Who Are You?

Within your DNA, the memories of three distinct ancestral lineages lie inscribed.

In 2021, an international research team led by Kanazawa University published a groundbreaking paper on the origins of the Japanese people. Surpassing the conventional "dual-structure model" -- the notion that the Japanese arose from the intermingling of Jomon and Yayoi immigrants -- they proposed a "triple-structure model," revealing that yet another wave of migrants arrived during the Kofun period (3rd-7th century CE).

In 2024, the RIKEN research institute analyzed the complete genomes of 3,256 individuals, further refining this model. Three ancestral components -- Okinawan (K1), Tohoku/northeastern (K2), and Kansai/western (K3) -- were found to intermingle in intricate patterns within modern Japanese populations.

Japan is home to 80,507 Shinto shrines -- roughly 1.5 times the number of convenience stores.

Why were so many shrines erected? Their distribution reveals unmistakable patterns. Hachiman-lineage shrines are the most numerous at approximately 7,800, followed by Shinmei-lineage at around 5,300, and Suwa-lineage at about 5,000. These concentrations trace the migration routes of ancient peoples and the propagation of their faiths.

And before any shrine was built -- before timber was raised and roofs were laid -- people tied sacred ropes around trees and called the gods down to earth. That primordial sanctuary was called "himorogi."

On an autumn evening, when you hear the song of bell crickets -- where in the brain is that sound being processed?

Professor Tadanobu Tsunoda of Tokyo Medical and Dental University spent thirty years, beginning in the 1970s, researching the relationship between language and the brain. His conclusion was startling. Japanese speakers process natural sounds -- the chirping of insects, the whisper of wind, the murmur of a stream -- in the left hemisphere, the seat of language. Speakers of English, French, Chinese, and most other languages process those same sounds in the right hemisphere, the domain of non-verbal noise.

What accounts for this difference? The key lies in the vowel-dominant structure of the Japanese language. Japanese is one of the world's rare "vowel languages." The five vowels -- a, i, u, e, o -- form the skeleton of the language, and single vowels alone can carry meaning ("i" for stomach, "e" for picture, "o" for tail, "ka" for mosquito). A brain raised in this linguistic environment detects vowel-like frequency patterns even in natural sounds and routes them to the language center as "something meaningful."

In other words, for a Japanese speaker, the song of insects is not "noise" -- it is a "voice speaking to you." This neural-level difference may constitute the biological foundation of the worldview known as yaoyorozu no kami -- the recognition of a soul in every element of nature, the animism of eight million gods. Language does not merely reflect culture. Language builds the brain, and the brain determines how the world sounds.

Intriguingly, reports suggest that even non-native speakers who live in Japan for extended periods and immerse themselves in the language begin to exhibit this tendency. Language rewires the brain not through genetics but through environment. Your brain is a "second brain" -- one built by the Japanese language itself.

Do you know where humanity's longest-lasting peaceful civilization existed?

The Jomon period. From roughly 16,000 years ago to approximately 300 BCE -- for over ten thousand years, the people of the Japanese archipelago lived without organized warfare. This is archaeological fact. Among the tens of thousands of excavated artifacts, not a single weapon designed to kill humans -- no swords, no shields, no fortification walls, no defensive moats -- has been found. Stone arrowheads and bone tools for hunting exist, but instruments purpose-built for harming other people simply do not.

Mesopotamian civilization descended into organized warfare within a few thousand years of adopting agriculture. The Yellow River civilization and the Indus Valley civilization followed the same trajectory. Why were the Jomon people alone able to sustain such an extraordinary span of peace?

Archaeologists point to the "circular settlement" as a key factor. Jomon villages were arranged in rings, with a central plaza or burial ground at the core. No king's palace dominated the center; instead, an empty heart was surrounded at equal distance by every dwelling -- an architecture of community without domination. Furthermore, approximately 95% of excavated dogu (clay figurines) are found deliberately broken. It is believed that illness or injury was transferred into the figurine, which was then shattered as a prayer for healing. Violence was not directed at others but sealed within vessels of earth. This was the spiritual technology of the Jomon people.

The concept of the "Four Great Civilizations" rests on a Western framework that measures civilization by agriculture, writing, metallurgy, and urbanization. Is it truly justified to label ten thousand years of peace as "primitive" by that yardstick? The Jomon period poses a challenge to the very definition of civilization itself.

August 15, 1945. The day of defeat. From that moment forward, the psychological architecture of the Japanese people was deliberately and systematically restructured.

The "War Guilt Information Program" (WGIP), implemented by GHQ (General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers), was an information campaign designed to instill a sense of war guilt in the Japanese populace. The Shinto Directive dismantled State Shinto. The Imperial Rescript on Education was abolished. Moral education courses were eliminated. Martial arts were banned. All of this was carried out in the name of eradicating militarism -- yet it simultaneously uprooted spiritual traditions the Japanese had cultivated over thousands of years.

An even more striking fact emerged in the 2000s, when declassified U.S. State Department documents confirmed that Matsutaro Shoriki, the president of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, had served as a CIA asset. His codenames were "PODAM" and "POJACKPOT-1." Shoriki was the man who spearheaded the construction of Japan's postwar television broadcasting network -- meaning that the very media infrastructure through which the Japanese received information after the war was, in part, designed as an extension of occupation policy.

The question worth asking here is not whether this constitutes conspiracy. The objective facts -- the existence of WGIP, the implementation of the Shinto Directive, Shoriki's documented CIA ties -- are matters of public record. The real question is what effect these had on the Japanese sense of self. From the prewar excess of self-affirmation ("Japan is a divine nation") to the postwar excess of self-negation ("Japan is a perpetrator") -- the sheer amplitude of that pendulum swing is itself the scar tissue of psychological re-engineering.

And to this day, many Japanese feel a faint unease when speaking of their own cultural roots. It is the fear of being labeled "right-wing" -- a ghost program that continues to run, even eighty years after the war's end.

Let us lay the fragments side by side.

Your DNA holds the memories of three ancestral lineages. Eighty thousand shrines blanket the archipelago, their distribution mirroring the map of genes. The Japanese language -- a vowel language -- has sculpted a brain that hears nature as a voice speaking. The Jomon people sustained ten thousand years of peace, building circular societies with no seat of power. And after the war, all of these memories were systematically sealed away.

These are not scattered facts. They converge upon a single question: "Who are the Japanese?" For the geneticist, the answer lies in sequences of DNA. For the linguist, in the architecture of vowels. For the archaeologist, in the fragments of clay figurines. For the historian, in the documents of occupation policy. The same question, illuminated from different angles.

This site explores the origins of the Japanese people from six perspectives. The truths that science reveals through the genome. The ancient memories preserved by shrines. The deep psychology reflected in urban legends. The universality that emerges through connections with the world. And the cosmos -- the frontier where consciousness meets matter.

We do not dismiss urban legends as "lies." We believe that the question "Why do people want to believe this?" is itself a light that illuminates the spiritual history of the Japanese. Scientifically verifiable facts and stories that defy verification yet continue to captivate -- both are presented here, on the same screen, with the same respect.

Are you ready to venture deeper?

One final perspective before we begin.

There are 196 nations in the world. Of all of them, Japan alone bears the character for "sun" in its name. "The land where the sun rises" -- Hi-izuru-tokoro. This self-definition was at once a geographical fact and a civilizational declaration. At the eastern edge of the world, where sunlight first arrives, people crossed the seas and made landfall. What were they seeking when they came?

The Jomon people arrived from the south. The Yayoi people came from the continent. The Kofun-period immigrants journeyed from even more distant lands. Wave upon wave overlapped, intermingled, and ultimately formed the singular collective known as the "Japanese." The journey encoded in their genes spans tens of thousands of years.

This site bears the name "HIMOROGI" -- the word for the primordial sacred space where, before any shrine was built, people tied ropes to trees and welcomed the gods. It was not a building, nor a place. It was the will to receive the divine, and that will itself was the himorogi. In the same spirit, this site aspires not to provide answers but to welcome questions.

Who are you? The answer to that question is scattered across your DNA, your mother tongue, the shrines you visit, and the legends you have yet to discover. The journey to gather those fragments begins now.