Note 8 — Chapter XXI · Ancient Mikados and Heroes
Reading edition
The Japanese had thus, like the Polynesians, a garden paradise and a sea-dragon-king’s paradise, as well as the gloomy Yomi. It may be that the beliefs and stories regarding these Otherworlds were introduced by the earliest seafarers, who formed pearl-fishing communities round their shores. The Ainu believe that Heaven and Hell are beneath the earth, “in Pokna moshiri, the lower world”, but they have no idea what the rewards of the righteous are.8 Nothing is definitely known regarding the beliefs of the earlier and more highly civilized people remembered as the Koro-pok-guru.