Shinto

Clapping Hands. – Clapping hands (kashihade), primarily a sign of joy, as it still is in our nurseries, was in ancient times in Japan a general token of respect. The Nihongi176 states that the Ministers clapped hands in honour of the Empress when she ascended the throne. More recently, this form was confined to divine worship. One of the norito has the rubric, "Offer three cups of sake, clap hands, and retire." The number of hand-clappings was minutely prescribed in the old ritual. In some ceremonies it was done thirty-two times. A silent hand-clapping (shinobi-te) was sometimes directed. It seems possible that in Shinto at least this was the origin of the simple folding of the hands in prayer, common to so many nations, and explained by anthropologists as the attitude of an unresisting suppliant holding out his hands for the cord.

Other Gestures. – Respect may also be shown by raising objects to the forehead or placing them on the head (ita-daku), as the most honourable and important part of the body. This is done in the case of the implements used in the greater divination. Among less formal gestures used in worship are reverent upward looks (awogu), an almost instinctive practice, which has its root in the idea that Heaven is the dwelling-place of the Gods, and has certainly nothing to do with ghost-worship.

I cannot point to any case of prostration or of uncovering the feet as a form of Shinto worship. Uncovering the head is known in modern times, but I do not find it mentioned in the older ritual.

Offerings. – As the attitude of devotees towards myth varies according to their intelligence and culture, some distinguishing, more or less clearly, between the truth which it adumbrates and its fictitious embroidery, and others accepting it indiscriminately as absolute fact, as the image is by some regarded simply as an aid to devotion and by others as a true representation of the God, or even as the God himself, so in the case of offerings, a double current of opinion is to be traced. There are always worshippers who well know that the God does not eat the food, drink the wine, or wear the clothing which is laid upon his altar; but there are also more literal-minded people who cling, in the face of cogent evidence to the contrary, to the idea that in some ill-defined way he does benefit physically by such offerings. A story in the Konjaku Monogatari tells how a boy, possessed of superior insight, could see the devils carrying away the offerings of the purification ceremony. Even Hirata, a highly educated man, thought that food-offerings lost their savour in a way that is inexplicable by natural causes. Incense and burnt-offerings are adapted to the mental capacity of worshippers of this class.177 The true reason for making offerings, whether to Gods or to the dead, is to be sought elsewhere. Men feel impelled to do something to show their gratitude for the great benefits which they are daily receiving, and to conciliate the future favour of the powers from whom they proceed. Offerings are part of the language by which the intention of the worshipper is manifested to Gods and men. It is in this rather than in any supposed actual benefit that their chief value consists. The norito state explicitly that the offerings were symbolical. They are called iya-jiro no mitegura, or offerings in token of respect. There is frequent mention of "fulfilling the praises" of the Gods by plenteous offerings. Symbolic gifts are, of course, not confined to religion. In ancient Greece a gift of earth and water indicated a surrender of political independence.

It is on the recognition of the symbolical value of offerings that the practice of substituting humaner, cheaper, or more convenient articles rests. Shinto has many illustrations of this principle.

I shall only mention Herbert Spencer's view that "the origin of the practice of making offerings is to be found in the custom of leaving food and drink at the graves of the dead, and as the ancestral spirit rose to divine rank, the refreshments placed for the dead developed into sacrifices." It must stand or fall with his general theory of the origin of religion, of which the reader will form his own judgment. I would suggest that the earliest offering was rather a portion of the ordinary meal set apart in grateful recognition of the source from which it came.

I find little or nothing in Shinto to bear out Jevons's opinion that "the core of worship is communion. Offerings in the sense of gifts are a comparatively modern institution both in ancestor-worship and in the worship of the Gods." Communion is, of course, out of the question in the case of the various offerings of clothing and implements. Even in the case of food-offerings there is no evidence in Shinto of a "joint participation in the living flesh and blood of a sacred victim."178

The general object of making offerings is to propitiate the God. There are several cases in the norito where they are made by way of reward for their services or in bargain for future blessings.179 Some are expiatory, and are made with the object of absolving the worshipper from ritual impurity. These are called aga-mono, or "ransom things."

Offerings were frequently duplicated, no doubt in order that one set at least of the things offered should be free from chance pollution.

Offerings were sometimes personified, and even deified, as in the Jimmu legend,180 where the food-offering is styled Idzu-uka no me, sacred-food-female. Most of the shintai were originally nothing more than offerings.

Shinto offerings are of the most varied description. The Gods being conceived of as beings animated by human sentiments, it is inferred that anything which would give pleasure to men is suitable for offering to a God.

Food and Drink. – The primary and most important form of offering is food and drink. The Jimmu legend, a very ancient document, speaks of none but food-offerings. The word nihe, an element in the names of some of the great festivals, means food-offerings. The central feature of the most solemn rite of Shinto, namely, the oho-nihe, was the offering of rice and sake to the Gods by the Mikado on his accession to the throne. The norito add clothing, and the Yengishiki a great variety of other articles. There are several instances in history of the substitution of cloth for an older food-offering. Under food are included rice, in ear and in grain, hulled and in husk, rice cakes, fruit, sea-ear, shell-fish, vegetables, edible seaweed, salt, sake, water, deer, pigs, hare, wild boar, and birds of various kinds. In 642 horses and cattle were sacrificed in order to produce rain. But even at this early period such sacrifices were condemned. They were no doubt a revival in a case of national emergency of a practice which under Buddhist influence had become more or less obsolete. There are numerous indications that animal sacrifices were very common in the most ancient times. In the Yengishiki period offerings of four-footed animals or their flesh were confined to four services, namely, that of the Food-Goddess, of the Wind-Gods, of the Road-Gods, and that for driving away maleficent deities.

There is no evidence in the older Shinto records of the use of incense or of burnt-offerings, nor is any special importance attached to the blood of slaughtered animals.

White being considered an auspicious colour, white animals were frequently selected for sacrifice.

At the present time the daily offerings made to the Sun-Goddess and the Food-Goddess at Ise consist of four cups of sake, sixteen saucers of rice and four of salt, besides fish, birds, fruits, seaweed, and vegetables. The annual offerings at the tomb of the first Mikado, Jimmu, are products of mountain, river, and sea, including tahi (a fish), carp, edible sea-weed, salt, water, sake, mochi (rice-cake), fern-flour, pheasants, and wild ducks.

Clothing. – The clothing of the ancient Japanese consisted of hemp, yuju (a fibre made of the inner bark of the paper mulberry), and silk. All these materials are represented in the Shinto offerings enumerated in the Yengishiki. Silk, however, was at this time still somewhat of a novelty, and, therefore, religion being conservative, it takes a less conspicuous place. But hemp and bark-fibre, with the textiles woven from them, are very common offerings. They were more convenient than perishable articles of food for sending to shrines at a distance from the capital, and as cloth was the currency of the day, it was a convenient substitute for unprocurable or objectionable articles. In the Yengishiki so many ounces of fibre or so many pieces of cloth are prescribed, but at a later period a more specialized and conventional form, called oho-nusa (great-offering), came into use. The oho-nusa (p. 214) consists of two wands placed side by side, from the ends of which depend a quantity of hempen fibre and a number of strips of paper.181 One of the wands is of the cleyera japonica, or evergreen sacred tree. The other is a bamboo of a particular species. Their use is connected with an old Japanese rule of etiquette that presents to a superior should be delivered attached to a branch of a tree, the object being doubtless to mark a respectful aloofness of the giver from the receiver. The paper slips represent the yufu, or mulberry-bark fibre. The use of yufu for clothing having become more or less obsolete, owing to the introduction of cotton, paper, which in Japan is made of the same material, was substituted for it. The oho-nusa are still employed on important occasions, but for general use they are now replaced by the well-known gohei (p. 215), in which the hemp and one of the wands are omitted. Another form of nusa, called ko-nusa (little nusa) or kiri-nusa (cut-nusa), consists of paper with leaves of the sacred tree chopped up and mixed with rice. Travellers in ancient times carried this mixture with them in a bag and made offerings of it to the phallic deities along their way. It was also used when in danger of shipwreck. The same system of "accommodements avec le ciel" is further illustrated by the substitution of the still more inexpensive hemp leaves for the original hempen fibre or fabric. If, it is argued, the God does not really eat the food or wear the clothing placed on his altar, a few grains of rice or a few leaves of hemp will answer the purpose of expressing the sentiments of the worshipper just as well as more costly gifts.

There were sometimes sets of coloured gohei-blue, yellow, red, white, and black. The awo-nigi-te (blue-soft-articles) and shira-nigi-te (white-soft-articles) consisted of hemp and bark fibre respectively.

Tama-gushi are often mentioned. I take it that in this combination tama means gift or offering, not spirit or jewel, as is taught by some modern Japanese authorities. Kushi means skewer. The tama-gushi are twigs of the sacred evergreen tree (sakaki) or of bamboo, with tufts of yufu attached. They are, in short, a simple form of nusa or gohei. They have a striking resemblance to the ἰκτηρἰοις κλάδοισιν (suppliant branches) mentioned in the opening lines of 'Œdipus Tyrannus' and explained by Jebb as "olive branches wreathed with fillets of wool." In one Nihongi myth, Susa no wo is said to have planted kushi in the rice-fields of his sister, the Sun-Goddess, "by way of claiming ownership," says a commentator. Compare with this the following quotation from Hakluyt's 'Historie of the West Indies': "Every one [of the Caribs] encloseth his portion [of ground] onely with a little cotton line, and they account it a matter of sacriledge if any pass over the cord and treade on the possession of his neighbour, and hold it for certayne that whoso violateth this sacred thing shall shortly perish."

Along with the alteration in the form of the nusa to the present gohei there came a change in the mental attitude of the worshipper. Originally mere offerings, they were at length, by virtue of long association, looked upon as representatives of the deity. Scholars like Motoöri and Hirata denounce this view as a corruption of later times, but it is no doubt at present the prevailing conception. Hepburn's Japanese dictionary knows no other. It is illustrated by the fact that instead of the worshipper bringing gohei to the shrine, these objects are now given out by the priest to the worshipper, who takes them home and sets them up in his private Kami-dana (God-shelf) or domestic altar.

A further step is taken when it is believed that on festival occasions the God, on a certain formula, called the Kami-oroshi, or "bringing down the God," being pronounced, descends into the gohei and remains there during the ceremony, taking his departure at its close. In the vulgar Shinto of the present day this belief in a real presence of the God is associated with hypnotism.182 Akin to the belief in an actual presence of a deity in the gohei is their modern use in the purification ceremony, when they are flourished over or rubbed against the person to be absolved of ritual uncleanness or to dispel any evil influences which may have attached themselves to his person. Like the Homeric στέμμα and the host, they were occasionally used for the protection of the bearer. At the present time a gohei-katsugi, or gohei bearer, is synonymous with a superstitious person.

Skins of oxen, boar, deer, and bear were sometimes offered to the Gods.

Jewels (tama) were much worn by the ancient Japanese nobility as ornaments for the head or as necklaces and bracelets. They consisted of round beads, tubes (kuda-tama), and comma-shaped objects (maga-tama) of chalcedony, jasper, nephrite, chrysoprase, serpentine, steatite or crystal. Jewels occur sometimes in the lists of Shinto offerings.

Mirrors. – The ancient Japanese mirrors did not greatly differ from those in use at the present day. They were made of a mixed metal, which is described in the myths as "white copper," and were sometimes round and sometimes eight-cornered. The mirror figures frequently in the old records. Mirrors are among the presents made by a female chieftain to a Mikado, and from a King of Korea to another Mikado.183 The mirror was primarily an offering, and not to the Sun-Goddess only.184 Mirrors were presented to, and even constituted the shintai of other Gods as well. In the Tosa Nikki (a. d. 935) the author relates that during a storm, an offering of nusa having proved unavailing, he bethought him of some more acceptable gift. "Of eyes I have a pair," said he, "then, let me give the God my mirror of which I have only one. The mirror was accordingly flung into the sea, to my very great regret. But no sooner had I done so than the sea itself became as smooth as a mirror."

Mirrors do not appear among the periodical offerings enumerated in the Yengishiki, which consisted chiefly of perishable articles. They belonged to a separate class called shimpō, or divine treasures, which were not set out on the altar but stored in the treasury of the shrine.

Weapons. – Swords were also among the permanent treasures of the shrine. Wonderful stories are related of them. One which was stolen by a thief is said to have left him and returned to the treasury of its own accord. Swords were made shintai, and even deified.185 The God worshipped at Atsuta was the sword Kusanagi, found by Susa no wo in the great serpent's tail, and the God of Isonokami was the sword called Futsu no Mitama (spirit of fire?) given by the Sun-Goddess to Jimmu. I have no doubt that these were originally "divine treasures," which owed their deification to long association with the God. A sword is one of the regalia at the present day.

The principle of substitution is illustrated by the models of swords prescribed as offerings in the Yengishiki. I have seen on the top of Ohoyama, sacred to a Goddess named Sekison (Iha-naga-hime?), a pit containing many hundreds of tiny wooden swords which had been deposited there as offerings.

Other weapons which figure as offerings are spears, spear-heads, shields, and bows and arrows.

Agricultural implements, bells, pottery, reels for reeling yarn, are also mentioned. It was the custom, in the case of these and other durable offerings, to offer the same objects again and again.

Human sacrifices formed no part of the State Shinto religion as described in the ancient records. But there are several indications of the existence of this practice in still older times. Human sacrifices to river-Gods have been already mentioned. We have seen that when a Mikado died a number of his attendants were buried alive round his tomb, from which it may be inferred that considerations of humanity would not have prevented similar sacrifices to the Gods. Cases are also recorded of men being buried alive in the foundations of a bridge, a castle, or an artificial island. These were called hito-bashira, or human pillars. The offerings of kane-hito-gata (metal-man-form), so often mentioned in the Yengishiki, were perhaps by way of substitution for human victims. It is significant that the Gods of water-distribution (mikumari), that is, the river-Gods, are specially distinguished as their recipients. Similar human effigies, gilt or silvered, formed part of the oho-harahi, or absolution offerings. In this case they were intended as ransom for the offenders whose ritual guilt was to be expiated. They were touched with the lips or breathed upon before being offered. Peachwood or paper effigies might be substituted, and in later times articles of clothing or anything which had been in contact with the person to be absolved. These last were called nade-mono (rub-thing) or aga-mono (ransom-thing). When in danger of shipwreck the hair might be cut off and offered, on the principle of a part for the whole, as ransom to the Dragon-God. The Kogo-jiui applies the term aga-mono to the hair and nails of Susa no wo, which were cut off by the other Gods. The principle of ransom is also illustrated by the following extract from the Shinto Miōmoku (1699): -

"At the festival of Nawoye, held at the shrine of Kokubu in the province of Owari on the 11th day of the 1st month, the Shinto priests go out to the highway with banners and seize a passer-by. They wash and purify him, and make him put on pure clothing. He is then brought before the God. A block, a wooden butcher's knife, and chopsticks for eating flesh are provided. Separately a figure is made to represent the captive. It is placed on the block with the captured man beside it, and both are offered before the God. They are left there for one night. The next morning the priests come and remove the man and the effigy. Then they take clay, and, making it into the shape of a rice-cake, place it on the captive's back, hang a string of copper cash about his neck, and drive him away. As he runs off, he is sure to fall down in a faint. But he soon comes to his senses. A mound is erected at the place where he falls down, and the clay rice-cake deposited on it with ceremonies which are kept a profound mystery by the priestly house. Of late years couriers have been caught and subjected to purification. This was put a stop to. The custom is celebrated yearly, so that nowadays everybody is aware of it, and there are no passersby. Therefore the priests go to a neighbouring village and seize a man. If they catch nobody on the 11th, they bring in a man on the 12th."

The Nawoye (rectification) festival had probably the same intention as the Harahi, namely, to obtain absolution from ritual impurity, and the captive is therefore apparently a scape-goat. As readers of Mr. Frazer's 'Golden Bough' need not be told, the custom has numerous parallels in European folk-lore. There is some difficulty in applying the principle of substitution for an actual human sacrifice to a custom which was in force so recently. It does not appear probable that it could have descended from such a remote antiquity as the time when real human sacrifice was known in Japan. Might not the instinct of dramatic make-believe alone account for it? Confucius condemned the practice of offering effigies of men on funeral occasions because he thought it led to the substitution of living victims.

Slaves. – Another form of human offerings was the dedication of slaves to the service of a shrine. Such slaves were called kami-tsu-ko, and are to be distinguished from the kamube, who were freemen. The gift by the legendary Yamatodake to a shrine of a number of Yemishi (eastern savages) whom he had captured is to be understood in this sense. There is a more historical instance in the Nihongi, under the date a. d. 469, when a seamstress was presented to the shrine of Ohonamochi. In 562 a man was allowed to be given over to the hafuri as a slave for the service of the Gods instead of being burnt alive for a criminal offence committed by his father.

Horses. – Presents of horses to shrines are often mentioned. They were let loose in the precinct. At the present day albinos are selected for this purpose, white being considered an auspicious colour. Wooden figures might be substituted by those who could not afford real horses. At the festivals of Gion and Hachiman men riding on hobby-horses (koma-gata) or with a wooden horse's head attached to their breasts formed part of the procession. They no doubt represented riding-horses for the deity. In more recent times the further step was taken of offering pictures of horses. This practice became so common that special buildings, called emadō (horse-picture-gallery) were erected for their accommodation. But they contained many other pictures as well. The emadō of Kiyomidzu in Kiōto and of Itsukushima in the Inland Sea are very curious collections of this kind. They correspond to the ex-voto churches of Roman Catholic countries.

Carriages. – The Mikoshi, or carriage of the God (pp. 224, 225), in which his shintai is promenaded on festival occasions, is usually a very elaborate and costly construction. It is carried on men's shoulders to a tabi no miya (travel-shrine) or reposoir and back again to the shrine. The confusion in many minds between the shintai and the mitama is illustrated by the fact that a standard modern dictionary speaks of the Mikoshi as containing the God's mitama.

Shrines. – A shrine is a species of offering. Whatever may be the case in other countries, in Japan the shrine is not a development of the tomb. They have no resemblance to each other. The tomb is a partly subterranean megalithic vault enclosed in a huge mound of earth, while the shrine is a wooden structure raised on posts some feet above the ground. The Japanese words for shrine indicate that it is intended as a house for the God. Miya, august house, is used equally of a shrine and of a palace, but not of a tomb, except poetically, as when the Manyōshiu speaks of one as a toko no miya, or "long home." Araka, another word for shrine, probably means "dwelling-place." In yashiro, a very common word for shrine, ya means house and shiro representative or equivalent. There is evidence186 that this word comes to us from a time when the yashiro was a plot of ground consecrated for the occasion to represent a place of abode for the deity. The analogy of the Roman templum will occur to the classical scholar. The himorogi (p. 226), a term which has been the subject of some controversy, was probably, as Hirata suggests, at first an enclosure of sakaki twigs stuck in the ground so as to represent a house. It is probable that in all these cases the make-believe preceded any actual edifice, and was not a substitute for it.

There is a somewhat rare word, namely oki-tsuki, properly a mound, which is applied to both tombs and shrines. Old sepulchral mounds have frequently a small shrine on their summit.