tsukushi

Updated: June 19, 2025

With regard to the legend of the ocean Kami, the rationalists conceive that the tribe inhabiting Tsukushi at the time of Ninigi's arrival there had originally immigrated from the south and had gradually spread inland.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Iwai thereupon occupied the four provinces of Higo, Hizen, Bungo, and Buzen, thus effectually placing his hand on the neck of the communications with Korea and preventing the embarkation of Keno no Omi's army. He established a pseudo-Court in Tsukushi and there gave audience to tribute-bearing envoys from Koma, Kudara and Shiragi.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

They were shattered beyond the power of rallying, and only a remnant found its way back to Tsukushi. Kudara and Koma fell, and Japan lost her last footing in a region where her prestige had stood so high for centuries. *He was a hostage. The constant residence of Korean hostages in Japan speaks eloquently of the relations existing between the two countries.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

In the history of China a belief is recorded that the Japanese sovereigns are descended from a Chinese prince, Tai Peh, whose father wished to disinherit him in favour of a younger son. That Ninigi may have been identical with one of these persons is not inconceivable, but such a hypothesis refuses to be reconciled with the story of the fighting in Izumo which preceded the descent to Tsukushi.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

She gave her name as Brilliant Blossom, and described herself as the daughter of the Kami of mountains one of the thirty-five beings begotten by Izanagi and Izanami who would seem to have been then living in Tsukushi, and who gladly consented to give Brilliant Blossom.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Thereafter, the immigrants touch at a triplet of small islands, described as "in the offing," and thence cross to Kyushu, known at the time as Tsukushi. This large island is described in the Records as having, like Shikoku, one body and four faces, and part of it was inhabited by Kumaso, of whom much is heard in Japanese history.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

It will be observed that the two hypotheses are mutually conflicting, and that neither accounts for debarkation at a part of Tsukushi conspicuously remote from Korea. It is not wholly impossible, however, that Ninigi came from China, and that the Court which is said to have commissioned him was a Chinese Court.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era