Researchers have struggled to reconcile Himiko between Chinese and Japanese historical sources. While the described her as an important ruler in 3rd-century Japan, early Japanese historians purposely avoided naming Himiko, even when the quoted the about envoys from Wa.
Name The three
Chinese characters (
simplified: ) transcribing the Wa regent's name are read or in Modern
Japanese and or in
Modern Standard Chinese. However, these contemporary readings differ considerably from how 'Himiko' was pronounced in the 3rd century, both by speakers of the unknown Wa-language and by Chinese scribes who transcribed it. While
transliteration into Chinese characters of foreign words is complex, the choice of these three particular characters is puzzling, with literal meanings "low; inferior; humble", () "fill, cover; full; whole, complete", and "breathe out; exhale; cry out; call". In terms of
historical Chinese phonology, the modern () is simpler than its presumed 3rd-century late
Old Chinese or early
Middle Chinese pronunciation. Compare the following reconstructions of the name in
Archaic Chinese or
Middle Chinese (
Bernhard Karlgren,
Li Fanggui, and William H. Baxter),
Early Middle Chinese (Edwin G. Pulleyblank), and, historically closest,
Late Han Chinese (Axel Schuessler). • (Karlgren) • (Li) • (Baxter) • or (Pulleyblank) • (Schuessler) In terms of
Japanese phonology (which historically did not have the consonant /h/ and whose modern /h/ evolves from historical /p/), the accepted modern reading of 'Himiko' would regularly correspond to
Old Japanese . However,
Roy Andrew Miller says is a
lexicographic error deriving from the transcriptions. (Old Japanese ), (, "young noblewoman; princess"), explains Miller, etymologically derives from () (, "sun") and () (, "woman"). Tsunoda notes that "Pimiko is from an archaic Japanese title, , meaning 'princess'"; that is, with the female name suffix (, "child"), viz. the uncommon
given name Himeko. Other Amaterasu-related etymological proposals for the
Japanese name Himiko involve (, "sun") and ( or , "female shaman, shamaness; shrine maiden; priestess"); or their combination , "princess-priestess". Bentley considers the
Baekje word , 'west', the
honorific prefix and , 'heir', and thus interprets as 'the honorific heir of the west'.
Identity and historicity Identifying Himiko of Wa is straightforward within the
history of China, but problematic within the
history of Japan. The 3rd-century Chinese ("
Records of Wei") provides details about shaman Queen Himiko and her communications with Emperors
Cao Rui and
Cao Fang. The 8th-century Japanese ("Records of Ancient Matters") and the ("Chronicles of Japan", which quotes the ) disregard Himiko, unless she was the
subtext behind their accounts of
Empress Jingū,
Yamatohime-no-mikoto, or
Yamato-totohi-momoso-hime. None of these three legendary Japanese royal shamans adequately corresponds with the Chinese chronology and description of Himiko. Assuming the account that Himiko died around 248, if one accepts the dubious Japanese traditional dating, then she was closer to the 3rd-century AD Empress Jingū than to the 1st-century BC Yamato-hime-no-mikoto and Yamato-totohi-momoso-hime. On the other hand, if one accepts the postdating adjustments prior to the 4th century, then Himiko was closer to these Yamato-named shamans. Neither the nor the mentions Himiko or any of the salient topics that she was unmarried, was chosen as ruler by the people, had a younger brother who helped rule (unless this refers to Jingū's son), or had numerous (figuratively "1,000") female attendants. William Wayne Farris reviews the history of scholarly debates over Himiko and her domain Yamatai. The
Edo-period philosophers
Arai Hakuseki and
Motoori Norinaga began the controversies over whether Yamatai was located in Northern Kyushu or
Yamato Province in the
Kinki region of central
Honshū and whether the or the was historically more trustworthy. The
Confucianist Arai accepted the Chinese history as more reliable, and first equated Himiko with Jingū and Yamatai with Yamato. The scholar Motoori accepted the traditional Japanese myth-history as more reliable, and dismissed its quotations as later accretions. He hypothesized that a king from
Kumaso sent emissaries who masqueraded as Jingū's officials to the Wei court, thus leading Wei to mistake them for representatives of Himiko. Farris states that "Motoori's usurpation hypothesis () carried great weight for the next century." Rather than being linked with Yamataikoku (regardless of wherever Yamataikoku was), Himiko may have been instead linked with
Nakoku (which Tsunoda located in near present-day
Hakata in northern
Kyūshū), whereto was sent a golden royal seal, by
Emperor Guangwu of the
Han dynasty. Nakoku is said to have existed from the 1st century to the early 3rd century, and seems to have been independent or even a rival of the current
Imperial House of Japan, supposedly in Yamato, Honshū. Even so, both the and recorded that the current imperial dynasty, starting with
Jimmu, originated from the
Kumaso territory of
Takachiho,
Hyūga Province in present-day
Kyushu's southeastern section. The Kumaso were also associated with
Kunakoku, ruled by Himiko's rival, king Himikuko. After the
Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japanese historians adopted European historical scholarship, especially the source-based methodology of
Leopold von Ranke. Naka Michiyo believed the chronology was inaccurate prior to the 4th century, and thus "Jingū became a fourth-century queen whose reign could not possibly have coincided with Himiko's." The
sinologist Shiratori Kurakichi proposed the compilers were tempted to associate Jingū with the religious powers of Himiko.
Naitō Torajirō argued that Himiko was the high priestess of the Ise shrine Yamato-hime-no-mikoto and that Wa armies obtained control of southern Korea: Some later Japanese historians reframed Himiko in terms of
Marxist historiography. Masaaki Ueda argued that "Himiko's was a
despotic state with a generalized slave system" , while Mitsusada Inoue idealized Yamatai as a "balance of small states" with
communal property and popular political expression. Following the late 1960s "Yamatai boom", when numerous Japanese historians, linguists, and archeologists published reevaluations of Himiko and Yamatai, the debate was joined by
Japanese nationalists, mystery writers, and amateur scholars. File:Hashihaka kohun aerial.jpg|thumb|Aerial view of the Hasihaka Kofun. Made based on National Land Image Information (Color Aerial Photographs), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism|alt=Photo of a keyhole-shaped bunch of trees measuring several tens of meters from the left-bottom corner to the right-top corner. A road curves around the right and bottom side of the mound. The roofs of more than 20 buildings are visible to the right of the picture. In Japanese historical and archeological
periodization, the 2nd- and 3rd-century era of Queen Himiko was between late
Yayoi period and early
Kofun period.
Kofun refers to characteristic keyhole-shaped burial mounds, and the noting "a great mound was raised, more than a hundred paces in diameter" for Himiko's tomb, may well be the earliest written record of a . Several archeological excavations of Yayoi and Kofun sites in kinki region, have revealed Chinese-style bronze mirrors, called
shinju-kyo ("mirror decorated with gods and animals") . Many scholars who support the Kinki theory associate these with the "one hundred bronze mirrors" that the records Emperor Cao Rui presented to Queen Himiko, while other scholars oppose it. The
Hashihaka Kofun in
Sakurai, Nara was given a recent boost by radio-carbon dating circa 240–60. The early Chinese records of Himiko and her Yamatai polity remain something of a
Rorschach test. To different interpreters, this early Japanese shaman queen can appear as evidence of
communalism (Marxists), the "
patriarchal revolution" replacing female deities and priestesses with male counterparts/
Jōmon priestess rulers (
Feminist history), the Japanese conquest of Korea, the
Mongolian conquest of Japan (Namio Egami's "horserider theory"
(ja)), the imperial system originating with tandem rule by a female shaman and male monarch, or a shamanic advisor to the federation of Wa chieftains who "must have looked like a ruling queen to Chinese envoys". == Modern depictions ==