Augury by various kinds of birds was known. The geomancy practised to some extent in Japan is of Chinese origin.
The Nihongi mentions a number of isolated cases of divination invented on the spur of the moment. The following is an example:--
"When the Emperor was about to attack the enemy, he made a station on the great moor of Kashihawo. On this moor there was a stone six feet in length, three feet in breadth, and one foot five inches in thickness. The Emperor prayed, saying: 'If we are to succeed in destroying the Tsuchi-gumo, when we kick this stone, may we make it mount up like a kashiha leaf.' Accordingly he kicked it, upon which, like a kashiha leaf, it arose to the Great Void. Therefore that stone was called Homishi. The Gods whom he prayed to at this time were the God of Shiga, the God of the Mononobe of Nawori, and the God of the Nakatomi of Nawori--these three Gods."[316]
Omens are frequently mentioned. A leg-rest breaking without apparent cause was a bad omen. The migration of rats from the capital, the movements of a swarm of flies, comets, a dog bringing in a dead man's hand and depositing it in a shrine, prolonged darkness, to meet a blind or a lame person are examples of evil omens. Earthquakes, floods and storms were supposed to portend war. A wren's entering a parturition-house is described as a favourable omen. White animals of all kinds were good omens, and also three-legged crows or even sparrows, no doubt because the Sun-crow had three legs.
Dreams.--At all stages of human progress, the rational, normal, and usual attitude of mankind towards dreams is a disbelief in their reality. The ivory gate is recognized to be their ordinary, every-day thoroughfare. There are good reasons for this. Most dreams are so palpably absurd that the common sense even of the primitive man, enlightened by daily experience, rejects them as something not to be depended on. A man dreams that he has partaken of a hearty meal and wakes up hungry. The cogent logic of an empty belly leaves him no choice but to reject unhesitatingly the proposition that his dream was a reality. He dreams that he has broken his leg. Will he, therefore, lie up for a month to give it time to heal? In his dreams he can fly. Nature exacts a stern penalty if he is idiotic enough to act on the belief that he can do so in reality. The practical necessities of life prohibit a man who has to earn a living and support a family from indulging in any such foolish imaginations. The analogy of his own day-dreams, which he must know to be unreal, is too obvious to be disregarded.
It is true that we do not find much evidence of this attitude of mind in books of travel or history. Nobody thinks it worth while to commit to paper instances of so very evident a fact. Most men are comparatively uninterested in the normal and familiar. Travellers, and sometimes even men of science, are prone to neglect the universal and commonplace for the strange and unusual. Like Desdemona, they seriously incline to hear of
"The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders."
Herbert Spencer[317] thinks that the primitive man accepts the events dreamed as events that have actually occurred, and adduces evidence which no doubt shows that there really is a current of thought to that effect among savages and others. For the reasons above stated I prefer to regard such cases as abnormal and exceptional. The Kojiki and Nihongi have many instances of Gods appearing to men in dreams and giving them instructions. These are doubtless inventions of some scribe, but they indicate a belief in the possibility of such occurrences. Hirata thought it possible by witchcraft to cause people to have dreams.
A more frequent view of dreams is that, although not in themselves realities, it is possible by suitable interpretation to deduce truth from them--usually in the form of predictions of the future. There are cases of this kind in the old Japanese records. A deer, for example, dreams that a white mist has come down and covered him. This portends that he will be killed by hunters and his body covered with white salt.
There is evidence that some men occasionally attain in dreams to a deeper spiritual insight and a keener emotional sensibility to divine influences than in their waking moments. Those who have had such experiences do not speak lightly of them. At the present time science is not in a position to deal adequately with this matter. Shinto helps us nothing.