Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/361

Rh (gentle)-tama when she undertook her celebrated expedition against Corea. The word tama occurs in the names of a few deities, such as Iku (live) dama; and the Kiujiki has mention of the "Eighty times ten thousand tama of Heaven." The Chinese character used for tama in all these cases is one for which no closer English equivalent can be given than "spirit."

On the other hand, a number of gods have incorporated into their names the word mimi (august body), an indication of a more materialistic conception of deity.

On the second phase of Spiritism, in which the gods themselves are spirits distinct from nature, I can find little trace.

The feeble grasp of Spiritism by the Japanese nation at this period is further illustrated by the total absence of ghosts from the ancient literature. This can hardly be owing to the imperfection of the record, for these old writers have a marked fondness for X-material, and have accumulated a considerable quantity of it. Moreover, there are occasions when ghosts might naturally have made their appearance, and do not. When Izanagi follows Izanami to the land of Yomi, he finds there, not a spirit or ghost, but a putrefying corpse in which maggots had already bred. When Prince Yamato-dake died, his mitama became changed into a white bird and ascended to heaven. In another case a wreath hung up in a mortuary is termed the deceased's mikage or "august shade," a synonym for mitama.

We are told in the Nihongi that on the 2nd day of 689, "the Department of Great Learning presented eighty staves." These staves were for the ceremony of Oni-yarahi, or demon-expelling, which was performed at the beginning of every year by men who rushed about beating the air and discharging arrows in all directions. Now we learn from the Wamiôshô, a Chinese-Japanese dictionary of the 10th century, that the word oni also comprised "the spirits of dead men," and it notes that they "refuse to reveal their