Lafcadio Hearn’s view that Shinto was at one time a religion of ‘perpetual fear’ is unsupported by evidence.
=Classes of Kami.=—Although the Kami are deficient in several of the attributes of the Christian God, they possess two essential qualities without which it would be impossible to recognise them as deities at all, viz., sentiency and superhuman power. The union of these ideas may be accomplished in two ways, first by attributing sense and will to the great elemental objects and phenomena, and secondly by applying to human and other living beings ideas of transcendent power derived from the contemplation of the mighty forces on whose operation we are daily and hourly dependent for our existence. We have therefore two classes of deities, Nature-gods and Man-gods, the first being the result of personification, the second of deification. It has been the generally received opinion that the Shinto gods belong to the latter rather than to the former of these two categories. Nine out of ten educated Japanese will declare with perfect sincerity that Shinto is ancestor-worship. Thus Mr. Daigoro Goh, a former secretary of the Japan Society, says:—‘Shinto or ancestor-worship being the creed of the ancient inhabitants.’ The same view is held by some European scholars, notably the late Lafcadio Hearn, whose interesting and valuable work, _Japan, an Interpretation_, is greatly marred by this misconception. It is quite true that there is a large element of ancestor worship in modern Japanese religious practices, but a very little examination shows that all the great deities of the older Shinto are not Man, but Nature gods. Prominent among them we find the deities of the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, the Sea, the Rain-storm, Fire, Thunder, etc. And when the so-called ancestors of the Japanese race are not actually Nature-gods, they are usually the satellites or children of Nature-gods. In imitation of the Mikados who selected the Sun-goddess as their ancestral deity, the hereditary corporations or clans by whom in ancient times the Government of Japan, central and local, was carried on, chose for themselves, or perhaps invented, nature-deities, or their children or ministers, as their patron-gods, to whom special worship was paid. From this to a belief in their descent from him as an ancestor, the transition was easy. The same process has been observed in other countries. It was assisted by the habit of addressing the deity as father or parent, which, at first a metaphorical expression, came ultimately to be understood in a more literal sense. These pseudo-ancestral deities were called Ujigami, that is to say ‘surname-deities.’ In later times the Ujigami ceased to be the patron-gods of particular families and became simply the local deities of the district where one was born. Children are presented to the Ujigami shortly after birth, and other important events, such as a change of residence, are announced to him. A deity of any class may become an Ujigami, and there have been cases of a Buddha attaining to this position. The cult of one’s real forefathers, beginning with deceased parents, as in China, was hardly known in ancient Japan. Indeed there is but little trace of any religious worship of individual men in the Shinto of the _Kojiki_ and _Nihongi_. Living Mikados were styled Kami, and spoken of as the ‘Heavenly Grandchild’ of the Sun-goddess. But their godship was more titular than real. It was much on a par with that of the Pope and Emperor who in the Middle Ages were called ‘Deus in terris.’ No miraculous powers were claimed for them beyond a vague general authority over the minor gods of Japan. Deceased Mikados were occasionally worshipped by their descendants, but whether there was anything in this so-called worship to distinguish it from the ordinary funeral or commemorative services there is nothing to show. They had no shrines, and no rituals in their honour are preserved in the Yengishiki collection. At a later period, the cult of deceased Mikados acquired a more definite character. They were prayed to for rain, to stay curses, to restore the Mikado’s health, etc. They had shrines erected to them, the offerings at which were assimilated to those made to Nature-deities. The Mikado Ôjin, if we may believe an oracle delivered by himself, became an important War-god under the name of Hachiman. The Empress Jingō, the legendary conqueror of Korea, also received divine honours. At the present day, solemn services are held periodically in the Imperial Palace for the worship of all the dynasty.