Wajin (ancient people)

In general the Wajin that established themself on the Japanese archipelago became the Yayoi people, the ancestors of the Yamato people.[1] The word "Wajin" also refers to related groups outside of Japan.

Wajin (倭人, Wajin, literally "Wa people") is

The first secure appearance of Wajin is in "Treatise on Geography" (地理志) of the Book of Han (漢書). After that, in "Gishi WajinDen" ((魏志倭人伝), a Japanese abbreviation for the "account of Wajin" in the "Biographies of the Wuhuan, Xianbei, and Dongyi" (烏丸鮮卑東夷傳), Volume 30 of the "Book of Wei" (魏書) of the Records of the Three Kingdoms (三国志))[2], their lifestyle, habits and the way of society are described and by cultural commonality such as lifestyle, customs and languages, they are distinguished themselves from "Kanjin" (han people (韓人)) and "Waijin" (Wai people (濊人)).

Descriptions about Wajin can be found in the Old Book of Tang (945 AD) and the New Book of Tang (1060 AD)

Several linguists, including Alexander Vovin and Juha Janhunen, suggest that Japonic languages were spoken by Wajin and were present in large parts of the southern Korean Peninsula. According to Vovin, these "Peninsular Japonic languages" were replaced by Koreanic-speakers (possibly belonging to the Han-branch). This event was possibly the reason for the Yayoi-migration into Japan.[3] Janhunen also suggests that early Baekje was still predominantly Japonic-speaking before they got replaced or assimilated into the new Korean society.[4]

As Baiyue and Wu people

The ethnic concept of "Wa-zoku (倭族)" encompasses a wide range of regions and does not limit to the Wajin of the Japanese archipelago. According to Kenzaburo's theory,[5] Wa-zoku are Wajin who came to the Japanese archipelago with rice crop, whose ancestor was the same as the Yayoi people.[6] Torigoe says that the original place of the Wa-zoku is Yunnan.[5]

Suwa Haruo considered Wa-zoku to be part of Baiyue (百越) in southern China.[7]

The Wajin (and the Yayoi) are possibly descendants of the Wu people. A large paddy ruins in the area was created around 450 BC, the Warring States period, in Kyushu, and a record states that "Wajin [were the] self-named descendants of Zhou". An influential theory states that the Wu people of the Yangtze River area that followed the hydroponic rice cultivation culture, which is also a symbol of Yangtze civilization, drifted to the Japanese archipelago around the 5th century BC, in collaboration with the destruction of the Kingdom of Wu.

Genetics
Main article: Yayoi people § Genetics

References
  1. 澤田洋太郎『日本語形成の謎に迫る』(新泉社、1999年)
  2. 岩波文庫では書名の一部として「魏志倭人伝」の五文字を採用している。(和田 & 石原 1951)、(石原 1985)。
  3. Vovin, Alexander (2013). "From Koguryo to Tamna: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean". Korean Linguistics. 15 (2): 222–240.
  4. Janhunen, Juha (2010). "RECONSTRUCTING THE LANGUAGE MAP OF PREHISTORICAL NORTHEAST ASIA". Studia Orientalia 108 (2010). ... there are strong indications that the neighbouring Baekje state (in the southwest) was predominantly Japonic-speaking until it was linguistically Koreanized.
  5. 鳥越憲三郎『原弥生人の渡来 』(角川書店,1982)、『倭族から日本人へ』(弘文堂 ,1985)、『古代朝鮮と倭族』(中公新書,1992)、『倭族トラジャ』(若林弘子との共著、大修館書店,1995)、『弥生文化の源流考』(若林弘子との共著、大修館書店,1998)、『古代中国と倭族』(中公新書,2000)、『中国正史倭人・倭国伝全釈』(中央公論新社,2004)
  6. 諏訪春雄編『倭族と古代日本』(雄山閣出版,1993)7-8頁
  7. 諏訪春雄編『倭族と古代日本』(雄山閣出版、1993)また諏訪春雄通信100
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