihaka Tomb--which may be Himiko's Tomb?--c.250 AD (The archaeologists have believed that Hashihaka was built around the end of 3rd century AD – early 4th century AD, but the discoveries from recent excavation shows the possibility of even earlier construction, probably 248);

or possibly even they were describing the

-- Miwa Keyhole Tombs c. 220-350 AD.

Some, Like archaeologist Gina Barnes, believe that the Makimuku site is almost certainly the birthplace of the Yamato state, the polity that would become Japan. The site differs in many respects from excavated villages that date from the same period. Excavations have found fewer farming tools and other evidence of agriculture, but more traces of public works than appear in other Yayoi period sites....[M]any factors suggest that Makimuku is not only the birthplace of the Japanese nation but also the site of Yamatai Koku. The fact that the building discovered in 2009 is significantly larger than any found on Kyushu such as at Yoshino ga Ri or any other site from the period is a strong indication, and the presence of many kofun (including one large enough to be the tomb of Himiko) which by improved techniques have been dated to the period of the visit by the Wei Chinese mission seems to greatly strengthen Makimuku's claim to have been Himiko's home.

Not unlike what David Keightley wrote about the Shang State, Barnes notes that the Miwa center "functioned primarily as a ceremonial centre rather than an urban centre comprised of highly specialized craft production units, public buildings and residential areas for court members." Therefore, the Miwa court existed less as a physical entity than as "a web of personal relations between the core elite, the paramount and the gods." (Barnes, State Formation in Japan, 189-90)

Or, putting it another way, Barnes writes that

The story presented herein is essentially that of the emergence of a pan-regional grouping of elite rulers who established themselves as distinct from their local commoner populations through subscription to an exclusive burial system comprised of monumental tomb building and a relatively fixed repertoire of symbolic grave goods. This process of emergence is proposed to have constituted the process of social stratification, which took approximately one hundred years from mid-3rd to mid-4th century) to produce a rulng class of mutually communicating regional rulers and their families. (Barnes, State Formation, 193)

This political center referred to as the Miwa Court, then, is linked to the Sujin line of kings in the Nihon shoki.  Recent scholarship posits that the power center at the Miwa Court shifted to the Saki area of the northern Nara Basin in the mid-4th century or so. This theory is advanced very interestingly by Peter Metevelis in his Japanese Mythology and the Primeval World: A Comparative Symbolic Approach, where he argues that, in fact, Yamataikoku WAS, indeed, most likely located in Kyushu, but we should not confuse it with the Yamato polity located in the Nara Basin in Kinai.  He proposes a four stage process beginning in:

1. 228 when Sujin consolidates power in the Kinai Region, and

2. In the second phase, Sujin and his allies march through western Honshu consolidating power further. 

3. In the third phase, the monarch we know as Keikô continues the consolidation all the way down to Kyushu swallowing up the Yamatai capital in the process. 

4. In the final phase, between 300-350 CE, Yamato even had influence and sway on the Korean Peninsula. 

This theory would make Himiko an influential “Kumaso Queen” (i.e., a "Queen" of Kyushu) who may have sent envoys to China pretending they represented the Yamato Court as well; or maybe they were not masquerading as anything but simply advancing their cause as one of the important contending kingdoms in Wa.  She may have been stimulated to do so by Sujin’s menacing consolidating victories on Honshu. 

So, in Metevelis' view, Yamatai was by no means an embryonic Yamato and Yamato was no successor to Yamatai.  Rather, it was a competing power center that was eventually devoured by it. 

In the early fifth century, the imperial court confidently moved out of the Nara Basin, the site where the original consolidation had occurred at Makimuku, and into the open plains area around Osaka. This gave them access to intercourse with Korean Peninsula and China. 

In this view, Yamato’s power peaked under Nintoku (r. 395-427), the son of Ôjin, whose zenpô-kôen (keyhole shape) tomb, the largest in Japan and possibly the largest in the world, but he may have been outmaneuvered by the skilled horsemanship and more advanced statecraft of Koguryô horseriding peoples, and lost some of his power to them. 

The Korean connection is also linked to the whole Keyhole shape of the burial mounds and therefore is a point of interest, too. The Keyhole shape is pretty uniquely Japanese but its origins are unknown. However, Korean archaeologists recently have identified a few contemporary mound tombs in southeastern Korea that they say are also keyhole-shaped. Some people try to use these recent Korean finds to argue for a Korean origin of the keyhole-shaped mound tombs. But this fails to explain why this shape is rare in Korea and only recently recognized there through excavation, whereas this shape is common in Japan, obvious without excavation, and has been known for centuries.