Shinto

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

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

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

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

Wind-Gods. – The Nihongi speaks of one Wind-God named Shinatsu-hiko (wind-long-prince). He was produced from Izanagi's breath when he puffed away the mists which surrounded the newly formed country of Japan.123 The conception of the wind as the breath of the Gods is also found in the Vedas and elsewhere. In the latter part of the Nihongi frequent mention is made of embassies to Tatsuta, in Yamato, to pray to the Wind-Gods for a good harvest. A norito addressed to them124 makes two Wind-Gods-one masculine, named Shinatsu-hiko, and one feminine, called Shinatobe. They are also referred to as Ame no Mihashira (august-pillar125 of Heaven) and Kuni no Mihashira (august-pillar of Earth). Hirata supposes that it was by them that communication was maintained between earth and sky in the Age of the Gods, and that it is due to their agency that the prayers of men are heard in Heaven. Their shintai is a mirror.

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

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

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

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

The following facts suggest a different derivation: -

1. The Sun-mirror (hi-kagami, which may also mean "fire-mirror") is called in one writing128 the Ma-futsu no kagami (true-fire-mirror).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tree-Gods. – Individual trees of great age and size are everywhere worshipped in Japan. An ancient example of this cult is mentioned above, p. 158. At the present day the sacred trees are often to be seen girt with shimenaha135 and with tiny shrines at the bottom. The novelist Bakin, writing in the early part of the nineteenth century, tells of one which he visited near Uraga. It was a common-looking fir which had been struck by lightning, no doubt, Bakin says, before the spirit took up its abode there. This tree healed diseases of all kinds and brought luck to fishermen. People with sore eyes carried away the water which collected in a hollow part, and washed their eyes with it. Incense was burned to it.

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

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

There is a modern custom in places where fruit trees are grown for two men to go out into the orchard. One climbs up a tree while the other stands at the bottom with an axe. The latter asks whether it will have a good crop the next season, and threatens to cut it down if it fails to do so. Hereupon the man above answers for the tree, promising that it will bear plentifully. In Hitachi at the time of the Sai (or Sahe) no Kami feast (the first full moon of the year) a gruel is made of rice coloured red137 with adzuki beans. This is sprinkled on the fruit trees of the neighbourhood. The man who does so wears the straw covering of a rice-bag by way of hat, and takes with him an axe and the gruel vessel, saying to each tree, "Will you bear-will you bear, of bags 1,000 bags, of sacks 1,000 sacks? Say that you will bear." "I will bear, I will bear." Then he gives the tree three cuts with the axe, and pours the gruel on it.

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

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

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

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

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