Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/68

52 The bed was circuited interminably, beyond the possibility of count, so riveting to one's attention was the pantomime. At the conclusion of the dedicatory prayer the salt made its appearance. For, damaging as the statement may sound, every Shintō miracle has to be taken with a great many grains of it. In this instance the salt was used unstintedly. A large bowl filled with it stood handily on one corner of the temple veranda, and each priest, as he came up, helped himself to a fistful, and then proceeded to sow it upon the coals, finger-twisting with the free hand as he did so. The sowing was done with some vehemence, each throw being pointed by a violent grunt that so suited the fury of the action it sounded ominously like an imprecation. But it was only an emphatic command to the evil spirits to avaunt.

After considerable salt had thus been sown from the cardinal points, the head of the company struck sparks from a flint and steel in the same oriented way over the bed, the others still throwing on salt promiscuously for general efficacy. In addition to what was thus scattered over the coals, a mat at either end of the bed was spread with salt.