SOURCE: Wieslaw Kotański, "The Belief in Kotodama and Some Earlier Misinterpretations of Kojiki," in European Studies on Japan, edited by Ian Nish and Charles Dunn, Paul Norbury Publications, 1979, pp. 237-42.

In the following essay, Kotański discusses the significance of proper names in the Kojiki, charging that earlier translators had neglected to pay them sufficient attention.'

While preparing the Polish translation of Kojiki, I have consulted some earlier European interpretations of that work, namely those of Chamberlain, Florenz and Philippi, and I have of course observed that they reveal no tendency to engage in translating the so-called proper names of the heroes of the Kojiki, or to include their contents in the course of the narrative. Such a tendency was certainly caused by their conviction that the contents of proper names, denoting natural and supernatural beings, in no way influences the narrative itself. The names contain...