Shinto (the Way of the Gods)

by W. G. Aston

II. GODS OF CLASSES.

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

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

Koyane, ancestor of the Nakatomi[150] House. The etymology of Koyane is uncertain. The worship of this deity had a special importance, from the fact that he was the Ujigami[151] of the Fujihara family, a branch of the Nakatomi, which for many centuries supplied a large proportion of the Empresses and Ministers of State. It would hardly be too much to say that the Fujiharas were the Imperial House. The shintai of Koyane was a jewel or shaku, that is, a tablet borne by Ministers as an emblem of office. Hirata identifies with him a deity named Koto no machi no Kami, or God of Divination. The corresponding deity in the Idzumo myth of Ohonamochi was Ama no hohi. The supposed descendants of this deity had charge of the sacred fire which was handed over by one generation to another with great ceremony.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I take Sukuna-bikona to be a deified type of medicine man, a "Father of medicine" in the abstract. But the story related of him[154] may have some foundation in the history of a real person.