Already in Wei zhi, the third-century inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago are said to have consulted divination when undertaking something. The text says that they used to burn bones, first indicating what they divine about and then looking if the cracks predict good fortune (Tsunoda et al. 1969: 5). This was similar to what the ancient Japanese texts mention as the burning of the shoulder blade of a deer (OJ futomani), but it was hardly the oldest and certainly not the only method of divination that was practised in early Japan. Perhaps the most common method used when claiming land was ‘throw and fall divination’, as I am going to call it for want of a fitting established term. Many stories in the fudoki allude to this but do so in more or less cryptic statements that are not usually understood as allusions to divination.
The book Divination in the Ancient World (Rosenberger 2013) defines the term on the back cover like this: “Divination may be a means […] of legitimising decisions, to decide competition or to achieve distinctiveness.” When taking possession of land, divination was a method of legitimising the decision to take, but it also implied a promise. It is this promise that has been forgotten, and with it also the function and deeper meaning of divination as it was used in taking possession of land.
Unfortunately, divining in the context of opening up land is therefore a rite that tends to be often ignored, although it is of capital importance for understanding the logic implied in the territorial foundation ritual. Asking permission from the kami for disturbing their domain in founding a settlement is usually thought to have been done with prayer and offerings and with the founding of a shrine, for “without a shrine, a place is ‘unfit for human habitation,’ because proper relations with the Kami have not been established” (Hardacre 2017: 1). The conclusion is correct, but it would be more precise to say that asking permission was done by an act of divining that had to be taken in advance.
Implied or expressed in land divination was the stipulation of a cult contract, according to which the local spirits had to leave the area to the settler and accept in compensation the conditions of a cult relationship. By giving a good sign the local spirits agreed with the terms of this contract and had to be worshipped as ‘divine beings’ as long as the land was held by the settlers.1
The usual neglect of divining in discussions of Japanese land-claiming stories is difficult to understand, given the fact that the Old Japanese word shimu (‘to claim’), as it appears in OJ kunishime (‘land-claiming’), was written with a Chinese character
Semantic relations between Chinese characters and Old Japanese concepts such as claiming and divining
Diagram by the author
Divining was by no means something of minor importance for the cult of the land’s guardian deity. To the contrary, it was the essential rite that constituted the cult relationship. The use of the same Chinese character
Knowing about the meaning of divining, we can also better understand the implications of the question-and-answer pattern in other parts of the ancient texts that tell how gods or human chiefs took land from other gods or human chiefs. Whereas spirits were addressed by divining because they were assumed to speak by giving signs, chiefs and anthropomorphic gods of the mythology could speak with words, so that divination could then be replaced by a verbal request or order for ceding the land in a meeting with the landowner. In myths, such exchanges of questions and answers usually end with the chief or god ceding the rule of his land to the challenger. A point of considerable consequence for the interpretation of certain myths and legends is the fact that the initial question can take different forms in such episodes, either that of an explicit request to surrender the land or that of a seemingly harmless question such as “is there a land?” or “what is the name of your land?” The latter form appears repeatedly in the foundation story of the Inner Shrine at Ise (chapter 7). The most direct form – “will you cede this land?” – we shall meet in the god age mythology where the central myth tells that Ōkuninushi, who has ‘made’ (opened up) the great land, is forced to cede the rule to the heavenly descendants (chapter 4). What takes the form of an exchange of questions and answers between anthropomorphic gods in this land-ceding myth corresponds to what settlers would do by divining when they addressed the spirit-owners of the land in an area not yet occupied by human settlers. In either case, the land-ceding kami (nature spirits or mythical deities or gods) finally had to be worshipped.
One of the few scholars who have emphasised the importance of the land-claiming motif in almost all place name origin stories of the fudoki is Ide Itaru. He did this in an article where he classifies all place name tales according to whether the origin of the land name is said to be based on (1) the name, (2) the action or (3) the words of a deity or of a human person, or (4) on something else (Ide 1970: 290). Ide quotes numerous passages to illustrate that all four ways have to do with claiming and opening up land for cultivation. Using terms like senyū (‘claim’, ‘occupy’), kaihatsu (‘open up’) and takushoku (‘open up and cultivate’), he also indicates that claiming was only the first part of a procedure that included the opening up of the land for cultivation (1970: 290). According to classes (1) and (2), the names refer either to the land-claimers or to their actions which were supposed to have taken place at the time of claiming land. Regarding (3), Ide distinguishes instances where a word is spoken on the occasion of land-claiming (OJ kunishime) or of founding a shrine (chinza), and other cases where the context is a god’s or a person’s tour of inspection, a land-viewing (kunimi) and so on. Although Ide notes that such explanations of place names may not seem convincing to modern people, he thinks they were considered valid due to the ancient kotodama (‘word soul’) belief. According to this belief, words could have a special power when they were used in certain contexts.
Under (4), finally, Ide classifies strange occurrences, such as are often given in the fudoki as reasons why a place name had been chosen. He suggests that people of the time could see in them expressions of a ‘divine will’ and behind this the ‘magic of nature’, and that they could relate them to their life (Ide 1970: 296). What Ide failed to see, like most scholars who have dealt with instances of the last category, is that strange occurrences as expressions of a ‘divine will’ or the ‘magic of nature’ may have been mentioned as allusions to signs received in performing divination.
The main problem in the study of ancient Japanese stories about land-taking is that explicit references to initial divination in the sense of using a word meaning ‘divination’ is usually lacking in the fudoki. To understand some of the mere allusions to divination, however, we must have an adequate knowledge of the divining methods used, whereas to acquire such a knowledge we must compare relevant stories with one another. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss stories referring to divining by throwing or shooting, for this is the kind of divination that is often alluded to but usually not understood as divination. First, we look at cases where the thrown thing hits the land by falling down and then at other cases where it reaches the land by floating and drifting ashore.
Divining with Things Thrown and Falling Down
Numerous stories in the various fudoki explain a place name by saying that something ‘fell down’ or ‘was dropped’ there (OJ otsu, ‘to fall or drop’). Scholars have therefore spoken of the ‘falling’ motif, of ‘falling legends’ or of the ‘dropping myth’.3 That they do not speak of allusions to divination suggests that they are not aware that the ‘falling’ motif refers to a form of divining.
Seki Kazuhiko (1994) rightly mentions in this context the children’s game of asking about the next day’s weather by kicking off one geta (a wooden clog) and observing how it falls to the ground. But although he sees in this game a sort of divining (uranai) and finds this very suggestive regarding the meaning of OJ ochi (‘falling’) in the ancient legends, he does not say it was an allusion to divination but sees the background of such stories in the people’s feeling that the great earth has spiritual power (Seki 1994: 41–50). Similarly, Edwina Palmer, in her translation of Harima fudoki, follows Japanese scholars when she notes that “objects that were dropped or fell seem to have had some special or magical significance”. Noting that “most dropping myths in Harima fudoki are associated with territorial possession”, she suggests that by accepting the dropped item the spirit of the land indicated the dropper’s right to it (Palmer 2016: 161n424). This comes closer to the point, but it would still seem better to speak of land spirits in the plural and interpret the falling as an allusion to divining. The concept of a ‘spirit of the land’ (in the singular) or of the ‘great earth’ (daichi), as Seki calls it, appears to be based on the ancient Japanese concept of kunitama and on Sino-Japanese expressions like chi no kami or shikichi no kami, terms that used to refer to the guardian deities of particular pieces of land (territories). Because in agriculture such spirits were associated with the fertility of the ground, it is often assumed that they were thought to dwell ‘in’ the ground, as chthonic spiritual powers, as it were. The spirits (kami) addressed in taking possession of land, however, occasionally become visible in the form of snakes or other wild animals and were therefore imagined to dwell ‘on’ the land, not ‘in’ the ground.
As mentioned in the introduction, this is a crucial point where the perspective of spatial anthropology requires differentiation with respect to whether the horizontal or the vertical world view is relevant in a given context. The idea of earth spirits dwelling in the earth or under the ground corresponds to the vertical world view, whereas the horizontal world view, which was relevant in taking possession of land, accounts for the different idea that earth spirits or land spirits are dwelling on the land. When they are expelled from a site, they leave horizontally, and when they later visit a place of worship, they come from their new dwelling area, which is often on the slope of a nearby mountain (Domenig 2014: 120–23).
Living ‘on’ the land, these nature sprits (earth or land spirits) were nevertheless imagined to be in control of the local weather. They were therefore not only thought to be able to make the fields produce rich crops, but they could also occasionally express their anger by raising a sudden storm. The latter idea is well expressed in the story leading to Yamatotakeru’s death in both Kojiki and Nihon shoki (chapter 8) and is still familiar to ethnic groups of Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. It was sometimes so strong that in times of continued drought, farmers would decide to violate a taboo on purpose, expecting that the angry local deity would react by sending a storm, and with it the rain urgently needed.4 In divining, the same belief in the power of land spirits to control the wind probably accounts for divinatory arrow shooting, for the spirits addressed could be supposed to express their disagreement by causing a sudden gust of wind to make the arrow miss the target. Hitting the target, however, would mean that the spirits agree to the terms of the agreement stipulated by the divining person.5 Ultimately, according to the logic implied, a settler might even assume that these forces are so powerful that they could counteract gravity. In short, the ‘falling’ motif in ancient stories about land-claiming must be understood as an allusion to a form of divining that was based on the belief or assumption that the land spirits could prevent the falling object from hitting their land if they wanted to.
The falling motif is well known to scholars dealing with ancient and medieval European legends about the founding of territories or temples and churches. The nature of the object thrown and/or falling can also change in European legends, but it usually consists of something that could have been used in a law-symbolical ceremony.6
By contrast, almost anything can be substituted as the falling item in Japanese fudoki stories, depending on the place name that has to be explained by referring to this kind of divination. The context can be fishing, catching birds, hunting, arrow shooting, dancing, putting on armour, fighting autochthonous settlers, searching for a deity, searching for a good place, moving around in the land or taking a meal. Among the objects that are said to have fallen down, some are said to have been carried by an animal. Thus, a kite drops a small bell; a wild duck drops an arrow; a flock of birds drops a net; a horse drops a jug of rice wine; a stag drops a sakaki twig mounted on its back.7 Often the falling object has to do with hunting (arrow, bell, catching net, hunting dog, game) or with taking a meal (rice corn, cooking pot, raw meat, fire, sake jug); or it is a part of a warrior’s clothes and equipment (belly belt, arm protection, helmet, arrow). In most instances the object simply falls down, in rare cases even from heaven.8 When a story indicates that the object was first thrown, the distance covered is often so exaggerated that the act turns into a method of miraculously finding the place, instead of finding out if a place already found and chosen by rational criteria will be good for settling down.
Divining the Place for Founding a Shrine
According to a pattern often met with in the texts, wildly behaving kami (araburu kami) are said to have caused calamities, whereupon one would perform divination to find out where one should establish a new shrine to pacify them:
Himekoso no sato: In this village there is a river called Yamajigawa. Its source being in the north of the district, it flows down to the south and meets the big Mii River. Formerly, there were wildly behaving kami (araburu kami) in the west of this river. Many travellers were hurt; half of them got away, the other half succumbed. When the reason of the curse was divined, the sign said: “Let Kazeko, a man of the Munakata District of Tsukushi no Michinokuchi serve my shrine. If you do according to my wish, I shall not flare up with a wild heart.” Kazeko was searched and ordered to dedicate a shrine to the deity. Kazeko then lifted up a flag and prayed: “If my service is truly wished, this flag may fly off with the wind and fall down at [the place of] the deity who bids me to come.” Then he lifted the flag high up and sent it with the wind. The flag flew away, fell down at the Himekoso grove in the district of Mihara, flew back again, and fell down here at the Yamaji River. So Kazeko naturally knew the places of the deity. That night he saw in a dream kutsubiki and tatari [weaving instruments] flying out in a playful dance, hassling and frightening Kazeko. By this he knew that it was a female deity (himegami). Now he founded a shrine and worshipped. Since then, the travellers were no longer hurt. In allusion to this, one spoke of Himekoso. Now it has become the name of the village. (*Hizen fudoki, NKBT 2: 383–85)
In this case, the problem is that accidents have occurred along a river and are thought to have been caused by angry kami. Intending to pacify these kami by founding a sanctuary for them, one first reacts by divining to find out who should be chosen as the founder and priest of the new shrine. The person chosen is Kazeko. Using a flag as his divining tool, he sends it off with the wind to identify first the place where the deity to be worshipped at the new place is already worshipped and then also where this deity should be newly worshipped additionally. After a dream has also revealed that the deity is of female gender, Kazeko can found the shrine and start worshipping as the first priest. Founding that shrine apparently also meant founding the village that was named after it.
A somewhat similar story is told in a quotation from the lost Owari fudoki, entry for Azura no sato. When Prince Homutsuwake, the son of Emperor Suinin, is seven years of age and still cannot speak, the empress has a dream in which a female deity reveals herself as Ama no Mikatsuhime, the deity of the land of Taku. The deity says she has no priest yet (at the place where the story was told) and predicts that if a priest is appointed for her, the prince will speak and be long lived. Now the emperor divines to find a man who can ‘search the deity’ and a certain Takeoka no kimi, the ancestor of the Hiokibe, meets the divination:
When searching the deity, Takeoka no kimi went to Mount Hanaka in Mino, twisted sakaki twigs into a kazura [a head ornament], and made an oath, saying: “where my kazura falls down must be this deity.” The kazura went and fell down here. Knowing therefore that the deity was here, he founded a cult place (yashiro). Accordingly, this village was named after the yashiro. Later people corrupted the word, saying Azura no sato. (*Owari fudoki itsubun; NKBT 2: 442)
In this case, Ama no Mikatsuhime, a deity worshipped in Taku (a place on the Shimane Peninsula in Izumo), wants to be also worshipped in Owari Province where she has no priest yet. To find out the right place for her shrine, the founder first goes to Mt. Hanaka in Mino Province to make a kazura with sakaki twigs from that mountain. Using this kazura as a divining tool he finds the right place and founds both the new shrine and a new village (sato). As the village was named after the shrine and the shrine apparently after the kazura, the story suggests that the village was originally named Kazura but later called Azura.
The story does not say why sakaki twigs from a mountain in the neighbouring province of Mino were used to make the kazura, but perhaps the deity was already worshipped in Mino and wished also to be newly worshipped in a place of Owari and on behalf of the empress. What is also not clear is how the kazura ‘went’ to its aim. Perhaps Takeoka no kimi was supposed to have carried it on his head, going the distance on horseback, and it fell down where the shrine should be built. This would correspond to what is told in the following story:
Kamuki no sato. The original name was Kameochi. Soil upper middle. The reason why one gave the name Kameochi is that in the era of the sovereign of the Palace of Takatsu at Naniwa the far ancestor of the Kisakibe no Yumitori, Osada no Kumachi, fixed a sake jug to the back of the horse and went in search of a dwelling place. The jug fell down at this village. This is why it was called Kameochi (‘jugfall’). (*Harima fudoki, NKBT 2: 267)
Absurd Uses of the Falling Motif
As noted, most stories in the fudoki use the falling motif in connection with things that were probably never used in the practice of divining. The falling motif alone was clearly intended to allude to divination, while the falling thing was freely chosen or invented to explain the existing name of the place, regardless of whether or not it was of a kind that could have been used in the practice of divining. This is obvious in stories that use the motif repeatedly and in an absurd way:
Kamihako oka, Shimohako oka, Nabetsu, Aukoda. In the era of the emperor of Uji, the far ancestors of the Uji-no-muraji, E-takanashi and Oto-takanashi, these two requested the place Yōto in the village of Ōta. When they came to open up fields and sow seeds, a servant carried cooking articles on a shoulder bar (auko). The bar broke and the load fell down. Therefore, the place where the pan fell down was named Nabetsu (‘pan harbour’), where the front box fell down was named Kamihako oka (‘upper box hill’), where the back box fell down, was named Shimohako oka (‘lower box hill’), and where the carrying bar fell down was named Aukoda (‘carrying bar field’). (*Harima fudoki, NKBT 2: 297)
An even more bizarre story of this kind tells of a ship that was wrecked in a storm and washed ashore with such tremendous force that the things carried on board were hurled far onto the land. Then the names of two hills are explained by reference to the ship and to the waves which were washed ashore (Ship Hill and Wave Hill), and the names of twelve other hills are said to derive each from a different object that fell down at the respective place (Koto Hill, Box Hill, Combcase Hill, etc.). Even hills named after animals are explained according to the same pattern: “Where the deer fell down it is called Deer Hill; where the dog fell down it is called Dog Hill, where the silkworms fell down it is called Silkworm Hill” (Harima fudoki, NKBT 2: 271/273).
All this does not mean, however, that the kind of divination alluded to was not practised at all. In some of its forms it must have been well known.
Realistic Methods Exaggerated
Divining by shooting arrows or throwing stones are two practicable methods that are, however, often referred to by exaggerating the distance covered by the arrow or stone:
Hiroyama no sato. The old name was Tsuka no mura. Iwatatsuhime no Mikoto stood at the shrine of Izumi no sato, shot, and came here. The arrow penetrated deep into the ground, only a hand’s breadth (tsuka) stuck out. That is why the place was called the village of Tsuka. (*Harima fudoki, NKBT 2: 293)
Other ancient stories mention arrow shooting for deciding the boundary of a territory,9 and one in Harima fudoki tells that creepers (tsuzura) were kicked over an unrealistically great distance to claim a place.10 Such ancient methods have left traces in associating special trees and stones with the custom of divining when visiting shrines or temples. Throwing a stone on the top beam of a torii gate hoping that it comes to rest there is still often done for divining good luck.11
Land Divination Typically Performed in Front
That divining was in principle done in front of and outside the place or territory that it regarded seems logical and is also attested, for example, by a method mentioned in Jōgan gishiki, the Ceremonial Procedures of the Jōgan Era (859–874 CE): “One goes inside the field, takes a clod of earth (tsuchikure), returns, and divines this” (*Jōgan gishiki, Book 2). This sentence refers to divination performed for a ceremonial place (saijō) at Kitano in the ancient capital of Heian-kyō. According to Nihon shoki, the same method was also used by Iwarebiko in his legendary conquest of Yamato. Before the final attack, he has earth brought secretly from Mt. Kagu in the enemy’s land and uses this for divining whether or not he will be successful and subdue the land (Aston I: 120–21).12
A divining method that was naturally performed in front of the land was used when approaching land from the sea and casting something overboard, letting it drift ashore to indicate the place for going ashore and settling down.
Divining with Things Cast Overboard
This method is best known from medieval Iceland, where arriving settlers were said to have thrown their high-seat pillars overboard when they approached the coast of Iceland, vowing that they would take land wherever these pillars should come ashore (chapter 10). Whereas in shooting an arrow or throwing a spear it is rather the human will that decides where the object will go, because the line of flight depends on how the object is thrown, the movement of a floating object would seem to be more up to chance. To speak of the entire fortuitousness of the pillar-oracle, as Zeissberg did (1868: 435), is nonetheless to trust too much in the texts, which of course like to emphasise the part played by chance and supernatural forces. In practice, the pillars could be thrown overboard close to the coast, such that the risk of them floating away was no higher than the danger of a sudden gust of wind preventing an arrow from hitting a target. Nevertheless, the floating motif best reveals the basic idea, namely, that the result should depend not only on the diviner’s skill but ultimately on the powers that control the medium by which the object reaches the aim. If these powers were supposed to control the wind, then they were also able to stir up waves and thereby decide where a floating object would drift.
Several stories in the ancient texts of Japan refer to this kind of divination, but only one is fully comparable with the stories from medieval Iceland. It regards a territory in Harima Province that belonged to the Sumiyoshi Grand Shrine of the neighbouring province of Settsu.
Floating a Wisteria Twig to Find the Right Place
A short version of this story is contained in Manyōshū-Chūshaku and features Suminoe no Ōkami, a deity worshipped as protector of seafaring:
Suminoe no Ōkami cut a fuji branch, let it float on the sea, and made an oath: “Where this fuji drifts to, I will make my territory!” But as this fuji, rocking on the waves, drifted here, the place was named Fujie no Ura (Beach of the Wisteria Inlet). It is the territory of Suminoe. (*Manyōshū-Chūshaku, vol. 4; NKBT 2: 484–85)
A more detailed version of the same story is told in Sumiyoshi taisha jindaiki, compiled in the eighth century (789?) at the Sumiyoshi Grand Shrine of Settsu Province. This text partly contains older materials on the foundation of this shrine and on ancient geography that are not found in other ancient texts (JKDJ: 881).
[They] subjugated the Kumaso and the Land of Shiragi. Returning, [they] settled the Great Deity at Fujishiro no take in the Province of Ki. At that time [they] punished the wild kami and made the boundary by shooting and setting up the sounding arrow (s) of soshishi.
“As for the place where I wish to dwell, I wish to cross over and live in the land of Harima, like opposite a great house.” So [the deity] cut a big fuji, let it float on the sea, and took an oath: “Where this fuji drifts to, worship me in purity!” When [the deity] was speaking this, it drifted to this shore. For this reason, it was named Fujie (‘Wisteria Inlet’). From the Upper Kamide mountain and the Lower Kamide mountain of the Akashi River area until the Small Beach of Oumi, all was settled as shinchi (sacred land or shrine land). (*Sumiyoshi taisha jindaiki, ed. Tanaka 1998, lines 624–31)13
This longer and more detailed version of the fuji-floating story is interesting for more than one reason. First, it tells that when the shrine at Mt. Fujishiro was founded they ‘punished’ the wild kami and made the boundary by shooting and setting up sounding arrow/s. As shown in chapter 2, this ‘punishing’ probably describes the expelling of the spirits in the founding ritual for a territory, which in this case was established at Fujishiro no take, a mountain in the Province of Ki (old name of Kii).
The main part of the story describes the later making of a different territory some 80 kilometres north-west from there, at Akashi in the province of Harima. First divination by floating a wisteria branch in combination with an oath is described, then two mountains are named as forming the upper boundary of the territory which extends down to the coast. The ritual procedure suggested by this story thus corresponds to both main parts of our theoretical model, beginning with an act of divining and ending at two mountains that were called Kamideyama because they were dedicated to the kami or guardian deities of the territory. The place name Fujie is now the name of a railway station to the west of the estuary of the Akashi River and the area of the two deity mountains (OJ kamideyama) corresponds to Kande-chō (kande from OJ kamide), a district of Kōbe situated in the northern source area of the Akashi River (figure 4).14
The area along the Akashi River where the territory mentioned in Sumiyoshi taisha jindaiki was established between the coast and two ‘god mountains’ called Kamideyama. The small triangles indicate two prominent mountains in the district of Kande-cho of Kobe where the two ancient kami mountains were situated
Map by the author
Finally, it is also noteworthy that another story, which was quoted from the lost part of Harima fudoki in a later work, states that a female deity called Niotsuhime, who had also contributed to the success of the Shiragi expedition, settled down at Mt. Fujishiro (NKBT 2: 482–83). It is therefore possible that there was an older tradition according to which it was this other deity that performed the fuji-floating rite and made a territory in Harima. If so, then the name Niotsuhime was later replaced by Suminoe no Ōkami because the Sumiyoshi Grand Shrine had taken over that territory. To exchange the name of an earlier owner with that of a later one was a stratagem to bring the past in harmony with the present.15
Letting a Cooking Set Float to Enemy Land
Another story that associates the floating method with Suminoe no Ōkami is the story about the Shiragi expedition. In the myth-historical narrative of Kojiki and Nihon shoki, it forms the link between the sections about the emperors Chūai and Ōjin. It features Okinaga Tarashihime, the second wife of Emperor Chūai, also known as Jingū Kōgō (‘Imperial consort Jingū’), who, after Chūai’s sudden death, starts the expedition to subdue Shiragi on the Korean Peninsula.
According to Nihon shoki, a deity (or several deities) told Jingū Kōgō that Shiragi is a land of treasures, rich in gold and silver, and that if they worship properly, they can gain it without bloodshed (Aston I: 221). Soon afterwards, Emperor Chūai dies and Jingū Kōgō starts preparing for the expedition by repeatedly doing acts of worship and divining. Before she sets out, she gets another oracle, saying that the fleet will be accompanied by the nigimitama (quiet spirits) of the worshipped deities to protect the royal life and vessel and by their aramitama (wild spirits) serving as vanguards and guides (Nihon shoki, NKBT 67: 336; cf. Aston I: 229).
In Kojiki, where the whole story is much shorter, the corresponding part reads thus:
If you now truly think to seek that land, then you should offer mitegura to all deities of heaven and earth and of mountains and waters. Let our august spirits dwell on the ship and put ashes of true wood into a gourd; make also many chopsticks and flat plates, and casting all out to float on the ocean, cross over! (*Kojiki, NKBT 1: 231)
Whereas the first sentence in the gods’ admonition can represent the instruction by Amaterasu, the second sentence could be understood as the advice of the three Tsutsunoo deities, which were collectively called Suminoe no Ōkami.16 The ‘august spirits’ staying on the boat (Kojiki) apparently correspond to what Nihon shoki calls the nigimitama or quiet spirits, whereas the articles cast out to float represent the aramitama or wild spirits.
The usual interpretation is that the floating of a gourd and many hashi and hirade may have been a magical practice intended to quiet down the spirits of the sea.17 Thinking of the fuji-floating story, however, it is more convincing to assume that the floating of the three kinds of objects is mentioned as a form of divining performed when approaching a foreign coast in order to take possession of land. If these floating things are cast out as divining tools, then they have to reach the land, but since this land is enemy land whose guardian spirits might not let them get ashore, they are accompanied by the ‘wild spirits’ of the three Tsutsunoo deities. Thus strengthened, they form a set so powerful that the waves are said to have washed the ships ashore and deep into the country (Philippi: 262; Aston I: 230). According to Kojiki, the king of Shiragi immediately surrendered, after which the empress placed a staff at his gate and worshipped the aramitama of Suminoe no Ōkami as the tutelary deity of the conquered land.18
Chopsticks (hashi) and flat plates (hirade) were used in eating and the ashes in the gourd could have contained embers, so that together these floating articles could also have symbolised a cooking and meal-taking set. As Okada Seishi has pointed out in a seminal article, the taking of a meal is sometimes mentioned in the ancient texts as a rite meaning to rule the land by eating of its products. A land ruled could be called osukuni (‘eat-land’, ‘land to eat [from]’), and the other side of this – to offer a meal – was an allegiance-yielding rite (fukuzoku girei) by which the old owner of the land expressed his allegiance to the claimer (Okada 1962: 42, 45). By letting a cooking and meal-taking set float ahead towards the desired land, the conquerors could therefore announce their intention to rule that land by eating of its products.
Susanoo and the Floating Chopsticks
A story from the god age mythology, which mentions floating chopsticks indicating a place for settling down, at least temporarily, is the myth of Susanoo’s descent from heaven, as told in Kojiki:
Therefore, Susanoo was expelled and descended to a place called Torikami in the upper reaches of the river Hi of Izumo. At that time chopsticks came floating down that river. Thinking that there were people in the upper reaches, he went up to search for them. (*Kojiki, NKBT 1: 85)19
The repeated use of the same word translated as ‘upper reaches’ (kawakami) indicates that Susanoo is not yet in the upper reaches when he sees the floating chopsticks. Although he is first said to have descended from heaven to Torikami in the upper reaches of the river, this does not have to mean that he got there directly by way of the air. Rather, we have here an instance of a stylistic pattern, according to which a story first summarises the main points and then tells what happened at that time. For want of a better term, I call this the ‘title sentence pattern’; we shall meet this pattern again in chapter 5, where it calls for a new interpretation of a very important myth. In the present case, the title sentence says that Susanoo descended to a place called Tori-Kami in the uppermost part of the river’s catchment area. What happened ‘at that time’ (when he descended) is that he saw the chopstick/s floating down the river and went up to see if there were people in the upper reaches. The story therefore suggests that Susanoo reaches Torikami by going up along the Hinokawa. Nihon shoki supports this interpretation by saying that Susanoo “descended and went” from heaven to the upper course of the river (8.0 and 8.1).20 One version (8.4) even clearly says that he came by ship:
At this time, Susa no wo no Mikoto, accompanied by his son Iso-takeru no Kami, descended to the land of Silla, where he dwelt at Soshimori. There he lifted up his voice and said: – “I will not dwell in this land.” He at length took clay and made a boat, in which he embarked, and crossed over eastwards until he arrived at Mount Tori-kamu no Take, which is by the upper waters of the river Hi in Idzumo. (Nihon shoki, trans. Aston I: 57, adapted; NKBT 67: 126)
Based on the literal meaning of the text in Kojiki and on these variants in Nihon shoki we can understand that Susanoo was meant to have reached Izumo from the sea and probably from the Korean Peninsula (see figure 5). The story suggests that the chopsticks had come floating down because they had been thrown away by people living in the upper reaches, but this is not the only possible interpretation. Dealing here with floating divination, we can also consider that he could have used the chopsticks as divining tools when he came to the estuary of the Hinokawa (A in figure 6, p. 42). For immigrants coming across the sea, river mouths were most important places where they had to make the crucial decision whether they should go up along the river or continue searching along the coast. The text in Kojiki does not say that Susanoo saw the chopsticks at the mouth of the river, but it does not exclude this possibility either.
Geographical relation of Izumo to Korea and Yamato
Map by the author
Shimane Peninsula. (A) Estuary of the ancient Hinokawa; (B) Kukedo no hana; (C) Etomo, the bay into which the Sadagawa empties, where the shrine of the Great God of Sada is situated
Source: Shimane Peninsula Relief Map, SRTM-1.jpg (letters added)
Technically, divining at river mouths could have been done by taking account of the tides. A settler casting out something to float in the estuary of a river at high tide (something bigger than chopsticks) might first see it float into the land, but seeing it later float back with the low tide he could interpret this as a good sign.21
Elsewhere in the god age mythology, Susanoo says that there is gold and silver in Karakuni (Korea or the continent) and that it is therefore not good if there are no ‘floating treasures’ (ukutakara or ukitakara) in the land to be ruled by his son. So he plucks out hairs from his beard and eyebrows and plants them as seedlings. From the hairs of the beard grow up sugi trees, from those of the eyebrows kusunoki trees. Then he declares that these two kinds of tree should be used for making ‘floating treasures’ (Nihon shoki 8.5; NKBT 67: 128; Aston I: 58).
The form and function of these wooden ‘floating treasures’ is not specified, but if they were to be used for gaining the gold and silver of Karakuni they could have served the same purpose as the three items floated in the Shiragi expedition (Kojiki), which included chopsticks. That is, the ‘floating treasures’ might have been floats in the sense of floating things that were used for divining when approaching a foreign coast.
Kisakahime and the Lost Bow and Arrow
When one practised the floating method, it could of course happen that the floated articles were lost because a rough sea carried them away.22 A fragment of a legend from Izumo fudoki clearly refers to this motif when it tells that a golden bow and arrow had got lost and were recovered from a littoral cave:
Kaga no Kamuzaki. There is a cave, 10 tsue high, 502 ashi around. One passes through eastwards, westwards and northwards. It is the place where Sada no Ōkami was born. When he was about to be born, a bow and arrow got lost. At that time his mother Kisakahime no Mikoto, the august child of Kamumusubi no Mikoto, prayed: “If my august child is the child of a heroic god, the lost bow and arrow may come forth!” When she prayed so, a bow and arrow of horn floated forth with the waters. Then she took the bow and declared: “This bow is not my bow and arrow!” Saying so, she threw it back. Next there came a bow and arrow of gold floating forth. So, she waited, took them, and said: “What a dark cave!”, and shot through. Accordingly, the shrine of the mother Kisakahime no Mikoto is here. When the people of now pass by this cave, they always go with echoing voices. If they would go silently, the deity would appear, raise a storm, and overturn the passing ship without fail. (*Izumo fudoki, NKBT 2: 149)
Kisakahime probably came from beyond the sea and hoped to find a good place to settle down and give birth to her child.23 Assuming that she used the bow and arrow as divining floats, she would have hoped to see them drift into a bay (B or C in figure 6), but the waves carried them away and they got lost. Therefore, searching for them along the coast, she comes to the rocky promontory at Kukido no hana (B) where the famous caves can still be seen. Suspecting that the lost bow and arrow might have drifted in there, she divines that they may come forth, and when the wrong ones come forth, she tries again and recovers the golden ones. These she uses for repeating divination by shooting into the cave. What then happened says another entry in the same fudoki which regards the village of the same name:
Kaga no sato, 24 sato 160 ashi northwest of the district house. The place where the great god of Sada was born. The august child of the ancestor Kamumusubi no Mikoto, Kisakahime no Mikoto, declared: “What a dark cave!” When she shot with the golden bow, a bright light shone up (kagayakiki). That is why it was called Kaga. (*Izumo fudoki, NKBT 2: 127)
Here, the first part of the story was omitted because in a fudoki it was only necessary to tell what could explain the place name. By shooting into the cave, Kisakahima divined about the future of her son. The bright light which shone up was the good omen and the village was named after it. As with the fuji-floating story quoted earlier, we have here another good example that illustrates the fragmentary nature of fudoki entries as well as the fact that it is sometimes nevertheless possible to get a fuller image by studying stories comparatively.
Articles to Play on the Sea
Another passage in Nihon shoki says that Susanoo’s descendant Ōnamuchi was promised three kinds of ‘articles to play on the sea’ (watatsumi ni asobu sonae) in compensation for ceding the rule of his land to the heavenly descendants (chapter 4). In that case, the three kinds are distinguished as a takahashi (‘high bridge’), an ukihashi (‘floating bridge’) and an ame-no-torifune (‘heavenly bird boat’).24 The first two words were also used for bridges crossing a river,25 but as ‘articles to play on the sea’ both must have also meant something that was used while floating on the sea. As the third kind is the ‘bird boat’ it is likely that all three items were boats used for ‘playing’ on the sea. And since divination can be understood as a sort of play (many games originate from divining methods), the bridge type was apparently a small boat comparable to a ferry that bridges a short distance when going ashore, either by floating from one place to another or from a large ship to the land.
In the ancient texts, the word hashi was written with different Chinese characters that could stand for different meanings. In the form of a tree stem, a hashi could serve as a simple bridge to cross a small stream; when provided with notches, it could form a ladder pole; and as a pair in small dimensions, it could serve as an eating tool, as chopsticks. As house posts, the hashi were used in greater number, which may explain why the word came to be distinguished as hashira, with the suffix -ra indicating plurality. Designating a ladder, the word also came to take the form hashigo. All these words are thought to go back to the same basic concept, from which a variety of meanings were developed (JKDJ, entry for hashi). A further meaning of hashi, which is usually not considered, could have been ‘logboat’, as in ukihashi; for even if this ancient word was written with characters meaning ‘floating bridge’, a boat was also a floating bridge and could have been poetically called so.
Floats Used for Divining
Thinking about the meaning of words like ukihashi and ukitakara, we must be aware that the ancient texts of Japan were compiled about a thousand years or more after the first Yayoi immigrants reached the archipelago by way of the sea. We therefore have no clear sources for some of the rites the early settlers may have practised. Some rites could have left traces in legends that were handed down orally for a long time, but by the time they were eventually put down in writing they may no longer have been practised and the eighth-century scribes might have found it difficult to represent them with Chinese characters. What this meant for the reliability of ancient family traditions we may gather from the opening sentences of Kogoshūi, a text dating from the early ninth century:
Tradition says that writing was unknown in old Japan, so that all people, whether high or low, youthful or aged, handed down from hoary antiquity their sacred traditions verbally among themselves, memorizing them from one generation to another. When, however, the art of writing was introduced, the Japanese began to discard the old simple way of transmitting orally their family traditions. […] Hence change after change occurred in the traditional accounts handed down during the long centuries, and consequently, no one nowadays is competent enough to decide the true origin and the exact nature of those cherished venerable traditions. (Kogoshūi, trans. Kato and Hoshino 1924: 15)
The author of Kogoshūi, Inbe no Hironari, not only regretted the loss of the original meaning of many words but also did something to avoid further loss by occasionally adding a gloss about what a word meant ‘in the old language’. One of these glosses regards the word uke in the myth of Amaterasu’s concealment in the rock house of heaven.26 Kojiki writes the word only phonetically and says that Ame no Uzume overturned an uke to stamp on it. Nihon shoki, however, first writes the word with a Chinese character meaning ‘tub’ and later adds a gloss saying that the overturned tub was called uke.27 Hironari, however, writes the word with two characters meaning ‘oath tub’ and adds a gloss, saying it was called ukefune in the old language, the meaning being ukei (‘oath’, ‘divining oath’).
Having dealt here with things set afloat for divining – wisteria branches, a gourd, plates and chopsticks, a bow and arrow, and small boats – we cannot easily dismiss this gloss as false etymology, as is usually done because one cannot see a relation between a tub called uke and a divining oath. Hironari was, however, a member of the Inbe family which was charged with religious ceremonies at court and probably knew the word ukefune from the chinkonsai, a ceremony in which this word is still used when Ame no Uzume’s dance is ritually repeated at court (Holtom 1928: 111). Since fune could mean a ‘vessel’ or a ‘boat’, Hironari may have followed Nihon shoki in assuming that it meant here a ‘tub’, but thinking that the first part, uke, could not mean the same thing as fune, he may have thought that ukefune was a contraction of ukei-fune. Semantically, this makes sense insofar as Uzume’s performance on the overturned tub can be understood as a divining test intended to lure Amaterasu out of her hiding. By describing her stage as an overturned ukei-fune (>ukefune) one could have intended to indicate the divinatory meaning of her performance.
Although Hironari’s gloss can make sense, it does not follow that he was right in suggesting that ukefune was the older term for what Kojiki called uke; for uke is also testified in the meaning of a ‘float’, in the sense of a floater used in fishing (JKDJ: 113). It could therefore also have been used for things set afloat for divining, as long as that custom was still practised or remembered. Used in that sense, the word could have designated a divining float and the word fune could have been added in the chinkonsai to indicate that a hollow float or boat was meant that would have been placed upside down to serve both as a stage and as a foot drum for Uzume’s performance.
Divining in Boats
How exactly divining with a boat serving as a ‘floating bridge’ might have been performed in early Japan is up to our imagination, but that certain boats could really be used in this way is suggested by the mention of ‘two-forked boats’ (futamatabune) in the two chronicles. Nihon shoki records that such a boat was made from a huge, forked tree that had come floating down a river in the reign of Emperor Nintoku. This boat was moved from Tōtomi Province to Naniwa, where it was enrolled among other imperial vessels. Almost thirty years later, a forked boat was also launched on the pond of Iware to carry Emperor Richū and his concubine during a feast. When out of season suddenly a cherry blossom falls into the emperor’s cup, he decides to name his palace after it, calling it Iware no Wakazakura no Miya, the Palace of the Young Cherry Blossom at Iware.28
These two stories from Nihon shoki mention forked boats belonging to the emperor, and one of them explains the name of an imperial palace by saying that an auspicious sign was received when the emperor feasted in the forked boat. A story from Kojiki tells of a ‘forked small boat’ (futamata obune) that was made of a forked sugi tree from Owari. It was floated on the ponds of Ichishi and Karu in Yamato to entertain prince Homuchiwake, the son of Emperor Suinin (NKBT 1: 197). Just after telling this, the text says that the prince had a beard eight hands long and was still unable to speak; but now hearing the cry of a high-flying swan, he uttered childish babbling for the first time. The bird was a good omen, for its appearance led to the events by which the prince eventually learned to speak, as we shall see in chapter 6, p. 135. Although the text does not say explicitly that the prince was in the forked boat when this omen appeared, the context suggests it.
Discussing these stories, Mishina Akihide (1974) speaks of a ‘pond-playing ceremony’ (ikeasobi no shinji) and points out that a forked boat has been excavated at the Mitsushima site of Kadoma City in Osaka Prefecture. It was made of a forked keyaki log (Zelkova serrata) about thirteen metres long, three quarters of which were hollowed out. The width of the hollowed section measures about 120 centimetres at the back and tapers to a point at the front. The boat’s hull continues as a mere log for about two more metres and then branches out into two arms of unequal length, the longer one measuring about two and a half metres. Inside, earthenware fragments were found that are thought to come from Yayoi-style pottery (Mishina 1974: 139–140, fig. 138, 139). Although this was not a small boat like the one mentioned in Kojiki, we can well imagine that it was once used in ceremonies.
Early immigrants to Japan might have used smaller samples if they used them for divining when approaching land. Judging from the form of the sample that has been excavated, such boats were Y-shaped logs that had been partly hollowed out to support several passengers. As sugi trees are normally not forked, the log mentioned in Kojiki may have been chosen because the fork was extraordinary and therefore considered auspicious, like the V-shaped roof finials of a shrine. Or the Y-form could have symbolised the use in divination, since divination was a rite where the issue was to find out which of two possibilities will happen. Clay models and pictures of ships from the Kofun period often have two peaks, some of them because they were composed of two sides, each with upward-turned ends in the front and back. As we shall see in chapter 5, Nihon shoki (9.0) mentions a futagami no ame no ukihashi (NKBT 67: 140) which, if we interpret ukihashi as a divining boat, might mean a boat with ‘two peaks’ (futagami).
We can deduct from the sources quoted that special boats may have served in divining ceremonies, but we need further support for the hypothesis that such boats were used for divining when approaching land with the intention to settle down. For this, we must turn to stories that tell how an early immigrant arrived on the coast of the archipelago. A good example is the story of Ame no Hiboko’s arrival with a small boat (hashifune), which is discussed in chapter 3.
The Religious Use of Wood Drifted Ashore
The use of boats and other floats in the sense of things set afloat in divination was probably a tradition that had become long obsolete by the time the ancient Japanese texts were compiled in the early eighth century. What later remained of this custom is the idea that driftwood and other things that happened to float ashore were often thought to have been sent by a deity that wished to be enshrined. Nihon shoki includes such a story when it reports that in the reign of Emperor Kinmei (sixth century) a miraculously shining tree was discovered floating in the sea of Chinu, in the southern part of the present Osaka Bay, and that this tree was used for carving the two camphor wood images which later stood in the Buddhist temple of Yoshino.29 Later stories are based on the same story motif. Kashima Mondō, a Buddhist-Shinto text dated 1337 that regards the Kashima Jingū-ji, the Buddhist temple attached to the famous Kashima Shrine, has the following story, according to which a monk fetched three trees in the paradise island of Kannon and let them float on the sea:
In olden times Mankan Shōnin came on a pilgrimage to this shrine and practised abstinence. When he prayed regarding the honji, he thought the deity (myōjin) had spoken in his dream, saying: “The honji-kanzeon is always in Fudaraku. For the sake of mankind, she crosses over.” Because of the revelation of the great deity (daimyōjin), Shōnin crossed over to Fudaraku, felled three oak trees and let them float on the waters of the sea. These trees drifted here to the shore. (*Kashima Mondō)30
Although Kannon is supposed to have come together with the trees, it is the deity of Kashima that invited her and lets the trees get ashore to have three Kannon images for the Buddhist temple carved from them. The Yoriki Hachiman Jinja of Kaseda city is a Shinto shrine and has a story saying that it was named after driftwood (yoriki) that floated ashore at its place in the year 1514. Since the wood was thought to have been sent from the Usa-Hachiman Shrine, where three deities were worshipped with images, one made three images of it and founded the shrine for them.31 It was apparently assumed that the deity or the priests of the main Hachiman Shrine in Usa had sent the trees to indicate where a branch shrine should be founded.
Many such examples regard Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines influenced by Buddhism.32 Since Shinto shrines usually had no images of their deities, driftwood was sometimes also used for building or rebuilding a shrine. A famous case is reported in a document from the end of the Heian period (794–1185) which tells that around the year Tenei 3 (1112) a huge tree 15 jō long (45 m) and 1 jō 5 shaku thick (4.5 m) drifted ashore near Kamimiya of Inaba Province. When the local people wanted to cut it, a big snake was coiled around it, so that they were frightened, fled and became ill. Then, the deity of Kamimiya gave an oracle, saying that this tree must be used for rebuilding its shrine. The tree was allegedly one of about a hundred big trees that at that time also drifted ashore at Inasa. These trees were used for rebuilding the nearby Izumo Grand Shrine at Kizuki in 1114. This became known as the ‘driftwood construction’ (yoriki zōei).33
Conclusion
The stories discussed in this chapter clearly show that land divination in the ancient texts of Japan is often represented by the mention of things falling to the ground, sometimes also of things floating on land, but only rarely also by mentioning a divining oath (ukei) or using the normal word for ‘divining’ (OJ urafu or uranafu). The concept of divining was, however, also implied in the Chinese character used for writing the word OJ shimu, meaning ‘to claim’.
As we shall see in chapter 3, OJ kunishime (‘land-claiming’) was only the first part of a ‘land-making’, kunitsukuri, but to say that a ‘land’ or territory was claimed made it normally superfluous to also say that it was then also ‘taken’, because successful divining implied the making of a cult promise and stories usually assume that this promise was later kept. This might be the reason why stories that tell how the second part of the ritual was performed and concluded are extremely rare. The one that is discussed in chapter 2 is unique in its explicitness and can therefore rightly be called a ‘key story’, although it only mentions divination indirectly as the first part of the ritual.
Note that the Latin verb divinare is derived from the adjective divinus (‘divine’). Etymologically, it could therefore have had an early meaning of ‘to make divine’.
The lower part of the Chinese character
Ochiru or ochi (Seki 1994: 41–59); geraku setsuwa (Uegaki 1997: 71n11); dropping myth (Palmer 2016: 161n424). Katō Kiyoshi (2009) classifies the story motifs in the more than 600 fudoki entries and lists the falling motif as mono o otosu (‘to drop a thing’). Komatsu Kazuhiko (1977) never speaks of ‘divination’ (uranai or ukei) in his article about land claiming ceremonies in Japanese mythology and the same is true for Iiizumi Kenji (1989) in a study of land-claiming in Harima fudoki. Iiizumi interprets the throw as ‘indicating the enshrinement of the deity’ (kami no chinza o hyōji suru) and mentions a scholar who sees in ‘ochiru’ a special term meaning ‘land claiming’ (1989: 85).
Domenig 2014: 132–33 (examples from Indonesia and India).
Cleromancy, the casting of lots, can also be understood as a form of throw and fall divination where good or bad depends on how the lots fall.
For the Germanic traditions, Zeissberg (1868) discussed numerous stories about throwing an object for finding the place to found a temple or a church. A legend from Bavaria says that a countess shot an arrow from her castle, vowing that she would build a church at the place where the arrow will fall down. In Europe, many pre-Christian and Christian legends of this type are known. The prayer is not always mentioned and the object thrown or shot can be different from case to case; it may also be a lance, a stone, a battle-axe, a mason’s hammer, a mattock, a bunch of keys, a glove, etc. The function is nevertheless always the same: to divine (find, decide) a place by seeing where the object thrown touches the ground. Zeissberg saw in the throw or shot both a ‘law symbol’ (Rechtssymbol) and an ‘oracle’. He also noted that the same motif is implied in legends that do not mention the throwing or shooting but simply state that a site was chosen because something ‘fell down’ or ‘was found’ there (1868: 419–23).
Harima fudoki, NKBT 2: 305, 337; 339; 335; 267. The last example is from the foundation legend of the Kasuga Taisha according to Kashimagū shareidenki, p. 472.
Two fallen stars turn into stones (Harima fudoki, NKBT 2: 285). Amaterasu throws bells down from heaven to indicate the place where her shrine should be built in Ise (Yamatohime seiki, Hammitzsch 1937: 31).
See the story quoted on page 34. For divination by arrow shooting, see also Yanagita 1930. For stories about old boundary stones that are said to have been thrown by Shōtoku Taishi, see Tanioka 1976.
NKBT 2: 323. See here the entry for Mikata no sato translated in chapter 3 and my comment, suggesting that the text might have ashi (‘foot’) instead of ishi (‘stone’), so that the real meaning would be that each creeper was fixed to a stone and both together were thrown by swinging them round above the head and letting them go.
See figure 44 in chapter 8. At Buddhist temple gates one throws instead a wet paper pellet (kamitsubute) at one of the guardian figures representing two Deva kings.
The same method, sometimes combined with dream divination or with an animal sacrifice, was still recently practised in parts of Southeast Asia (Domenig 2014: 48, 76, 218).
Quoted from the section dealing with the territory at Nasuki no hama in Akashi District of Harima Province.
The de in kamideyama can mean ‘place’, but is written with the character for de meaning ‘out’, presumably to indicate that these kamiyama (‘mountains dedicated to the guardian deities of the territory’) were situated outside the territory proper, which is here called shinchi (‘sacred ground’) because it belonged to the shrine of Suminoe no Ōkami. Two prominent mountains (indicated as small triangles in figure 4) are linked to a tradition, according to which the western one would have been the place where the god Ōnamuchi was born (kande, interpreted as meaning ‘kami birth’).
Another example of using this stratagem is discussed in chapter 3, p.85.
The three deities were the lower, middle and upper Tsutsunoo. A note in Kojiki says that their names were revealed just before the conquest of Shiragi (Silla) (Philippi: 260). There is also a quotation from the lost Settsu fudoki, saying that Suminoe no Ōkami ‘appeared’ at that time and ‘went round in the world’ (NKBT 2: 422; Nishimoto 1977: 105, 114).
A note in a newer Kojiki edition still mentions this idea but states that the meaning is unclear (SNKBZ 1: 425n23). Abe (2018) discusses Buddhist legends of treasures that were thrown into the sea on the way to Japan. These were to appease the Dragon King during a storm and were brought back by a turtle, ending up as relics in a temple. For other stories of this kind, see the end of this chapter.
In Nihon shoki, it is the spear of the empress that is planted at the king’s gate, “as a memorial to after ages”, and there is no mention of Suminoe no Ōkami being worshipped as the tutelary deity of the conquered land (Aston I: 231).
For the context of this episode in the mythic narrative, see parts C and D in the overview of the mythology given at the beginning of chapter 4. As for the geographic location, see the map at the end of chapter 6.
NKBT 67: 121. Aston translated: “descended from heaven and proceeded to the head-waters of the River Hi, in the province of Idzumo” (8.0) and “having descended from Heaven, came to the head-waters of the river Hi, in Idzumo” (8.1) (Aston I: 52, 55). As these versions do not use the normal expression for ‘descend from heaven’ (amoru or ama kudaru) they assume that Susanoo first descended and then went to the upper course of that river.
Hizen fudoki has a story that mentions this phenomenon: “Shiotagawa. […]. This river originates in the Tara no mine in the southwestern part of this district and flows east to empty into the sea. At high tide the water flows upstream with a very strong current” (trans. Aoki 1997: 267; NKBT 2: 404).
Stories saying that the item set afloat got lost but was recovered later are also known from Iceland. Reykjavik is said to have been founded where the first settler’s high-seat pillars were found after they had been lost two years earlier some 400 kilometres east of there (Pálsson and Edwards 1972: 19–21).
For mythical immigrants like Kisakahime, see Miura 2016: 161–78.
Nihon shoki, NKBT 67: 150; Aston I: 80.
Takahashi (‘high bridge’) probably meant a normal bridge leading over the water and ukihashi (‘float-bridge’) came to mean a bridge supported by floating elements, such as was also called funahashi (‘boat bridge’) (JKDJ: 111).
For the context of this myth in the mythic narrative, see part C in the overview of the mythology given at the beginning of chapter 4.
This is typical of the way in which the compilers of Nihon shoki used to deal with old words whose meaning was no longer known. By first giving the meaning according to their own interpretation and adding the phonetic reading afterwards in a note, they created the impression that they knew the real meaning.
Nihon shoki, NKBT 67: 412, 425–26; Aston I: 297, 306. Forked tree stems were in protohistoric times also used as sledges (shura) for transporting stone blocks. Examples that have been excavated were V- as well as Y-shaped (Ozawa and Shimotsuma 2016). They were apparently moved on land with the forks pointing forward, which was also typical of forked boats.
NKBT 68: 104; Aston II: 68.
Jōdoshūzensho vol. 12 (1911: 821).
National Diet Library, NDL Digital Collections, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1226293.
For other ancient and medieval stories of this kind, see for instance Matsumoto 1966; Kajitani 2007; Itō 2018; Abe 2018.
The original Japanese text can be read online at National Diet Library, NDL Digital Collections, http://kindai.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/950372, where the passage mentioned is on pp. 103–104.