te. Alike in ancient and in
modern times the term has been applied, on the one hand, to the whole
of the main island, and, on the other, to the single province of
Yamato. The best authorities, however, interpret it in the latter
sense for the purposes of the Izanagi-and-Izanami legend, and that
interpretation is plainly consistent with the probabilities, for the
immigrants would naturally have proceeded from Awaji to the Kii
promontory, where the province of Yamato lies. Thereafter--on their
"return," say the Records, and the expression is apposite--they
explored several small islands not identifiable by their names but
said to have been in Kibi, which was the term then applied to the
provinces of Bingo, Bitchu, and Bizen, lying along the south coast of
the Inland Sea and thus facing the sun, so that the descriptive
epithet "sun-direction" applied to the region was manifestly
appropriate.

In brief, the whole narrative concerts well with the idea of a band
of emigrants carried on the breast of the "Black Tide," who first
make the circuit of the outlying fringe of islands, then enter the
mainland at Yamato, and finally sail down the Inland Sea, using the
small islands off its northern shore as points d'appui for
expeditions inland.

JAPANESE OPINION

Japanese euhemerists, several of whom, in former times as well as in
the present, have devoted much learned research to the elucidation of
their country's mythology, insist that tradition never intended to
make such a demand upon human credulity as to ask it to believe in
the begetting of islands by normal process of procreation. They
maintain that such descriptions must be read as allegories. It then
becomes easy to interpret the doings of Izanagi and Izanami as simple
acts of warlike aggression, and to suppose that they each commanded
forces which were to have co-operated, but which, by failing at the
outset to synchronize their movements, were temporarily unsuccessful.
It will seem, as we follow the course of later history, that the
leading of armies by females was common enough to be called a feature
of early Japan, and thus the role assigned to Izanami need not cause
any astonishment. At their first miscarriage the two Kami, by better
organization, overran the island of Awaji and then pushed on to
Shikoku, which they brought completely under their sway.

But what meaning is to be assigned to the "plain of high heaven"
(Takama-ga-hara)? Where was the place thus des