Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/160

150 daughter, who in one version of the story changes at the moment of child-bearing into a wani as her true form, in another is converted into a dragon. In Japanese myth the serpent or dragon is almost always associated with water in some of its forms.

We also hear of a Shiho-tsuchi, or brine-father, and of local harbour deities.

River-Gods.—The River-Gods have no individual names. They are called generally midzu-chi, or water-father. Japanese dictionaries describe the midzu-chi as an animal of the dragon species with four legs. Hepburn, in his 'Japanese-English Dictionary,' calls it a large water-snake. The difference is not material. The dragon-kings of Chinese myth (of whom Toyotamahiko is an echo) are in India the Naga Raja, or cobra-kings.

The conception of a stream as a snake, serpent, or dragon, or of one of these animals as the embodiment of a water-deity is widespread. Dennys, in his 'Folk-Lore of China,' quotes from the North China Herald the following: "The River-God is in every case a small water-snake which popular fancy has converted into a deity." Robertson-Smith, in his 'Religion of the Semites,' says that "the living power that inhabits sacred waters and gives them their miraculous or healing quality is very often held to be a serpent, a huge dragon, or water monster." Reville tells us that "Le serpent joue en effet un grand rôle symbolique dans le culte de Tlaloc (the Mexican Rain and Water God) en tant qu'il représente l'eau qui coule, les nuages, les cours d'eau." It is easy to understand how a river, with its sinuous course and its mysterious movement without legs, should come to be thought of as a great serpent, especially if we remember the aquatic habits of some of the ophidia. Rivers have their favourable and their maleficent aspects. On the one hand they furnish water for irrigation, and on the other they cause destruction and loss of life by their floods, metaphorically expressed by the serpent's poison.