kicked him to death.
Wrestling thereafter became a national pastime, but its methods
underwent radical change, kicking being abolished altogether.

FOREIGN INTERCOURSE

It is believed by Japanese historians that during the reign of Suinin
a local government station (chinju-fu) was established in Anra
province of Mimana, and that this station, subsequently known as
Nippon-fu, was transferred to Tsukushi (Kyushu) and named Dazai-fu
when Japan's influence in Mimana waned. The first general (shoguri)
of the chinju-fu was Prince Shihotari, and the term kishi--which in
Korea signified headman--was thenceforth incorporated into his family
name. To the members of that family in later generations was
entrusted the conduct of the Empire's foreign affairs. But it does
not appear that the Imperial Court in Yamato paid much attention to
oversea countries in early eras. Intercourse with these was
conducted, for the most part, by the local magnates who held sway in
the western regions of Japan.

It was during the reign of Suinin, if Japanese chronology be
accepted, that notices of Japan began to appear in Chinese history--a
history which justly claims to be reliable from 145 B.C. Under the
Later Han dynasty (A.D. 25-220), great progress was made in
literature and art by the people of the Middle Kingdom, and this
progress naturally extended, not only to Korea, which had been
conquered by the Chinese sovereign, Wu-Ti, in the second century
before Christ and was still partly under the rule of Chinese
governors, but also to the maritime regions of Japan, whence the
shores of Korea were almost within sight. China in those ages was
incomparably the greatest and most enlightened country in the Orient,
and it had become the custom with adjacent States to send emissaries
to her Court, bearing gifts which she handsomely requited; so that
while, from one point of view, the envoys might be regarded as
tribute-carriers, from another, the ceremony presented the character
of a mere interchange of neighbourly civilities. In Japan, again,
administrative centralization was still imperfect. Some of the local
magnates had not yet been brought fully under the sway of the Yamato
invaders, and some, as scions of the Imperial family, arrogated a
considerable measure of independence. Thus it resulted that several
of these provincial dukes--or "kings," as not a few of them were
called--maintained relations with Korea, and through her despatched
tribute mi