There were the numerous Kami, more or less abstract beings without any distinguishing functions, who preceded the progenitors of the Yamato race, and there was the goddess of the Sun, pre-eminent and supreme, together with deities of the Moon, of the stars, of the winds, of the rain, of fire, of water, of mountains, of mines, of fields, of the sea, of the trees, and of the grass--the last a female divinity (Kaya-no-hime). The second group those deified for illustrious services during life--furnished the tutelary divinities (uji-gami or ubusuna-Kami) of the localities where their families lived and where their labours had been performed. Their protection was specially solicited by the inhabitants of the regions where their shrines stood, while the nation at large worshipped the Kami of the first group. Out of this apotheosis of distinguished mortals there grew, in logical sequence, the practice of ancestor worship. It was merely a question of degrees of tutelary power. If the blessings of prosperity and deliverance could be bestowed on the denizens of a region by the deity enshrined there, the same benefits in a smaller and more circumscribed measure might be conferred by the deceased head of a family. As for the sovereign, standing to the whole nation in the relation of priest and intercessor with the deities, he was himself regarded as a sacred being, the direct descendant of the heavenly ancestor (Tenson). THERIANTHROPIC ELEMENTS That the religion of ancient Japan--known as Shinto, or "the way of the gods"--had not fully emerged from therianthropic polytheism is proved by the fact that, though the deities were generally represented in human shape, they were frequently conceived as spiritual beings, embodying themselves in all kinds of things, especially in animals, reptiles, or insects. Thus, tradition relates that the Kami of Mimoro Mountain appeared to the Emperor Yuryaku (A.D. 457-459) in the form of a snake; that during the reign of the Emperor Keitai (A.D. 507-531), a local deity in the guise of a serpent interfered with agricultural operations and could not be placated until a shrine was built in its honour; that in the time of the Emperor Kogyoku, the people of the eastern provinces devoted themselves to the worship of an insect resembling a silkworm, which they regarded as a manifestation of the Kami of the Moon; that the Emperor Keiko (A.D. 71-130) declared a huge tree to be sacred; that in the days of the Empress Suiko (A.D. 593-628), religious rites were performed before cutting down a tree supposed to be an incarnation of the thunder Kami; that on the mountain Kannabi, in Izumo, there stood a rock embodying the spirit of the Kami whose expulsion from Yamato constituted the objective of Ninigi's expedition, and that prayer to it was efficacious in terminating drought, that the deity Koto-shiro-nushi became transformed into a crocodile, and that "the hero Yamato-dake emerged from his tomb in the shape of a white swan."