Japan and the Japanese illustrated . tle ofa descendant of the sun ; but all the Japanese,without distinction, would invoke their nationalmythology, if re(piired, in order to protestagainst the attempt to establish an affiliationbetween them and the Chinese or any other neigh-bouring people. Science, confirming the data of tradition, statesthat at the epoch at which the historical era com- zinmou. mences in Japan a religion peculiar to it already existed in that country, which, as Ksempfer observes, has never been introduced or practisedelsewhere, and wliich has been preserved up to the presen
Japan and the Japanese illustrated . tle ofa descendant of the sun ; but all the Japanese,without distinction, would invoke their nationalmythology, if re(piired, in order to protestagainst the attempt to establish an affiliationbetween them and the Chinese or any other neigh-bouring people. Science, confirming the data of tradition, statesthat at the epoch at which the historical era com- zinmou. mences in Japan a religion peculiar to it already existed in that country, which, as Ksempfer observes, has never been introduced or practisedelsewhere, and wliich has been preserved up to the present time, althougli under analtered form, and in a condition of inferiority with respect to other sects of laterorigin. This religion is the worship of tlie Kamis, wliich has also i-eceived severalnames borrowed from the Chinese language, and which for that reason I do notenumerate. It must not be regarded as the worship of the spirits of ancestors ingeneral, nor of the ancestors of particular families. The spiiits venerated under the. fi2 LIFE IN JAPAN. title of Kamis belong, it is true, to a mythological or heroic legend, whose glory-is reflected upon families still existing ; but they are, above all, national genii, pro-tectors of Japan and of the people who inhal)it it. The chapel dedicated toTen-sjoo-dai-zin, in the Isye country, is regarded as the most authentic monument ofthe primitive religion of the Japanese. Kfempfer asserts that the Sintoists (the Chineseappellation for the adherents of the Kami worship) make a pilgrimage to Tsy(^ oncea year, or at least once during their lifetime. The period to which the chapel ofIsye belongs is that of the infancy of art, which attained its present form at thedawn of historic time, under the riign of the first IMikados, and whose essentialcharacteristics I am about to trace. The situation of the building is, in the first place, a capital point. The mias(temples) were always built on the most picturesque and thickly-wooded sites. Some
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidjapanjapanes, bookyear1874
