492 REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1891. 



curious and striking illnstratioii of the exercise of different iimctious 

 under changed personality, we may refer to O-kuni-nushi, ^\ ho was 

 once the great ruler of the worhl. He was overcome and deposed, as 

 we shall learn further on, and became the chief deity of Hades. In 

 this cnpacity he is Avorshiped also in two other characters — as a Gentle 

 Spirit which pardons and as a Eough Spirit which punishes. These 

 two spirits have separate existences. At onetime, while the deity was 

 engaged in the task of civilizing the world, and was in need of assist- 

 ance, another deity came to him from the sea and proffered aid. 

 O-kuni-nushi did not recognize him and asked wlio he was. The deity 

 answered, "■ I am thy saki-tama," meaning thy spirit that confers 

 blessings. 



HEAVEN. 



Like many other peoples, the Japanese believe that heaven was once 

 very near the earth, but they have no account of how it became sepa- 

 rated from and raised above the world. Formerly it was connected with 

 the earth by means of a ''floating bridge" ora "rock boat," ora"pillar 

 of earth," whereby the kami could pass from one i^lace to the other at 

 will. The nature of this connection is very vaguely expressed in 

 the records. Satow conceives that the "floating bridge of heaven" 

 was the wind. 



Heaven itself was the abode of the celestial kami, but it was freely 

 visited by the kami who lived on earth. It was not boundless s])ace, 

 for its area was limited. Susano made the circuit of ifs boundary. It 

 was a counterpart of what was known on eartli— a country like Japan 

 in the blue sky, having a great river with a stony bed, such as the 

 traveler in Japan knows very well, a mine from which iron was taken 

 for the sacred mirror and fertile fields which furnished seed for the ter- 

 restrial harvest. It was not regarded as a bourne where the souls of 

 the dead would find a resting place. It was only the particular abode 

 of those kami of the early generations who are distinguished as the 

 celestial kami. 



GENERATION OF KAMI — THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. 



The preface to the Kojiki begins thus: "Now when chaos had l)egun 

 to condense, but form and force were not yet manifest and there was 

 nought named, nought done, who could know its shape ? Nevertheless, 

 heaven and earth first ])arted, and the three deities perforn)ed the c<tm- 

 mencement of creation; the passive and a<;tive essences * then devel- 

 oped and the Two Spirits became the ancestors of all things." To 

 learn the origin of the first three deities we must turn to the Kojiki 



*The preface is not a part of the original work, bvit a sort of introduction or gen- 

 eral review by the author of the written copy. It embodies some ideas of his own, 

 which, as this allusion to the "passive and active essences," are foreign to the book 

 itself. 



