WEASEL CHANGED INTO A DEITY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 196, 4 September 1937, Page 15

WEASEL CHANGED INTO A DEITY

Strange Sect in Japan

^ CTTEIOTTS SECT wliich set up gophers, weasels, snails, bodbugs, •nd other insects ns objects of adorntion kea been suppresseff by the Japanese police, "who have arrested ita founder, Aisei Akatsu, and bis wife and an associate naoied Masayuki Takayama on the chargo of obtaining money under false pretences. Akatsu converted His home into a place of worship in 1934 and gavo liis sect the imposing name, Great Nippou Imperial Buddhist Chancel Pruying Worshippers ' Society. Pieces of pnpcr, on vrhich wero written the names of various bugs and animals, were placed on the altar to represent the deities. One men paid thirty yen for a quantity of these papers, which, aceording to Akatsu, would. drive out the evil oi the 550 reptiles living in his house. There was apparently some mystical significance about the number S50, for the founder of tho cult came to grief orer a "talisman" which he sold to a women with the promiso that it would drive out the spirits of 550 whales that were preventing her frotn flnding a husband. JVhile it lasted the cult was a reasonably prOfitable enterprise for its exponents, a> it realised 4,500 yen (about £250). Sixty followers were paying

20 sen (about 3d) monthly dues. ' Men like Akatsu iind a ready audience among the poorer and more ignorant classes because of the Buddhist tendency to endow with some element of spirituality not only animals, but inaniinate objects which serve humau uses. Quite recently 5,000 worshippers attended a service in tho Asakusa Kwannon Tcmple, celebrated by forty priests in honour of tho spirits of silkworms and cotton plants. The priests burned incSnse and offered prayers before heaps of old string and thread. "This function is an eipression of appreciation for services and aacrifices," declared Tatsugoro Kishhna, sponsor of the ceremony. "ihe Japanese people have become too deeply engrossed iri the material things of life and have become seb fish." Buddhist services are regulaily held not only for dead pets, such as dogs and cats, but also for brokeu and irreparably damaged dolls and toys, for brcfken needles and other inanimato objects. SchoolgirlB sometimes thrust their needles into beancurd paste so that the points can ftnd rest after a year's hard work.