15. Nihon Shoki II — 15
1The student of folk-lore will not think it frivolous of me to cite here the English story of the Death and Burial of Cock Robin, where the birds officiate in various capacities at a funeral.
2"Sang dirges." Hirata condemns this as a Chinese importation. He prefers the "Kojiki" version, which says that "they made merry," and explains that this was with the object of recalling the dead to life, perhaps in imitation of the Gods dancing and making merry in order to entice the Sun-Goddess from her rock-cave. Compare the following passage from a Chinese History of the Han (A.D. 25–220) Dynasty.
3In Japan "Mourning lasts for some ten days only, during which time the members of the family weep and lament, whilst their friends come singing, dancing and making music."
4The mortuary house was required for the temporary disposal of the dead, while the sepulchral mound with its megalithic chamber was being constructed. Vide Index—Misasagi.
5"Went off" is the same character as is translated "withdraw" above. Hirata understands this of his death. The whole episode is related quite differently in the "Kojiki." Vide Ch. K., p. 101.
6Enclosures of bamboo are used at the present day to trap fishes, but it is not very clear why one is introduced here.
7The Weaver-God is literally, if we follow the Chinese character, the God of Japanese striped stuffs. The interlinear "Kana" gives Shidzuri or Shidori, from shidzu, cloth, and ori, weave, which is doubtless correct. Take-ha-dzuchi is brave-leaf-elder. It is not clear that this Weaver-God is the same as the Weaver star.
8Muro were used in ancient times by the higher as well as by the poorest classes. Sosa no wo no Mikoto is said by the Idzumo Fudoki to have made himself a muro, and Jimmu Tennō's son is represented as sleeping in a great muro. In modern times muro sometimes means simply chamber.
9Some writers confound the muro with the ihaya. So far as I am aware, the latter is used only of caverns in the rock, or of the artificial megalithic chambers contained in sepulchral mounds.
10Mr. J. Milne, in an extremely interesting paper on the pit-dwellers of Yezo, read before the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1882, argues that certain pits discovered by him in large numbers in the islands of Yezo and Itorup were the dwellings of a pre-Aino race, whose modern representatives are to be found amongst the Kurilsky or their neighbours in Kamschatka and Saghalin. To these he gives the name of Koro-pok-guru, following an Aino tradition communicated to him by Mr. Batchelor.
11On the other hand, I am informed by Baron A. von Siebold, who visited several of these groups of pits in Kusiro and the Kurile Islands, that,—
12The Sarume were primarily women who performed comic dances (saru-mahi or monkey-dances) in honour of the Gods. They are mentioned along with the Nakatomi and Imbe as taking part in the festival of first-fruits and other Shintō ceremonies. These dances were the origin of the Kagura and Nō performances. Another function of the Sarume is that indicated in the part taken by Uzume no Mikoto when the Gods enticed the Sun-Goddess out of her rock-cave. She is there said to have been divinely inspired. This divine inspiration has always been common in Japan. The inspired person falls into a trance, or hypnotic state, in which he or she speaks in the character of some God. Such persons are now known as Miko, defined by Hepburn as 'a woman who, dancing in a Miya, pretends to hold communication with the Gods and the spirits of the dead,' in short a medium. There are also strolling mediums, as in England, women of a low class, who pretend to deliver messages from deceased friends or relatives. See Lowell's "Esoteric Shinto," in the "J. A. S. T.," and Index—Inspiration.
13The derivation does not help us much. Hi is no doubt sun, used metaphorically, as in hi-kagami, sun-mirror or sacred-mirror; hiko, sun-child (prince); hime, sun-female (princess). This is fairly well represented by the Chinese character 神 in the text. The remainder of the word, viz. morogi, is probably moro, a word of multitude, all, many, and gi (for ki), wood. There is a proper name, Take-morogi, where morogi is written with characters which imply this derivation. Hi-moro-gi is therefore a sacred row or group of sticks of some sort or another.
14I may mention a suspicion that the himorogi may be connected, perhaps by way of a survival, with a time when the Japanese Deities were a row of posts roughly carved into human shape. See above, p. 3.
15Superstition and Ritual have a preference for knives of some more primitive material than iron. Medea shears her magic herbs "curvamine falcis ahenæ," and Zipporah performs the rite of circumcision with a sharp stone. But a more prosaic explanation of the present passage is suggested by a surgeon friend. There is less hæmmorrhage when a blunt instrument is used.
16The modern name of this festival is Shin-jō-sai. There is a similar one in China. In ancient times there was no distinction made between this and the Oho-nihe or Oho-name, when the Emperor at his accession offered rice to the Gods (now called the Daijōye), both being called Oho-nihe. The prayer read at the Nihi-name is given among the norito in the Yengishiki, and Hirata devotes the last three vols. of the "Koshiden" to this subject.
17The Yengi-shiki (regulations of the Yengi, 901–923 period) says that on the first day of the year, at coronations, and when foreign envoys were received, twenty upper class hayato were to attend, twenty "new-comer" hayato, and 132 ordinary hayato. These were to take their posts in detachments to right and left outside the Palace Gate. When the officials first entered, or got up from their seats, the "new-comer" hayato raised three barks, and there was more barking or howling, sometimes loud and sometimes low, at other stages of the ceremony.
18The word for "my love" is imo, which in ancient Japanese is used indifferently for wife and younger sister. See above, p. 22.