Beans, millet, and barley are indeed named once, together with silk-worms, in the account of the “Divine Age.”[1] But the passage has every aspect of an interpolation in the legend, perhaps not dating back long before the time of the eighth century compiler. A few unimportant vegetables and fruits, of most of which there is but a single mention, will be found in the list of plants given below. The intoxicating liquor called sake was known in Japan during the mythical period,[2] and so were chopsticks for eating the food with. Cooking-pots and cups and dishes—the latter both of earthenware and of leaves of trees,—are also mentioned; but of the use of fire for warming purposes we hear nothing. Tables are named several times, but never in connection with food. They would seem to have been exclusively used for the purpose of presenting offerings on, and were probably quite small and low,—in fact rather trays than tables according to European ideas.
In the use of clothing and the specialization of garments the Early Japanese had reached a high level. We read in the most ancient legends of upper garments, skirts, trowsers, girdles, veils, and hats, while both sexes adorned themselves with necklaces, bracelets, and head-ornaments of stones considered precious,—in this respect offering a striking contrast to their descendants in modern times, of whose attire jewelry forms no part. The material of their clothes was hempen cloth and paper-mulberry bark, coloured by being rubbed with madder, and probably with woad and other tinctorial plants. All the garments, so far as we may judge, were woven, sewing being nowhere mentioned, and it being expressly stated by the Chinese commentator on the “Shan Hai Ching,”[3] who wrote early in the fourth century, that the Japanese had no needles.[4] From the great place which the chase occupied in daily life we are led to suppose that skins also were used to make garments of. There is in the “Records” at least one passage which favours this supposition,[5] and the “Chronicles” in one place mention the straw rain-coat and broad-brimmed
