Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/99

Rh part of the furniture of the domestic altar. To procure such charms is always one object of the pilgrimages to sacred mountains and famous shrines, still so popular with those classes of society which are not yet fully imbued with European twentieth century notions. Coloured prints of the shrine visited are generally purchased at the same time, and treasured as mementoes of the pilgrimage. There is another very popular kind, which can be made at home, consisting of the imprint of a hand,—generally a child's hand. It is obtained by first wetting the hand with ink, and then applying it to a sheet of paper, and is believed to avert malign influences. Besides these paper charms, there exist several other sorts. At Ise, for example, sacred medals are for sale; but we suspect that these owe their origin to European influence. Another Ise charm, which is genuinely native, consists of fragments of the temples themselves; for when these temples are hewn down every twenty years in accordance with immemorial usage, preparatory to the erection of new ones, the wood is all chopped up into tiny splinters which are carried away by innumerable devotees, The food offered to the gods is also sold to pilgrims as a charm, both at Ise and elsewhere. Then, too, there are miniature editions of various sutras, microscopic images of the Gods of Luck carved out of rice-grains, facsimiles of Buddha's footprint on certain sacred stones, and in fine such a multifarious assortment of "objects of bigotry and virtue" that memory and space alike fail us in the attempt to enumerate them. One charm—generally a thin oblong slab of wood inscribed with the name of the great shrine of Narita—is constantly worn by members of the middle and lower classes in Tōkyō, being hung round the neck by a string next to the skin. It is supposed to protect the wearer against accidents. Women often wear it over their sash. Children habitually have a bright-coloured "charm-bag" hung at their side, as described in the Article on Things Japanese/Dress

 Chauvinism. Japan has not escaped, in these latter days, the wave of "jingo" feeling that has swept round the world, making