Chapter VII: The Pantheon--Nature Deities (2)

_"A.D. 323. In order to prevent the overflowing of the Northern river the Mamuta embankment was constructed. At this time there were two parts of the construction which gave way and could not be stopped up. Then the Emperor had a dream, in which he was admonished by a God, saying: 'There are a man of Musashi named Koha-kubi and a man of Kahachi named Koromo no ko, the Muraji of Mamuta. Let these two men be sacrificed to the River-God, and thou wilt surely be enabled to close the gaps.' So he sought for these two men, and having found them, offered them to the River-God. Hereupon Koha-kubi wept and lamented, and plunging into the water, died. So that embankment was completed. Koroma no ko, however, took two whole calabashes, and standing over the water which could not be dammed, plunged the two calabashes into the mid-stream and prayed, saying: 'O thou River-God, who hast sent the curse [to remove which] I have now come hither as a sacrifice! If thou dost persist in thy desire to have me, sink these calabashes and let them not rise to the surface. Then shall I know that thou art a true God, and will enter the water of my own accord. But if thou canst not sink the calabashes, I shall, of course, know that thou art a false God, for whom why should I spend my life in vain?' Hereupon a whirlwind arose suddenly which drew with it the calabashes and tried to submerge them in the water. But the calabashes, dancing on the waves, would not sink, and floated far away over the wide waters. In this way that embankment was completed, although Koromo no ko did not die. Accordingly Koromo no ko's cleverness saved his life. Therefore the men of that time gave a name to these two places, calling them 'Koha-kubi's Gap' and 'Koromo no ko's Gap.'"_

These stories, like that of Perseus and Andromeda, and the Roman legend that Hercules substituted images of straw for the living men hurled into the Tiber from the Sublician bridge, belong to a period when the belief in the efficacy of human sacrifice for propitiating river-deities had been considerably shaken. The abolition of sacrifices of living men at the tombs of deceased Mikados is part of the same movement in the direction of a greater regard for human life. The decay of the cult of rivers is also to be inferred from a statement in the _Nihongi_ (A.D. 642) that prayers to the River-Gods for rain were condemned by the Government as yielding no good result. Reading Buddhist Sutras was equally ineffectual, but prayers by the Mikado to the four quarters of Heaven in Chinese fashion were more successful.

There is a superstition at the present day that the mouths and pools of rivers are haunted by monsters called _kappa_, which destroy human beings and domestic animals.

=Rain-Gods=.--Two special Rain-Gods are mentioned in the _Nihongi_, namely, Kura o Kami (valley-august-god) and Taka-o-Kami (height-august-god). Both are often called simply O Kami, and are conceived of as having dragon shape. But praying for rain was by no means confined to them. The _Yengishiki_ gives a list of eighty-five shrines to which messengers were despatched by the Court to pray for rain. These included many river and water deities, such as the Yamaguchi (mountain-mouth) and Mi-kumari (water-distributor) Gods; but the Wind-God, the Rice-God, the Thunder-God, and many others were added. Even deified men like Temmangū; might be prayed to for rain. The following is a modern method of causing rain. A procession is formed, a Shinto priest carrying _gohei_ at its head. Next to him follows a conch-blower, and then some men carrying a dragon made of straw, bamboo, &c. Two flags inscribed to the Dragon-kings come after. Next follows a drum, then the people in disorderly rout, shouting, "The black clouds of the honourable peak: from the west the rain comes pouring." The ceremony ends by the straw dragon being plunged into a waterfall.

Water from the sacred lake of Haruna is supposed to produce rain. It is carried to the required place by relays of couriers, for if it stopped on the way the rain would fall there instead.

=Well-Gods=.--Sacred wells are known in Japan. They are called _mi-wi_ (august well) or _mana-wi_ (true well). There is one at Kitsuki, in Idzumo, called the _ama no manawi_ (heaven-true-well), whence sacred water is drawn. Wells or well-gods are widely worshipped, usually in association with such household deities as Ashiba no Kami (the site deity) and Kamado no Kami (the furnace deity). We hear of an Iku-wi no Kami (live-well-god) and a Fuku-wi no Kami (luck-well-god). Special wells were sunk for the water used in the _ohonihe_ ceremony, and worship paid to them.

Well-diggers (_idohori_) at the present day sometimes purify the ground previously to beginning their operations and set up _gohei_. In fine weather, at night, they apply their ears to the ground, when they can hear the water-veins below. Old wells should not be wholly closed, or blindness to one of the family will be the result. Hence to appease the God of the well a bamboo is let down into it before filling it up. Wells are worshipped at the New Year.

=Water-Gods=.--The element of water generally is deified under the name of Midzuha no me (water-female). She is said to have been produced from the urine of Izanami when dying, or, according to another account, from the blood of Kagu-tsuchi when he was slain by Izanagi.[122] The Jimmu legend says that the water used in sacrifice to Musubi was entitled Idzu no Midzuha no me, that is to say, "sacred-water-female," thus identifying the element with the deity to whom it belongs.

=Wind-Gods=.--The _Nihongi_ speaks of one Wind-God named Shinatsu-hiko (wind-long-prince). He was produced from Izanagi's breath when he puffed away the mists which surrounded the newly formed country of Japan.[123] The conception of the wind as the breath of the Gods is also found in the Vedas and elsewhere. In the latter part of the _Nihongi_ frequent mention is made of embassies to Tatsuta, in Yamato, to pray to the Wind-Gods for a good harvest. A _norito_ addressed to them[124] makes two Wind-Gods--one masculine, named Shinatsu-hiko, and one feminine, called Shinatobe. They are also referred to as Ame no Mihashira (august-pillar[125] of Heaven) and Kuni no Mihashira (august-pillar of Earth). Hirata supposes that it was by them that communication was maintained between earth and sky in the Age of the Gods, and that it is due to their agency that the prayers of men are heard in Heaven. Their _shintai_ is a mirror.

Another Wind-God is Hayachi, that is, the swift father, or perhaps swift wind. He is more especially the whirlwind. He acted as the messenger of the Gods in bringing up to Heaven the body of Ame no waka-hiko, who had died on earth.

=Take-mika-dzuchi and Futsunushi=.--There is much confusion as to the character and functions of these two deities. They are associated in myth and in worship.[126] Their two oldest shrines at Kashima and Kadori are close to one another, and they are worshipped together at Kasuga and other places. Indeed Hirata argues that they are one and the same deity. He points out that Futsunushi is not mentioned in the _Kojiki_ story of the pacification of Japan in preparation for the advent of Ninigi, and that the same authority gives Toyo-futsu no Kami and Take-futsu no Kami as alternative names of Take-mika-dzuchi. On the other hand, the Jimmu legend calls Futsu no mitama,[127] apparently a variant of Futsunushi, the sword of Take-mika-dzuchi, and ascribes a different parentage to these two deities. There are other features in the _Nihongi_ myths which are inconsistent with the theory that they are identical.

Take-mika-dzuchi means "brave-dread-father." His name is frequently written with Chinese characters which imply that he is identical with Ika-dzuchi, or the Thunder-God. This is probably correct, although it is to be remembered that Ika-dzuchi had in more ancient times the more general signification "dread father," and is applied to other than thunder deities.

In Futsu-nushi the latter element admittedly means "master." But I cannot accept Motoöri's explanation of _futsu_ as an onomatopoetic word expressing the sound made when a thing is cleanly cut or snapped off.

The following facts suggest a different derivation:--

1. The Sun-mirror (_hi-kagami_, which may also mean "fire-mirror") is called in one writing[128] the Ma-futsu no kagami (true-fire-mirror).

2. Ama no hihoko is said to have brought over with him from Korea a _hi-kagami_.

3. _Futsu_ is the regular Japanese phonetic equivalent of the Korean _pul_, "fire." In Furu-no mitama and Furu-musubi (for Ho-musubi) we have an intermediate form between _futsu_ and _pul_. There is a God called Saji-futsu or Satsu-futsu, for which the Korean phonetic equivalent would be _Sal-pul_. This would mean "living fire" (Cicero's "ignis animal"). I have no doubt that Saji-futsu is an _alias_ of Futsu-nushi.

4. Futsunushi was produced from the blood of Kagu-tsuchi, the God of Fire, when the latter was slain by Izanagi.

The inference from these data is that Futsunushi is a Fire-God of Korean origin.[129]

But while there is a strong probability that Take-mika-dzuchi and Futsunushi were originally Thunder and Fire deities, by a tendency which there is for nature-gods to become credited with providential functions, to the neglect or oblivion of their proper natural powers, these two deities have in historical times been universally recognized as war-gods. The myth which represents them as subduing Ohonamochi and makes Futsu no mitama a sword contains the germ of this view of their character. A poet of the _Manyōshiu_ speaks of praying to the God of Kashima when about to start on a warlike expedition. Fencing and horsemanship were under Futsunushi's special protection. The _shintai_ of both Gods, to some worshippers the Gods themselves, were swords. That of Take-mika-dzuchi was a sword, five feet long, which at the annual Kashima festival was drawn from its sheath and worshipped by the priests,[130] all the people present wearing swords and drawing them before the shrine. It is probably as a war-god that he was constituted the Ujigami of the arrow-makers, and that offerings of horses were made to him. When savage tribes were subdued or foreign invaders repulsed these Gods led the van and were followed by the other deities. They were supposed to extend their special favour and protection to the Mikado, who sent frequent embassies to their various shrines. They were also prayed to for a calm passage for envoys to China, and for children. Predictions of the quality of the harvest were recently, and probably still are, hawked about by persons in the garb of Shinto priests, called Kashima no koto-fure, that is to say, "notifications from Kashima." Believers in the ghost and grave theory of the origin of religion will be interested to learn that not far from Kashima there is a large sepulchral mound called Kame-yama (pot-hill). On the 8th day of the 1st month an Imperial envoy offers _gohei_ here and recites a _norito_. There are dances and music, and the mound is solemnly circumambulated. Traditions exist of a great battle in this neighbourhood. Smaller sepulchral mounds are also met with here, as at all ancient centres of authority in Japan.

=Ika-dzuchi=.--Take-mika-dzuchi having been converted into a war-deity and general Providence, the Thunder itself continued to be worshipped under the name of Ika-dzuchi, "dread father," which is short for Naru ika-dzuchi, "the sounding dread father." He is also called Naru kami, or "the sounding God." _Kami-nari_ (god-sound) is the modern word for thunder. There are numerous shrines to this deity. By the Ika-dzuchi, which were generated from the putrefying corpse of Izanami, we must understand not thunders but personified diseases, the word being taken in its etymological signification. The _Kojiki_, however, in this passage does undoubtedly say "thunders." The distinction into "eight thunders" is a fancy of the writer, little recognized in later ritual. The _Nihongi_ ignores it.

The following story from the _Nihongi_ illustrates Japanese ideas respecting the Thunder-God:--

_"A.D. 618. This year Kahabe no Omi was sent to the province of Aki with orders to build ships. On arriving at the mountain, he sought for ship timber. Having found good timber, he marked it and was about to cut it, when a man appeared, and said: 'This is a thunder-tree, and must not be cut.' Kahabe no Omi said: 'Shall even the Thunder-God oppose the Imperial commands?' So having offered many mitegura, he sent workmen to cut down the timber. Straightway a great rain fell, and it thundered and lightened. Hereupon Kahabe no Omi drew his sword, and said: 'O Thunder-God, harm not the workmen; it is my person that thou shouldst injure.' So he looked up and waited. But although the God thundered more than ten times, he could not harm Kahabe no Omi. Then he changed himself into a small fish, which stuck between the branches of the tree. Kahabe no Omi forthwith took the fish and burnt it. So at last the ships were built."_

=Other Fire-Gods=.--Futsunushi's quality as a Fire-God had been quite forgotten even in the _Kojiki_ and _Nihongi_ times. But there are several other Fire-Gods, or perhaps we should rather say local or occasional variants of the same deity. Kagu-tsuchi, or "radiant father," is the name given to a Fire-God in the _Nihongi_, where he is said to have caused the death of his mother Izanami. _Kagu_ contains the same root as _kagayaku_, to shine. It also occurs in _Kaguyama_, a sacred mountain in Yamato, from which the needful objects for sacrifice were in early times provided. This God is worshipped under the name of Ho-musubi or "fire-growth"[131] on the summit of Atago, a mountain near Kiōto. There are many hill-shrines to this deity near other cities in Japan. His business is to give protection against conflagrations.

The Jimmu legend speaks as if fire-worship arose from the deification of the sacrificial fire. But there must have been other reasons. The domestic fire renders important services to mankind, and its relation to the sun is unmistakable. Indeed the Japanese call fire and sun by the same name, _hi_. Fire has also its terrible aspect, which is recognized in myth and _norito_.[132]

Hirata identifies the God with the element. He is obviously a class, and not an individual God. There is a festival at the present day called the Hi-taki-matsuri (fire-kindle-festival), when bonfires are lit, and small offerings made to the flames.

=Furnace Gods=.--Along with the Gods of Fire we may place the deities of the domestic cooking furnace, namely Kamado no Kami and Kudo no Kami. They are barely mentioned in the _Kojiki_ and not at all in the _Nihongi_. They have no myth, and although there is a _norito_ addressed to them it contains nothing characteristic. This worship is nevertheless general, from the Mikado's palace to the home of the peasant. Sometimes we find a single deity, sometimes a married pair called Okitsu-hiko and Okitsu-hime, sometimes as many as eight co-existing furnace-gods are met with. The vulgar call him an _aragami_ (rough deity), and represent him with three heads, a notion which, according to Hirata, is taken from Indian myth. Usually the cooking furnace is the deity. The Japanese kitchen wench at the present day calls her cooking range Hettsui-sama, the termination _sama_ implying personification and respect. She thinks it unlucky to lay down an edge-tool on it. But the God is also conceived of as detached from the furnace. Thus he is said to have taught the art of cooking to mankind. In that case the _kama_, or pot, is his _shintai_, or material representative. There was a Kama-matsuri (pot festival) at Kiōto before the revolution. It was celebrated at the beginning of the year, when Shinto priests read _harahi_. The pot was addressed in song and adjured to bring plenty of customers, usually by dyers and others in whose business caldrons were used.

=Ukemochi (the Food Goddess)=.--Cicero, in his treatise 'De Natura Deorum,' asks whether any one is mad enough to believe that the food we eat is actually a God. The modern student of religion has no difficulty in answering this question in the affirmative. "Eating the God" is a well-known institution, from the custom of the Ainus of Yezo, who worship a bear,[133] caught and caged for the purpose, and wind up the festival in his honour by eating him, up to the most solemn rite of Roman Catholic Christianity. An Ainu prayer, quoted by Mr. Batchelor, contains the following words: "O thou God! O thou divine cereal, do thou nourish the people. I now partake of thee. I worship thee and give thee thanks." Gratitude in the first place to, and then for, our daily bread, is an important factor in the early growth of religion. Without it we should have had no Roman Ceres, no Mexican Maize-God Centliotl, and no Ukemochi. I do not find the direct worship of our daily food in Shinto, though perhaps a trace of an older identification of the food with the God is to be recognized in the myth which represents the Food-Goddess as producing from her mouth and other parts of her body viands for the entertainment of the Moon-God. Hirata is indignant at the idea that there is anything metaphorical about this story.

It is usually the offerings of food which are deified. Jimmu is said to have directed that the food-offerings to Taka-musubi should be called Idzu-uka no me (sacred-food-female), which is another name for Uke-mochi. In a work of the eighth century the Sun-Goddess is said to have appeared to the Mikado Yūriaku in a dream. She complained to him of her loneliness at Ise, and directed that "Aga mi ketsu no kami" should be sent for to Tamba in order to keep her company. This was the legendary origin of the worship of the Food-Goddess in the outer shrine (Geku) of Ise. As Motoöri points out, Aga mi ketsu no kami means "the deity of the food offered to me." But in this last instance the offering and the deity of the offering are no longer identical.

It was usual for the participants in the ceremony to consume the food offered to the Gods. We are told that Jimmu "tasted the food of the sacred jars." The Mikado at all times followed this rule, notably at the _Nihiname_, or harvest festival, when he partook of ordinary food with, but after, the Gods. He does not "eat the God," but only associates himself with the deity as his table-companion--a very simple and intelligible form of communion. It is on the same principle that in modern times pilgrims to Ise buy from the priests and eat the rice which has been offered to the Gods.

There is some confusion in regard to Ukemochi. Her aliases are very numerous, if, indeed, we ought not to reckon some of them as distinct deities. No doubt food was deified over and over again in many places. The etymology of most of her names is sufficiently transparent. They contain the element _ke_ or _ka_, "food." One of these, namely Uka no mitama, or the spirit of food, should be mentioned, as it embodies a more advanced and spiritual conception of the nature of this deity.

The parentage of the Food-Goddess is variously given in different myths. One story makes her the daughter of Izanagi and Izanami, and another of Susa no wo. The latter is, perhaps, an expression of the idea that the rainstorm fits the rice-fields for producing grain.

After the Sun-Goddess, Uke-mochi is, perhaps (especially if we identify her with Inari), the most universally popular deity in Japan. She was one of the eight deities of the Jingikwan, and was worshipped at four of the twenty-two Greater Shrines, of which a list was made in 1039. There is abundant evidence that her cult was not confined to the State ceremonies. Hirata calls her an _ihe no kami_, or household deity.

The Sake (rice-beer) God is sometimes the same as the Food-Goddess, and at others Sukuna-bikona.

=Inari=.--Notwithstanding the difference of sex, and to some extent of function, the Rice-God Inari is generally recognized by the Japanese as identical with Uke-mochi. Inari, it is explained, is only the name of the locality of her best-known shrine near Kiôto, first established in 711. It is not to be doubted that in Japan the name of the place of his worship has frequently been converted into the name of the God. In the present case, however, it may be suspected that the reverse process has taken place. Might not Inari be _ine_, rice in a growing state, and _ri_, a termination implying personality?

Naturally Inari is much prayed to for agricultural prosperity. But, as so often happens, the functions of this God have been enlarged so as to make him a sort of general Providence who watches over all human concerns. In a recent Japanese novel he is supplicated by a wife to make her husband faithful; by a mother to cause her son to divorce an obnoxious daughter-in-law; by a wrestler for victory in his contests; by a _geisha_ for a wealthy protector who will give her plenty of money and rich clothes, and, getting tired of her within a month, will dismiss her with a handsome present. He is also appealed to for the restoration of stolen property, to avert pestilence, to cure colds, to give wealth and prosperity, and to unite friends. The Kiôto Inari is the special patron of swordsmiths and of _jōrōs_. Another Inari is celebrated for his protection of children from small-pox and measles. People who desire his help in this way offer at his shrine a red clay monkey, and take away with them one which has been deposited there by a previous worshipper.

The _shintai_ of Inari is a stone, or a wooden ticket with his name inscribed on it. He is represented as an elderly man with a long beard riding upright on a white fox. The fox is always associated with this deity. A pair of these animals carved in wood or stone may usually be seen in front of his shrines. According to the modern theologians, the fox is properly his servant or messenger. But there is a more ignorant current of opinion which takes the animal for the God himself. Klaproth finds in Japanese books that "the people in Japan worship the _inari_ (fox) as a tutelar God: little temples are dedicated to him in many houses, especially of the commoner folk. They ask his advice in difficulties, and set rice or beans for him at night. They take him to be a _kami_, _i.e._, the soul of a good man deceased." Be it observed that _inari_ does not mean fox, and that a _kami_ is something quite different from "the soul of a good man deceased." It is just possible, however, that in this case the ignorant multitude are right, and that the fox is a duplicate representative of the rice or rice-deity. Mr. Frazer, in his 'Golden Bough,' adduces many instances of the Corn-God being represented by animals. "In Poitou, the spirit of the corn appears to be conceived in the shape of a fox."

The festival of Inari is held on the first "horse" day of the second month. The Shōguns celebrated it with great ceremony, of which dramatic performances (_nō_) were a part.

=Harvest-Gods=.--The Harvest-Gods, of which there are several, as Oho-toshi no Kami (Great-Harvest-God), Mitoshi no Kami (August-Harvest-God), Waka-toshi no Kami (Young-Harvest-God), are not very clearly distinguished from the food and grain deities. A myth relating to one of these deities will be found below, p. 196.

The liturgy entitled 'Praying for Harvest' was addressed to all the chief deities.[134]

The worship of the Sun and of Grain, Harvest and Growth deities, which forms so important a part of Shinto, is characteristic of an agricultural nation. It is emphasized by the ancient custom of the Mikado tilling land in person, and by the Miko at Kasuga planting rice annually with much ceremony.

=Tree-Gods=.--Individual trees of great age and size are everywhere worshipped in Japan. An ancient example of this cult is mentioned above, p. 158. At the present day the sacred trees are often to be seen girt with _shimenaha_[135] and with tiny shrines at the bottom. The novelist Bakin, writing in the early part of the nineteenth century, tells of one which he visited near Uraga. It was a common-looking fir which had been struck by lightning, no doubt, Bakin says, before the spirit took up its abode there. This tree healed diseases of all kinds and brought luck to fishermen. People with sore eyes carried away the water which collected in a hollow part, and washed their eyes with it. Incense was burned to it.

At the shrine of Kamo in Kiôto there are two _sakaki_ (sacred evergreen) trees, which are joined together by a branch which has grown from one trunk into that of the other. These trees are much visited by women who desire to live in harmony with their husbands. A small red _tori-wi_ in front of them shows that they are considered sacred.[136] Here the emblem of unity has come to be regarded as having intrinsic virtue.

A Kami-gi (God-tree) was often planted in front of Shinto shrines. It was sometimes set in a portable box, which could be carried about by the devotees. A case is recorded in which this was done for the sake of protection to the bearers. The sacred tree of Japan is the _cleyera japonica_. It is an evergreen, as the name, derived from _sakayuru_, to flourish, indicates.

There is a modern custom in places where fruit trees are grown for two men to go out into the orchard. One climbs up a tree while the other stands at the bottom with an axe. The latter asks whether it will have a good crop the next season, and threatens to cut it down if it fails to do so. Hereupon the man above answers for the tree, promising that it will bear plentifully. In Hitachi at the time of the Sai (or Sahe) no Kami feast (the first full moon of the year) a gruel is made of rice coloured red[137] with _adzuki_ beans. This is sprinkled on the fruit trees of the neighbourhood. The man who does so wears the straw covering of a rice-bag by way of hat, and takes with him an axe and the gruel vessel, saying to each tree, "Will you bear--will you bear, of bags 1,000 bags, of sacks 1,000 sacks? Say that you will bear." "I will bear, I will bear." Then he gives the tree three cuts with the axe, and pours the gruel on it.

Similar customs are found all over the world. M. D'Alviella, in his Hibbert Lectures, quotes as follows: "Ibn al Awam's agricultural treatise recommends the intimidation of trees that refuse to produce fruit. 'You are to flog them mildly and threaten to cut them down if they go on bearing no fruit.'" The Bohemian Slavs used to say to the garden trees, "Bud! ye trees, bud! or I will strip you of your bark." Brand's 'Popular Antiquities of Britain' records several variants of this custom. "On Christmas Eve," he says, "the farmers and their men in Devonshire take a large bowl of cider, with a toast in it, and carrying it in state to the orchard, they salute the apple-trees with much ceremony, in order to make them bear well the next season." This salutation consists in throwing some of the cider about the roots of the tree, placing bits of the toast on the branches, and then, "encircling one of the best bearing trees in the orchard, they drink the following toast several times:--

'Here's to thee, old apple-tree
Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats-full! caps-full!
Bushel, bushel sacks-full!
And my pockets full, too! Hurra!'"

Mr. J. G. Frazer has treated this subject with his usual fulness in 'The Golden Bough.'

I suspect that the pleasure we take in dramatic make-believe has more to do with such practices than any belief in their practical efficacy, and that they rather contain the germ of a religious cult of trees than are a survival of a primitive tree-worship.

=Kukunochi=.--The older records mention a Kukunochi (trees-father), a Ki no mi-oya no Kami (tree-august-parent-deity). There is also a Ko-mata no Kami (tree-fork-deity) and a Ha-mori no Kami (leaf-guardian-deity). These are class-deities.

=Kaya nu hime=.--The deity of herbs and grasses is called Kaya nu hime (reed-lady), or Nu-dzuchi (moor-father) or Kaya no mi-oya no Kami (reed-august-parent-deity). The chief reason for deifying trees and reeds was that they furnish materials for house-building, and are therefore deserving of our gratitude and worship.

=Ko-dama=.--The echo is called in Japan Ko-dama, or tree spirit.

=House-Gods=.--Our knowledge of these deities is chiefly derived from a _norito_ in the _Yengishiki_.[138] One part of this ritual speaks of Yabune, which may be either singular or plural; but further on in the same document we find Yabune Kukunochi and Yabune Toyo-uke-hime. Perhaps an original single deity has been split up into a wedded pair by a process of which Shinto affords other examples. _Ya_ is "house," and _fune_, which usually means "ship," may also be applied to other wooden vessels, such as troughs or tubs. The _ya-bune_ is therefore the shell[139] of the house. Kukunochi, as we have just seen, is the name of the Tree-God. Toyo-uke-hime, which means abundant-food-lady, has been identified with the Food-Goddess; but it is more probable that the prefix _yabune_ was intended to distinguish her from that deity, as the same prefix made of Kukunochi a distinct God from the ordinary Tree-God. The functions of these Gods was to guard the palace building from harm of all kinds. No doubt each household had also its Yabune no Kami. Hirata, in his _Tamadasuki_, gives a prayer to this deity intended for general use.

The Oho-toma-hiko and Oho-toma-hime of the _Nihongi_ and the Oho-ya-hiko of the _Kojiki_ are also House-Gods. Nothing is known of them.

A certain sanctity attached to the central pillar of the house, called Daikoku-bashira or Imi-bashira (sacred pillar). The Daikoku-bashira is worshipped in some places on the 14th of the 1st month by offerings of rice-ears, flowers, rice bags, &c. The date indicates a connexion with the phallic Sahe no Kami.[140]

=Privy-God=.--There is in modern times a God of the privy, who has no particular name, sex, or mythic record. Hirata, in his _Tamadasuki_, has provided a special form of prayer to him. He himself was his devout worshipper. He saluted the God on entering and leaving, and, that people might not forget this duty, recommends that a card be nailed on the door, with the inscription "Ojigi," or "good manners." According to him privies, as well as dunghills and all unclean places, are a favourite resort of evil spirits. They are haunted by flies and maggots, which are the fractional souls of bad men (a Buddhist notion?). There is, therefore, all the greater need to put ourselves under the protection of the presiding deity of the place. He deprecates spitting into it (which causes ophthalmia) or defiling it, and says that women who sweep it out daily and make offering to the God of a light on the last day of each month will be free from diseases below the girdle.

All this shows that the original identity of demons and diseases has not yet been wholly lost sight of in Japan.

=Gate-Gods=.--Kushi-iha-mado (wondrous-rock-door) and Toyo-iha-mado (rich-rock-door). These two Gods are known to us from the _norito_ entitled Mikado no matsuri.[141] They are obviously personifications of the gates of the Palace. But the difficulty presents itself that these Gods are (apparently) two in number, these two being differentiated out of one original deity by the honorary epithets _kushi_ and _toyo_, while the gates of the Palace were much more numerous. If it is the gate itself, and not the spirit of the gate, which is worshipped, there ought to be as many Gods as gates. Hirata would no doubt explain this by saying that there are really only two Gods, but that each gate is occupied by a _mitama_, or emanation from them. It seems more probable that the ancient Japanese had no very definite ideas on the subject. They conceived of the gates as in some way or another instinct with life and exercising certain protective functions; but whether there were two deities for each gate or two for all collectively was a question which did not occur to them. It must be remembered that the Japanese language seldom takes the trouble to distinguish between singular and plural. This is merely another way of saying that the nation is comparatively indifferent to number, whether of Gods or gates. Whether the Gate-divinity is one or several does not trouble them.

GODS OF ABSTRACTIONS.

=Izanagi and Izanami=.--The conspicuous position given by the mythical narrative[142] to these personifications of the dual creative powers of the universe has little to correspond with it in cult and ritual. Although they are no doubt to be reckoned among the _Dii majores_ of Japan, they occupy a much lower place than the Sun-Goddess and the Food-Goddess.

Izanagi and Izanami are evidently creations of subsequent date to the Sun-Goddess and other concrete deities, for whose existence they were intended to account. I have little doubt that they were suggested by the _Yin_ and _Yang_,[143] or female and male principles of Chinese philosophy. Indeed there is a passage in the _Nihongi_ in which these terms are actually applied to them. It may be said, and Motoöri does say, that the _Yin_ and _Yang_ are foreign ideas which have found their way into a purely native myth. We must remember, however, that the Japanese myths as we have them date from a period three centuries after the introduction of Chinese learning into Japan, and that there was communication with China hundreds of years earlier still. It would, therefore, not be strange if some knowledge of the fundamental principle of Chinese philosophy and science had reached the Japanese long before the _Kojiki_ and _Nihongi_ were written.

I conjecture that the early part of the _Nihongi_, taken in the order of the original composition of the myths which it comprises, would be somewhat as follows:--First the Sun-myth, which is the nucleus of all, next that of the creation by Izanagi and Izanami, then the more abstract Musubi and a number of ill-defined creations of some idle fancy which precede him. Last of all was composed the philosophic proem with which the book opens.

Izanagi and Izanami belong to that stage of religious progress in which the conception has been reached of powerful sentient beings separate from external nature. Untrue in itself, it has served a useful purpose. It is obviously easier for nations with little scientific knowledge to conceive of the same being as a ruler or parent of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, with all its human concerns, than to recognize in these phenomena a harmonious living whole. The common parentage of Izanagi and Izanami formed a link of union between the different aspects of nature which did not previously exist, and thus was in so far a step towards monotheism.

The manner of creation is variously represented. In no case is anything made out of nothing. The first act of creation was the formation of an island out of the drippings of the brine of the chaos-ocean from a spear. The other parts of Japan and many of the deities were produced by the ordinary process of generation. The functions of Izanagi and Izanami are elsewhere described as "putting in order and fully consolidating" the floating land beneath. This is precisely what Ohonamochi is represented as doing several generations of Gods later. Deities were also produced from Izanagi's clothing and staff which he threw down on his flight from Yomi, and from his eyes and nose when he washed in the sea to remove the impurity contracted by his visit thither. The Wind-God was his breath and the Gods of Water and Clay were formed of the urine and fœces of Izanami when she was about to die. These ideas, though not quite identical with, are closely related to the legends of other countries which describe the creation of the universe from the fragments of a fabulous anthropomorphic being. The Chinese myth of P'anku has been already quoted.[144] Norse story tells how "the vast frame of the world-giant Hymi was completely cut up by the sons of Bor, with Woden at their head. From Hymi's flesh they made the earth, from his bones the mountains, from his skull the heavens, from his blood the sea."[145]

There is nothing spiritual about these two deities. All their actions are modelled not on those of ghosts, but on those of living men. Even when Izanami dies and goes down to the land of Yomi, she does not become a ghost, but a putrefying corpse.

Their _shintai_ is a mirror.

A Japanese writer[146] says: "In the beginning of all sentient things we have two Supreme Beings, Izanagi and Izanami." Even if we admit the possible existence of two Supreme Beings, Izanagi and Izanami hardly realize our conception of the Supreme. They acted by command of other pre-existing deities, and their creation is limited. It does not include all the Gods, and, as is only natural, is confined to Japan. The creation of mankind is nowhere accounted for in Japanese myth. There is, however, a modicum of truth in this writer's statement. Though not the first sentient beings, Izanagi and Izanami are the first who stand out with any distinct characterization, and, although not supreme, they represent a movement, feeble and abortive it is true, towards the co-ordination of all the aspects of divinity in one Supreme Being.

Motoöri proposed, and most European scholars have accepted, a derivation of Izanagi and Izanami from _izanafu_, a verb which means to invite, to instigate, the terminations _gi_ and _mi_ meaning respectively male deity and female deity. Hence the translation "Male who invites" and "Female who invites." There are, however, grave difficulties in the way of this interpretation. It is scarcely appropriate in the case of the female deity. Moreover, we must take into account the fact that these are not the only pairs of deities in which the terminations _nagi_ and _nami_ occur. We have also an Aha-nagi (foam-God) and Aha-nami (foam-Goddess), a Tsura-nagi (bubble-God) and Tsura-nami (bubble-Goddess), and a Sa-nagi (rapid-God) and Sa-nami (rapid-Goddess), in all of which _na_ does not belong to the first part of the word, but is put for _no_, the genitive particle, by a letter-change of which we have other examples. The first element of Izanagi is, therefore, not _izana_ but _iza_, which is met with as an exclamation of incitement. The harshness of making an interjection followed by a genitive particle is obvious. I am disposed to prefer the derivation which takes Iza as the name of a place. The _Nihongi_ mentions a "true well" of Isa or Iza. There are two places called Isa in Hitachi, and an Isa no Jinja, or shrine of Isa, in Idzumo. It is even possible that these Gods are simply the Gods of Ise (Ise no gi and Ise no mi). A similar letter-change takes place in _manabuta_, eyelid, for _me no futa_, and _tanasuye_ for _te no suye_. The difference between _s_ and _z_ is of little consequence in Japanese.

=Musubi, the God of Growth=.--Musubi illustrates a different conception of creation from that of the myths of Ohonamochi and Izanagi and Izanami. This God is the abstract process of growth personified--that is, a power immanent in nature and not external to it. The emotion which prompts this personification--so natural to an agricultural people--is well portrayed in the words of a Kafir to the French traveller M. Arbrouseille: "Do I know how the corn sprouts? Yesterday there was not a blade in my field: to-day I returned to the field and found some. Who can have given the earth the wisdom and power to produce it? Then I buried my head in both hands." But while the emotion is the same, the Japanese conception differs. Musubi means growth or production. It is connected with the word _umu_, to bear, to bring forth, and with _musu_, to grow, to be born. _Musu_ is said of moss growing on a stone and of ice forming on water. _Musuko_, a boy, and _musume_, a girl, contain the same element. As a God's name, Musubi is usually found with one of the laudatory adjectives, _taka_, high, or _kamu_, divine, prefixed to it. To these the honorific particle _mi_ is commonly added, giving the forms Taka-mi-musubi and Kamu-mi-musubi. Even in the _Kojiki_ and _Nihongi_ these are recognized as two distinct deities. The _Yengishiki_ (901-922) enumerates three more Musubi deities, and to these still others might be added. In poetry a single God Musubi is alone met with, and the _Wamiōshō_ recognizes but one such deity. Probably the division into several persons was an esoteric refinement of which the people took little heed.

Whether we have regard to his name or to the somewhat meagre notices in the _Kojiki_ and _Nihongi_, there is nothing spiritual in the Japanese conception of Musubi. But the scribes learned in Chinese who committed the old myths to writing sometimes use characters which imply a spiritual view of his nature. They mean "producing-spirit."

He is also called _mi oya_, or august parent. Hirata thinks that Taka-musubi and Kamu-musubi are husband and wife, the Kamurogi (progenitor) and Kamuromi (progenitrix) of the _norito_, and condemns his master Motoöri for holding that we have in these deities a unity in duality and a duality in unity. But his reasons are not quite convincing, and there is a passage in the _Kojiki_ which cannot be reconciled with his view. The same author points out the resemblance of this God to the Hindu Siva, who represents the fructifying principle, the generating power that pervades the universe, producing sun, moon, stars, animals, and plants. Siva is represented in his temples by a phallus, and Hirata conjectures that this was likewise the _shintai_ of Musubi.

Musubi is sometimes called the Inochi no Kami, or God of life. The creation of mankind is attributed to him in a poem of the _Jiu-i-shiu_, where a rejected lover exclaims:--

"I hate not thee,
It is the God I hate,
Great Musubi:--
Why did he men create
Unto so hard a fate?"

The _Kojik_i speaks of the two deities Taka-musubi and Kamu-musubi as forming the second and third generations of Gods. The original text of the _Nihongi_ omits all mention of them in this part of the narrative, but in a note there is a quotation from "one writing" in which they are named. In the various accounts of the measures taken to prepare the earth for occupation by Ninigi sometimes the Sun-Goddess is represented as giving instructions, sometimes Taka-musubi, sometimes both together, and sometimes Taka-musubi alone. Jimmu, in making mention of the two deities, gives precedence to Taka-musubi. This discordance in the various myths seems to indicate a struggle for ascendancy between the respective adherents of Musubi and the Sun-Goddess. The _Nihongi_ states that in A.D. 487 (a fairly trustworthy date), by request of the Moon-God and the Sun-Goddess, the worship of Taka-mi-musubi, whom these two deities call their ancestor and the Creator of Heaven and Earth, was established in two places, and grants of lands and of peasants made for the maintenance of the shrines. This is possibly the beginning of the official worship of this God. In 859 several Musubi deities were raised to the first grade of the first rank. In the tenth century eight shrines to various Musubi deities existed within the Palace. With the official classes Musubi was a dangerous rival to the Sun-Goddess, more especially during the Augustan age of Japanese literature. But he was too philosophical for popular favour. His worship is now greatly neglected. The Musubu no Kami of the present day is identified with the Chinese Gekka-rōjin (moon-under-old-man), who presides over the fates of lovers. The strips of cloth frequently seen hung on bushes by the roadsides are offerings to him. The second meaning of Musubi, namely, "to tie," has no doubt something to do with this new view of the God's function.

The _Shōjiroku_ traces the descent of a large number of the noble families of Japan from the various forms of Musubi. This is a literal rendering of a statement which, in one sense, is true of everybody. We all resemble Topsy.

=Kuni-toko-tachi=.--I place this deity provisionally among the personifications of abstractions. The name means literally "earth-eternal-stand." He is, therefore, apparently a deification of the durability of earth. Motoöri and Hirata take _toko_ as for _soko_, bottom or limit. This would make this deity a personification of the horizon, or perhaps more accurately Lucretius's "flammantia mænia mundi." He has no sex and no special characteristics. He is barely mentioned in myth, and his cult, which is comparatively modern, was no doubt, as Hirata suggests, a result of the prominent position given him in the _Nihongi_ as the first God in point of time, and as the ancestor of the Sun-Goddess, before whom he was therefore entitled to precedence. He was identified with the Taikyoku, or "Great Absolute," of the Chinese philosophers, was said to be immortal, and to comprise all the Gods in himself, was called "the name of the nameless, the form of that which has no form," and, in short, erected into a Supreme Being. In the fourteenth century an unsuccessful attempt was made to substitute him for the Food-Goddess as the deity of the outer shrine of Ise. At the present day he is worshipped at Mount Ontake, in the province of Shinano, a place much resorted to by pilgrims.

O tentō-sama (august-heaven-way-personage) was probably originally a personification of the natural order of things--Laotze's _tao_, or Pindar's Νὀμος, the βασιλενς of Gods and men. But this is too abstract for the common Japanese. To them O tentō-sama is the Sun itself, endowed, it is true, with certain moral attributes.

Drought and Famine deities belong to this class. None of these is of much importance.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] Deuteronomy iv. 19; xvii. 3.

[97] The Vice-Royalty of Kiushiu.

[98] In Korea.

[99] See above, p. 70; also Index--'Mirror.'

[100] "The mirror is kept in a box of chamaecyparis wood, which rests on a low stand covered with a piece of white silk. It is wrapped in a bag of brocade, which is never opened or renewed, but when it begins to fall to pieces from age another bag is put on, so that the actual covering consists of many layers. Over the whole is placed a sort of wooden cage, with ornaments said to be of pure gold, over which again is thrown a cloth of coarse silk falling to the floor on all sides."--Murray's 'Japan,' fifth edition, p. 308.

[101] See Index--_Naishidokoro_.

[102] A kind of hawk. 'Odyssey,' xv. 525.

[103] _Vide_ 'The _Hinomaru_' in the _T. A. S. J._, vol. xxii. p. 27.

[104] See above, p. 65.

[105] 'In the Shinto Pantheon,' in the _New World_, December, 1896.

[106] Japan is annually visited by destructive typhoons, accompanied by great darkness and a terrific downpour of rain.

[107] See above, p. 106.

[108] Egyptian is one.

[109] See Index--'Sasura-hime.'

[110] 'Religions of Primitive Peoples,' p. 80.

[111] I offer, for consideration only, two conjectures: first, that Tsuki-yomi was the Ise Moon-God, and Susa no wo the Idzumo lunar deity; and second, that _Susa_ may possibly be an allotropic form of _sasura_, banish.

[112] "The large, deep love of living sea and land."--Swinburne, 'Kynance Cove.'

[113] Graphically described in Lafcadio Hearn's 'Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.'

[114] See above, p. 108.

[115] See above, p. 106.

[116] _Nihongi_, ii. 366.

[117] I. 198.

[118] See 'Ch. K.,' p. 33.

[119] See above, p. 95.

[120] See Index--'Sumiyoshi.'

[121] See p. 114.

[122] See above, p. 92.

[123] _Nihongi_, i. 22.

[124] See Index--'Wind-Gods.'

[125] In Yucatan there were four Wind-Gods, who upheld the four corners of Heaven.

[126] See above, p. 109.

[127] _Nihongi_, i. 115.

[128] _Nihongi_, i. 44.

[129] Is it possible that Fuji no yama is really for Futsu no yama, the mountain of fire?

[130] The sword was deified in Teutonic myth.

[131] "So called," says Hirata, "because heat makes things grow."

[132] See Index--_Ho-shidzume_, Fire-drill.

[133] As a source of food?

[134] See Index--_Toshi-gohi_.

[135] See Index.

[136] Murray's 'Japan,' fifth edit., p. 383.

[137] See Index--'Red.'

[138] See Index--_Yabune_.

[139] Compare our "nave," from the Latin _navis_.

[140] See below, p. 186.

[141] See Index, _s.v._

[142] See above, p. 86.

[143] In Japanese _In_ and _Yō_.

[144] See above, p. 129.

[145] Rhys, 'Celtic Heathendom,' p. 115.

[146] 'In Japan,' edited by Capt. Brinkley.