Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/150

 same time error was theoretically avoidable and should therefore have been practically unpardonable. But sins might be expiated or forgiven. The sovereign occupied the position of the nation's high-priest. Twice annually he celebrated the great festival of general purification by which the people were purged of offences and pollutions and saved from consequent calamities. Every family also kept within the Kami-dana an amulet consisting of pieces of the sacred wand used at these festivals, the possession of the token being supposed to ward off the effects of evil-doing.

Of the cleanliness that this creed inculcated much might be written; of the lustrations that preceded every sacred rite; of the shrinking from every source of pollution and contamination; of the simplicity of every ceremonial apparatus; of the unvaried rusticity observed in the architecture of the shrines, and of the unsculptured, unornamented purity of the timber used in their construction. Indeed this phase of Shintō had a dehumanising influence. Excessive dread of contamination led to violations of a far higher duty: the sick were not duly tended, and the maimed or diseased were often thrust out to die. Charity was a virtue scarcely suggested by the Shintō cosmogony, and not inculcated by the rituals or ceremonials of the creed. Kindness to animals received isolated recognition, but "the