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.[218] 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 birth of the child, and are worn up to the age of three. It is thought that evil spirits are diverted into these images from the infant. It is an obvious degradation of these practices when they are used merely to procure good luck instead of to remove impurities offensive to the Gods.
Chi no wa (Reed-ring).--In a modern form of the harahi ceremony there is a kind of purification which consists in passing three times through a large ring made of reeds ([pp. 266, 267]), holding in the hands hemp leaves and reeds, and repeating the verse:--
The sixth month's Summer--passing-away-- Purification Who ever doeth Is said to extend his life To one thousand years.
Or, according to another version:--
To the end that My impure thoughts May be annihilated, These hemp leaves, Cutting with many a cut, I have performed purification.
The Shinto Miōmoku (1699) says that this ring represents the round of the universe. The same work adds that the object of the ceremony is to avert the dangers connected with the change of summer influences to those of autumn. But these explanations have a tincture of Chinese philosophy. The purification of the heart from evil thoughts is also a conception foreign to the older Shinto. The injunction to cleanse the inside of the cup and the platter belongs to a later stage of religious development.
The chi no wa is subsequently flung into the water.
Another means of purification was to shake a gohei over the person or thing to be purified.