Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/29

Rh that the Gods are high and men are low, owing to the greater care taken by the creator deities in producing the former." He thinks that the Shinto deities are about ten feet high.

The humanization of the nature deities is reflected in the vocabulary of Shinto. The term mioya, or "august parent," is frequently used of them. Tsuchi or tsutsu, old forms of chichi, father, occurs in the names of several. It is primarily by no means physical fatherhood which is meant in such cases, although there are no doubt vulgar minds who are unable to rise above this conception and have thereby done much to corrupt religion.

In Western religions a God must be either male or female. The grammatical structure of their languages compels Europeans to say either he or she in speaking of deities. In Japan this necessity does not exist. The forms of Japanese speech take little account of sex. Many Shinto deities have no sex at all. In others sex is indicated by the incidents of the myth or by the additions of such terminations as wo male, me female. There are several pairs of married deities. In art, sex is comparatively little distinguished in Japan.

The reason for attributing one sex to a deity rather than the other is not always evident. Provinces and mountains are sometimes male and sometimes female. The Food Goddess is naturally feminine, as representing the productive principle of nature, and perhaps also because cooking is the business of women. The male sex is more suitable to Susa no wo's violent character as the Rain-storm. Warlike gods like Hachiman are naturally masculine.

The "chieftain" conception of divinity is represented by the use of the word wo, male, i.e., virile or valiant one, in many of the names of deities, and by the ascription to some of warlike qualities. There is nothing to show that these are deified chieftains. On the contrary, the term wo is applied, like tsuchi, father, to what are unmistakably nature