Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/138

128 the promptness of a military drill, scores of people rushed out of their houses, and with faces westward, kneeling, squatting, began prayer and worship before the great luminary."

I reproduce a drawing by a Japanese artist of a famous spot on the coast of Ise to which pilgrims resort in order to worship the sun as he rises over distant Fujiyama. The tori-wi, which in some prints of this scene is seen in the foreground, fulfils the same function as the great trilithon at Stonehenge, viz., to mark the direction of worship. I have seen the eastern wall of a private courtyard which was pierced with a round hole for the convenience of worshipping the morning sun.

There is a modern custom, called himachi (sun-waiting), of keeping awake the whole night of the 5th day of the 10th month in order to worship the sun on his rising. The rules of religious purity must be observed from the previous day. Many persons assemble at Takanaha, Uheno, Atago, and other open places in Tokio to worship the rising Sun on the first day of the year. This is called hatsu no hi no de (the first sunrise).

The myths mention several other deities which, although not identical with Ama-terasu or Hirume, are plainly of solar origin. Such is Waka-hirume (young-sun-female), who, according to Motoöri, is the Morning Sun. The Ise shrine is sometimes called Asa-hi no Jinja, that is to say, the shrine of the Morning Sun. One version of the names of the three children of Ninigi calls them Ho no akari (fire or sun-light), Ho no susori (fire or sun-advance), and Ho no wori (fire or sun-subside), originally, it may be suspected, names for the rising, noonday, and setting sun. Such a distinction is recognized in Egyptian mythology. The mythical founder of the dynasty which preceded Jimmu in Yamato was called Nigi-haya-hi—that is, gentle-swift-sun—and he is said to have come flying down from Heaven. One myth gives him the epithet Ama-teru kuni-