Glancing at some phases of the actual unwritten religions of Japan we
name Shamanism, Mythical Zoölogy, Fetichism, Phallicism, and Tree and
Serpent Worship.

In actual Shamanism or Animism there may or there may not be a belief in
or conception of a single all-powerful Creator above and beyond all.[12]
Usually there is not such a belief, though, even if there be, the actual
government of the physical world and its surroundings is believed to lie
in the hands of many spirits or gods benevolent and malevolent. Earth,
air, water, all things teem with beings that are malevolent and
constantly active. In time of disaster, famine, epidemic the universe
seems as overcrowded with them as stagnant water seems to be when the
solar microscope throw its contents into apparition upon the screen. It
is absolutely necessary to propitiate these spirits by magic rites and
incantations.

Among the tribes of the northern part of the Chinese Empire and the
Ainos of Japan this Shamanism exists as something like an organized
cultus. Indeed, it would be hard to find any part of Chinese Asia from
Korea to Annam or from Tibet to Formosa, not dominated by this belief in
the power and presence of minor spirits. The Ainos of Yezo may be called
Shamanists or Animists; that is, their minds are cramped and confused by
their belief in a multitude of inferior spirits whom they worship and
propitiate by rites and incantations through their medicine-man or
sorcerer. How they whittle sticks, keeping on the fringe of curled
shavings, and set up these, called _inao_ in places whence evil is
suspected to lurk, and how the shaman conducts his exorcisms and works
his healings, are told in the works of the traveller and the
missionary.[13] In the wand of shavings thus reared we see the same