Dōtaku

Japanese bronze bells

Dōtaku ([[wiktionary:銅鐸) are Japanese bells smelted from relatively thin bronze and richly decorated. Dotaku were used for about 400 years, between the second century B. C. and the second century C. E. (corresponding to the end of the Yayoi era), and were nearly only used as decorations for rituals. They were richly decorated with patterns representing nature and animals, among which the dragonfly, praying mantis and spider are featured. Historians believe that dōtaku were used to pray for good harvests, as the animals featured are natural enemies of insect pests that attack paddy fields. According to Japanese folklore, dōtaku were used as emergency bells (such as a watch tower’s bell); intended especially in cases of invasion, particularly invaders from the Korean peninsula. When sentinels spotted invaders, they loudly rang the dōtaku as an alarm, so that people could hide themselves or their possessions, and to alert warriors to prepare themselves to repel the enemy. There is a dotaku museum devoted to the bells in Yasu city, in Shiga prefecture, in central Japan.

During the Yayoi Era (400 B. C. E. – 300 C. E.), a great number of technological innovations occurred. Unlike the earlier nomadic Jōmon people, the Yayoi emphasized having large community settlements and the cultivation of rice. Along with these, they learned how to cast bronze and iron in order to create various metal objects such as weapons, mirrors, and several tools. Among the bronze objects, dotaku, one of the most distinctive objects of the era, were created. In recent years, dotaku have been studied by researchers in order to decipher their origins, how they were created, their various purposes, and the reasons for the images on the main body.

Despite being a well known artifact of the Yayoi era, the concept of dotaku did not initially originate in Japan. According to several studies, these bells are thought to be derived from "earlier, smaller Korean examples that adorned horses and other domesticated animals", from Chinese cattle bells, or Han Chinese zhong, which were bells without clappers used for composing ritual music. However, further studies show that the Yayoi did not have cattle farms, and although several dotaku do have suspension rings and clappers, they make "muffled tones" or "rattling sounds"

Physically, the body of a dōtaku consists of "a truncated cone shape" and "has rows of horizontal bands divided in the center by a vertical row". thus bronze was considered more precious than iron.

These bells were originally made through the use of two part sandstone moulds, in which "designs were carved" and near Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara. Researchers suggest that, when not in use, dotaku were buried "in the ground to receive Earth’s life force", on them. Although it is unknown whether or not dotaku were "used by the chieftains for small principalities or by villages in public community festivals", but when combined to form "Iruka" , the pictures refer to Soga no Iruka, which is a reference to the Soga Dynasty. Through several more readings, Oba discovered that the drawings "contain references to precise persons, places, and events in Japanese prehistory" as well as provided "info of shapes of buildings, hunting customs, and other aspects of daily life", possibly left for future generations. However, due to a lack of concrete evidence, other researchers have deemed it improbable that the pictures are actually hidden pictographs; it is possible that the pictures are just pictures. Despite the lack of evidence, researchers do believe that the pictures aren’t just casual pictures drawn for the sake of art, that there is some other meaning behind them.