banging upon its lower branches the white pacificatory offerings[1] and the blue pacificatory offerings, His Augustness Grand-Jewel taking these divers things and holding them together with the grand august offerings,[2] and His Augustness Heavenly-Beckoning-Ancestor-Lord prayerfully reciting grand liturgies,[3] and the Heavenly Hand-Strength-Male-Deity[4] standing hidden beside the door, and Her Augustness Heavenly-Alarming-Female[5] hanging [round her] the heavenly clubmoss from the Heavenly Mount Kagu as a sash,[6] and making the heavenly spindle-tree her head-dress,[7] and binding the leaves of the bamboo-grass of the
- ↑ In rendering the original word nigi-te (here written phonetically, but elsewhere with the characters 和幣), the explanation given by Tanigaha Shisei, and indeed suggested by the characters themselves, has been followed. Motowori’s view does not materially differ, but he considers “pacificatory” or “softening” to be equivalent to “soft” applied to the offerings themselves, which consisted of soft cloth, the syllable te of nigi-te being believed to be a contraction of tahe which signifies cloth. The white cloth in ancient times was made of the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), and the blue of hemp.
- ↑ The original word is written with the same character as the te of nigi-te, translated “offerings” above.
- ↑ Or in the Singular “a grand liturgy,” or “ritual.”
- ↑ Ame-no-ta-jikara-wo-no-kami.
- ↑ Ame-no-uzume-no-mikoto. The translator has followed the best authorities in rendering the obscure syllables uni by the word “alarming.” Another interpretation quoted in Tanigaha Shisei’s “Perpetual Commentary on the Chronicles of Japan” and adopted by Moribe in his “Idzu no Chi-waki,” is that uzu means head-dress, and that the goddess took her name from the head-dress of spindle-tree leaves which she wore. The character 鈿, with which the syllables in question (here written phonetically) are rendered ideographically in the “Chronicles,” signifies “metal head-gear,” “flowers of gold or silver.”
- ↑ Tasuki, “a cord or sash passed over the shoulders, round the back of the neck, and attached to the wrists, to strengthen the hands for the support of weights, whence the name, which means ‘hand-helper.’ It was thus different both in form and use from the modern tasuki, a cord with its two ends joined which is worn behind the neck, under the arms and round the back, to keep the modern loose sleeves out of the way when household duties are being performed.” (E. Satow).
- ↑ I.e., making for herself a head-dress of spindle-tree leaves.
the other cases in which the word ya-ta occurs, and are rendered specially untenable by the fact of the minor and curved beads being spoken of together further on as the 八尺勾瓊鏡 (Sect. XXXIII. Note 20).
