Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/66

50 For fuel, pine wood is the proper article. Sticks free from knots are preferred, for resin lurks in the knots and has a spirit hard to quell. So long as a man is truly good he does not care. But the least admixture of sin in his soul causes him to mind these knotty spots acutely.

Pine is still used in the country and in town when the authorities are not aware of the fact. Legally, however, charcoal is enjoined instead, owing to the danger of conflagration from flying wood-ashes; and at the high-priest's functions the law is dutifully observed.

To give life to the drama, I will set the scene of it where I first saw it, in the grounds of the head temple of the Shinshiu sect, in Kanda, the heart of Tōkyō. The crowd had already collected by the time we arrived; the bed had been laid and fired, and the whole temple company, with the exception of the high-priest himself, were at the moment busied about the pyre, some fanning the flames assiduously with open fans strapped to the end of long poles, while others pounded the coals flat again with staves. All were robed in white and were