Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation | Page 6

to a degree for which there is perhaps
no Western parallel, since it offers us the spectacle of many successive
layers of alien culture superimposed above the simple indigenous basis,
and forming a very bewilderment of complexity. Most of this alien
culture is Chinese, and bears but an indirect relation to the real subject
of these studies. The peculiar and surprising fact is that, in spite of all
superimposition, the original character of the people and of their
society should still remain recognizable. [18] The wonder of Japan is
not to be sought in the countless borrowings with which she has clothed
herself,--much as a princess of the olden time would don twelve
ceremonial robes, of divers colours and qualities, folded one upon the
other so as to show their many-tinted edges at throat and sleeves and
skirt;--no, the real wonder is the Wearer. For the interest of the costume
is much less in its beauty of form and tint than in its significance as
idea,--as representing something of the mind that devised or adopted it.
And the supreme interest of the old--Japanese civilization lies in what it
expresses of the race-character,--that character which yet remains
essentially unchanged by all the changes of Meiji.
"Suggests" were perhaps a better word than "expresses," for this

race-character is rather to be divined than recognized. Our
comprehension of it might be helped by some definite knowledge of
origins; but such knowledge we do not yet possess. Ethnologists are
agreed that the Japanese race has been formed by a mingling of peoples,
and that the dominant element is Mongolian; but this dominant element
is represented in two very different types,--one slender and almost
feminine of aspect; the other, squat and powerful. Chinese and Korean
elements are known to exist in the populations of certain districts; and,
there appears to have been a large infusion of Aino blood. Whether
there be [19] any Malay or Polynesian element also has not been
decided. Thus much only can be safely affirmed,--that the race, like all
good races, is a mixed one; and that the peoples who originally united
to form it have been so blended together as to develop, under long
social discipline, a tolerably uniform type of character. This character,
though immediately recognizable in some of Its aspects, presents us
with many enigmas that are very difficult to explain.
Nevertheless, to understand it better has become a matter of importance.
Japan has entered into the world's competitive struggle; and the worth
of any people in that struggle depends upon character quite as much as
upon force. We can learn something about Japanese character if we are
able to ascertain the nature of the conditions which shaped it,--the great
general facts of the moral experience of the race. And these facts we
should find expressed or suggested in the history of the national beliefs,
and in the history of those social institutions derived from and
developed by religion.

[20]
[21]
THE ANCIENT CULT
The real religion of Japan, the religion still professed in one form or
other, by the entire nation, is that cult which has been the foundation of
all civilized religion, and of all civilized society,--Ancestor-worship. In

the course of thousands of years this original cult has undergone
modifications, and has assumed various shapes; but everywhere in
Japan its fundamental character remains unchanged. Without including
the different Buddhist forms of ancestor-worship, we find three distinct
rites of purely Japanese origin, subsequently modified to some degree
by Chinese influence and ceremonial. These Japanese forms of the cult
are all classed together under the name of "Shinto," which signifies,
"The Way of the Gods." It is not an ancient term; and it was first
adopted only to distinguish the native religion, or "Way" from the
foreign religion of Buddhism called "Butsudo," or "The Way of the
Buddha." The three forms of the Shinto worship of ancestors are the
Domestic Cult, the Communal Cult, and the State Cult;--or, in other
words, the worship of family ancestors, the worship of clan or tribal
ancestors, [22] and the worship of imperial ancestors. The first is the
religion of the home; the second is the religion of the local divinity, or
tutelar god; the third is the national religion. There are various other
forms of Shinto worship; but they need not be considered for the
present.
Of the three forms of ancestor-worship above mentioned, the
family-cult is the first in evolutional order,--the others being later
developments. But, in speaking of the family-cult as the oldest, I do not
mean the home-religion as it exists to-day;--neither do I mean by
"family" anything corresponding to the term "household." The Japanese
family in early times meant very much more than "household": it might
include a hundred or a thousand households: it was something like the