350 BEGINNINGS OF JAPANESE HISTORY

god who sits on the Imperial Throne possessing it and
enjoying its fruits.

The myths begin with Izanagi and Izanami who, 'stand-
ing on the floating bridge of heaven' (perhaps the rainbow),
thrust down the 'jewel thunderbolt. This is a fertility
symbol, and the whole story is a kind of Adam and Eve
saga. This pair may well be the prototypes of an
autochthonous or very early immigrant race. They come
to earth, build a house supported on a central pillar, walk
ceremonially about it, and in due course give birth to
islands and to gods, youngest of whom is Fire, 'the Evil
Child* whose birth costs Izanami her life. She goes to the
land of Yomi or Darkness. Like Orpheus, Izanagi follows
her, discovers the grim realities of death and decay, and
after strange adventures comes back and takes a ceremonial
bath. From the tears of his left eye is born Amaterasu the
sun-goddess, and from those of his right the Moon.

Here clearly is a strange farrago—but not of nonsense,
as is sometimes said. It is rather a stratified account of
beginnings, of early marriage-rituals, of fertility-cults, of
historic migrations, of an eclipse, of meditation upon death.
These pictures of the desolate sky-god and the 'evil child*
may be symbols of a famine, when Mother Earth no longer
yielded good offspring to the Sky-Father, and was herself
. burnt up in the drought.

When Izanagi seizes his great sword and kills the child,
we read:

Then the blood at the sword-point gushed, and clung to many
rocks, and three gods were born-----

The blood from the blade of the sword also gushed, and dung to
many rocks, and other three gods were born.. *.

And the blood from the hilt of the sword oozed from his fingers,
and other three gods were born....

Three gods from each part of the great 'ten-hands1
breadth sword*—what can this mean? The first three are
Dark Rain, Dark Water, and Dark Mountain: the second,
Swift Fire, Fire-God, Thunder-God: the third, Rockr
heaver, Rock-splitter, Rock-wielder.