[269] Yomi or Hades.
[270] Swift-banishment-lady.
[271] A horse was one of the expiatory offerings. It seems here to typify the attentive attitude of the audience, or perhaps of the deities concerned.
[272] Harahi-zare. There is some confusion here between the offences and the expiatory offerings. The harahi-tsu-mono were then taken away and thrown into some convenient river. I suspect, however, that most of them were not thrown away, but went to provide a fund for the expenses of the ceremony. It is not clear what became of the horse or of the slaves. The harahi-tsu-mono were not gifts to any particular Gods, but rather, like the scape-goat of the Mosaic law, vehicles by which the transgressions of the people were conveyed away. But it is better not to put this too sweepingly. There is reason to think that by some they were thought to be offerings to Se-ori-tsu-hime and the other deities mentioned. At the present day they consist of a few pieces of cloth.
[273] See 'Notes of some Minor Japanese Religious Practices,' by Mr. B. H. Chamberlain, in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, May, 1893, and Sir E. Satow's 'Visit to the Shrines of Ise,' T. A. S. J., 1874.
[275] That is, "did honour to."
[276] These deities were worshipped at cross-roads, and were called the eight-cross-road deities.
[277] The date of one Sahe no Kami festival.
[278] Written on paper and thrown into the flames.
[280] See above, pp. 189-190.
[282] That is, died.
[283] What was the God of Fire in the previous sentence is here simply "Fire."
[284] A branch of the Nakatomi, who claimed descent from Koyane, one of the four Gods worshipped.
[285] From a modern collection entitled Norito Bunrei.
[286] In the north of Japan.
[287] A Buddhist title.
[289] 'Yenzeki Zasshi,' v. 1.
[291] After the manner of the Oho-harahi offerings.
[292] 'The Golden Bough,' second edition, p. 9.
[293] I cannot offer any explanation of the magic used by women and children in order to bring fine weather. They hang upside down to the eaves or on the branch of a tree human figures cut in paper, and called Teri-teri-bōzu (shine-shine-priest).
[295] I. 157.
[296] 'The Mikado's Empire,' p. 474.
[297] See also Ch. K. 263.
[298] According to Van Helmont, the reason why bull's fat is so powerful in a vulnerary ointment is that the bull at the time of slaughter is full of secret reluctancy and vindictive murmurs, and therefore dies with a higher flame of revenge about him than any other animal.
[299] See 'Primitive Culture,' i. 116, where numerous examples of symbolic magic are given.
[301] The Tsuchigumo (earth-hiders) were men of a low class, who lived in dwellings sunk in the earth, and gave much trouble to the Japanese Government in ancient times. Dr. Tylor, in his 'Primitive Culture,' i. 113, has noted the tendency to attribute magical powers to pariahs and foreigners. Sukunabikona, the teacher of magic to Japan, came from abroad.
[305] Nihongi, ii. 82.
[307] Koyane. Hirata speaks with scorn of the Chinese methods of divining current in Japan in later times, in which no invocation of the Gods was used. Sometimes other Gods, and even Buddhas, were invoked.
[308] "The King of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to perform divination."--Ezekiel xxi. 21.
[309] Pausanias says that in ancient Greece the inquirer, after asking his question of the God and making his offering, took as the divine answer the first words he might hear on quitting the sanctuary.
[310] The date of the festival of the Sahe no Kami.
[312] The Kami-yori-ita (God-resort-board), struck in later times to bring down the Gods, is believed to be a substitute for this harp.
[313] It is not known who these Gods were.
[314] Smaller gohei used in the harahi ceremony.
[315] Weston, 'Mountaineering in the Japanese Alps,' p. 307. See also Index, Inugami; and Mr. Chamberlain's 'Things Japanese,' third edition, p. 110.
[316] Compare the story of Gideon's fleece in Judges vi. 37. See also Nihongi, I. 237, and Ch. K. 194.
[317] 'Sociology,' i. 154.
[318] See Mr. P. Lowell's 'Occult Japan,' p. 36.
[319] Kannushi.
[320] Saniha (pure court) is explained as the official who examines the utterances prompted by the Deity.
[321] At the battle of Dannoüra, in 1184.
[322] In-musubi, a Chinese practice.
[323] A Buddhist religious implement.
[324] A Buddhist deity. The incense is also Buddhist.
[326] An excellent account of a Japanese hypnotic séance is given in Mr. Weston's 'Mountaineering in the Japanese Alps,' p. 282.
[328] "Antiquity regarded the soul of woman as more accessible to every sort of inspiration, which also, according to ancient opinion, is a πάσχεον."--Müller, 'Sc. Myth.,' p. 217.
[331] For an account of Japanese Buddhism, consult Murray's 'Japan,' or the more comprehensive description in Griffis's 'Religions of Japan.'
[333] The novelist Bakin, who cannot be charged with priestcraft, says: "Shinto reverences the way of the Sun; the Chinese philosophers honour Heaven; the teaching of Shaka fails not to make the Sun a deity. Among differences of doctrine the fundamental principle is the same."
[334] In the old Shinto, Ne no kuni, or Hades, is not a place of punishment for the wicked. Here it stands for the Jigoku, or Hell, of the Buddhists.
[335] That is, Nature--a Chinese idea.
[336] This is Chinese.
[337] A Buddhist designation.
[338] And therefore unclean.
[340] As Sugahara himself was.
[343] Alluding to the inner and outer shrines of Ise.
[344] For a full account of the Revival of Pure Shinto, see Sir E. Satow's papers contributed to the T. A. S. J. in 1875. Our knowledge of Shinto dates from this time.
[345] An interesting account of this sect is given in a paper by Dr. Greene in the T. A. S. J., December, 1895.
[346] See papers by Dr. Greene and Rev. A. Lloyd in the T. A. S. J., 1901.