Lafcadio Hearn

1 This deity is seldom called by his full name, which has been shortened by common usage from Susano-o-no-mikoto.

2 A kichinyado is an inn at which the traveller is charged only the price of the wood used for fuel in cooking his rice.

3 The thick fine straw mats, fitted upon the floor of every Japanese room, are always six feet long by three feet broad. The largest room in the ordinary middle-class house is a room of eight mats. A room of one hundred mats is something worth seeing.

KITZUKI, August 10, 1891.

1 Yama-no-mono ('mountain-folk,' - so called from their settlement on the hills above Tokoji), - a pariah-class whose special calling is the washing of the dead and the making of graves. 2 Joro: a courtesan. 3 Illicium religiosum 4 Literally: 'without shadow' or 'shadowless.' 5 Umi-yama-no-on. 6 Kusaba-no-kage 7 Or 'him.' This is a free rendering. The word 'nushi' simply refers to the owner of the house.

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1 ''Eight clouds arise. The eightfold [or, manifold] fence of Idzumo makes an eightfold [or, manifold] fence for the spouses to retire within. Oh! that eightfold fence!' This is said to be the oldest song in the Japanese language. It has been differently translated by the great scholars and commentators. The above version and text are from Professor B. H. Chamberlain's translation of the Kojiki (pp.60-64).

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1 Toyo-uke-bime-no-Kami, or Uka-no-mi-tana ('who has also eight other names), is a female divinity, according to the Kojiki and its commentators. Moreover, the greatest of all Shinto scholars, Hirata, as cited by Satow, says there is really no such god as Inari-San at all - that the very name is an error. But the common people have created the God Inari: therefore he must be presumed to exist - if only for folklorists; and I speak of him as a male deity because I see him so represented in pictures and carvings.

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In the Introduction to his charming Tales of Old Japan, Mr. Mitford wrote in 1871:

'The books which have been written of late years about Japan have either been compiled from official records, or have contained the sketchy impressions of passing travellers. Of the inner life of the Japanese the world at large knows but little: their religion, their superstitions, their ways of thought, the hidden springs by which they move - all these are as yet mysteries.'

by Lafcadio Hearn