And now from the river-front touching my garden there rises to me a
sound of clapping of hand,--one, two, three, four claps,--but the owner
of the hands is screened from view by the shrubbery. At the same time,
however, I see men and women descending the stone steps of the wharves
on the opposite side of the Ohashigawa, all with little blue towels
tucked into their girdles. They wash their faces and hands and rinse
their mouths--the customary ablution preliminary to Shinto prayer. Then
they turn their faces to the sunrise and clap their hands four times and
pray. From the long high white bridge come other clappings, like
echoes, and others again from far light graceful craft, curved like
new moons--extraordinary boats, in which I see bare-limbed fishermen
standing with foreheads bowed to the golden East. Now the clappings
multiply--multiply at last into an almost continuous volleying of sharp
sounds. For all the population are saluting the rising sun, O-Hi-San,
the Lady of Fire--Ama-terasu-oho-mi-Kami, the Lady of the Great Light.
[3] 'Konnichi-Sama! Hail this day to thee, divinest Day-Maker! Thanks
unutterable unto thee, for this thy sweet light, making beautiful the
world!' So, doubt-less, the thought, if not the utterance, of countless
hearts. Some turn to the sun only, clapping their hands; yet many turn
also to the West, to holy Kitzuki, the immemorial shrine and not a few
turn their faces successively to all the points of heaven, murmuring
the names of a hundred gods; and others, again, after having saluted the
Lady of Fire, look toward high Ichibata, toward the place of the great
temple of Yakushi Nyorai, who giveth sight to the blind--not clapping
their hands as in Shinto worship, but only rubbing the palms softly
together after the Buddhist manner. But all--for in this most antique
province of Japan all Buddhists are Shintoists likewise--utter the
archaic words of Shinto prayer: 'Harai tamai kiyome tamai to Kami imi
tami.'
Prayer to the most ancient gods who reigned before the coming of the
Buddha, and who still reign here in their own Izumo-land,--in the Land
of Reed Plains, in the Place of the Issuing of Clouds; prayer to the
deities of primal chaos and primeval sea and of the beginnings of the
world--strange gods with long weird names, kindred of U-hiji-ni-no-Kami,
the First Mud-Lord, kindred of Su-hiji-ni-no-Kanii, the First Sand-Lady;
prayer to those who came after them--the gods of strength and beauty,
the world-fashioners, makers of the mountains and the isles, ancestors
of those sovereigns whose lineage still is named 'The Sun's Succession';
prayer to the Three Thousand Gods 'residing within the provinces,' and
to the Eight Hundred Myriads who dwell in the azure
Takamano-hara--in the blue Plain of High Heaven.
'Nippon-koku-chu-yaoyorozu-no-Kami-gami-sama!'