LAND OF GODS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 2 September 1942, Page 5

LAND OF GODS

FORCES OF SUPERSTITION JAPANESE MYTHOLOGICAL BACKGROUND The smiles, the politeness, the protestations of friendship, the bowing of those Japanese emissaries who prated of peace in Washington while their air and sea fleets bombed and torpedoed Pearl Harbour—all were false. Those factors need never deceive us again, writes Rodney L. Brink in “The Christian Scienpe Monitor.” That side of the mask has fallen.

And what is behind the rest of the mask? To know any person it is necessary to know what is at the very heart of his thinking, what he believes, what his hopes are, what these are based upon. In other words his religious and moral background, his ethical code, the essence of his purposes and ambitions. It is the same with a people. No other people truly knows the Japanese of Japan. They hardly know themselves. It has been said that they as a people are in the prelogical age. living out a chapter in mythology. A column of type can only point a few waymarks. This from Volume VIII of Mythology of All Races, compiled by the Archaelogical Institute of America, published by Marshall-Jones Company of Boston in 1928:

“ . . . Well understanding the difficulties of the undertaking, the Sun-god-dess sent her two best generals, FutuNushi (the sharp-cutting lord, the genius of the weapon) and Take-ni-kazuchi (the valiant august thunder) to the realm of Oh-kuni-nushi. After a long resistance Oh-kuni-nushi and hia sons, the lords of Izumo (the rising clouds) yielded to the demands of the armed ambassadors that Izumo should be ruled by the august grandchild of the Sun-goddess.

“But a condition was agreed upon that all the power of the visible world should be delivered to the grandchild, while things ‘hidden* should still be subject to the rule of the great land master (Oh-kuni-nushi) and his descendants. By things ‘hidden’ was meant all mysteries beyond the visible, physical world, the occult arts o S divination, sorcery, exorcism, isd the medical ai’ts. . . .

“After the account of the understanding between the Sun-goddess and the Storm-god comes the story of the descent of Ninigi, the august grandchild of the Sun-goddess, to the Japanese archipelago. . . . With it the cosmological mythology ends and the legendary history of the country and of the ruling dynasty begins.” This learned work says also that “although there is every reason to believe that there was a purely natural background for the myth of the Sun-god-dess and the Storm-god, the Shintoists have interpreted it as . . . celebrating the triumph of imperial rule.”

It is this imperial rule which the military clan of Japan seeks to spread not only to East Asia but to all the world.

In the imperial palace at Tokio and in certain shrines to the ancestors of the ruling family have reposed the sword, the mirror, and the jewel which the Japanese Storm-god is supposed to have given to his sister, the Sun-god-dess, as a peace offering—physical tokens of the divinity of the living ruler.

These three tokens base the nationwide pinnacle of reverence which has been built up through teachings in the schools, through the widespread priesthood of the shrines, and through imperial rescripts, and on which Japan’s ambitious attempt at world rulership to-day rests. The Emperor Meiji, in the fifteenth year of his reign. 1882. addressing a rescript to his Army and Navy, wrote. “ ... We are the Commander-in-Chief of all of you, military and naval men. And hence, while We esteem you as our members, you must regard Us as your head; and thus our relations will always be closely intimate. ... You ought to be as concerned as We for the extension of Our national prestige. . . . You should devote yourselves to your allegiance as your principal duty, esteeming fidelity weightier than mountains, ar.d death lighter than a feather. . .

Because of his concern for “extension of our national prestige” through military means, the Emperor Meiji, in the Shinto religion which is encouraged and to a degree enforced by the militaristic national administration, is rated high among Japan's many millions of “gods.” only slightly lower in the scale than his Sun goddess “ancestor.” Mythology of All Races says: “In fact the Shinto religion teaches that the country is the land of the gods, who even now linger among human beings and hover about in the sky among the forests or on the peaks and hills.” Superstition, fighting to impose a monstrous myth on the world—this is the force the United Nations are fighting in the Pacific and Far East. Purposes as falsely based as those of ancient pagan Rome: and as fallible.