Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/186

168 The rite is, of course, the apotheosis of primitive hospitality. With civilization, however, the divine dinner has, like mere mortal ones, taken on a most tedious etiquette. It consists now of six or seven courses, each of which is ceremoniously long in the serving. The priests, who are the waiters, are all most beautifully dressed, and stand drawn up in a properly impressive row. After a sort of grace, said by the chief officiator, the priest at the lower end of the line hands in, from the refectory behind the scenes, the first of the holy platters, which, with a long, deep bow, he passes up to the next man in the line, who passes it to the third, and so on till it reaches the chief priest, who places it reverently upon the altar. Each dish is thus solemnly offered up to the god and deposited upon the shrine in turn. The dishes consist of almost everything edible, and, considering that much of the food is raw, of everything inedible as well. Wine especially is always on the table, for the gods are anything but teetotalers.

So far as records and traditions make it possible, the aboriginal cult is reinstated. Even the archaic instruments of miscalled