Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation Part 3

When the young man at last becomes the head of a household, and responsible for the conduct of its members, he is still constrained by public sentiment to accept advice in his direction of domestic affairs. He is not free to follow his own judgment, in certain contingencies. For example, he is bound by custom to furnish help to relatives; and he is obliged to accept arbitration in the event of trouble with them. He is not permitted to think of his own wife and children only,--such conduct would be deemed intolerably selfish: he must be able to act, to outward seeming at least, as if uninfluenced by paternal or marital affection in his public conduct. Even supposing that, later in life, he should be [91] appointed to the position of village or district headman, his right of action and judgment would be under just as much restriction as before. Indeed, the range of his personal freedom actually decreases in proportion to his ascent in the social scale. Nominally he may rule as headman: practically his authority is only lent to him by the commune, and it will remain to him just so long as the commune pleases. For he is elected to enforce the public will, not to impose his own,--to serve the common interests, not to serve his own,--to maintain and confirm custom, not to break with it. Thus, though appointed chief, he is only the public servant, and the least free man in his native place.

Various doc.u.ments translated and published by Professor Wigmore, in his "Notes on Land Tenure and Local Inst.i.tutions in Old j.a.pan," give a startling idea of the minute regulation of communal life in country-districts during the period of the Tokujawa Shoguns. Much of the regulation was certainly imposed by higher authority; but it is likely that a considerable portion of the rules represented old local custom. Such doc.u.ments were called k.u.mi-cho or "k.u.mi*-enactments": they established the rules of conduct to be observed by all the members of a village-community, and their social interest is very great. By personal inquiry I have learned that in various parts of the country, rules much like those recorded in the k.u.mi-cho, are still enforced by village custom. I select a few examples from Professor Wigmore's translation:--

[*Down to the close of the feudal period, the ma.s.s of the population throughout the country, in the great cities as well as in the villages, was administratively ordered by groups of families, or rather of households, called k.u.mi, or "companies." The general number of households in a k.u.mi was five; but there were in some provinces k.u.mi consisting of six, and of ten, households. The heads of the households composing a k.u.mi elected one of their number as chief,--who became the responsible representative of all the members of the k.u.mi. The origin and history of the k.u.mi-system is obscure: a similar system exists in China and in Korea. (Professor Wigmore's reasons for doubting that the j.a.panese k.u.mi-system had a military origin, appear to be cogent.) Certainly the system greatly facilitated administration. To superior authority the k.u.mi was responsible, not the single household.]

[92] "If there be any of our number who are unkind to parents, or neglectful or disobedient, we will not conceal it or condone it, but will report it ...."

"We shall require children to respect their parents, servants to obey their masters, husbands and wives and brothers and sisters to live together in harmony, and the younger people to revere and to cherish their elders .... Each k.u.mi [group of five households] shall carefully watch over the conduct of its members, so as to prevent wrongdoing."

"If any member of a k.u.mi, whether farmer, merchant, or artizan, is lazy, and does not attend properly to his business, the ban-gashira [chief officer] will advise him, warn him, and lead him into better ways. If the person does not listen to this advice, and becomes angry and obstinate, he is to be reported to the toshiyori [village elder]

"When men who are quarrelsome and who like to [93] indulge in late hours away from home will not listen to admonition, we will report them. If any other k.u.mi neglects to do this, it will be part of our duty to do it for them ...."

"All those who quarrel with their relatives, and refuse to listen to their good advice, or disobey their parents, or are unkind to their fellow-villagers, shall be reported [to the village officers] ...."

"Dancing, wrestling, and other public shows shall be forbidden.

Singing and dancing-girls and prost.i.tutes shall not be allowed to remain a single night in the mura [village]."

"Quarrels among the people shall be forbidden. In case of dispute the matter shall be reported. If this is not done, all parties shall be indiscriminately punished ...."

"Speaking disgraceful things of another man, or publicly posting him as a bad man, even if he is so, is forbidden."

"Filial piety and faithful service to a master should be a matter of course; but when there is any one who is especially faithful and diligent in these things, we promise to report him ... for recommendation to the government ...."

"As members of a k.u.mi we will cultivate friendly feeling even more than with our relatives, and will promote each other's happiness, as well as share each other's griefs. If there is an unprincipled or lawless person in a k.u.mi, we will all share the responsibility for him."*

[*"Notes on Land Tenure and Local Inst.i.tutions in Old j.a.pan"

(Transactions Asiatic Society of j.a.pan, Vol. XIX, Part I) I have chosen the quotations from different k.u.mi-cho, and arranged them ill.u.s.tratively.]

[94] The above are samples of the moral regulations only: there were even more minute regulations about other duties.--for instance:--

"When a fire occurs, the people shall immediately hasten to the spot, each bringing a bucketful of water, and shall endeavour, under direction of the officers, to put the fire out .... Those who absent themselves shall be deemed culpable.

"When a stranger comes to reside here, enquiries shall be made as to the mura whence he came, and a surety shall be furnished by him ....

No traveller shall lodge, even for a single night, in a house other than a public inn.

"News of robberies and night attacks shall be given by the ringing of bells or otherwise; and all who hear shall join in pursuit, until the offender is taken. Any one wilfully refraining, shall, on investigation, be punished."

From these same k.u.mi-cho, it appears that no one could leave his village even for a single night, without permission,--or take service elsewhere, or marry in another province, or settle in another place.

Punishments were severe,--a terrible flogging being the common mode of chastis.e.m.e.nt by the higher authority.... To-day, there are no such punishments; and, legally, a man can go where he pleases. But as a matter of fact he can nowhere do as he pleases; for individual liberty is still largely restricted by the survival of communal sentiment and old-fashioned custom. In any country community it would be unwise to proclaim such a doctrine as that [95] a man has the right to employ his leisure and his means as he may think proper. No man's time or money or effort can be considered exclusively his own,--nor even the body that his ghost inhabits. His right to live in the community rests solely upon his willingness to serve the community; and whoever may need his help or sympathy has the privilege of demanding it. That "a man's house is his castle" cannot be a.s.serted in j.a.pan--except in the case of some high potentate. No ordinary person can shut his door to lock out the rest of the world.

Everybody's house must be open to visitors: to close its gates by day would be regarded as an insult to the community,--sickness affording no excuse. Only persons in very great authority have the right of making themselves inaccessible. And to displease the community in which one lives,--especially if the community be a rural one,--is a serious matter. When a community is displeased, if acts as an individual. It may consist of five hundred, a thousand, or several thousand persons; but the thinking of all is the thinking of one. By a single serious mistake a man may find himself suddenly placed in solitary opposition to the common will,--isolated, and most effectively ostracized. The silence and the softness of the hostility only render it all the more alarming. This is the ordinary form of punishment for a grave offence against custom: violence is rare, and when resorted to is intended (except in [96] some extraordinary cases presently to be noticed) as a mere correction, the punishment of a blunder. In certain rough communities, blunders endangering life are immediately punished by physical chastis.e.m.e.nt,--not in anger, but on traditional principle. Once I witnessed at a fishing-settlement, a chastis.e.m.e.nt of this kind. Men were killing tunny in the surf; the work was b.l.o.o.d.y and dangerous; and in the midst of the excitement, one of the fishermen struck his killing-spike into the head of a boy.

Everybody knew that it was a pure accident; but accidents involving danger to life are rudely dealt with, and this blunderer was instantly knocked senseless by the men nearest him,--then dragged out of the surf and flung down on the sand to recover himself as best he might. No word was said about the matter; and the killing went on as before. Young fishermen, I am told, are roughly handled by their fellows on board a ship, in the case of any error involving risk to the vessel. But, as I have already observed, only stupidity is punished in this fashion; and ostracism is much more dreaded than violence. There is, indeed, only one yet heavier punishment than ostracism--namely, banishment, either for a term of years or for life.

Banishment must in old feudal times have been a very serious penalty; it is a serious penalty even to-day, under the new order of things.

In former years the man expelled from his native place by the [97]

communal will--cast out from his home, his clan, his occupation --found himself face to face with misery absolute. In another community there would be no place for him, unless he happened to have relatives there; and these would be obliged to consult with the local authorities, and also with the officials of the fugitive's native place, before venturing to harbour him. No stranger was suffered to settle in another district than his own without official permission.

Old doc.u.ments are extant which record the punishments inflicted upon households for having given shelter to a stranger under pretence of relationship. A banished man was homeless and friendless. He might be a skilled craftsman; but the right to exercise his craft depended upon the consent of the guild representing that craft in the place to which he might go; and banished men were not received by the guilds.

He might try to become a servant; but the commune in which he sought refuge would question the right of any master to employ a fugitive and a stranger. His religious connexions could not serve him in the least: the code of communal life was decided not by Buddhist, but by Shinto ethics. Since the G.o.ds of his birthplace had cast him out, and the G.o.ds of any other locality had nothing to do with his original cult, there was no religious help for him. Besides, the mere fact of his being a refugee was itself proof that he must have offended against his own cult. [98] In any event no stranger could look for sympathy among strangers. Even now to take a wife from another province is condemned by local opinion (it was forbidden in feudal times): one is still expected to live, work, and marry in the place where one has been born,--though, in certain cases, and with the public approval of one's own people, adoption into another community is tolerated. Under the feudal system there was incomparably less likelihood of sympathy for the stranger; and banishment signified hunger, solitude, and privation unspeakable. For be it remembered that the legal existence of the individual, at that period, ceased entirely outside of his relation to the family and to the commune.

Everybody lived and worked for some household; every household for some clan; outside of the household, and the related aggregate of households, there was no life to be lived--except the life of criminals, beggars, and pariahs. Save with official permission, one could not even become a Buddhist monk. The very outcasts--such as the Eta cla.s.ses--formed self-governing communities, with traditions of their own, and would not voluntarily accept strangers. So the banished man was most often doomed to become a hinin,--one of that wretched cla.s.s of wandering pariahs who were officially termed "not-men," and lived by beggary, or by the exercise of some vulgar profession, such as that of ambulant musician or [99] mountebank. In more ancient days a banished man could have sold himself into slavery; but even this poor privilege seems to have been withdrawn during the Tokugawa era.

We can scarcely imagine to-day the conditions of such banishment: to find a Western parallel we must go back to ancient Greek and Roman times long preceding the Empire. Banishment then signified religious excommunication, and practically expulsion from all civilized society,--since there yet existed no idea of human brotherhood, no conception of any claim upon kindness except the claim of kinship.

The stranger was everywhere the enemy. Now in j.a.pan, as in the Greek city of old time, the religion of the tutelar G.o.d has always been the religion of a group only, the cult of a community: it never became even the religion of a province. The higher cults, on the other hand, did not concern themselves with the individual: his religion was only of the household and of the village or district; the cults of other households and districts were entirely distinct; one could belong to them only by adoption, and strangers, as a rule, were not adopted.

Without a household or a clan-cult, the individual was morally and socially dead; for other cults and clans excluded him. When cast out by the domestic cult that regulated his private life, and by the local cult that ordered his life in relation to the community, he simply ceased to exist in relation to human society.

[100] How small were the chances in past times for personality to develop and a.s.sert itself may be imagined from the foregoing facts.

The individual was completely and pitilessly sacrificed to the community. Even now the only safe rule of conduct in a j.a.panese settlement is to act in all things according to local custom; for the slightest divergence from rule will be observed with disfavour.

Privacy does not exist; nothing can be hidden; everybody's vices or virtues are known to everybody else. Unusual behaviour is judged as a departure from the traditional standard of conduct; all oddities are condemned as departures from custom; and tradition and custom still have the force of religious obligations. Indeed, they really are religious and obligatory, not only by reason of their origin, but by reason of their relation also to the public cult, which signifies the worship of the past.

It is therefore easy to understand why Shinto never had a written code of morals, and why its greatest scholars have declared that a moral code is unnecessary. In that stage of religious evolution which ancestor-worship represents, there can be no distinction between religion and ethics, nor between ethics and custom. Government and religion are the same; custom and law are identified. The ethics of Shinto were all included in conformity to custom. The traditional rules of the household, the traditional laws of the commune--these were [101] the morals of Shinto: to obey them was religion; to disobey them, impiety .... And, after all, the true significance of any religious code, written or unwritten, lies in its expression of social duty, its doctrine of the right and wrong of conduct, its embodiment of a people's moral experience. Really the difference between any modern ideal of conduct, such as the English, and the patriarchal ideal, such as that of the early Greeks or of the j.a.panese, would be found on examination to consist mainly in the minute extension of the older conception to all details of individual life. a.s.suredly the religion of Shinto needed no written commandment: it was taught to everybody from childhood by precept and example, and any person of ordinary intelligence could learn it. When a religion is capable of rendering it dangerous for anybody to act outside of rules, the framing of a code would be obviously superfluous. We ourselves have no written code of conduct as regards the higher social life, the exclusive circles of civilized existence, which are not ruled merely by the Ten Commandments. The knowledge of what to do in those zones, and of how to do it, can come only by training, by experience, by observation, and by the intuitive recognition of the reason of things.

And now to return to the question of the authority of the Shinto priest as representative of communal [102] sentiment,--an authority which I believe to have been always very great .... Striking proof that the punishments inflicted by a community upon its erring members were originally inflicted in the name of the tutelar G.o.d is furnished by the fact that manifestations of communal displeasure still a.s.sume, in various country districts, a religious character. I have witnessed such manifestations, and I am a.s.sured that they still occur in most of the provinces. But it is in remote country-towns or isolated villages, where traditions have remained almost unchanged, that one can best observe these survivals of antique custom. In such places the conduct of every resident is closely watched and rigidly judged by all the rest. Little, however, is said about misdemeanours of a minor sort until the time of the great local Shinto festival,--the annual festival of the tutelar G.o.d. It is then that the community gives its warnings or inflicts its penalties: this at least in the case of conduct offensive to local ethics. The G.o.d, on the occasion of this festival, is supposed to visit the dwellings of his Ujiko; and his portable shrine,--a weighty structure borne by thirty or forty men,--is carried through the princ.i.p.al streets. The bearers are supposed to act according to the will of the G.o.d,--to go whithersoever his divine spirit directs them .... I may describe the incidents of the procession as I saw it in a seacoast village, not once, but several times.

[103] Before the procession a band of young men advance, leaping and wildly dancing in circles: these young men clear the way; and it is unsafe to pa.s.s near them, for they whirl about as if moved by frenzy .... When I first saw such a band of dancers, I could imagine myself watching some old Dionysiac revel;--their furious gyrations certainly realized Greek accounts of the antique sacred frenzy. There were, indeed, no Greek heads; but the bronzed lithe figures, naked save for loin-cloth and sandals, and most sculpturesquely muscled, might well have inspired some vase-design of dancing fauns. After these G.o.d-possessed dancers--whose pa.s.sage swept the streets clear, scattering the crowd to right and left--came the virgin priestess, white-robed and veiled, riding upon a horse, and followed by several mounted priests in white garments and high black caps of ceremony.

Behind them advanced the ponderous shrine, swaying above: the heads of its bearers like a junk in a storm. Scores of brawny arms were pushing it to the right; other scores were pushing it to the left: behind and before, also, there was furious pulling and pushing; and the roar of voices uttering invocations made it impossible to hear anything else. By immemorial custom the upper stories of all the dwellings had been tightly closed: woe to the Peeping Tom who should be detected, on such a day, in the impious act of looking down upon the G.o.d!...

[104] Now the shrine-bearers, as I have said, are supposed to be moved by the spirit of the G.o.d--(probably by his Rough Spirit; for the Shinto G.o.d is multiple); and all this pushing and pulling and swaying signifies only the deity's inspection of the dwellings on either hand. He is looking about to see whether the hearts of his worshippers are pure, and is deciding whether it will be necessary to give a warning, or to inflict a penalty. His bearers will carry him whithersoever he chooses to go--through solid walls if necessary. If the shrine strikes against any house,--even against an awning only,--that is a sign that the G.o.d is not pleased with the dwellers in that house. If the shrine breaks part of the house, that is a serious warning. But it may happen that the G.o.d wills to enter a house,--breaking his way. Then woe to the inmates, unless they flee at once through the back-door; and the wild procession, thundering in, will wreck and rend and smash and splinter everything on the premises before the G.o.d consents to proceed upon his round.

Upon enquiring into the reasons of two wreckings of which I witnessed the results, I learned enough to a.s.sure me that from the communal point of view, both aggressions were morally justifiable. In one case a fraud had been practised; in the other, help had been refused to the family of a drowned resident. Thus one offence had been legal; the other only moral. A country community [105] will not hand over its delinquents to the police except in case of incendiarism, murder, theft, or other serious crime. It has a horror of law, and never invokes it when the matter can be settled by any other means. This was the rule also in ancient times, and the feudal government encouraged its maintenance. But when the tutelar deity has been displeased, he insists upon the punishment or disgrace of the offender; and the offender's entire family, as by feudal custom, is held responsible. The victim can invoke the new law, if he dares, and bring the wreckers of his home into court, and recover damages, for the modern police-courts are not ruled by Shinto. But only a very rash man will invoke the new law against the communal judgment, for that action in itself would be condemned as a gross breach of custom.

The community is always ready, through its council, to do justice in cases where innocence can be proved. But if a man really guilty of the faults charged to his account should try to avenge himself by appeal to a non-religious law, then it were well for him to remove himself and his family, as soon as possible thereafter, to some far-away place.

We have seen that, in Old j.a.pan, the life of the individual was under two kinds of religious control. All his acts were regulated according to the traditions either of the domestic or of the communal [106]

cult; and these conditions probably began with the establishment of a settled civilization. We have also seen that the communal religion took upon itself to enforce the observance of the household religion.

The fact will not seem strange if we remember that the underlying idea in either cult was the same,--the idea that the welfare of the living depended upon the welfare of the dead. Neglect of the household rite would provoke, it was believed, the malevolence of the spirits; and their malevolence might bring about some public misfortune. The ghosts of the ancestors controlled nature;--fire and flood, pestilence and famine were at their disposal as means of vengeance. One act of impiety in a village might, therefore, bring about misfortune to all. And the community considered itself responsible to the dead for the maintenance of filial piety in every home.

[107]

DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO

The teaching of Herbert Spencer that the greater G.o.ds of a people--those figuring in popular imagination as creators, or as particularly directing certain elemental forces--represent a later development of ancestor-worship, is generally accepted to-day.

Ancestral ghosts, considered as more or less alike in the time when primitive society had not yet developed cla.s.s distinctions of any important character, subsequently become differentiated, as the society itself differentiates, into greater and lesser. Eventually the worship of some one ancestral spirit, or group of spirits, overshadows that of all the rest; and a supreme deity, or group of supreme deities, becomes evolved. But the differentiations of the ancestor-cult must be understood to proceed in a great variety of directions. Particular ancestors of families engaged in hereditary occupations may develop into tutelar deities presiding over those occupations--patron G.o.ds of crafts and guilds. Out of other ancestral cults, through various processes of mental a.s.sociation, may be evolved the worship of deities of strength, of health, of long life, of particular products, of particular localities. [108] When more light shall have been thrown upon the question of j.a.panese origins, it will probably be found that many of the lesser tutelar or patron G.o.ds now worshipped in the country were originally the G.o.ds of Chinese or Korean craftsmen; but I think that j.a.panese mythology, as a whole, will prove to offer few important exceptions to the evolutional law. Indeed, Shinto presents us with a mythological hierarchy of which the development can be satisfactorily explained by that law alone. Besides the Ujigami, there are myriads of superior and of inferior deities. There are the primal deities, of whom only the names are mentioned,--apparitions of the period of chaos; and there are the G.o.ds of creation, who gave shape to the land. There are the G.o.ds of earth, and, sky, and the G.o.ds of the sun and moon. Also there are G.o.ds, beyond counting, supposed to preside over all things good or evil in human life,--birth and marriage and death, riches and poverty, strength and disease .... It can scarcely be supposed that all this mythology was developed out of the old ancestor-cult in j.a.pan itself: more probably its evolution began on the Asiatic continent. But the evolution of the national cult--that form of Shinto which became the state religion--seems to have been j.a.panese, in the strict meaning of the word. This cult is the worship of the G.o.ds from whom the emperors claim descent,--the worship of the "imperial ancestors." [109] It appears that the early emperors of j.a.pan--the "heavenly sovereigns," as they are called in the old records--were not emperors at all in the true meaning of the term, and did not even exercise universal authority. They were only the chiefs of the most powerful clan, or Uji, and their special ancestor-cult had probably in that time no dominant influence. But eventually, when the chiefs of this great clan really became supreme rulers of the land, their clan-cult spread everywhere, and overshadowed, without abolishing, all the other cults. Then arose the national mythology.

We therefore see that the course of j.a.panese ancestor-worship, like that of Aryan ancestor-worship, exhibits those three successive stages of development before mentioned. It may be a.s.sumed that on coming from the continent to their present island home, the race brought with them a rude form of ancestor-worship, consisting of little more than rites and sacrifices performed at the graves of the dead. When the land had been portioned out among the various clans, each of which had its own ancestor cult, all the people of the district belonging to any particular clan would eventually adopt the religion of the clan ancestor; and thus arose the thousand cults of the Ujigami. Still later, the special cult of the most powerful clan developed into a national religion,--the worship of the G.o.ddess of the sun, [110] from whom the supreme ruler claimed descent. Then, under Chinese influence, the domestic form of ancestor-worship was established in lieu of the primitive family-cult: thereafter offerings and prayers were made regularly in the home, where the ancestral tablets represented the tombs of the family dead. But offerings were still made, on special occasions, at the graves; and the three Shinto forms of the cult, together with later forms of Buddhist introduction, continued to exist; and they rule the life of the nation to-day.

It was the cult of the supreme ruler that first gave to the people a written account of traditional beliefs. The mythology of the reigning house furnished the scriptures of Shinto, and established ideas linking together all the existing forms of ancestor-worship. All Shinto traditions were by these writings blended into one mythological history,--explained upon the basis of one legend. The whole mythology is contained in two books, of which English translations have been made. The oldest is ent.i.tled Ko-ji-ki, or "Records of Ancient Matters"; and it is supposed to have been compiled in the year 712 A.D. The other and much larger work is called Nihongi, "Chronicles of Nihon [j.a.pan]," and dates from about 720 A.D. Both works profess to be histories; but a large portion of them is mythological, and either begins with a story of creation.

[111] They were compiled, mostly, from oral tradition we are told, by imperial order. It is said that a yet earlier work, dating from the seventh century, may have been drawn upon; but this has been lost. No great antiquity can, therefore, be claimed for the texts as they stand; but they contain traditions which must be very much older,--possibly thousands of years older. The Ko-ji-ki is said to have been written from the dictation of an old man of marvellous memory; and the Shinto theologian Hirata would have us believe that traditions thus preserved are especially trustworthy. "It is probable," he wrote, "that those ancient traditions, preserved for us by exercise of memory, have for that very reason come down to us in greater detail than if they had been recorded in doc.u.ments. Besides, men must have had much stronger memories in the days before they acquired the habit of trusting to written characters for facts which they wished to remember,--as is shown at the present time in the case of the illiterate, who have to depend on memory alone." We must smile at Hirata's good faith in the changelessness of oral tradition; but I believe that folk-lorists would discover in the character of the older myths, intrinsic evidence of immense antiquity.--Chinese influence is discernible in both works; yet certain parts have a particular quality not to be found, I imagine, in anything Chinese,--a primeval artlessness, a weirdness, and a strangeness [112] having nothing in common with other mythical literature. For example, we have, in the story of Izanagi, the world-maker, visiting the shades to recall his dead spouse, a myth that seems to be purely j.a.panese. The archaic naivete of the recital must impress anybody who studies the literal translation. I shall present only the substance of the legend, which has been recorded in a number of different versions:*--

[*See for these different versions Aston's translation of the Nihongi, Vol I.]

When the time came for the Fire-G.o.d, Kagu-Tsuchi, to be born, his mother, Izanami-no-Mikoto, was burnt, and suffered change, and departed. Then Izanagi-no-Mikoto, was wroth and said, "Oh! that I should have given my loved younger sister in exchange for a single child!" He crawled at her head and he crawled at her feet, weeping and lamenting; and the tears which he shed fell down and became a deity .... Thereafter Izanagi-no-Mikoto went after Izanami-no-Mikoto into the Land of Yomi, the world of the dead. Then Izanami-no-Mikoto, appearing still as she was when alive, lifted the curtain of the palace (of the dead), and came forth to meet him; and they talked together. And Izanagi-no-Mikoto said to her: "I have come because I sorrowed for thee, my lovely younger sister. O my lovely younger sister, the lands that I and thou were making together are not [113]

yet finished; therefore come back!" Then Izanami-no-Mikoto made answer, saying, "My august lord and husband, lamentable it is that thou didst not come sooner,--for now I have eaten of the cooking-range of Yomi. Nevertheless, as I am thus delightfully honoured by thine entry here, my lovely elder brother, I wish to return with thee to the living world. Now I go to discuss the matter with the G.o.ds of Yomi. Wait thou here, and look not upon me." So having spoken, she went back; and Izanagi waited for her. But she tarried so long within that he became impatient. Then, taking the wooden comb that he wore in the left bunch of his hair, he broke off a tooth from one end of the comb and lighted it, and went in to look for Izanami-no-Mikoto. But he saw her lying swollen and festering among worms; and eight kinds of Thunder-G.o.ds sat upon her .... And Izanagi, being overawed by that sight, would have fled away; but Izanami rose up, crying: "Thou hast put me to shame! Why didst thou not observe that which I charged thee?... Thou hast seen my nakedness; now I will see thine!" And she bade the Ugly Females of Yomi to follow after him, and slay him; and the eight Thunders also pursued him, and Izanami herself pursued him .... Then Izanagi-no-Mikoto drew his sword, and flourished it behind him as he ran. But they followed close upon him. He took off his black headdress and flung it down; [114] and it became changed into grapes; and while the Ugly Ones were eating the grapes, he gained upon them.

But they followed quickly; and he then took his comb and cast it down, and it became changed into bamboo sprouts; and while the Ugly Ones were devouring the sprouts, he fled on until he reached the mouth of Yomi. Then taking a rock which it would have required the strength of a thousand men to lift, he blocked therewith the entrance as Izanami came up. And standing behind the rock, he began to p.r.o.nounce the words of divorce. Then, from the other side of the rock, Izanami cried out to him, "My dear lord and master, if thou dost so, in one day will I strangle to death a thousand of thy people!" And Izanagi-no-Mikoto answered her, saying, "My beloved younger sister, if thou dost so, I will cause in one day to be born fifteen hundred ...." But the deity Kukuri-hime-no-Kami then came, and spake to Izanami some word which she seemed to approve, and thereafter she vanished away ....

The strange mingling of pathos with nightmare-terror in this myth, of which I have not ventured to present all the startling naiveti, sufficiently proves its primitive character. It is a dream that some one really dreamed,--one of those bad dreams in which the figure of a person beloved becomes horribly transformed; and it has a particular interest as [115] expressing that fear of death and of the dead informing all primitive ancestor-worship. The whole pathos and weirdness of the myth, the vague monstrosity of the fancies, the formal use of terms of endearment in the moment of uttermost loathing and fear,--all impress one as unmistakably j.a.panese. Several other myths scarcely less remarkable are to be found in the Ko-ji-ki and Nihongi; but they are mingled with legends of so light and graceful a kind that it is scarcely possible to believe these latter to have been imagined by the same race. The story of the magical jewels and the visit to the sea-G.o.d's palace, for example, in the second book of the Nihongi, sounds oddly like an Indian fairy-tale; and it is not unlikely that the Ko-ji-ki and Nihongi both contain myths derived from various alien sources. At all events their mythical chapters present us with some curious problems which yet remain unsolved.

Otherwise the books are dull reading, in spite of the light which they shed upon ancient customs and beliefs; and, generally speaking, j.a.panese mythology is unattractive. But to dwell here upon the mythology, at any length, is unnecessary; for its relation to Shinto can be summed up in the s.p.a.ce of a single brief paragraph--

In the beginning neither force nor form was manifest; and the world was a shapeless ma.s.s that floated [116] like a jelly-fish upon water.

Then, in some way--we are not told how--earth and heaven became separated; dim G.o.ds appeared and disappeared; and at last there came into existence a male and a female deity, who gave birth and shape to things. By this pair, Izanagi and Izanami, were produced the islands of j.a.pan, and the generations of the G.o.ds, and the deities of the Sun and Moon. The descendants of these creating deities, and of the G.o.ds whom they brought into being, were the eight thousand (or eighty thousand) myriads of G.o.ds worshipped by Shinto. Some went to dwell in the blue Plain of High Heaven; others remained on earth and became the ancestors of the j.a.panese race.