Note 20 — Chapter XVII · Culture Mixing in Japan

Although the Ainu claimed to have exterminated the Koro-pok-guru, it is possible that they really intermixed with them and derived some of their religious ideas and myths from them, and that, in turn, the Japanese were influenced by both Ainu and Koro-pok-guru ideas and myths. The aniconic pillars and the female goddess with fish termination (the Dragon Mother) figure in Japanese as well as Ainu religion. Both are found in Kamschatka, too. Dr. Rendel Harris, commenting on the pillar and fish-goddess idols of the Kamschatdals,20 recalls “the various fish forms of Greek and Oriental religions, the Dagon and Derceto of the Philistines, the Oannes of the Assyrians,21 Eurynome of the Greek legends, and the like”. The pillar, sometimes shown to be clad with ivy, links with the symbols of Hermes and Dionysos. He adds: “The Kamschatdals and other Siberian tribes manufacture for themselves intoxicating and stupefying drinks which have a religious value, and are employed by their Shamans in order to produce prophetic states of inspiration”. The Japanese manufactured sake from rice with precisely the same motive, and, like the Ainu, offered their liquor to the gods.