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Updated: June 7, 2025
The gauze hanging over them throws reflections as of the sea upon them; one might suppose them victims drowned in an aquarium. And withal the sacred lamps, the altar crowded with strange Shintoist symbols, give a mock religious air to this family tableau. 'Honi soit qui mal y pense', but why is not that maidservant rather laid by the side of her mistresses?
Every day I wake to the sound of this Shintoist litany chanted beneath me, vibrating through the exquisite clearness of the summer mornings, while our night-lamps burn low before the smiling Buddha, while the eternal sun, scarcely risen, already sends through the cracks of our wooden panels its bright rays, which dart like golden arrows through our darkened dwelling and our blue gauze tent.
There is even a little Shintoist altar, before which Madame Prune has not been able to restrain her feelings, and before which she has fallen down and chanted her prayers in her bleating old nanny-goat voice: "Wash me clean from all my impurity, oh Ama-Térace-Omi-Kami, as one washes away uncleanness in the river of Kamo."
The Buddhist, according to his sect, murmurs Namu-myo-ho-ren-ge-kyo, or Namu Amida Butsu, or some other holy words of prayer or of praise to the Buddha, ere commencing his prayer to the ancestors. The words said to them are seldom spoken aloud, either by Shintoist or Buddhist: they are either whispered very low under the breath, or shaped only within the heart.
A Shinto funeral is an occasion for rejoicing, because the departed one may be a step farther on the way to God, and since his ancestors were directly responsible, as a favor, for his occasion to become reborn, thus fulfilling the law of karma, the Shintoist pays much respect to his ancestors.
The Mitama-San have also their particular lamps and flower-vases, and, though in lesser degree, are honoured with rites like those of the Kami. The prayers uttered before the ihai of either faith begin with the respective religious formulas of Shinto or of Buddhism. The Shintoist, clapping his hands thrice or four times, first utters the sacramental Harai-tamai.
There is even a little Shintoist altar, before which Madame Prune has not been able to restrain her feelings, and before which she has fallen down and chanted her prayers in her bleating, goat-like voice: "Wash me clean from all my impurity, O Ama-Terace-Omi-Kami! as one washes away uncleanness in the river of Kamo."
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