Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) · 98 of 191

[Sect. XCI.—Emperor Kei-Kō (Part XVI.—Yamato-Take's Butler).]

During all the time that this [Prince] His Augustness Yamato-take went about pacifying countries, Nana-tsuka-hagi, 1a ancestor of the Suzerains of Kuna, 2a always followed and respectfully served him as butler.

Insight · 2

Nana-tsuka-hagi—'Seven-Grasp Shins,' a man so large his shins were seven hand-breadths long—accompanies Yamato-take throughout the eastern campaign as his butler and becomes ancestor of the Suzerains of Kuna in Kyushu. The naming convention—a hero identified by a striking physical attribute (long shins, in this case)—belongs to the same tradition as Cú Chulainn's seven-fingered hand in Irish saga, Pelops's ivory shoulder in Greek myth, Bran the Blessed's giant size in Welsh legend. Premodern epic literature liked to mark its secondary heroes with one specific anatomical singularity that became their distinguishing identifier; the trait functions like a heraldic crest. The Suzerains of Kuna in Kyushu, in claiming descent from this butler with the seven-grasp shins, were preserving a particular ancestral identity through a body-mark. The clan-genealogy is the chain of bodies, not just names.well-read-friend

The fact that this minor chapter exists at all—a three-paragraph note about Yamato-take's butler—shows the Kojiki's compositional priority. The text is interested in registering every ancestor of every clan that mattered to the eighth-century court, even where the ancestor was a sidekick. Yamato-take's butler gets his own chapter because his descendants in Kyushu were claiming the connection for status. Compare the Hebrew Bible's care to record the names of David's mighty men in 2 Samuel 23—a chapter that lists Eleazar son of Dodo, Shammah son of Agee, and dozens of others, none of whom are major characters but each of whom has a registered place in the dynastic memory. Premodern dynastic chronicles never throw away a name that someone is still using to claim something.well-read-friend

Footnotes 277:1a The name signifies "seven-grasp shins," implying that the worthy here mentioned was so big and strong as to have shins seven hand-breadths in length. For the use of the word "grasp "as a measure of length, see Sect. VIII, Note 1.

277:2a This family has already been mentioned at the end of Sect. XXXIV, as descended from Ama-tsu-kume no Mikoto, one of the companions of the Emperor Jim-mu's grandfather on the occasion of his descent from Heaven. But see Note 7 to that Sect. for the probable mistake with regard to the origin of the name.