Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/141

 ical perfection. All the affairs of man are supposed to have a claim on the benevolent solicitude of these immortal guardians. In the ritual for invoking fortune on behalf of the Imperial Palace at the time of building — the ritual of dedication — the spirits of rice and of timber are besought, with the utmost precision of practical detail, to forefend the calamity of serpents' crawling under the threshold; the calamity of birds' flying in through the smoke-holes in the roof and defiling the food; the calamity of pillars' loosening and joints' creaking at night. On the other hand, all great affairs of State, all national enterprises, are similarly entrusted to the fostering care of the deities. As for rituals, details of ceremonial, and rules for the guidance of priests and priestesses, they fill fifty volumes, and descend to the utmost minutiæ, the part taken by each functionary being carefully set forth, from that of the chief cook who laid on the fire and set the rice-pot over it, or that of the superintendent of fisheries who fanned the flame, to that of the priest-noble who recited the ritual. The presentation of offerings to the tutelary deity or to the departed spirit just enrolled among the immortals, formed an important part of the ceremonial, and the ritual used on the occasion enumerated the offerings, while at the same time setting forth the grounds for paying reverence to the deceased. However obscure the origin of some among the multitude of observ-