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412
EAST ASIA.
under exceptional conditions and political reactions religious wars have occasionally
broken out.
Like the Chinese, Korean, and Siberian aborigines, the Japanese had originally
no other divinities except the forces of Nature, with which they associated the souls
of the dead and the eight million aerial and terrestrial genii. How live at peace
with these countless hosts without endless conjurings and offerings ? And how was
the head of the family to thwart the malignant, and propitiate the beneficent spirits,
571
Fig.
191. NlKKO AND THE TJl'PEH TONE-OAVA.
Scale 1 : 860,000.
E of-G i394(T
6 Miles.
without addressing them as mortals, and honouring them with feasts and banquets ?
Such is the old ancestral cult, associated with that of the Kami, or genii, and of
natural phenomena, which still prevails under the Chinese name of Sinto. The
rites of this extremely simple worship, which asks of its followers nothing but
purity of soul and thought, are usually performed in the midst of the grandest
natural surroundings, where have been raised the tuiya or yasiro, shrines consecrated
to the genii, and containing the crystal mirror, symbol at once of purity and of
supernatural foreknowledge.
In the ceremonial the heads of families have been