sprang tip a bamboo grove. Therefore that place was called Taka-ya.[1]
(II. 26.) Now Kami-ataka-ashi-tsu-hime by divination fixed upon a rice-field to which she gave the name Sanada, and from the rice grown there brewed Heavenly sweet sake, with which she entertained him. Moreover, with the rice from the Nunada rice-field she made boiled rice and entertained him therewith."[2]
In one writing it is said:—"Taka-mi-musubi no Mikoto took the coverlet which was on the true couch and wrapped in it Ama-tsu-hiko-kuni-teru-hiko-ho no ninigi no Mikoto, who forthwith drew open the rock-door of Heaven, and thrusting asunder the eight-piled clouds of Heaven, descended. At this time Ama-no-oshi-hi no Mikoto, the ancestor of the Oho-tomo[3] no Muraji, taking with him Ame-kushi-tsu Oho-kume, the ancestor of the Kume Be,[4] placed on his back the rock-quiver of Heaven, drew on his
- ↑ Bamboo-house.
- ↑ This incident is the mythical counterpart of the annual festival of Nihi-nahe or nihi-name, now celebrated on November 23rd, when the new season's rice is offered to the Gods and partaken of by the Emperor for the first time. It was grown in plots of ground (yu-niha), the position of which was fixed upon by divination and prepared under strict conditions of ceremonial purity. Nihi means new, n represents no, the genitive particle, and ahe means feast. Nami means to taste.
The modern name of this festival is Shin-jō-sai. There is a similar one in China. In ancient times there was no distinction made between this and the Oho-nihe or Oho-name, when the Emperor at his accession offered rice to the Gods (now called the Daijōye), both being called Oho-nihe. The prayer read at the Nihi-name is given among the norito in the Yengishiki, and Hirata devotes the last three vols. of the "Koshiden" to this subject.
- ↑ Great escort, i.e. of the Emperor.
- ↑ I quite endorse Chamberlain's shrewd suggestion that this Kume is "nothing more nor less than an ancient mispronunciation of the Chinese word chün (軍), the modern Japanese gun, army, troops." The Oho-tomo were the Imperial guards. Vide Ch. K., p. 112.
a knife, but to bite it through, a thin garment being interposed. It should be breathed on seven times with warm breath before being tied.
Superstition and Ritual have a preference for knives of some more primitive material than iron. Medea shears her magic herbs "curvamine falcis ahenæ," and Zipporah performs the rite of circumcision with a sharp stone. But a more prosaic explanation of the present passage is suggested by a surgeon friend. There is less hæmmorrhage when a blunt instrument is used.
