Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/145

Rh the sumptuousness of the repast it is desired to give him.

The shrine is set up in the tokonoma, or recess of honor, of the room. At the back is placed a hanging-scroll of the gods of Ontaké. Some five feet in front of the tokonoma, in the centre of the sacred space, a porous earthenware bowl is placed upon a stand, and in the bowl is built a pyre of incense sticks, usually beginning as a log-hut and terminating as a wigwam.

Then the place is purified. This is done by inclosing the room, or the part of it in front of the shrine, by strings from which depend at intervals small gohei. These are usually arranged after the so-called seven-five-three (shichi-go-san) pattern; seven of them being nearest the shrine, five on each side, and three at the farther end. From the space so inclosed all evil spirits are driven out by prayer, by finger-charms, by sprinkling of salt, by striking of sparks from a flint and steel, and by brandishing of a gohei-wand used as an exorcising air-broom.

After the purification of the place, the next duty of the officiators is the purification of their persons. For this purpose they