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 546 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

a concise analysis of the treatise ; for in its course religion, politics, and morality are interwoven on a historic warp. The entire fabric runs about as follows : (Chap. 3) The real religion of the Japanese is ancestorism, which showed in three cults : the domestic, the com- munal, and the state. The domestic arose first, but the primitive family might include hundreds of households. Ancestorism in Japan confirms Spencer's exposition of religious origins. The greater gods were all evolved from ghost-cults. Good men made good gods ; bad men, bad ones. (Chap. 4) The domestic cult began in offerings of food and drink made at the grave; then, under Chinese influence, was transferred to the home before tablets, where it was maintained until this present by Buddhism. Thin tablets of white wood, inscribed with the names of the dead, are placed in a miniature wooden shrine, which is kept upon a shelf in some inner chamber. Tiny offerings of food, accompanied with brief prayer, must be made each day by some member of the household in behalf of all ; for the blessed dead still need sustenance, and in return can guard the house. The Buddhist rite, however, made prayer, not to, but for these dead. The Japanese scholar Hirata is correct when he declares the worship of ancestors to be the mainspring of all virtues. (Chap. 5) The family was united only by religion. The father not the mother was supposed to be the life-giver, and was therefore responsible for the cult. Hence the inferior position of woman. The ancestral ghost of an uji, or family of several households, became later the ujigami, or local tutelar god. Subordination of young to old, of females to males, and of the whole family to its chief, who was at once ruler and priest, shows that the family organization was reli- gious and not marital. Both monogamy and the practice of parents selecting their child's spouse arose because best accordant with reli- gion. Later custom makes the decision, not of the father alone, but of the household and kindred, determinative of any important step. (Chap. 6) The communal cult of the district ruled the family in all its relations to the outer world. The ujigami, or clan-god, was the spirit rather of a former ruler than of a common ancestor. Hochiman was a ruler, but Kasuga an ancestor. Beside the uji temple of a dis- trict, there may be a more important one dedicated to some higher deity. Every ujiko or parishioner is taken to the ujigami when one month old and dedicated to him. Thereafter he attends the temple festivals, which combine fun with piety ; and he makes the temple groves his playground. Grown up, he brings his children here ; and,