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Most of those I have seen in the shops had their several parts joined only with rice-paste; but the skill of the maker rendered this sufficient. Pure Shinto requires that a miya should be without gilding or ornamentation.
Some of the Matsudaira slumber in Buddhist ground, guarded by tortoises and lions of stone, in the marvellous old courts of Gesshoji. But Naomasa, the founder of their long line, is enshrined at Rakuzan; and the Izumo peasants still clap their hands in prayer before his miya, and implore his love and protection.
At night, and also during the day upon certain festivals, both candles and a small oil-lamp are lighted in the butsuma a lamp somewhat differently shaped from the lamp of the miya and called rinto On the day of each month corresponding to the date of death a little repast is served before the tablets, consisting of shojin-ryori only, the vegetarian food of the. Buddhists.
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.
There is a lofty flight of steps here also, and before them a structure which I know is both a gate and a symbol, imposing, yet in no manner resembling the great Buddhist gateway seen before. Astonishingly simple all the lines of it are: it has no carving, no colouring, no lettering upon it; yet it has a weird solemnity, an enigmatic beauty. It is a torii. 'Miya, observes Cha.
Yokka-ichi is a small seaport, whence most travellers along the Tokaido take passage to Miya in the steam passenger launches plying between these points. The kuruma road, however, continues good to the Ku-wana, ten miles farther, whence, to Miya, one has to traverse narrower paths through a flat section of rice-fields, dikes, canals, and sloughs.
But sometimes, upon the way, they see the Yuki-Onna. Each side of the street leading to the miya was illuminated with a line of paper lanterns bearing holy symbols; and the immense court of the temple had been transformed into a town of booths, and shops, and temporary theatres. In spite of the cold, the crowd was prodigious.
The signification of the yuzuri-leaf I explained in a former paper. But the great domestic display of the festival is the decoration of the kamidana the shelf of the Gods. Before the household miya are placed great double rice cakes; and the shrine is beautiful with flowers, a tiny shimekazari, and sprays of sakaki.
This shrine is surrounded by a light outer gallery which is not visible from the lower court; and from this gallery one can study some remarkable friezes occupying the spaces above the doorways and below the eaves friezes surrounding the walls of the miya. These, although exposed for many centuries to the terrific weather of the western coast, still remain masterpieces of quaint carving.
About a mile and a half from Matsue, at the little village of Kawachi-mura, on the river called Kawachi, stands a little temple called Kawako-no-miya, or the Miya of the Kappa. The story goes that in ancient times the Kappa dwelling in the Kawachi used to seize and destroy many of the inhabitanta of the village and many domestic animals.
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