Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/223

 industry. But the best authorities agree that such sacrifices were made to the god of wild beasts only. The victim was always a girl, and the manner of selecting her was singular. From the earliest ages, the archer's weapons have been regarded with the utmost reverence in Japan. Having been originally instrumental in bringing the barbarous autochthons under the celestial invaders' sway, the bow and the arrow subsequently became symbols of security against all perils, and in that sense were fixed upon the ridge-pole of a newly erected roof. The habit survives still. Not in remote country districts only, but even in the great cities, houses may to-day be seen with a bent bow and an adjusted arrow standing where a chimney would protrude its head from a Western roof. It is said that, in prehistoric times, the bow and arrow assumed that position by an exercise of supernatural power. A householder rising in the morning would find that his roof had been thus distinguished during the night, and the event was accepted as a divine intimation that the eldest unmarried daughter of the family must be sacrificed. She was buried alive, the supposition being that her flesh served as a repast for the deity. But the priests by and by found a more profitable manner of disposing of these unfortunate girls: they were sold as slaves. The tradition is a mixed record of practical knavery and gross superstition. The bow-and-arrow sign plainly indicates that rustic ignorance was ex-