Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/162

152 ''these two men, and having found them, offered them to the River-God. Hereupon Koha-kubi wept and lamented, and plunging into the water, died. So that embankment was completed. Koroma no ko, however, took two whole calabashes, and standing over the water which could not be dammed, plunged the two calabashes into the mid-stream and prayed, saying: 'O thou River-God, who hast sent the curse [to remove which] I have now come hither as a sacrifice! If thou dost persist in thy desire to have me, sink these calabashes and let them not rise to the surface. Then shall I know that thou art a true God, and will enter the water of my own accord. But if thou canst not sink the calabashes, I shall, of course, know that thou art a false God, for whom why should I spend my life in vain?' Hereupon a whirlwind arose suddenly which drew with it the calabashes and tried to submerge them in the water. But the calabashes, dancing on the waves, would not sink, and floated far away over the wide waters. In this way that embankment was completed, although Koromo no ko did not die. Accordingly Koromo no ko's cleverness saved his life. Therefore the men of that time gave a name to these two places, calling them ' Koha-kubi's Gap' and 'Koromo no ko's Gap. ' ''"

These stories, like that of Perseus and Andromeda, and the Roman legend that Hercules substituted images of straw for the living men hurled into the Tiber from the Sublician bridge, belong to a period when the belief in the efficacy of human sacrifice for propitiating river-deities had been considerably shaken. The abolition of sacrifices of living men at the tombs of deceased Mikados is part of the same movement in the direction of a greater regard for human life. The decay of the cult of rivers is also to be inferred from a statement in the Nihongi (A.D. 642) that prayers to the River-Gods for rain were condemned by the Government as yielding no good result. Reading Buddhist Sutras was equally ineffectual, but prayers by the Mikado