Vol. XIX.]
Vol. II. Sect. XLVIII.
141
rascal. Ah! pfui! dolt! This is laughing [him] to scorn.”
So Ukashi the Younger Brother (he is the ancestor of the Water-Directors of Uda).[1]
[Sect. XLVIII.—Emperor Jim-mu (Part V.—The Earth-spiders of the Cave of Osaka).]
When [His Augustness Kamu-yamato-ihare-biko] made his progress, and reached the great cave of Osaka,[2] earth-spiders[3] with tails, [namely] eighty bravoes,[4] were in the cave awaiting him. So then the august son of the Heavenly Deity commanded that a banquet be bestowed on the eighty bravoes. Thereupon he set eighty butlers, one for each of the eighty bravoes, and girded each of them with a
- ↑ Uda no Mohitori. This tribe or guild of “water-directors” was entrusted with the charge of the water, the ice, and the gruel used in the Imperial household. In later times the word Mohitori was corrupted to Mondo.
- ↑ The etymology of this name is not clear, but readers will of course not confound it with that of the modern town of Ohosaka (Ōzaka). The character rendered “cave” is 室, which signifes simply “apartment;” but the traditional reading is muro, which means a cave or pit dug in the earth. That the latter is the idea which the author wishes to convey becomes clear by comparison with a great number of passages in the older literature. For a more particular discussion of this subject see Mr. Milne’s paper entitled “Notes on Stone Implements from Otatu and Hakodate,” published in Vol. VIII, Part I of these “Transactions,” p. 76 et seq., where a number of passages relative to the “earth-spiders” are likewise brought together.
- ↑ Tsuchi-gumo, generally written 土蜘蛛, but here semi-phonetically 土雲. There is little doubt that by this well-known name, which has given rise to much conjecture, a race of care-dwelling savages or a class of cave-dwelling robbers is intended. Motowori supposes that their name had its origin in a comparison of their habits with those of the spider. But it were surely more rational to regard it as a corruption of tsuchi-gomori, “earth-hiders,” a designation as obvious as it is appropriate. The “Chronicles” describe one tribe of them as “being short in stature, and having long anus and legs like pigmies.” For a further discussion of the subject see Motowori’s Commentary, Vol. XIX, pp. 30–31, the “Perpetual Commentary on the Chronicles of Japan,” Vol. VIII, p. 35, the “Tou-ga,” Vol. XX, s. v. kumo and the “Examination of Difficult Words,” Vol. II, pp. 55 et seq.
- ↑ The original term is takeru (梟帥), which might also be rendered “bandit,” or “robber chief.”
