Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/318

308 similar Chinese practice, though on a different date, namely, the first day of the year. Its object is said to be to drive away mountain elves.

Mikado matsuri.—This ceremony was in honour of two Gate Gods named Kushi-iha-mado (wondrous-rock-gate) and Toyo-iha-mado (rich-rock-gate). The Yengishiki contains a norito (No. 9) in which their praises are fulfilled, because they prevent the entrance to the Palace of noxious things and exercise a superintendence over the persons who come in and go out.

Tsuina or Oni-yarahi, that is to say, demon expelling, is a sort of drama in which disease, or more generally ill-luck, is personified, and driven away with threats and a show of violence. Like the Oho-harahi, it was performed on the last day of the year. This association is only natural. The demons of the tsuina are personified wintry influences, with the diseases which they bring with them, while the Oho-harahi is intended to cleanse the people from sin and uncleanness, things closely related to disease, as well as from disease itself. Though probably of Chinese origin, the tsuina is a tolerably ancient rite. It is alluded to in the Nihongi under the date A.D. 689. It was at one time performed at Court on an imposing scale. Four bands of twenty youths, each wearing a four-eyed mask, and each carrying a halberd in the left hand, marched simultaneously from the four gates of the Palace, driving the devils before them. Another account of this ceremony says that a man disguised himself as the demon of pestilence, in which garb he was shot at and driven off by the courtiers armed with peach-wood bows and arrows of reed. (See illustration, p. 310.) Peach-wood staves were used for the same purpose. There was formerly a practice at Asakusa in Tokio on the last day of the year for a man got up as a devil to be chased round the pagoda there by another wearing a mask. After this 3,000 tickets were