# Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 5/Chapter 6

Chapter VI
SUPERSTITIONS
It will have been gathered, from what has been already written, that the Japanese are superstitious. They believe in ghosts, in demons, in the possession of supernatural powers by animals, in the efficacy of divination, and in the potency of spells and amulets. Of course the degree of such credulity varies greatly in the different strata of society, the upper and the educated classes giving themselves little concern about theories and traditions which play no small part in the lives of the low-born and the ignorant. That differentiation should be always remembered in reading what follows.
Not many painful superstitions attach to the lower orders of creation. Birds, animals, or fishes that have lived to a great age in secluded places are regarded as tutelary spirits, especially when they have an awe-inspiring aspect, as is the case with the bear, the monkey, the eagle, the cat-fish, the eel, the turtle, and the snake. Rustics call these creatures nushi (master), and treat them with profound reverence. A cognate form of superstition is to revere doves as messengers ​of Hachiman (the god of war), rats as those of Daikoku (the deity of wealth), centipedes as those of Bishamon (the god of fortune), and ants as those of the Sun Goddess. A notable exception to this generally kindly view is connected with the origin of the earthquake. That source of gravest alarm to the Japanese is believed to be due to a giant cat-fish (namazu) which lies buried under the "land of the gods." Over its head is built the shrine of Daimyo-jin at Kashima in the province of Hitachi, and that deity is supposed to have his feet planted on the monster's snout. Whenever the god reduces the pressure or alters the position of his feet, the cat-fish writhes and the earth quakes. Beside the shrine stands a stone called "the pivot rock" (kaname-ishi). It is in the form of a rude pillar, and the people believe that it penetrates to an enormous depth and reaches to the head of the cat-fish.
It is probable that had wild animals been at any time a source of terror to the Japanese, the fact would find expression in their superstitions. But Japan was never troubled by the fiercer beasts of prey, lions and tigers, nor yet by venomous reptiles. If her island chain once formed a part of the Asiatic continent, as is generally believed, it would seem inevitable that the tiger should have made his home in Japanese forests. But there is no evidence that either tiger or lion ever roamed the wilds of Japan. Snakes abound, but with one solitary exception — the mamushi — they ​are absolutely harmless. Wolves, however, were certainly numerous and destructive in ancient times, though they may now be said to survive in the realm of tradition only; and bears occasionally showed formidable propensities, though they, too, are to-day regarded merely as the hunter's quarry. At present the wild dog — the "mountain dog" (yama-inu) — is the only beast that inspires terror. He is not a wolf, but merely a dog that has never been domesticated. The Japanese dog is a valueless brute. In the stage of puppy-hood he presents some attractive features of fluffiness and rotundity, and artists have often recognised his picturesque qualities. But a few months of life suffice to convert him into an ill-shapen, unsightly, and useless cur. Except with children, therefore, he is never a pet, and he requites their kindness by eating them. Even within the precincts of the capital, during recent years, packs of dogs, starving outcasts, have been known to pull down a child in one of the waste spaces that mark the sites of former feudal mansions.
A Japanese Cemetery.
Another form of human sacrifice believed to have been common in early ages and said to have been witnessed by men of the present generation, was called iki-uzume, or burying alive. The prevalent idea about this custom is that, at the inception of some great work, such as the building of a bridge or the erection of a castle, a human being was buried alive near the foundations to secure stability. But facts and fancies ​are here commingled. What really happened was this. In the era of forced labour, when every adult rustic had to contribute a certain number of days' work annually to the service of the State or of his liege lord, it was usual for the official superintendent of these unwilling toilers to stand over them with a bare-bladed spear in hand. Any display of laziness justified fatal recourse to the spear, and the corpse of a man thus done to death was treated as so much inanimate material — thrown between the piles of an embankment or tossed into the foundations of a building. That species of fierce incitement was generally resorted to when extraordinary expedition had to be attained: when an inundation had to be averted, a river dammed before the flowing of the tide, a fortification constructed on the eve of attack, or a work concluded in anticipation of the advent of some great man. It proved, of course, highly efficacious, and may serve in some degree to explain the really wonderful achievements that stand to the credit of human effort in mediæval, and even in modern, Japan. Two corpses are said to be mouldering under the scarps of the futile forts hurriedly erected for the defence of Yedo (Tōkyō) in the interval between Commodore Perry's first and second comings; and looking down from Noge hill in the suburbs of Yokohama, one may see the shrine of a servant girl who sacrificed herself to expedite the reclamation of a swamp behind the foreign set​tlement. Such incidents, however, had not in their origin any legitimate connection with superstition.
Since the English word "nightmare" indicates that the subjective character of that natural disturbance was not recognised when the Anglo-Saxon language came into existence, the student is prepared to find a corresponding superstition among the Japanese. They used to believe, and the lower orders do still believe, that a rat possesses some demoniacal power which it exercises maliciously during the night. But nobody concerns himself much about the question. Half a page of history, however, is devoted to the account of an imperial nightmare, the work of a very strange monster. The Emperor Shirakawa II. (1153 A. D.) was the victim of the visitation. Every night he fell into convulsions, and neither medicine nor prayer gave him relief. It was observed that at the moment of his seizure a dark cloud emerged from a forest eastward of the Palace and settled over the roof of His Majesty's chamber. The court, in conclave, decided that a warrior's weapon was needed, and invited the renowned Yorimasa to undertake the task. That night, as the cloud floated to its place and the Emperor's paroxysm overtook him, Yorimasa, with a prayer to the god of war on his lips, shot an arrow into the heart of the cloud. There fell to the ground a monster with the head of an ape, the body of a serpent, the legs of a ​tiger, and the strident cry of the fabulous bird nue. Yorimasa received as reward an imperial sword and a Palace maiden, and the Emperor's nightmare ceased. There could be no doubt in the minds of later generations about the accuracy of these facts, for even the name of the beautiful girl bestowed on Yorimasa was known: it was "Sweet-flag" (Ayame). Such a detail raised the record to the rank of authentic history in the eyes of people who believed the wind to be the breath of a mighty spirit and the stars to be the sources of rain-drops.
Among all superstitions connected with animals in Japan, faith in the supernatural attributes of the fox is most widely entertained. This notion was originally imported from China. The fox, according to popular tradition, can assume human form and is also capable of entering into a man or woman. Roaming over a grassy plain, the animal picks up a skull, puts it on his head, and facing towards the north star, worships. At first he performs his religious genuflections and obeisances slowly and circumspectly, but by and by his motions become convulsively rapid and his leaps wondrously active. Yet however high he jumps towards the star, his skull-crown remains immovable. After a hundred acts of worship, he becomes capable of transforming himself into a human being, but if he desires to assume the shape of a beautiful maiden, he must live in the vicinity of a graveyard. As ​a girl he is the central figure in numerous legends. His very name — ki-tsu-ne, "come and sleep" — is derived from such a legend, an ancient legend of the year 545 A.D. Ono, an inhabitant of Mino, spent the seasons longing for his ideal of female beauty. He met her one evening on a vast moor and married her. Simultaneously with the birth of their son, Ono's dog was delivered of a pup, which, as it grew up, became more and more hostile to the lady of the moors. She begged her husband to kill it, but he refused. At last, one day, the dog attacked her so fiercely that she lost heart, resumed her proper shape, leaped over a fence, and fled. "You may be a fox," Ono called after her, "but you are the mother of my son, and I love you. Come back when you please; you will always be welcome." So, every evening, she stole back and slept in his arms. The illiterate Japanese, even of the present day, though he may not entertain any very positive faith in such occurrences, preserves toward them a demeanour of respectful uncertainty. Not many years ago, a Tōkyō journal published a recent experience of a physician in Tochigi prefecture. Summoned at midnight to assist a lady in her confinement, he found, on arrival at her house, that the event was over, and that only some trifling medicines were needed. Having received his fee and been regaled with macaroni, he returned home. But the next morning, when he opened his purse, he saw that ​the coins handed to him at his patient's residence were withered leaves. He hastened to revisit the place, and, guided by the tracks of the cart which had come to fetch him the preceding night, had no difficulty in reaching the spot. The house had disappeared. There was only a tea plantation in the midst of which a young fox lay dying. The macaroni alone was real: of that fact the physician was able to assure himself, and its provenance was explained by the discovery that macaroni prepared for a wedding feast in a neighbouring hamlet had been stolen on the same evening. There are scores of such stories, and hundreds of folks that listen to them gravely. There are also weak-minded persons to whose imagination these legends appeal so vividly that they become subjective victims of fox-possession. They bark like a fox, exhibit the utmost aversion to dogs, and otherwise lose their human identity. In many cases these imaginary seizures are cured by the aid of a priest. The patient is informed that means of enticing the fox to return to the hills have been provided, and that, at a certain hour and in obedience to a religious incantation, the animal will take its departure. Such remedies, attended by success, as they generally are, have the effect of confirming the superstition, and in rural districts few Japanese are entirely without belief in the phenomenon of fox-possession (kitsume-tsuki).
History contains records widely credited that ​attest the supernatural powers of the fox. On the Nasu moor (Nasu-no-hara) in the province of Shimotsuke there used to stand a large rock known as sessho-seki, or the stone of death. It had been bewitched by a fox, and any living thing that touched it — man, bird, or animal — perished. In the year 1248 the Emperor Fukakusa II. commissioned a priest of renowned piety, Genno, to exorcise the evil spirit. Genno repaired to the moor, invoked the aid of Buddha, and struck the rock with his staff, whereupon the big stone split into fragments, and a beautiful girl, stepping out, thanked the priest with tears and vanished.
To the badger somewhat similar powers are attributed, but it is regarded rather as a mischievous practical joker than as a malicious demon. One of its most celebrated exploits as a supernatural trickster was in connection with a tea-urn which fell into the uncanny habit of developing the tail, snout, and claws of a badger at most inopportune moments of a social réunion. This half-transformed tea-urn — the bunbuku-chagama, as it is called — furnishes a favourite subject to carvers in wood or ivory. Another feat of the badger's has also been frequently depicted by Japanese sculptors and painters. It is called the hara-tsuzumi (paunch drum). On moonlit nights the animal raises himself on his hind-legs and goes roystering about the country, beating a drum on his paunch, knocking at the doors of timid folks, leading belated travellers ​into wrong roads, and terrifying children and old women in sundry ways. The house of a farmer in the province of Awa recently became the beast's playground. A kitchen knife moved automatically from peg to block, and the fish-kettle was found to contain only boiling water when meal-time arrived. One day a rustic presented himself as the servant of a man to whom the farmer owed money, and demanded payment in his master's name. The farmer handed over three pieces of silver. After a time the creditor himself came and asked for his money. Then, of course, the farmer knew that he had been tricked by a badger. Presently the tail of the farm-horse was shorn off by invisible agency, and the horse itself, escaping from the stable, took refuge in a neighbouring village. The farmer led it back, locked it in, and locked the badger out; but again the horse absconded, and on searching its stall, the farmer found the three pieces of silver that had been carried off by the pseudo-servant. In such rôles the badger thrusts himself upon the stage of human existence.
The badger's sphere of influence is occasionally invaded by the kama-itachi (sickle-imp), a nondescript demon which sometimes cuts tresses from women's hair as they walk in unfrequented places, and often inflicts bleeding wounds on people's legs and arms without any visible exercise of effort. The kama-itachi's performances are vaguely connected with a sudden solution of ​atmospheric continuity, a whirlwind, or other aerial disturbance, and if a country bumpkin finds that he has unconsciously received a hurt, he has no hesitation in attributing it to the demoniacal sickle-carrier.
The kappa (river-urchin) is another fabulous monster, malevolent like the sickle-bearer, but more deadly in its doings. It dwells in rivers and lakes, and its favourite haunts are catalogued with solemn accuracy. No one has attempted to describe the kama-itachi, but the kappa's appearance is minutely depicted. It has the body of a ten-year-old child; is hairy like a monkey; possesses eyes of piercing brilliancy; has in its skull a cup-like cavity; speaks the language of human beings; lives in the water, but emerges at nightfall and steals melons and egg-fruit, its favourite food. Wrestling is the pastime affected by it. It invites men to try a bout, and, despite its puny proportions, comes off violently victorious; unless, indeed, the water contained in its skull-cup be spilled, when its strength vanishes. To defeat it, however, is as bad as to be defeated, for the result is loss of reason and gradual wasting away. This river-urchin, in common with the snapping-turtle, is credited with vampire propensities: it attacks people in the water and sucks their blood. In the Uma district of lyo province there is a lake where country-folk often bathe in the dog days. There the river-urchin or the snapping-turtle is said to claim two victims yearly. ​They lose their colour after emerging from the lake, and gradually pine away with symptoms that do not bear description.
Even the dog has a place in Japanese demonology. How the faithful animal originally fell under suspicion of supernatural wickedness, it is difficult to ascertain, but tradition represents him, not as naturally malevolent, but merely as the agent of human passion. An old woman, consumed with hatred of a powerful enemy whom her vengeance could not reach, buried her favourite dog in the ground so that its head alone emerged, and then, having fondled the head for a time, cut it off with a bamboo saw, saying: "If you have a soul, kill my enemy and I will worship you as a deity." Her wish was granted, but the spirit of the dog became thenceforth an inmate of her house, and made her suffer for her cruelty. The example set by this vengeful old woman is said to have been followed by others in a more logical fashion. Their idea being to convert the spirit of longing into a physical agency, they buried a dog, leaving only the head exposed, and surrounding it with tempting viands, suffered it to starve to death. Having thus received a vivid object lesson in the pain of unsatisfied desire, the dog's spirit was supplicated to save its former master or mistress from similar suffering.
The superstition outlined by this legend generally takes the form of a belief that the blood ​of the dog-demon (inu-gami) flows in the veins of certain families. In the "island of the four provinces" (Shikoku) and in the eight provinces forming the "mountain shadow district" (San-in-do), the dog-demon is supposed to have tainted many households, and ignorant folks, before contracting a marriage, are careful to employ an expert who examines the genealogical tables of the bride and bridegroom in order to ascertain whether any trace of the evil influence is apparent. Bakin, Japan's greatest writer of fiction, based his celebrated romance, the "Eight-dog Tale" (Hakken-den), upon the Buddhist doctrine that animals have souls. Frequently characteristic of fox-possessed men is an outrageous insistence on being served with the best of everything at the shortest notice, but when any one lineally related to the dog-demon covets the possessions of a neighbour, the influence of the inu-gami overtakes the latter and quickly reduces him to a state of dementia. It is also supposed that if a member of a dog-demon family casts eyes of longing on viands belonging to another person, they immediately become putrid.
It will readily be conceived that if the dog finds a place in demonology, the cat is not exempted. The latter, indeed, figures prominently in some most aristocratic legends; for example, the sanguinary connection caused by a cat in the noble family of Nabeshima, a story familiar under the name of Nabeshima Sōdō to ​every reader of Japanese literature. Crimes which, under less romantic circumstances, would be ascribed to very vulgar passions, are laid to the cat's charge. Old age develops its evil propensities. When time has rendered it gaunt and grisly, it becomes a neko-mata, or cat-imp. Its agency is detected in weird lights that dance above the floor, darting out of reach when pursued; in the spinning of untouched wheels; in the turning of beds during their inmates' sleep. Then, perhaps, the old cat is detected sitting on its hind-legs with its head wrapped in the towel of the person it intends to bewitch, and if it is killed at the right moment, it is found to have two tails and a body five feet long.
Among people so profoundly convinced of the truth of animistic philosophy and at the same time so keenly appreciative of the beauties of nature, it was inevitable that the most graceful or brilliant objects in the world of foliage and flowers should be invested with spirit attributes. The spirit of a tree is called Kodama. The Yenoki (Celtis sinensis), which grows to an immense size and shows strange gnarling of trunk and distortion of branch, is a frequent object of this superstition. In Itabashi, a suburb of Tōkyō, there stands a tree called the "love-severing Yenoki" (Yenkiri Yenoki), which has the property of separating all lovers that come within its shadow. In the seventeenth century, when Princess Iso travelled from Kyōtō to Yedo to be the Shōgun's ​bride, her cortège made a long detour to avoid the vicinity of this tree, and the same precaution was observed in the cases of Princesses Raku and Kazu at subsequent dates. Another tree of the same kind at Yenoki-zaka in Tōkyō cures toothache, and the leaves of an oak at Azuma-mari drive away ague. Sometimes a cordon of straw rope plaited in the style of the New-Year shimenawa is drawn about such sacred trees; sometimes they are fenced off, and sometimes a shrine with a box for thank-offerings is placed under their boughs by persons not indisposed to derive profit from their fellow-beings' piety. The cedar and camphor-tree are notable objects of such respect. Plants growing in an abnormal manner or presenting any peculiar features are also thought to possess miraculous power. Many pretty legends grew out of that conviction. The cherry bloom, type of glowing loveliness, and the willow, image of everything that is refined and gentle, often took the shape of winsome maidens and bestowed themselves upon some great warrior or noble exile. So, too, when Sugawara-no-Michizane, the most unfortunate of Japanese statesmen, became the victim of a rival's slanders and was banished to Dazaifu in Chikuzen, the rosy-petalled plum-tree on whose boughs he had hung verselets every spring from the days of his boyhood, flew through the clouds from Kyōtō, and planted itself by his side in the place of his solitude. The Japanese love this legend of the flying plum (tobi-ume), and ​love also to tell of the peonies of Ono-no-Komachi, the celebrated poetess, whose life included the most luxurious and the most illustrious experiences, as well as the most miserable and the most abject, that ever fell to the lot of an Oriental lady. In the village where she was born a shrine stands dedicated to her memory, and near it grow ninety-nine peony-trees, planted by her own hand, just a thousand years ago, and now tended by her spirit. From time to time a few of the little trees were transplanted to some city garden for the sake of their magnificent blossoms, but invariably they pined away and would have perished had they not been carried back to their old place beside the shrine, where the homage of all sympathetic souls is paid to them still under the name of Komachi-Shakuyaku.
Tombstones, too, are supposed to have healing power. A fragment of the Sankatsu sepulchre in Ōsaka, if powdered and drunk with water, cures consumption; and the tomb of a green-grocer's daughter, Oshichi, in Tōkyō, if similarly treated, has the property of conferring an exceptional capacity for wine-bibbing.
Buddhism, with its worlds of hungry devils and of infernal beings, and its realistic pictures of the torments suffered by the souls of men in the kingdom of the god of Hades (Yemma), is responsible for the Japanese people's conception of an anthropomorphic demon (oni). They represent him with horns, a vast, heavy-fanged mouth, ​glaring eyes, a flat nose, broadly expanding nostrils, three-fingered hands and three-toed feet, long silvery talons, and wearing nothing but a girdle of tiger skin. He has all the ferocity and all the malignity proper to his kind. He takes his pastime when on earth in the depths of forests and the caverns of remote mountains, lives there on human flesh, and carries off beautiful women to share his orgies. In the ninth century he began to be a prominent figure in Japanese imagination, and his doings since that era are recorded in a library of startling records too voluminous to be opened here.
There is another genus of demon that deserves notice as being essentially an outcome of Japanese fancy. It is the tengu, generally imagined as a monster of huge stature and enormous strength, with the body of a man and the face and wings of a bird. The tengu is one of the most mysterious of Japanese monsters. The ideographs with which the name is written signify "heavenly dog." One tradition says that, in the year 638 A. D. the Emperor Jomei gave the name tengu to a meteor which flashed from east to west with a loud detonation. Another and more venerable account alleges that the tengu were emanations from the excessive ardour of the "Impetuous Male Deity" (Susa-no-o); that they were female demons, with human bodies, beasts' heads, vast ears, noses so long that they could hang men on them and fly a thousand miles without feeling the ​burden, teeth that bit through swords and spears, and the faculty of becoming pregnant by inhaling miasma. They defy the control of the celestial deities, and are altogether an unruly, tameless band. The demon proper (oni) has his permanent abode in other worlds, but the tengu is still supposed to frequent the recesses of high mountains. He is not a particularly malevolent being. Sometimes he spirits men away and restores them to their homes in a semi-demented condition. This is called tengu-kakushi (hidden by a tengu). A great scholar of the eighteenth century, Hirata Atsutane, has recorded an example furnished by his own era: On the evening of the 17th of March in the year 1740, Kiuchi Heizayemon disappeared. A retainer of Ishikawa Seiyemon, he had accompanied his master from Otsu, the latter being deputed to superintend some repairs at the monastery of Hiei-zan. Kiuchi's comrades searched for him everywhere. They found only his wooden clogs cast far apart; the scabbard of his sword broken into fragments; the blade bent like the handle of a kettle, and his girdle cut into three pieces. At midnight, between the sobs of a dying storm, a voice, hoarse as the wind itself, was heard calling for help. Passing through the rain and sleet, Suzuki Shichiro saw a winged figure standing on the roof of the temple. The others drew near, and observing that the wing-like appendages were only a torn umbrella flapping in the gale, they called out to know ​whether the figure was Kiuchi. He answered yes, and prayed to be taken down. But no sooner had they laid hands on him than he fainted away and lay for three days in a swoon. When he recovered consciousness he said: "That evening I heard my name called, and going out, found a monk, dressed in black, shouting 'Heizayemon, Heizayemon.' Beside him stood a huge man with flaming red visage and dishevelled hair reaching to the ground, who ordered me roughly to climb to the roof of the vestibule. I refused and drew my sword, but in a moment he seized it, broke the scabbard in pieces and bent the blade into the shape of a kettle-handle. Then they tore off my girdle, and with three blows of their staffs cut it into as many pieces. After that I was raised to the roof, beaten severely, and finally compelled to take my seat on a round tray, which ascended with me into the air and travelled at lightning speed to various regions. It seemed to me that I had been ten days flying through space when I began to pray to Buddha, and immediately I was lowered, apparently to the summit of a high mountain, but really to the roof of the temple. At the same time I recognised the voice of a venerable priest who had previously interfered to prevent the monsters from beating me to death. I asked the name of my benefactor, but he answered only that he had lived on Mount Hiei for nine hundred years." Sometimes the tengu assists heroes to achieve their aims, as when ​Yoshitsune received fencing-lessons from a tengu near the monastery where his boyhood was passed; and sometimes the strange creature enters into frail girls and endows them with miraculous martial prowess. This possession by a tengu is called tengu-gakari. Dr. Inouye Enryo, an eminent Japanese philosopher of the present era, recently delivered a lecture on demonology, in connection with which he referred to a case of tengu-possession, affirmed by the fencing-master of the Tōkyō Police School. The learned professor declared that a girl who had lost the use of her left hand sprang from her bed one night crying that the tengu was coming, and that a youth with a halberd and a fencing-sword would arrive the next day. The following morning she had no recollection of what had happened, but the youth arriving, as she had predicted, the fit overtook her again, and with closed eyes, using her one sound hand, she exhibited extraordinary skill of fence with halberd and sword alike.
The tengu has faded, for the most part, out of the vista of adult observation, and now figures chiefly in children's tales and old women's stories, but at a date not more remote than the Ansei era (1854-1860) the officials of the Yedo Government showed that their faith in such supernatural beings was practical. On the occasion of a projected visit of the Shōgun to Nikko, they directed that the following notice ​should be exhibited in the neighbourhood of the mausolea: —
   To the TENGU and other Demons.
   Whereas our Shōgun intends to visit the Nikko Mausolea next April, now therefore ye Tengu and other Demons inhabiting these mountains must remove elsewhere until the Shōgun's visit is concluded.
   (Signed) Mizuno, Lord of Dewa.
   Dated July, 1860.
On another notice-board the local officials addressed the supernatural beings as follows: —
   To the Great and Small TENGU and Demons.
   Having received orders from the Shōgun's chief officers to exhibit the accompanying tablet in connection with the coming of His Highness to Nikko, we obey as in duty bound. Therefore ye Tengu and Demons had better disperse to Mounts Kurama and Atago of Kyōtō, Mount Akibu of Tōtōmi province, and Mount Hiko of Buzen province.
It will be observed that appropriate routine is followed in these notices. The order from the Shōgun's chief minister is couched in general terms; the order from the local officials at Nikko gives detailed directions to the goblins and imps as to the places of their retreat.
It need scarcely be said that the deities are credited with ability to inflict punishment before death, as when a man that stole nails from a Buddhist idol lost the use of four fingers, and a youth that derided Shaka was permanently fixed ​in the window through which he had looked at the image. Like many other peoples the ignorant classes in Japan regard comets as omens of evil and falling stars as precursors of death. They believe also in plague gods, so that when smallpox becomes epidemic special prayers are uttered and charms employed, and when influenza prevails the deity of the evil blast is manufactured in straw effigy, and escorted out of the district with beating of drums and reciting of exorcisms. Of course miraculous events have frequently occurred. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the spirit of the renowned prelate Kōbō Daishi fashioned the grooves on a mill-stone in one night by way of token that the people of the district should enjoy his protection during the year, and in the middle of the nineteenth century the inhabitants of Owari and Mino were thrown into a state of ecstasy by a shower of sacred paper which fell from heaven to indicate the presence of the deities.
Believing that the spirits of the dead watch over and protect their living kindred, the Japanese believe also that the ghosts of the departed sometimes vex and torture those that used them ill on this side of the grave. Deeds of blood and cruelty have brought upon their perpetrators apparitions and mental torments ending in madness, ruined fortunes, and suicide. The lower orders found comfort in thinking that the miseries they had sometimes to suffer unresistingly at the hands ​of the great might be thus requited after the death of the sufferer, but, on the whole, the restless ghost with a mission of revenge never seriously disturbed the public mind. Haunted houses, however, are so common that in every city two or three may be seen standing untenanted. Educated men might have no hesitation in renting or purchasing such places, but they would certainly find difficulty in getting servants to live there, from which it may be inferred that the reality of ghostly appearances is not questioned by the masses. When a girl warns her faithless lover that her spirit will haunt him (tottsuku), she does not doubt her ability to make the threat good, and when folks allege that they have seen the soul of the newly dead float away over eaves and roof, a transparent globe (hito-dama) of impalpable essence, their faith in the accuracy of their eyesight is honest. When rain falls at midnight ghosts love to walk abroad, and timid mortals arc correspondingly careful to remain within doors. Yet there is never much hesitation to take part in a spirit-summoning réunion. The convives sit within a circle of a hundred lamps and recount a hundred legends (hiyaku-monogatari), one lamp being extinguished for each legend. When the last light has disappeared, the party are in a mental condition suitable to welcome the ghosts, demons, or other supernatural beings that inevitably come upon the scene.
Death is not an essential preliminary to the ex​ercise of spirit power. The passion of hatred or revenge may become so intense as to liberate the soul from its bodily tenement, and despatch it upon a mission of hostility. All these beliefs have left their mark upon the literature of the nation and upon the canvas of the artist. In a deeper stratum of superstition may be found still stranger fossils of tradition — the wild man, the wild woman, the female ogre (kijo), and the mountain genius (sen-nin). The wild man and the wild woman — literally, the "mountain man" and the "mountain woman" — are harmless curiosities.
There is a story of a wild woman caught in a spring trap in Hiuga province. Her body differed from that of an ordinary female only in being covered with white hair. The wild man is said to abound among the mountains of Kiushiu, where the people call him yama-waro. He is described as a large black-haired monkey, possessing enormous muscular strength. He steals food from the villages, but is always ready to help woodcutters to transport timber in return for a ball of rice. Any attempt to capture or kill him brings dire calamity, insanity, plague, or sudden death upon his assailants. The female ogre (kijo) figures frequently in the pages of romance. She is a cannibal capable of flitting about like a moth and traversing pathless mountains. Once in every circle of sixty years, when the "senior fire element" is linked with the zodiacal horse, a female man-eater is born, but it does ​not follow that the intervening years are never disgraced by the appearance of such monsters, which, for the rest, belong rather to the phantasies of the nursery than to the superstitions of grown-up folks.
A more widely disseminated belief, which has also left indelible traces in the realm of fine art and sculpture, is based upon the theory that, by mortification of the flesh and complete annihilation of all carnal desires, the divine attributes of the soul may be actively developed though it still retains its earthly tenement. This superstition came to Japan from China. It had its origin in the hermits or ascetics who hid themselves in mountain caves beyond the sounds of the world's passion and confusion, and thus, fading imperceptibly out of human knowledge, were supposed to have attained immortality. In esoteric terms the Chinese sieng-nung are supposed to be beings released from the chain of transmigrations for a hundred thousand years, which period of rest they spend in mountain solitudes. The first Japanese sen-nin was a native of Noto, by name Yōshō. He was born in 870 A.D., and his supernatural character was presaged by his mother's dream that she had swallowed the sun. Exceptional ability and profound charity marked his early life, which was devoted chiefly to the study of the "Lotus of the Law." Abstaining from rice and barley, he lived on fruit only, and at length he succeeded in reducing his diet to a ​grain of millet daily. Thus, having attained supernatural power, he departed from the earth in the year 901. His mantle was found hanging from the branch of a tree, with a scroll : "I bequeath my mantle to Emmei of Dōgen-ji" (the name of a temple). Emmei, seeking his master year after year among forests and mountains, became himself a sen-nin. After Yōshō's disappearance, his father fell sick, and prayed fervently that he might once more see his favourite son. By and by, the voice of Yōshō was heard overhead, reciting the "Lotus of the Law," and promising that if flowers were offered and incense burned on the 18th of every month, his spirit would come, drawn by the perfume and the flame, to requite his father's love. This legend inspired imitation in all ages. Even now there are recluses living in hollow trees or rocky caverns among the forests and mountains of Ehime prefecture and of northern Tōsan-dō. They subsist on herbs and fruits, and hunters sometimes carry to country hamlets tales of strange beings appearing and disappearing so suddenly as to suggest supernatural powers. Doubtless out of such materials the myths of the sen-nin and probably of the tengu also, were originally constructed. The Japanese view the sen-nin (or rishi) with playful gravity. In the innumerable representations of these strange beings that are to be found among the works of celebrated painters or carvers in wood and ivory, a ray of laughter always ​lightens the general austerity of the conception. Sobu, watching his sacred geese, looks as though he were himself on the verge of cackling; Chokoro, liberating his magic horse from a monster gourd, seems astounded at his own achievement; Gama, with his toad warlock, is sufficiently dirty, distraught, and unkempt to suit such companionship; Tekkai, as he blows his soul into space, presents an inane aspect quite in character with the myth that he forgot to provide for the safety of his body during the wanderings of his spirit, and thus had to be ultimately content with the buried corpse of a beggar; Roko balances himself on his flying tortoise with the air of a decrepit acrobat; and Kumê, who fell from his cloud-chariot because his carnal desires were revived by the sight of a beautiful girl's image mirrored in a stream, has a wavering mien suggestive of some such catastrophe. The mountain genii of Japan never meddled with earthly affairs or placed their supernatural powers at the disposal of human beings, whereas the tengu, as shown above, were much more accommodating.
People to whose imagination the unknown fate of a hermit or the fanaticism of an ascetic presented such a mine of vivid myths, did not fail to find weird explanation of the ignis fatuus. It was a ghost-fire (in-kwa), a demon-light (oni-bi), a fox-flame (kitsune-bi), a flash-pillar (hito-bashira), a badger-blaze (tanuki-bi), a dragon-torch (riu-to), a lamp of Buddha (Butsu-to), and so forth. Here ​are two of the legends that have grown out of these wild-fires: —
In the Nikaido district of Settsu province, from the middle of March to the end of June every year, there may be seen, resting sometimes on the top of a tree, a globe of fire, about a foot in diameter, which, when examined intently, is found to have a human face peering from its lurid surface. It is a harmless phenomenon. The people regard it with pity, recalling its origin. For, in remote ages, there lived in this district one Nikōbō, a beadsman (yamabushi), celebrated for his skill in exorcism. His services having been solicited on behalf of the sick wife of the local governor, he passed many days by the side of the lady's couch, practising his pious art. She recovered, but her husband, in an excess of jealousy, caused Nikōbō to be put to death, charging him with a foul crime. His benevolent work thus requited with inhuman wrong, the soul of the beadsman flamed with resentment, and taking the form of a miraculous fire, hovered over the roof of the murderer's house, and kindled a fever in his blood that finally consumed him. Since that time Nikōbō's ghost-flame pays a yearly visit to the scene of its suffering and its revenge.
At the base of the Katada hills in Omi province there lies a lake from whose margin, on cloudy nights in early autumn, a little ball of fire emerges. Creeping towards the feet of the ​mountains, it grows as it goes, sometimes swelling to a brilliant sphere, three feet in diameter, sometimes not developing to more than a third of that size, but always when it rises to the height of a man's stature above the ground, showing within its glow two faces, to which gradually the torsos of two naked wrestlers, struggling furiously, attach themselves. It takes its way slowly and harmlessly to the recesses of the hills, but resents, with superhuman force, any attempt to interrupt its progress. Once a wrestler of unconquered fame waited at midnight for its coming, and sprang to grasp it as it passed through the mists. He was hurled to a distance of ten or twelve yards, and barely escaped with his life.
Of the "badger-blaze" it is related that it wanders in the Kawabe district of Settsu on rainy nights, and that uninitiated rustics, mistaking it for the glowing pipe of an ox-driver, hold converse with the badger, who is at all times a sociable fellow, and have even lit their own tobacco at his and puffed it in his company. The numerous legends that Japanese fancy has woven round the will-o'-the-wisp have an interest of their own as illustrating the genius of the people, but limits of space forbid fuller reference to the subject here.
What has thus far been written about superstition will have probably prepared the reader to hear that the Japanese have always been disposed to attach great importance to divination. It is ​unquestionable that Confucianism is largely responsible for the growth and persistence of such an irrational mood. So much time and study did the Chinese Sage devote to the Book of Changes (Yih-King) that the leather thongs holding its leaves together were worn out thrice during his lifetime. The result of his labours, as has been well said, was "to add some inexplicable chapters to an incomprehensible book." Commenced by Fuh-hsi, thirty centuries before Christ, carried far towards completion by Wan Wang, eighteen centuries later, and enlarged by Confucius, the Yih-King has long been the chief vehicle for divination in the Far East. The Japanese call it Ye-Ki, and to the method of divination derived from it give the name boku-zei, or boku-zeichiku; boku signifying divination, and zei and chiku, respectively, Lespedeza sericea and bamboo, of which woods the divining sticks are made. Much of the book's supposed value lies in the mystery that enshrouds it. Starting from the fundamental idea that the universe had its origin in the union of the male and female principles, the yin and the yang, it undertakes to elaborate a theory of all physical phenomena and of all moral and political doctrines by means of eight trigrams and sixty-four diagrams. To attempt any full explanation of it would be to supplement vagueness by bewilderment, Chinese literati and foreign students alike having failed to understand it. One point only may be noted, that as ​the evolution of written ideas in China could be traced in the growth of ideographs, which were simply linear combinations, partly systematic, partly arbitrary, so the authors of the Yih-King, when they sat down to ruminate on the processes of nature and the operations of the intellect, instinctively turned to the grouping of long and short lines as a vehicle for the construction of philosophical formulæ. If the mystical numbers in which Pythagoras sought the elements of realities had been themselves necessarily resolvable into lines, it is probable that he too would have shaped his fancies into diagrams and trigraphs instead of expressing them in numerals. Thus much premised, an explanation may be given of the simplest manner of divination, as prescribed by the Yih-King, since by following the process a tolerably clear idea is obtained of the manner in which the sexual principle and the trigraphs serve for purposes of prediction. The Japanese have a very pithy proverb, Ataru mo hakke ataranu mo hakke, which means that whatever the event may prove to be, the eight trigraphs are right; in other words, that the diviner always leaves a margin for his own justification. But it is not to be denied that the faith of an immense number of people is belied by such an aphorism, and that failures to obtain true glimpses of the future by means of divining rods arc generally attributed not so much to inefficacy in the doctrine as to imperfections in the mood of the disciple. The ​so-called "orthodox" and "intermediate" methods are altogether too complicated to be explained here, but the "abridged" is comparatively easy. It matters little, indeed, which method is employed, so far as the method itself is concerned; but since everything depends on the singleness of the diviner's mind and the fervour of his faith, and since ordinary men cannot hope to abstract themselves completely from their surroundings for any lengthy period, the quickest process is the most likely to give good results. The diviner, having thoroughly cleansed his body, seats himself perfectly upright in a secluded chamber, and reverentially grasps the fifty divining rods, remembering always that they are sacred media through which the purposes of the all powerful are revealed by the aid of certain numerical mutations. One of the rods — any one — is separated from the rest and set upright in the rod-rack, thus becoming the "great origin," The lower ends of the remaining rods are then held with the left hand, and their upper ends are slightly dovetailed. With the right hand, thumb inside, fingers outside, the forty-nine rods are now raised above the head. This is the supreme moment. The eyes are closed, the respiration is suspended, the thoughts are concentrated solemnly on the almighty intervention about to be invoked. Presently the senses are pervaded by a thrill indicating that communication with the supernatural has been established, and at that instant the rods are divided into two ​groups, the celestial and the terrestrial, the "positive" and the "negative." The right-hand group is laid on the table, and one rod, having been removed from it, is inserted lengthways between the third and little fingers of the left hand, the figure thus formed being a trigraph, "heaven, earth, and mankind." The left-hand group is then counted in cycles of eight — two by two — and the remainder, including the rod held between the third and little finger, is noted. Evidently there may be any remainder from cipher to seven, and these eight possibilities, commencing with unity and ending with cipher, correspond to eight trigraphs representing "heaven," "morass," "fire," "thunder," "wind," "water," "mountain," and "earth." The trigraph indicated by the remainder is called the "inner complement," and is placed at the bottom of the group which, when completed, will give the desired information. The above process is now repeated, and a second trigraph is obtained. It is called the "outer complement," and being placed at the top of the projected group, gives, with the "inner complement," a diagram of six lines, which has its corresponding ideograph. The rods are now once more divided, and again counted, this time in cycles of six, and from the remainder another trigraph is obtained. Thus gradually a diagram of six trigraphs is built up, and from the pages of the Yih-King, used after the manner of a dictionary, the corresponding interpretation is taken out.
​Professors of this art of divination are numerous, their clients legion. The great adepts live in imposing mansions; the rank and file are content to spread a mat by the roadside, and there, with conspicuously disposed paraphernalia of rods and tomes, await the casual consultations that timid or bashful folks are glad to hold. The fee varies from two or three sen to a yen, and in cases of importance very much larger sums are paid. It will readily be conceived that many other systems of vaticination are practised. Two of the best known are the Ten-gen (heavenly original), and the Tō-kiu (zodiacal essence system). The former was introduced from China in the year 960 A.D.; the latter is a Japanese modification of the former, dating from 1835. A third and cognate system, known as Kanshi-jutsu (the element and zodiacal art), is of somewhat later origin than the Tō-kiu. Among living representatives of the Tō-kiu are the widows of two of its formerly renowned professors, and it receives large support from the noble families of Suwa and Tachibana. The Ten-gen and To-kiu are much in vogue. They may be roughly described as the casting of horoscopes. Both are primarily based on the assumption that every human being has received from heaven a vital essence or spirit (ki), by the influence of which his health, his conduct, and his moral ability are determined. The hour, the day, the month, and the year of a man's birth, when expressed in terms of the elementary and ​zodiacal series, furnish materials for constructing a horoscope, from which the course of procedure best adapted to the nature of this "spirit" may be mapped out. Thus these forms of divination do not aim so much at furnishing exact predictions, as at developing the better side of a man's character, and enabling him to avert calamities which the preponderance of his inferior elements would certainly entail. Men of means and position and students on the threshold of independent life or struggling to win academical laurels, have recourse to adepts in these systems, which they regard as more or less useful guides to moral philosophy. The exact methods pursued by a professor in analysing the "prime essence" of an inquirer cannot be defined, the processes of the art being known only to the families in which they have been secretly transmitted from generation to generation and by whose representatives they are practised. Physiognomy (kwan-so) constitutes a serviceable but not an essential assistant, the vital indications being drawn from the horoscope. It is also practised as an independent science under the name of Ninso-jutsu.
Considered from the point of view of the large part that it plays in the every-day life of the people, the system of "aspect divination" (hōi-jutsu) is more important than any of the above. It is a species of astrology based upon the supposition that the supernatural influences which mould a man's destiny emanate from certain regions of the ​starry firmament, and that good is invited or evil averted by turning towards the auspicious quarter or away from the inauspicious at critical seasons in life. The Gregorian calendar was finally adopted in Japan thirty years ago, but the two series of "terrestrial stems" and "celestial branches" out of which the cycles of the old almanack were constructed, still present to the astrologer and horoscopist ready means of establishing connections between any point of the compass and the date of a birth, and nothing then remains except to assign special attributes to special stars or combinations of stars. It would appear that in remote ages this theory had not emerged from a rudimentary form. Men believed that somewhere away in the northeast stood the demon's gate (ki-mon), and that human beings should preserve towards that quarter a demeanour of reverential deprecation — should not face it in sleeping, should not turn their feet thitherward at the commencement of a journey, should not give their houses a northeasterly aspect, should not cultivate the corner of their parks or gardens on which the eyes of the evil spirits looked out from the portals of bad omen. The celebrated monastery of Hiei-zan on the northeast of the Imperial Palace in Kyōtō, and the scarcely less celebrated temples of Uyeno on the northeast of the Shōgun's palace in Tōkyō, were religious barriers suggested by this superstition, and if any one examines the pleasure-grounds ​surrounding Japanese houses, he will see that the northeasterly quarter is always thickly planted and left without ornamental rockery or pathway. Such evidences of practical demonology afford, however, but a slight glimpse of the importance attached by the middle and lower classes, and even by many members of the upper, to the question of celestial quarter. Oshima Sekibun, the chief professor of the science of "aspect divination," is unable, even with the aid of a large band of disciples, to furnish oracles for the multitudes that come daily to consult him. There are numbers of sober business men and educated gentlemen in Tōkyō — to say nothing of the softer sex and the uneducated — who deem it absolutely essential to preface every important act by recourse to this kind of augury. Before building a house, before selecting a site, before changing from one residence to another, before opening a store, before applying for an official post, before engaging in any industrial or commercial enterprise, before betrothing a son or daughter, before fixing the date of a marriage, before despatching a cargo, before setting out on a journey, before preparing for an accouchement, — before any of these things, and, in the case of the more superstitious, before any act that lies outside the most ordinary routine of every-day existence, the advice of the aspect diviner has to be sought.
A Tōkyō newspaper recently published a statement illustrating the uses to which diviners are ​put. A man having purchased a quantity of vegetables, hired a cart for their transport. Needing to make a diversion from the direct route homeward, he bade the carter wait at a certain place. The carter seized the opportunity to abscond with the vegetables. When their owner discovered his loss, he repaired to the house of a diviner, obtained information as to the whereabouts of the thief, and hastening off, apprehended him in the act of selling the vegetables. Another story of contemporary doings shows the adroitness of the diviners in accounting for their failures. A person in good circumstances learned from a horoscopist the exact date of his death. He regulated his affairs accordingly, spent his money lavishly, and having procured a coffin and paid his funeral expenses, lay down to await the supreme moment. It came and passed uneventfully. He therefore proceeded to upbraid the diviner. The latter listened calmly to his reproaches, and finally asked: "May I inquire whether you devoted any of your fortune to charitable objects?" "Certainly," replied the other. "Believing that my opportunities of spending money were brief, I gave away considerable sums in that way." "Just so," said the diviner. "But you failed to observe that benevolent deeds establish a claim upon heaven's protection, and that they would surely be rewarded by the lengthening of your life."
Prominence has here been given to modes of divination which may still be classed among the ​important customs of the nation. But others of great interest, though now more or less obsolete, deserve passing notice. Among these the oldest appears to have been scapulimancy, or divining by the cracks and lines in the scorched shoulder-blade of a deer. It is suggestive that the same method of discerning the future was practised in ancient times in Tartary, Mongolia, Arabia, Lapland, and even England, being known in the last-named country as "reading the speal-bone." Tortoise-shell was subsequently substituted for shoulder-bones, — a change especially convenient for women, who, by burning the ends of their tortoise-shell combs, and observing the divergence or convergence, regularity or confusion, of the lines on the charred surface drew inferences about the course of their love affairs. Another method, much practised by girls, was to stand by the roadside in the evening and construct auguries by patching together such fragments of wayfarers' talk as were wafted to their ears. This tsuji-ura, or road divining, has quite gone out of vogue. The term is now applied to mottoes placed within envelopes of sweet biscuit, after the "cracker" fashion of the West. But, in former days, the doubts of the heart-sick were often resolved, and the aspirations of the village belle encouraged, by such glimpses of fate's purposes. Sometimes a rod was planted in the ground to personify the deity of roads, — the god formed from Izanagi's staff which he cast behind him to stay the demons as they pur​sued him from the under-world. Offerings having been made to this rod, the conversation of the passers-by was earnestly listened to. Another method of later origin required the coöperation of three maidens. Repairing to a place where roads crossed, they thrice repeated an invocation to the deity of ways; marked out a space over which they scattered rice to drive away evil spirits, and then, having drawn their fingers along the teeth of a box-wood comb — box-wood because the Japanese name for that wood (tsuge) means also "to tell" — stationed themselves, each on a different road, waiting to catch the words of people going by. Dreams, strange to say, do not seem to have been regarded in the light of important supernatural revelations, though auguries were occasionally drawn from them, and the service of interpreting them has, of course, found professors. Sometimes an augury was sought by standing under a bridge and listening to the patter of feet overhead; sometimes the familiar device of pitching coins was employed, and sometimes divine revelations were supposed to be conveyed in the sounds made by a priest whistling by inhalation. It need scarcely be said that the old custom of trial by ordeal, to which allusion is made in previous chapters, has disappeared, but there still exists a device for detecting guilt which, though not disfigured by physical cruelty, partakes of the nature of an ordeal. It is called sumi-iro, or the "colour of ink." Suppose that a theft has oc​curred in a household. Then each domestic is required to write a certain word with the same brush and the same solution of Indian ink. The writing should take place, if possible, in the presence of the diviner, but that condition is not essential. Conscience is supposed to betray its working in the lines of the ideographs written. There is in this device a practical element that often secures the desired result. It is on record that when the Emperor Inkyo (411-453 A.D.) commanded the ordeal of boiling water as a means of detecting usurpers of noble names, the guilty folks ran away rather than submit to the test. Something of the same kind frequently happens when the sumi-iro device is employed; but, under any circumstances, the tracing of an ideograph involves such an effort of muscular directness and undivided attention that the quality of a suspected person's writing may often have much significance.
The simplest and perhaps the most senseless method of divination is by the abacus (soroban). Its use is confined to cases of illness. To the number of years that the patient has lived are added the numbers of the month and of the day of his birth. The sum thus obtained is multiplied by 3 and divided by 9. If the remainder is 3 or a smaller number, recovery is considered certain. If it is a number between 3 and 6, the case is grave, the danger growing as the remainder ascends. Equal division is counted as a remainder of 9, and signifies certain death.
​The reference just made to the ordeal of boiling water brings the student to the confines of a wide realm of superstitions based upon Shintō belief in the omnipresence of the tutelary spirits and translated into visible phenomena through the agency of hypnotism. The Japanese seem to have discovered, at a very early period, that an abnormal nervous condition can be produced by concentrated attention and abeyance of the will, and, like many other peoples to whom a scientific explanation of the fact had not presented itself, they interpreted the strange condition to mean spirit-possession. Prayer and incantation, preceded by purificatory rites and assisted by violent finger-twistings, were the means employed to produce this mesmeric state, and the person reduced to it became a spirit-medium, gifted with the power of performing miracles, of uttering predictions, and of curing diseases. The range of miracles was limited to three, — sprinkling boiling water over the body without feeling the heat, ascending on bare feet a ladder of razor-sharp sword-blades, and walking with naked soles over a bed of live coals, — all of which are constantly practised by Shintō priests and devotees to this day. It must be noted that these performances do not seem to have been degraded by charlatans in any era into mere money-making spectacles. Their object has always been to vivify religious faith. As for the faculty of vaticination supposed to be ​developed during the sacred trance, its uses are of the simplest character. It might, indeed, be more accurately described as clairvoyance, since it discloses events actually happening beyond the range of normal observation rather than events still lying in the lap of the future. For the rest, it does not occupy any prominent place in the usages or thoughts of the nation. The healing power, however, is frequently invoked; for all sickness and disease being attributed to the influence of evil spirits, it seems natural and proper that the tutelary deities should be summoned to drive out these demoniacal tormentors. This record is confined to a mere outline sketch of the connection that the Shintō creed undertakes to establish between its disciples and supernatural beings. To fill in the details of the picture would involve long descriptions of rites and incantations which precede and accompany spirit-possession, but are only accessories, having much the same relation to the central phenomenon as the faceted glass held before a subject's eyes in Europe has to the mesmeric state induced by staring at it.
The Ichiko or Kuchi-yose belongs to this context. She is a species of medium who undertakes to summon the soul of a dead person (shini-ryo) or a living (iki-ryo), and to make it speak its owner's thoughts through the mouth of another. This custom seems to have had its origin in the Heian epoch, and to have been continued through all generations without change. The Ichiko uses ​a bow for the rite, and as she draws the string she utters the following form of incantation:—
   "Reverentially I entreat the deities, those of heaven, Bontentaishaku and Shitendaio; those of hell, Emmaō and Godōmeikwan; all the deities of the sky and of the earth; the Deity of the Well; the Deity of the Hearth; the Goddess of the Sun at her Shrine in Ise, at her forty sub-shrines and at her eighty branch-shrines; the Deity of Rain; the Deity of the Wind; the Deity of the Moon; the Deity of the Sun; all the deities of divine seats of government and of the Great Shrine of Idzumo; the ninety-eight thousand and seven gods and the thirteen thousand and four denizens of Buddhist sanctuaries. Vouchsafe the divine presence. Teach us so that there shall be no lack of knowledge. Oh, God of the Bow! Oh, Spirits of our relatives! Oh, Souls of parents! Man may change; water may be transformed, but this bow, five feet in length, is immutable. Let the bow twang once and its sound will reach the sacred place in every temple."
The Ichiko's function as a medium of penetrating the thoughts of other persons, living or dead, is little utilised in modern times, but the sick often appeal to her, and it is beyond doubt that many faith cures are effected by her influence.
No form of superstition is more general than the belief that each individual has special reason to apprehend misfortune at certain periods of his existence,—the twenty-fifth, forty-second, and sixty-first years of life in the case of men, and the nineteenth, thirty-third, and thirty-seventh in the case of women. During these unlucky years ​exceptional attention is paid to religious exercises of all kinds. There are also years to which the epithet "closed" (happō-fusagari) is applied in the sense that no change of residence must be made or journey undertaken during the twelvemonth. These years are the same for both sexes, — the sixteenth, twenty-fifth, thirty-fourth, forty-third, fifty-second, and sixty-first.
It need scarcely be said that a prophetic import attaches to some of the commonest incidents. The loud cawing of rooks or the prolonged barking of dogs is considered ominous of evil, whereas a visit from a spider at daylight, sneezing on New Year's morn, or a glowing lamp-wick portends good fortune.
There are also various devices for enlisting the benevolent interest of the deities. Some ladies never cut out material for a costume without uttering a set formula of invocation, or placing three pinches of rice on the shoulder gusset, and nearly all eschew the "monkey" days of the calendar and choose the "bird" days for such operations, the belief being that burns and rents will result if the former precaution be neglected, and that in the latter case the garment will be as durable as the plumage of a bird.
Many superstitions are connected with children. Thus, when a little one's tooth falls out, it is thrown under the eaves or the floor with a wish, in the former case, that it may be replaced by a demon's tooth, and, in the latter case, by a rat's. ​The word "puppy" written on the forehead averts nightmares; blood taken from a cock's comb cures an indigestion resulting from a surfeit of rice dumplings, and an eruption on the head is driven away by twice reciting the sentence, "In the long days of spring weeds may be removed, but those in the garden must be cut down at once." A baby's crying is stopped by tying on its back a red cotton bag containing dog's hair; by putting under its bed straw taken from a pig-sty; by rubbing the powder of an herb on the soles of the feet or the palms of the hands, or by writing certain ideographs on paper and placing it under the pillow. The bone of a mole's head thrust into a child's pillow charms it to sleep, and loss of sight from smallpox is prevented by throwing seven peas into a well, saying seven prayers over them, and then drawing all the water from the well. Food bought with sixteen cash on the 16th of June and given to a child of sixteen guarantees it against penury throughout life. Pieces of straw taken from under the bed of a newly born infant's mother and fastened to the little one's head, ensure it against aversion to bathing, and if the placenta is buried with a pen, a cake of ink, and a needle, the baby will ultimately distinguish itself in calligraphy and sewing. There are numerous devices for facilitating childbirth, — the woman swallows a piece of paper on which the name of the province of Ise is written; or a petal of lotus having the ideograph for ​"man" inscribed on it; or a peach-stone divided into two parts, one with the ideograph "able" written on it, the other with the ideograph "emerge." If the halves of a soja bean are swallowed, the character i having been traced on one and the character se on the other, then, should a male child be born, it will hold the bean in his left hand, whereas a female child will have it in her right. These are but a few of the many superstitions connected with childbirth and childhood, but in general the details do not lend themselves to narration.
Quaint methods of dealing with ordinary maladies are also practised. Bleeding at the nose is supposed to be checked by placing on the head a piece of paper folded into eight and dipped in freshly drawn well-water. A hiccough is driven away by applying under the knee a sheet of hanshi, folded to the left in the case of a man and to the right in the case of a woman. It is essential, however, that this aid should be rendered without the knowledge of the sufferer. Paralysis may be cured by putting on the tip of the nose dust gathered from a floor-mat and saying, "Take a trip to the capital;" a pain in the head, by placing on the pate a saucer containing a burning moxa; and toothache, by fumigating the tooth with the smoke of calcined Nandina domestica. If a fish bone sticks in the throat, the phrase "A descendant of Sayemon Kenjuro of Izumo" ​is written on the inside of a saké cup, and water from the cup is drunk by the sufferer. In case of dysentery the sick person, facing westward, swallows seven peas with some well-water drawn at dawn on the 1st of July, and intermittent fever is driven away by swallowing a paper on which is written the phrase, "The leaf falls and the ship sails." Such fantastic nostrums are innumerable. Sometimes a malady is treated by tying together a snake-gourd and a section of bamboo, the latter bearing this inscription: "My disease is hereby transferred to you. My name and age are——," and throwing the whole into a river; sometimes the shell of a craw-fish is roasted and the odour inhaled; sometimes the skin is smeared with ink on which certain ideographs are traced; sometimes the whole body is rubbed with garlic. One of the most curious is the charm for removing a wen. The swelling is rubbed with a soja bean on the 7th of July; the bean is then planted in the hollow of the second tile on the southern face of the roof, and when the bean begins to sprout, boil- ing water is poured over it so that it withers away, the wen disappearing simultaneously.
Various methods are in vogue for exorcising evil influences. Branches of a peach-tree bending to the south and east are shaped into posts and erected at the corners of the house; or the blood of a white dog is smeared on all the entrances. A man desiring to be protected against calamity or accident traces in the air, with up​ward-pointing finger, two crossed triangles, and outlines the ideograph "grow" inside them, reserving one stroke to be added on the following morning. There are formulæ to be repeated when an unexpected guest arrives, or when, by going abroad at night, one has to run the risk of encountering demons, or when one meets a funeral. In time of an epidemic, straw puppets are thrown into a river with ringing of bells and beating of drums, or an amulet showing the emaciated face of the saint Ganzan Daishi is fastened above the entrance. A very common practice is to protect children from whooping-cough by tracing impressions of their hands on paper which is posted over the lintel, and on the same position may often be seen rude sketches of the Guardian Deities (the Deva Kings), or of a wolf, satellite of the "God of the Three Peaks" (Mitsumine), these being a charm against infectious diseases in general. Similar security is obtained by carrying copper in the pocket, or by holding in the hand a red cotton bag containing the bone of a horse, or by throwing into a well on the 1st of January twenty red beans or seven pieces of Sesamum orientalis, and then drinking some of the water. The shell of a crab nailed over the entrances serves the purpose assigned to a horse-shoe in the Occident, and when fever is abroad folks write over their doors "Hisamatsu not at home," because the common appellation for contagious fever is osome-kaze, and Osome and ​Hisamatsu were lovers whose names have been handed down in story. Lost children are sought by a man carrying a cloth measure in his girdle on the left side, or by a woman carrying the same object on the right, and when the ideograph for "dog" is traced with the ring-finger on the forehead of a child taken out at night, the little one is safe against attacks from foxes, badgers, or rats.
It will readily be inferred that many superstitions are connected with love affairs. If one's night-robe is worn inside out, the object of one's affections will surely visit one in a dream; and a meeting with a lover is foreshadowed by the loosening of an undergarment's string, or by a sudden sneeze, or by irritation on the eyebrow or inside the ear, or by the stumbling of a horse, or by the appearance of a spider. An ink-stain on the sleeve indicates that one is loved, and curling hair, that one loves. On the other hand, the pain of unfaithfulness may be assuaged by tying rushes around the body or by keeping a shell of the wasure-gai (clam of forgetfulness) in one's pocket. If the bone of a dove that cooed on the 5th of the 5th month is placed in a red bag and carried on the person, conjugal affection is maintained. A wife may be cured of jealousy by making her eat the broiled flesh of a bush-warbler, or swallow pills made of red millet and the fruit of Job's tears; and her fidelity to her marriage vow may be tested by hiding in some part of her garments earth taken from the hoof of a horse ​travelling eastward. The nose of a tiger suspended from the middle of a "ventilating panel" (ramma) ensures the birth of a male child, and barrenness may be cured by swallowing thrice on a certain day of the sexagenary calendar powdered blossoms of the ginko and the peach dried in shade on another fixed day of the same calendar.
The realm of dreamland is peopled with superstitions. As in the Occident so in Japan, the dreamer looks for a reality the opposite of what he sees in his visions, and he also employs the device of placing an object under his pillow to procure a lucky dream. A picture of the "treasure-ship" (takara-bune) laden with riches and navigated by the Seven Gods of Fortune, is frequently used on New Year's Eve for that purpose, and a sketch of the Baku — a tapir supposed to swallow evil dreams — is considered efficacious for averting unlucky visions. The latter purpose may also be achieved by placing one of the person's wooden clogs erect and the other face downward when going to bed. Some rustics never fail to go under a mulberry-tree and repeat three times inaudibly the details of the preceding night's dream. Otherwise calamity is inevitable. Special significance attaches to certain objects seen in dreams, as is the case in all countries. A conflagration witnessed in sleep portends the birth of a child among one's relatives; a woman who has a vision of a sword may expect a lover; and of all objects presenting them​selves in a New Year's dream, the most fortunate are believed to be, first, Fujiyama; second, a hawk, and, third, an egg-plant.
"On the Ryusha River Floats the Indian ferry; Horse and man embarking Find the way to heaven."
A dog is less open to suggestion, but it may be prevented from biting by turning towards it the palm of the hand having the ideograph "tiger" inscribed; and its bite can be cured by rubbing the place with a tiger's bone, or, in default of that commodity, rubbing with the hand and muttering "Come tiger, come tiger." There is an elaborate form of recitation and finger-bending to deter a mad dog from biting, and the bone of a tortoise's foot held in the left hand protects a man against being bewitched by a fox or a badger. Cats are not generally considered dangerous, though it is deemed necessary to keep them away from a dead body by placing a sword near the corpse. To kill a cat is to become accursed to the seventh generation, and if a pet cat strays, it may be immediately recalled by erasing from the calendar the day of the animal's disappearance.
Among the commonest superstitions may be mentioned a habit, among children and women, of hanging out a paper doll (teri-teri-bōzu) to secure fine weather; the custom of standing a broom upside down to drive away an unwelcome guest, or of burning a bit of dried mogusa (Artemisia moxa) on his sandals with the same object; and the care taken by females to ​avoid the use of words suggesting unfortunate events.
The belief borrowed from Taoism that every inanimate object has a spirit, and that the ills of life are due to malignant demons, is utilised by a large number of persons who make it their business to go from house to house, repeating formulæ to propitiate the demons. Some of these quasi-religionists, who are in reality a species of beggar, undertake to make the needle of the seamstress move deftly or the chop-sticks convey only wholesome food to the mouth. Some pronounce spells against conflagration and burglary; some pledge themselves to make a religious pilgrimage in lieu of any one willing to employ them, and all pronounce a blessing on households bestowing alms, such a blessing as: "Every good be with you for the thousand years of the crane, the ten thousand of the tortoise, the eight thousand of Urashima Taro and the nine thousand of Tōbō-saku." These reverend mendicants used to be constantly seen in every city of Japan, wearing pseudo-sacerdotal costume, tolling a hand-bell or playing a flute as they passed from door to door, but their occupation has become comparatively unprofitable in modern times.
Spells are sometimes employed to bring injury on an enemy, especially when the latter is a rival in love. Unfastening her hair, binding a mirror ​on her bosom, and walking on high clogs, the jealous woman proceeds to a temple at the hour of the Ox (midnight), and nails to some sacred tree a straw effigy of her rival. But, on the whole, the idea of invoking aid from deity or demon for the purpose of working mischief was never widely entertained in Japan.
This record might be very much extended, but it has already reached almost excessive length. It suggests that the Japanese are eminently superstitious; and so they certainly are with a reservation, namely, that the upper classes are perhaps as little troubled by such phantasies as any people in the world. What has been written above applies almost entirely to the middle and lower orders of the people. They unquestionably allow a considerable element of the supernatural to obtrude itself into their daily lives, and the fact may suggest to some critics a low estimate of Japanese intellectual development. Yet when the student recalls the history of Occidental credulity from the days of the Alexandrian Platonists to the times of Swedenborg and Werner and the era of American spirit-materialisers, he may be less disposed to pronounce harsh judgments on the traditional mysticism which has been handed down from generation to generation in the secluded family circle of the Japanese nation.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 59.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 60.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 61.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 62.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 63.
* ↑ ​Note 59.—Mr. Percival Lowell, in "Occult Japan," gives lengthy and picturesque accounts of these and other cognate performances. They are called Kami-waza or deeds of the deities.
* ↑ ​Note 60.—The supposed effect is that the germs of the caries are expelled from the patient's ear.
* ↑ ​Note 61.—Thus a woman speaks of "water" as o-hiya (the honourable cold thing), rather than as mizu, because the latter word implies separation. Again, the old word for "rice," shine, has been changed into yone, because the former signifies also "death;" and for the same reason "four persons" are alluded to as yottari, not as shinin.
* ↑ ​Note 62.—A fisherman who was transported to the submarine castle of the dragon king, where he lived unconscious of the flight of time.
* ↑ ​Note 63.—A Chinese Merlin, who ate the sacred fruit of longevity.
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