著者

井本 英一 Eiichi Imoto

出版者

桃山学院大学総合研究所

雑誌

桃山学院大学キリスト教論集 (ISSN:0286973X)

巻号頁・発行日

no.40, pp.109-137, 2004

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On New Year's Day Suwa-taisha Shrine has a ritual to make sacrifice of two frogs. Visitors to the Dual Shrines of Ise, Naiku Shrine and Geku Shrine, offer frogs of pottery on the rocky altar by the sea. Pilgrims to Santiago di Compostella have offered votive picture tablets of frog to the temple. Witches would give a dinner party at the night of Walpurgis on the mount Brocken at the beginning of May day.Frogs were main dish then.Witches were goddesses of pre-Christian period. Suwa-taisha's sacred pole with strips of white papers on top, Ise shrine's center pole with various color strips on top, and May pole with various color strips down from top are totem poles. Frogs were representation of ancestors or gods. Frog-shaped lamps of Roman, Coptic or Ethiopic Church were souls of ancestors or gods. Gods or goddesses ate the offering of frogs at the beginning of the year to make themselves resurrect.