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Gods Of Abstract Human Qualities.Shinto: The Way of the Gods 17ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1=Sahe no kami=.--The Sahe no kami are phallic deities. In approaching this subject, it behoves me to walk warily. For, to some writers so repulsive that they shirk even its necessary elucidation, it exercises a fascination upon others which is not conducive to sound reasoning. Has not a President of the Anthropological Institute declared that "so soon as a man begins to study phallicism he goes crazy"? With phallicism we may conveniently associate the corresponding cult of the kteis. 2In Japan, the phallus symbolizes two distinct, although not unrelated, principles. Primarily, it represents the generative or procreative power, and is recognized in this capacity by myth and custom. By a natural transition it has become the symbol of the more abstract conception of lusty animal life, the foe to death and disease. Hence its use as a magical prophylactic appliance. In Shinto, this latter principle is much the more prominent. It is embodied in the name Sahe no kami, which means "preventive deities." The application of this epithet is clear from the circumstance that in a norito they are invoked for protection against the "unfriendly and savage beings of the Root Country," that is to say Yomi or Hades. These by no means imaginary personages are the same as the Ugly Females, the thunders generated from Izanami's dead body and the armies of Yomi of myth.[155] They represent, or rather are identical with, diseases and other evils associated with death and the grave. Epidemic and contagious diseases are specially intended. Hence the Sahe no kami are also called Yakushin, or "Pestilence Deities," meaning the Gods who ward off pestilence, a phrase wrongly taken in later times to signify the Gods who produce pestilence. The use of the phallus and kteis for this purpose is primarily magical, and rests on the wellknown principle that a symbol possesses something of the virtue of the thing which it represents. The deification of these symbols came later. 3In 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." 4There 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. 5These 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] 6A 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. 7The 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. 8There 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] 9The 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. 10The 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':-- 11"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." 12The 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. 13Kedzurikake of elder or willow are still made in some places. In Harima, on the 14th day of the 1st month, kedzurikake are hung up under the eaves in substitution for the kadomatsu, or fir trees placed by the entrance gate at the New Year. In Suwo, kedzurikake, made of a thorny tree called tara, are placed on each side of the front and back doors at this season, no doubt with the object of averting evil influences. When the kadomatsu and other New Year's decorations are removed on the 15th day of the 1st month, they are in many places collected by the boys as material for a bonfire. This is called dondo or sagichō, and the burning of the kedzurikake is a feature of it. In the Yamagata ken, wherever there are stone images of Dōsōjin, the phallic God of Roads,[160] the boys at this time make a bonfire of fir trees and straw, and build for themselves a hut beside it. When the people assemble, they come out and fire it. If the dumplings made on the 14th are roasted in this fire and eaten, malignant diseases need not be feared during the ensuing half year. In Hitachi this hut is called the "Hall of the Sai no Kami." The embers are used for re-lighting the domestic fires or kept as charms against pestilence. 14Fire, kindled from kedzurikake after prayer, was given out to the people by the priests of Gion in Kiōto on the last day of the year. It was transferred to a slow match, and used for rekindling the household fires, the object being to prevent pestilence during the coming year.[161] The mythical burning of a wobashira (also a phallic emblem) by Izanagi in Yomi was probably suggested by some such custom.[162] It will be observed that the prophylactic virtue of the phallus has not been forgotten in the kedzurikake. 15The kedzurikake are sometimes described as the shintai of Dōsōjin, and are placed on the domestic altar to be worshipped as his representative. They are also, by a known confusion of ideas, presented to the Gods as offerings. The Ainus of Yezo, who have adopted the kedzurikake as the general form of offering to their Gods at all times, and attach to it no phallic signification, were no doubt familiar with this use of it by their Japanese neighbours. It is by them called inao or nusa, the latter being the old Japanese word for offering. The facility with which such offerings could be prepared by savages must have been a recommendation. 16The two cylindrical shingi, or "divine sticks," eight or nine inches in circumference and one foot long, thrown to the crowd by the priests of Seidaiji, near Okayama, on the night of the 14th day of the 1st month, and called o fuku (luck), to keep off pestilence and bring prosperity, are probably of phallic origin. 17The gruel partaken of at the Sahe no Kami festival on the 15th of the 1st month was made of rice, and was coloured with an admixture of the small red bean called adzuki.[163] The bean is a well-known synonym in Japan for the kteis. The colour red is also significant. It suggests the ruddy complexion of health caused by an abundance of life-giving blood in the lips and cheeks. Children love this colour. Max Nordau says: "As a feeling of pleasure is always connected with dynamogeny or the production of force, every living thing instinctively seeks for dynamogenous sense impressions. Now red is especially dynamogenous." In 'Œdipus Tyrannus,' the Chorus invoke the aid of ruddy-faced Bacchus against pestilence. In Korea red is a terror to devils. A modern Japanese writer says that red is obnoxious to devils on account of its cheerful appearance. 18Small-pox being a Kijin biō, or demon-sent disease, the colour red is freely employed in combating it. The candles at the bedside are red, and the clothing of the patient and nurse. The God of Small-pox is worshipped with offerings of red gohei (there is here some confusion of ideas) and of red adzuki beans. Red paper is hung round the necks of the bottles of sake offered to him. Red papier maché figures of Daruma are placed near the sick-bed. It is explained that red, being a yô (male, bright, positive) colour, is fitted to counteract dark, wintry, negative influences. The potency of red as a charm against small-pox is not unknown to European folk-lore. 19Phalli are coloured a bright red, or, what comes to the same thing, gilt. Saruta-hiko, a phallic deity, has a bright red complexion. Torii are painted red. Demons and stage villains have red faces, probably as an indication of great animal vigour. 20Griffis, in his 'Mikado's Empire,' tells us that "when by reason of good fortune or a lucky course of events there is great joy in a family it is customary to make kowameshi, or red rice, and give an entertainment to friends and neighbours. The rice is coloured by boiling red beans with it. If for any cause the colour is not a fine red, it is a bad omen for the family." There is a modern superstition that if, on the 7th day of the 1st month, a male swallows seven, and a female fourteen red beans, they will be free from sickness all their lives. 21The Tō-yū-ki, a work published in 1795, has the following:-- 22"In many places along the highway at Atsumi, in the province of Deha, where the cliffs stand up steeply on both sides, shime-naha are stretched across from one cliff to another. Below these shime-naha there are placed skilfully carved wooden phalli fronting the road. They are very large, being seven or eight feet in length and perhaps three or four feet in circumference. I thought this too shocking, and questioned the inhabitants why they did so. Their answer was that it was a very ancient custom. They were called Sai no kami,[164] and were made afresh every year on the 15th day of the 1st month. As they were local Gods, they were by no means neglectful of them, allowing them to remain even when high officials passed that way. They were not at all, I was told, put up for the amusement of the young folks. Moreover, seeing a number of slips of paper attached to the shime-naha, I inquired what they might be. It appeared that they were fastened there secretly by the women of the place as a prayer for handsome lovers. Truly this is one of those old customs which linger in remote parts. Phalli and ktenes of stone are worshipped by the country-folks in many places as the shintai of their ujigami." 23The selection of a rocky pass for the erection of these objects, and the association with them of shime-naha,[165] show that their original function, namely, to prevent the passage of evil beings or influences, was not forgotten. The prayers of the women betray a misconception of the proper object of this cult. 24Near the end of the Kogojiui there is a passage which makes mention of the phallus as a magical appliance. As it has some anthropological interest, I quote it at length: 25"Of yore, in the age of the Gods, Oho-toko-nushi no Kami (great-earth-master-deity), on a day that he was cultivating a rice-field, gave his labourers the flesh of oxen to eat. At this time the child of Mi-toshi no Kami (august-harvest-god) went to that rice-field and spat upon the food, after which he returned and reported the matter to his father. Mi-toshi no Kami was wroth and let loose locusts on that field, so that the leaves of the young rice suddenly withered away and it became like dwarf bamboos. Upon this Oho-toko-nushi no Kami caused the diviners to ascertain by their art the reason of this. They replied that it was owing to a curse sent by Mi-toshi no Kami, and advised him to offer a white pig, a white horse, and a white cock in order to dispel his anger. When amends had been made to Mi-toshi no Kami in the manner directed, the latter replied, saying: 'Truly it was my doing. Take bare stalks of hemp, and make of them a reel with which to reel it, take the leaves and sweep it therewith, take "push-grass"[166] of Heaven and push it therewith. Take, moreover, crow-fan[167] and fan it, and if then the locusts do not depart, take ox-flesh and place it in the runnels, adding to it shapes of the male stem (phalli). Moreover, strew the banks of earth between the fields with water-lily seeds, ginger, walnut leaves and salt.' When these instructions were carried out the leaves of the young rice became thick again, and the harvest was a plentiful one. 26This is the reason why at the present day the Department of Religion worships Mi-toshi no Kami with offerings of a white pig, a white horse, and a white cock." 27The facts quoted in the preceding pages show that there was some confusion between the use of the male and female emblems as non-religious magical appliances and their cult as deities. Primarily they were symbols, next objects of magic. Finally Religion intervened, and by her handmaids Personification and Myth raised them to the rank of deities, consecrating this step still further by devoting a formal ritual to their service. The kteis has received somewhat less attention than the phallus. It is no doubt identical with the Yachimata hime of the Michiahe norito, and in the Kojiki, its representative the peach is dubbed kami. But the Nihongi in the parallel passage merely speaks of its efficacy in repelling evil spirits, and refrains from deifying or even personifying it. 28The circumstance that the Sahe no Kami were worshipped by the roadsides and at crossways[168] led to their being looked upon as guide-Gods and the special friends of travellers. Saruta-hiko, a phallic deity, represented as dwelling at the eight crossways of Heaven, is said to have acted as guide to Ninigi on his descent to earth. He is popularly called Dōsōjin, or Road-ancestor-deity, and is depicted as of gigantic stature, with a portentously long nose, which (the suggestion is not mine) may perhaps have a phallic morphological signification. 29The worship of these deities was extremely popular in ancient Japan. They were much appealed to in divination,[169] and were prayed to by most travellers when starting on a journey. The phrase chi buri no Kami (Gods along the road) means the Sahe no Kami. The Sahe no Kami were the mitama par excellence. They were also called tamuke no Kami (Gods of offerings) because travellers were in the habit of carrying a nusa-bukuro (offering-bag) containing hemp leaves and rice, of which a little was offered to each of them when passing. All unforeseen disasters or illnesses on a journey were attributed to a neglect of the worship of these deities. 30But a very little advance in enlightenment shows that the sexual instincts need restraint[170] rather than the stimulus which they must derive from such a cult. So early as A.D. 939 a deity of this kind which stood in a conspicuous position in Kiōto, and was worshipped by all travellers, was removed to a less prominent situation. Phallicism ultimately disappeared from official Shinto. But it lingered long in popular customs, and is not quite extinct even at the present day, especially in eastern Japan. I have myself witnessed a procession in which a phallus, several feet high and painted a bright red, was carried on a bier by a crowd of coolies in festal uniform, shouting, laughing, and zig-zagging tumultuously from one side of the street to another. In the lupanars they are honoured by having a lamp of simple construction kept burning before them, and are prayed to by the proprietor for numerous clients. The boys' festival of dondo, on the 15th of the 1st month, still retains traces of its phallic origin.[171] 31=Oni=.--Oni, or demons, have no individual names. It is clear from the Kojiki and Nihongi mythical narratives that the oni exorcised by means of the peach[172] are the same as the "thunders" and the "armies of Yomi." In other words, they are primarily personified diseases.[173] They afterwards lost this specific character. Motoöri defines oni as ashiki kami, or "evil deity." He condemns their identification by the Wamiôshô with the spirits of the dead. There is a story of a tenth-century hero who cut off the arm of an oni and brought it home with him, but was tricked out of it by the owner, who came to his house in the disguise of an old woman. 32The oni have red faces, hairy persons, horns, and sometimes only one eye. They are said to devour men. The modern ideas respecting them are mostly borrowed from Buddhist sources. 33=Gods of Good and Ill Luck=.--Among deified human properties we may reckon the Gods of Good and Ill Luck produced when Izanagi washed in the sea after his return from Yomi. Their names, Naobi and Magatsubi, contain the elements nao, straight, and maga, crooked. 34Naki-sahame, the Goddess of weeping, Ta-jikara-wo (hand-strength-male), whose shintai is a bow, and Omohi-kane, the thought combiner, are rather mythical personages than deities on the effective list. It is doubtful whether Mari no kami, the foot-ball God, who has three faces, is a personification of skill or a hazy, imaginative recollection of some distinguished player. 35The very terrible deity known as Bimbō-gami, the God of Poverty, is of later origin. ‹Previous chapterShinto: The Way of the Gods 16Next chapterShinto: The Way of the Gods 18›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain in the United States via Project Gutenberg