Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/241

Rh The pilgrims are much given to chanting as they march. They do it as naturally as some people whistle. The Ise bands go rolling along to the enlivening cadence of the Ise ondō and to many more special odes set to what with good will passes for music. It is rhythm on the road to song, a caterpillar stage in the art of melody, lacking as yet transformation to the winged thing.

The chants consecrated to the peaks are more truly processionals. Common to all of them is the stirring refrain Rokkon shōjō; Ōyama kaisei, chanted antiphonally in two tones, the second about a fifth higher than the first. Literally, the meaning of the refrain is: May our six parts be pure, and may the weather on the honorable peak be fine. But the words are mystic to most of those who repeat them. The first half is a portion of one of the purification prayers, the rokkon shōjō no harai, the second a part of a prayer for fine weather. It is, so I am informed, simply invaluable in dispelling mist.

Unlike the gods of the lowland shrines, which have each their special reception days, the gods of the peaks are all of them