Always, through the memory of my first day at Kitzuki, there will pass
the beautiful white apparition of the Miko, with her perfect passionless
face, and strange, gracious, soundless tread, as of a ghost.
Her name signifies 'the Pet,' or 'The Darling of the Gods,'--Mi-ko.
The kind Guji, at my earnest request, procured me--or rather, had
taken for me--a photograph of the Miko, in the attitude of her dance,
upholding the mystic suzu, and wearing, over her crimson hakama, the
snowy priestess-robe descending to her feet.
And the learned priest Sasa told me these things concerning the Pet of
the Gods, and the Miko-kagura--which is the name of her sacred dance.
Contrary to the custom at the other great Shinto temples of Japan,
such as Ise, the office of miko at Kitzuki has always been hereditary.
Formerly there were in Kitzuki more than thirty families whose daughters
served the Oho-yashiro as miko: to-day there are but two, and the number
of virgin priestesses does not exceed six--the one whose portrait I
obtained being the chief. At Ise and elsewhere the daughter of any
Shinto priest may become a miko; but she cannot serve in that capacity
after becoming nubile; so that, except in Kitzuki, the miko of all the
greater temples are children from ten to twelve years of age. But at
the Kitzuki Oho-yashiro the maiden-priestesses are beautiful girls of
between sixteen and nineteen years of age; and sometimes a favourite
miko is allowed to continue to serve the gods even after having been
married. The sacred dance is not difficult to learn: the mother or
sister teaches it to the child destined to serve in the temple. The miko
lives at home, and visits the temple only upon festival days to
perform her duties. She is not placed under any severe discipline or
restrictions; she takes no special vows; she risks no dreadful penalties
for ceasing to remain a virgin. But her position being one of high
honour, and a source of revenue to her family, the ties which bind
her to duty are scarcely less cogent than those vows taken by the
priestesses of the antique Occident.
Like the priestesses of Delphi, the miko was in ancient times also a
divineress--a living oracle, uttering the secrets of the future when
possessed by the god whom she served. At no temple does the miko now act
as sibyl, oracular priestess, or divineress. But there still exists a
class of divining-women, who claim to hold communication with the dead,
and to foretell the future, and who call themselves miko--practising
their profession secretly; for it has been prohibited by law.
In the various great Shinto shrines of the Empire the Mikokagura is
differently danced. In Kitzuki, most ancient of all, the dance is the
most simple and the most primitive. Its purpose being to give pleasure
to the gods, religious conservatism has preserved its traditions and
steps unchanged since the period of the beginning of the faith. The
origin of this dance is to be found in the Kojiki legend of the dance of
Ame-nouzume-no-mikoto--she by whose mirth and song the Sun-goddess was
lured from the cavern into which she had retired, and brought back to
illuminate the world. And the suzu--the strange bronze instrument with
its cluster of bells which the miko uses in her dance--still preserves
the form of that bamboo-spray to which Ame-no-uzume-no-mikoto fastened
small bells with grass, ere beginning her mirthful song.