A clan is a group of people that are all related by either blood or marriage.  This relationship created, usually, large clans.  Some clans would sometimes band together and would then make the clans even stronger.  When a clans saw that other clans were becoming more powerful, they would create small wars between the two or more clans.  Another main thing that the clans all desired greatly was land.  Land was the source of power and wealth for these clans and it was not going to be a surprise when clans would fight each other to gain small portions of land.  This clan system would rule early Japan for many centuries and all of the Japanese society revolved around them.  The clans were all run by a few different powerful nobles.  These nobles ruled over many common folk that all lived in villages or farms.  The common people were mostly people who had to farm or fish for their wealth.  Though most people did these jobs, some other Japanese could use special skills like pottery making or weaving to create items to be sold to others or kept as their own possessions.   Whenever any clans would capture some slaves from another clan, those slaves would normally become workers for the nobles of each clan.  The slaves would have to cook for the family, take care of the family, and clean the occuppied house.  Even with the seperations of the clans and the slaves, all of the Japanese were brought together with each other through a religion called Shinto.  In the 400's, the clans of Japan were beginning to fall under the supreme reign of the Yamato clan.  The Yamato clan established themselves as the most powerful clan out of all of the clans and were the overlords of Japan.  The Japanese believed the Yamato clan were all descendants of the sun goddess.  The Yamatos set up a system of ruling in which the emporer was a "leader" of Japan, but held almost no power.  The real power was held by the military.  Whenever an emporer is removed from the throne or dies and the new-to-be emporer is too young to rule, a regent comes into power.  These regents would rule as emporer, but only until the next heir to the throne was old enough.