Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation Part 4

Such is the mythology of the Ko-ji-ki and the Nihongi, stated in the briefest possible way. At first it appears that there were two cla.s.ses of G.o.ds recognized: Celestial and Terrestrial; and the old Shinto rituals (norito) maintain this distinction. But it is a curious fact that the celestial G.o.ds of this mythology do not represent celestial forces; and that the G.o.ds who are really identified with celestial phenomena are cla.s.sed as terrestrial G.o.ds,--having been born or "produced" upon earth. The Sun and Moon, for example, are said to have been born in j.a.pan,--though afterwards placed in heaven; the Sun-G.o.ddess, Ama-terasu-no-oho-Kami, having been produced from the left eye of Izanagi, and the [117] Moon-G.o.d, Tsuki-yomi-no-Mikoto, having been produced from the right eye of Izanagi when, after his visit to the under-world, he washed himself at the mouth of a river in the island of Tsukushi. The Shinto scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries established some order in this chaos of fancies by denying all distinction between the Celestial and Terrestrial G.o.ds, except as regarded the accident of birth. They also denied the old distinction between the so-called Age of the G.o.ds (Kami-yo), and the subsequent period of the Emperors. It was true, they said, that the early rulers of j.a.pan were G.o.ds; but so were also the later rulers. The whole Imperial line, the "Sun's Succession," represented one unbroken descent from the G.o.ddess of the Sun. Hirata wrote: "There exists no hard and fast line between the Age of the G.o.ds and the present age--and there exists no justification whatever for drawing one, as the Nihongi does." Of course this position involved the doctrine of a divine descent for the whole race,--inasmuch as, according to the old mythology, the first j.a.panese were all descendants of G.o.ds,--and that doctrine Hirata boldly accepted. All the j.a.panese, he averred, were of divine origin, and for that reason superior to the people of all other countries. He even held that their divine descent could be proved without difficulty. These are his words: "The descendants of the G.o.ds who accompanied Ninigi-no-Mikoto [grandson of the Sun-G.o.ddess, [118]

and supposed founder of the Imperial house,]--as well as the offspring of the successive Mikados, who entered the ranks of the subjects of the Mikados, with the names of Taira, Minamoto, and so forth,--have gradually increased and multiplied. Although numbers of j.a.panese cannot state with certainty from what G.o.ds they are descended, all of them have tribal names (kabane), which were originally bestowed on them by the Mikados; and those who make it their province to study genealogies can tell from a man's ordinary surname, who his remotest ancestor must have been." All the j.a.panese were G.o.ds in this sense; and their country was properly called the Land of the G.o.ds,--Shinkoku or Kami-no-kuni. Are we to understand Hirata literally? I think so--but we must remember that there existed in feudal times large cla.s.ses of people, outside of the cla.s.ses officially recognized as forming the nation, who were not counted as j.a.panese, nor even as human beings: these were pariahs, and reckoned as little better than animals. Hirata probably referred to the four great cla.s.ses only--samurai, farmers, artizans, and merchants. But even in that case what are we to think of his ascription of divinity to the race, in view of the moral and physical feebleness of human nature? The moral side of the question is answered by the Shinto theory of evil deities, "G.o.ds of crookedness," who were alleged to have "originated from the impurities contracted by [119] Izanagi during his visit to the under-world." As for the physical weakness of men, that is explained by a legend of Ninigi-no-Mikoto, divine founder of the imperial house. The G.o.ddess of Long Life, Iha-naga-hime (Rock-long-princess), was sent to him for wife; but he rejected her because of her ugliness; and that unwise proceeding brought about "the present shortness of the lives of men." Most mythologies ascribe vast duration to the lives of early patriarchs or rulers: the farther we go back into mythological history, the longer-lived are the sovereigns. To this general rule j.a.panese mythology presents no exception. The son of Ninigi-no-Mikoto is said to have lived five hundred and eighty years at his palace of Takachiho; but that, remarks Hirata, "was a short life compared with the lives of those who lived before him." Thereafter men's bodies declined in force; life gradually became shorter and shorter; yet in spite of all degeneration the j.a.panese still show traces of their divine origin. After death they enter into a higher divine condition, without, however, abandoning this world .... Such were Hirata's views. Accepting the Shinto theory of origins, this ascription of divinity to human nature proves less inconsistent than it appears at first sight; and the modern Shintoist may discover a germ of scientific truth in the doctrine which traces back the beginnings of life to the Sun.

[120] More than any other j.a.panese writer, Hirata has enabled us to understand the hierarchy of Shinto mythology,--corresponding closely, as we might have expected, to the ancient ordination of j.a.panese society. In the lowermost ranks are the spirits of common people, worshipped only at the household shrine or at graves. Above these are the gentile G.o.ds or Ujigami,--ghosts of old rulers now worshipped as tutelar G.o.ds. All Ujigami, Hirata tells us, are under the control of the Great G.o.d of Izumo,--Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami,--and, "acting as his agents, they rule the fortunes of human beings before their birth, during their life, and after their death." This means that the ordinary ghosts obey, in the world invisible, the commands of the clan-G.o.ds or tutelar deities; that the conditions of communal worship during life continue after death. The following extract from Hirata will be found of interest,--not only as showing the supposed relation of the individual to the Ujigami, but also as suggesting how the act of abandoning one's birthplace was formerly judged by common opinion:--

"When a person removes his residence, his original Ujigami has to make arrangements with the Ujigami of the place whither he transfers his abode. On such occasions it is proper to take leave of the old G.o.d, and to pay a visit to the temple of the new G.o.d as soon as possible after coming within his jurisdiction. The apparent reasons which a man imagines to have induced him to change his [121] abode may be many; but the real reasons cannot be otherwise than that either he has offended his Ujigami, and is therefore expelled, or that the Ujigami of another place has negotiated his transfer ...."*

[*Translated by Satow. The italics are mine.]

It would thus appear that every person was supposed to be the subject, servant, or retainer of some Ujigami, both during life and after death. There were, of course, various grades of these clan-G.o.ds, just as there were various grades of living rulers, lords of the soil. Above ordinary Ujigami ranked the deities worshipped in the chief Shinto temples of the various provinces, which temples were termed Ichi-no-miya, or temples of the first grade. These deities appear to have been in many cases spirits of princes or greater daimyo, formerly, ruling extensive districts; but all were not of this category. Among them were deities of elements or elemental forces,--Wind, Fire, and Sea,--deities also of longevity, of destiny, and of harvests,--clan-G.o.ds, perhaps, originally, though their real history had been long forgotten. But above all other Shinto divinities ranked the G.o.ds of the Imperial Cult,--the supposed ancestors of the Mikados.

Of the higher forms of Shinto worship, that of the imperial ancestors proper is the most important, being the State cult; but it is not the oldest. There are two supreme cults: that of the Sun-G.o.ddess, [122]

represented by the famous shrines of Ise; and the Izumo cult, represented by the great temple of Kitzuki. This Izumo temple is the centre of the more ancient cult. It is dedicated to Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami, first ruler of the Province of the G.o.ds, and offspring of the brother of the Sun-G.o.ddess. Dispossessed of his realm in favour of the founder of the imperial dynasty, Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami became the ruler of the Unseen World,--that is to say the World of Ghosts. Unto his shadowy dominion the spirits of all men proceed after death; and he rules over all of the Ujigami. We may therefore term him the Emperor of the Dead. "You cannot hope,"

Hirata says, "to live more than a hundred years, under the most favourable circ.u.mstances; but as you will go to the Unseen Realm of Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami after death, and be subject to him, learn betimes to bow down before him." ... That weird fancy expressed in the wonderful fragment by Coleridge, "The Wanderings of Cain," would therefore seem to have actually formed an article of ancient Shinto faith: "The Lord is G.o.d of the living only: the dead have another G.o.d." ...

The G.o.d of the Living in Old j.a.pan was, of course, the Mikado,--the deity incarnate, Arahito-gami,--and his palace was the national sanctuary, the Holy of Holies. Within the precincts of that [123]

palace was the Kashiko-Dokoro ("Place of Awe"), the private shrine of the Imperial Ancestors, where only the court could worship,--the public form of the same cult being maintained at Ise. But the Imperial House worshipped also by deputy (and still so worships) both at Kitzuki and Ise, and likewise at various other great sanctuaries.

Formerly a great number of temples were maintained, or partly maintained, from the imperial revenues. All Shinto temples of importance used to be cla.s.sed as greater and lesser shrines. There were 304 of the first rank, and 2828 of the second rank. But mult.i.tudes of temples were not included in this official cla.s.sification, and depended upon local support. The recorded total of Shinto shrines to-day is upwards of 195,000.

We have thus--without counting the great Izumo cult of Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami--four cla.s.ses of ancestor-worship: the domestic religion, the religion of the Ujigami, the worship at the chief shrines [Ichi-no-miya] of the several provinces, and the national cult at Ise. All these cults are now linked together by tradition; and the devout Shintoist worships the divinities of all, collectively, in his daily morning prayer. Occasionally he visits the chief shrine of his province; and he makes a pilgrimage to Ise if he can. Every j.a.panese is expected to visit the shrines of Ise once in his lifetime, [124] or to send thither a deputy. Inhabitants of remote districts are not all able, of course, to make the pilgrimage; but there is no village which does not, at certain intervals, send pilgrims either to Kitzuki or to Ise on behalf of the community, the expense of such representation being defrayed by local subscription.

And, furthermore, every j.a.panese can worship the supreme divinities of Shinto in his own house, where upon a "G.o.d-shelf" (Kamidana) are tablets inscribed with the a.s.surance of their divine protection,--holy charms obtained from the priests of Ise or of Kitzuki. In the case of the Ise cult, such tablets are commonly made from the wood of the holy shrines themselves, which, according to primal custom, must be rebuilt every twenty years,--the timber of the demolished structures being then cut into tablets for distribution throughout the country.

Another development of ancestor-worship--the cult of G.o.ds presiding over crafts and callings--deserves special study. Unfortunately we are as yet little informed upon the subject. Anciently this worship must have been more definitely ordered and maintained than it is now.

Occupations were hereditary; artizans were grouped into guilds--perhaps we might even say castes;--and each guild or caste then probably had in patron-deity. In some cases the craft-G.o.ds may have been ancestors [125] of j.a.panese craftsmen; in other cases they were perhaps of Korean or Chinese origin,--ancestral G.o.ds of immigrant artizans, who brought their cults with them to j.a.pan. Not much is known about them. But it is tolerably safe to a.s.sume that most, if not all of the guilds, were at one time religiously organized, and that apprentices were adopted not only in a craft, but into a cult. There were corporations of weavers, potters, carpenters, arrow-makers, bow-makers, smiths, boat-builders, and other tradesmen; and the past religious organization of these is suggested by the fact that certain occupations a.s.sume a religious character even to-day.

For example, the carpenter still builds according to Shinto tradition: he dons a priestly costume at a certain stage of the work, performs rites, and chants invocations, and places the new house under the protection of the G.o.ds. But the occupation of the swordsmith was in old days the most sacred of crafts: he worked in priestly garb, and practised Shinto) rites of purification while engaged in the making of a good blade. Before his smithy was then suspended the sacred rope of rice-straw (shime-nawa), which is the oldest symbol of Shinto: none even of his family might enter there, or speak to him; and he ate only of food cooked with holy fire.

The 195,000 shrines of Shinto represent, however, more than clan-cults or guild-cults or national-cults .... [126] Many are dedicated to different spirits of the same G.o.d; for Shinto holds that the spirit of either a man or a G.o.d may divide itself into several spirits, each with a different character. Such separated spirits are called waka-mi-tama ("august-divided-spirits"). Thus the spirit of the G.o.ddess of Food, Toyo-uke-bime, separated itself into the G.o.d of Trees, Kukunochi-no-Kami, and into the G.o.ddess of Gra.s.ses, Kayanu-hime-no-Kami. G.o.ds and men were supposed to have also a Rough Spirit and a Gentle Spirit; and Hirata remarks that the Rough Spirit of Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami was worshipped at one temple, and his Gentle Spirit at another.*... Also we have to remember that great numbers of Ujigami temples are dedicated to the same divinity. These duplications or multiplications are again offset by the fact that in some of the princ.i.p.al temples a mult.i.tude of different deities are enshrined. Thus the number of Shinto temples in actual existence affords no indication whatever of the actual number of G.o.ds worshipped, nor of the variety of their cults. Almost every deity mentioned in the Ko-ji-ki or Nihongi has a shrine somewhere; and hundreds of others--including many later apotheoses--have their temples. Numbers of temples have been dedicated, for example, to [127] historical personages,--to spirits of great ministers, captains, rulers, scholars, heroes, and statesmen. The famous minister of the Empress Jingo, Takeno-uji-no-Sukune,--who served under six successive sovereigns, and lived to the age of three hundred years,--is now invoked in many a temple as a giver of long life and great wisdom. The spirit of Sugiwara-no-Michizane, once minister to the Emperor Daigo, is worshipped as the G.o.d of calligraphy, under the name of Tenjin, or Temmangu: children everywhere offer to him the first examples of their handwriting, and deposit in receptacles, placed before his shrine, their worn-out writing-brushes. The Soga brothers, victims and heroes of a famous twelfth-century tragedy, have become G.o.ds to whom people pray for the maintenance of fraternal harmony. Kato Kiyomasa, the determined enemy of Jesuit Christianity, and Hideyoshi's greatest captain, has been apotheosized both by Buddhism and by Shinto. Iyeyasu is worshipped under the appellation of Toshogu. In fact most of the great men of j.a.panese history have had temples erected to them; and the spirits of the daimyo were, in former years, regularly worshipped by the subjects of their descendants and successors.

[*Even men had the Rough and the Gentle Spirit; but a G.o.d had three distinct spirits,--the Rough, the Gentle, and the Bestowing,--respectively termed Ara-mi-tama, Nigi-mi-tama, and Saki-mi-tama.--[See SATOW's Revival of Pure Shintau.]

Besides temples to deities presiding over industries and agriculture,--or deities especially invoked by the peasants, such as the G.o.ddess of silkworms, [128] the G.o.ddess of rice, the G.o.ds of wind and weather,--there are to be found in almost every part of the country what I may call propitiatory temples. These latter Shinto shrines have been erected by way of compensation to spirits of persons who suffered great injustice or misfortune. In these cases the worship a.s.sumes a very curious character, the worshipper always appealing for protection against the same kind of calamity or trouble as that from which the apotheosized person suffered during life. In Izumo, for example, I found a temple dedicated to the spirit of a woman, once a prince's favourite. She had been driven to suicide by the intrigues of jealous rivals. The story is that she had very beautiful hair; but it was not quite black, and her enemies used to reproach her with its color. Now mothers having children with brownish hair pray to her that the brown may be changed to black; and offerings are made to her of tresses of hair and Tokyo coloured prints, for it is still remembered that she was fond of such prints.

In the same province there is a shrine erected to the spirit of a young wife, who pined away for grief at the absence of her lord. She used to climb a hill to watch for his return, and the shrine was built upon the place where she waited; and wives pray there to her for the safe return of absent husbands .... An almost similar kind of propitiatory worship is practised in cemeteries. Public pity seeks to apotheosize those [129] urged to suicide by cruelty, or those executed for offences which, although legally criminal, were inspired by patriotic or other motives commanding sympathy. Before their graves offerings are laid and prayers are murmured. Spirits of unhappy lovers are commonly invoked by young people who suffer from the same cause .... And, among other forms of propitiatory worship I must mention the old custom of erecting small shrines to spirits of animals,--chiefly domestic animals,--either in recognition of dumb service rendered and ill-rewarded, or as a compensation for pain unjustly inflicted.

Yet another cla.s.s of tutelar divinities remains to be noticed,--those who dwell within or about the houses of men. Some are mentioned in the old mythology, and are probably developments of j.a.panese ancestor-worship; some are of alien origin; some do not appear to have any temples; and some represent little more than what is called Animism. This cla.s.s of divinities corresponds rather to the Roman dii genitales than to the Greek (Greek daemones). Suijin-Sarna, the G.o.d of Wells; Kojin, the G.o.d of the Cooking-range (in almost every kitchen there is either a tiny shrine for him, or a written charm bearing his name); the G.o.ds of the Cauldron and Saucepan, Kudo-no-Kami and Kobe-no-Kami (anciently called Okitsuhiko and Okitsuhime); the Master of Ponds, Ike-no-Nushi, [130] supposed to make apparition in the form of a serpent; the G.o.ddess of the Rice-pot, O-Kama-Sama; the G.o.ds of the Latrina, who first taught men how to fertilize their fields (these are commonly represented by little figures of paper, having the forms of a man and a woman, but faceless); the G.o.ds of Wood and Fire and Metal; the G.o.ds likewise of Gardens, Fields, Scarecrows, Bridges, Hills, Woods, and Streams; and also the Spirits of Trees (for j.a.panese mythology has its dryads): most of these are undoubtedly of Shinto. On the other hand, we find the roads under the protection of Buddhist deities chiefly. I have not been able to learn anything regarding G.o.ds of boundaries,--termes, as the Latins called them; and one sees only images of the Buddhas at the limits of village territories. But in almost every garden, on the north side, there is a little Shinto shrine, facing what is called the Ki-Mon, or "Demon-Gate,"--that is to say, the direction from which, according to Chinese teaching, all evils come; and these little shrines, dedicated to various Shinto deities, are supposed to protect the home from evil spirits. The belief in the Ki-Mon is obviously a Chinese importation. One may doubt, however, if Chinese influence alone developed the belief that every part of a house,--every beam of it,--and every domestic utensil has its invisible guardian. Considering this belief, it is not surprising that the building of a [131] house--unless the house be in foreign style--is still a religious act, and that the functions of a master-builder include those of a priest.

This brings us to the subject of Animism. (I doubt whether any evolutionist of the contemporary school holds to the old-fashioned notion that animism preceded ancestor-worship,--a theory involving the a.s.sumption that belief in the spirits of inanimate objects was evolved before the idea of a human ghost had yet been developed.) In j.a.pan it is now as difficult to draw the line between animistic beliefs and the lowest forms of Shinto, as to establish a demarcation between the vegetable and the animal worlds; but the earliest Shinto literature gives no evidence of such a developed animism as that now existing. Probably the development was gradual, and largely influenced by Chinese beliefs. Still, we read in the Ko-ji-ki of "evil G.o.ds who glittered like fireflies or were disorderly as mayflies," and of "demons who made rocks, and stumps of trees, and the foam of the green waters to speak,"--showing that animistic or fetichistic notions were prevalent to some extent before the period of Chinese influence. And it is significant that where animism is a.s.sociated with persistent worship (as in the matter of the reverence paid to strangely shaped stones or trees), the form of the worship is, in most cases, Shinto. Before such objects there is usually [132]

to be seen the model of a Shinto gateway,--torii.... With the development of animism, under Chinese and Korean influence, the man of Old j.a.pan found himself truly in a world of spirits and demons.

They spoke to him in the sound of tides and of cataracts in the moaning of wind and the whispers of leaf.a.ge, in the crying of birds, and the trilling of insects, in all the voices of nature. For him all visible motion--whether of waves or gra.s.ses or shifting mist or drifting cloud--was ghostly; and the never moving rocks--nay, the very stones by the wayside--were informed with viewless and awful being.

[133]

WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION

We have seen that, in Old j.a.pan, the world of the living was everywhere ruled by the world of the dead,--that the individual, at every moment of his existence, was under ghostly supervision. In his home he was watched by the spirits of his fathers; without it, he was ruled by the G.o.d of his district. All about him, and above him, and beneath him were invisible powers of life and death. In his conception of nature all things were ordered by the dead,--light and darkness, weather and season, winds and tides, mist and rain, growth and decay, sickness and health. The viewless atmosphere was a phantom-sea, an ocean of ghost; the soil that he tilled was pervaded by spirit-essence; the trees were haunted and holy; even the rocks and the stones were infused with conscious life .... How might he discharge his duty to the infinite concourse of the invisible?

Few scholars could remember the names of all the greater G.o.ds, not to speak of the lesser; and no mortal could have found time to address those greater G.o.ds by their respective names in his daily [134]

prayer. The later Shinto teachers proposed to simplify the duties of the faith by prescribing one brief daily prayer to the G.o.ds in general, and special prayers to a few G.o.ds in particular; and in thus doing they were most likely confirming a custom already established by necessity. Hirata wrote: "As the number of the G.o.ds who possess different functions is very great, it will be convenient to worship by name the most important only, and to include the rest in a general pet.i.tion." He prescribed ten prayers for persons having time to repeat them, but lightened the duty for busy folk,--observing: "Persons whose daily affairs are so mult.i.tudinous that they have not time to go through all the prayers, may content themselves with adoring (1) the residence of the Emperor, (2) the domestic G.o.d-shelf,--kamidana, (3) the spirits of their ancestors, (4) their local patron-G.o.d, Ujigami, (5) the deity of their particular calling." He advised that the following prayer should be daily repeated before the "G.o.d-shelf":--

"Reverently adoring the great G.o.d of the two palaces of Ise in the first, place,--the eight hundred myriads of celestial G.o.ds,--the eight hundred myriads of terrestrial G.o.ds,--the fifteen hundred myriads of G.o.ds to whom are consecrated the great and small temples in all provinces, all islands, and all places of the Great Land of Eight Islands,--the fifteen hundred myriads of G.o.ds whom they cause to serve them, and the G.o.ds of branch-palaces and branch-temples, [135]--and Sohodo-no-Kami* whom I have invited to the shrine set up on this divine shelf, and to whom I offer praises day by day,--I pray with awe that they will deign to correct the unwilling faults which, heard and seen by them, I have committed; and that, blessing and favouring me according to the powers which they severally wield, they will cause me to follow the divine example, and to perform good works in the Way."**

[*Sohodo-no-Kami is the G.o.d of scarecrows,--protector of the fields.]

[**Translated by Satow.]

This text is interesting as an example of what Shinto's greatest expounder thought a Shinto prayer should be; and, excepting the reference to So-ho-do-no-Kami, the substance of it is that of the morning prayer still repeated in j.a.panese households. But the modern prayer is very much shorter.... In Izumo, the oldest Shinto province, the customary morning worship offers perhaps the best example of the ancient rules of devotion. Immediately upon rising, the worshipper performs his ablutions; and after having washed his face and rinsed his mouth, he turns to the sun, claps his hands, and with bowed head reverently utters the simple greeting: "Hail to thee this day, August One!" In thus adoring the sun he is also fulfilling his duty as a subject, paying obeisance to the Imperial Ancestor .... The act is performed out of doors, not kneeling, but standing; and the spectacle of this simple worship is impressive. I can now see in memory,-- [136] just as plainly as I saw with my eyes many years ago, off the wild Oki coast,--the naked figure of a young fisherman erect at the prow of his boat, clapping his hands in salutation to the rising sun, whose ruddy glow transformed him into a statue of bronze. Also I retain a vivid memory of pilgrim-figures poised upon the topmost crags of the summit of Fuji, clapping their hands in prayer, with faces to the East .... Perhaps ten thousand--twenty thousand-years ago all humanity so worshipped the Lord of Day ....

After having saluted the sun, the worshipper returns to his house, to pray before the Kamidana and before the tablets of the ancestors.

Kneeling, he invokes the great G.o.ds of Ise or of Izumo, the G.o.ds of the chief temples of his province, the G.o.d of his parish-temple also (Ujigami), and finally all the myriads of the deities of Shinto.

These prayers are not said aloud. The ancestors are thanked for the foundation of the home; the higher deities are invoked for aid and protection .... As for the custom of bowing in the direction of the Emperor's palace, I am not able to say to what extent it survives in the remoter districts; but I have often seen the reverence performed.

Once, too, I saw reverence done immediately in front of the gates of the palace in Tokyo by country-folk on a visit to the capital. They knew me, because I had often sojourned in their village; and on reaching Tokyo [137] they sought me out, and found me, I took them to the palace; and before the main entrance they removed their hats, and bowed, and clapped their hands, just as they would have done when saluting the G.o.ds or the rising sun,--and this with a simple and dignified reverence that touched me not a little.

The duties of morning worship, which include the placing of offerings before the tablets, are not the only duties of the domestic cult. In a Shinto household, where the ancestors and the higher G.o.ds are separately worshipped, the ancestral shrine may be said to correspond with the Roman lararium; while the "G.o.d-shelf," with its taima or o-nusa (symbols of those higher G.o.ds especially revered by the family), may be compared with the place accorded by Latin custom to the worship of the Penates. Both Shinto cults have their particular feast-days; and, in the case of the ancestor-cult, the feast-days are occasions of religious a.s.sembly,--when the relatives of the family should gather to celebrate the domestic rite .... The Shintoist must also take part in the celebration of the festivals of the Ujigami, and must at least aid in the celebration of the nine great national holidays related to the national cult; these nine, out of a total eleven, being occasions of imperial ancestor-worship.

The nature of the public rites varied according to [138] the rank of the G.o.ds. Offerings and prayers were made to all; but the greater deities were worshipped with exceeding ceremony. To-day the offerings usually consist of food and rice-wine, together with symbolic articles representing the costlier gifts of woven stuffs presented by ancient custom. The ceremonies include processions, music, singing, and dancing. At the very small shrines there are few ceremonies,--only offerings of food are presented. But at the great temples there are hierarchies of priests and priestesses (miko)--usually daughters of priests; and the ceremonies are elaborate and solemn. It is particularly at the temples of Ise (where, down to the fourteenth century the high-priestess was a daughter of emperors), or at the great temple of Izumo, that the archaic character of the ceremonial can be studied to most advantage.

There, in spite of the pa.s.sage of that huge wave of Buddhism, which for a period almost submerged the more ancient faith, all things remain as they were a score of centuries ago;--Time, in those haunted precincts, would seem to have slept, as in the enchanted palaces of fairy-tale. The mere shapes of the buildings, weird and tall, startle by their unfamiliarity. Within, all is severely plain and pure: there are no images, no ornaments, no symbols visible--except those strange paper-cuttings (gohei), suspended to upright rods, which are symbols of offerings and also tokens of the [139] viewless. By the number of them in the sanctuary, you know the number of the deities to whom the place is consecrate. There is nothing imposing but the s.p.a.ce, the silence, and the suggestion of the past. The innermost shrine is veiled: it contains, perhaps, a mirror of bronze, an ancient sword, or other object enclosed in multiple wrappings: that is all. For this faith, older than icons, needs no images: its G.o.ds are ghosts; and the void stillness of its shrines compels more awe than tangible representation could inspire. Very strange, to Western eyes at least, are the rites, the forms of the worship, the shapes of sacred objects. Not by any modern method must the sacred fire be lighted,--the fire that cooks the food of the G.o.ds: it can be kindled only in the most ancient of ways, with a wooden fire-drill. The chief priests are robed in the sacred colour,--white,--and wear headdresses of a shape no longer seen elsewhere: high caps of the kind formerly worn by lords and princes. Their a.s.sistants wear various colours, according to grade; and the faces of none are completely shaven;--some wear full beards, others the mustache only. The actions and att.i.tudes of these hierophants are dignified, yet archaic, in a degree difficult to describe. Each movement is regulated by tradition; and to perform well the functions of a Kannushi, a long disciplinary preparation is necessary. The office is hereditary; the training begins in boyhood; and [140] the impa.s.sive deportment eventually acquired is really a wonderful thing. Officiating, the Kannushi seems rather a statue than a man,--an image moved by invisible strings;--and, like the G.o.ds, he never winks. Not at least observably.... Once, during a great Shinto procession, several j.a.panese friends, and I myself, undertook to watch a young priest on horseback, in order to see how long he could keep from winking; and none of us were able to detect the slightest movement of eyes or eyelids, notwithstanding that the priest's horse became restive during the time that we were watching.

The princ.i.p.al incidents of the festival ceremonies within the great temples are the presentation of the offerings, the repet.i.tion of the ritual, and the dancing of the priestesses. Each of these performances retains a special character rigidly fixed by tradition.

The food-offerings are served upon archaic vessels of unglazed pottery (red earthenware mostly): boiled rice pressed into cones of the form of a sugar-loaf, various preparations of fish and of edible sea-weed, fruits and fowls, rice-wine presented in jars of immemorial shape. These offerings are carried into the temple upon white wooden trays of curious form, and laid upon white wooden tables of equally curious form;--the faces of the bearers being covered, below the eyes, with sheets of white paper, in order that their breath may [141] not contaminate the food of the G.o.ds; and the trays, for like reason, must be borne at arms' length .... In ancient times the offerings would seem to have included things much more costly than food,--if we may credit the testimony of what are probably the oldest doc.u.ments extant in the j.a.panese tongue, the Shinto rituals, or norito.* The following excerpt from Satow's translation of the ritual prayer to the Wind-G.o.ds of Tatsuta is interesting, not only as a fine example of the language of the norito, but also as indicating the character of the great ceremonies in early ages, and the nature of the offerings:--

[*Several have been translated by Satow, whose opinion of their antiquity is here cited; and translations have also been made into German.]

"As the great offerings set up for the Youth-G.o.d, I set up various sorts of offerings: for Clothes, bright cloth, glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coa.r.s.e cloth,--and the five kinds of things, a mantlet, a spear, a horse furnished with a saddle;--for the Maiden-G.o.d I set up various sorts of offerings--providing Clothes, a golden thread-box, a golden tatari, a golden skein-holder, bright cloth, glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coa.r.s.e cloth, and the five kinds of things, a horse furnished with a saddle;--as to Liquor, I raise high the beer-jars, fill and range-in-a-row the bellies of the beer-jars; soft grain and coa.r.s.e grain;--as to things which dwell in the hills, things soft of hair and things coa.r.s.e of hair;--as to things which grow in the great field--plain, sweet herbs and bitter herbs;--as to things which dwell in the blue sea-plain, things broad of fin and things narrow of fin--down to the weeds of the offing and weeds of the [142] sh.o.r.e.

And if the sovran G.o.ds will take these great offerings which I set up,--piling them up like a range of hills,--peacefully in their hearts, as peaceful offerings and satisfactory offerings; and if the sovran G.o.ds, deigning not to visit the things produced by, the great People of the region under heaven with bad winds and rough waters, will open and bless them,--I will at the autumn service set up the first fruits, raising high the beer-jars, filling and ranging-in-rows the bellies of the beer-jars,--and drawing them hither in juice and in ear, in many hundred rice-plants and a thousand rice-plants. And for this purpose the princes and councillors and all the functionaries, the servants of the six farms of the country of Yamato--even to the males and females of them--have all come and a.s.sembled in the fourth month of this year, and, plunging down the root of the neck cormorant-wise in the presence of the sovran G.o.ds, fulfil their praise as the Sun of to-day rises in glory."...

The offerings are no longer piled up "like a range of hills," nor do they include all things dwelling in the mountains and in the sea; but the imposing ritual remains, and the ceremony is always impressive.

Not the least interesting part of it is the sacred dance. While the G.o.ds are supposed to be partaking of the food and wine set out before their shrines, the girl-priestesses, robed in crimson and white, move gracefully to the sound of drums and flutes,--waving fans, or shaking bunches of tiny bells as they circle about the sanctuary. According to our Western notions. the performance of the [143] miko could scarcely be called dancing; but it is a graceful spectacle, and very curious,--for every step and att.i.tude is regulated by traditions of unknown antiquity. As for the plaintive music, no Western ear can discern in it anything resembling a real melody; but the G.o.ds should find delight in it, because it is certainly performed for them to-day exactly as it used to be performed twenty centuries ago.

I speak of the ceremonies especially as I have witnessed them in Izumo: they vary somewhat according to cult and province. At the shrines of Ise, Kasuga, Kompira, and several others which I visited, the ordinary priestesses are children; and when they have reached the nubile age, they retire from the service. At Kitzuki the priestesses are grown-up women: their office is hereditary; and they are permitted to retain it even after marriage.

Formerly the Miko was more than a mere officiant: the songs which she is still obliged to learn indicate that she was originally offered to the G.o.ds as a bride. Even yet her touch is holy; the grain sown by her hand is blessed. At some time in the past she seems to have been also a pythoness: the spirits of the G.o.ds possessed her and spoke through her lips. All the poetry of this most ancient of religions centres in the figure of its little Vestal,--child-bride of ghosts,--as she flutters, [144] like some wonderful white-and-crimson b.u.t.terfly, before the shrine of the Invisible. Even in these years of change, when she must go to the public school, she continues to represent all that is delightful in j.a.panese girlhood; for her special home-training keeps her reverent, innocent, dainty in all her little ways, and worthy to remain the pet of the G.o.ds.

The history of the higher forms of ancestor-worship in other countries would lead us to suppose that the public ceremonies of the Shinto-cult must include some rite of purification. As a matter of fact, the most important of all Shinto ceremonies is the ceremony of purification,--o-harai, as it is called, which term signifies the casting-out or expulsion of evils .... In ancient Athens a corresponding ceremony took place every year; in Rome, every four years. The o-harai is performed twice every year,--in the sixth month and the twelfth month by the ancient calendar. It used to be not less obligatory than the Roman l.u.s.tration; and the idea behind the obligation was the same as that which inspired the Roman laws on the subject .... So long as men believe that the welfare of the living depends upon the will of the dead,--that all happenings in the world are ordered by spirits of different characters, evil as well as good,--that every bad action lends additional power to the viewless [145] forces of destruction, and therefore endangers the public prosperity,--so long will the necessity of a public purification remain an article of common faith. The presence in any community of even one person who has offended the G.o.ds, consciously or unwillingly, is a public misfortune, a public peril. Yet it is not possible for all men to live so well as never to vex the G.o.ds by thought, word, or deed,--through pa.s.sion or ignorance or carelessness. "Every one," declares Hirata, "is certain to commit accidental offences, however careful he may be... Evil acts and words are of two kinds: those of which we are conscious, and those of which we are not conscious .... It is better to a.s.sume that we have committed such unconscious offences." Now it should be remembered that for the man of Old j.a.pan,--as for the Greek or the Roman citizen of early times,--religion consisted chiefly in the exact observance of mult.i.tudinous custom; and that it was therefore difficult to know whether, in performing the duties of the several cults, one had not inadvertently displeased the Unseen. As a means of maintaining and a.s.suring the religious purity of the people periodical l.u.s.tration was consequently deemed indispensable.

From the earliest period Shinto exacted scrupulous cleanliness --indeed, we might say that it regarded physical impurity as identical with moral impurity, and intolerable to the G.o.ds. It has [146] always been, and still remains, a religion of ablutions. The j.a.panese love of cleanliness--indicated by the universal practice of daily bathing, and by the irreproachable condition of their homes has been maintained, and was probably initiated, by their religion.

Spotless cleanliness being required by the rites of ancestor-worship,--in the temple, in the person of the officiant, and in the home,--this rule of purity was naturally extended by degrees to all the conditions of existence. And besides the great periodical ceremonies of purification, a mult.i.tude of minor l.u.s.trations were exacted by the cult. This was the case also, it will be remembered in the early Greek and Roman civilizations--the citizen had to submit to purification upon almost every important occasion of existence.

There were l.u.s.trations indispensable at birth, marriage, and death; l.u.s.trations on the eve of battle; l.u.s.trations at regular periods, of the dwelling, estate, district, or city. And, as in j.a.pan, no one could approach a temple without a preliminary washing of hands. But ancient Shinto exacted more than the Greek or the Roman cult: it required the erection of special houses for birth, --"parturition-houses"; special houses for the consummation of marriage,--"nuptial-huts"; and special buildings for the dead,--"mourning-houses." Formerly women were obliged during the period of menstruation, as well as during the time of confinement, to live apart. These harsher archaic customs [147] have almost disappeared, except in one or two remote districts, and in the case of certain priestly families; but the general rules as to purification, and as to the times and circ.u.mstances forbidding approach to holy places, are still everywhere obeyed. Purity of heart is not less insisted upon than physical purity; and the great rite of l.u.s.tration, performed every six months, is of course a moral purification. It is performed not only at the great temples, and at all the Ujigami, but likewise in every home

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[*On the kamidana, "or G.o.d-shelf," there is usually placed a kind of oblong paper-box containing fragments of the wands used by the priests of Ise at the great national purification-ceremony, or o-harai. This box is commonly called by the name of the ceremony, o-harai, or "august purification," and is inscribed with the names of the great G.o.ds of Ise. The presence of this object is supposed to protect the home; but it should be replaced by a new o-harai at the expiration of six months; for the virtue of the charm is supposed to last only during the interval between two official purifications. This distribution to thousands of homes of fragments of the wands, used to "drive away evils" at the time of the Ise l.u.s.tration, represents of course the supposed extension of the high-priest's protection to those homes until the time of the next o-harai.

The modern domestic form of the harai is very simple. Each Shinto parish-temple furnishes to all its Ujiko, or parishioners, small paper-cuttings called hitogata ("mankind-shapes"), representing figures of men, women, and children as in silhouette,--only that the paper is white, and folded curiously.

Each household receives a number of hitogata corresponding to the number of its members,--"men-shapes" for the men and boys, "women-shapes"]

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[148] for the women and girls. Each person in the house touches his head, face, limbs, and body with one of these hitogata; repeating the while a Shinto invocation, and praying that any misfortune or sickness incurred by reason of offences involuntarily committed against the G.o.ds (for in Shinto belief sickness and misfortune are divine punishments) may be mercifully taken away. Upon each hitogata is then written the age and s.e.x (not the name) of the person for whom it was furnished; and when this has been done, all are returned to the parish-temple, and there burnt, with rites of purification. Thus the community is "l.u.s.trated" every six Months.

In the old Greek and Latin cities l.u.s.tration was accompanied with registration. The attendance of every citizen at the ceremony was held to be so necessary that one who wilfully failed to attend might be whipped and sold as a slave. Non-attendance involved loss of civic rights. It would seem that in Old j.a.pan also every member of a community was obliged to be present at the rite; but I have not been able to learn whether any registration was made upon such occasions.

Probably it would have been superfluous: the j.a.panese individual was not officially recognized; the family-group alone was responsible, and the attendance of the several members would have been a.s.sured by the responsibility of the group. The use of the hitogata, on which the name is not written, but only the s.e.x and age [149] of the worshipper, is probably modern, and of Chinese origin. Official registration existed, even in early times; but it appears to have had no particular relation to the o-harai; and the registers were kept, it seems, not by the Shinto, but by the Buddhist parish-priests ....