Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/360

320 adds that if some of them are invisible now, this was not always so. He points out in the passage quoted above, that when a sea or mountain is called Kami it is not the spirit of the sea or mountain that is intended, but the sea or mountain itself.

But while Shinto is in the main an unspiritual religion, there are not wanting indications of an advance beyond the earlier type of religious thought.

The point to which the Japanese mind had at this period arrived in its transition to a more spiritist form of faith is marked by the use of the word mi-tama. Mi is an honorific prefix. Tama means ball, bead, jewel, precious thing, essence, spirit, and, at a later time, soul. The metaphorical use of this word can be best explained by a few concrete examples. When the Sun-Goddess and the High-integrating-Deity sent down Hoho no Ninigi to rule the lower world, he was given, among other things, a sacred mirror with the injunction, "Regard this mirror exactly as our mi-tama and reverence it as if reverencing us." It is in the same spirit, which surely savours of make-believe rather than belief, that the gods are frequently represented in the Norito as dwelling in the places where they are worshipped. Even Motoöri speaks of the Shinto shrines as being occupied by the mi-tama of the gods.

Again, when Ohonamuchi boasted that he alone had subdued the Central Land (Japan) he was reproved by something which floated towards him over the sea, surrounded by a divine radiance, and which said: "It is because of my presence that thou hast been able to accomplish this mighty task." "Who art thou?" asked Ohonamuchi. It replied and said: "I am thy tama of good luck, the wondrous tama." Human beings may also have tama of this kind, which are plainly the counterpart of our guardian spirits. Jingo Kōgu was accompanied by a nigi