Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/273

Rh who was then ill. It was continued annually every sixth and twelfth month, the miko officiating.

In the thirteenth century the Onyōshi (diviners of the Chinese school) presented to the Mikado human figures in a box, inscribed with the place and name. The Mikado breathed on them, rubbed them on his person, and then returned them to the box.

The principle of ransom is illustrated in the present day by the custom of kata-shiro (form-token) or nade-mono (rub-thing). At a shrine of the Sea-Gods in Tokio a purification ceremony is performed twice a year. A few days before, the parishioners and other believers who wish to be purified go to the shrine and obtain from its official a katashiro, that is, a white paper cut into the shape of a garment. On this the person to be purified writes the year and month of his birth and his or her sex, and rubs it over his whole body. When he has thus transferred his impurities to the paper he returns it to the shrine. All the katashiro which are brought back are packed into two sheaths of reed and placed on a table of unbarked wood. They are then called harahi tsu mono, or things of purification. Finally they are put into a boat which is rowed out into the sea, and they are thrown away there. The bundles of reeds or rushes which are thrown into the sea at the shrine of Gion at Tsushima in Owari, to avert pestilence, probably represent human figures. It is said that wherever they float to, pestilence breaks out.

A more expeditious form of the same custom is when the katashiro or nademono are simply bought from the Kashima-fure, strolling vendors belonging to the shrine of Kashima, rubbed over the body, and cast into a stream. The object, however, is not so much the removal of ritual pollution as protection against disease. At the present day paper figures, called Ama-gatsu, are made to avert calamity from children. They are prepared before the