Shinto

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 - As a source of food?] 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. (#FNanchor_165_165)

The liturgy entitled 'Praying for Harvest' was addressed to all the chief deities.[134 - See Index-Toshi-gohi.]

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 (#Page_158). At the present day the sacred trees are often to be seen girt with shimenaha[135 - See ndex.] 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 - Murray's 'Japan,' fifth edit., p. 383.] 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 red[137 - See Index-'Red.'] 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-tree
Whence 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.

Kaya nu hime. – The deity of herbs and grasses is called Kaya nu hime (reed-lady), or Nu-dzuchi (moor-father) or Kaya no mi-oya no Kami (reed-august-parent-deity). The chief reason for deifying trees and reeds was that they furnish materials for house-building, and are therefore deserving of our gratitude and worship.

Ko-dama. – The echo is called in Japan Ko-dama, or tree spirit.

House-Gods. – Our knowledge of these deities is chiefly derived from a norito in the Yengishiki.[138 - See Index-Yabune.] One part of this ritual speaks of Yabune, which may be either singular or plural; but further on in the same document we find Yabune Kukunochi and Yabune Toyo-uke-hime. Perhaps an original single deity has been split up into a wedded pair by a process of which Shinto affords other examples. Ya is "house," and fune, which usually means "ship," may also be applied to other wooden vessels, such as troughs or tubs. The ya-bune is therefore the shell[139 - Compare our "nave," from the Latin navis.] of the house. Kukunochi, as we have just seen, is the name of the Tree-God. Toyo-uke-hime, which means abundant-food-lady, has been identified with the Food-Goddess; but it is more probable that the prefix yabune was intended to distinguish her from that deity, as the same prefix made of Kukunochi a distinct God from the ordinary Tree-God. The functions of these Gods was to guard the palace building from harm of all kinds. No doubt each household had also its Yabune no Kami. Hirata, in his Tamadasuki, gives a prayer to this deity intended for general use.

The Oho-toma-hiko and Oho-toma-hime of the Nihongi and the Oho-ya-hiko of the Kojiki are also House-Gods. Nothing is known of them.

A certain sanctity attached to the central pillar of the house, called Daikoku-bashira or Imi-bashira (sacred pillar). The Daikoku-bashira is worshipped in some places on the 14th of the 1st month by offerings of rice-ears, flowers, rice bags, &c. The date indicates a connexion with the phallic Sahe no Kami.[140 - See below, p. 186. (#Page_186)]

Privy-God. – There is in modern times a God of the privy, who has no particular name, sex, or mythic record. Hirata, in his Tamadasuki, has provided a special form of prayer to him. He himself was his devout worshipper. He saluted the God on entering and leaving, and, that people might not forget this duty, recommends that a card be nailed on the door, with the inscription "Ojigi," or "good manners." According to him privies, as well as dunghills and all unclean places, are a favourite resort of evil spirits. They are haunted by flies and maggots, which are the fractional souls of bad men (a Buddhist notion?). There is, therefore, all the greater need to put ourselves under the protection of the presiding deity of the place. He deprecates spitting into it (which causes ophthalmia) or defiling it, and says that women who sweep it out daily and make offering to the God of a light on the last day of each month will be free from diseases below the girdle.

All this shows that the original identity of demons and diseases has not yet been wholly lost sight of in Japan.

Gate-Gods. – Kushi-iha-mado (wondrous-rock-door) and Toyo-iha-mado (rich-rock-door). These two Gods are known to us from the norito entitled Mikado no matsuri.[141 - See Index, s. v.] They are obviously personifications of the gates of the Palace. But the difficulty presents itself that these Gods are (apparently) two in number, these two being differentiated out of one original deity by the honorary epithets kushi and toyo, while the gates of the Palace were much more numerous. If it is the gate itself, and not the spirit of the gate, which is worshipped, there ought to be as many Gods as gates. Hirata would no doubt explain this by saying that there are really only two Gods, but that each gate is occupied by a mitama, or emanation from them. It seems more probable that the ancient Japanese had no very definite ideas on the subject. They conceived of the gates as in some way or another instinct with life and exercising certain protective functions; but whether there were two deities for each gate or two for all collectively was a question which did not occur to them. It must be remembered that the Japanese language seldom takes the trouble to distinguish between singular and plural. This is merely another way of saying that the nation is comparatively indifferent to number, whether of Gods or gates. Whether the Gate-divinity is one or several does not trouble them.

2. GODS OF ABSTRACTIONS

Izanagi and Izanami. – The conspicuous position given by the mythical narrative[142 - See above, p. 86. (#FNanchor_54_54)] to these personifications of the dual creative powers of the universe has little to correspond with it in cult and ritual. Although they are no doubt to be reckoned among the Dii majores of Japan, they occupy a much lower place than the Sun-Goddess and the Food-Goddess.

Izanagi and Izanami are evidently creations of subsequent date to the Sun-Goddess and other concrete deities, for whose existence they were intended to account. I have little doubt that they were suggested by the Yin and Yang,[143 - In Japanese In and Yō.] or female and male principles of Chinese philosophy. Indeed there is a passage in the Nihongi in which these terms are actually applied to them. It may be said, and Motoöri does say, that the Yin and Yang are foreign ideas which have found their way into a purely native myth. We must remember, however, that the Japanese myths as we have them date from a period three centuries after the introduction of Chinese learning into Japan, and that there was communication with China hundreds of years earlier still. It would, therefore, not be strange if some knowledge of the fundamental principle of Chinese philosophy and science had reached the Japanese long before the Kojiki and Nihongi were written.

I conjecture that the early part of the Nihongi, taken in the order of the original composition of the myths which it comprises, would be somewhat as follows: – First the Sun-myth, which is the nucleus of all, next that of the creation by Izanagi and Izanami, then the more abstract Musubi and a number of ill-defined creations of some idle fancy which precede him. Last of all was composed the philosophic proem with which the book opens.

Izanagi and Izanami belong to that stage of religious progress in which the conception has been reached of powerful sentient beings separate from external nature. Untrue in itself, it has served a useful purpose. It is obviously easier for nations with little scientific knowledge to conceive of the same being as a ruler or parent of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, with all its human concerns, than to recognize in these phenomena a harmonious living whole. The common parentage of Izanagi and Izanami formed a link of union between the different aspects of nature which did not previously exist, and thus was in so far a step towards monotheism.

The manner of creation is variously represented. In no case is anything made out of nothing. The first act of creation was the formation of an island out of the drippings of the brine of the chaos-ocean from a spear. The other parts of Japan and many of the deities were produced by the ordinary process of generation. The functions of Izanagi and Izanami are elsewhere described as "putting in order and fully consolidating" the floating land beneath. This is precisely what Ohonamochi is represented as doing several generations of Gods later. Deities were also produced from Izanagi's clothing and staff which he threw down on his flight from Yomi, and from his eyes and nose when he washed in the sea to remove the impurity contracted by his visit thither. The Wind-God was his breath and the Gods of Water and Clay were formed of the urine and fœces of Izanami when she was about to die. These ideas, though not quite identical with, are closely related to the legends of other countries which describe the creation of the universe from the fragments of a fabulous anthropomorphic being. The Chinese myth of P'anku has been already quoted.[144 - See above, p. 129. (#Page_129)] Norse story tells how "the vast frame of the world-giant Hymi was completely cut up by the sons of Bor, with Woden at their head. From Hymi's flesh they made the earth, from his bones the mountains, from his skull the heavens, from his blood the sea."[145 - Rhys, 'Celtic Heathendom,' p. 115.]

There is nothing spiritual about these two deities. All their actions are modelled not on those of ghosts, but on those of living men. Even when Izanami dies and goes down to the land of Yomi, she does not become a ghost, but a putrefying corpse.

Their shintai is a mirror.

A Japanese writer[146 - 'In Japan,' edited by Capt. Brinkley.] says: "In the beginning of all sentient things we have two Supreme Beings, Izanagi and Izanami." Even if we admit the possible existence of two Supreme Beings, Izanagi and Izanami hardly realize our conception of the Supreme. They acted by command of other pre-existing deities, and their creation is limited. It does not include all the Gods, and, as is only natural, is confined to Japan. The creation of mankind is nowhere accounted for in Japanese myth. There is, however, a modicum of truth in this writer's statement. Though not the first sentient beings, Izanagi and Izanami are the first who stand out with any distinct characterization, and, although not supreme, they represent a movement, feeble and abortive it is true, towards the co-ordination of all the aspects of divinity in one Supreme Being.

Motoöri proposed, and most European scholars have accepted, a derivation of Izanagi and Izanami from izanafu, a verb which means to invite, to instigate, the terminations gi and mi meaning respectively male deity and female deity. Hence the translation "Male who invites" and "Female who invites." There are, however, grave difficulties in the way of this interpretation. It is scarcely appropriate in the case of the female deity. Moreover, we must take into account the fact that these are not the only pairs of deities in which the terminations nagi and nami occur. We have also an Aha-nagi (foam-God) and Aha-nami (foam-Goddess), a Tsura-nagi (bubble-God) and Tsura-nami (bubble-Goddess), and a Sa-nagi (rapid-God) and Sa-nami (rapid-Goddess), in all of which na does not belong to the first part of the word, but is put for no, the genitive particle, by a letter-change of which we have other examples. The first element of Izanagi is, therefore, not izana but iza, which is met with as an exclamation of incitement. The harshness of making an interjection followed by a genitive particle is obvious. I am disposed to prefer the derivation which takes Iza as the name of a place. The Nihongi mentions a "true well" of Isa or Iza. There are two places called Isa in Hitachi, and an Isa no Jinja, or shrine of Isa, in Idzumo. It is even possible that these Gods are simply the Gods of Ise (Ise no gi and Ise no mi). A similar letter-change takes place in manabuta, eyelid, for me no futa, and tanasuye for te no suye. The difference between s and z is of little consequence in Japanese.

Musubi, the God of Growth. – Musubi illustrates a different conception of creation from that of the myths of Ohonamochi and Izanagi and Izanami. This God is the abstract process of growth personified-that is, a power immanent in nature and not external to it. The emotion which prompts this personification-so natural to an agricultural people-is well portrayed in the words of a Kafir to the French traveller M. Arbrouseille: "Do I know how the corn sprouts? Yesterday there was not a blade in my field: to-day I returned to the field and found some. Who can have given the earth the wisdom and power to produce it? Then I buried my head in both hands." But while the emotion is the same, the Japanese conception differs. Musubi means growth or production. It is connected with the word umu, to bear, to bring forth, and with musu, to grow, to be born. Musu is said of moss growing on a stone and of ice forming on water. Musuko, a boy, and musume, a girl, contain the same element. As a God's name, Musubi is usually found with one of the laudatory adjectives, taka, high, or kamu, divine, prefixed to it. To these the honorific particle mi is commonly added, giving the forms Taka-mi-musubi and Kamu-mi-musubi. Even in the Kojiki and Nihongi these are recognized as two distinct deities. The Yengishiki (901-922) enumerates three more Musubi deities, and to these still others might be added. In poetry a single God Musubi is alone met with, and the Wamiōshō recognizes but one such deity. Probably the division into several persons was an esoteric refinement of which the people took little heed.

Whether we have regard to his name or to the somewhat meagre notices in the Kojiki and Nihongi, there is nothing spiritual in the Japanese conception of Musubi. But the scribes learned in Chinese who committed the old myths to writing sometimes use characters which imply a spiritual view of his nature. They mean "producing-spirit."

He is also called mi oya, or august parent. Hirata thinks that Taka-musubi and Kamu-musubi are husband and wife, the Kamurogi (progenitor) and Kamuromi (progenitrix) of the norito, and condemns his master Motoöri for holding that we have in these deities a unity in duality and a duality in unity. But his reasons are not quite convincing, and there is a passage in the Kojiki which cannot be reconciled with his view. The same author points out the resemblance of this God to the Hindu Siva, who represents the fructifying principle, the generating power that pervades the universe, producing sun, moon, stars, animals, and plants. Siva is represented in his temples by a phallus, and Hirata conjectures that this was likewise the shintai of Musubi.

Musubi is sometimes called the Inochi no Kami, or God of life. The creation of mankind is attributed to him in a poem of the Jiu-i-shiu, where a rejected lover exclaims: -

"I hate not thee,
It is the God I hate,
Great Musubi: -
Why did he men create
Unto so hard a fate?"