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1 Bricolage
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1 BRICOLAGE It has been a rule in our country since the age of the kami that descendants [“son-grandson”] succeed each other receiving the Heavenly Rank. Succession between brothers leads to upheaval. —696/7/10. Prince Kadono In 697/8, Jitō passed the government of this country on to Prince Kusakabe’s direct descendant, Monmu, and as retired monarch assisted him in administering the country in harmony. Jitō followed a law, established by Tenji as a never-changing rule to prevail forever, for as long as there is Heaven and Earth, and as far as the sun and the moon. —707/7/17. Genmei’s Accession Edict During the second half of the seventh century, three rulers brought aboutaregimechangeinYamato.1TheywerethebrothersTenjiandTenmu, and Jitō, Tenji’s daughter who was also Tenmu’s wife and successor. From among Tenmu and Jitō’s offspring, to the female tennō Shōtoku (d. 770), a line of rulers developed, traditionally referred to as the Tenmu dynasty.2 A quick glance at figure 1 reveals that Shōtoku’s successor, tennō Kōnin, as Tenji’s grandson, restored the line to Tenji. Dynastic identities revolve around more than bloodlines. Equally important are perceptions of founders, lineage composition, and successions, issues that were alive throughout the eighth century, as historians are now discovering. The “Tenmu dynasty” as such was assembled over time, an incessantworkoflineageadjustment.Thehistoricalrecordrevealsboththe elimination of family members that were in line to succeed to the throne and the posthumous addition of relatives and ancestors to lineal positions ofhonorwithroyaltitlestheyneverheldwhilealive.Icallthisconstruction of a line of descent with extraneous elements genealogical bricolage. According to the logic of biological descent, all rulers from Tenji to Kōnin to the present day, except for Tenmu and Junnin, can be traced, via Jitō, as a Tenji dynasty. Jitō’s political identity is crucial, for she is at once daughteroftheolderbrother,wifeoftheyoungerbrother,asuccessortothe 2 | bricolage throne after her husband, and grandmother of the next ruler, Monmu. Jitō as Tenji’s daughter, with Prince Kusakabe her only son by Tenmu (father of Monmu), and others following Monmu, line up as Tenji’s lineage rather than Tenmu’s. If Jitō’s authority is perceived as deriving from her status as Tenmu’sconsort,thesequencewouldbeTenmu,Jitō(Kusakabe),Monmu: a Tenmu lineage. I should note right away that female rulers were not exceptionalatthetime ,eventhoughtheywereneverappointedbeforehandas crownprincesses.3Jitō’ssexassuchdidnotmakeherlessofaruler.Anyway, beyond genealogy, it is a matter of emphasizing either Jitō’s link with Tenji or opening a distance between Tenmu and Tenji, which Tenmu’s biographers do, their work having been made easy by Tenmu’s rebellion. Fig. 1. Ruler lineages in the 7th and 8th centuries. A copy of this chart appears on a detachable “bookmark” at the end of this volume. [44.192.107.255] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 12:40 GMT) bricolage | 3 The dramatic history of the Tenmu dynasty evolves from Jitō’s maneuvering against a number of other contenders to secure succession for her line down to her great-grandson, the future Emperor Shōmu. He not only passed the throne over to his daughter, Empress Kōken, but made her first crown princess, bypassing a son for the position. She never married, and died childless. Ultimately the political scheming and often violent conflicts around successions spanned the life of the dynasty from beginning to end. The dynasty is bookended by violence. Tenmu acceded to the throne a year after killing Tenji’s son Prince Ōtomo (Tenmu’s nephew and sonin -law) in 672. Ōtomo’s elimination had been Tenmu’s sole purpose for launching the Jinshin War. Tenmu’s dynasty ended in bloodshed as well, for exactly one hundred years later, Kōnin (nephew of Prince Ōtomo) cut all ties with the Tenmu line by eliminating his consort Inoue (a fourthgenerationpatrilinealdescendantfromTenmu )andtheirson,CrownPrince Osabe. In 772, mother and son were accused of black magic and stripped of their royal titles. Held in custody for two years following renewed accusations , the pair mysteriously died on the same day in 775. Politics, especially when power struggles generate violence, is always in need of stabilizing symbolics to secure its gains. The Tenmu dynasty, unstable from its beginning, resorted to a number of legitimizing strategies. Divine kingship for the Yamato ruling house tracing its lineage as the Sun linebacktotheSungoddessAmaterasuisonlythebest-knowndevice.The Kojiki illuminated this mytheme in 712, forty years after Tenmu’s military victory in the Jinshin War, and as a written document provided his descendants with the equivalent of a constitutional basis for their rulership. From...