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There will be occasion to refer to the matter again at a later date. It is essential to an intelligent appreciation of Japanese history that some knowledge should be acquired of the annals of the great uji. The first was that of Heguri. The second was the Otomo. The chiefs of the Otomo-uji filled the post of general from age to age, and its members guarded the palace gates.
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.
There is really very little to the "ceremony," the graceful motions of the tea-maker being by far the more interesting part of the performance. The tea used is finely powdered and comes from Uji, where it is grown especially for the use of the Mikado's household. The tea-dust is mixed with hot water by means of a curiously splintered bamboo mixer that looks very much like a shaving-brush.
"You and I together.... I remained long; yet in the moment of going I thought I had only just come. "You and I together.... Still I think of the tea. Old or new tea of Uji it might have seemed to others; but to me it was Gyokoro tea, of the beautiful yellow of the yamabuki flower. "You and I together.... I am the telegraph-operator; you are the one who waits the message.
What the household shrine represented to the family, the Shinto parish-temple represented to the community; and the deity there worshipped as tutelar god was called Ujigami, the god of the Uji, which term originally signified the patriarchal family or gens, as well as the family name. Some obscurity still attaches to the question of the original relation of the community to the Uji-god.
His third prerogative included the right to settle disputes between clans; the right to nominate a clan-patriarch, in case that the line of direct succession to the chieftainship of any Uji came to an end; the right to establish new Uji; and the right to abolish an Uji guilty of so acting as to endanger the welfare of the rest.
The name of Taira was conferred also on three other sons of Kwammu, the Princes Mamta, Kaya, and Nakano, so that there were four Tairahouses just as there were four Fujiwara. The Emperor Saga had fifty children. From the sixth son downwards they were grouped under the uji of Minamoto. All received appointments to important offices.
Hence, so long as the sovereign's influence was powerful, the uji no Kami and other territorial magnates, respecting his orders, refrained from levying taxes and duly paid their appointed contributions to the Court.
The Imperial household proper had become, in the course of centuries, entirely detached from the Uji; and the omnipotence of this unit, independent of all other units, constituted in itself a grave danger to aristocratic privileges and established institutions.
The Daika reforms had aimed at converting everyone in the empire into a veritable unit of the nation, not a mere member of an uji or a tomobe. To these their old status had to be left. The Emperor Temmu died in 686, and the throne remained nominally unoccupied until 690.
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