Within the first court of the Oho-yashiro, and to the left of the chief
gate, stands a small timber structure, ashen-coloured with age, shaped
like a common miya or shrine. To the wooden gratings of its closed doors
are knotted many of those white papers upon which are usually written
vows or prayers to the gods. But on peering through the grating one sees
no Shinto symbols in the dimness within. It is a stable! And there,
in the central stall, is a superb horse--looking at you. Japanese
horseshoes of straw are suspended to the wall behind him. He does not
move. He is made of bronze!
Upon inquiring of the learned priest Sasa the story of this horse, I was
told the following curious things:
On the eleventh day of the seventh month, by the ancient calendar,[1]
falls the strange festival called Minige, or 'The Body-escaping.' Upon
that day, 'tis said that the Great Deity of Kitzuki leaves his shrine to
pass through all the streets of the city, and along the seashore, after
which he enters into the house of the Kokuzo. Wherefore upon that day
the Kokuzo was always wont to leave his house; and at the present time,
though he does not actually abandon his home, he and his family retire
into certain apartments, so as to leave the larger part of the dwelling
free for the use of the god. This retreat of the Kokuzo is still called
the Minige.
Now while the great Deity Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami is passing through the
streets, he is followed by the highest Shinto priest of the shrine--this
kannushi having been formerly called Bekkwa. The word 'Bekkwa' means
'special' or 'sacred fire'; and the chief kannushi was so called because
for a week before the festival he had been nourished only with special
food cooked with the sacred fire, so that he might be pure in the
presence of the God. And the office of Bekkwa was hereditary; and the
appellation at last became a family name. But he who performs the rite
to-day is no longer called Bekkwa.
Now while performing his function, if the Bekkwa met anyone upon the
street, he ordered him to stand aside with the words: 'Dog, give way!'
And the common people believed, and still believe, that anybody thus
spoken to by the officiating kannushi would be changed into a dog. So
on that day of the Minige nobody used to go out into the streets after
a certain hour, and even now very few of the people of the little city
leave their homes during the festival.[2]
After having followed the deity through all the city, the Bekkwa used to
perform, between two and three o'clock in the darkness of the morning,
some secret rite by the seaside. (I am told this rite is still annually
performed at the same hour.) But, except the Bekkwa himself, no man
might be present; and it was believed, and is still believed by the
common people, that were any man, by mischance, to see the rite he would
instantly fall dead, or become transformed into an animal.
So sacred was the secret of that rite, that the Bekkwa could not even
utter it until after he was dead, to his successor in office.
Therefore, when he died, the body was laid upon the matting of a certain
inner chamber of the temple, and the son was left alone with the corpse,
after all the doors had been carefully closed. Then, at a certain hour
of the night, the soul returned into the body of the dead priest, and
he lifted himself up, and whispered the awful secret into the ear of his
son--and fell back dead again.
But what, you may ask, has all this to do with the Horse of Bronze?
Only this:
Upon the festival of the Minige, the Great Deity of Kitzuki rides
through the streets of his city upon the Horse of Bronze.