It is true that decency, as we
understand it, is a very modern product, and it is not to be
looked for in any society in the barbarous stage. At the same
time, the whole range of literature might perhaps be ransacked
for a parallel to the naive filthiness of the passage forming
Sec. IV. of the following translation, or to the extraordinary
topic which the hero Yamato-Take and his mistress Miyadz[)u] are
made to select as the theme of poetical repartee. One passage
likewise would lead us to suppose that the most beastly crimes
were commonly committed."[6]
Indeed, it happens in several instances that the thread by which the
marvellous patchwork of unrelated and varying local myths is joined
together, is an indecent love story.
A thousand years after the traditions of the Kojiki had been committed
to writing, and orthodox Shint[=o] commentators had learned science from
the Dutch at Nagasaki, the stirring of the world mud by Izanagi's
spear[7] was gravely asserted to be the cause of the diurnal revolution
of the earth upon its axis, the point of the axis being still the jewel
spear.[8] Onogoro-jima, or the Island of the Congealed Drop, was
formerly at the north pole,[9] but subsequently removed to its present
position.
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