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(called kadzura) of a long kind of moss (kikagé)[1] which hangs from the pinetree, and bound her sleeves close up to her body under the arms-pits with the masaki’ [Evonymus radicans Sieb. a creeping plant. This proceeding is called putting on a tasuki, and is practised to this day by every Japanese woman when about to perform household duties, such as drawing water or sweeping]. She provided herself with a bundle of twigs of sasa (a kind of bamboo-grass) to hold in the hand, [no doubt as a sort of bâton with which to direct the movements of the others,] and a spear wound round with the grass called chi, and with small bells attached to it. Bonfires were lighted in front of the cavern, to dispel the darkness which had been created by the sudden retirement of the goddess. Then the uké, a sort of circular box, was laid down for Uzumé no mikoto to dance upon. [In a picture illustrating this legend which is given in one edition of the Nakatomi no harai, the uké is represented as being diverted from its proper use to serve as a drum, which is no doubt an error of the draughtsman.]
Having mounted on to the uké, Uzumé no mikoto began to tread it and cause it to resound, and she became possessed by a spirit, which seems to have been the spirit of folly. The verses of six syllables, which are said to have been her song: are
Mito futa miyo
Itsu muyu nana
Ya koko-no tari
Momo chi yorodzu.
These words are said to have been subsequently chosen to express the principal numbers, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, hundred, thousand and myriad. The only difficulty is tari for ten, which is towo (pronounced tô) in modern Japanese.[2] But they may also be interpreted in quite a different manner. Hito futa miyo
- ↑ Lycopodium Sieboldii.
- ↑ Hirata ingeniously suggests that tari would naturally be contracted into chi, which might become to, and wo is merely the echo or prolongation of the vowel. This is according to the principle by which any syllable may be changed first into any other in the same perpendicular line
