Shinto: The Way of the Gods/Chapter 13

by W. G. Aston

CHAPTER XIII.

MAGIC, DIVINATION, INSPIRATION.

The reader will find few traces of normal religious development in the practices to be described in this chapter. The pathological element is decidedly predominant.

Magic.—The older view of magic is that of Prof. Zimmern, who defines it as "the attempt on man's part to influence, persuade, or compel spiritual beings to comply with certain requests or demands." With this the view of the modern Japanese lexicographer Yamada, who calls magic (in Japanese majinaki) "the keeping off of calamity by the aid of the supernatural power of Kami and Buddhas," is in substantial agreement. Prof. Zimmern's definition is open to several objections. It is too wide, as it would include prayer and sacrifice; it assumes that all the sentient beings appealed to are spiritual, and it excludes the numerous cases of magic in which Gods and spirits are in no wise concerned. It is, however, impossible to leave out of consideration the last-mentioned class of magic, though it might be convenient to distinguish it by a different name, as "charms." Sir Alfred Lyall and Mr. J. G. Frazer have shown that magic of this kind has preceded religion, and that it is in principle the same as science, although based on wrong premises.

Magic and Medicine.—Magic is the bastard brother of medicine. The two arts are associated in many countries. Hirata says that in China medicine had its origin in magic. In Japan, in Kōtoku's reign (645-654), we find State departments of medicine and of magic organized on a similar footing. A Nihongi myth states that mankind owes both arts to the teaching of the Gods Ohonamochi and Sukuna-bikona. Evidently the myth by which these institutions are referred to a divine origin is of later growth than the institutions themselves. The same is plainly the case with the deification of the phallic emblems used to repel disease,^[1] and with the various magical appliances described on p. 196. The object of the myth-maker in these cases was to lend a religious sanction to what was in its origin a non-religious magical procedure. The same principle might be copiously illustrated from non-Japanese sources. On the other hand, there are cases in which a practice based on religion has its original character obliterated, so that it might easily be mistaken for a charm of no religious import.

Bakin on Magic.—I have before me a collection of "vulgar magical practices" (majinahi) made early in the last century by the famous novelist Bakin.^[2] It illustrates the confusion, even with highly educated men, between science and magic on the one hand, and between non-religious and religious magic on the other. A good many of Bakin's so-called majinahi turn out to be merely recipes, such as how to remove oil stains from books by an application of lime; to cure costiveness in fowls by doses of saltpetre; to kill the parasites of gold-fish by means of a preparation of human excrement; to keep away bookworms by exposing the books in the sun: "If a pot-tree withers in the middle and seems likely to die, take it out, shake the earth from its roots, and expose it to the sun for one day. Then steep its roots in a drain for one night. When replanted it will thrive." The scrapings of a copper ladle mixed with fish will cure disease in cats. We approach true magic more nearly in the following: "When stung by a wasp, take up a pebble which is half sunk in the ground, turn it over, and replace it, when the pain will at once leave you." The cure of illness from eating poisonous fish by swallowing the ashes of an old almanac seems also to belong rather to magic than to medicine. There are traces of a religious element in the following: "To cure toothache, apply to the tooth the ashes of a sardine which has been set up over the door on the last day of the year."^[3] Another plan is: "Inscribe on a slip of wood certain incantations (given) in the ordinary Chinese character, in the seal character, and in Sanskrit. Beside the inscription make two circles. If the toothache is in the upper jaw, knock a new nail with a purified hammer into the upper circle; if in the lower jaw, into the lower circle. If the pain does not go away, continue knocking the nail with the hammer. The slip of wood should be afterwards thrown away into a stream."^[4] Bakin tried this plan and found it effectual. He attributes his immunity from conflagration to his respect for fire. He always avoided stamping it out with his foot, and enjoins on his descendants to follow his example. If the master of a house before going to bed goes round calling out, "Be careful of fire: fasten well the doors," the spirit (of his words) will fill the house, and it will be preserved against fire and robbery. On the last night of the year, and on other festival occasions, water should be drawn from the well at sunset, placed in a clean vessel, and offered without a drop being spilled to the God of the kitchen furnace. It should be returned to the well the next morning. This will prevent danger of fire.

A Korean book of household recipes contains, along with instructions for making cakes, spiced wine, &c, such magical, but non-religious devices as the following: "To make a runaway slave come back of his own accord. Take a garment which he has worn and put it down the well, or hang some of his hair on a wheel and turn it round. He will then not know where to go and will come back to you."

Imitative or Sympathetic Magic.—These Korean examples illustrate the principle of imitative or sympathetic magic thus described by Mr. J. G. Frazer^[5]:—

"Manifold as are the applications of this crude philosophy—for a philosophy it is as well as an art—the fundamental principles on which it is based would seem to be reducible to two; first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and second, that things which have once been in contact, but have ceased to be so, continue to act on each other as if the contact still persisted. From the first of these principles the savage infers that he can produce any desired effect merely by imitating it; from the second he concludes that he can influence at pleasure and at any distance any person of whom, or anything of which, he possesses a particle. Magic of the latter sort, resting as it does on the belief in a certain secret sympathy which unites indissolubly things that have once been connected with each other, may appropriately be termed sympathetic in the strict sense of the term. Magic of the former kind, in which the supposed cause resembles or simulates the supposed effect, may conveniently be described as imitative or mimetic."

The sympathetic or imitative principle is not very conspicuous in the instances of vulgar (that is, non-professional) magic quoted by Bakin. It is, however, illustrated by other Japanese customs. There is a round stone in a shrine in Sagami which brings rain when water is poured over it. The stone is supposed to be the shintai of an Aburi no Kami (rain-fall-God),to whom the shrine is dedicated. Here we have a combination of religion with magic.^[6] Whistling in order to raise the wind^[7] is a purely non-religious piece of imitative magic, but in the Nihongi myth it is associated with religion by being represented as taught by a God. We should probably regard as a form of sympathetic magic the modern practice of devout visitors to the shrine of Tenjin, near Kiôto, who, in order to obtain relief from their ailments, rub the corresponding part of a bronze bull which stands before the shrine. A characteristic example of non-religious imitative magic is the custom of kasedori. When a marriage is unfruitful, the old women of the neighbourhood come to the house and go through the form of delivering the wife of a child. The infant is represented by a doll. The date selected for this ceremony is not immaterial. It is that of the festival of Sahe no kami. This, no doubt, gives it a quasi-religious flavour. To this class we may also refer the New Year's practice of going to sleep with a picture of a boat under the pillow. If lucky dreams follow an anchor is painted to it, if unlucky dreams a sail.

The Nihongi^[8] records a case in which a woman took earth from Mount Kako in Yamato, which she wrapped in her neckerchief and prayed, saying: "'This earth represents the country of Yamato.' Then she turned it upside down." The common witchcraft of ill-treating a figure of the intended victim in order to make him suffer in a corresponding manner is well known in Japan. The Nihongi (A.D. 587) speaks of a rebellious Minister preparing figures of the Heir to the Throne and loathing them. Dr. Griffis^[9] gives the following description of a magical ceremony performed by a woman in revenge for her lover's desertion of her:—

"At two o'clock in the morning she proceeds to the shrine of her patron-God, usually the Ujigami. Sometimes she wears a crown, made of an iron tripod reversed, on which burn three candles. In her left hand she carries a straw effigy of her victim; in her right she grasps a hammer. On her bosom is suspended a mirror. Reaching the sacred tree before the shrine, she impales the effigy upon it with nails, adjuring the Gods to save their tree, impute the guilt of desecration to the traitor, and visit him with their deadly vengeance. The visit is repeated nightly until the object of her sorcery sickens and dies. At Sabae, before a shrine of Kompira, stood a pine tree about a foot thick, plentifully studded with such nails."^[10]

The possession by the operator of the hair or nails of his victim adds greatly to the potency of his devices. Hence they are carefully kept by the proper owners and thrown away together in the twelfth month.

Another form of witchcraft is represented by the later custom of Inu-gami (dog-deity) thus described by Motoöri: " A hungry dog is tied up in sight of food which he is not allowed to eat. When his desire is keenest, his head is cut off and at once flies to seize the food. This head is put into a vessel and worshipped. A serpent or a weasel will do as well." It constitutes a mighty charm, which evidently owes its power to the keenness of the animal's sufferings.^[11] The Füzoku Gwaho tells a story which was probably invented in order to account for this custom. "An old woman buried her pet dog, leaving only the head above ground. Then she cut him about with a bamboo saw, saying, 'If thou hast a soul, kill such a one, and I will make thee a God.' The man really did die afterwards in strange fashion. From that time the dog-deity dwelt in the old woman's house and wrought many wonderful curses." In Tosa each village has several Inugami-mochi (dog-deity-owners). They are shunned by their neighbours. A matchmaker's very first inquiry is whether there is such a person in the family. Leprosy is the next subject of his questions, sudden death (supposed to be hereditary), riches or poverty, wisdom or foolishness, are of subsidiary importance.

The same idea of a materialized emotion is illustrated by a practice common near Yamaguchi. In order to drive away certain destructive insects from the rice-fields a straw figure, made to resemble a cavalry soldier, is led round in stately procession, and finally flung into the sea. This figure represents the leader of some fugitives from a battle who hid in these fields, but were pursued and slain there. The noxious insects are their materialized resentment at this fate.

The principles of sympathetic and imitative magic, so copiously illustrated in 'The Golden Bough,' are not applicable to all magical procedures. Many defy specific explanation, and are possibly the result of some chance association of ideas no longer traceable, or of a mistaken empiricism. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is responsible for much that is called magic.

The description of magic in Hastings's 'Dictionary of the Bible' as a "means of binding superhuman powers, either to restrain them from injuring oneself, or to constrain them to injure others and put them under a spell, or to reveal what to mortal man was unknown," scarcely applies at all to Japanese magic. I have not met with any mention in the older literature of pacts with demons or the coercion of spirits.

The Symbol in Magic.—In Japan, as in other countries, magic makes great use of the Symbol, the Talisman, and the Formula, spoken or written. This seems to depend on the more general notion that things which are associated in thought must have also a direct physical influence on each other, of which a familiar example among ourselves is the objection to receive a knife as a present, because it might cut the friendship between the giver and receiver. Possibly this association of the subjective with the objective (in Dr. Tylor's words "mistaking an ideal for a real connexion")^[12] was in Hirata's mind when he used the somewhat cryptic phrase, "Magic (majinahi, or magic, means etymologically mixture) is so called because it mixes the spirit (tama) of that which is here with the body of that which is there." We have seen^[13] that the phallus, as a symbol of robust animal life, was used to exorcise evil things, whether demons or diseases. Roof-tiles impressed with a symbol (bubbles) which is indicative of water, are used at the present day as a charm to protect houses from fire. The deification of the gourd, the clay and the water-plant, no doubt, points to a previous magical use as preventives of conflagration. Rice, perhaps as a representative of the kteis, is used for several magical purposes. In one of the Fudoki, unhulled rice is scattered broadcast by Tsuchigumo,^[14] to disperse a strange darkness which turned day into night.

The Talisman.—When the meaning of the symbol is altogether obliterated or unknown, we have the Talisman. It is not clear what was meant by the "tide-ebbing" and "tide-flowing" jewels given by the Sea-God to Hohodemi,^[15] or even that they had any meaning at all. A sort of scarf (hire) was much used as a talisman. In the Kojiki we are told of a scarf, which, when waved thrice, quieted snakes. Another kind gave protection against wasps and centipedes.^[16] The Nihongi has the following account of magical practices, suggested apparently by some acquaintance with the art of acupuncture:—

"Summer, 4th month, 1st day. The Koryö student-priests said that their fellow-student Kura-tsukuri no Tokushi had made friends with a tiger, and had learnt from him his arts, such as to make a barren mountain change into a green mountain, or to cause yellow earth to become clear water, and all manner of wonderful arts too many to enumerate. Moreover, the tiger bestowed on him his needle, saying: 'Be watchful! be watchful, and let no one know! Treated with this, there is no disease which may not be cured.' Truly, as the tiger had said, there was no disease which was not cured when treated by it. Tokushi always kept the needle concealed in a pillar. Afterwards the tiger broke the pillar and ran away, taking the needle with him."

Shaking or jingling talismans or other objects is supposed to have a magical virtue. Izanagi shakes the jewels which he takes from his neck to bestow on the Sun-Goddess. The Sun-Goddess and Susa no wo shook the jewels from which their children were produced. Shaking a number of talismans was part of the ceremony of Mitama furishiki, above described.^[17]

Part of the outfit of a district wise-woman or sorceress in recent times was a small bow, called adzusa-yumi, by twanging which she could call from the vasty deep the spirits of the dead, or even summon deities to her behests. Another small bow, called ha-ma-yumi (break-demon-bow) is given to boys at the New Year. I conjecture that both of these had something to do with the bows used in the ceremony of tsuina described above.

Another magical appliance for the restraint of demoniac or evil influences is the shime-naha, or close-rope. It is made of rice-straw plucked up by the roots, the ends being allowed to dangle down at regular intervals. A rope of this kind was used to prevent the Sun-Goddess from returning into the Rock-cave of Heaven. At the present day it is hung in front of shrines, and at the New Year before ordinary dwellings. Sacred trees are girt with it, or it may be suspended across a road to prevent the passage of evil spirits. Some people wear shime-naha on their person. The twin rocks at Ise, between which there is a view of Fuji and the rising sun, are connected by an immense shime-naha, with which a legend is associated to the effect that Susa no wo, in return for hospitality, taught his host how to keep out the God of Pestilence by stretching such a rope across the door. The shime-naha is sometimes called Hi no mi tsuna (sun-august-rope). The shime-naha is the counterpart of the consecrated rope which in Siam is fastened on the last day of the year round the city walls to prevent the banished demons from returning.

Garlic has the same power over evil spirits in Japan that it has in Europe.

The Formula in Magic.—The magic power of set forms of speech, quite distinct from any meaning which they may possess, is well illustrated by the use of the numerals from one to ten as a magic formula for the cure of disease. But in the instructions of the Sea-God to Hohodemi to return the lost fish-hook to his brother with the words, "A hook of poverty, a hook of ruin, a hook of downfall," the proper meaning of the words is retained, though they are evidently supposed to be accompanied by some mysterious potency, independent of it. Beyond the circumstance that they were taught by Gods, these incantations do not seem to have had any religious character. Nor, when a judge^[18] is about to execute some criminals by casting them into the fire, and uses the charm, "Not by my hands are they cast," is there apparently any God invoked. The words themselves avert any evil result. There is no hint of a religious origin in the passage of the Nihongi which states that the first Mikado, Jimmu, invented magical formulae for the dissipation of evil influences. Of course, there are many formulae of this kind which stand on a different footing. When, at the present day, a Japanese calls out Kuhabara! Kuhabara! (mulberry-grove) during a thunderstorm, it is no doubt with the idea of suggesting to the Thunder-God that the place is a mulberry grove, which, it is believed, is never struck by lightning. Charms often consist of a ticket with the name of the God (usually the ubusuna) and a statement that the bearer is under his protection.

Magic and Shinto.—The treatment of magic by Shinto is not uniform. We have seen that it lends its sanction to some practices of this kind by affirming that they were taught or practised by Gods, or by deifying the objects used in them. But there are others which it condemns, including them in the offences against the Gods enumerated in the Oho-harahi.^[19] It is, however, for their malicious purpose that they are reprobated. There is no trace in the old records of any scepticism as to their efficacy. A scientific knowledge sufficient to arouse doubts of the power of magic did not then exist, and would have been equally fatal to much in Shinto itself. Even in modern times such highly educated men as Bakin and Hirata had an implicit belief in the efficacy of this art. The latter complains that there is a tendency among physicians of the Chinese school to neglect it. Some diseases, he says, are caused by evil spirits and some by minute insects (microbes?). Magic and medicine should therefore, in his opinion, be combined.

The decay of magic in modern Japan is not owing to religious but to scientific progress. It is due to China, whose philosophy, imperfect as it is, taught far truer views of the limitations of man's powers than anything Japan was able to discover for herself.

Divination.—Divination (in Japanese uranahi) is magic which has a special object, namely, the revelation of the unknown. This is implied by the Japanese word, which is derived from ura, the rear, heart, lining, obverse, and hence that which is concealed. Ordinary experience, and, at a later stage of progress, science, enable us to reason with more or less certainty from the known to the unknown; but mankind, not satisfied with legitimate methods, have supplemented them by divination, which comprises various irregular and ineffective processes specially directed to discovering the will of the Gods, ascertaining what will be lucky or unlucky, and predicting future events.

Objects of Divination.—In Japan we find divination practised to ascertain whether an expedition would be successful or unsuccessful, the reason of the disturbed state of the country and its remedy, the best site for a temple, tomb, or dwelling-house, whether the Mikado should make a progress to a certain place and perform sacrifices there, what crops it is best to sow, what days will be lucky or unlucky, when to expect a lover, the name of a future husband, &c. The priestess of Ise was selected by divination, and the provinces from which the rice for the Ohonihe ceremony should be taken. Ominous occurrences were interpreted by the help of this art. The purity of persons about to take part in a religious ceremony was tested in this manner. Or divination might be applied to the baser use of recovering lost property or discovering thieves. There was a special divination on the 10th day of the 12th month to ascertain what ill luck threatened the Mikado during the ensuing six months, so that the Gods whose curse was feared might be propitiated in advance.

Religious and Non-religious Divination.—Divination, like magic, does not necessarily involve the intervention of superhuman sentient beings, as we may see by our own palmistry, fortune-telling by cards, and Shakespeare cryptograms. That the art passed through a non-religious phase is highly probable. In Japan, however, the cases met with in the oldest records are commonly associated, explicitly or implicitly, with an appeal for divine guidance. Hirata defines divination as "respectfully inquiring the heart (ura) of the Gods." Motoöri takes the same view, though both writers admit that in modern times divination which has no religious sanction is sometimes resorted to, playfully, or in unimportant matters.

The Greater Divination.—The greater, or official, divination consists in drawing conclusions according to certain conventional rules from the cracks which appear in a deer's shoulder-blade when exposed to fire. This practice is known not only to the Chinese, Kalmucks, Cherkeses, and other races of North-Eastern Asia, but to the ancient Germans and Greeks. Nearer home we have the "reading the speal" (épaule), a sort of divination by examining the marks on a shoulder-blade of mutton, practised not very long ago in the Highlands of Scotland. The Nihongi tells us that the Gods themselves made use of the Greater Divination in order to learn the reason of Izanagi and Izanami's abortive children the Hiruko and the Island of Ahaji. The God Koyane, ancestor of the Nakatomi, was specially charged with this form of divination. In the numerous passages of the Nihongi where divination is mentioned without further description, it is no doubt the Greater Divination which is intended. Chinese methods of divination were introduced into Japan from Korea at an early date. In 553 it seems to have been an established practice that Koreans learned in medicine, in divination, and in calendar-making should take turns of service at the Court of Japan. It was no doubt owing to their influence that the tortoise-shell was substituted for the deer's shoulder-blade in this divination. A reference to the "divine Tortoise" in the Nihongi under the legendary date B.C. 92 is merely an anachronism. But the tortoise was really in use for this purpose in the eighth century. The Yengishiki recognizes no other, though in the country districts the shoulder-blades of deer were long retained.

In an old book purporting to describe the practice of the Tsushima college of diviners at a much later period than the Yengishiki, we are told that the diviner, after practising religious abstinence for seven days, took his place in the divination plot (uraba or uraniha), from which all other persons were rigorously excluded. He was provided with the tortoise-shell, some hahaka wood, and other requisites. Having prayed to the God of the divination plot,^[20] who is besought to grant a true divination, the diviner recites the Kami-oroshi (formula which brings down the God), and kindles in a blazing fire a stick of hahaka about four or five inches long, and of the thickness of a chopstick. When it has taken fire, he blows it out, and with it pricks the tortoise-shell from the back. Divination is then made from the lines thus produced. When the divination is over, the Kami-agari (ascent of the God) is recited, and the ceremony is at an end.

The Shintō Miōmoku Ruijiu gives the following description of a form of tortoise-shell divination practised at Kashima to select young girls for the service of the God (mono-imi). Two candidates who have not reached puberty perform rites to the God for 100 days. On the final day a caldron is set up before the shrine and two tortoise-shells are placed in it, each of which bears the name of one of the girls. These are roasted from early morning till dusk. The tortoise-shell with the name of the successful candidate is then found to be wholly uninjured by the fire whilst the other is reduced to ashes. It is said that the girl selected attains a great age and that she never menstruates.

Tsuji-ura (cross-roads divination).^[21]—This form of divination was much practised in ancient Japan, especially by women and lovers. It consisted in going out to the road at dusk, planting a stick in the ground to represent Kunado, the phallic God of roads, and interpreting the fragmentary talk of passers-by as an answer to the question.^[22] Another account says that to perform tsuji-ura you take a box-wood comb in your hand, go to cross-roads and sound it three times by drawing your finger along it (tsuge, " box-wood," also means "inform me"). Then, with devotion to the Sahe no Kami, repeat this verse three times: "Oh, thou God of the cross-roads-divination, grant me a true response." Good or bad luck is to be inferred from the words of the next (or the third) person who makes his appearance. Sometimes a boundary line was marked out and rice sprinkled to keep away evil influences. The words of the passer-by who first entered the charmed limit constituted the response.

Hashi-ura (bridge-divination). Little is known of this kind of divination. The procedure was the same as in tsuji-ura, and the Gods concerned were probably the Sahe no Kami. The end-post of a bridge was, and still is, a wo-bashira, that is, male pillar or phallus.

Ishi-ura, or stone-divination, is mentioned in the Manyōshiu along with tsuji-ura. The "stone" is probably the stone emblem of Kunado or Sahe no Kami. It consisted in judging of future fortune by the apparent weight of the stone when lifted. Such stones were called Ishi-gami (stone-deities) and were no doubt phallic.

Mikayu-ura (divination by gruel). This kind of divination is also associated with the Sahe no Kami. It was practised in various forms at Hirawoka in Kahachi, Suha in Shinano, and other places, on the 15th day of the 1st month^[23] in order to ascertain what crops it would be best to sow that year. A pot was set up before the God in which adzuki beans^[24] were boiled. Then tubes of reed, five or six inches long, marked with the names of all manner of crops were plunged into the gruel. The negi (priests) stood by, and taking out the tubes with chopsticks divined from the manner in which the grains of rice (mixed with the gruel) entered them whether the crop in question would be good or bad. At Haruna the priests published the results to the peasants in a printed form.

Hirata mentions another form of divination in which beans are set in a row round the hearth and fire brought close to them. Some are roasted black while others remain white, and from this the weather and luck of the ensuing year are divined.

Koto-ura (harp-divination) was formerly (11th century) practised at Ise with the object of ascertaining whether the priests who were to take part in the three great religious services of the year and the utensils employed were pure or not. Prayer having been made to the Sun-Goddess, the officiating priest struck a harp three times,^[25] uttering with each note a loud Hush! He then recited the following Kami-oroshi (bringing-down the Gods):—

"Ah! we protest that we are in earnest,
To your pure seat deign to descend
All ye Gods of Heaven and Earth,

Ah! we protest that we are in earnest,
To thy pure seat deign to descend
Thou Thunder-God also.

Ah! we protest that we are in earnest,
To your pure seat deign to descend
Oh thou upper great brother and thou lower great brother."^[26]

The names of the priests were then called over and the question asked in the case of each, "Is he clean or unclean?" The officiating priest then struck the harp and tried to whistle by drawing in his breath. If the whistle was audible it was a sign of purity, and vice versâ. The same procedure was observed with regard to the persons who had prepared the offerings, the offerings themselves, and the utensils required in the service.

Caldron-Divination.—At the shrine of Kibitsu no miya in Bittchu there is a mode of divining good and ill-luck from the sound made by a caldron in boiling. The priests, on the application of a worshipper, recite norito and kindle a fire of brushwood under a caldron. If the sound produced resembles the bellowing of a bull, the prognostic is good, if otherwise, it is bad.

Divination by Lots.—Sticks with numbers inscribed on them, or slips of paper, were much used for divination. The succession to the Imperial throne has been decided in this way. Prayer to the Kami often preceded their use. The following is a form of divination by lot which is used by sailors when they have lost their reckoning. The names of the points of the compass are written on slips of paper, placed in a measure of rice, and the whole mixed up. A harahi-bako of the Great Deity of Ise is put on the top. Prayer is offered and the lot which is found to adhere to the harahi-bako is looked upon as the answer of the Deity. Another form of divination by lots is thus described: "You place three sticks, numbered one, two, three, in a bamboo tube and inquire of the God as to good or ill luck, saying reverently, 'If the thing is lucky, let it be such a number, if unlucky, such another number.'" In what is called harahi-kuji "you write lucky or unlucky, or whatever your prayer may be, on papers which you fold up and roll into a ball. Then having offered reverent prayer to the God, rub the lots with harahi ko-nusa^[27] when that which adheres to them is concluded to be the answer. This is common at all shrines."

Lots were, and still are, used for all manner of non-religious purposes. If a solitary passenger appears at a jinriksha stand, he is often cast lots for by means of a set of cords of various lengths knotted together at one end which is kept for the purpose. The 'Yih-King,' a Chinese book which sets forth a non-religious system of divination depending partly on drawing lots is much used in Japan.

Divination by Means of the Stars was first introduced in A.D. 675 by the Korean teachers of Chinese arts.

Kitsune-tsukahi.—"Amongst the ordinary diviners is one called Kitsune-tsukahi, i.e., a fox-possessor. The divination is carried on by means of a small image of a fox, made in a very odd way. A fox is buried alive in a hole with its head left free. Food of the sort of which foxes are known to be most fond is placed just beyond the animal's reach. As days pass by the poor beast in its dying agony of hunger makes frantic efforts to reach the food; but in vain. At the moment of death the spirit of the fox is supposed to pass into the food, which is then mixed with a quantity of clay, and shaped into the form of the animal. Armed with this extraordinary object, the miko is supposed to become an infallible guide to foretelling future events of every kind."^[28]

Augury by various kinds of birds was known. The geomancy practised to some extent in Japan is of Chinese origin.

The Nihongi mentions a number of isolated cases of divination invented on the spur of the moment. The following is an example:—

"When the Emperor was about to attack the enemy, he made a station on the great moor of Kashihawo. On this moor there was a stone six feet in length, three feet in breadth, and one foot five inches in thickness. The Emperor prayed, saying: 'If we are to succeed in destroying the Tsuchi-gumo, when we kick this stone, may we make it mount up like a kashiha leaf.' Accordingly he kicked it, upon which, like a kashiha leaf, it arose to the Great Void. Therefore that stone was called Homishi. The Gods whom he prayed to at this time were the God of Shiga, the God of the Mononobe of Nawori, and the God of the Nakatomi of Nawori—these three Gods."^[29]

Omens are frequently mentioned. A leg-rest breaking without apparent cause was a bad omen. The migration of rats from the capital, the movements of a swarm of flies, comets, a dog bringing in a dead man's hand and depositing it in a shrine, prolonged darkness, to meet a blind or a lame person are examples of evil omens. Earthquakes, floods and storms were supposed to portend war. A wren's entering a parturition-house is described as a favourable omen. White animals of all kinds were good omens, and also three-legged crows or even sparrows, no doubt because the Sun-crow had three legs.

Dreams.—At all stages of human progress, the rational, normal, and usual attitude of mankind towards dreams is a disbelief in their reality. The ivory gate is recognized to be their ordinary, every-day thoroughfare. There are good reasons for this. Most dreams are so palpably absurd that the common sense even of the primitive man, enlightened by daily experience, rejects them as something not to be depended on. A man dreams that he has partaken of a hearty meal and wakes up hungry. The cogent logic of an empty belly leaves him no choice but to reject unhesitatingly the proposition that his dream was a reality. He dreams that he has broken his leg. Will he, therefore, lie up for a month to give it time to heal? In his dreams he can fly. Nature exacts a stern penalty if he is idiotic enough to act on the belief that he can do so in reality. The practical necessities of life prohibit a man who has to earn a living and support a family from indulging in any such foolish imaginations. The analogy of his own day-dreams, which he must know to be unreal, is too obvious to be disregarded.

It is true that we do not find much evidence of this attitude of mind in books of travel or history. Nobody thinks it worth while to commit to paper instances of so very evident a fact. Most men are comparatively uninterested in the normal and familiar. Travellers, and sometimes even men of science, are prone to neglect the universal and commonplace for the strange and unusual. Like Desdemona, they seriously incline to hear of

"The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders."

Herbert Spencer^[30] thinks that the primitive man accepts the events dreamed as events that have actually occurred, and adduces evidence which no doubt shows that there really is a current of thought to that effect among savages and others. For the reasons above stated I prefer to regard such cases as abnormal and exceptional. The Kojiki and Nihongi have many instances of Gods appearing to men in dreams and giving them instructions. These are doubtless inventions of some scribe, but they indicate a belief in the possibility of such occurrences. Hirata thought it possible by witchcraft to cause people to have dreams.

A more frequent view of dreams is that, although not in themselves realities, it is possible by suitable interpretation to deduce truth from them—usually in the form of predictions of the future. There are cases of this kind in the old Japanese records. A deer, for example, dreams that a white mist has come down and covered him. This portends that he will be killed by hunters and his body covered with white salt.

There is evidence that some men occasionally attain in dreams to a deeper spiritual insight and a keener emotional sensibility to divine influences than in their waking moments. Those who have had such experiences do not speak lightly of them. At the present time science is not in a position to deal adequately with this matter. Shinto helps us nothing.

Ordeal is a species of divination. Under the date A.D. 277 the Nihongi has the following:—

"The Emperor forthwith questioned Takechi no Sukune along with Umashi no Sukune, upon which these two men were each obstinate, and wrangled with one another, so that it was impossible to ascertain the right and the wrong. The Emperor then gave orders to ask of the Gods of Heaven and Earth the ordeal by boiling water. Hereupon Takechi no Sukune and Umashi no Sukune went out together to the bank of the Shiki river, and underwent the ordeal of boiling water. Takechi no Sukune was victorious. Taking his cross-sword, he threw down Umashi no Sukune, and was at length about to slay him, when the Emperor ordered him to let him go. So he gave him to the ancestor of the Atahe of Kiï."

The same authority informs us that in A.D. 415 the Mikado, in consequence of the great confusion caused by the assumption of false names and titles, commanded the people of the various houses and surnames to wash themselves and practise abstinence.

"Then let them, each calling upon the Gods to witness, plunge their hands in boiling water. Hereupon every one put on straps of tree-fibre, and coming to the caldrons, plunged their hands in the boiling water, when those who were true remained naturally uninjured, and all those who were false were harmed. Therefore those who had falsified [their titles] were afraid, and, slipping away beforehand, did not come forward. From this time forward the Houses and surnames were spontaneously ordered, and there was no longer any one who falsified them."

A note adds:—

"This is called Kugadachi. Sometimes mud was put into a caldron and made to boil up. Then the arms were bared and the boiling mud stirred with them. Sometimes an axe was heated red-hot and placed on the palm of the hand."

In a case which occurred in A.D. 530, it is stated that a judge, in order to save himself trouble, was too ready to resort to the boiling-water ordeal and that many persons were scalded to death in consequence.

At the present day plunging the hand into boiling water, walking barefoot over a bed of live coals and climbing a ladder formed of sword-blades set edge upwards are practised, not by way of ordeal, but to excite the awe and stimulate the piety of the ignorant spectators.^[31]

Inspiration.—Such knowledge as we possess of the divine will and nature comes in the first place to the nobler individuals of our race, men in whom high intellectual powers are harmoniously allied to keen and healthy emotional susceptibilities and ripened by long years of experience and reflection. They it is the seers, inspired prophets, men of genius, or by whatever name we may call them who furnish the material out of which religion is developed, not the vulgar, with their superstitions which are only a product of its decay.

Inspiration is not an isolated phenomenon. Like all our thoughts and doings, it is the resultant of three component factors—namely, our own ego and that of our fellow-men, and the all-pervading influence of that divine environment in which we live, and move, and have our being. Each of these may predominate according to circumstances. In what we call inspiration, the two former are, as far as may be, in abeyance, and the mind is left free to be acted on by such higher influences as it is capable of receiving.

In the case of Shinto, we have, unfortunately, no record of the conditions under which such truths as it contains became revealed. The deification of the Sun and the recognition of the fact that there is love for mankind in the warmth and light which proceed from him was a truly magnificent idea in a world destitute of religion. The Izanagi myth, by which so many of the Gods were assigned a common parentage, was a brilliant conception, paving the way towards monotheism. Musubi, the God of Growth, marks a further stage of progress in this direction. To these may be added such few and vague glimpses as were caught of the truth that offences against our neighbour are also displeasing to the Gods. But we have no knowledge of the circumstances attending these discoveries or of the persons who made them. The only true seer of whom the old records tell us anything was an unfortunate man who in A.D. 644 taught his countrymen to worship—albeit in the form of a caterpillar—the God of the Everlasting World, the God of Gods, and suffered death in consequence.

The seer is not equally clear sighted at all times. He has temporary enhancements of lucidity due to conditions which are very imperfectly understood. Some are of a physical nature. The moderate use of certain drugs and stimulants is an acknowledged help towards producing such exalted states of mind. Music, quiet, sympathy, voluntary concentration of mind (lapsing sometimes into the hypnotic trance, or something resembling it), general abstemiousness, and occasional fasting, are all aids of recognized value which are not neglected by the individual, compact of common clay, who vainly aspires to fill the high office of interpreter between Gods and men.

The Japanese word for inspiration is Kangakari, which means God-attachment, and is nearly equivalent to our "possession." It is indicative of the passive attitude claimed by the seer in all countries, with an earnestness which, however genuine, notoriously does not exclude the possibility of error. The most transparent bodies deflect or modify the light which passes through them. Other words for inspiration are takusen and shintaku. They are of Chinese origin, and involve the idea of a divine message or commission.

In the notices of inspired communications recorded in the Shinto books we seldom or never recognize the true prophet. Instead of revelations of divine truth, we are given the fruits of hypnotism, imposture, and a credulous interpretation of meaningless things. The reader will discern few traces of genuine inspiration in the following examples, of which the earlier are taken from the Nihongi.

The Goddess Uzume gave forth an "inspired utterance" as part of her performance before the Rock-cave of Heaven into which the Sun Goddess had retired. It consisted of the numerals from one to ten.

B.C. 5. The Sun-Goddess instructed the Princess-priestess Yamato-hime that a shrine should be erected to her in the province of Ise.

B.C. 38. A young child pronounced an unintelligible speech which sounded like the names of deities, and was thought to be inspired. Worship was offered in consequence.

B.C. 91. A God inspired Yamato totohi momoso hime (a Princess) to say as follows: "Why is the Emperor grieved at the disordered state of the country? If he duly did reverence it would assuredly become pacified of itself."

A.D. 193. The Empress Jingō was inspired by a certain God to urge her husband the Mikado to invade Korea.

"200. 3rd month, 1st day. The same Empress, having selected a lucky day, entered the Palace of worship, and discharged in person the office of priest.^[32] She commanded Takechi no Sukune to play on the lute, and the Nakatomi, Igatsu no Omi, was designated as Saniha.^[33] Then placing one thousand pieces of cloth, high pieces of cloth, on the top and bottom of the lute, she prayed, saying: 'Who is the God who on a former day instructed the Emperor? I pray that I may know his name.' After seven days and seven nights there came an answer, saying: 'I am the Deity who dwells in the Shrine of Ise.'"

"487. A certain man, inspired by the Moon-God, said, 'My forefather Taka-musubi had the merit of creating Heaven and Earth. Let him be honoured by dedicating to him people and land. I am the Moon-God and I shall rejoice if this my desire is complied with.'"

555. Mention is made of a divine inspiration by which the Hafuri, a century before, had advised humble prayer to the "Founder of the Land" before going to the assistance of a Korean king.

"672. Kome, Takechi no Agata-nushi, Governor of the district of Takechi, suddenly had his mouth closed so that he could not speak. After three days, a divine inspiration came upon him, and he said: 'I am the God who dwells in the Shrine of Takechi, and my name is Koto-shiro-nushi no Kami.' Again, 'I am the God who dwells in the Shrine of Musa, and my name is Iku-ikadzuchi no Kami.' This was their revelation: 'Let offerings of horses and weapons of all kinds be made at the misasagi (tomb) of the Emperor Kamu-yamato-ihare-biko.' Further they said: 'We stood in front and rear of the Imperial descendant and escorted him to Fuha, whence we returned. We have now again taken our stand in the midst of the Imperial army for its protection.' Further they said: 'An army is about to arrive by the Western road. Be on your guard.' When he had done speaking, he awoke [from his trance]. For this reason, therefore, Kome was sent to worship at the Imperial misasagi and to make offerings of horses and weapons. He also made offerings of cloth and worshipped the Gods of the Shrines of Takechi and Musa.

"After this Karakuni, Iki no Fubito, arrived from Ohosaka. Therefore the people of that day said: 'The words of the instructions of the Gods of the two Shrines are in accordance with the fact.'

"Moreover the Goddess of Muraya said by the month of a priest: 'An army is now about to arrive by the middle road of my shrine. Therefore let the middle road of my shrine be blocked.' Accordingly, not many days after, the army of Kujira, Ihoriwi no Miyakko, arrived by the middle road. The men of that day said: 'So the words of the teaching of the God were right.' When the war was over, the Generals reported the monitions of these three Gods to the Emperor, who straightway commanded that the three Gods should be raised in rank and worshipped accordingly."

812. A decree was passed denouncing punishment on peasants who, without reason, predicted good or bad fortune. The authorities were at the same time enjoined to report any genuine predictions.

1031. While a service to the Sun-Goddess was being performed at Ise, a storm of thunder and lightning came on. The Saiwō (virgin priestess of Imperial blood) was inspired and said: "I am the Ara-matsuri no miya, the first of the separate shrines of the Great Shrine, and I now speak by command of the Great God. The Sātō [an official designation] Sōdzu and his wife have for years past made absurd pretensions, such as that the two great Deities have flown to and attached themselves to them, the Ara-matsuri and the Takamiya to their children and the [deities of] the five separate shrines to their domestic. Such extraordinary assertions evince a want of loyalty both to the Gods and to the Mikado. Their disregard of the ceremonial regulations and the fewness of the offerings are not (in themselves) deserving of severe blame, but they show a want of respect to the Gods. Iga no Kami reaped the rice officially set apart for the service of the shrine and slew the peasants of the Deity. Yet, by the remissness of the Government officials, it was the third year before he was banished......Let Sōdzu be sent into exile at once." After delivering this message the Saiwō drank several cups of the sacred sake. Nowadays, with ourselves, recourse is had, under like circumstances, to a letter to the Times or a question in the House of Commons.

1225-27. Though not an inspiration, I may mention here an oracle which was delivered at Idzumo by wormholes in the wood of the old Temple which took the form of Chinese characters. It intimated that the God did not care for lofty buildings, but that the people should turn to virtue. Motoöri strongly suspects its authenticity. No Shinto God, he thinks, would be likely to use Chinese for his oracles.

1348. A Buddhist priest of the province of Ise, having made prayer for 1,000 days at the Shrine of the Great Deity, saw on the thousandth day a bright object floating on the sea. This he found to be a sword two feet five or six inches in length. At this time a boy of twelve or thirteen, being divinely inspired, said: "This is one of the three regalia, the precious sword sunk in the sea."^[34] The matter was reported to Kioto, where the authenticity of the sword was corroborated by dreams, but ultimately not officially recognized.

The Wa Kongo, a work published in 1669, contains a number of oracles (Kangakari) attributed to a great variety of Deities throughout Japan. Some account of this work will be given in the next chapter.

Numerous other cases of inspired utterances are recorded in Japanese history. They have generally relation to the worship of the God concerned, directing the erection of a new shrine, indicating religious observances which will do him pleasure, or complaining that he is neglected or insulted. The Buddhist priests, who converted Shinto to their own purposes, made frequent use of this means of sanctioning their encroachments, and it was also made to serve political purposes.

Some of the above notices are purely legendary, and of the rest many are open to a suspicion of imposture. It is probable, however, that in most cases the writers who recorded or invented them had in view the hypnotic trance, a kind of condition which is well known in Japan at the present day. The following description of a hypnotic séance is abridged from Mr. Percival Lowell's interesting book, 'Occult Japan.'

A place having been chosen, either holy or else purified ad hoc, a gohei is set up with lighted candles beside it and flanking these, sprigs of sakaki, the sacred tree of Shinto. In front of the gohei is set out a feast for the God. Some five feet in front a porous earthenware bowl is placed on a stand, and in the bowl a pyre of incense sticks. The purification of the place consists in enclosing the spot with strings, from which depend at intervals small gohei, and from the space so shut off driving out all evil spirits by prayer, finger-charms,^[35] sprinkling of salt, striking of sparks by flint and steel, and brandishing a gohei.

The persons of the officiators are purified by bathing and putting on fresh white garments.

In its full complement the company consists of eight persons, the naka-za (middle-seat) corresponding to the medium, the mae-za (front-seat), who is the director of the proceedings, and puts the necessary questions to the medium, and several others whose business it is to ward off evil influences, &c.

A purification service having been chanted under the leadership of the mae-za, and songs sung to the accompaniment of the shaku-jō,^[36] a sort of staff with metal rings attached to it, the pyre is lighted, and as the flames ascend into the air prayers go up to Fudōsama.^[37]

The gohei having been removed and set up in the middle, the men take their seats for the descent of the God. Facing the gohei, they go through a further short incantation. Then one of the subordinates holds the gohei while the naka-za seats himself where it had been and closes his eyes. The mae-za takes the gohei and places it between the hands of the naka-za. Then all the others join in chant, and watch for the advent of the God.

For a few minutes, the time varying with the particular naka-za, the man remains perfectly motionless. Then suddenly the gohei begins to quiver. The quiver gains till all at once the man is seized with a convulsive throe. In some trances the eyes then open, the eyeballs being rolled up half out of sight. In others the eyes remain half shut. Then the throe subsides again to a permanent quiver, the eyes, if open, fixed in the trance look. The man has now become the God.

The mae-za, bowed down, then reverently asks the name of the God, and the God answers, after which the mae-za prefers his petitions, to which the God makes reply. When he has finished, the naka-za falls forward on his face. The mae-za concludes with a prayer, then, striking the naka-za on the back, wakes him up. One of the others gives him water from a cup, and when he has been able to swallow it the rest set to and rub his arms and body out of their cataleptic contraction.

The Sankairi, a work published in 1853, mentions a kind of inspired medium known as yori-dai:—

"There are numbers of these in Ôsaka who practise Kami-oroshi (bringing down the God). An altar to Sho-ichi-i Inari Miōjin (first of first rank illustrious God Inari) is consecrated within their dwelling-house, before which the medium takes his seat. Some of these bringers-down of the God are men, others women. They take a gohei in each hand and repeat the Rokkon shōjō no harahi [a bastard Buddhist form of harahi], muttering at the same time something or another so that one might think they were veritable official bringers-down of the God.

"At Tenōji there is a Miko-machi, or street of mediums who pretend that it was established by Shōtoku Taishi. When the cries of these mediums reach the street, people look in at the windows. They differ, however, from the Inari-oroshi. Some there are who use the formula, 'Is it a living mouth or a dead mouth?' so that they probably belong to the Shinano mediums, who talk of [the God] being drawn by the adzusa bow. There is also a kind of witchcraft called Inugami.^[38] But the Miōjin-oroshi [or yoridai] we speak of repeats over and over again the phrase 'Be pleased to cleanse, be pleased to purify,' so long as he retains his senses. Then his complexion changes and he becomes pale, while the gohei in his hands shake themselves erect. He will then answer, one after another, by manifest inspiration, any questions which the applicant may put to him."

The Sankairi is a Buddhist book, and goes on to tell a story of a Kami being brought down by nembutsu (Buddhist prayers) and the medium repeating a Buddhist hymn.^[39]

It need hardly be said that, as in the case of our own spiritualistic séances, the net value of the information obtained by this process is nil. It is hardly fair to Shinto to call this sort of thing "esoteric Shinto," as Mr. Lowell does. Spiritualism is not esoteric Christianity, but a diseased excrescence on it. The higher Shinto functionaries do not condescend to such practices, and, indeed, they are commonly performed by laymen, or even by Buddhist priests. The official Shinto mode of ascertaining the will of the Gods was by the "Greater Divination," that is, by the deer's shoulder-blade or the tortoise-shell. Kangakari, or inspiration, was, however, known at all periods of Japanese history; and although no detailed accounts have reached us of the methods used to produce it, there are indications that they were of a similar character to those described by Mr. Lowell. The kannushi of the ceremony of the Empress Jingō's inspiration^[40] seems to be the same as Mr. Lowell's naka-za, and the saniha corresponds to his mae-za. We may presume that his office sometimes resembled that of the functionary at Delphi, whose business it was to clarify the obscurities of the Pythian priestess's utterances. The miko of the shrine of Ise gave inspired utterances. The sprinkling of boiling water is said to have been part of the process by which they were induced.

True inspiration, such as that which touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire, belongs chiefly to the male sex. The kangakari, or hypnotic trance, on the other hand, has in Japan, as elsewhere, a decided preference for women or boys.^[41]

'Occult Japan' deals only with the hypnotic trance as a condition in which communications are received from the Gods. But there are also mediums, called miko or ichiko, who when hypnotized deliver messages from deceased relatives and others.^[42] Hirata speaks of the miko and hafuri providing yori-bito (mediums), by whom they brought near (yoru) by prayer the spirits of Gods or men and questioned them. Ichiko is defined in the dictionary, Kotoba no Idzumi, as a woman who, as the representative of a God or living soul, or dead man's soul, delivers their thoughts from her own mouth.

Possession by foxes, badgers, and other animals is a well-known phenomenon in Japan, but as it has no special connexion with Shinto I shall only refer the reader to Mr. B. H. Chamberlain's 'Things Japanese,' which contains a scientific account of this form of disease from the pen of Dr. Baelz.

There are in Japan families who are believed to own foxes, by whom they are assisted and protected, and who watch over their fields and prevent outsiders from doing damage. Such families are avoided, and none but members of similar fox-owning families will intermarry with them.^[43]

 

1. See above, p. 197.
2. 'Yenzeki Zasshi,' v. I.
3. When demons and evil influences are expelled. See above, p. 308.
4. After the manner of the Oho-harahi offerings.
5. 'The Golden Bough,' second edition, p. 9.
6. I cannot offer any explanation of the magic used by women and children in order to bring fine weather. They hang upside down to the eaves or on the branch of a tree human figures cut in paper, and called Teri-teri-bōsu (shine-shine-priest).
7. See above, p. 115.
8. I. 157.
9. 'The Mikado's Empire,' p. 474.
10. See also Ch. K. 263.
11. According to Van Heltmont, the reason why bull's fat is so powerful in a vulnerary ointment is that the bull at the time of slaughter is full of secret reluctancy and vindictive murmurs, and therefore dies with a higher flame of revenge about him than any other animal.
12. See 'Primitive Culture,' i. 116, where numerous examples of symbolic magic are given.
13. See above, p. 187.
14. The Tsuchigumo (earth-hiders) were men of a low class, who lived in dwellings sunk in the earth, and gave much trouble to the Japanese Government in ancient times. Dr. Tylor, in his 'Primitive Culture,' i. 113, has noted the tendency to attribute magical powers to pariahs and foreigners. Sukunabikona, the teacher of magic to Japan, came from abroad.
15. See above, p. 115.
16. See above, p. 106.
17. See p. 292.
18. Nihongi, ii. 82.
19. See above, p. 294.
20. Koyane. Hirata speaks with scorn of the Chinese methods of divining current in Japan in later times, in which no invocation of the Gods was used. Sometimes other Gods, and even Buddhas, were invoked.
21. "The King of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to perform divination."—Ezekiel xxi. 21.
22. Pausanias says that in ancient Greece the inquirer, after asking his question of the God and making his offering, took as the divine answer the first words he might hear on quitting the sanctuary.
23. The date of the festival of the Sahe no Kami.
24. See above, p. 193.
25. The Kami-yori-ita (God-resort-board), struck in later times to bring down the Gods, is believed to be a substitute for this harp.
26. It is not known who these Gods were.
27. Smaller gohei used in the harahi ceremony.
28. Weston, 'Mountaineering in the Japanese Alps,' p. 307. See also Index, Inugami; and Mr. Chamberlain's 'Things Japanese,' third edition, p. 110.
29. Compare the story of Gideon's fleece in Judges vi. 37. See also Nihongi, i. 237, and Ch. K. 194.
30. 'Sociology,' i. 154.
31. See Mr. P. Lowell's 'Occult Japan,' p. 36.
32. Kannushi.
33. Saniha (pure court) is explained as the official who examines the utterances prompted by the Deity.
34. At the battle of Dannoüra, in 1184.
35. In-musubi, a Chinese practice.
36. A Buddhist religious implement.
37. A Buddhist deity. The incense is also Buddhist.
38. See above, p. 332.
39. An excellent account of a Japanese hypnotic séance is given in Mr. Weston's 'Mountaineering in the Japanese Alps,' p. 282.
40. See above, p. 350.
41. "Antiquity regarded the soul of woman as more accessible to every sort of inspiration, which also, according to ancient opinion, is a πάσχεον."—Müller, 'Sc. Myth.,' p. 217.
42. See above, p. 206.
43. See above, p. 344.