Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/209

Rh the owner, who came to his house in the disguise of an old woman.

The oni have red faces, hairy persons, horns, and sometimes only one eye. They are said to devour men. The modern ideas respecting them are mostly borrowed from Buddhist sources.

Gods of Good and Ill Luck.—Among deified human properties we may reckon the Gods of Good and Ill Luck produced when Izanagi washed in the sea after his return from Yomi. Their names, Naobi and Magatsubi, contain the elements nao, straight, and maga, crooked.

Naki-sahame, the Goddess of weeping, Ta-jikara-wo (hand-strength-male), whose shintai is a bow, and Omohi-kane, the thought combiner, are rather mythical personages than deities on the effective list. It is doubtful whether Mari no kami, the foot-ball God, who has three faces, is a personification of skill or a hazy, imaginative recollection of some distinguished player.

The very terrible deity known as Bimbō-gami, the God of Poverty, is of later origin.