olent influence--as is the Muramasa blade of the
Hamamatsu Suwa Jinja, the subject of the Komatsu Onryu[u] of
Matsubayashi Hakuchi--and with such tradition attached to it, it is
difficult to deny a basis of fact attaching to the tradition. The ghost
story becomes merely an elaboration of an event that powerfully
impressed the men of the day and place. Moreover this naturalistic
element can be detected in the stories themselves. Nipponese writers of
to-day explain most of them by the word _shinkei_--"nerves"; the working
of a guilty conscience moulding succeeding events, and interpreting the
results to the subsequent disaster involved. The explanation is somewhat
at variance with the native Shinto[u] doctrine of the moral perfection
of the Nipponese, and its maxim--follow the dictates of one's heart; but
that is not our present concern.

Their theory, however, finds powerful support in the nature of the
Nipponese ghost. The Buddhist ghost does not remain on earth. It has its
travels and penalties to go through in the nether world, or its
residence in Paradise, before it begins a new life--somewhere. The
Shinto[u] ghost, in the vagueness of Shinto[u] theology, does remain on
earth. If of enough importance it is enshrined, and rarely goes abroad,
except when carried in procession at the time of the temple festival.
Otherwise it finds its home in the miniature shrine of the _kami-dana_
or god-shelf. There is a curious confusion of Nipponese thought on this
subject; at least among the mass of laity. At the Bon-Matsuri the dead
revisit the scene of their earthly sojourn for the space of three days;
and yet the worship of the _ihai_, or mortuary tablets, the food
offerings with ringing of the bell to call the attention of the resident
Spirit is a daily rite at the household Buddhist shrine (Butsudan).
When, therefore, the ghost does not conform to these well-regulated
habits, it is because it is an unhappy ghost. It is then the _O'Bake_ or
_Bakemono_, the haunting ghost. Either it has become an unworshipped
spirit, or, owing to some atrocious injury in life, it stays to wander
the earth, and to secure vengeance on the living perpetrator. In most
cases this is effected by the grudge felt or spoken at the last moment
of life. The mind, concentrated in its hate and malice at this final
crisis, secures to the Spirit a continued and unhappy sojourn among the
living, until the vengeance be secured, the grudge satisfied, and the
Spir