time both possessors and possessees were notably of the sex, as we shall see when we come to examine the Shintō bibles later.
Nowadays possession is chiefly confined to males on both sides. Still there are plenty of exceptions in both parties to the business. It is not uncommon for a goddess to descend sandwiched in between a lot of gods. In such event the voice of the entranced changes to suit the sex. The sex of the subject does not seem to signify; goddesses not being particularly partial to men, nor particularly averse to their own sex. Male deities usually descend upon both sexes indifferently, simply because they are more numerous than female ones.
Sex, however, is not surprising in divinity. But there is one point about these possessory gods in which they come much nearer being unique, and in which they are certainly not specially feminine—in their willingness to share their subject. Shintō possessions are remarkable for the multiplicity of gods that deign to descend in one and the same trance. Such divine copartnership is of course successive, since otherwise it would not be personal possession at all, but a mere composite
