e requests.
As for the offerings, they comprise woven stuffs, and their raw
materials, models of swords, arrows, shields, stags' antlers, hoes,
fish (dried and fresh), salt, sake, and, in some cases, a horse, a
cock, and a pig. In short, the things offered were essentially
objects serviceable to living beings.

*The Norito of the Great Purification Service has been translated by
Mr. W. G. Aston in his Japanese Literature.

THE KAMI

The Kami may be broadly divided into two groups, namely, those
originally regarded as superior beings and those elevated to that
rank in consideration of illustrious deeds performed during life. Of
the former group the multitudinous and somewhat heterogenous
components have been supposed to suggest the amalgamation of two or
more religious systems in consequence of a blending of races alien to
one another. But such features may be due to survivals incidental to
the highest form of nature religion, namely, anthropomorphic
polytheism.

There were the numerous Kami, more or less abstract beings without
any distinguishing functions, who preceded the progenitors of the
Yamato race, and there was the goddess of the Sun, pre-eminent and
supreme, together with deities of the Moon, of the stars, of the
winds, of the rain, of fire, of water, of mountains, of mines, of
fields, of the sea, of the trees, and of the grass--the last a female
divinity (Kaya-no-hime). The second group those deified for
illustrious services during life--furnished the tutelary divinities
(uji-gami or ubusuna-Kami) of the localities where their families
lived and where their labours had been performed. Their protection
was specially solicited by the inhabitants of the regions where their
shrines stood, while the nation at large worshipped the Kami of the
first group. Out of this apotheosis of distinguished mortals there
grew, in logical sequence, the practice of ancestor worship. It was
merely a question of degrees of tutelary power. If the blessings of
prosperity and deliverance could be bestowed on the denizens of a
region by the deity enshrined there, the same benefits in a smaller
and more circumscribed measure might be conferred by the deceased
head of a family. As for the sovereign, standing to the whole nation
in the relation of priest and intercessor with the deities, he was
himself regarded as a sacred being, the direct descendant of the
heavenly ancestor (Tenson).

THERIANTHROPIC ELEMENTS

That the religion