Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/93

Rh Myth and Ritual.—When a myth and a ceremony relate to the same subject-matter, which comes first in order of time? Is the ceremony a dramatic commemoration of the events related in the myth, or, vice versâ, is the myth an attempt to explain the origin of the ceremony? Some go so far as to say that ritual is the source of all religious myth. The late Mr. D. G. Brinton, on the other hand, held that "every rite is originally based on a myth." Robertson Smith's view was that "in almost every case the myth was derived from the ritual, and not the ritual from the myth." No general rule can be laid down in these cases. Every such question must be decided according to the available evidence. A myth is a narrative, and a ceremony a kind of dramatic peformanceperformance [sic]. It will not be disputed that dramas have been founded on narratives, and that narratives are sometimes taken from dramas, as in the case of Lamb's 'Tales from Shakespeare.' Novels are every day dramatized, and the reverse process, though not common with ourselves, is familiar in Japan. Several of the Shinto deities are worshipped for no other reason than because they are mentioned in the myths of the Kojiki and Nihongi. It was probably the mythical account of the friendship of Ajisuki and Ame-waka-hiko which led to shrines being erected to these deities side by side at Idzumo. A literal interpretation of the obviously allegorical story of Iha-naga-hime and Kono-saku-hime led, in later times, to an actual cult of these personages. On the other hand, the ceremony of religious ablution is certainly older than the myth which represents Izanagi as washing in the sea in order to remove the pollutions of the land of Yomi. The worship of the Sun is assuredly not the outcome, but the source, of the Japanese solar myths, though it may owe to them some of its more modern features.

Many myths have no ceremonial associated with them, and there is much ceremony for which the myth-makers have not attempted to account.