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The Kume were descended from Amatsu Kume no Mikoto, and their duties were to act as chamberlains and as guards of the Court. Finally, there was the Oga-uji, descended from Okuninushi, which makes the eighth of the great uji. Thus, the military uji of Mononobe and Otomo gave to the State twenty-two ministers out of forty during a space of some twelve centuries.
By his sword the rebellion of Heguri no Matori was quelled, and by his advice Keitai was called to the Throne. He served also under Ankan, Senkwa, and Kimmei, but the miscarriage of Japan's relations with Korea was attributed to him, and the title of o-muraji was not conferred on any of his descendants. The uji of Mononobe next calls for notice.
Very shortly afterwards, however, the country was visited by a pestilence, and the calamity being regarded as an expression of the Kami's resentment, the o-muraji of the Mononobe and the muraji of the Nakatomi urged the Emperor to cast out the emblems of a foreign faith. Accordingly, the statue of the Buddha was thrown into the Naniwa canal and the temple was burned to the ground.
Such, as revealed in the pages of the Myriad Leaves, were the simple ethics of the early Japanese soldier. And it was largely from the Mononobe and Otomo families that high officials and responsible administrators were chosen at the outset. When Buddhism arrived in the sixth century, we have seen that it encountered resolute opposition at the hands of Moriya, the o-muraji of the Mononobe family.
There is some confusion about the subsequent differentiation of these families, but it is sufficient to know that, together with the Mononobe family, they, were the hereditary repositories of military authority. They wore armour, carried swords, spears and bows, and not only mounted guard at the palace but also asserted the Imperial authority throughout the provinces.
The Mononobe and the Otomo families constituted the pillars of the State under the early Emperors. Their respective ancestors were Umashimade no Mikoto and Michi no Omi no Mikoto. Thus, though it is not possible to fix the exact date when the expression, bushi, came into general use, it is possible to be sure that the thing itself existed from time immemorial.
After the ruin of the Heguri, this uji stood at the head of all the Imperial class. It will be observed that among these four uji, Heguri and Soga served as civil officials and Otomo and Mononobe as military. There are also three other uji which figure prominently on the stage of Japanese history. They are the Nakotomi, the Imibe, and the Kume.
There were no other exemptions. If a man committed a crime, punishment extended to every member of his family. On the other hand, offences might generally be expiated by presenting lands or other valuables to the Throne. As for the duty of executing sentences, it devolved on the mononobe, who may be described as the military corporation.
That was natural. The elevation of an alien deity to a pedestal above the head of the ancestral Kami seemed specially shocking to the soldier class. But the tendency of the time was against conservatism. The Mononobe and the Otomo forfeited their position, and the Soga stepped into their place, only to be succeeded in turn by the Fujiwara.
Necessarily these events sharply accentuated the enmity between the Soga and the Mononobe. Twenty-five years passed, however, without any attempt to restore the worship of the Buddha. Iname, the o-omi of the Soga, died; Okoshi, the o-muraji of the Mononobe, died, and they were succeeded in these high offices by their sons, Umako and Moriya, respectively.
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