98
5 Transoceanic Trade and Migration (2)
so she marries him and they have a daughter, Nawang Sih. The goddess generates rice for
the household using her magical powers and Kyai Agung is expressly forbidden to look in
the pot where the rice is stored. One day curiosity overcomes him and he discovers that the
pot only contains a single grain of rice. Now the magic will work no more and the goddess
is forced to collect and pound rice each day as would a mortal wife. She does however find
her swan cloak and uses it to fly back into the sky. At night she stays there, but during the
hours of daylight she returns to earth to be with her husband and child (p. 341).
The Japanese version is simpler:
A fisherman once found a robe of white feathers on the beach. No sooner had he picked it
up than a beautiful shining girl emerged from the sea, begging him to restore her property,
for ‘Without my plumage I cannot go back to my home in the sky. If you give it back to me I
will sing and dance for you.’ The fisherman returned to her the lovely robe of feathers. She
put it on, took her lute, and sang a hymn to the Moon, where she had her palace. Gradually
as she danced she rose up into the sky, then she unfolded her white wings and flew away to
the full Moon (p. 343).
Oppenheimer sources the Moon/Lake myth not to Java but to Wallacea. Both the
Spice Island myth of the Cosmogonic Tree, or Tree of Life, discussed in detail in
Chapter 17, and the Moon/Lake myth are concerned with accessing supernatural
power. The heavens are seen as the source of such power. The Cosmogonic Tree has
the power to act as a bridge between the heavens and earth and so to bring fertility to
crops. In Japan the ruler at accession donned the robe of the Moon Maiden, thereby
taking for himself her supernatural power and most especially her power to move
between earth and heaven. In Japan a burnt offering enabled the ruler to summon
the Moon Maiden herself at need.
It is interesting to note that accession rites in Japan’s neighbour Korea were associated with the Cosmogonic Tree, a white birch seen as the centre of the Cosmos.
It has some similarity with the Norse World Tree, Yggdrasil, the huge ash tree
whose branches stretched over heaven and earth and which had three great aerial
roots passing down from the tree. In Korea accession rites were associated with
the Cosmogonic Tree till AD 527 when Buddhism became the state religion. The
Cosmogonic Tree, for example, appears on all the major crowns found in Silla tombs
(ancient Silla being dated from about AD 400 till AD 500) [9]. One of these crowns
on display in the Korean National Museum shows seven branches of the tree, indicating that the ruler could travel through seven levels of heaven. Accession rites
asserted the shamanic power of the ruler, who was seen as able through his contact
with the Cosmogonic Tree, to travel between earth and heaven and to access power
from all levels of heaven.
We suggest that some of the Japanese–Indonesian links, linguistic, genetic, agricultural, ritual and mythological, that Kumar and Rose discuss are almost certainly
older than the Indonesian colony that Kumar dates to the Yayoi period. As we have
noted, the myths of the Cosmogonic Tree and of the Moon/Lake both reached parts
of the Middle East and Europe by land possibly before the last Ice Age flood. In the
Pacific, as we have seen, these myths have a Lapita distribution. Links between the
Spice Islands and Japan far earlier than the Yayoi period are predictable from the
oceanographic and maritime history of the ocean region between the Spice Islands
5 Transoceanic Trade and Migration (2)
so she marries him and they have a daughter, Nawang Sih. The goddess generates rice for
the household using her magical powers and Kyai Agung is expressly forbidden to look in
the pot where the rice is stored. One day curiosity overcomes him and he discovers that the
pot only contains a single grain of rice. Now the magic will work no more and the goddess
is forced to collect and pound rice each day as would a mortal wife. She does however find
her swan cloak and uses it to fly back into the sky. At night she stays there, but during the
hours of daylight she returns to earth to be with her husband and child (p. 341).
The Japanese version is simpler:
A fisherman once found a robe of white feathers on the beach. No sooner had he picked it
up than a beautiful shining girl emerged from the sea, begging him to restore her property,
for ‘Without my plumage I cannot go back to my home in the sky. If you give it back to me I
will sing and dance for you.’ The fisherman returned to her the lovely robe of feathers. She
put it on, took her lute, and sang a hymn to the Moon, where she had her palace. Gradually
as she danced she rose up into the sky, then she unfolded her white wings and flew away to
the full Moon (p. 343).
Oppenheimer sources the Moon/Lake myth not to Java but to Wallacea. Both the
Spice Island myth of the Cosmogonic Tree, or Tree of Life, discussed in detail in
Chapter 17, and the Moon/Lake myth are concerned with accessing supernatural
power. The heavens are seen as the source of such power. The Cosmogonic Tree has
the power to act as a bridge between the heavens and earth and so to bring fertility to
crops. In Japan the ruler at accession donned the robe of the Moon Maiden, thereby
taking for himself her supernatural power and most especially her power to move
between earth and heaven. In Japan a burnt offering enabled the ruler to summon
the Moon Maiden herself at need.
It is interesting to note that accession rites in Japan’s neighbour Korea were associated with the Cosmogonic Tree, a white birch seen as the centre of the Cosmos.
It has some similarity with the Norse World Tree, Yggdrasil, the huge ash tree
whose branches stretched over heaven and earth and which had three great aerial
roots passing down from the tree. In Korea accession rites were associated with
the Cosmogonic Tree till AD 527 when Buddhism became the state religion. The
Cosmogonic Tree, for example, appears on all the major crowns found in Silla tombs
(ancient Silla being dated from about AD 400 till AD 500) [9]. One of these crowns
on display in the Korean National Museum shows seven branches of the tree, indicating that the ruler could travel through seven levels of heaven. Accession rites
asserted the shamanic power of the ruler, who was seen as able through his contact
with the Cosmogonic Tree, to travel between earth and heaven and to access power
from all levels of heaven.
We suggest that some of the Japanese–Indonesian links, linguistic, genetic, agricultural, ritual and mythological, that Kumar and Rose discuss are almost certainly
older than the Indonesian colony that Kumar dates to the Yayoi period. As we have
noted, the myths of the Cosmogonic Tree and of the Moon/Lake both reached parts
of the Middle East and Europe by land possibly before the last Ice Age flood. In the
Pacific, as we have seen, these myths have a Lapita distribution. Links between the
Spice Islands and Japan far earlier than the Yayoi period are predictable from the
oceanographic and maritime history of the ocean region between the Spice Islands