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Updated: June 9, 2025
15 In 1892 a Japanese newspaper, published in Tokyo stated upon the authority of a physician who had visited Shimane, that the people of Oki believe in ghostly dogs instead of ghostly foxes. This is a mistake caused by the literal rendering of a term often used in Shi-mane, especially in Iwami, namely, inu-gami-mochi.
Just at the same moment that we began to feel afraid she vanished so quickly that we could scarcely believe we had really seen her at all. 'That was the first time. But four years ago I saw something still more strange. We were bound for Oki, in a junk, and the wind again delayed us, so that we were at sea on the sixteenth day.
I was surprised to learn that there was no record of any person having been injured by these monstrous creatures. Another meibutsu of Oki is much less known than it deserves to be the beautiful jet-black stone called bateiseki, or 'horsehoof stone. It is found only in Dogo, and never in large masses.
However, it is only in the country that one can properly study the physical characteristics of a population. Those of the Oki islanders may best be noted at the fishing villages many of which I visited.
The oki of the moon had the care of souls and the power to cut off life; the oki of the sun presided over the living and sustained all created things. The great vault of heaven with its myriad stars inspired them with awe; it was the abode of the spirit of spirits, the Master of Life. Aronhia was the name they gave this supreme oki. This would show that they had a vague conception of God.
When the Emperor's escape from Oki became known, loyal samurai in great numbers espoused the Imperial cause, and a heavy blow was given to the prestige of the Hojo by Akamatsu Norimura who, after several successful engagements with the Rokuhara army in Settsu, pushed northward from the fortress of Maya, where his forces were almost within sight of Kyoto.
The Oki folks, he said, were almost as much civilised as the Izumo folks: they, had nice towns and good public schools. They were very simple and honest beyond belief, and extremely kind to strangers. Their only boast was that of having kept their race unchanged since the time that the Japanese had first come to Japan; or, in more romantic phrase, since the Age of the Gods.
Excepting the far-away Riu-Kiu, or Loo-Choo Islands, inhabited by a somewhat different race with a different language, the least-known portion of the Japanese Empire is perhaps Oki.
Nothing remains of it but a few fragments of its wood and hark, which are carefully preserved as relics by the ancients of Oki. Such a fragment was shown to me in the toko of the guest chamber of the dwelling of a physician of Saigo the same gentleman whose kindness I have related elsewhere.
We passed to the right of the huge rock, which proved to be a detached and uninhabited islet, Hakashima; and in another moment we were steaming into the archipelago of Oki, between the lofty islands Chiburishima and Nakashima. The first impression was almost uncanny.
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