“august thing.” It is used as a title, somewhat after the fashion of our words “Majesty” and “Highness,” being suffixed to the names of exalted human personages, and also of gods and goddesses. For the sake of clearness in the English translation this title is prefixed and used with the possessive pronoun, thus: Yamato-Take-no-Mikoto, His Augustness Yamato-Take.
With regard to the title read miko by the native commentators, it is represented in two ways in the Chinese text. When a young prince is denoted by it, we find the characters 御子, “august child,” reminding us of the Spanish title of infante. But in other cases it is written with the single character 王, “King,” and it may be questioned whether the reading of it as miko is not arbitrary. Many indications lead us to suppose that in Early Japan something similar to the feudal system, which again obtained during the Middle Ages, was in force; and if so, then some of these “kings,” may have been kings indeed after a fashion; and to degrade their title, as do the modern commentators, to that of “prince” is an anachronism. In any case the safest plan, if we would not help to obscure this interesting political question, is to adhere to the proper signification of the character in the text, and that character is 王, “King.”[1]
Of all the words for which it is hard to find a suitable English equivalent, Kami is the hardest. Indeed there is no English word which renders it with any near approach to exactness. If therefore it is here rendered by the word “deity” (“deity” being preferred to “god” because it includes superior beings of both sexes), it must be clearly understood that the word “deity” is taken in a sense not sanctioned by any English dictionary; for kami, and “deity” or “god,” only correspond to each other in a very rough manner. The proper meaning of the word “kami” is “top,” or “above”; and it is still constantly so used. For this reason it has the secondary sense of “hair of the head;” and only the hair on the top of the head,—not the hair on the face,—is so designated. Similarly the Government, in popular phraseology, is O Kami, literally “the honorably above”; and down to a few years ago Kami was the name of a certain titular pro-
- ↑ Conf. Section LVI. Note 7.
