. A TYPIC.\i VILL.^GE STREET IN' RURAL J.\P.\X. The womau is washing her rice cauldron. sufficiently unfamiliar and significant to deserve record by way of illustration. One of the earliest in the year is that of Inari- Sama, the Goddess of Food, at whose gaily decorated shrine services of intercession are held on the first day of the second month (old style), March, on behalf of a fruitful rice-harvest later in the year. Inari-Sama (about whose sex there is some ambiguity), is sometimes spoken of as the Fox-Goddess, and is commonly identified with her servant the fox. In view of the all-
. A TYPIC.\i VILL.^GE STREET IN' RURAL J.\P.\X. The womau is washing her rice cauldron. sufficiently unfamiliar and significant to deserve record by way of illustration. One of the earliest in the year is that of Inari- Sama, the Goddess of Food, at whose gaily decorated shrine services of intercession are held on the first day of the second month (old style), March, on behalf of a fruitful rice-harvest later in the year. Inari-Sama (about whose sex there is some ambiguity), is sometimes spoken of as the Fox-Goddess, and is commonly identified with her servant the fox. In view of the all- importance of rice to the whole nation, it is natural that this divinity should be held in such honour, not to say dread, and we find that these festal gatherings partake of the nature of a combination of communion, eucharist, and love-feast. Papers stamped with the picture of a fox are pasted on cottage doors as charms of exceptional potency. The animal is credited with supernatural powers of bewitchment, and the belief in Kitsune tsuki—-"Fox-possession "—is very real and widespread. It belongs to a class of folk-lore and superstition of which little is known in this country.
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