Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/262

252 Disease, Wounds, and Death caused uncleanness. The death of a relation, attending a funeral, pronouncing or executing a capital sentence, touching the dead body of a man or beast, even eating food prepared in a house of mourning, all involved various degrees of ritual impurity.

Before the Nara period of Japanese history it was the custom on the death of a sovereign to remove the capital to a fresh site, no doubt for the sake of purity. The Ainus of Yezo destroy huts in which a death has taken place. The modern Japanese custom of turning upside down the screen which is placed round a corpse is perhaps a much attenuated survival of the same idea. In 801 a Great Purification ceremony was performed, because a dead dog had been discovered under one of the palace buildings. The same ritual was celebrated in times of pestilence, when a death took place close to the palace and on the Mikado's putting off mourning. If any one died within the precincts of a shrine, no festival could be held there for thirty days. A disability of five days was prescribed in the case of a dog or other beast dying there. At the present day lucifer matches are advertised as "fit for sacred purposes"; that is, they contain no phosphorus which is made of bones, and therefore unclean. Leprosy, owing to its reputed contagious character, is specially mentioned as a cause of uncleanness. Wounds, whether inflicted or received, were objectionable, not so much on grounds of humanity, as because of their offensiveness. The Nihongi relates that in A.D. 404 the God Izanagi expressed by the mouth of one of his priests his dislike for the stench of blood caused by branding some of the Mikado's escort. The striking of a Shinto priest while on duty was a cause of uncleanness. In grave cases, however, the offender was handed over to the civil authorities. According to the strict Shinto of a later period, a man must abstain from worship at a shrine for thirty days