Shinto (the Way of the Gods)

by W. G. Aston

Furnace Gods.--Along with the Gods of Fire we may place the deities of the domestic cooking furnace, namely Kamado no Kami and Kudo no Kami. They are barely mentioned in the Kojiki and not at all in the Nihongi. They have no myth, and although there is a norito addressed to them it contains nothing characteristic. This worship is nevertheless general, from the Mikado's palace to the home of the peasant. Sometimes we find a single deity, sometimes a married pair called Okitsu-hiko and Okitsu-hime, sometimes as many as eight co-existing furnace-gods are met with. The vulgar call him an aragami (rough deity), and represent him with three heads, a notion which, according to Hirata, is taken from Indian myth. Usually the cooking furnace is the deity. The Japanese kitchen wench at the present day calls her cooking range Hettsui-sama, the termination sama implying personification and respect. She thinks it unlucky to lay down an edge-tool on it. But the God is also conceived of as detached from the furnace. Thus he is said to have taught the art of cooking to mankind. In that case the kama, or pot, is his shintai, or material representative. There was a Kama-matsuri (pot festival) at Kiōto before the revolution. It was celebrated at the beginning of the year, when Shinto priests read harahi. The pot was addressed in song and adjured to bring plenty of customers, usually by dyers and others in whose business caldrons were used.

Ukemochi (the Food Goddess).--Cicero, in his treatise 'De Natura Deorum,' asks whether any one is mad enough to believe that the food we eat is actually a God. The modern student of religion has no difficulty in answering this question in the affirmative. "Eating the God" is a well-known institution, from the custom of the Ainus of Yezo, who worship a bear,[133] caught and caged for the purpose, and wind up the festival in his honour by eating him, up to the most solemn rite of Roman Catholic Christianity. An Ainu prayer, quoted by Mr. Batchelor, contains the following words: "O thou God! O thou divine cereal, do thou nourish the people. I now partake of thee. I worship thee and give thee thanks." Gratitude in the first place to, and then for, our daily bread, is an important factor in the early growth of religion. Without it we should have had no Roman Ceres, no Mexican Maize-God Centliotl, and no Ukemochi. I do not find the direct worship of our daily food in Shinto, though perhaps a trace of an older identification of the food with the God is to be recognized in the myth which represents the Food-Goddess as producing from her mouth and other parts of her body viands for the entertainment of the Moon-God. Hirata is indignant at the idea that there is anything metaphorical about this story.

It is usually the offerings of food which are deified. Jimmu is said to have directed that the food-offerings to Taka-musubi should be called Idzu-uka no me (sacred-food-female), which is another name for Uke-mochi. In a work of the eighth century the Sun-Goddess is said to have appeared to the Mikado Yūriaku in a dream. She complained to him of her loneliness at Ise, and directed that "Aga mi ketsu no kami" should be sent for to Tamba in order to keep her company. This was the legendary origin of the worship of the Food-Goddess in the outer shrine (Geku) of Ise. As Motoöri points out, Aga mi ketsu no kami means "the deity of the food offered to me." But in this last instance the offering and the deity of the offering are no longer identical.

It was usual for the participants in the ceremony to consume the food offered to the Gods. We are told that Jimmu "tasted the food of the sacred jars." The Mikado at all times followed this rule, notably at the Nihiname, or harvest festival, when he partook of ordinary food with, but after, the Gods. He does not "eat the God," but only associates himself with the deity as his table-companion--a very simple and intelligible form of communion. It is on the same principle that in modern times pilgrims to Ise buy from the priests and eat the rice which has been offered to the Gods.

There is some confusion in regard to Ukemochi. Her aliases are very numerous, if, indeed, we ought not to reckon some of them as distinct deities. No doubt food was deified over and over again in many places. The etymology of most of her names is sufficiently transparent. They contain the element ke or ka, "food." One of these, namely Uka no mitama, or the spirit of food, should be mentioned, as it embodies a more advanced and spiritual conception of the nature of this deity.

The parentage of the Food-Goddess is variously given in different myths. One story makes her the daughter of Izanagi and Izanami, and another of Susa no wo. The latter is, perhaps, an expression of the idea that the rainstorm fits the rice-fields for producing grain.

After the Sun-Goddess, Uke-mochi is, perhaps (especially if we identify her with Inari), the most universally popular deity in Japan. She was one of the eight deities of the Jingikwan, and was worshipped at four of the twenty-two Greater Shrines, of which a list was made in 1039. There is abundant evidence that her cult was not confined to the State ceremonies. Hirata calls her an ihe no kami, or household deity.

The Sake (rice-beer) God is sometimes the same as the Food-Goddess, and at others Sukuna-bikona.

Inari.--Notwithstanding the difference of sex, and to some extent of function, the Rice-God Inari is generally recognized by the Japanese as identical with Uke-mochi. Inari, it is explained, is only the name of the locality of her best-known shrine near Kiôto, first established in 711. It is not to be doubted that in Japan the name of the place of his worship has frequently been converted into the name of the God. In the present case, however, it may be suspected that the reverse process has taken place. Might not Inari be ine, rice in a growing state, and ri, a termination implying personality?

Naturally Inari is much prayed to for agricultural prosperity. But, as so often happens, the functions of this God have been enlarged so as to make him a sort of general Providence who watches over all human concerns. In a recent Japanese novel he is supplicated by a wife to make her husband faithful; by a mother to cause her son to divorce an obnoxious daughter-in-law; by a wrestler for victory in his contests; by a geisha for a wealthy protector who will give her plenty of money and rich clothes, and, getting tired of her within a month, will dismiss her with a handsome present. He is also appealed to for the restoration of stolen property, to avert pestilence, to cure colds, to give wealth and prosperity, and to unite friends. The Kiôto Inari is the special patron of swordsmiths and of jōrōs. Another Inari is celebrated for his protection of children from small-pox and measles. People who desire his help in this way offer at his shrine a red clay monkey, and take away with them one which has been deposited there by a previous worshipper.