Kitabı oku: «Shinto», sayfa 11

Izanagi and Izanami belong to that stage of religious progress in which the conception has been reached of powerful sentient beings separate from external nature. Untrue in itself, it has served a useful purpose. It is obviously easier for nations with little scientific knowledge to conceive of the same being as a ruler or parent of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, with all its human concerns, than to recognize in these phenomena a harmonious living whole. The common parentage of Izanagi and Izanami formed a link of union between the different aspects of nature which did not previously exist, and thus was in so far a step towards monotheism.

The manner of creation is variously represented. In no case is anything made out of nothing. The first act of creation was the formation of an island out of the drippings of the brine of the chaos-ocean from a spear. The other parts of Japan and many of the deities were produced by the ordinary process of generation. The functions of Izanagi and Izanami are elsewhere described as "putting in order and fully consolidating" the floating land beneath. This is precisely what Ohonamochi is represented as doing several generations of Gods later. Deities were also produced from Izanagi's clothing and staff which he threw down on his flight from Yomi, and from his eyes and nose when he washed in the sea to remove the impurity contracted by his visit thither. The Wind-God was his breath and the Gods of Water and Clay were formed of the urine and fœces of Izanami when she was about to die. These ideas, though not quite identical with, are closely related to the legends of other countries which describe the creation of the universe from the fragments of a fabulous anthropomorphic being. The Chinese myth of P'anku has been already quoted.¹⁴⁴ Norse story tells how "the vast frame of the world-giant Hymi was completely cut up by the sons of Bor, with Woden at their head. From Hymi's flesh they made the earth, from his bones the mountains, from his skull the heavens, from his blood the sea."¹⁴⁵

There is nothing spiritual about these two deities. All their actions are modelled not on those of ghosts, but on those of living men. Even when Izanami dies and goes down to the land of Yomi, she does not become a ghost, but a putrefying corpse.

Their shintai is a mirror.

A Japanese writer¹⁴⁶ says: "In the beginning of all sentient things we have two Supreme Beings, Izanagi and Izanami." Even if we admit the possible existence of two Supreme Beings, Izanagi and Izanami hardly realize our conception of the Supreme. They acted by command of other pre-existing deities, and their creation is limited. It does not include all the Gods, and, as is only natural, is confined to Japan. The creation of mankind is nowhere accounted for in Japanese myth. There is, however, a modicum of truth in this writer's statement. Though not the first sentient beings, Izanagi and Izanami are the first who stand out with any distinct characterization, and, although not supreme, they represent a movement, feeble and abortive it is true, towards the co-ordination of all the aspects of divinity in one Supreme Being.

Motoöri proposed, and most European scholars have accepted, a derivation of Izanagi and Izanami from izanafu, a verb which means to invite, to instigate, the terminations gi and mi meaning respectively male deity and female deity. Hence the translation "Male who invites" and "Female who invites." There are, however, grave difficulties in the way of this interpretation. It is scarcely appropriate in the case of the female deity. Moreover, we must take into account the fact that these are not the only pairs of deities in which the terminations nagi and nami occur. We have also an Aha-nagi (foam-God) and Aha-nami (foam-Goddess), a Tsura-nagi (bubble-God) and Tsura-nami (bubble-Goddess), and a Sa-nagi (rapid-God) and Sa-nami (rapid-Goddess), in all of which na does not belong to the first part of the word, but is put for no, the genitive particle, by a letter-change of which we have other examples. The first element of Izanagi is, therefore, not izana but iza, which is met with as an exclamation of incitement. The harshness of making an interjection followed by a genitive particle is obvious. I am disposed to prefer the derivation which takes Iza as the name of a place. The Nihongi mentions a "true well" of Isa or Iza. There are two places called Isa in Hitachi, and an Isa no Jinja, or shrine of Isa, in Idzumo. It is even possible that these Gods are simply the Gods of Ise (Ise no gi and Ise no mi). A similar letter-change takes place in manabuta, eyelid, for me no futa, and tanasuye for te no suye. The difference between s and z is of little consequence in Japanese.

Musubi, the God of Growth. – Musubi illustrates a different conception of creation from that of the myths of Ohonamochi and Izanagi and Izanami. This God is the abstract process of growth personified-that is, a power immanent in nature and not external to it. The emotion which prompts this personification-so natural to an agricultural people-is well portrayed in the words of a Kafir to the French traveller M. Arbrouseille: "Do I know how the corn sprouts? Yesterday there was not a blade in my field: to-day I returned to the field and found some. Who can have given the earth the wisdom and power to produce it? Then I buried my head in both hands." But while the emotion is the same, the Japanese conception differs. Musubi means growth or production. It is connected with the word umu, to bear, to bring forth, and with musu, to grow, to be born. Musu is said of moss growing on a stone and of ice forming on water. Musuko, a boy, and musume, a girl, contain the same element. As a God's name, Musubi is usually found with one of the laudatory adjectives, taka, high, or kamu, divine, prefixed to it. To these the honorific particle mi is commonly added, giving the forms Taka-mi-musubi and Kamu-mi-musubi. Even in the Kojiki and Nihongi these are recognized as two distinct deities. The Yengishiki (901-922) enumerates three more Musubi deities, and to these still others might be added. In poetry a single God Musubi is alone met with, and the Wamiōshō recognizes but one such deity. Probably the division into several persons was an esoteric refinement of which the people took little heed.

Whether we have regard to his name or to the somewhat meagre notices in the Kojiki and Nihongi, there is nothing spiritual in the Japanese conception of Musubi. But the scribes learned in Chinese who committed the old myths to writing sometimes use characters which imply a spiritual view of his nature. They mean "producing-spirit."

He is also called mi oya, or august parent. Hirata thinks that Taka-musubi and Kamu-musubi are husband and wife, the Kamurogi (progenitor) and Kamuromi (progenitrix) of the norito, and condemns his master Motoöri for holding that we have in these deities a unity in duality and a duality in unity. But his reasons are not quite convincing, and there is a passage in the Kojiki which cannot be reconciled with his view. The same author points out the resemblance of this God to the Hindu Siva, who represents the fructifying principle, the generating power that pervades the universe, producing sun, moon, stars, animals, and plants. Siva is represented in his temples by a phallus, and Hirata conjectures that this was likewise the shintai of Musubi.

Musubi is sometimes called the Inochi no Kami, or God of life. The creation of mankind is attributed to him in a poem of the Jiu-i-shiu, where a rejected lover exclaims: -

 
"I hate not thee,
It is the God I hate,
Great Musubi: -
Why did he men create
Unto so hard a fate?"
 

The Kojiki speaks of the two deities Taka-musubi and Kamu-musubi as forming the second and third generations of Gods. The original text of the Nihongi omits all mention of them in this part of the narrative, but in a note there is a quotation from "one writing" in which they are named. In the various accounts of the measures taken to prepare the earth for occupation by Ninigi sometimes the Sun-Goddess is represented as giving instructions, sometimes Taka-musubi, sometimes both together, and sometimes Taka-musubi alone. Jimmu, in making mention of the two deities, gives precedence to Taka-musubi. This discordance in the various myths seems to indicate a struggle for ascendancy between the respective adherents of Musubi and the Sun-Goddess. The Nihongi states that in a. d. 487 (a fairly trustworthy date), by request of the Moon-God and the Sun-Goddess, the worship of Taka-mi-musubi, whom these two deities call their ancestor and the Creator of Heaven and Earth, was established in two places, and grants of lands and of peasants made for the maintenance of the shrines. This is possibly the beginning of the official worship of this God. In 859 several Musubi deities were raised to the first grade of the first rank. In the tenth century eight shrines to various Musubi deities existed within the Palace. With the official classes Musubi was a dangerous rival to the Sun-Goddess, more especially during the Augustan age of Japanese literature. But he was too philosophical for popular favour. His worship is now greatly neglected. The Musubu no Kami of the present day is identified with the Chinese Gekka-rōjin (moon-under-old-man), who presides over the fates of lovers. The strips of cloth frequently seen hung on bushes by the roadsides are offerings to him. The second meaning of Musubi, namely, "to tie," has no doubt something to do with this new view of the God's function.

The Shōjiroku traces the descent of a large number of the noble families of Japan from the various forms of Musubi. This is a literal rendering of a statement which, in one sense, is true of everybody. We all resemble Topsy.

Kuni-toko-tachi. – I place this deity provisionally among the personifications of abstractions. The name means literally "earth-eternal-stand." He is, therefore, apparently a deification of the durability of earth. Motoöri and Hirata take toko as for soko, bottom or limit. This would make this deity a personification of the horizon, or perhaps more accurately Lucretius's "flammantia mænia mundi." He has no sex and no special characteristics. He is barely mentioned in myth, and his cult, which is comparatively modern, was no doubt, as Hirata suggests, a result of the prominent position given him in the Nihongi as the first God in point of time, and as the ancestor of the Sun-Goddess, before whom he was therefore entitled to precedence. He was identified with the Taikyoku, or "Great Absolute," of the Chinese philosophers, was said to be immortal, and to comprise all the Gods in himself, was called "the name of the nameless, the form of that which has no form," and, in short, erected into a Supreme Being. In the fourteenth century an unsuccessful attempt was made to substitute him for the Food-Goddess as the deity of the outer shrine of Ise. At the present day he is worshipped at Mount Ontake, in the province of Shinano, a place much resorted to by pilgrims.

O tentō-sama (august-heaven-way-personage) was probably originally a personification of the natural order of things-Laotze's tao, or Pindar's Νὀμος, the βασιλενς of Gods and men. But this is too abstract for the common Japanese. To them O tentō-sama is the Sun itself, endowed, it is true, with certain moral attributes.

Drought and Famine deities belong to this class. None of these is of much importance.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE PANTHEON, MAN DEITIES

I. DEIFIED INDIVIDUAL MEN

None of the Dii majores of the more ancient Shinto are deified individual men, and although it is highly probable that some of the inferior mythical personages were originally human beings, I am unable to point to a case of this kind which rests on anything more than conjecture.

Take-minakata, the deity of Suha in Shinano, may be a real ancestral deity. He is very popular at the present day. This God is not mentioned in the Nihongi, but his legend is given in the Kojiki¹⁴⁷ and Kiujiki. He was a son of Ohonamochi, who, after his father's submission, refused allegiance to the Sun-Goddess and fled to Suha, where he was obliged to surrender, his life being spared. Tradition says that the present Oho-hafuri, or chief priests of Suha, are direct descendants of this deity. The inhabitants hold that the God is the Oho-hafuri, and that the Oho-hafuri is the God. An oracle of the God is quoted to this effect: "I have no body, the hafuri is my body." His house is called the shinden or divine dwelling. He never leaves the neighbourhood, and takes precedence of the chief local official. At every change of office the newly appointed high priest formerly received a cap of honour and robes from the Palace of Kiôto. He takes no active part in the ceremonies of the annual festival, but sits on a chair in the middle of the sacred plot of ground and receives the obeisances of the people. This festival is called the mi-hashira-matsuri or "festival of the august pillars." It is so called because instead of a shrine there is only a plot of ground containing a "rock-cave"¹⁴⁸ with a great wooden post at each of the four corners.

Hachiman. – The War-God Hachiman is one of the most conspicuous of the later Shinto deities. His origin is really unknown, but he is placed provisionally among deified human beings in accordance with the accepted tradition which makes him identical with the very legendary Mikado Ôjin. The ultimate authority for this statement is an oracle of the God himself delivered hundreds of years after Ôjin's death. There is no mention of his worship in the Kojiki or Nihongi, and the legends which carry it back to a. d. 570 are unworthy of credence. The original seat of this cult was Usa, in the province of Buzen, an old Shinto centre. Hachiman seems to have first come into notice in 720, when he rendered efficient assistance in repelling a descent of Koreans on Japan. Forty years later Kiyomaro, the founder of the great Minamoto family, made use of his oracles to thwart the ambitious projects of a priest named Dôkiô, the Wolsey of Japanese history. The rise of the Minamoto family carried with it that of the God who had been so useful to them. In Seiwa's reign (859-880) a temple was erected to him at Ihashimidzu near Kiôto, where he received Imperial presents, and even visits. In 1039 he was given a high place in the State religion.

Hachiman is nominally a Shinto God. His Shinto quality is recognized in various ways, notably by the erection of the distinctive Shinto gateways known as torii, before his shrines. But his cult is deeply tinctured with Buddhism. The numerous inspired utterances ascribed to him are thoroughly Buddhist in character. In several of these he calls himself Bosatsu (Bodhisattwa), which is a Buddhist term something like our saint. He is also credited with giving instructions for the celebration of an annual festival for the release of living things, which is, of course, a humanitarian Buddhist institution, wholly foreign to the rôle of a Japanese War-God.

The shintai of Hachiman may be a pillow, a fly-brush, an arm-rest, or a white stone.

Other legendary mortals, who in later times were honoured as War-Gods, are Jimmu, the founder of the Imperial dynasty, Jingō, the conqueror of Korea, Takechi no Sakune, her counsellor, and Prince Yamato-dake, the hero who subdued the east of Japan. None of these are treated as deities in the older Shinto books.

Temmangu, the God of Learning and Calligraphy, is undoubtedly a deified human being.

"There is nobody in the world, high or low, old or young, man or woman, who does not look up with reverence to the Divine power of Temmangu. More especially children who are learning to read and write, and their teachers, all without exception, enjoy his blessings. Every one is therefore desirous of knowing the exact truth concerning him. But there are many false notions handed down by vulgar tradition. Chinese scholars have wantonly done violence to the history of an awful deity by introducing Chinese ideas, while the Buddhists, on the other hand, have been guilty of disfiguring the story by all manner of forced analogies. Sad to say, there is no book in which the real facts have been set down after investigation."

The above is the exordium of a preface to a short life of Temmangu, prepared by Shintoists of the Hirata school. Of the work itself the following is a brief summary. The main facts of the story are beyond question. But the reader will see that, notwithstanding the claims put forward in the preface, this work must be taken with not a few grains of salt.

Temmangu's name as a mortal man was Sugahara Michizane. He was born in 845, and came of a family which had a hereditary reputation for learning. Nomi no Sukune, deified as the patron of wrestlers and potters, was one of his ancestors. Through him Michizane traced his descent up to the Sun-Goddess herself. As a child he was fond of study, and at an early age his knowledge of Chinese was such that he was appointed to entertain an ambassador from China. Being ordered by the Mikado to pray for rain, he observed the rules of ritual purity for several days, and then prepared a form of prayer to the God of Hakusan (Izanagi), which had the desired effect. He established a system of national education, and therefore became known as the "Father of letters." On reaching his fiftieth year he received congratulations and a present of gold dust from a genie. Soon afterwards he was made Prime Minister. In 901, owing to the calumnies of a rival statesman, he fell into unmerited disgrace and was banished to Kiushiu. On his departure he addressed the following lines to a plum tree in his garden: -

 
When the east wind¹⁴⁹ blows,
Emit thy perfume
Oh thou plum-blossom;
Forget not the spring,
Because thy master is away.
 

A branch of this tree broke off spontaneously and followed him into exile. There it planted itself in the ground and took root. Two years after, Michizane climbed a high mountain and, standing on tiptoe on the summit, prayed with all his heart and all his body for seven days and seven nights to Tentei (the Supreme Lord of Heaven). Whilst doing so his hair and beard turned white. The Tentō (way of Heaven) had doubtless pity on an innocent man, for a cloud overspread the sky and bore up his petition into the Great Void. Michizane, overjoyed that his prayers were answered, made nine obeisances and retired. He died soon after, in his fifty-ninth year, to the great grief of the whole nation. Two years later, in accordance with a divine inspiration, a small shrine was erected to him under the title of Tem-man-ten-jin (the heavenly Kami who fills the heavens). In a few years Michizane's calumniator died by a curse from him. Other members of his family had the same fate. From the ears of one of his enemies small snakes issued who declared themselves the messengers of Michizane. When Prince Yasuaki died, in 923, everybody said that his death was owing to a curse sent by Michizane's spirit. Then the Minister of State Kintada died suddenly. Three days after, he came alive again, and informed the Mikado that he had been to the Court of the King of Hades, where he saw Michizane, ten feet high, present a petition for an inquiry into the crime committed by the Mikado in banishing him unjustly. Influenced by Kintada's report, the Mikado burnt the decree of exile, recalled Michizane's children, and conferred posthumous honours upon him. But the angry ghost was still unappeased. In 929 it came down from Heaven and appeared to a former friend of his. Terrible storms, inundations, and other portents ensued. Ministers who tried to stay him from further ravages were burnt or kicked to death. Ultimately the ghost appeared before the Mikado and protested his innocence, after which the Kami, as he is called, ascended. From this day forth the Mikado suffered from a poison which, in spite of prayers of all kinds, grew worse and worse. He abdicated in 930, and died a few days later.

Michizane's ghost continued to plague the nation. In 943 he appeared to a mean woman of Kiôto, and directed that a shrine should be erected to him in that city. In 947 a boy of six years of age delivered an oracle from him to the following effect: "All the Thunder-Gods and Demons to the number of 168,000 have become my servants. If any one does evil I have him trampled to death by them. Pestilence, eruptive diseases, and other calamities have been placed in my hands by the Supreme Lord of Heaven, and no Kami, however powerful, can control me. But I will give help to those who piously express their sorrow." Eight persons who were present took down this revelation in writing. At this time the shrine of Kitano at Kiôto was erected to him. But his wrath was not yet wholly stayed. Further honours were therefore awarded and gifts made to him. In 1004 the Mikado visited Kitano in person. At the present day Temmangu is one of the most widely worshipped of Shinto deities. In 1820 there were twenty-five shrines to him in Yedo and the neighbourhood.

"He still hates the wicked, who do not keep the way of filial piety, and withholds his favour from those who dislike learning. You must therefore attend strictly to the commands of your parents and the instructions of your teachers. You must serve your chief with diligence, be upright of heart, eschew falsehood, and be diligent in study so that you may conform to the wishes of Temmangu. If you fail to do so, you will be cursed by him, and sooner or later incur calamity. For although the Kami cannot be seen by men, they will know whether their conduct is good or bad, and whether their hearts are upright or perverted."

Although the life of Temmangu, from which the above account is taken, was compiled by men of the "Pure Shinto" school, and though in the preface the importation of Buddhist and Chinese ideas is stigmatized, it is itself penetrated with elements of this very kind. The "Supreme Lord of Heaven" is Chinese, and the Hades to which Michizane descended is not the Shinto Yomi, but the Buddhist Jigoku. No doubt the authors found these things in their materials, and were loth to excise edifying incidents, however badly they fitted in with Shinto theology.

The acquaintance of the Japanese with the Chinese cult of Confucius must have greatly promoted, if it did not originate the worship of a native God of Learning. It will be observed that the attribution of nature-powers to Michizane was a substantial part of the process of deification, which was based on the alternate influence of the emotions of gratitude and fear.

Nomi no Sukune, the Patron-God of wrestlers, was probably a real human being. Hitomaro, the Poet-God, was undoubtedly so. Another muse of poetry, Sotoöri-hime, belongs to more legendary times, but was probably likewise a real person. Iyeyasu, the founder of the last dynasty of Shöguns, was deified under the title of Töshö Gongen, but this, like many other similar apotheoses, is, in reality, Buddhist rather than Shinto.

II. GODS OF CLASSES

Ministers and Attendants of the Sun-Goddess. – The application of the hereditary principle to Government offices has had many vicissitudes in Japan. When the country emerges into the light of history, both Court offices and local chieftaincies were usually transmitted from father to son. Among the hereditary institutions of this kind were the Be. The Be were Government corporations charged with some special branch of service. There were Be of weavers, of farmers, of potters, &c., a Be for the supply of necessaries to the Palace, an executioner's Be, and others. If we imagine a dockyard staff in which the director and officials belonged to a governing caste, the artisans being serfs, and the whole having a more or less hereditary character, we shall have a tolerably correct idea of a Be.

The Gods of five Be are represented as in attendance on the Sun-Goddess, and as accompanying Ninigi to Earth when he was sent down to be its ruler. These were: -

Koyane, ancestor of the Nakatomi¹⁵⁰ House. The etymology of Koyane is uncertain. The worship of this deity had a special importance, from the fact that he was the Ujigami¹⁵¹ of the Fujihara family, a branch of the Nakatomi, which for many centuries supplied a large proportion of the Empresses and Ministers of State. It would hardly be too much to say that the Fujiharas were the Imperial House. The shintai of Koyane was a jewel or shaku, that is, a tablet borne by Ministers as an emblem of office. Hirata identifies with him a deity named Koto no machi no Kami, or God of Divination. The corresponding deity in the Idzumo myth of Ohonamochi was Ama no hohi. The supposed descendants of this deity had charge of the sacred fire which was handed over by one generation to another with great ceremony.

Futodama. – Futodama means great gift or offering. The Imi-be,¹⁵² his reputed descendants, discharged a number of duties connected with the State religious ceremonies, including the provision of sacrificial offerings.

Uzume means "dread female." She was the ancestress of the Sarume, or "monkey female," who performed religious dances (kagura) at Court and delivered inspired utterances. Hirata identifies this deity with Oho-miya no me (great-palace-female), worshipped as one of the eight Gods of the Jingikwan, or Department of Religion. She represents the chief lady officials of the Palace as a class. Uzume, in announcing to the Sun-Goddess the approach of Susa no wo, discharged one of their duties. From another point of view she is a type of the wise woman, sorceress, or prophetess. She was prayed to for long life, for protection from evil by night and by day, for honours, and for posterity. One of the norito splits up Oho-miya no me into five separate deities.

Ishikoridome means apparently "the stonecutter." Why should the supposed ancestor of the mirror-makers have received this name? The circumstance that stone moulds for casting bronze objects have been found in Japan suggests a possible answer.

Toyo-tama, "rich jewel," the ancestor of the jewel-makers' Be, requires no explanation.

The Kiujiki gives a list of thirty-two deities as forming the Court of Ninigi on his descent to Earth, and adds the names of the noble families who were descended from them. A few of these are nature-deities. Of the remainder some may be deified real men, but I prefer to reckon them provisionally along with such class conceptions as Tommy Atkins, John Bull, Brother Jonathan, and Mrs. Grundy.

Koto-shiro-nushi is one of those secondary formations in which the personification of nature and the deification of man meet and mingle. As the son and counsellor of the Earth-God and Creator Ohonamochi he is related to the class of nature-deities, while as an individualized type of a class of human beings and as the supposed ancestor of certain noble families he belongs to the current of thought which exalts man to divinity.

Shiro in this God's name is for shiru, "to know," and so to attend to, to manage, to govern. Koto-shiro-nushi is, therefore, "thing-govern-master." The character and functions of this deity are not well defined. He was one of the Gods who advised Jingô's famous expedition against Korea, on which occasion he described himself as "the Deity who rules in Heaven, who rules in the Void, the gem-casket-entering-prince, the awful Koto-shiro-nushi." In the Ohonamochi myth he is represented as his father's chief counsellor. Owing to his services in persuading him to transfer the Government of Japan to Ninigi without resistance, he was held in great honour at the Mikado's Court, of which he was considered one of the principal protectors. The Jingikwan included him among the eight Gods specially worshipped by them to the neglect of many more important deities, including even his father, Ohonamochi. In the Manyôshiu he is called upon by a lover to punish him if he is insincere in his protestations. In modern times the cult of Koto-shiro-nushi has fallen into decay, while that of his rebellious younger brother, the God of Suha, flourishes greatly. The pious Motoöri is much perplexed and grieved by this state of things.

Sukuna-bikona. – Another God who is associated with Ohonamochi in myth and worship is the dwarf deity,¹⁵³ Sukuna-bikona (little-prince). He is said to have taught mankind the arts of brewing, magic and medicine, and to have provided medicinal thermal springs, where he is still worshipped. But in modern times his cult has been greatly superseded by that of Yakushi the Indian Esculapius, whose avatar he is supposed to be.

I take Sukuna-bikona to be a deified type of medicine man, a "Father of medicine" in the abstract. But the story related of him¹⁵⁴ may have some foundation in the history of a real person.

III. GODS OF ABSTRACT HUMAN QUALITIES

Sahe no kami. – The Sahe no kami are phallic deities. In approaching this subject, it behoves me to walk warily. For, to some writers so repulsive that they shirk even its necessary elucidation, it exercises a fascination upon others which is not conducive to sound reasoning. Has not a President of the Anthropological Institute declared that "so soon as a man begins to study phallicism he goes crazy"? With phallicism we may conveniently associate the corresponding cult of the kteis.

In Japan, the phallus symbolizes two distinct, although not unrelated, principles. Primarily, it represents the generative or procreative power, and is recognized in this capacity by myth and custom. By a natural transition it has become the symbol of the more abstract conception of lusty animal life, the foe to death and disease. Hence its use as a magical prophylactic appliance. In Shinto, this latter principle is much the more prominent. It is embodied in the name Sahe no kami, which means "preventive deities." The application of this epithet is clear from the circumstance that in a norito they are invoked for protection against the "unfriendly and savage beings of the Root Country," that is to say Yomi or Hades. These by no means imaginary personages are the same as the Ugly Females, the thunders generated from Izanami's dead body and the armies of Yomi of myth.¹⁵⁵ They represent, or rather are identical with, diseases and other evils associated with death and the grave. Epidemic and contagious diseases are specially intended. Hence the Sahe no kami are also called Yakushin, or "Pestilence Deities," meaning the Gods who ward off pestilence, a phrase wrongly taken in later times to signify the Gods who produce pestilence. The use of the phallus and kteis for this purpose is primarily magical, and rests on the wellknown principle that a symbol possesses something of the virtue of the thing which it represents. The deification of these symbols came later.