Queen Himiko of Yamatai: Japan's Shaman Ruler in Chinese Records

Queen Himiko was a ruler of the Wa people of early Japan who, according to Chinese records, governed the state of Yamatai in the first half of the 3rd century AD. In 239 she sent an embassy to the court of Wei, one of China’s Three Kingdoms, and received the title “Queen of Wa, Friend of Wei”. She is one of the earliest Japanese rulers known by name from written sources, yet almost everything about her, including where her kingdom lay, remains debated.

The source: the Account of the Wa

Japan had no writing of its own in Himiko’s time, so what we know of her comes from China. The Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi), completed by the historian Chen Shou in the late 3rd century, includes in its section on Wei a chapter on the peoples of the north-east. Its passage on the Wa, often called the Wajinden in Japan, is about 2,000 Chinese characters long.

The account was probably based on reports by Chinese envoys and officials who visited the islands from the Daifang commandery in Korea. It describes a land of mountains and islands south-east of Korea, divided in the past into more than 100 communities, of which about 30 were then in contact with China.

The text also offers rare details of daily life. It says the Wa ate raw vegetables, went barefoot, tattooed their bodies, used bone divination by cracking bones with heat to foretell the future, and at a death mourned for more than ten days without eating meat. Such details match aspects of the late Yayoi culture known from archaeology, as at the moated settlement of Yoshinogari.

Himiko’s rise and rule

According to the account, the Wa had been ruled by men for seventy or eighty years until a period of disorder and fighting. To end it the communities jointly chose a woman, Himiko, as their ruler. The later Book of the Later Han places this unrest in the reigns of the Han emperors Huan and Ling, roughly 146-189.

The Wei history says Himiko “occupied herself with” the way of spirits, a phrase usually understood as shamanism or sorcery, and that she was able to captivate the people. She was unmarried and already of advanced age by the time of the embassy. Her younger brother helped her govern.

After she became ruler, few people saw her. She was attended by 1,000 female servants, while a single man served her food and drink and carried her words. She lived in a palace with watchtowers and a stockade, always guarded by armed men. Yamatai itself is said to have had more than 70,000 households, and other Wa communities owed it allegiance, though the text also notes a hostile southern state called Kunu.

The embassy of 239

In 238 Wei destroyed the Gongsun family, which had ruled Liaodong and the Korean commanderies, and took direct control of Daifang. The next year, in the sixth month, Himiko’s envoys Nashime and Tsushigori arrived there and asked to be taken to the emperor. They were escorted to the Wei capital at Luoyang.

Their tribute was modest: four male and six female slaves and two lengths of patterned cloth. In the twelfth month of 239 the Wei court issued an edict in the name of the young emperor Cao Fang, naming Himiko “Queen of Wa, Friend of Wei” and granting her a gold seal with a purple ribbon. The court sent rich gifts in return, including silk textiles, gold, two swords, pearls, red pigment and 100 bronze mirrors.

The surviving Wei text dates the embassy to the second year of Jingchu, which is 238, but most historians correct this to the third year, 239. Fighting with the Gongsun family was still going on in 238, and later Chinese and Japanese sources give the later date.

Later contacts and death

Envoys continued to travel in both directions. In 240 a Daifang mission brought the seal and gifts to Wa, and Himiko sent envoys again in 243. In 247 she reported that she was at war with the king of Kunu, and the Daifang governor sent the official Zhang Zheng with a proclamation supporting her.

Shortly afterwards, according to the text, Himiko died, probably around 247 or 248. A great mound more than 100 paces in diameter was raised over her, and over 100 male and female servants are said to have followed her in death. A man then became king, but the people did not accept him and fighting broke out in which over 1,000 died. Peace returned when Iyo, also read Toyo, a 13-year-old girl related to Himiko, was made queen. Iyo sent her own embassy to China with the returning Zhang Zheng.

The Yamatai debate

The location of Yamatai is one of the most argued questions in Japanese history. The Wei account gives a route from Korea via the islands of Tsushima and Iki to northern Kyushu, and then a further journey of ten days by water and a month by land. Taken literally, these directions and distances would put Yamatai far out in the Pacific, so every theory requires reinterpreting them.

Supporters of the Kyushu theory argue that Yamatai was a regional power in northern Kyushu, close to Korea, and that the Yamato state developed later and separately. Supporters of the Kinai theory identify Yamatai with Yamato in the Nara basin, the later centre of the Japanese state. They point to the large 3rd-century site of Makimuku and its early keyhole-shaped tombs, especially the Hashihaka Kofun, around 280 metres long and dated by many archaeologists to the mid-to-late 3rd century.

Bronze mirrors have also been drawn into the debate. Hundreds of “triangular-rimmed mirrors with deities and beasts” have been found in early tombs, mostly in the Kinai region, and some scholars link them to Wei’s gift of 100 mirrors. Others argue that they were made in Japan, or later, and cannot be tied to Himiko.

Myths and facts

Himiko is sometimes called the first empress of Japan, but she does not appear in the traditional imperial genealogy, and her connection to the later imperial house is unknown. Attempts to identify her with figures in the Japanese chronicles, such as Empress Jingu, the princess Yamato-totohi-momoso-hime, or even the sun goddess Amaterasu, are speculative. Her name is also uncertain: it may represent a Japanese title such as “princess” or “child of the sun” written with Chinese characters chosen for their sound.

Timeline

• 146-189: Disorder among the Wa, according to the Book of the Later Han.
• 238: Wei conquers the Gongsun state and takes control of Daifang.
• 239, sixth month: Himiko’s envoys reach Daifang and travel to Luoyang.
• 239, twelfth month: Wei names Himiko “Queen of Wa, Friend of Wei”.
• 240: A Wei mission brings the seal and gifts to Wa.
• 243: Himiko sends a further embassy.
• 247: Himiko reports war with Kunu; Zhang Zheng is sent to Wa.
• About 247-248: Himiko dies and Iyo later becomes queen.

Why it matters

Himiko stands at the very start of Japan’s written history. The Chinese account of her reign is the most detailed picture of Japanese society before the rise of the great tomb-building rulers of the Kofun period, whose monuments include the Daisen Kofun, and the search for her kingdom continues to shape how Japan understands its origins.