One writing says Ma-futsu no Kagami.
On its lower branches they hung blue soft offerings and white soft offerings.[1] Then they recited their liturgy together.
Moreover Ama no Uzume[2] no Mikoto, ancestress of the (I. 40.) Sarume[3] no Kimi, took in her hand a spear wreathed with Eulalia grass, and standing before the door of the Rock-cave of Heaven, skilfully performed a mimic dance.[4] She took, moreover, the true Sakaki tree of the Heavenly Mount Kagu, and made of it a head-dress, she took club-moss and made of it braces,[5] she kindled fires,[6] she placed a tub bottom upwards,[7] and gave forth a divinely-inspired utterance.[8]
- ↑ The blue were of hempen cloth, and the white of the paper-mulberry cloth. By blue probably the colour of undyed hempen stuff is meant. The Japanese word awo, blue, is used very loosely. Some take soft in the metaphorical sense of "propitiatory." These offerings are the originals of the Gohei, or strips of paper wreathed round a wand, which are now seen set up in every Shinto shrine.
- ↑ Terrible female of Heaven.
- ↑ Monkey-female.
- ↑ This is said to be the origin of the Kagura or pantomimic dance now performed at Shinto festivals.
- ↑ The braces or shoulder straps were to support a tray for carrying things, and so assist the arms. The Japanese word is tasuki, which means assistance.
- ↑ A prototype of the nihabi (courtyard fires) of later Shinto worship.
- ↑ The "Nihongi" strangely omits to say that, as we learn from the "Kojiki," she danced on this and made it give out a sound.
- ↑ In Hirata's version of the ancient mythical narrative, he introduces here an incantation said in the "Kiujiki" to have been taught by the Sun-Goddess to Ninigi no Mikoto, but stated in the "Ko-go-jiui" to have come down originally from Uzume no Mikoto. It consists of the syllables Hito-futa-mi-yo-itsu-mu-nana-ya-kokono-tari, which Hirata has tried hard to extract some meaning out of. Hito, he says, is man, futa, the lid, i.e. the door of the rock-cave, miyo is the imperative of miru, to see, this phrase meaning "Look! ye Gods at the door!" and so on. That these words are now
word ta (for te, hand) may here be a measure of length, an explanation which is favoured by the Chinese character used for it in the "Nihongi." The hand is a hand's length, not a hand's breadth, as with us. The yata-kagami would therefore be "a mirror of large size."
There are ancient mirrors in Japan with a number of suzu or bells projecting round them, or of an octagonal shape, and I am disposed to think that the epithet yata has reference to this peculiarity, the corners or projections being taken for handles. Compare the analogous word Yatagarasu (Index).
It is said to be this mirror which is worshipped at Ise as an emblem of the Sun-Goddess. See Satow's "Handbook," second edit., p. 176.
