Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/152

142 The phases of the Moon are not recognized in Japanese myth.

Tsuki-machi (moon-waiting). On the I7th or 23rd of the lunar month, people assemble to greet the rising moon. Ritual purity must be observed beforehand. This custom illustrates the tendency to revert to the direct worship of nature when the myths have become obscured by time and no longer fulfil their original purpose.

Star-God.—There is only one mention of a Star-God in the Nihongi. He is called Amatsu mika hoshi (dread star of Heaven), or Ame no Kagase wo (scarecrow male of Heaven), and was one of the malignant deities conquered by Futsunushi and Mika-tsuchi in preparation for Ninigi's descent to earth. The scarecrow is regarded as a sort of deity. He is said to know everything in the empire, though he cannot walk.

The worship of Tanabata (Vega) and of the North Star is also known in Japan. But these cults have been introduced from China. They are not Shinto.

Ame no minaka-nushi.—The Sky is not deified in Japan as it is in China. Ame is the region where the Gods dwell, not itself a God. Possibly, however, we should regard Ame no mi-naka-nushi (heaven-august-centre-master), as a personification of the sky, which has already reached that secondary phase in which the God has become distinct from the natural phenomenon. Some have endeavoured to make of him a sort of Supreme Being. But his cult is recent. Motoöri says that he was not worshipped in ancient times. In the Shōjiroku he is the ancestor of several noble families.

Earth-Gods.—Comte calls Earth a great fetish. There are the same objections to calling the Earth a fetish as there are to applying this epithet to the Sun. Æschylus's All-Mother Earth, and Swinburne's Hertha, ought not to be so stigmatized. The Earth is not a factitious (feitiço, fetish) object of adoration, but a real divinity. It should