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In every home on these days sake is poured as an offering into the o-mikidokkuri, and in the vases of the kamidana are placed sprays of the holy sakaki, or sprigs of pine, or fresh flowers. But only the ancient gods of Shinto are worshipped before the kamidana.
He prescribed ten prayers for persons having time to repeat them, but lightened the duty for busy folk, observing: "Persons whose daily affairs are so multitudinous that they have not time to go through all the prayers, may content themselves with adoring the residence of the Emperor, the domestic god-shelf, kamidana, the spirits of their ancestors, their local patron-god, Ujigami, the deity of their particular calling."
Should any member of the family be thus buried, then during fifty days the kamidana must be entirely screened from view with pure white paper, and even the Shinto ofuda, or pious invocations fastened upon the house-door, must have white paper pasted over them.
A slip of pine is then ignited at this flame, and with it the lamps of the ancestors and the gods are lighted. If several great deities are represented in the miya or upon the kamidana by several ofuda, then a separate lamp is sometimes lighted for each; and if there be a butsuma in the dwelling, its tapers or lamp are lighted at the same time.
Also I retain a vivid memory of pilgrim-figures poised upon the topmost crags of the summit of Fuji, clapping their hands in prayer, with faces to the East .... Perhaps ten thousand twenty thousand-years ago all humanity so worshipped the Lord of Day .... After having saluted the sun, the worshipper returns to his house, to pray before the Kamidana and before the tablets of the ancestors.
But of late years it has become the fashion to make all the utensils of a fine kamidana of brass or bronze even the hanaike, or flower-vases.
In some houses, notably those of innkeepers and small merchants, the kamidana is made long enough to support a number of small shrines dedicated to different Shinto deities, particularly those believed to preside over wealth and commercial prosperity.
The kamidana or 'God-shelf, upon which are placed the miya and other sacred objects of Shinto worship, is usually fastened at a height of about six or seven feet above the floor.
Very rarely are images to be seen upon a kamidana: for primitive Shintoism excluded images rigidly as Jewish or Mohammedan law; and all Shinto iconography belongs to a comparatively modern era especially to the period of Ryobu-Shinto and must be considered of Buddhist origin.
But the ordinary kamidana is of white wood, and is made larger or smaller in proportion to the size of the miya, or the number of the ofuda and other sacred objects to be placed upon it.
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