Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (23 page)

The Kame-da-yu would inspect the rice-cakes and begin to criticise them.
'They are much smaller this year,' he would observe, 'than they were
last year.' The priests would reply: 'Oh, you are honourably mistaken;
they are in truth very much larger.' 'The colour is not so white this
year as it was last year; and the rice-flour is not finely ground.' For
all these imaginary faults of the mochi the priests would offer
elaborate explanations or apologies.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, the sakaki branches used in it were
eagerly bid for, and sold at high prices, being believed to possess
talismanic virtues.

It nearly always happened that there was a great storm either on the day
the Kokuzo went to Oba, or upon the day he returned therefrom. The
journey had to be made during what is in Izumo the most stormy season
(December by the new calendar). But in popular belief these storms were
in some tremendous way connected with the divine personality of the
Kokuzo whose attributes would thus appear to present some curious
analogy with those of the Dragon-God. Be that as it may, the great
periodical storms of the season are still in this province called
Kokuzo-are
[57]
; it is still the custom in Izumo to say merrily to the
guest who arrives or departs in a time of tempest, 'Why, you are like
the Kokuzo!'

The Guji waves his hand, and from the farther end of the huge apartment
there comes a sudden burst of strange music—a sound of drums and
bamboo flutes; and turning to look, I see the musicians, three men,
seated upon the matting, and a young girl with them. At another sign
from the Guji the girl rises. She is barefooted and robed in snowy
white, a virgin priestess. But below the hem of the white robe I see the
gleam of hakama of crimson silk. She advances to a little table in the
middle of the apartment, upon which a queer instrument is lying, shaped
somewhat like a branch with twigs bent downward, from each of which
hangs a little bell. Taking this curious object in both hands, she
begins a sacred dance, unlike anything I ever saw before. Her every
movement is a poem, because she is very graceful; and yet her
performance could scarcely be called a dance, as we understand the word;
it is rather a light swift walk within a circle, during which she shakes
the instrument at regular intervals, making all the little bells ring.
Her face remains impassive as a beautiful mask, placid and sweet as the
face of a dreaming Kwannon; and her white feet are pure of line as the
feet of a marble nymph. Altogether, with her snowy raiment and white
flesh and passionless face, she seems rather a beautiful living statue
than a Japanese maiden. And all the while the weird flutes sob and
shrill, and the muttering of the drums is like an incantation.

What I have seen is called the Dance of the Miko, the Divineress.

Then we visit the other edifices belonging to the temple: the
storehouse; the library; the hall of assembly, a massive structure two
stories high, where may be seen the portraits of the Thirty-Six Great
Poets, painted by Tosano Mitsu Oki more than a thousand years ago, and
still in an excellent state of preservation. Here we are also shown a
curious magazine, published monthly by the temple—a record of Shinto
news, and a medium for the discussion of questions relating to the
archaic texts.

After we have seen all the curiosities of the temple, the Guji invites
us to his private residence near the temple to show us other treasures—
letters of Yoritomo, of Hideyoshi, of Iyeyasu; documents in the
handwriting of the ancient emperors and the great shoguns, hundreds of
which precious manuscripts he keeps in a cedar chest. In case of fire
the immediate removal of this chest to a place of safety would be the
first duty of the servants of the household.

Within his own house the Guji, attired in ordinary Japanese full dress
only, appears no less dignified as a private gentleman than he first
seemed as pontiff in his voluminous snowy robe. But no host could be
more kindly or more courteous or more generous. I am also much impressed
by the fine appearance of his suite of young priests, now dressed, like
himself, in the national costume; by the handsome, aquiline,
aristocratic faces, totally different from those of ordinary Japanese-
faces suggesting the soldier rather than the priest. One young man has a
superb pair of thick black moustaches, which is something rarely to be
seen in Japan.

At parting our kind host presents me with the ofuda, or sacred charms
given to pilgrimsh—two pretty images of the chief deities of Kitzuki—
and a number of documents relating to the history of the temple and of
its treasures.

Having taken our leave of the kind Guji and his suite, we are guided to
Inasa-no-hama, a little sea-bay at the rear of the town, by the priest
Sasa, and another kannushi. This priest Sasa is a skilled poet and a man
of deep learning in Shinto history and the archaic texts of the sacred
books. He relates to us many curious legends as we stroll along the
shore.

This shore, now a popular bathing resort—bordered with airy little
inns and pretty tea-houses—is called Inasa because of a Shinto
tradition that here the god Oho-kuni-nushi-noKami, the Master-of-the-
Great-Land, was first asked to resign his dominion over the land of
Izumo in favour of Masa-ka-a-katsu-kachi-hayabi-ame-no-oshi-ho-mimi-no-
mikoto; the word Inasa signifying 'Will you consent or not?'
[58]
In
the thirty-second section of the first volume of the Kojiki the legend
is written: I cite a part thereof:

'The two deities (Tori-bune-no-Kami and Take-mika-dzuchi-no-wo-no-Kami),
descending to the little shore of Inasa in the land of Izumo, drew their
swords ten handbreadths long, and stuck them upside down on the crest of
a wave, and seated themselves cross-legged upon the points of the
swords, and asked the Deity Master-of-the-Great-Land, saying: "The
Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity and the High-Integrating-Deity have
charged us and sent us to ask, saying: 'We have deigned to charge our
august child with thy dominion, as the land which he should govern. So
how is thy heart?'" He replied, saying: "I am unable to say. My son Ya-
he-koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami will be the one to tell you." . . . So they
asked the Deity again, saying: "Thy son Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami has now
spoken thus. Hast thou other sons who should speak?" He spoke again,
saying: "There is my other son, Take-mi-na-gata-no-Kami." . . . While he
was thus speaking the Deity Take-mi-na-gata-no-Kami came up
(from the
sea)
, bearing on the tips of his fingers a rock which it would take a
thousand men to lift, and said, "I should like to have a trial of
strength."'

Here, close to the beach, stands a little miya called Inasa-no-kami-no-
yashiro, or, the Temple of the God of Inasa; and therein Take-mika-dzu-
chi-no-Kami, who conquered in the trial of strength, is enshrined. And
near the shore the great rock which Take-mi-na-gata-no-Kami lifted upon
the tips of his fingers, may be seen rising from the water. And it is
called Chihiki-noiha.

We invite the priests to dine with us at one of the little inns facing
the breezy sea; and there we talk about many things, but particularly
about Kitzuki and the Kokuzo.

Only a generation ago the religious power of the Kokuzo extended over
the whole of the province of the gods; he was in fact as well as in name
the Spiritual Governor of Izumo. His jurisdiction does not now extend
beyond the limits of Kitzuki, and his correct title is no longer Kokuzo,
but Guji.
[59]
Yet to the simple-hearted people of remoter districts he
is still a divine or semi-divine being, and is mentioned by his ancient
title, the inheritance of his race from the epoch of the gods. How
profound a reverence was paid to him in former ages can scarcely be
imagined by any who have not long lived among the country folk of Izumo.
Outside of Japan perhaps no human being, except the Dalai Lama of
Thibet, was so humbly venerated and so religiously beloved. Within Japan
itself only the Son of Heaven, the 'Tenshi-Sama,' standing as mediator
'between his people and the Sun,' received like homage; but the
worshipful reverence paid to the Mikado was paid to a dream rather than
to a person, to a name rather than to a reality, for the Tenshi-Sama was
ever invisible as a deity 'divinely retired,' and in popular belief no
man could look upon his face and live.
[60]
Invisibility and mystery
vastly enhanced the divine legend of the Mikado. But the Kokuzo, within
his own province, though visible to the multitude and often journeying
among the people, received almost equal devotion; so that his material
power, though rarely, if ever, exercised, was scarcely less than that of
the Daimyo of Izumo himself. It was indeed large enough to render him a
person with whom the shogunate would have deemed it wise policy to
remain upon good terms. An ancestor of the present Guji even defied the
great Taiko Hideyoshi, refusing to obey his command to furnish troops
with the haughty answer that he would receive no order from a man of
common birth.
[61]
This defiance cost the family the loss of a large
part of its estates by confiscation, but the real power of the Kokuzo
remained unchanged until the period of the new civilisation.

Out of many hundreds of stories of a similar nature, two little
traditions may be cited as illustrations of the reverence in which the
Kokuzo was formerly held.

It is related that there was a man who, believing himself to have become
rich by favour of the Daikoku of Kitzuki, desired to express his
gratitude by a gift of robes to the Kokuzo.

The Kokuzo courteously declined the proffer; but the pious worshipper
persisted in his purpose, and ordered a tailor to make the robes. The
tailor, having made them, demanded a price that almost took his patron's
breath away. Being asked to give his reason for demanding such a price,
he made answer: Having made robes for the Kokuzo, I cannot hereafter
make garments for any other person. Therefore I must have money enough
to support me for the rest of my life.'

The second story dates back to about one hundred and seventy years ago.

Among the samurai of the Matsue clan in the time of Nobukori, fifth
daimyo of the Matsudaira family, there was one Sugihara Kitoji, who was
stationed in some military capacity at Kitzuki. He was a great favourite
with the Kokuzo, and used often to play at chess with him. During a
game, one evening, this officer suddenly became as one paralysed, unable
to move or speak. For a moment all was anxiety and confusion; but the
Kokuzo said: 'I know the cause. My friend was smoking, and although
smoking disagrees with me, I did not wish to spoil his pleasure by
telling him so. But the Kami, seeing that I felt ill, became angry with
him. Now I shall make him well.' Whereupon the Kokuzo uttered some
magical word, and the officer was immediately as well as before.

Once more we are journeying through the silence of this holy land of
mists and of legends; wending our way between green leagues of ripening
rice white-sprinkled with arrows of prayer between the far processions
of blue and verdant peaks whose names are the names of gods. We have
left Kitzuki far behind. But as in a dream I still see the mighty
avenue, the long succession of torii with their colossal shimenawa, the
majestic face of the Guji, the kindly smile of the priest Sasa, and the
girl priestess in her snowy robes dancing her beautiful ghostly dance.
It seems to me that I can still hear the sound of the clapping of hands,
like the crashing of a torrent. I cannot suppress some slight exultation
at the thought that I have been allowed to see what no other foreigner
has been privileged to see—the interior of Japan's most ancient
shrine, and those sacred utensils and quaint rites of primitive worship
so well worthy the study of the anthropologist and the evolutionist.

But to have seen Kitzuki as I saw it is also to have seen something much
more than a single wonderful temple. To see Kitzuki is to see the living
centre of Shinto, and to feel the life-pulse of the ancient faith,
throbbing as mightily in this nineteenth century as ever in that unknown
past whereof the Kojiki itself, though written in a tongue no longer
spoken, is but a modern record.
[62]
Buddhism, changing form or slowly
decaying through the centuries, might seem doomed to pass away at last
from this Japan to which it came only as an alien faith; but Shinto,
unchanging and vitally unchanged, still remains all dominant in the land
of its birth, and only seems to gain in power and dignity with time.
[63]
Buddhism has a voluminous theology, a profound philosophy, a literature
vast as the sea. Shinto has no philosophy, no code of ethics, no
metaphysics; and yet, by its very immateriality, it can resist the
invasion of Occidental religious thought as no other Orient faith can.
Shinto extends a welcome to Western science, but remains the
irresistible opponent of Western religion; and the foreign zealots who
would strive against it are astounded to find the power that foils their
uttermost efforts indefinable as magnetism and invulnerable as air.
Indeed the best of our scholars have never been able to tell us what
Shinto is. To some it appears to be merely ancestor-worship, to others
ancestor-worship combined with nature-worship; to others, again, it
seems to be no religion at all; to the missionary of the more ignorant
class it is the worst form of heathenism. Doubtless the difficulty of
explaining Shinto has been due simply to the fact that the sinologists
have sought for the source of it in books: in the Kojiki and the
Nihongi, which are its histories; in the Norito, which are its prayers;
in the commentaries of Motowori and Hirata, who were its greatest
scholars. But the reality of Shinto lives not in books, nor in rites,
nor in commandments, but in the national heart, of which it is the
highest emotional religious expression, immortal and ever young. Far
underlying all the surface crop of quaint superstitions and artless
myths and fantastic magic there thrills a mighty spiritual force, the
whole soul of a race with all its impulses and powers and intuitions. He
who would know what Shinto is must learn to know that mysterious soul in
which the sense of beauty and the power of art and the fire of heroism
and magnetism of loyalty and the emotion of faith have become inherent,
immanent, unconscious, instinctive.