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is literally the “shoulder-diviner,” and the other “elbow-diviner;” the one being an augur who obtains an angury by means of a bird called “shitodo” or Temminck’s Japanese bunting, the other, a diviner by means of rice-grains and a domestic cooking-furnace ring. Some commentators surmise that “katakannagi” is a diviner who takes charge of the divination for an ordinary field of hard soil; while “hijikannagi” is a diviner for a paddy field, so entrusted with the work of divination for it (Cf. Ban-Nobutomo, The Seiboku-Ko or Enquiries into Genuine Divination. The Ban-Nobutomo-Zenshu or Collected Works, Japanese edition, Vol. II, pp. 533–536. Hirata-Atsutane, the Koshiden,[errata 1] or Exposition of the Ancient Histories, Japanese edition, Vol. XIX, pp. 26–29).
And moreover in ancient Japan, the domestic cooking furnace was a god and enjoyed an official worship. The Engishiki. The Kokushi-Taikei, Japanese edition, Vol. XIII, p. 135.
W. G. Aston left the two difficult words “hijikannagi” and “katakannagi” untouched in his book on Shinto (Vide W. G. Aston, Shinto or the Way of the Gods[errata 2] p. 196).
Matsushita-Kenrin seems to understand by the word “shitodo” a kind of divination practised by means of the bones of the bird so named, i.e., Temminck’s Japanese bunting. Vide the Isho-Nihon-den or Exposition of the Foreign Notices of Japan (Japanese edition, Vol. I, 1, p. 11).
143. Anciently a white boar, but in later times a white pig, when white boars became unobtainable. A somewhat parallel passage is extant in the Mahayana Buddhist Sutra Bussetsu Jokyo Saigen Kyo or the Sutra on Removing Fear, Misfortune, and
