Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (22 page)

Senke Takanori is a youthful and powerful man. As he sits there before
me in his immobile hieratic pose, with his strange lofty head-dress, his
heavy curling beard, and his ample snowy sacerdotal robe broadly
spreading about him in statuesque undulations, he realises for me all
that I had imagined, from the suggestion of old Japanese pictures, about
the personal majesty of the ancient princes and heroes. The dignity
alone of the man would irresistibly compel respect; but with that
feeling of respect there also flashes through me at once the thought of
the profound reverence paid him by the population of the most ancient
province of Japan, the idea of the immense spiritual power in his hands,
the tradition of his divine descent, the sense of the immemorial
nobility of his race—and my respect deepens into a feeling closely
akin to awe. So motionless he is that he seems a sacred statue only—
the temple image of one of his own deified ancestors. But the solemnity
of the first few moments is agreeably broken by his first words, uttered
in a low rich basso, while his dark, kindly eyes remain motionlessly
fixed upon my face. Then my interpreter translates his greeting—large
fine phrases of courtesy—to which I reply as I best know how,
expressing my gratitude for the exceptional favour accorded me.

'You are, indeed,' he responds through Akira, 'the first European ever
permitted to enter into the Oho-yashiro. Other Europeans have visited
Kitzuki and a few have been allowed to enter the temple court; but you
only have been admitted into the dwelling of the god. In past years,
some strangers who desired to visit the temple out of common curiosity
only were not allowed to approach even the court; but the letter of Mr.
Nishida, explaining the object of your visit, has made it a pleasure for
us to receive you thus.'

Again I express my thanks; and after a second exchange of courtesies the
conversation continues through the medium of Akira.

'Is not this great temple of Kitzuki,' I inquire, 'older than the
temples of Ise?'

'Older by far,' replies the Guji; 'so old, indeed, that we do not well
know the age of it. For it was first built by order of the Goddess of
the Sun, in the time when deities alone existed. Then it was exceedingly
magnificent; it was three hundred and twenty feet high. The beams and
the pillars were larger than any existing timber could furnish; and the
framework was bound together firmly with a rope made of taku
[50]
fibre,
one thousand fathoms long.

'It was first rebuilt in the time of the Emperor Sui-nin.
[51]
The
temple so rebuilt by order of the Emperor Sui-nin was called the
Structure of the Iron Rings, because the pieces of the pillars, which
were composed of the wood of many great trees, had been bound fast
together with huge rings of iron. This temple was also splendid, but far
less splendid than the first, which had been built by the gods, for its
height was only one hundred and sixty feet.

'A third time the temple was rebuilt, in the reign of the Empress Sai-
mei; but this third edifice was only eighty feet high. Since then the
structure of the temple has never varied; and the plan then followed has
been strictly preserved to the least detail in the construction of the
present temple.

'The Oho-yashiro has been rebuilt twenty-eight times; and it has been
the custom to rebuild it every sixty-one years. But in the long period
of civil war it was not even repaired for more than a hundred years. In
the fourth year of Tai-ei, one Amako Tsune Hisa, becoming Lord of Izumo,
committed the great temple to the charge of a Buddhist priest, and even
built pagodas about it, to the outrage of the holy traditions. But when
the Amako family were succeeded by Moro Mototsugo, this latter purified
the temple, and restored the ancient festivals and ceremonies which
before had been neglected.'

'In the period when the temple was built upon a larger scale,' I ask,
'were the timbers for its construction obtained from the forests of
Izumo?'

The priest Sasa, who guided us into the shrine, makes answer: 'It is
recorded that on the fourth day of the seventh month of the third year
of Ten-in one hundred large trees came floating to the sea coast of
Kitzuki, and were stranded there by the tide. With these timbers the
temple was rebuilt in the third year of Ei-kyu; and that structure was
called the Building-of-the-Trees-which-came-floating. Also in the same
third year of Ten-in, a great tree-trunk, one hundred and fifty feet
long, was stranded on the seashore near a shrine called Ube-no-yashiro,
at Miyanoshita-mura, which is in Inaba. Some people wanted to cut the
tree; but they found a great serpent coiled around it, which looked so
terrible that they became frightened, and prayed to the deity of Ube-
noyashiro to protect them; and the deity revealed himself, and said:
"Whensoever the great temple in Izumo is to be rebuilt, one of the gods
of each province sends timber for the building of it, and this time it
is my turn. Build quickly, therefore, with that great tree which is
mine." And therewith the god disappeared. From these and from other
records we learn that the deities have always superintended or aided the
building of the great temple of Kitzuki.'

'In what part of the Oho-yashiro,' I ask, 'do the august deities
assemble during the Kami-ari-zuki?'

'On the east and west sides of the inner court,' replies the priest
Sasa, 'there are two long buildings called the Jiu-kusha. These contain
nineteen shrines, no one of which is dedicated to any particular god;
and we believe it is in the Jiu-ku-sha that the gods assemble.'

'And how many pilgrims from other provinces visit the great shrine
yearly?' I inquire.

'About two hundred and fifty thousand,' the Guji answers. 'But the
number increases or diminishes according to the condition of the
agricultural classes; the more prosperous the season, the larger the
number of pilgrims. It rarely falls below two hundred thousand.'

Many other curious things the Guji and his chief priest then related to
me; telling me the sacred name of each of the courts, and of the fences
and holy groves and the multitudinous shrines and their divinities; even
the names of the great pillars of the temple, which are nine in number,
the central pillar being called the august Heart-Pillar of the Middle.
All things within the temple grounds have sacred names, even the torii
and the bridges.

The priest Sasa called my attention to the fact that the great shrine of
Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami faces west, though the great temple faces east,
like all Shinto temples. In the other two shrines of the same apartment,
both facing east, are the first divine Kokuzo of Izumo, his seventeenth
descendant, and the father of Nominosukune, wise prince and famous
wrestler. For in the reign of the Emperor Sui-nin one Kehaya of Taima
had boasted that no man alive was equal to himself in strength.
Nominosukune, by the emperor's command, wrestled with Kehaya, and threw
him down so mightily that Kehaya's ghost departed from him. This was the
beginning of wrestling in Japan; and wrestlers still pray unto
Nominosukune for power and skill.

There are so many other shrines that I could not enumerate the names of
all their deities without wearying those readers unfamiliar with the
traditions and legends of Shinto. But nearly all those divinities who
appear in the legend of the Master of the Great Land are still believed
to dwell here with him, and here their shrines are: the beautiful one,
magically born from the jewel worn in the tresses of the Goddess of the
Sun, and called by men the Torrent-Mist Princess—and the daughter of
the Lord of the World of Shadows, she who loved the Master of the Great
Land, and followed him out of the place of ghosts to become his wife—
and the deity called 'Wondrous-Eight-Spirits,' grandson of the 'Deity of
Water-Gates,' who first made a fire-drill and platters of red clay for
the august banquet of the god at Kitzuki—and many of the heavenly
kindred of these.

The priest Sasa also tells me this:

When Naomasu, grandson of the great Iyeyasu, and first daimyo of that
mighty Matsudaira family who ruled Izumo for two hundred and fifty
years, came to this province, he paid a visit to the Temple of Kitzuki,
and demanded that the miya of the shrine within the shrine should be
opened that he might look upon the sacred objects—upon the shintai or
body of the deity. And this being an impious desire, both of the Kokuzo
[52]
unitedly protested against it. But despite their remonstrances and
their pleadings, he persisted angrily in his demand, so that the priests
found themselves compelled to open the shrine. And the miya being
opened, Naomasu saw within it a great awabi
[53]
of nine holes—so
large that it concealed everything behind it. And when he drew still
nearer to look, suddenly the awabi changed itself into a huge serpent
more than fifty feet in length;
[54]
—and it massed its black coils
before the opening of the shrine, and hissed like the sound of raging
fire, and looked so terrible, that Naomasu and those with him fled away
-having been able to see naught else. And ever thereafter Naomasu
feared and reverenced the god.

The Guji then calls my attention to the quaint relics lying upon the
long low bench between us, which is covered with white silk: a metal
mirror, found in preparing the foundation of the temple when rebuilt
many hundred years ago; magatama jewels of onyx and jasper; a Chinese
flute made of jade; a few superb swords, the gifts of shoguns and
emperors; helmets of splendid antique workmanship; and a bundle of
enormous arrows with double-pointed heads of brass, fork-shaped and
keenly edged.

After I have looked at these relics and learned something of their
history, the Guji rises and says to me, 'Now we will show you the
ancient fire-drill of Kitzuki, with which the sacred fire is kindled.'

Descending the steps, we pass again before the Haiden, and enter a
spacious edifice on one side of the court, of nearly equal size with the
Hall of Prayer. Here I am agreeably surprised to find a long handsome
mahogany table at one end of the main apartment into which we are
ushered, and mahogany chairs placed all about it for the reception of
guests. I am motioned to one chair, my interpreter to another; and the
Guji and his priests take their seats also at the table. Then an
attendant sets before me a handsome bronze stand about three feet long,
on which rests an oblong something carefully wrapped in snow-white
cloths. The Guji removes the wrappings; and I behold the most primitive
form of fire-drill known to exist in the Orient.
[55]
It is simply a
very thick piece of solid white plank, about two and a half feet long,
with a line of holes drilled along its upper edge, so that the upper
part of each hole breaks through the sides of the plank. The sticks
which produce the fire, when fixed in the holes and rapidly rubbed
between the palms of the hands, are made of a lighter kind of white
wood; they are about two feet long, and as thick as a common lead
pencil.

While I am yet examining this curious simple utensil, the invention of
which tradition ascribes to the gods, and modern science to the earliest
childhood of the human race, a priest places upon the table a light,
large wooden box, about three feet long, eighteen inches wide, and four
inches high at the sides, but higher in the middle, as the top is arched
like the shell of a tortoise. This object is made of the same hinoki
wood as the drill; and two long slender sticks are laid beside it. I at
first suppose it to be another fire-drill. But no human being could
guess what it really is. It is called the koto-ita, and is one of the
most primitive of musical instruments; the little sticks are used to
strike it. At a sign from the Guji two priests place the box upon the
floor, seat themselves on either side of it, and taking up the little
sticks begin to strike the lid with them, alternately and slowly, at the
same time uttering a most singular and monotonous chant. One intones
only the sounds, 'Ang! ang!' and the other responds, 'Ong! ong!' The
koto-ita gives out a sharp, dead, hollow sound as the sticks fall upon
it in time to each utterance of 'Ang! ang!' 'Ong! ong!'
[56]

These things I learn:

Each year the temple receives a new fire-drill; but the fire-drill is
never made in Kitzuki, but in Kumano, where the traditional regulations
as to the manner of making it have been preserved from the time of the
gods. For the first Kokuzo of Izumo, on becoming pontiff, received the
fire-drill for the great temple from the hands of the deity who was the
younger brother of the Sun-Goddess, and is now enshrined at Kumano. And
from his time the fire-drills for the Oho-yashiro of Kitzuki have been
made only at Kumano.

Until very recent times the ceremony of delivering the new fire-drill to
the Guji of Kitzuki always took place at the great temple of Oba, on the
occasion of the festival called Unohimatauri. This ancient festival,
which used to be held in the eleventh month, became obsolete after the
Revolution everywhere except at Oba in Izumo, where Izanami-no-Kami, the
mother of gods and men, is enshrined.

Once a year, on this festival, the Kokuzo always went to Oba, taking
with him a gift of double rice-cakes. At Oba he was met by a personage
called the Kame-da-yu, who brought the fire-drill from Kumano and
delivered it to the priests at Oba. According to tradition, the Kame-da-
yu had to act a somewhat ludicrous role so that no Shinto priest ever
cared to perform the part, and a man was hired for it. The duty of the
Kame-da-yu was to find fault with the gift presented to the temple by
the Kokuzo; and in this district of Japan there is still a proverbial
saying about one who is prone to find fault without reason, 'He is like
the Kame-da-yu.'