of oxen to furnish meat
for workers in a rice-field roused the resentment of a Kami called
Mitoshi. There does not appear to have been any religious or
superstitious scruple connected with this abstention: the animals
were spared simply because of their usefulness. Vegetables occupied a
large space in the list of articles of food. There were the radish,
the cabbage, the lotus, the melon, and the wild garlic, as well as as
several kinds of seaweed. Salt was used for seasoning, the process of
its manufacture having been familiar from the earliest times. Only
one kind of intoxicating liquor was ever known in Japan until the
opening of intercourse with the Occident. It was a kind of beer
brewed* from rice and called sake. The process is said to have been
taught by Sukuna, who, as shown above, came to Japan from a foreign
country--probably China--when the Kami, Okuni-nushi, was establishing
order in the Japanese islands.

*The term for "brew" being kamu or kamosu, the former of which is
homonymous with the equivalent for "to chew," some commentators have
supposed that sake was manufactured in early times by grinding rice
with the teeth. This is at once disproved by the term for "yeast,"
namely, kabi-tachi (fermenting).

COOKING AND TABLE EQUIPAGE

From time immemorial there were among the officials at the Imperial
Court men called kashiwa-de, or oak-leaf hands. They had charge of
the food and drink, and their appellation was derived from the fact
that rice and other edibles were usually served on oak leaves.
Earthenware utensils were used, but their surface, not being glazed,
was not allowed to come into direct contact with the viands placed on
them. In this practice another example is seen of the love of
cleanliness that has always characterized and distinguished the
Japanese nation. Edibles having been thus served, the vessels
containing them were ranged on a table, one for each person, and
chop-sticks were used. Everything was cooked, with the exception of
certain vegetables and a few varieties of fish. Friction of wood upon
wood provided fire, a fact attested by the name of the tree chiefly
used for the purpose, hi-no-ki, or fire-tree. To this day the same
method of obtaining a spark is practised at the principal religious
ceremonials. Striking metal upon stone was another device for the
same purpose, and there is no record in Japan, as there is in China,
of any age when food was not cooked. Various vessels of ungla