Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/56

46 is that only a very small part of the Japanese nation knew, or pretended to know, anything about their ancestors. Even of those who had genealogies, many traced their descent from mere undeified mortals, some being Koreans or Chinese. There remain in the Shōjiroku and elsewhere a good number of genealogies in which the descent of noble families from Shinto deities is recorded. To what class do these deities belong? It is impossible to assert that some may not be genuine deified ancestors, though I cannot point to any undoubted case of this kind. Many are nature-deities. The descent of the imperial family from the Sun-Goddess is a typical example. The God of Growth, Kuni-toko-tachi, the Yatagarasu or Sun-Crow, the sword Futsunushi, and many other nature-deities appear among the ancestors of the Shōjiroku. In the 'Ideals of the East,' a work recently published in English by Mr. Takakura Okasu, the author speaks of the "immaculate ancestrism of Ise and Idzumo." The so-called ancestral Gods worshipped at these places are the Sun-Goddess, the Food-Goddess, Ohonamochi (an Earth-God) and Susa no wo (the Rainstorm). Dr. E. Caird's observation that "in the majority of cases it is not that the being worshipped is conceived of by his worshipper as a God because he is an ancestor, but rather that he is conceived as an ancestor because he is believed to be their God," obviously applies to this feature of Shinto.

Other nobles traced their lineage from, and paid a special worship to, personages who never existed as individual human beings. Such is Koyane, the reputed ancestor, but really only a personified type of the Nakatomi priestly corporation.

If we have any regard for correct terminology we must call this recognition of nature-deities and class-types as ancestors not ancestor-worship, but pseudo-ancestor-worship. When Britain's sons declare, as they do with