In the norito entitled Michiahe[156] there are three Sahe no kami, namely, Yachimata-hiko, Yachimata-hime, and Kunado. The first two of these names mean "eight-road-fork-prince" and "eight-road-fork-princess." Kunado is the "come-not-place," and is, therefore, an equivalent to a notice of "no thoroughfare" addressed to any evil beings who might attempt to pass that way. An alternative form of this word is Funado, or "pass-not-place."
There is a good deal of confusion about the Sahe no kami. Yachimata-hiko and Yachimata-hime are not mentioned in the Kojiki or Nihongi. The Kiujiki has a Chimata no kami (God of the Crossways), which it says is also termed Kunado no kami, and adds two others named Naga-chiha no kami and Michijiki no kami, both of which names imply a connexion with highways. The Nihongi makes five of these deities, adding two to the three of the Kiujiki. All are associated in some way or another with Izanagi's descent to Yomi, having been produced either from the articles flung down by him during his flight thence, or when he washed in the sea in order to purify himself from the pollutions contracted during his visit.
These deities had no temples. The festivals in their honour took place at crossways on the four sides of the capital, or at the frontier of the metropolitan province, regularly at the close of the sixth and twelfth months, and at other times upon occasions of emergency. Thus in 735, during an epidemic, the Governor of Dazaifu in Kiushiu was ordered to celebrate a michi-ahe, or Road festival, and in 839 the Mikado directed that honours should be paid to the Gods of Pestilence. A ceremony in honour of the Sahe no kami was also performed two days before the arrival of foreign envoys in the capital, in order to guard against the danger of their bringing with them infection, evil influences, or demons from abroad.[157]
A work entitled 'Fusô Ryakki' states that in 938 Gods were carved in wood and set up face to face along the highways and byways, or female forms were made and set up opposite to males. Children worshipped them boisterously, and made reverent offerings of pieces of cloth and fragrant flowers. They were called Chimata no kami, that is to say "Gods of the Crossways," or Mitama (august spirits, a term which in its Chinese form Goryō is still preserved in the name of the great festival (Goryōye) of Gion at Kiôto. The Chimata no kami can be no other than Yachimata-hiko and Yachimata-hime. A later notice speaks of the worship of wooden figures, male and female, provided with sexual organs. Similar figures in stone may still, Hirata says, be seen in the eastern provinces, where they are sometimes mistaken for Jizō, the Buddhist children's God, and honoured in the temples.
The third of the Sahe no kami of the norito, namely, Kunado, can be nothing but a simple phallus. Its shape, formed of Izanagi's staff, is consistent with this view. In the Tsujiura, or Cross Roads divination, this God was represented by a staff. The same inference is suggested by its association with Yachimata-hiko and Yachimata-hime, who, as we have seen, were unquestionably phallic deities; and also with the peach, which, like Kunado himself, was used by Izanagi for his protection against the evil beings of Yomi. Like the apricot in India and the pomegranate in ancient Greece, the peach is in China and Japan the acknowledged representative of the kteis, as the pestle and the mushroom are of the phallus. Peach-wood staves were used in the oni-yarahi (demon-expelling) ceremony on the last day of the year. A similar interpretation is, perhaps, applicable to the horseshoes nailed over doors in England which, intended at first to keep out evil spirits, are now meant simply "for luck," in accordance with the tendency for the more special functions of Gods and magical appliances to become obscured and merged in a hazy, general notion of their beneficence or usefulness. Peach-shaped charms from China figure in a London tradesman's catalogue which has just reached me.
There is a custom, called sammai, of scattering rice, which was formerly observed at purification ceremonies, and is kept up at the present day in rooms where there is a new-born child. Hirata tells of a case in which the rice so scattered was found marked with blood-stains, showing, as he infers, that the object of this practice was to drive off demons, not to conciliate them by an offering. I have more than a suspicion that the efficacy of rice for this purpose, and also of the beans used to drive off demons on the last day of the year,[158] is due to a resemblance of this kind.[159]
The wo-bashira (male-pillar) is doubtless only a modified Kunado. This term is applied to the end-post of the railing of a bridge or of the balustrade of a staircase, and is so called from its obviously phallic shape and function. It is a post surmounted by a large knob, and its position commanding the thoroughfare shows that it is intended to arrest the passage of evil beings or influences. It is still to be seen everywhere in Japan, but its meaning is now forgotten. The end-tooth of a comb was also called wo-bashira. We now see the significance of Izanagi's selection of this object for converting into a torch in order to light up the darkness of Yomi. In Italy even at the present day the phallus fulfils a similar function.
The phallus appears in another form at the festival held in honour of the Sahe no Kami on the first full moon in every year. The Makura no Sōshi, written about a.d. 1000, tells us that it was then the custom for the boys in the Imperial Palace to go about striking the younger women with the potsticks used for making gruel on this occasion. This was supposed to ensure fertility. It reminds us of the Roman practice at the spring festival of Lupercalia, alluded to by Shakespeare in his 'Julius Cæsar':--
"Forget not in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calphurnia; for our elders say The barren touched in this holy chase Shake off their steril curse."
The Japanese novelist and antiquary Kiōden, writing about a century ago, informs us that a similar custom was at that time still practised in the province of Echigo. He gives a drawing of the sticks used for the purpose, of the phallic character of which there can be no doubt. They were called kedzurikake (part-shaved), and consisted of wands whittled near the top into a mass of adherent shavings, as in the illustration.