'The ancients' may have known more about the parts from which the self is created, or at least been more fully aware that the self is created from parts. I have also claimed that headless deformed Venus figurines, including ancient Japanese dogu and and ancient Jewish Ishtar idols, may have represented the represented part of an autoscopic visual self. Hearing the sound of the clinking of a curved jewel, made from the earring of ones mother or girlfriend, one might imagine the attention of their loving ear. Looking at a mirror presented by a loved one, one might feel their gaze. It is known that mirrors were given to others as remembrance tokens or keepsakes by the ancient Japanese from poems in the Book of Ten Thousand Leaves (manyoushuu). As such, a fitting together (either as a circle or tomoe) ear-shaped or ear-associated jewel may have represented a transitional, partial-self-object. Various scholars (Mead, Bakhtin, Freud, Lacan, Derrida) claim that the self is dependent upon the assumption of an ear into the psyche. This interpretation does not conflict with the tomoe or soul interpretation. The visual evidence for ear jewellery as the origin of curved jewels appears to be strong (see the above link and bottom left in the above image). I had liked the part tomoe (Taoist and Shinto symbol) interpretation, for no good reason, but the ear decoration theory is more persuasive.Īccording to recent research (Suzuki, 2006) on curved jewels unearthed in Korea and Japan, curved jewels are found alongside " nearly circular ear jewellery split into two halves. The shape of a two or three part tomoe (as represented in the above image top row) There are several other theories as to the significance of the shape of curved or comma jewels, all of the following from Wikipedia.
The fact that they hang from a tree has suggested that they represent a fruit. In Korea they are called gogok or comma shaped jewels and are found paired with mirrors on the regalia of Korean Kings in decidedly ear shaped forms, hanging from a tree shaped crown (similar that worn by Ameno-Uzume, the head-dress-woman, my "Sunsano in drag"). The Japanese claim that the curved jewels spread from Japan to Korea, whereas Koreans claim that they spread from Korea to Japan. "string pattern" ) archaeological sites and in ancient burial mounds and in ancient archaeological royal sites from Korea. They are found widely in ancient Japanese Joumon (lit. This brings me to the occurrence of curved jewels in reality. The curved jewels are said to have first have been made by deity by the name of "Parent of the Jewels" whose shrine is about 20 km from where I live in Yamaguchi Prefecture near Hōfu City (Tamanooya Jinja 玉祖神社). When the sun goddess has hidden in her cave, Amenouzume (lit "the headdress wearing woman of heaven) the founder of Japanese masked theatre (and I believe Susano in drag) wears a special headdress including curved jewels, to encourage the sun goddess to come back out of her cave by performing an erotic dance on top of a drum which made all present laugh, which encourages the Sun Goddess to come out of her cave again. Susano commits all manner of "sins" and his sister the Sun Goddess is lost to the world, since she hides in her cave.
In Japanese mythology this act of creation, however, ends in disaster. The creative act of chewing symbols and spitting them out onto a mirror making the noise of what one is making ("kami" or deities), struck me as being a pagan expression of creation via the word - we speak to internalised other in the mirror of our mind, thereby making the world, speciated, en-wordified. This act continues the Japanese mythological theme of "creation via dripping" often onto a reflective surface. In Japanese mythology, the Sun Goddess is wearing a necklace of curved jewels when she meets her brother Susano who takes some of these jewels, puts them into his mouth, chews (onomatopoeically "kami-kami") them to bits and spits them out into the 'central well of heaven' to create other gods (kami) and imperial ancestors. My children enjoyed making one each this weekend.Ĭurved jewels ( magatama) are one of the few things mentioned in Japanese mythology that are also found in reality.Īs 'transitional object' in both myth and reality, they form one of the three sacred items symbolic of the Japanese imperial lineage the other two being a mirror, of the Sun Goddess, and the sword, that was found inside the tail of a multi-headed snake. Children and adults can make curved jewels at the Yoshinogari museum of ancient Japanese culture in Saga (吉野ヶ里歴史公園) for about 2USD a jewel.