Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/364

 GRÆCO-ROMAN AND JAPANESE FOLK-LORE AND MYTHOLOGY.

BY ERNEST W. CLEMENT.

paper on "The Folk-Lore of Japan" is modestly called by the author "merely suggestive." It is richly suggestive, and, therefore, of the highest value. It is a very careful and thorough analysis of the sources and elements, and an admirable presentation of the philosophy, of Japanese folk-lore. It has suggested to me two lines of thought for the few remarks which I have been asked to make.

I might carry into practical operation Dr. Griffis's suggestion, that Japanese folk-lore is richly illustrated in her decorative art at the World's Fair, and might guide you to several points of view; but the lack of time to make the necessary investigations among the numberless exhibits of Japan compels a postponement of this plan. The other line of thought several times suggested by the paper of Dr. Griffis is, "Græco-Roman and Japanese Mythology and Folk-Lore." But, in the few minutes allotted to me, I shall be able only to give a mere mention of some dozen or so cases of similarity or even identity.

To go back to the very beginning, the Japanese story of the creation sounds very much like a translation from Book I of Ovid's Metamorphoses. At first all is chaos, confusion, conglomeration; in this mass is the breath of life, "self-produced, including the germs of all things." Then the pure and perfect (ether) ascends and forms the heaven; the dense and impure coagulates, is precipitated, and produces the earth. Gradually the other elements (fire, water, wood, metal) are separated; then plants, animals, and beings, or gods (Kami), are evolved; and from the gods, by union with earthly elements, mankind in time is born.

It is also very early in Japanese Mythology that we find, as among the Greeks and Romans, the deification of natural 304