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All complications of minor importance were dealt with by the Kami* of the uji in which they occurred, consultation being held with the Kami of the appropriate o-uji in great cases. Reference was not made to the Imperial Court except in serious matters. On the other hand, commands from the sovereign were conveyed through the head of an o-uji, so that the chain of responsibility was well defined.
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.
The sa-daijin, a profound scholar and an able economist, ridiculed penmanship and poetry as mere ornament. Their father's sympathies were wholly with Yorinaga, and he ultimately went so far as to depose Tadamichi from his hereditary position as o-uji of the Fujiwara.
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.
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.
For it is to be observed that the sovereign himself was an o-uji no Kami, and all tomobe created for nashiro purposes or to discharge some other functions in connexion with the Court were attached to the Imperial uji. Another kind of be consisted of aliens who had been naturalized in Japan or presented to the Japanese Throne by foreign potentates.
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.
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.
Two other educational institutions were the Junna-in of the O-uji and the Gakukwan-in of the Tachibana-iyt, the former dating from the year 834 and the latter from 820. It is not on record that there existed any special school under Taira auspices. One of the principal duties of local governors from the time of the Daika reforms was to encourage agriculture.
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.
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