The food of the primitive Japanese was much more largely animal than it became in later times. To the early Japanese there was no restriction in the use of animal food, such as the Buddhists introduced. Fish and shell-fish have always been, and doubtless from the first were, principal articles of food. The five grains, so called, are often referred to, and are specially mentioned in the Shintō rituals, whose origin goes back to prehistoric times. These grains(71) are rice, millet, barley, and two kinds of beans. Silkworms and their food plant, the mulberry, are likewise spoken of. The only kind of drink referred to is _saké_. It will be remembered that in the myth concerning the Impetuous Male Deity in Izumo, the old man and old woman were directed to prepare eight tubs of _saké_, by drinking which the eight-headed serpent was intoxicated. In the traditional history of the emperors, they are represented as drinking _saké_, sometimes even to intoxication. And in the rituals recited when offerings are made to their deities, the jars of _saké_ are enumerated among the things offered. The Japanese writers claim that _saké_ was a native discovery, but there is a well supported belief that in very early times they borrowed the art of manufacturing it from the Chinese. There is at least a difficulty in believing that this liquor should have been invented independently in the two countries. Chopsticks are mentioned in early Japanese times, and clay vessels for food, and cups for drinking made of oak leaves. On the whole, the conclusions to be drawn from the earliest traditions concerning the Japanese lead us to regard them as having attained a material degree of civilization in all matters pertaining to food and drink. Yet it cannot be regarded as other than strange that milk, cheese and butter are nowhere mentioned, and had never been used.