any foreigners to copy they would assuredly have copied them, and not have stayed starchedly Shintō to the present day.
In addition to the interest of the records themselves, the verbal evidence of these records is interesting. The words describing the possessions are all pure Japanese. Many of them are yet comprehensible, being in a way grandfathers to the modern terms. Kami-gakari of which kamu-gakari and kan-gakari are euphonic forms, means godfixed-on. An intransitive verb, it shows the spontaneity of the act. This spontaneity of deity is further dwelt on by tradition. In the good old days the gods descended, it is piously taught, of their own initiative, and not as now because importuned of man. Such seems a true mirror of the fact. For at first the act must have been fortuitive and sporadic. It could only have been later that men learned to lassoo deity at will. The modern term kami-oroshi causing the god to descend, marks the subsequent business stage of the practice. Indeed, this domestication of deity, this taming of once wild trances, is not the least peculiar attribute of the far-eastern branch of the subject.
