Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/96

86 "earth," "sun," "moon," and "mist," a nature-deity is evidently intended. Both the Kojiki and Kiujiki first Gods disappear at once from the mythical record. There is little trace of their worship in later times, and they must be pronounced mere abortive attempts at deity-making. Two other first deities are mentioned in the various myths quoted in the Nihongi, namely, Umashi-ashi-kabi-hiko-ji (sweet-reed-shoot-prince-father) and Ama-toko-tachi (Heaven-eternal-stand). The latter forms, along with Kuni-toko-tachi, one of those pairs of deities, not necessarily male and female, which are common in Japanese mythology. An enumeration of the Gods of the five generations which follow would be tedious and unprofitable. Some of them had probably no existence outside of the imagination of individual writers. They were doubtless invented or collected in order to provide a genealogy for Izanagi and Izanami. With one exception, they have left no trace in myth or in ceremonial. There are no shrines in their honour. Little is to be learnt from their names, the derivation of which is often doubtful. Several of them, however, show that the divinely mysterious process of growth, so all-important to an agricultural nation, had attracted attention.

Musubi no Kami (the God of Growth), who forms the sixth generation of deities, is a genuine divinity, of whom more remains to be said hereafter.

Izanagi and Izanami.—The seventh generation consisted of two deities, Izanagi and Izanami. It is with them that Japanese myth really begins, all that precedes being merely introductory and for the most part of comparatively recent origin.