" These human victims were either chosen or voluntarily
offered, and in some instances were rescued from their fate by
chivalrous heroes[23] from among the invaders.
These gods of the sea, who anciently were propitiated by the sacrifice
of human beings, are the same to whom Japanese sailors still pray,
despite their Buddhism. The title of the efficient victims was
_hitoga-shira_, or human pillars. Instances of this ceremony, where men
were lowered into the water and drowned in order to make the sure
foundation for bridges, piers or sea-walls, or where they were buried
alive in the earth in order to lay the right bases for walls or castles,
are quite numerous, and most of the local histories contain specific
traditions.[24] These traditions, now transfigured, still survive in
customs that are as beautiful as they are harmless. To reformers of
pre-Buddhistic days, belongs the credit of the abolition of jun-shi, or
dying with the master by burial alive, as well as of the sacrifice to
dragons and sea-gods.
Strange as it may seem, before Buddhism captured and made use of
Shint[=o] for its own purposes (just as it stands ready to-day to absorb
Christianity by making Jesus one of the Palestinian avatars of the
Buddha), the house or tribe of Yamato, with its claim to descent from
the heavenly gods, and with its Mikado or god-ruler, had given to the
Buddhists a precedent and potent example.
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