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It will be remembered that it was the great stairs at Solomon's temple that so impressed the Queen of Sheba. Small shrines or miniature temples, called Tenno Samma, or "Heaven's Lord," are carried on staves, like the Ark of the Covenant, at their religious ceremonies. The inner shrine, or Holy of Holies, is small, and a cube, or nearly so, in proportion.
Whenever they got within striking distance of the foe, they struck desperately, and towards evening they were able to retire in good order into cover "behind the primitive fortifications of Mizuki raised for Tenchi Tenno by Korean engineers six centuries before." *Grandson of Taira no Tomomori, admiral of the Hei fleet in the battle of Dan-no-ura.
Nevertheless, it is not Shinto architecture, but a facsimile of the original palace of Kwammu Tenno upon the original scale. The effect upon national sentiment of this magnificent deviation from conventional forms, and the profound poetry of the reverential feeling which suggested it, can be fully comprehended only by those who know that Japan is still practically ruled by the dead.
Big dolls and little dolls, thin ones and fat ones, each one to represent some royal man or woman of the long ago, and dressed in a fashion of a time almost forgotten. There was Jimmu Tenno, the first real emperor. His hair was done in a curious fashion and his dress was of a wonderful brocade, while his hands clasped two fierce-looking swords.
The Emperor Suijin Tenno, on hearing the continuous wailing day after day of the slowly dying retainers, was touched with pity and said that it was a dreadful custom to bury with the master those who had been most faithful to him when alive. And he added that an evil custom, even though ancient, should not be followed, and ordered it to be abandoned.
In color the construction is not less oddly attractive than in form, and this especially because of the fine use made of antique green tiles in the polychromatic roofing. Surely the august Spirit of Kwammu Tenno might well rejoice in this charming evocation of the past by architectural necromancy! But the gift of the people to Kyoto is still grander.
These in time were conquered, and only a few of them now remain, known as Ainos, and dwelling in the island of Yezo. In the Japanese year 1 appeared a conqueror, Jimmu Tenno by name, the first of the mikados or emperors.
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