Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/83

 raging tides being invoked to wash away and dissipate all offences. First among crimes was the removal of a neighbour's landmark—described as breaking down divisions between rice-fields; then followed the damming of streams and the destruction of water-pipes, whence it may be inferred that the problem of irrigation for purposes of rice-culture proved as perplexing to these ancient folk as it does to their modern descendants. On the same plane of heinousness stood the cruelty of flaying the living or the dead, and among lesser crimes were enumerated cutting and wounding, incest and the practice of witchcraft. Every religious service was accompanied by offerings betokening gratitude for past favours or beseeching future blessings, and the things prayed for were good harvests, an abundance of food, security of dwelling-houses against natural calamities, and against the intrusion of reptiles or polluting birds, tranquil and efficient government, and protection from tempests, conflagrations, pestilence, inundations, and vengeful deities—in a word, prosperity and peace. Incidentally, these rituals further show that the Japanese believed in a solid firmament walling the universe, though certain passages suggest that they thought this distant envelope light enough to be supported by the winds, which not only filled space, but were also capable of serving as a ladder for the feet of the deities when they descended to the earth. The fermented liquor