Note (return) — Chapter I · - PRIMITIVE FAITH: RELIGION BEFORE BOOKS
Reading edition
In prehistoric and medieval Japan, as among the Ainos to-day, trees and serpents as well as rocks, rivers and other inanimate objects were worshipped, because such of them as were supposed for reasons known and felt to be awe-inspiring or wonderful were "kami," that is, above the common, wonderful.21 This word kami is usually translated god or deity, but the term does not conform to our ideas, by a great gulf of difference. It is more than probable that the Japanese term kami is the same as the Aino word kamui, and that the despised and conquered aboriginal savage has furnished the mould of the ordinary Japanese idea of god—which even to-day with them means anything wonderful or extraordinary.22 From the days before history the people have worshipped trees, and do so yet, considering them as the abodes of and as means of communication with supernatural powers. On them the people hang their votive offerings, twist on the branches their prayers written on paper, avoid cutting down, breaking or in any way injuring certain trees. The sakaki tree is especially sacred, even to this day, in funeral or Shintō services. To wound or defile a tree sacred to a particular god was to call forth the vengeance of the insulted deity upon the insulter, or as the hearer of prayer upon another to whom guilt was imputed and punishment was due.