Jinrikisha Days in Japan

European sovereigns and reigning families are parvenus compared to the ruler and the imperial house of Japan, which shows an unbroken line from the accession of Jimmu Tenno, the first Emperor in 660 B. C., down to the present son of Heaven, Mutsu Hito, one hundred and twenty-first Emperor of his line.

During the feudal period, the Emperors, virtually prisoners of their vassals, the Shoguns, lived and died within the yellow palace walls of Kioto, knowing nothing of their subjects, and unknown by them. After death, each was deified under a posthumous appellation, and there his history ceased. Too sacred a being to be spoken of by his personal name, at the mention of his title all Japanese make an unconscious reverence even now. When his patronymic was written, it was purposely left incomplete by the omission of one stroke of the writing-brush. In the spoken language, the ruler is the Shujo, the Heika, or the Tenno, while in the written language he is the Tenno, the Kotei, or the Mikado. The Empress is the Kogo in both the spoken and the written language, and the honorific _sama_ follows all of these imperial appellations.