Ame no Uzume, the Dread Female of Heaven, who danced and gave forth an inspired utterance before the Rock-cave where the Sun Goddess was hidden, is the supposed ancestor of the Sarume (monkey-women) or female mimes attached to the Mikado's Court, whose performances were the origin of the pantomimic religious dances still kept up in Japan and known as _Kagura_, while her divinely inspired utterance is the prototype of the revelations of the Miko, or Shinto priestesses. One version of the story gives us the actual words used by Uzume on this occasion--namely, _Hi_, _fu_, _mi_, _yo_, _itsu_, _mu_, _nana_, _ya_, _kokono_, _towo_. A Japanese baby knows that these are simply the numerals from one to ten. But they have given much trouble to later Shintoists, who have endeavoured to read into them a deep mythical signification. The fire kindled by her is the prototype of the _nihabi_, or "courtyard fire," of Shinto ceremonial. It is plainly one of those numerous imitative magic devices for making sunshine, of which Mr. Frazer has given several examples.[77] Modern Shinto explains the darkness produced by the Sun-Goddess's retirement as emblematic of the darkness of sin. The renewal of light typifies repentance. Of course, this was far from the thoughts of the original myth-makers. Susa no wo did not at once proceed to the land of Yomi. He went and begged food of the Food-Goddess, who produced dainty things of all kinds from various parts of her body, and offered them to him. But Susa no wo took offence at her proceedings, which he considered filthy, and at once slew her. Whereupon there were produced in her head silkworms, in her eyes rice, in her ears millet, in her nose small beans, in her genitals barley, and in her fundament large beans. These Musubi, the God of Growth, took and caused to be used as seeds. The above is the _Kojiki_ version of the story. The _Nihongi_ makes the Moon-God the culprit, and gives it as the reason of his alienation from the Sun-Goddess, who had sent him to visit the Food-Goddess. This is not the only attempt of myth-makers to account for the aloofness maintained by these two deities. The same variant of this episode makes the Sun-Goddess the recipient of the various seeds produced in the body of the Food-Goddess:-- _"She was rejoiced, and said, 'These are the things which the race of visible men will eat and live.' So she made the millet, the panic, the wheat and the beans the seed for the dry fields, and the rice she made the seed for the water-fields. Therefore she appointed a Mura-gimi (village-lord) of Heaven, and forthwith sowed for the first time the rice-seed in the narrow fields and in the long fields of Heaven."_