Kunimi (practice)

[3] Close association with the Imperial House may suggest that kunimi was an agricultural rite imported from China; alternatively it may have been a folk practice.

He is advised by the kami to subdue them by gathering clay from Mount Kagu and creating from it sacred vessels for propitiatory sacrifice accompanied by incantation.

[5] During this period in which the Kojiki came to a completion in 712, followed by the Nihon Shoki in 720, poetry emerged as a significant aspect in representing political order, and an essential for the art of proper government, influenced by Chinese poetic traditions.

[5] Around the 7th century, the thematics of poetry in Japan became defined and regularised, in which a fixed pattern of 5 and 7 syllable lines alternated, and themes centred around love and power were evident.

[6] Denoted from the literal meaning of “Kunimi” being “land-viewing”, these poems compiled in the Man'yōshū, Kojiki, and Nihon Shoki, describe the ritual act of the sovereign ascending to a high point to look upon the land of Yamato.

[7] For instance, Jomei’s poem in the Man'yōshū illustrates the sovereign’s ascent up Mount Kagu observing the smoke rising from dwellings, and the soaring seagulls from the peak.

As seen in the poem, it depicts smoke rising and birds flying over the sea-plain connoting his prosperous subjects and abundance of natural resources such as fish in the ocean.

However, a counter argument arises regarding the visibility of the sea from Mount Kagu as mentioned in the poem, leading to the second interpretation claiming that the smoke and seagulls are indications of the “life-force”[5] of the realm that are responding to the sovereign's act of “looking”, and not something tangible in reality.