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Each o-uji, with its dependent ko-uji, represented something like a phratry or curia; and all the larger groups making up the primitive Japanese society were but multiplications of the uji, whether we call them clans, tribes, or hordes.
There were two kinds of uji: the o-uji, or great families, and the ko-uji, or lesser families, either term signifying a large body of persons united by kinship, and by the cult of a common ancestor. The unit of society was the uji.
They followed hereditary occupations; and their clans were attached to the imperial clans, for which they were required to furnish skilled labour. Originally each of the O-uji and Ko-uji had its own territory, chiefs, dependants, serfs, and slaves. The chieftainships were hereditary, descending from father to son in direct succession from the original patriarch.
When recourse to the nation at large was necessitated to meet some exceptional purpose, orders had to be given, first, to the o-omi and o-muraji; next, by these to the Kami of the several o-uji; then, by the latter to the Kami of the various ko-uji, and, finally, by these last to every household.
In the uji the principle of primogeniture was paramount. A successor to the headship of an uji must be the eldest son of an eldest son. Thus qualified, he became the master of the household, ruled the whole family, and controlled its entire property. In colloquial language, an o-uji was the original family; a ko-uji, a branch family.
As I have said before, there were two classes of these patriarchal families: the O-uji, or Great Clans; and the Ko-uji, or Little Clans. The lesser were branches of the greater, and subordinate to them, so that the group formed by an O-uji with its Ko-uji might be loosely compared with the Roman curia or Greek phratry.
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