Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/349

Rh or implicitly, with an appeal for divine guidance. Hirata defines divination as "respectfully inquiring the heart (ura) of the Gods." Motoöri takes the same view, though both writers admit that in modern times divination which has no religious sanction is sometimes resorted to, playfully, or in unimportant matters.

The Greater Divination.—The greater, or official, divination consists in drawing conclusions according to certain conventional rules from the cracks which appear in a deer's shoulder-blade when exposed to fire. This practice is known not only to the Chinese, Kalmucks, Cherkeses, and other races of North-Eastern Asia, but to the ancient Germans and Greeks. Nearer home we have the "reading the speal" (épaule), a sort of divination by examining the marks on a shoulder-blade of mutton, practised not very long ago in the Highlands of Scotland. The Nihongi tells us that the Gods themselves made use of the Greater Divination in order to learn the reason of Izanagi and Izanami's abortive children the Hiruko and the Island of Ahaji. The God Koyane, ancestor of the Nakatomi, was specially charged with this form of divination. In the numerous passages of the Nihongi where divination is mentioned without further description, it is no doubt the Greater Divination which is intended. Chinese methods of divination were introduced into Japan from Korea at an early date. In 553 it seems to have been an established practice that Koreans learned in medicine, in divination, and in calendar-making should take turns of service at the Court of Japan. It was no doubt owing to their influence that the tortoise-shell was substituted for the deer's shoulder-blade in this divination. A reference to the "divine Tortoise" in the Nihongi under the legendary date B.C. 92 is merely an anachronism. But the tortoise was really in use for this purpose in the eighth century. The Yengishiki recognizes no other, though in the country districts the shoulder-blades of deer were long retained.