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So sacred was the secret of that rite, that the Bekkwa could not even utter it until after he was dead, to his successor in office. Therefore, when he died, the body was laid upon the matting of a certain inner chamber of the temple, and the son was left alone with the corpse, after all the doors had been carefully closed.
Now while the great Deity Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami is passing through the streets, he is followed by the highest Shinto priest of the shrine this kannushi having been formerly called Bekkwa.
The word 'Bekkwa' means 'special' or 'sacred fire'; and the chief kannushi was so called because for a week before the festival he had been nourished only with special food cooked with the sacred fire, so that he might be pure in the presence of the God. And the office of Bekkwa was hereditary; and the appellation at last became a family name.
So on that day of the Minige nobody used to go out into the streets after a certain hour, and even now very few of the people of the little city leave their homes during the festival. After having followed the deity through all the city, the Bekkwa used to perform, between two and three o'clock in the darkness of the morning, some secret rite by the seaside.
But he who performs the rite to-day is no longer called Bekkwa. Now while performing his function, if the Bekkwa met anyone upon the street, he ordered him to stand aside with the words: 'Dog, give way! And the common people believed, and still believe, that anybody thus spoken to by the officiating kannushi would be changed into a dog.
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