— 36 —
Yuki no yoroshi mo
O- o- yo sogoro mo.”)
In the sixth year of his reign, the same Emperor having worshipped the eighty myriads of gods, the shrines in honour of the Gods of Heaven and Earth were erected, and land and houses alloted for the Divine service (76). It was in the reign of this Emperor that regular taxes were for the first time imposed upon Japanese men and women. The men were to pay them by hunting wild animals in the mountains and fields, whilst the women were to pay by means of their handicraft at home. Established once for all as a State-institution, this ordinance has never been abrogated, and we Japanese still bring to the shrines the skins of bears and deer, stags’ horns, and cloth as offerings, when worshipping the gods.
In the days of the Emperor (Suinin) reigning at the Tamaki Palace in Makimuku (77) His Majesty appointed Yamato-Hime-no-Mikoto (who was his second daughter by his consort Sahohime) (78) to be the Imperial guardian-priestess sacred to Amaterasu-O-Mikami, and in obedience to a divine revelation she erected a shrine to that Goddess beside the river Isuzu in Ise Province, and Abstinence Palace (79) was attached thereto in which consecrated abode the Imperial priestess as consecrated Abbess dwelt. As these matters were previously ordained by Amaterasu-O-Mikami and Chimata-no-Kami in Heaven, they now actually took place on earth. Chimata-no-Kami had already settled at Ise long before this Emperor dedicated the Shrine of Isuzu to Amaterasu-O-Mikami.
