Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation

WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION When the time came for the Fire-god, Kagu-Tsuchi, to be born, his mother, Izanami-no-Mikoto, was burnt, and suffered change, and departed. Then Izanagi-no-Mikoto, was wroth and said, "Oh! that I should have given my loved younger sister in exchange for a single child!" He crawled at her head and he crawled at her feet, weeping and lamenting; and the tears which he shed fell down and became a deity …. Thereafter Izanagi-no-Mikoto went after Izanami-no-Mikoto into the Land of Yomi, the world of the dead. Then Izanami-no-Mikoto, appearing still as she was when alive, lifted the curtain of the palace (of the dead), and came forth to meet him; and they talked together. And Izanagi-no-Mikoto said to her: "I have come because I sorrowed for thee, my lovely younger sister. O my lovely younger sister, the lands that I and thou were making together are not [113] yet finished; therefore come back!" Then Izanami-no-Mikoto made answer, saying, "My august lord and husband, lamentable it is that thou didst not come sooner,—for now I have eaten of the cooking-range of Yomi. Nevertheless, as I am thus delightfully honoured by thine entry here, my lovely elder brother, I wish to return with thee to the living world. Now I go to discuss the matter with the gods of Yomi. Wait thou here, and look not upon me." So having spoken, she went back; and Izanagi waited for her. But she tarried so long within that he became impatient. Then, taking the wooden comb that he wore in the left bunch of his hair, he broke off a tooth from one end of the comb and lighted it, and went in to look for Izanami-no-Mikoto. But he saw her lying swollen and festering among worms; and eight kinds of Thunder-Gods sat upon her …. And Izanagi, being overawed by that sight, would have fled away; but Izanami rose up, crying: "Thou hast put me to shame! Why didst thou not observe that which I charged thee?… Thou hast seen my nakedness; now I will see thine!" And she bade the Ugly Females of Yomi to follow after him, and slay him; and the eight Thunders also pursued him, and Izanami herself pursued him …. Then Izanagi-no-Mikoto drew his sword, and flourished it behind him as he ran. But they followed close upon him. He took off his black headdress and flung it down; [114] and it became changed into grapes; and while the Ugly Ones were eating the grapes, he gained upon them. But they followed quickly; and he then took his comb and cast it down, and it became changed into bamboo sprouts; and while the Ugly Ones were devouring the sprouts, he fled on until he reached the mouth of Yomi. Then taking a rock which it would have required the strength of a thousand men to lift, he blocked therewith the entrance as Izanami came up. And standing behind the rock, he began to pronounce the words of divorce. Then, from the other side of the rock, Izanami cried out to him, "My dear lord and master, if thou dost so, in one day will I strangle to death a thousand of thy people!" And Izanagi-no-Mikoto answered her, saying, "My beloved younger sister, if thou dost so, I will cause in one day to be born fifteen hundred …." But the deity Kukuri-hime-no-Kami then came, and spake to Izanami some word which she seemed to approve, and thereafter she vanished away …. The strange mingling of pathos with nightmare-terror in this myth, of which I have not ventured to present all the startling naiveti, sufficiently proves its primitive character. It is a dream that some one really dreamed,—one of those bad dreams in which the figure of a person beloved becomes horribly transformed; and it has a particular interest as [115] expressing that fear of death and of the dead informing all primitive ancestor-worship. The whole pathos and weirdness of the myth, the vague monstrosity of the fancies, the formal use of terms of endearment in the moment of uttermost loathing and fear,—all impress one as unmistakably Japanese. Several other myths scarcely less remarkable are to be found in the Ko-ji-ki and Nihongi; but they are mingled with legends of so light and graceful a kind that it is scarcely possible to believe these latter to have been imagined by the same race. The story of the magical jewels and the visit to the sea-god's palace, for example, in the second book of the Nihongi, sounds oddly like an Indian fairy-tale; and it is not unlikely that the Ko-ji-ki and Nihongi both contain myths derived from various alien sources. At all events their mythical chapters present us with some curious problems which yet remain unsolved. Otherwise the books are dull reading, in spite of the light which they shed upon ancient customs and beliefs; and, generally speaking, Japanese mythology is unattractive. But to dwell here upon the mythology, at any length, is unnecessary; for its relation to Shinto can be summed up in the space of a single brief paragraph— In the beginning neither force nor form was manifest; and the world was a shapeless mass that floated [116] like a jelly-fish upon water. Then, in some way—we are not told how—earth and heaven became separated; dim gods appeared and disappeared; and at last there came into existence a male and a female deity, who gave birth and shape to things. By this pair, Izanagi and Izanami, were produced the islands of Japan, and the generations of the gods, and the deities of the Sun and Moon. The descendants of these creating deities, and of the gods whom they brought into being, were the eight thousand (or eighty thousand) myriads of gods worshipped by Shinto. Some went to dwell in the blue Plain of High Heaven; others remained on earth and became the ancestors of the Japanese race. Such is the mythology of the Ko-ji-ki and the Nihongi, stated in the briefest possible way. At first it appears that there were two classes of gods recognized: Celestial and Terrestrial; and the old Shinto rituals (norito) maintain this distinction. But it is a curious fact that the celestial gods of this mythology do not represent celestial forces; and that the gods who are really identified with celestial phenomena are classed as terrestrial gods,—having been born or "produced" upon earth. The Sun and Moon, for example, are said to have been born in Japan,—though afterwards placed in heaven; the Sun-goddess, Ama-terasu-no-oho-Kami, having been produced from the left eye of Izanagi, and the [117] Moon-god, Tsuki-yomi-no-Mikoto, having been produced from the right eye of Izanagi when, after his visit to the under-world, he washed himself at the mouth of a river in the island of Tsukushi. The Shinto scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries established some order in this chaos of fancies by denying all distinction between the Celestial and Terrestrial gods, except as regarded the accident of birth. They also denied the old distinction between the so-called Age of the Gods (Kami-yo), and the subsequent period of the Emperors. It was true, they said, that the early rulers of Japan were gods; but so were also the later rulers. The whole Imperial line, the "Sun's Succession," represented one unbroken descent from the Goddess of the Sun. Hirata wrote: "There exists no hard and fast line between the Age of the Gods and the present age—and there exists no justification whatever for drawing one, as the Nihongi does." Of course this position involved the doctrine of a divine descent for the whole race,—inasmuch as, according to the old mythology, the first Japanese were all descendants of gods,—and that doctrine Hirata boldly accepted. All the Japanese, he averred, were of divine origin, and for that reason superior to the people of all other countries. He even held that their divine descent could be proved without difficulty. These are his words: "The descendants of the gods who accompanied Ninigi-no-Mikoto [grandson of the Sun-goddess, [118] and supposed founder of the Imperial house,]—as well as the offspring of the successive Mikados, who entered the ranks of the subjects of the Mikados, with the names of Taira, Minamoto, and so forth,—have gradually increased and multiplied. Although numbers of Japanese cannot state with certainty from what gods they are descended, all of them have tribal names (kabane), which were originally bestowed on them by the Mikados; and those who make it their province to study genealogies can tell from a man's ordinary surname, who his remotest ancestor must have been." All the Japanese were gods in this sense; and their country was properly called the Land of the Gods,—Shinkoku or Kami-no-kuni. Are we to understand Hirata literally? I think so—but we must remember that there existed in feudal times large classes of people, outside of the classes officially recognized as forming the nation, who were not counted as Japanese, nor even as human beings: these were pariahs, and reckoned as little better than animals. Hirata probably referred to the four great classes only—samurai, farmers, artizans, and merchants. But even in that case what are we to think of his ascription of divinity to the race, in view of the moral and physical feebleness of human nature? The moral side of the question is answered by the Shinto theory of evil deities, "gods of crookedness," who were alleged to have "originated from the impurities contracted by [119] Izanagi during his visit to the under-world." As for the physical weakness of men, that is explained by a legend of Ninigi-no-Mikoto, divine founder of the imperial house. The Goddess of Long Life, Iha-naga-hime (Rock-long-princess), was sent to him for wife; but he rejected her because of her ugliness; and that unwise proceeding brought about "the present shortness of the lives of men." Most mythologies ascribe vast duration to the lives of early patriarchs or rulers: the farther we go back into mythological history, the longer-lived are the sovereigns. To this general rule Japanese mythology presents no exception. The son of Ninigi-no-Mikoto is said to have lived five hundred and eighty years at his palace of Takachiho; but that, remarks Hirata, "was a short life compared with the lives of those who lived before him." Thereafter men's bodies declined in force; life gradually became shorter and shorter; yet in spite of all degeneration the Japanese still show traces of their divine origin. After death they enter into a higher divine condition, without, however, abandoning this world …. Such were Hirata's views. Accepting the Shinto theory of origins, this ascription of divinity to human nature proves less inconsistent than it appears at first sight; and the modern Shintoist may discover a germ of scientific truth in the doctrine which traces back the beginnings of life to the Sun. [120] More than any other Japanese writer, Hirata has enabled us to understand the hierarchy of Shinto mythology,—corresponding closely, as we might have expected, to the ancient ordination of Japanese society. In the lowermost ranks are the spirits of common people, worshipped only at the household shrine or at graves. Above these are the gentile gods or Ujigami,—ghosts of old rulers now worshipped as tutelar gods. All Ujigami, Hirata tells us, are under the control of the Great God of Izumo,—Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami,—and, "acting as his agents, they rule the fortunes of human beings before their birth, during their life, and after their death." This means that the ordinary ghosts obey, in the world invisible, the commands of the clan-gods or tutelar deities; that the conditions of communal worship during life continue after death. The following extract from Hirata will be found of interest,—not only as showing the supposed relation of the individual to the Ujigami, but also as suggesting how the act of abandoning one's birthplace was formerly judged by common opinion:— "When a person removes his residence, his original Ujigami has to make arrangements with the Ujigami of the place whither he transfers his abode. On such occasions it is proper to take leave of the old god, and to pay a visit to the temple of the new god as soon as possible after coming within his jurisdiction. The apparent reasons which a man imagines to have induced him to change his [121] abode may be many; but the real reasons cannot be otherwise than that either he has offended his Ujigami, and is therefore expelled, or that the Ujigami of another place has negotiated his transfer …."* [*Translated by Satow. The italics are mine.] It would thus appear that every person was supposed to be the subject, servant, or retainer of some Ujigami, both during life and after death. There were, of course, various grades of these clan-gods, just as there were various grades of living rulers, lords of the soil. Above ordinary Ujigami ranked the deities worshipped in the chief Shinto temples of the various provinces, which temples were termed Ichi-no-miya, or temples of the first grade. These deities appear to have been in many cases spirits of princes or greater daimyo, formerly, ruling extensive districts; but all were not of this category. Among them were deities of elements or elemental forces,—Wind, Fire, and Sea,—deities also of longevity, of destiny, and of harvests,—clan-gods, perhaps, originally, though their real history had been long forgotten. But above all other Shinto divinities ranked the gods of the Imperial Cult,—the supposed ancestors of the Mikados. Of the higher forms of Shinto worship, that of the imperial ancestors proper is the most important, being the State cult; but it is not the oldest. There are two supreme cults: that of the Sun-goddess, [122] represented by the famous shrines of Ise; and the Izumo cult, represented by the great temple of Kitzuki. This Izumo temple is the centre of the more ancient cult. It is dedicated to Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami, first ruler of the Province of the Gods, and offspring of the brother of the Sun-goddess. Dispossessed of his realm in favour of the founder of the imperial dynasty, Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami became the ruler of the Unseen World,—that is to say the World of Ghosts. Unto his shadowy dominion the spirits of all men proceed after death; and he rules over all of the Ujigami. We may therefore term him the Emperor of the Dead. "You cannot hope," Hirata says, "to live more than a hundred years, under the most favourable circumstances; but as you will go to the Unseen Realm of Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami after death, and be subject to him, learn betimes to bow down before him." … That weird fancy expressed in the wonderful fragment by Coleridge, "The Wanderings of Cain," would therefore seem to have actually formed an article of ancient Shinto faith: "The Lord is God of the living only: the dead have another God." … The God of the Living in Old Japan was, of course, the Mikado,—the deity incarnate, Arahito-gami,—and his palace was the national sanctuary, the Holy of Holies. Within the precincts of that [123] palace was the Kashiko-Dokoro ("Place of Awe"), the private shrine of the Imperial Ancestors, where only the court could worship,—the public form of the same cult being maintained at Ise. But the Imperial House worshipped also by deputy (and still so worships) both at Kitzuki and Ise, and likewise at various other great sanctuaries. Formerly a great number of temples were maintained, or partly maintained, from the imperial revenues. All Shinto temples of importance used to be classed as greater and lesser shrines. There were 304 of the first rank, and 2828 of the second rank. But multitudes of temples were not included in this official classification, and depended upon local support. The recorded total of Shinto shrines to-day is upwards of 195,000. We have thus—without counting the great Izumo cult of Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami—four classes of ancestor-worship: the domestic religion, the religion of the Ujigami, the worship at the chief shrines [Ichi-no-miya] of the several provinces, and the national cult at Ise. All these cults are now linked together by tradition; and the devout Shintoist worships the divinities of all, collectively, in his daily morning prayer. Occasionally he visits the chief shrine of his province; and he makes a pilgrimage to Ise if he can. Every Japanese is expected to visit the shrines of Ise once in his lifetime, [124] or to send thither a deputy. Inhabitants of remote districts are not all able, of course, to make the pilgrimage; but there is no village which does not, at certain intervals, send pilgrims either to Kitzuki or to Ise on behalf of the community, the expense of such representation being defrayed by local subscription. And, furthermore, every Japanese can worship the supreme divinities of Shinto in his own house, where upon a "god-shelf" (Kamidana) are tablets inscribed with the assurance of their divine protection,—holy charms obtained from the priests of Ise or of Kitzuki. In the case of the Ise cult, such tablets are commonly made from the wood of the holy shrines themselves, which, according to primal custom, must be rebuilt every twenty years,—the timber of the demolished structures being then cut into tablets for distribution throughout the country. Another development of ancestor-worship—the cult of gods presiding over crafts and callings—deserves special study. Unfortunately we are as yet little informed upon the subject. Anciently this worship must have been more definitely ordered and maintained than it is now. Occupations were hereditary; artizans were grouped into guilds—perhaps we might even say castes;—and each guild or caste then probably had in patron-deity. In some cases the craft-gods may have been ancestors [125] of Japanese craftsmen; in other cases they were perhaps of Korean or Chinese origin,—ancestral gods of immigrant artizans, who brought their cults with them to Japan. Not much is known about them. But it is tolerably safe to assume that most, if not all of the guilds, were at one time religiously organized, and that apprentices were adopted not only in a craft, but into a cult. There were corporations of weavers, potters, carpenters, arrow-makers, bow-makers, smiths, boat-builders, and other tradesmen; and the past religious organization of these is suggested by the fact that certain occupations assume a religious character even to-day. For example, the carpenter still builds according to Shinto tradition: he dons a priestly costume at a certain stage of the work, performs rites, and chants invocations, and places the new house under the protection of the gods. But the occupation of the swordsmith was in old days the most sacred of crafts: he worked in priestly garb, and practised Shinto) rites of purification while engaged in the making of a good blade. Before his smithy was then suspended the sacred rope of rice-straw (shime-nawa), which is the oldest symbol of Shinto: none even of his family might enter there, or speak to him; and he ate only of food cooked with holy fire. The 195,000 shrines of Shinto represent, however, more than clan-cults or guild-cults or national-cults …. [126] Many are dedicated to different spirits of the same god; for Shinto holds that the spirit of either a man or a god may divide itself into several spirits, each with a different character. Such separated spirits are called waka-mi-tama ("august-divided-spirits"). Thus the spirit of the Goddess of Food, Toyo-uke-bime, separated itself into the God of Trees, Kukunochi-no-Kami, and into the Goddess of Grasses, Kayanu-hime-no-Kami. Gods and men were supposed to have also a Rough Spirit and a Gentle Spirit; and Hirata remarks that the Rough Spirit of Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami was worshipped at one temple, and his Gentle Spirit at another.*… Also we have to remember that great numbers of Ujigami temples are dedicated to the same divinity. These duplications or multiplications are again offset by the fact that in some of the principal temples a multitude of different deities are enshrined. Thus the number of Shinto temples in actual existence affords no indication whatever of the actual number of gods worshipped, nor of the variety of their cults. Almost every deity mentioned in the Ko-ji-ki or Nihongi has a shrine somewhere; and hundreds of others—including many later apotheoses—have their temples. Numbers of temples have been dedicated, for example, to [127] historical personages,—to spirits of great ministers, captains, rulers, scholars, heroes, and statesmen. The famous minister of the Empress Jingo, Takeno-uji-no-Sukune,—who served under six successive sovereigns, and lived to the age of three hundred years,—is now invoked in many a temple as a giver of long life and great wisdom. The spirit of Sugiwara-no-Michizane, once minister to the Emperor Daigo, is worshipped as the god of calligraphy, under the name of Tenjin, or Temmangu: children everywhere offer to him the first examples of their handwriting, and deposit in receptacles, placed before his shrine, their worn-out writing-brushes. The Soga brothers, victims and heroes of a famous twelfth-century tragedy, have become gods to whom people pray for the maintenance of fraternal harmony. Kato Kiyomasa, the determined enemy of Jesuit Christianity, and Hideyoshi's greatest captain, has been apotheosized both by Buddhism and by Shinto. Iyeyasu is worshipped under the appellation of Toshogu. In fact most of the great men of Japanese history have had temples erected to them; and the spirits of the daimyo were, in former years, regularly worshipped by the subjects of their descendants and successors. [*Even men had the Rough and the Gentle Spirit; but a god had three distinct spirits,—the Rough, the Gentle, and the Bestowing,—respectively termed Ara-mi-tama, Nigi-mi-tama, and Saki-mi-tama.—[See SATOW's Revival of Pure Shintau.] Besides temples to deities presiding over industries and agriculture,—or deities especially invoked by the peasants, such as the goddess of silkworms, [128] the goddess of rice, the gods of wind and weather,—there are to be found in almost every part of the country what I may call propitiatory temples. These latter Shinto shrines have been erected by way of compensation to spirits of persons who suffered great injustice or misfortune. In these cases the worship assumes a very curious character, the worshipper always appealing for protection against the same kind of calamity or trouble as that from which the apotheosized person suffered during life. In Izumo, for example, I found a temple dedicated to the spirit of a woman, once a prince's favourite. She had been driven to suicide by the intrigues of jealous rivals. The story is that she had very beautiful hair; but it was not quite black, and her enemies used to reproach her with its color. Now mothers having children with brownish hair pray to her that the brown may be changed to black; and offerings are made to her of tresses of hair and Tokyo coloured prints, for it is still remembered that she was fond of such prints. In the same province there is a shrine erected to the spirit of a young wife, who pined away for grief at the absence of her lord. She used to climb a hill to watch for his return, and the shrine was built upon the place where she waited; and wives pray there to her for the safe return of absent husbands …. An almost similar kind of propitiatory worship is practised in cemeteries. Public pity seeks to apotheosize those [129] urged to suicide by cruelty, or those executed for offences which, although legally criminal, were inspired by patriotic or other motives commanding sympathy. Before their graves offerings are laid and prayers are murmured. Spirits of unhappy lovers are commonly invoked by young people who suffer from the same cause …. And, among other forms of propitiatory worship I must mention the old custom of erecting small shrines to spirits of animals,—chiefly domestic animals,—either in recognition of dumb service rendered and ill-rewarded, or as a compensation for pain unjustly inflicted. Yet another class of tutelar divinities remains to be noticed,—those who dwell within or about the houses of men. Some are mentioned in the old mythology, and are probably developments of Japanese ancestor-worship; some are of alien origin; some do not appear to have any temples; and some represent little more than what is called Animism. This class of divinities corresponds rather to the Roman dii genitales than to the Greek (Greek daemones). Suijin-Sarna, the God of Wells; Kojin, the God of the Cooking-range (in almost every kitchen there is either a tiny shrine for him, or a written charm bearing his name); the gods of the Cauldron and Saucepan, Kudo-no-Kami and Kobe-no-Kami (anciently called Okitsuhiko and Okitsuhime); the Master of Ponds, Ike-no-Nushi, [130] supposed to make apparition in the form of a serpent; the Goddess of the Rice-pot, O-Kama-Sama; the Gods of the Latrina, who first taught men how to fertilize their fields (these are commonly represented by little figures of paper, having the forms of a man and a woman, but faceless); the Gods of Wood and Fire and Metal; the Gods likewise of Gardens, Fields, Scarecrows, Bridges, Hills, Woods, and Streams; and also the Spirits of Trees (for Japanese mythology has its dryads): most of these are undoubtedly of Shinto. On the other hand, we find the roads under the protection of Buddhist deities chiefly. I have not been able to learn anything regarding gods of boundaries,—termes, as the Latins called them; and one sees only images of the Buddhas at the limits of village territories. But in almost every garden, on the north side, there is a little Shinto shrine, facing what is called the Ki-Mon, or "Demon-Gate,"—that is to say, the direction from which, according to Chinese teaching, all evils come; and these little shrines, dedicated to various Shinto deities, are supposed to protect the home from evil spirits. The belief in the Ki-Mon is obviously a Chinese importation. One may doubt, however, if Chinese influence alone developed the belief that every part of a house,—every beam of it,—and every domestic utensil has its invisible guardian. Considering this belief, it is not surprising that the building of a [131] house—unless the house be in foreign style—is still a religious act, and that the functions of a master-builder include those of a priest. This brings us to the subject of Animism. (I doubt whether any evolutionist of the contemporary school holds to the old-fashioned notion that animism preceded ancestor-worship,—a theory involving the assumption that belief in the spirits of inanimate objects was evolved before the idea of a human ghost had yet been developed.) In Japan it is now as difficult to draw the line between animistic beliefs and the lowest forms of Shinto, as to establish a demarcation between the vegetable and the animal worlds; but the earliest Shinto literature gives no evidence of such a developed animism as that now existing. Probably the development was gradual, and largely influenced by Chinese beliefs. Still, we read in the Ko-ji-ki of "evil gods who glittered like fireflies or were disorderly as mayflies," and of "demons who made rocks, and stumps of trees, and the foam of the green waters to speak,"—showing that animistic or fetichistic notions were prevalent to some extent before the period of Chinese influence. And it is significant that where animism is associated with persistent worship (as in the matter of the reverence paid to strangely shaped stones or trees), the form of the worship is, in most cases, Shinto. Before such objects there is usually [132] to be seen the model of a Shinto gateway,—torii…. With the development of animism, under Chinese and Korean influence, the man of Old Japan found himself truly in a world of spirits and demons. They spoke to him in the sound of tides and of cataracts in the moaning of wind and the whispers of leafage, in the crying of birds, and the trilling of insects, in all the voices of nature. For him all visible motion—whether of waves or grasses or shifting mist or drifting cloud—was ghostly; and the never moving rocks—nay, the very stones by the wayside—were informed with viewless and awful being. [133] WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION We have seen that, in Old Japan, the world of the living was everywhere ruled by the world of the dead,—that the individual, at every moment of his existence, was under ghostly supervision. In his home he was watched by the spirits of his fathers; without it, he was ruled by the god of his district. All about him, and above him, and beneath him were invisible powers of life and death. In his conception of nature all things were ordered by the dead,—light and darkness, weather and season, winds and tides, mist and rain, growth and decay, sickness and health. The viewless atmosphere was a phantom-sea, an ocean of ghost; the soil that he tilled was pervaded by spirit-essence; the trees were haunted and holy; even the rocks and the stones were infused with conscious life …. How might he discharge his duty to the infinite concourse of the invisible? Few scholars could remember the names of all the greater gods, not to speak of the lesser; and no mortal could have found time to address those greater gods by their respective names in his daily [134] prayer. The later Shinto teachers proposed to simplify the duties of the faith by prescribing one brief daily prayer to the gods in general, and special prayers to a few gods in particular; and in thus doing they were most likely confirming a custom already established by necessity. Hirata wrote: "As the number of the gods who possess different functions is very great, it will be convenient to worship by name the most important only, and to include the rest in a general petition." He prescribed ten prayers for persons having time to repeat them, but lightened the duty for busy folk,—observing: "Persons whose daily affairs are so multitudinous that they have not time to go through all the prayers, may content themselves with adoring (1) the residence of the Emperor, (2) the domestic god-shelf,—kamidana, (3) the spirits of their ancestors, (4) their local patron-god, Ujigami, (5) the deity of their particular calling." He advised that the following prayer should be daily repeated before the "god-shelf":— "Reverently adoring the great god of the two palaces of Ise in the first, place,—the eight hundred myriads of celestial gods,—the eight hundred myriads of terrestrial gods,—the fifteen hundred myriads of gods to whom are consecrated the great and small temples in all provinces, all islands, and all places of the Great Land of Eight Islands,—the fifteen hundred myriads of gods whom they cause to serve them, and the gods of branch-palaces and branch-temples, [135]—and Sohodo-no-Kami* whom I have invited to the shrine set up on this divine shelf, and to whom I offer praises day by day,—I pray with awe that they will deign to correct the unwilling faults which, heard and seen by them, I have committed; and that, blessing and favouring me according to the powers which they severally wield, they will cause me to follow the divine example, and to perform good works in the Way."** [*Sohodo-no-Kami is the god of scarecrows,—protector of the fields.] [**Translated by Satow.] This text is interesting as an example of what Shinto's greatest expounder thought a Shinto prayer should be; and, excepting the reference to So-ho-do-no-Kami, the substance of it is that of the morning prayer still repeated in Japanese households. But the modern prayer is very much shorter…. In Izumo, the oldest Shinto province, the customary morning worship offers perhaps the best example of the ancient rules of devotion. Immediately upon rising, the worshipper performs his ablutions; and after having washed his face and rinsed his mouth, he turns to the sun, claps his hands, and with bowed head reverently utters the simple greeting: "Hail to thee this day, August One!" In thus adoring the sun he is also fulfilling his duty as a subject, paying obeisance to the Imperial Ancestor …. The act is performed out of doors, not kneeling, but standing; and the spectacle of this simple worship is impressive. I can now see in memory,— [136] just as plainly as I saw with my eyes many years ago, off the wild Oki coast,—the naked figure of a young fisherman erect at the prow of his boat, clapping his hands in salutation to the rising sun, whose ruddy glow transformed him into a statue of bronze. Also I retain a vivid memory of pilgrim-figures poised upon the topmost crags of the summit of Fuji, clapping their hands in prayer, with faces to the East …. Perhaps ten thousand—twenty thousand-years ago all humanity so worshipped the Lord of Day …. After having saluted the sun, the worshipper returns to his house, to pray before the Kamidana and before the tablets of the ancestors. Kneeling, he invokes the great gods of Ise or of Izumo, the gods of the chief temples of his province, the god of his parish-temple also (Ujigami), and finally all the myriads of the deities of Shinto. These prayers are not said aloud. The ancestors are thanked for the foundation of the home; the higher deities are invoked for aid and protection …. As for the custom of bowing in the direction of the Emperor's palace, I am not able to say to what extent it survives in the remoter districts; but I have often seen the reverence performed. Once, too, I saw reverence done immediately in front of the gates of the palace in Tokyo by country-folk on a visit to the capital. They knew me, because I had often sojourned in their village; and on reaching Tokyo [137] they sought me out, and found me, I took them to the palace; and before the main entrance they removed their hats, and bowed, and clapped their hands, just as they would have done when saluting the gods or the rising sun,—and this with a simple and dignified reverence that touched me not a little. The duties of morning worship, which include the placing of offerings before the tablets, are not the only duties of the domestic cult. In a Shinto household, where the ancestors and the higher gods are separately worshipped, the ancestral shrine may be said to correspond with the Roman lararium; while the "god-shelf," with its taima or o-nusa (symbols of those higher gods especially revered by the family), may be compared with the place accorded by Latin custom to the worship of the Penates. Both Shinto cults have their particular feast-days; and, in the case of the ancestor-cult, the feast-days are occasions of religious assembly,—when the relatives of the family should gather to celebrate the domestic rite …. The Shintoist must also take part in the celebration of the festivals of the Ujigami, and must at least aid in the celebration of the nine great national holidays related to the national cult; these nine, out of a total eleven, being occasions of imperial ancestor-worship. The nature of the public rites varied according to [138] the rank of the gods. Offerings and prayers were made to all; but the greater deities were worshipped with exceeding ceremony. To-day the offerings usually consist of food and rice-wine, together with symbolic articles representing the costlier gifts of woven stuffs presented by ancient custom. The ceremonies include processions, music, singing, and dancing. At the very small shrines there are few ceremonies,—only offerings of food are presented. But at the great temples there are hierarchies of priests and priestesses (miko)—usually daughters of priests; and the ceremonies are elaborate and solemn. It is particularly at the temples of Ise (where, down to the fourteenth century the high-priestess was a daughter of emperors), or at the great temple of Izumo, that the archaic character of the ceremonial can be studied to most advantage. There, in spite of the passage of that huge wave of Buddhism, which for a period almost submerged the more ancient faith, all things remain as they were a score of centuries ago;—Time, in those haunted precincts, would seem to have slept, as in the enchanted palaces of fairy-tale. The mere shapes of the buildings, weird and tall, startle by their unfamiliarity. Within, all is severely plain and pure: there are no images, no ornaments, no symbols visible—except those strange paper-cuttings (gohei), suspended to upright rods, which are symbols of offerings and also tokens of the [139] viewless. By the number of them in the sanctuary, you know the number of the deities to whom the place is consecrate. There is nothing imposing but the space, the silence, and the suggestion of the past. The innermost shrine is veiled: it contains, perhaps, a mirror of bronze, an ancient sword, or other object enclosed in multiple wrappings: that is all. For this faith, older than icons, needs no images: its gods are ghosts; and the void stillness of its shrines compels more awe than tangible representation could inspire. Very strange, to Western eyes at least, are the rites, the forms of the worship, the shapes of sacred objects. Not by any modern method must the sacred fire be lighted,—the fire that cooks the food of the gods: it can be kindled only in the most ancient of ways, with a wooden fire-drill. The chief priests are robed in the sacred colour,—white,—and wear headdresses of a shape no longer seen elsewhere: high caps of the kind formerly worn by lords and princes. Their assistants wear various colours, according to grade; and the faces of none are completely shaven;—some wear full beards, others the mustache only. The actions and attitudes of these hierophants are dignified, yet archaic, in a degree difficult to describe. Each movement is regulated by tradition; and to perform well the functions of a Kannushi, a long disciplinary preparation is necessary. The office is hereditary; the training begins in boyhood; and [140] the impassive deportment eventually acquired is really a wonderful thing. Officiating, the Kannushi seems rather a statue than a man,—an image moved by invisible strings;—and, like the gods, he never winks. Not at least observably…. Once, during a great Shinto procession, several Japanese friends, and I myself, undertook to watch a young priest on horseback, in order to see how long he could keep from winking; and none of us were able to detect the slightest movement of eyes or eyelids, notwithstanding that the priest's horse became restive during the time that we were watching. The principal incidents of the festival ceremonies within the great temples are the presentation of the offerings, the repetition of the ritual, and the dancing of the priestesses. Each of these performances retains a special character rigidly fixed by tradition. The food-offerings are served upon archaic vessels of unglazed pottery (red earthenware mostly): boiled rice pressed into cones of the form of a sugar-loaf, various preparations of fish and of edible sea-weed, fruits and fowls, rice-wine presented in jars of immemorial shape. These offerings are carried into the temple upon white wooden trays of curious form, and laid upon white wooden tables of equally curious form;—the faces of the bearers being covered, below the eyes, with sheets of white paper, in order that their breath may [141] not contaminate the food of the gods; and the trays, for like reason, must be borne at arms' length …. In ancient times the offerings would seem to have included things much more costly than food,—if we may credit the testimony of what are probably the oldest documents extant in the Japanese tongue, the Shinto rituals, or norito.* The following excerpt from Satow's translation of the ritual prayer to the Wind-gods of Tatsuta is interesting, not only as a fine example of the language of the norito, but also as indicating the character of the great ceremonies in early ages, and the nature of the offerings:— [*Several have been translated by Satow, whose opinion of their antiquity is here cited; and translations have also been made into German.] "As the great offerings set up for the Youth-god, I set up various sorts of offerings: for Clothes, bright cloth, glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coarse cloth,—and the five kinds of things, a mantlet, a spear, a horse furnished with a saddle;—for the Maiden-god I set up various sorts of offerings—providing Clothes, a golden thread-box, a golden tatari, a golden skein-holder, bright cloth, glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coarse cloth, and the five kinds of things, a horse furnished with a saddle;—as to Liquor, I raise high the beer-jars, fill and range-in-a-row the bellies of the beer-jars; soft grain and coarse grain;—as to things which dwell in the hills, things soft of hair and things coarse of hair;—as to things which grow in the great field—plain, sweet herbs and bitter herbs;—as to things which dwell in the blue sea-plain, things broad of fin and things narrow of fin—down to the weeds of the offing and weeds of the [142] shore. And if the sovran gods will take these great offerings which I set up,—piling them up like a range of hills,—peacefully in their hearts, as peaceful offerings and satisfactory offerings; and if the sovran gods, deigning not to visit the things produced by, the great People of the region under heaven with bad winds and rough waters, will open and bless them,—I will at the autumn service set up the first fruits, raising high the beer-jars, filling and ranging-in-rows the bellies of the beer-jars,—and drawing them hither in juice and in ear, in many hundred rice-plants and a thousand rice-plants. And for this purpose the princes and councillors and all the functionaries, the servants of the six farms of the country of Yamato—even to the males and females of them—have all come and assembled in the fourth month of this year, and, plunging down the root of the neck cormorant-wise in the presence of the sovran gods, fulfil their praise as the Sun of to-day rises in glory."… The offerings are no longer piled up "like a range of hills," nor do they include all things dwelling in the mountains and in the sea; but the imposing ritual remains, and the ceremony is always impressive. Not the least interesting part of it is the sacred dance. While the gods are supposed to be partaking of the food and wine set out before their shrines, the girl-priestesses, robed in crimson and white, move gracefully to the sound of drums and flutes,—waving fans, or shaking bunches of tiny bells as they circle about the sanctuary. According to our Western notions. the performance of the [143] miko could scarcely be called dancing; but it is a graceful spectacle, and very curious,—for every step and attitude is regulated by traditions of unknown antiquity. As for the plaintive music, no Western ear can discern in it anything resembling a real melody; but the gods should find delight in it, because it is certainly performed for them to-day exactly as it used to be performed twenty centuries ago. I speak of the ceremonies especially as I have witnessed them in Izumo: they vary somewhat according to cult and province. At the shrines of Ise, Kasuga, Kompira, and several others which I visited, the ordinary priestesses are children; and when they have reached the nubile age, they retire from the service. At Kitzuki the priestesses are grown-up women: their office is hereditary; and they are permitted to retain it even after marriage. Formerly the Miko was more than a mere officiant: the songs which she is still obliged to learn indicate that she was originally offered to the gods as a bride. Even yet her touch is holy; the grain sown by her hand is blessed. At some time in the past she seems to have been also a pythoness: the spirits of the gods possessed her and spoke through her lips. All the poetry of this most ancient of religions centres in the figure of its little Vestal,—child-bride of ghosts,—as she flutters, [144] like some wonderful white-and-crimson butterfly, before the shrine of the Invisible. Even in these years of change, when she must go to the public school, she continues to represent all that is delightful in Japanese girlhood; for her special home-training keeps her reverent, innocent, dainty in all her little ways, and worthy to remain the pet of the gods. The history of the higher forms of ancestor-worship in other countries would lead us to suppose that the public ceremonies of the Shinto-cult must include some rite of purification. As a matter of fact, the most important of all Shinto ceremonies is the ceremony of purification,—o-harai, as it is called, which term signifies the casting-out or expulsion of evils …. In ancient Athens a corresponding ceremony took place every year; in Rome, every four years. The o-harai is performed twice every year,—in the sixth month and the twelfth month by the ancient calendar. It used to be not less obligatory than the Roman lustration; and the idea behind the obligation was the same as that which inspired the Roman laws on the subject …. So long as men believe that the welfare of the living depends upon the will of the dead,—that all happenings in the world are ordered by spirits of different characters, evil as well as good,—that every bad action lends additional power to the viewless [145] forces of destruction, and therefore endangers the public prosperity,—so long will the necessity of a public purification remain an article of common faith. The presence in any community of even one person who has offended the gods, consciously or unwillingly, is a public misfortune, a public peril. Yet it is not possible for all men to live so well as never to vex the gods by thought, word, or deed,—through passion or ignorance or carelessness. "Every one," declares Hirata, "is certain to commit accidental offences, however careful he may be… Evil acts and words are of two kinds: those of which we are conscious, and those of which we are not conscious …. It is better to assume that we have committed such unconscious offences." Now it should be remembered that for the man of Old Japan,—as for the Greek or the Roman citizen of early times,—religion consisted chiefly in the exact observance of multitudinous custom; and that it was therefore difficult to know whether, in performing the duties of the several cults, one had not inadvertently displeased the Unseen. As a means of maintaining and assuring the religious purity of the people periodical lustration was consequently deemed indispensable. From the earliest period Shinto exacted scrupulous cleanliness —indeed, we might say that it regarded physical impurity as identical with moral impurity, and intolerable to the gods. It has [146] always been, and still remains, a religion of ablutions. The Japanese love of cleanliness—indicated by the universal practice of daily bathing, and by the irreproachable condition of their homes has been maintained, and was probably initiated, by their religion. Spotless cleanliness being required by the rites of ancestor-worship,—in the temple, in the person of the officiant, and in the home,—this rule of purity was naturally extended by degrees to all the conditions of existence. And besides the great periodical ceremonies of purification, a multitude of minor lustrations were exacted by the cult. This was the case also, it will be remembered in the early Greek and Roman civilizations—the citizen had to submit to purification upon almost every important occasion of existence. There were lustrations indispensable at birth, marriage, and death; lustrations on the eve of battle; lustrations at regular periods, of the dwelling, estate, district, or city. And, as in Japan, no one could approach a temple without a preliminary washing of hands. But ancient Shinto exacted more than the Greek or the Roman cult: it required the erection of special houses for birth, —"parturition-houses"; special houses for the consummation of marriage,—"nuptial-huts"; and special buildings for the dead,—"mourning-houses." Formerly women were obliged during the period of menstruation, as well as during the time of confinement, to live apart. These harsher archaic customs [147] have almost disappeared, except in one or two remote districts, and in the case of certain priestly families; but the general rules as to purification, and as to the times and circumstances forbidding approach to holy places, are still everywhere obeyed. Purity of heart is not less insisted upon than physical purity; and the great rite of lustration, performed every six months, is of course a moral purification. It is performed not only at the great temples, and at all the Ujigami, but likewise in every home _________________________________________________________________ [*On the kamidana, "or god-shelf," there is usually placed a kind of oblong paper-box containing fragments of the wands used by the priests of Ise at the great national purification-ceremony, or o-harai. This box is commonly called by the name of the ceremony, o-harai, or "august purification," and is inscribed with the names of the great gods of Ise. The presence of this object is supposed to protect the home; but it should be replaced by a new o-harai at the expiration of six months; for the virtue of the charm is supposed to last only during the interval between two official purifications. This distribution to thousands of homes of fragments of the wands, used to "drive away evils" at the time of the Ise lustration, represents of course the supposed extension of the high-priest's protection to those homes until the time of the next o-harai. The modern domestic form of the harai is very simple. Each Shinto parish-temple furnishes to all its Ujiko, or parishioners, small paper-cuttings called hitogata ("mankind-shapes"), representing figures of men, women, and children as in silhouette,—only that the paper is white, and folded curiously. Each household receives a number of hitogata corresponding to the number of its members,—"men-shapes" for the men and boys, "women-shapes"] _________________________________________________________________ [148] for the women and girls. Each person in the house touches his head, face, limbs, and body with one of these hitogata; repeating the while a Shinto invocation, and praying that any misfortune or sickness incurred by reason of offences involuntarily committed against the gods (for in Shinto belief sickness and misfortune are divine punishments) may be mercifully taken away. Upon each hitogata is then written the age and sex (not the name) of the person for whom it was furnished; and when this has been done, all are returned to the parish-temple, and there burnt, with rites of purification. Thus the community is "lustrated" every six Months. In the old Greek and Latin cities lustration was accompanied with registration. The attendance of every citizen at the ceremony was held to be so necessary that one who wilfully failed to attend might be whipped and sold as a slave. Non-attendance involved loss of civic rights. It would seem that in Old Japan also every member of a community was obliged to be present at the rite; but I have not been able to learn whether any registration was made upon such occasions. Probably it would have been superfluous: the Japanese individual was not officially recognized; the family-group alone was responsible, and the attendance of the several members would have been assured by the responsibility of the group. The use of the hitogata, on which the name is not written, but only the sex and age [149] of the worshipper, is probably modern, and of Chinese origin. Official registration existed, even in early times; but it appears to have had no particular relation to the o-harai; and the registers were kept, it seems, not by the Shinto, but by the Buddhist parish-priests …. In concluding these remarks about the o-harai, I need scarcely add that special rites were performed in cases of accidental religious defilement, and that any person judged to have sinned against the rules of the public cult had to submit to ceremonial purification. Closely related by origin to the rites of purification are sundry ascetic practices of Shinto. It is not an essentially ascetic religion: it offers flesh and wine to its gods; and it prescribes only such forms of self-denial as ancient custom and decency require. Nevertheless, some of its votaries perform extraordinary austerities on special occasions,—austerities which always include much cold-water bathing. It is not uncommon for the very fervent worshipper to invoke the gods as he stands naked under the ice-cold rush of a cataract in midwinter …. But the most curious phase of this Shinto asceticism is represented by a custom still prevalent in remote districts. According to this custom a community yearly appoints one of its citizens to devote himself wholly to the gods on behalf of the rest. During the term of his consecration, this communal representative [150] must separate from his family, must not approach women, must avoid all places of amusement, must eat only food cooked with sacred fire, must abstain from wine, must bathe in fresh cold water several times a day, must repeat particular prayers at certain hours, and must keep vigil upon certain nights. When he has performed these duties of abstinence and purification for the specified time, he becomes religiously free; and another man is then elected to take his place. The prosperity of the settlement is supposed to depend upon the exact observance by its representative of the duties prescribed: should any public misfortune occur, he would be suspected of having broken his vows. Anciently, in the case of a common misfortune, the representative was put to death. In the little town of Mionoseki, where I first learned of this custom, the communal representative is called ichi-nen-gannushi ("one-year god-master"); and his full term of vicarious atonement is twelve months. I was told that elders are usually appointed for this duty,—young men very seldom. In ancient times such a communal representative was called by a name signifying "abstainer." References to the custom have been found in Chinese notices of Japan dating from a time before the beginning of Japanese authentic history. Every persistent form of ancestor-worship has its [151] system or systems of divination; and Shinto exemplifies the general law. Whether divination ever obtained in ancient Japan the official importance which it assumed among the Greeks and the Romans is at present doubtful. But long before the introduction of Chinese astrology, magic, and fortune-telling, the Japanese practised various kinds of divination, as is proved by their ancient poetry, their records, and their rituals. We find mention also of official diviners, attached to the great cults. There was divination by bones, by birds, by rice, by barley-gruel, by footprints, by rods planted in the ground, and by listening in public ways to the speech of people passing by. Nearly all—probably all—of these old methods of divination are still in popular use. But the earliest form of official divination was performed by scorching the shoulder-blade of a deer, or other animal, and observing the cracks produced by the heat.* Tortoise-shells were afterwards used for the same purpose. Diviners were especially attached, it appears, to the imperial palace; and Motowori, writing in the latter half of the eighteenth century, speaks of divination as still being, in that epoch, a part of the imperial function. "To the end of time," he said, "the Mikado is the child of the Sun-goddess. His mind is in perfect harmony of thought and feeling with hers. He does not seek out new inventions; but he rules in accordance with precedents which date from the Age of the Gods; and if he is ever in doubt, he has recourse to divination, which reveals to him the mind of the great goddess." [*Concerning this form of divination, Satow remarks that it was practised by the Mongols in the time of Genghis Khan, and is still practised by the Khirghiz Tartars,—facts of strong interest in view of the probable origin of the early Japanese tribes. For instances of ancient official divination see Aston's translation of the Nihongi, Vol. I, pp. 157, 189, 227, 299, 237.] [152] Within historic times at least, divination would not seem to have been much used in warfare,—certainly not to the extent that it was used by the Greek and Roman armies. The greatest Japanese captains,—such as Hideyoshi and Nobunaga—were decidedly irreverent as to omens. Probably the Japanese, at an early period of their long military history, learned by experience that the general who conducts his campaign according to omens must always be at a hopeless disadvantage in dealing with a skilful enemy who cares nothing about omens. Among the ancient popular forms of divination which still survive, the most commonly practised in households is divination by dry rice. For the public, Chinese divination is still in great favour; but it is interesting to observe that the Japanese fortune-teller invariably invokes the Shinto gods before consulting his Chinese books, and maintains a Shinto shrine in his reception-room. [153] We have seen that the developments of ancestor-worship in Japan present remarkable analogies with the developments of ancestor-worship in ancient Europe,—especially in regard to the public cult, with its obligatory rites of purification. But Shinto seems nevertheless to represent conditions of ancestor-worship less developed than those which we are accustomed to associate with early Greek and Roman life; and the coercion which it exercised appears to have been proportionally more rigid. The existence of the individual worshipper was ordered not merely in relation to the family and the community, but even in relation to inanimate things. Whatever his occupation might be, some god presided over it; whatever tools he might use, they had to be used in such manner as tradition prescribed for all admitted to the craft-cult. It was necessary that the carpenter should so perform his work as to honour the deity of carpenters,—that the smith should fulfil his daily task so as to honour the god of the bellows,—that the farmer should never fail in respect to the earth-god, and the food-god, and the scare-crow god, and the spirits of the trees—about his habitation. Even the domestic utensils were sacred: the servant could not dare to forget the presence of the deities of the cooking-range, the hearth, the cauldron, the brazier,—or the supreme necessity of keeping the fire pure. The professions, not less [154] than the trades, were under divine patronage: the physician, the teacher, the artist—each had his religious duties to observe, his special traditions to obey. The scholar, for example, could not dare to treat his writing-implements with disrespect, or put written paper to vulgar uses: such conduct would offend the god of calligraphy. Nor were women ruled less religiously than men in their various occupations: the spinners and weaving-maidens were bound to revere the Weaving-goddess and the Goddess of Silkworms; the sewing-girl was taught to respect her needles; and in all homes there was observed a certain holiday upon which offerings were made to the Spirits of Needles. In Samurai families the warrior was commanded to consider his armour and his weapons as holy things: to keep them in beautiful order was an obligation of which the neglect might bring misfortune in the time of combat; and on certain days offerings were set before the bows and spears, arrows and swords, and other war-implements, in the alcove of the family guest-room. Gardens, too, were holy; and there were rules to be observed in their management, lest offence should be given to the gods of trees and flowers. Carefulness, cleanliness, dustlessness, were everywhere enforced as religious obligations. … It has often been remarked in these latter days that the Japanese do not keep their public offices, their railway stations, their new factory-buildings, [155] thus scrupulously clean. But edifices built foreign style, with foreign material, under foreign supervision, and contrary to every local tradition, must seem to old-fashioned thinking God-forsaken places; and servants amid such unhallowed surroundings do not feel the invisible about them, the weight of pious custom, the silent claim of beautiful and simple things to human respect. [156] [157] THE RULE OF THE DEAD It should now be evident to the reader that the ethics of Shinto were all comprised in the doctrine of unqualified obedience to customs originating, for the most part, in the family cult. Ethics were not different from religion; religion was not different from government; and the very word for government signified "matters-of-religion." All government ceremonies were preceded by prayer and sacrifice; and from the highest rank of society to the lowest every person was subject to the law of tradition. To obey was piety; to disobey was impious; and the rule of obedience was enforced upon each individual by the will of the community to which he belonged. Ancient morality consisted in the minute observance of rules of conduct regarding the household, the community, and the higher authority. But these rules of behaviour mostly represented the outcome of social experience; and it was scarcely possible to obey them faithfully, and yet to remain a bad man. They commanded reverence toward the Unseen, respect for authority, affection to parents, [158] tenderness to wife and children, kindness to neighbours, kindness to dependants, diligence and exactitude in labour, thrift and cleanliness in habit. Though at first morality signified no more than obedience to tradition, tradition itself gradually became identified with true morality. To imagine the consequent social condition is, of course, somewhat difficult for the modern mind. Among ourselves, religious ethics and social ethics have long been practically dissociated; and the latter have become, with the gradual weakening of faith, more imperative and important than the former. Most of us learn, sooner or later in life, that it is not enough to keep the ten commandments, and that it is much less dangerous to break most of the commandments in a quiet way than to violate social custom. But in Old Japan there was no distinction tolerated between ethics and custom—between moral requirements and social obligations: convention identified both, and to conceal a breach of either was impossible,—as privacy did not exist. Moreover the unwritten commandments were not limited to ten; they were numbered by hundreds, and the least infringement was punishable, not merely as a blunder, but as a sin. Neither in his own home nor anywhere else could the ordinary person do as he pleased; and the extraordinary person was under the surveillance of zealous dependants whose constant duty was to reprove any breach of usage. The religion capable [159] of regulating every act of existence by the force of common opinion requires no catechism. Early moral custom must be coercive custom. But as many habits, at first painfully formed under compulsion only, become easy through constant repetition, and at last automatic, so the conduct compelled through many generations by religious and civil authority, tends eventually to become almost instinctive. Much depends, no doubt, upon the degree to which religious compulsion is hindered by exterior causes,—by long-protracted war, for example,—and in Old Japan there was interference extraordinary. Nevertheless, the influence of Shinto accomplished wonderful things,—evolved a national type of character worthy, in many ways, of earnest admiration. The ethical sentiment developed in that character differed widely from our own; but it was exactly adapted to the social requirements. For this national type of moral character was invented the name Yamato-damashi (or Yamato-gokoro),—the Soul of Yamato (or Heart of Yamato),—the appellation of the old province of Yamato, seat of the early emperors, being figuratively used for the entire country. We might correctly, though less literally, interpret the expression Yamato-damashi as "The Soul of Old Japan." It was in reference to this "Soul of Old Japan" that the great Shinto scholars of the eighteenth [160] and nineteenth centuries put forth their bold assertion that conscience alone was a sufficient ethical guide. They declared the high quality of the Japanese conscience a proof of the divine origin of the race. "Human beings," wrote Motowori, "having been produced by the spirits of the two Creative Deities, are naturally endowed with the knowledge of what they ought to do, and of what they ought to refrain from doing. It is unnecessary for them to trouble their minds with systems of morality. If a system of morals were necessary, men would be inferior to animals,—all of whom are endowed with the knowledge of what they ought to do, only in an inferior degree to men."*… [*All of these extracts are quoted from Satow's great essay on the Shinto revival.] Mabuchi, at an earlier day, had made a comparison between Japanese and Chinese morality, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter. "In ancient times," said Mabuchi, "when men's dispositions were straightforward, a complicated system of morals was unnecessary. It would naturally happen that bad actions might be occasionally committed; but the straightforwardness of men's dispositions would prevent the evil from being concealed and so growing in extent. So in those days it was unnecessary to have a doctrine of right and wrong. But the Chinese, being bad at heart, in spite of the teaching which they got, were good [161] only on the outside; so their bad acts became of such magnitude that society was thrown into disorder. The Japanese, being straightforward, could do without teaching." Motowori repeated these ideas in a slightly different way: "It is because the Japanese were truly moral in their practice, that, they required no theory of morals; and the fuss made by the Chinese about theoretical morals is owing to their laxity, in practice…. To have learned that there is no Way [ethical system] to be learned and practised, is really to have learned to practise the Way of the Gods." At a later day Hirata wrote "Learn to stand in awe of the Unseen, and that will prevent you from doing wrong. Cultivate the conscience implanted in you then you will never wander from the Way." Though the sociologist may smile at these declarations of moral superiority (especially as based on the assumption that the race had been better in primeval times, when yet fresh from the hands of the gods), there was in them a grain of truth. When Mabuchi and Motowori wrote, the nation had been long subjected to a discipline of almost incredible minuteness in detail, and of extraordinary rigour in application. And this discipline had actually brought into existence a wonderful average of character,—a character of surprising patience, unselfishness, honesty, kindliness, and docility combined with high courage. But only the evolutionist [162] can imagine what the cost of developing that character must have been. It is necessary here to observe that the discipline to which the nation had been subjected up to the age of the great Shinto writers, seems to have had a curious evolutional history of its own. In primitive times it had been much less uniform, less complex, less minutely organized, though not less implacable; and it had continued to develop and elaborate more and more with the growth and consolidation of society, until, under the Tokugawa Shogunate the possible maximum of regulation was reached. In other words, the yoke had been made heavier and heavier in proportion to the growth of the national strength,—in proportion to the power of the people to bear it…. We have seen that, from the beginning of this civilization, the whole life of the citizen was ordered for him: his occupation, his marriage, his rights of fatherhood, his rights to hold or to dispose of property,—all these matters were settled by religious custom. We have also seen that outside as well as inside of his home, his actions were under supervision, and that a single grave breach of usage might cause his social ruin,—in which case he would be given to understand that he was not merely a social, but also a religious offender; that the communal god was angry with him; and that to pardon his fault might [163] provoke the divine vengeance against the entire settlement. But it yet remains to be seen what rights were left him by the central authority ruling his district,—which authority represented a third form of religious despotism from which there was no appeal in ordinary cases. Material for the study of the old laws and customs have not yet been collected in sufficient quantity to yield us full information as to the conditions of all classes before Meiji. But a great deal of precious work has been accomplished in this direction by American scholars; and the labours of Professor Wigmore and of the late Dr. Simmons have furnished documentary evidence from which much can be learned about the legal status of the masses during the Tokugawa period. This, as I have said, was the period of the most elaborated regulation. The extent to which the people were controlled can be best inferred from the nature and number of the sumptuary laws to which they were subjected. Sumptuary laws in Old Japan probably exceeded in multitude and minuteness anything of which Western legal history yields record. Rigidly as the family-cult dictated behaviour in the home, strictly as the commune enforced its standards of communal duty,—just so rigidly and strictly did the rulers of the nation dictate how the individual—man, woman, or child—should dress, walk, sit, [164] speak, work, eat, drink. Amusements were not less unmercifully regulated than were labours. Every class of Japanese society was under sumptuary regulation,—the degree of regulation varying in different centuries; and this kind of legislation appears to have been established at an early period. It is recorded that, in the year 681 A.D., the Emperor Temmu regulated the costumes of all classes,—"from the Princes of the Blood down to the common people,—and the wearing of headdresses and girdles, as well as of all kinds of coloured stuffs,—according to a scale."* [* See Nihongi Aston's translation, Vol. II, pp. 343, 349, 350.] The costumes and the colours to be worn by priests and nuns had been already fixed, by an edict issued in 679 A.D. Afterwards these regulations were greatly multiplied and detailed. But it was under the Tokugawa rulers, a thousand years later, that sumptuary laws obtained their most remarkable development; and the nature of them is best: indicated by the regulations applying to the peasantry. Every detail of the farmer's existence was prescribed for by law,—from the size, form, and cost of his dwelling, down even to such trifling matters as the number and the quality of the dishes to be served to him at meal-times. A farmer with an income of 100 koku of rice—(let us say 90 to 100 pounds per annum)—might build a house 60 feet long, but no longer: he was forbidden to construct it with a room containing an alcove; and he was not [165] allowed—except by special permission—to roof it with tiles. None of his family were permitted to wear silk; and in case of the marriage of his daughter to a person legally entitled to wear silk, the bridegroom was to be requested not to wear silk at the wedding. Three kinds of viands only were to be served at the wedding of such a farmer's daughter or son; and the quality as well as the quantity of the soup, fish, or sweetmeats offered to the wedding-guests, were legally fixed. So likewise the number of the wedding-gifts: even the cost of the presents, of rice-wine and dried fish was prescribed, and the quality of the single fan which it was permissible to offer the bride. At no time was a farmer allowed to make any valuable presents to his friends. At a funeral he might serve the guests with certain kinds of plain food; but if rice-wine were served it was not to be served in wine-cups,—only in soup-cups! (The latter regulation probably referred to Shinto funerals in especial.) On the occasion of a child's birth, the grandparents were allowed to make only four presents (according to custom),—including "one cotton baby-dress"; and the values of the presents were fixed. On the occasion of the Boy's Festival, the presents to be given to the child by the whole family, including grandparents, were limited by law to "one paper-flag," and "two toy-spears." … A farmer whose, property was assessed at 50 koku was forbidden to [166] build a house more than 45 feet long. At the wedding of his daughter the gift-girdle was not to exceed 50 sen in value; and it was forbidden to serve more than one kind of soup at the wedding-feast…. A farmer with a property assessed at 20 koku was not allowed to build a house more than 36 feet long, or to use in building it such superior qualities of wood as keyaki or hinoki. The roof of his house was to be made of bamboo-thatch or straw; and he was strictly forbidden the comfort of floor-mats. On the occasion of the wedding of his daughter he was forbidden to have fish or any roasted food served at the wedding-feast. The women of his family were not allowed to wear leather sandals: they might wear only straw-sandals or wooden clogs; and the thongs of the sandals or the clogs were to be made of cotton. The women were further forbidden to wear hair-bindings of silk, or hair-ornaments of tortoise-shells; but they might wear wooden combs and combs of bone—not ivory. The men were forbidden to wear stockings, and their sandals were to be made of bamboo.* [*There are sandals or clogs made of bamboo-wood, but the meaning here is bamboo-grass.] They were also forbidden to use sun-shades —hi-gasa—or paper-umbrellas…. A farmer assessed at 10 koku was forbidden to build a house more than 30 feet long. The women of his family were required to wear sandals with thongs of [167] bamboo-grass. At the wedding of his son or daughter one present only was allowed,—a quilt-chest. At the birth of his child one present only was to be made: namely, one toy-spear, in the case of a boy; or one paper-doll, or one "mud-doll," in the case of a girl… As for the more unfortunate class of farmers, having no land of their own, and officially termed mizunomi, or "water-drinkers," it is scarcely necessary to remark that these were still more severely restricted in regard to food, apparel, etc. They were not even allowed, for example, to have a quilt-chest as a wedding-present. But a fair idea of the complexity of these humiliating restrictions can only be obtained by reading the documents published by Professor Wigmore, which chiefly consist of paragraphs like these:— "The collar and the sleeve-ends of the clothes may be ornamented with silk, and an obi (soft girdle) of silk or crepe-silk may be worn—but not in public." … "A family ranking less than 20 koku must use the Takeda-wan (Takeda rice-bowl), and the Nikko-zen (Nikko tray).".. (These were utensils of the cheapest kind of lacquer-ware.) "Large farmers or chiefs of Kumi may use umbrellas; but small farmers and farm-labourers must use only mino (straw-raincoats), and broad straw-hats." … These documents published by Professor Wigmore contain only the regulations issued for the daimiate of Maizuru; but regulations equally [168] minute and vexatious appear to have been enforced throughout the whole country. In Izumo I found that, prior to Meiji, there were sumptuary laws prescribing not only the material of the dresses to be worn by the various classes, but even the colours of them, and the designs of the patterns. The size of rooms, as well as the size of houses, was fixed there by law,—also the height of buildings and of fences, the number of windows, the material of construction…. It is difficult for the Western mind to understand how human beings could patiently submit to laws that regulated not only the size of one's dwelling, and the cost of its furniture, but even the substance and character of clothing,—not only the expense of a wedding outfit, but the quality of the marriage-feast, and the quality of the vessels in which the food was to be served,—not only the kind of ornaments to be worn in a woman's hair, but the material of the thongs of her sandals,—not only the price of presents to be made to friends, but the character and the cost of the cheapest toy to be given to a child. And the peculiar constitution of society made it possible to enforce this sumptuary legislation by communal will; the people were obliged to coerce themselves! Each community, as we have seen, had been organized in groups of five or more households, called kumi; and the heads of the households forming a kumi elected one of their number as kumi-gashira, or group-chief, directly [169] responsible to the higher authority. The kumi was accountable for the conduct of each and all of its members; and each member was in some sort responsible for the rest. "Every member of a kumi," declares one of the documents above mentioned, "must carefully watch the conduct of his fellow-members. If any one violates these regulations, without due excuse, he is to be punished; and his kumi will also be held responsible." Responsible even for the serious offence of giving more than one paper-doll to a child! … But we should remember that in early Greek and Roman societies there was much legislation of a similar kind. The laws of Sparta regulated the way in which a woman should dress her hair; the laws of Athens fixed the number of her robes. At Rome, in early times, women were forbidden to drink wine; and a similar law existed in the Greek cities of Miletus and Massilia. In Rhodes and Byzantium the citizen was forbidden to shave; in Sparta he was forbidden to wear a moustache. (I need scarcely refer to the later Roman laws regulating the cost of marriage-feasts, and the number of guests that might be invited to a banquet; for this legislation was directed chiefly against luxury.) The astonishment evoked by Japanese sumptuary laws, particularly as inflicted upon the peasantry, is justified less by their general character than by their implacable minuteness,—their ferocity of detail…. [170] Where a man's life was legally ordered even to the least particulars,—even to the quality of his foot-gear and head-gear, the cost of his wife's hairpins, and the price of his child's doll,—one could hardly suppose that freedom of speech would have been tolerated. It did not exist; and the degree to which speech became regulated can be imagined only by those who have studied the spoken tongue. The hierarchical organization of society was faithfully reflected in the conventional organization of language,—in the ordination of pronouns, nouns, and verbs,—in the grades conferred upon adjectives by prefixes or suffixes. With the same merciless exactitude which prescribed rules for dress, diet, and manner of life, all utterance was regulated both negatively and positively,—but positively much more than negatively. There was little insistence upon what was not to be said; but rules innumerable decided exactly what should be said,—the word to be chosen, the phrase to be used. Early training enforced caution in this regard: everybody had to learn that only certain verbs and nouns and pronouns were lawful when addressing superiors, and other words permissible only when speaking to equals or to inferiors. Even the uneducated were obliged to learn something about this. But education cultivated a system of verbal etiquette so multiform that only the training of years could enable any one to master it. Among the [171] higher classes this etiquette developed almost inconceivable complexity. Grammatical modifications of language, which, by implication, exalted the person addressed or humbly depreciated the person addressing, must have come into general use at some very early period; but under subsequent Chinese influence these forms of propitiatory speech multiplied exceedingly. From the Mikado himself—who still makes use of personal pronouns, or at least pronominal expressions, forbidden to any other mortal—down through all the grades of society, each class had an "I" peculiarly its own. Of terms corresponding to "you" or "thou" there are still sixteen in use; but formerly there were many more. There are yet eight different forms of the second person singular used only in addressing children, pupils, or servants.* Honorific or humble forms of nouns indicating relationship were similarly multiplied and graded: there are still in use nine terms signifying "father," nine terms signifying "mother," eleven terms for "wife," eleven terms for "son," nine terms for "daughter," and seven terms for "husband." The rules of the verb, above all, were complicated by the exigencies of etiquette to a [172] degree of which no idea can be given in any brief statement…. At nineteen or twenty years of age a person carefully trained from childhood might have learned all the necessary verbal usages of respectable society; but for a mastery of the etiquette of superior converse many more years of study and experience were required. With the unceasing multiplication of ranks and classes there came into existence a corresponding variety of forms of language: it was possible to ascertain to what class a man or a woman belonged by listening to his or to her conversation. The written, like the spoken tongue, was regulated by strict convention: the forms used by women were not those used by men; and those differences in verbal etiquette arising from the different training of the sexes resulted in the creation of a special epistolary style,—a "woman's language," which remains in use. And this sex-differentiation of language was not confined to letter-writing: there was a woman's language also of converse, varying according to class. Even to-day, in ordinary conversation, an educated woman makes use of words and phrases not employed by men. Samurai women especially had their particular forms of expression in feudal times; and it is still possible to decide, from the speech of any woman brought up according to the old home-training, whether she belongs to a Samurai family.

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