The Religions of Japan Part 2

Long after the brutish stage of thought is past the fetichistic instinct remains in the sacredness attached to the mere letter or paper or parchment of the sacred book or writing, when used as amulet, plaster or medicine. The survivals, even in Buddhism, of ancient and prehistoric Fetichism are many and often with undenied approval of the religious authorities, especially in those sects which are themselves reversions to primitive and lower types of religion.

Among the Ainos of Yezo and Saghalin the medicine-man or shaman is decorated with fetichistic bric-a-brac of all sorts, and these bits of sh.e.l.ls, metals, and other clinking substances are believed to be media of communication with mysterious influences and forces. In Korea thousands of trees bedecked with fluttering rags, clinking sc.r.a.ps of tin, metal or stone signify the same thing. In j.a.pan these primitive tinkling sc.r.a.ps and clinking bunches of gla.s.s have long since become the _suzu_ or wind-bells seen on the paG.o.da which tintinabulate with every pa.s.sing breeze. The whittled sticks of the Aino, non-conductors of evil and protectors of those who make and rear them, stuck up in every place of awe or supposed danger, have in the slow evolution of centuries become the innumerable flag-poles, banners and streamers which one sees at their _matsuris_ or temple festivals. Millions of towels and handkerchiefs still flutter over wells and on sacred trees. In old j.a.pan the banners of an army almost outnumbered the men who fought beneath them. Today, at times they nearly conceal the temples from view.

The civilized j.a.panese, having pa.s.sed far beyond the Aino's stage of religion, still show their fetichistic instincts in the veneration accorded to priestly inventions for raising revenue.[19] This instinct lingers in the faith accorded to medicine in the form of decoction, pill, bolus or poultice made from the sacred writing and piously swallowed; in the reverence paid to the idol for its own sake, and in the charm or amulet worn by the soldier in his cap or by the gentleman in his pill-box, tobacco-pouch or purse.

As the will of the worshipper who selects the fetich makes it what it is, so also, by the exercise of that will he imagines he can in a certain measure be the equal or superior of his G.o.d. Like the Italian peasant who beats or scolds his bambino when his prayers are not answered or his wishes gratified, so the fetich is punished or not allowed to know what is going on, by being covered up or hidden away.

Instances of such rough handling of their fetiches by the people are far from unknown in the Land of Great Peace. At such childishness we may wonder and imagine that fetich-worship is the very antipodes of religion; and yet it requires but little study of the lower orders of mind and conduct in Christendom to see how fetich-worship still lingers among people called Christians, whether the fetich be the image of a saint or the Virgin, or a verse of the Bible found at random and used much as is a penny-toss to decide minor actions. Or, to look farther south, what means the rabbit's foot carried in the pocket or the various articles of faith now hanging in the limbo between religion and folk-lore in various parts of our own country?

Phallicism.

Further ill.u.s.trations of far Eastern Animism and Fetichism are seen in forms once vastly more prevalent in j.a.pan than now. Indeed, so far improved off the face of the earth are they, that some are already matters of memory or archaeology, and their very existence even in former days is nearly or wholly incredible to the generation born since 1868--when Old j.a.pan began to vanish in dissolving views and New j.a.pan to emerge. What the author has seen with his own eyes, would amaze many j.a.panese born since 1868 and the readers of the rhapsodies of tourists who study j.a.pan from the _jin-riki-sha_. Phases of tree and serpent worship are still quite common, and will be probably for generations to come; but the phallic shrines and emblems abolished by the government in 1872 have been so far invisible to most living travellers and natives, that their once general existence and use are now scarcely suspected.

Even profound scholars of the j.a.panese language and literature whose work dates from after the year 1872 have scarcely suspected the universality of phallic worship. Yet what we could say of this cult and its emblems, especially in treating of Shint[=o], the special ethnic faith of j.a.pan, would be from sight of our own eyes besides the testimony of many witnesses.[20]

The cultus has been known in the j.a.panese archipelago from Riu Kin to Yezo. Despite official edicts of abolition it is still secretly practised by the "heathen," the _inaka_ of j.a.pan. "Government law lasts three days," is an ancient proverb in Nippon. Sharp eyes have, within three months of the writing of this line, unearthed a phallic shrine within a stone's-throw of Shint[=o]'s most sacred temples at Ise.

Formerly, however, these implements of worship were seen numerously--in the cornucopia distributed in the temples, in the _matsuris_ or religious processions and in representation by various plastic material--and all this until 1872, to an extent that is absolutely incredible to all except the eye-witnesses, some of whose written testimonies we possess. What seems to our mind shocking and revolting was once a part of our own ancestors' faith, and until very recently was the perfectly natural and innocent creed of many millions of j.a.panese and is yet the same for tens of thousands of them.

We may easily see why and how that which to us is a degrading cult was not only closely allied to Shint[=o], but directly fostered by and properly a part of it, as soon as we read the account of the creation of the world, an contained in the national "Book of Ancient Traditions,"

the "Kojiki." Several of the opening paragraphs of this sacred book of Shint[=o] are phallic myths explaining cosmogony. Yet the myths and the cult are older than the writing and are phases of primitive j.a.panese faith. The mystery of fatherhood is to the primitive man the mystery of creation also. To him neither the thought nor the word was at hand to put difference and transcendental separation between him and what he worshipped as a G.o.d.

Into the details of the former display and carriage of these now obscene symbols in the popular celebrations; of the behavior of even respectable citizens during the excitement and frenzy of the festivals; of their presence in the wayside shrines; of the philosophy, hideousness or pathos of the subject, we cannot here enter. We simply call attention to their existence, and to a form of thought, if not of religion, properly so-called, which has survived all imported systems of faith and which shows what the native or indigenous idea of divinity really is--an idea that profoundly affects the organization of society. To the enlightened Buddhist, Confucian, and even the modern Shintoist the phallus-worshipper is a "heathen," a "pagan," and yet he still practises his faith and rites. It is for us to hint at the powerful influence such persistent ideas have upon j.a.panese morals and civilization. Still further, we ill.u.s.trate the basic fact which all foreign religions and all missionaries, Confucian, Buddhist, Mahometan or Christian must deal with, viz.: That the Eastern Asiatic mind runs to pantheism as surely as the body of flesh and blood seeks food.

Tree and Serpent Worship.

In prehistoric and medieval j.a.pan, as among the Ainos to-day, trees and serpents as well as rocks, rivers and other inanimate objects were worshipped, because such of them as were supposed for reasons known and felt to be awe-inspiring or wonderful were "kami," that is, above the common, wonderful.[21] This word kami is usually translated G.o.d or deity, but the term does not conform to our ideas, by a great gulf of difference. It is more than probable that the j.a.panese term kami is the same as the Aino word _kamui_, and that the despised and conquered aboriginal savage has furnished the mould of the ordinary j.a.panese idea of G.o.d--which even to-day with them means anything wonderful or extraordinary.[22] From the days before history the people have worshipped trees, and do so yet, considering them as the abodes of and as means of communication with supernatural powers. On them the people hang their votive offerings, twist on the branches their prayers written on paper, avoid cutting down, breaking or in any way injuring certain trees. The _sakaki_ tree is especially sacred, even to this day, in funeral or Shint[=o] services. To wound or defile a tree sacred to a particular G.o.d was to call forth the vengeance of the insulted deity upon the insulter, or as the hearer of prayer upon another to whom guilt was imputed and punishment was due.

Thus, in the days older than this present generation, but still within this century, as the writer has witnessed, it was the custom of women betrayed by their lovers to perform the religious act of vengeance called _Ushi toki mairi_, or going to the temple at the hour of the ox, that is at 2 A.M. First making an image or manikin of straw, she set out on her errand of revenge, with nails held in her mouth and with hammer in one hand and straw figure in the other, sometimes also having on her head a reversed tripod in which were stuck three lighted candles.

Arriving at the shrine she selected a tree dedicated to a G.o.d, and then nailed the straw simulacrum of her betrayer to the trunk, invoking the kami to curse and annihilate the destroyer of her peace. She adjures the G.o.d to save his tree, impute the guilt of desecration to the traitor and visit him with deadly vengeance. The visit is repeated and nails are driven until the object of the incantation sickens and dies, or is at least supposed to do so. I have more than once seen such trees and straw images upon them, and have observed others in which the large number of rusted nails and fragments of straw showed how tenaciously the superst.i.tion lingered.[23]

In instances more pleasant to witness, may be seen trees festooned with the symbolical rice-straw in cords and fringes. With these the people honor the trees as the abode of the kami, or as evidence of their faith in the renown accredited in the past.

In common with most human beings the j.a.panese consider the serpent an object of mystery and awe, but most of them go further and pay the ophidian a reverence and awe which is worship. Their oldest literature shows how large a part the serpent played in the so-called divine age, how it acted as progenitress of the Mikado's ancestry, and how it afforded means of incarnation for the kami or G.o.ds. Ten species of ophidia are known in the j.a.panese islands, but in the larger number of more or less imaginary varieties which figure in the ancient books we shall find plenty of material for fetich-worship. In perusing the "Kojiki" one scarcely knows, when he begins a story, whether the character which to all appearance is a man or woman is to end as a snake, or whether the mother after delivering her child will or will not glide into the marsh or slide away into the sea, leaving behind a trail of slime. A dragon is three-fourths serpent, and both the dragon and the serpent are prominent figures, perhaps the most prominent of the kami or G.o.ds in human or animal form in the "Kojiki" and other early legends of the G.o.ds, though the crocodile, crow, deer, dog, and other animals are kami.[24] It is therefore no wonder that serpents have been and are still worshipped by the people, that some of their G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses are liable at any time to slip away in scaly form, that famous temples are built on sites noted as being the abode or visible place of the actual water or land snake of natural history, and that the spot where a serpent is seen to-day is usually marked with a sacred emblem or a shrine.[25] We shall see how this snake-worship became not only a part of Shint[=o] but even a notable feature in corrupt Buddhism.

Pantheism's Destruction of Boundaries.[26]

In its rudest forms, this pantheism branches out into animism or shamanism, fetichism and phallicism. In its higher forms, it becomes polytheism, idolatry and defective philosophy. Having centuries ago corrupted Buddhism it is the malaria which, unseen and unfelt, is ready to poison and corrupt Christianity. Indeed, it has already given over to disease and spiritual death more than one once hopeful Christian believer, teacher and preacher in the j.a.pan of our decade.

To a.s.sault and remove the incubus, to replace and refill the mind, to lift up and enlighten the j.a.panese peasant, science as already known and faith in one G.o.d, Creator and Father of all things, must go hand in hand. Education and civilization will do much for the ignorant _inaka_ or boors, but for the cultured whose minds waver and whose feet flounder, as well as for the unlearned and priest-ridden, there is no surer help and healing than that faith in the Heavenly Father which gives the unifying thought to him who looks into creation.

Keep the boundary line clear between G.o.d and his world and all is order and discrimination. Obliterate that boundary and all is pathless mora.s.s, black chaos and on the mind the phantasms which belong to the victim of _delirium tremens_.

There is one Lawgiver. In the beginning, G.o.d. In the end, G.o.d, all in all.

CHAPTER II - SHINT[=O]: MYTHS AND RITUAL

"In the great days of old, When o'er the land the G.o.ds held sov'reign sway, Our fathers lov'd to say That the bright G.o.ds with tender care enfold The fortunes of j.a.pan, Blessing the land with many an holy spell: And what they loved to tell, We of this later age ourselves do prove; For every living man May feast his eyes on tokens of their love."

--Poem of Yamagami-no Okura, A.D. 733.

Baal: "While I on towers and banging terraces, In shaft and obelisk, behold my sign.

Creative, shape of first imperious law."

--Bayard Taylor's "Masque of the G.o.ds."

"Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit wh.o.r.edom with them, and tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them. My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savor: and thus it was, saith the Lord G.o.d."--Ezekiel.

If it be said (as has been the case), 'Shintoism has nothing in it,' we should be inclined to answer, 'So much the better, there is less error to counteract.' But there _is_ something in it, and that ... of a kind of which we may well avail ourselves when making known the second commandment, and the 'fountain of cleansing from all sin.'"--E.W. Syle.

"If Shint[=o] has a dogma, it is purity."--Kaburagi.

"I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord: and so will I go to thine altar."--Ps. xxvi. 6.

CHAPTER II - SHINT[=O]: MYTHS AND RITUAL

The j.a.panese a Young Nation.

What impresses us in the study of the history of j.a.pan is that, compared with China and Korea, she is young. Her history is as the story of yesterday. The nation is modern. The j.a.panese are as younger children in the great family of Asia's historic people. Broadly speaking, j.a.pan is no older than England, and authentic j.a.panese history no more ancient than British history. In Albion, as in the Honorable Country, there are traditions and mythologies that project their shadows aeons back of genuine records; but if we consider that English history begins in the fifth, and English literature in the eighth century, then there are other reasons besides those commonly given for calling j.a.pan "the England of the East."

No trustworthy traditions exist which carry the known history of j.a.pan farther back than the fifth century. The means for measuring and recording time were probably not in use until the sixth century. The oldest doc.u.ments in the j.a.panese language, excepting a few fragments of the seventh century, do not antedate the year 712, and even in these the Chinese characters are in many instances used phonetically, because the meaning of the words thus transliterated had already been forgotten.

Hence their interpretation in detail is still largely a matter of conjecture.

Yet the j.a.panese Archipelago was inhabited long before the dawn of history. The concurrent testimony of the earliest literary monuments, of the indigenous mythology, of folk-lore, of sh.e.l.l-heaps and of kitchen-middens shows that the occupation by human beings of the main islands must be ascribed to times long before the Christian era. Before written records or ritual of worship, religion existed on its active or devotional side, and there were mature growths of thought preserved and expressed orally. Poems, songs, chants and _norito_ or liturgies were kept alive in the human memory, and there was a system of worship, the _name_ of which was given long after the introduction of Buddhism. This descriptive term, Kami no Michi in j.a.panese, and Shin-t[=o] in the Chinese as p.r.o.nounced by j.a.panese, means the Way of the G.o.ds, the t[=o]

or final syllable being the same as tao in Taoism. We may say that Shint[=o] means, literally, theoslogos, theology. The customs and practices existed centuries before contact with Chinese letters, and long previous to the Shint[=o] literature which is now extant.

Whether Kami no Michi is wholly the product of j.a.panese soil, or whether its rudimentary ideas were imported from the neighboring Asian continent and more or less allied to the primitive Chinese religion, is still an open question. The preponderance of argument tends, however, to show that it was an importation as to its origin, for not a few events outlined in the j.a.panese mythology cast shadows of reminiscence upon Korea or the Asian mainland. In its development, however, the cultus is almost wholly j.a.panese. The modern forms of Shint[=o], as moulded by the revivalists of the eighteenth century, are at many points notably different from the ancient faith. At the World's Parliament of Religions at Chicago, Shint[=o] seemed to be the only one, and probably the last, of the purely provincial religions.

In order to gain a picture of life in j.a.pan before the introduction of Chinese civilization, we must consult those photographs of the minds of the ancient islanders which still exist in their earliest literature.

The fruits of the study of ethnology, anthropology and archaeology greatly a.s.sist us in picturing the day-break of human life in the Morning Land. In preparing materials for the student of the religions of j.a.pan many laborers have wrought in various fields, but the chief literary honors have been taken by the English scholars, Messrs.

Satow,[1] Aston,[2] and Chamberlain.[3] These untiring workers have opened the treasures of ancient thought in the Altaic world.[4]

Although even these archaic j.a.panese compositions, readable to-day only by special scholars, are more or less affected by Chinese influences, ideas and modes of expression, yet they are in the main faithful reflections of the ancient life before the primitive faith of the j.a.panese people was either disturbed or reduced to system in presence of an imported religion. These monuments of history, poetry and liturgies are the "Kojiki," or Notices of Ancient Things; the "Manyoshu" or Myriad Leaves or Poems, and the "Norito," or Liturgies.

The Ancient Doc.u.ments.

The first book, the "Kojiki," gives us the theology, cosmogony, mythology, and very probably, in its later portions, some outlines of history of the ancient j.a.panese. The "Kojiki" is the real, the dogmatic exponent, or, if we may so say, the Bible, of Shint[=o]. The "Many[=o]shu," or Book of Myriad Poems, expresses the thoughts and feelings; reflects the manners and customs of the primitive generations, and, in the same sense as do the Sagas of the Scandinavians, furnishes us unchronological but interesting and more or less real narratives of events which have been glorified by the poets and artists. The ancient codes of law and of ceremonial procedure are of great value, while the "Norito" are excellent mirrors in which to see reflected the religion called Shint[=o] on the more active side of worship.