Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation | Page 8

tribe, an ideal group the members of which are but little distinguished
from one another, will grow more and more distinguished;--and as
societies advance, and as traditions, local and general, accumulate and
complicate, these once similar human souls, acquiring in the popular
mind differences of character and importance, will diverge--until their
original community of nature becomes scarcely recognizable." So in
antique Europe, and so in the Far East, were the greater gods of nations

evolved from ghost-cults; but those ethics of ancestor-worship which
shaped alike the earliest societies of West and East, date from a period
before the time of the greater gods,--from the period when all the dead
were supposed to become gods, with no distinction of rank.
No more than the primitive ancestor-worshippers of Aryan race did the
early Japanese think of their dead as ascending to some extra-mundane
region of light and bliss, or as descending into some realm of torment.
They thought of their dead as still inhabiting this world, or at least as
maintaining with it a constant communication. Their earliest sacred
records do, indeed, make mention of an underworld, where mysterious
Thunder-gods and evil goblins dwelt in corruption; but this vague
world of the dead communicated with the world of the living; [27] and
the spirit there, though in some sort attached to its decaying envelope,
could still receive upon earth the homage and the offerings of men.
Before the advent of Buddhism, there was no idea of a heaven or a hell.
The ghosts of the departed were thought of as constant presences,
needing propitiation, and able in some way to share the pleasures and
the pains of the living. They required food and drink and light; and in
return for these; they could confer benefits. Their bodies had melted
into earth; but their spirit-power still lingered in the upper world,
thrilled its substance, moved in its winds and waters. By death they had
acquired mysterious force;--they had become "superior ones," Kami,
gods.
That is to say, gods in the oldest Greek and Roman sense. Be it
observed that there were no moral distinctions, East or West, in this
deification. "All the dead become gods," wrote the great Shinto
commentator, Hirata. So likewise, in the thought of the early Greeks
and even of the late Romans, all the dead became gods. M. de
Coulanges observes, in La Cite Antique: "This kind of apotheosis was
not the privilege of the great alone. no distinction was made .... It was
not even necessary to have been a virtuous man: the wicked man
became a god as well as the good man,--only that in this after-existence,
he retained the evil inclinations of his former life." Such also [28] was
the case in Shinto belief: the good man became a beneficent divinity,
the bad man an evil deity,--but all alike became Kami. "And since there

are bad as well as good gods," wrote Motowori, "it is necessary to
propitiate them with offerings of agreeable food, playing the harp,
blowing the flute, singing and dancing and whatever is likely to put
them in a good humour." The Latins called the maleficent ghosts of the
dead, Larvae, and called the beneficent or harmless ghosts, Lares, or
Manes, or Genii, according to Apuleius. But all alike were
gods,--dii-manes; and Cicero admonished his readers to render to all
dii-manes the rightful worship: "They are men," he declared, "who
have departed from this life;-consider them divine beings ...."
In Shinto, as in old Greek belief, to die was to enter into the possession
of superhuman power, to become capable of conferring benefit or of
inflicting misfortune by supernatural means .... But yesterday, such or
such a man was a common toiler, a person of no importance;--to-day,
being dead, he becomes a divine power, and his children pray to him
for the prosperity of their undertakings. Thus also we find the
personages of Greek tragedy, such as Alcestis, suddenly transformed
into divinities by death, and addressed in the language of worship or
prayer. But, in despite of their supernatural [29] power, the dead are
still dependent upon the living for happiness. Though viewless, save in
dreams, they need earthly nourishment and homage,--food and drink,
and the reverence of their descendants. Each ghost must rely for such
comfort upon its living kindred;--only through the devotion of that
kindred can it ever find repose. Each ghost must have shelter,--a fitting
tomb;--each must have offerings. While honourably sheltered and
properly nourished the spirit is pleased, and will aid in maintaining the
good-fortune of its propitiators. But if refused the sepulchral home, the
funeral rites, the offerings of food and fire and drink, the spirit will
suffer from hunger and cold and thirst, and, becoming angered, will act
malevolently and contrive misfortune for those by whom it has been