The various names
applied to him are significant both of his divinity and of his
mediatorship. Whenever an opportunity offers, one of these divine
birds is captured and kept in a cage, where he is greeted with the
endearing titles of "Beloved god" and "Dear little divinity."
Nevertheless the time comes when the dear little divinity is
throttled and sent away in his capacity of mediator to take a
message to the superior gods or to the Creator himself. The
following is the form of prayer addressed to the eagle-owl when it
is about to be sacrificed: "Beloved deity, we have brought you up
because we loved you, and now we are about to send you to your
father. We herewith offer you food, _inao,_ wine, and cakes; take
them to your parent, and he will be very pleased. When you come to
him say, 'I have lived a long time among the Ainu, where an Ainu
father and an Ainu mother reared me. I now come to thee. I have
brought a variety of good things. I saw while living in Ainuland a
great deal of distress. I observed that some of the people were
possessed by demons, some were wounded by wild animals, some were
hurt by landslides, others suffered shipwreck, and many were
attacked by disease.
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