The Nakatomi was an influential clan in Classical Japan. Along with the Inbe clan, the Nakatomi were one of the two clans that oversaw certain important national rites, and one of many to claim descent from divine clan ancestors "only a degree less sublime than the imperial ancestors".[3] It is said that soon after the beginning of Jimmu's reign, a Master of Ceremonies (saishu) was appointed; and this office was commonly held by a member of the Nakatomi clan after the 8th century.[4] This was due to the hereditary nature of both governmental positions and clan roles – a clan's role might be to supply warriors, or, in the case of the Nakatomi, to conduct Shinto rites and hold the associated positions. Though their material holdings were not the most extensive, their spiritual and ritual importance placed the Nakatomi and Imibe second only to the Imperial House during their heyday.
One particularly important ritual which the head of the Nakatomi clan oversaw was the Ōharai purification rite, performed twice every year, in which the High Priest (of the Nakatomi clan) asked the kami to cleanse the spirits of all of the people of their impurities.
Asuka period
As a result of the Nakatomis' ritual position and role in the Asuka period, they were among the chief advocates of conservatism in the controversy over the introduction of Buddhism to Japan in the 6th century. However, by the time of Nakatomi no Kamatari, in the early 7th century, the clan had switched sides, possibly as a result of their loyalty and close connection to the Imperial family; following Prince Shōtoku, likely the most famous advocate of Buddhism in all of Japanese history, and later Prince Naka no Ōe, the Nakatomi helped eliminate the Soga clan, powerful and very active supporters of Buddhism, and of the current administration of the time (see Isshi Incident).
The clan soon came to be opposed by a number of other clans which vied for power and prestige at Court, and for influence over the Imperial succession. It is said however, that despite being overshadowed by others in terms of pure material wealth, the head of the Nakatomi clan was, in the mid-7th century, the most powerful man in Japan.[3] Even into the 8th century, members of the Nakatomi clan maintained their important ritual position, becoming hereditary heads of the Jingi-kan (Department of Rites) established by the Code of Taihō in 701.
Nakatomi clan after Fujiwara no Kamatari
Arguably the most well-known clan leader, Nakatomi no Kamatari was granted the name Fujiwara by Emperor Tenji as a reward for loyal service to the sovereign. Kamatari is honored as the founder of the Fujiwara clan, which accumulated extraordinary powers and prestige in the Heian period (794–1185).
Only the descendants of Fujiwara no Kamatari's eldest son Fuhito were allowed the name of Fujiwara. All the other members of the Nakatomi clan kept their original family name until Nakatomi no Imimaro was promoted to chūnagon with the support of Fuhito. In 764, Kiyomaro, the son of Imimaro, sided with Empress Kōken during the Fujiwara no Nakamaro Rebellion, and in 769, he was granted the name Ōnakatomi, thus establishing the Ōnakatomi clan. In the Heian period, all three legitimate houses of Nakatomi clan were granted the name Ōnakatomi. Nakatomi no Ichishi was the last jingihaku (Head of the Department of Worship) of the Nakatomi clan, and his son Itohito later took the name of Ōnakatomi, thus being the last member of the Nakatomi clan.[5]
Nakatomi Family Tree (大中臣系図)
Ikatsu ōmi-no-mikoto (雷大臣命) ┃ O-o-obase-no-mikoto (大小橋命) ┃ Nakatomi no Amahisa-no-kimi (中臣阿麻毘舎卿) ┃ Nakatomi no Abiko (中臣阿毘古) ┃ Nakatomi no Mahito (中臣真人) ┃ Nakatomi no Kamako (中臣鎌子) ┃ Nakatomi no Kuroda (中臣黒田) ┃ Nakatomi no Tokiwa (中臣常磐) ┃ Nakatomi no Katanoko (中臣可多能祜) ┣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ Nakatomi no Mikeko (中臣御食子) Nakatomi no Kuniko (中臣国子) Nakatomi no Nukateko (中臣糠手子) ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ Second Branch of Nakatomi clan (中臣氏二門) Third Branch of Nakatomi clan (中臣氏三門) ┣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ Fujiwara no Kamatari (藤原鎌足, 614–669) Nakatomi no Hisata (中臣久多) Nakatomi no Tareme (中臣垂目) ┃ ┃ Fujiwara clan (藤原氏) First Branch of Nakatomi clan (中臣氏一門)
See also
Kogo Shūi—a record of the conflict between the Nakatomi and Inbe clans.
References
^Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon; Papinot, (2003). "Nakatomi," Nobiliare du Japon, p. 39; retrieved 2013-5-5.
^"Encyclopedia of Shinto - Home : Kami in Classic Texts : Amenokoyane". eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
^ abSansom, George (1958). A History of Japan to 1334, pp. 35–36.
^Brown, Delmer et al. (1979). Gukanshō, p. 249 n10.
^Ota, Akira (1934). Seishi Kakei Daijiten, Volume 1 (姓氏家系大辞典、第1巻) (in Japanese). Kokuminsha. pp. 1257–1261, 大中臣.
January 06, 2023
nakatomi, clan, this, japanese, name, surname, nakatomi, 中臣氏, nakatomi, japanese, aristocratic, group, clan, claims, descent, from, amenokoyane, nakatomi中臣titlesvariousfounderame, koyanefinal, rulernakatomi, itohitofounding, yearunknowncadet, branchesfujiwara,. In this Japanese name the surname is Nakatomi Nakatomi clan 中臣氏 Nakatomi uji was a Japanese aristocratic kin group uji 1 The clan claims descent from Amenokoyane 2 Nakatomi中臣TitlesVariousFounderAme no KoyaneFinal rulerNakatomi no ItohitoFounding yearUnknownCadet branchesFujiwara clanŌnakatomi clan Contents 1 History 2 Asuka period 3 Nakatomi clan after Fujiwara no Kamatari 4 Nakatomi Family Tree 大中臣系図 5 See also 6 ReferencesHistory EditThe Nakatomi was an influential clan in Classical Japan Along with the Inbe clan the Nakatomi were one of the two clans that oversaw certain important national rites and one of many to claim descent from divine clan ancestors only a degree less sublime than the imperial ancestors 3 It is said that soon after the beginning of Jimmu s reign a Master of Ceremonies saishu was appointed and this office was commonly held by a member of the Nakatomi clan after the 8th century 4 This was due to the hereditary nature of both governmental positions and clan roles a clan s role might be to supply warriors or in the case of the Nakatomi to conduct Shinto rites and hold the associated positions Though their material holdings were not the most extensive their spiritual and ritual importance placed the Nakatomi and Imibe second only to the Imperial House during their heyday One particularly important ritual which the head of the Nakatomi clan oversaw was the Ōharai purification rite performed twice every year in which the High Priest of the Nakatomi clan asked the kami to cleanse the spirits of all of the people of their impurities Asuka period EditAs a result of the Nakatomis ritual position and role in the Asuka period they were among the chief advocates of conservatism in the controversy over the introduction of Buddhism to Japan in the 6th century However by the time of Nakatomi no Kamatari in the early 7th century the clan had switched sides possibly as a result of their loyalty and close connection to the Imperial family following Prince Shōtoku likely the most famous advocate of Buddhism in all of Japanese history and later Prince Naka no Ōe the Nakatomi helped eliminate the Soga clan powerful and very active supporters of Buddhism and of the current administration of the time see Isshi Incident The clan soon came to be opposed by a number of other clans which vied for power and prestige at Court and for influence over the Imperial succession It is said however that despite being overshadowed by others in terms of pure material wealth the head of the Nakatomi clan was in the mid 7th century the most powerful man in Japan 3 Even into the 8th century members of the Nakatomi clan maintained their important ritual position becoming hereditary heads of the Jingi kan Department of Rites established by the Code of Taihō in 701 Nakatomi clan after Fujiwara no Kamatari EditArguably the most well known clan leader Nakatomi no Kamatari was granted the name Fujiwara by Emperor Tenji as a reward for loyal service to the sovereign Kamatari is honored as the founder of the Fujiwara clan which accumulated extraordinary powers and prestige in the Heian period 794 1185 Only the descendants of Fujiwara no Kamatari s eldest son Fuhito were allowed the name of Fujiwara All the other members of the Nakatomi clan kept their original family name until Nakatomi no Imimaro was promoted to chunagon with the support of Fuhito In 764 Kiyomaro the son of Imimaro sided with Empress Kōken during the Fujiwara no Nakamaro Rebellion and in 769 he was granted the name Ōnakatomi thus establishing the Ōnakatomi clan In the Heian period all three legitimate houses of Nakatomi clan were granted the name Ōnakatomi Nakatomi no Ichishi was the last jingihaku Head of the Department of Worship of the Nakatomi clan and his son Itohito later took the name of Ōnakatomi thus being the last member of the Nakatomi clan 5 Nakatomi Family Tree 大中臣系図 EditIkatsu ōmi no mikoto 雷大臣命 O o obase no mikoto 大小橋命 Nakatomi no Amahisa no kimi 中臣阿麻毘舎卿 Nakatomi no Abiko 中臣阿毘古 Nakatomi no Mahito 中臣真人 Nakatomi no Kamako 中臣鎌子 Nakatomi no Kuroda 中臣黒田 Nakatomi no Tokiwa 中臣常磐 Nakatomi no Katanoko 中臣可多能祜 Nakatomi no Mikeko 中臣御食子 Nakatomi no Kuniko 中臣国子 Nakatomi no Nukateko 中臣糠手子 Second Branch of Nakatomi clan 中臣氏二門 Third Branch of Nakatomi clan 中臣氏三門 Fujiwara no Kamatari 藤原鎌足 614 669 Nakatomi no Hisata 中臣久多 Nakatomi no Tareme 中臣垂目 Fujiwara clan 藤原氏 First Branch of Nakatomi clan 中臣氏一門 See also EditKogo Shui a record of the conflict between the Nakatomi and Inbe clans References Edit Papinot Jacques Edmond Joseph 1906 Dictionnaire d histoire et de geographie du Japon Papinot 2003 Nakatomi Nobiliare du Japon p 39 retrieved 2013 5 5 Encyclopedia of Shinto Home Kami in Classic Texts Amenokoyane eos kokugakuin ac jp Retrieved 2020 11 20 a b Sansom George 1958 A History of Japan to 1334 pp 35 36 Brown Delmer et al 1979 Gukanshō p 249 n10 Ota Akira 1934 Seishi Kakei Daijiten Volume 1 姓氏家系大辞典 第1巻 in Japanese Kokuminsha pp 1257 1261 大中臣 Retrieved from https en 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