United States or Bahamas ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The "divine symbols," of which such constant mention is made in the tales, are the inao or whittled sticks frequently described in books of travels. Basil Hall Chamberlain. Miyanoshita, Japan, 20th July, 1887. i. An owl had put by for next day the remains of something dainty which he had to eat.
How they whittle sticks, keeping on the fringe of curled shavings, and set up these, called inao in places whence evil is suspected to lurk, and how the shaman conducts his exorcisms and works his healings, are told in the works of the traveller and the missionary. Or, the inao is a sort of lightning-rod conductor by which impending mischief may be led harmlessly away.
We herewith offer you food, inao, wine, and cakes; take them to your parent, and he will be very pleased. When you come to him say, 'I have lived a long time among the Ainu, where an Ainu father and an Ainu mother reared me. I now come to thee. I have brought a variety of good things. I saw while living in Ainuland a great deal of distress.
See W.G. Aston, op. cit. p. 191; and as to the inao, see Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii. 185, with note 2. Ovid, Fasti, iii. 82; Homer, Iliad, i. 590, sqq. Philostiatus, Heroica, xx. 24. Ovid, Fasti, iii. 143 sq.; Macrobius, Saturn, i. 12. 6. Festus, ed. "Ignis."
This being so, I present thee with these inao and cakes and other precious things. Do thou ride upon the inao and ascend to thy home in the glorious heavens. When thou arrivest, assemble the deities of thy own kind together and thank them for us for having governed the world. Do thou come again, I beseech thee, and rule over us. O my precious one, go thou quietly."
Thus, although they kill a bear whenever they can, "in the process of dissecting the carcass they endeavor to conciliate the deity, whose representative they have slain, by making elaborate obeisances and deprecatory salutations"; "when a bear has been killed the Ainu sit down and admire it, make their salaams to it, worship it, and offer presents of inao"; "when a bear is trapped or wounded by an arrow, the hunters go through an apologetic or propitiatory ceremony."
Word Of The Day