himself as a journalist. I went to see the clean wooden cell
where topers are confined until they are sober. It had a very low
door, so that culprits might be compelled to enter and leave humbly on
their knees.

We had begun our festival day at six in the morning by attending a
celebration at the Shinto shrine. "Although it is no longer necessary,
perhaps, to attend the ceremony in a special kind of _geta_," said our
landlady, "it would be as well if you observed the old rule not to
attend without taking a bath in the early morning."[119]

At the ancient shrine the townspeople whose turn it was to attend the
annual function had assembled in ceremonial costumes. One man wore his
hair tied up in the fashion of the old prints. The plaintive strains
of old instruments made the strange appeal of all folk music. A
decorous procession was headed by the piebald pony of the shrine.
Youths and maidens carried aloft tubs of rice, vegetables, fish and
_sake_. These were received by the chief priest. He carefully placed a
strip of cloth before his mouth and nose[120] and addressed the chief
deity, all heads being bowed. Then the priest placed the offerings in
the darkened interior of the shrine. There was a cheery naturalness in
all the proceedings. A few small children in gay holiday dress ran
freely among the worshippers and encountered indulgent smiles. When an
end had been made of offering food and drink the priest within the
shrine read a second message to the deity. Again all heads were bowed.
His thin voice was heard in the morning quiet, interrupted only by a
child's cry, the twittering of birds and the wind rustling the
cryptomeria, dark against the blue of the hills.

After the ceremony the food and drink which had been brought by the
people were consumed by the priests and the country folk in a large
room of the chief priest's house. We were given ceremonial _sake_ to
which rice had been added and as mementoes little cakes and dried
fish. Not so long ago the presence of a foreigner would have been
unwelcome at such a ceremony as we had witnessed: the fear of
"contagion of foreigners" extended even to people from another
prefecture. To-day the amiable priest placed in our hands for a few
moments a small Buddha supposed to be six centuries old.

Before the festival the priest had observed certain taboos for eight
days. He had avoided meeting persons in mourning and his food had been
cooked at a specially prepared fire.