for when once the Imperial House and the centralized Japanese polity, as we know it from the sixth or seventh century of our era downwards, became fully established, it was but too clearly in the interest of the powers that be to efface as far as possible the trace of different governmental arrangements which may have preceded them, and to cause it to be believed that, as things were then, so had they always been. The Emperor Tem-mu, with his anxiety to amend “the deviations from truth and the empty falsehoods” of the historical documents preserved by the various families, and the author of the “Chronicles of Japan” with his elaborate system of fictitious dates, recur to our minds, and we ask ourselves to what extent similar garblings of history,—sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional,—may have gone on during earlier ages, when there was even less to check them than there was in the eighth century. If, therefore, the translator here gives expression to a few opinions founded chiefly on a careful study of the text of the “Records of Ancient Matters” helped out by a study of the “Chronicles of Japan,” he would be understood to do so with great diffidence, especially with regard to his few (so to speak) constructive remarks. As to the destructive side of the criticism, there need be less hesitation; for the old histories bear evidence too conclusively against themselves for it to be possible for the earlier portions of them, at least, to stand the test of sober investigation. Before endeavouring to piece together the little that is found in the “Records” to illustrate the beliefs of Archaic Japanese times, it will be necessary, at the risk of dulness, to give a summary of the old traditions as they lie before us in their entirety, after which will be hazarded a few speculations on the subject of the earlier tribes which combined to form the Japanese people; for the four questions of religious beliefs, of political arrangements, of race, and of the credibility of documents, all hang closely together and, properly speaking, form but one highly complex problem.
Greatly condensed, the Early Japanese traditions amount to this: After an indefinitely long period, during which were born a number of abstract deities, who are differently enumerated in the “Records” and in the “Chronicles,” two of these deities, a brother and sister named Izanagi and Izanami (e.i., the “Male Who Invites” and the “Female Who Invites”), are united in marriage, and give birth to the various islands
