tly
Nakatomi family sent annually to the temples at Ise, the Mecca of
Shint[=o]. The _sevran_ referred to in the ritual is the Mikado. This
word and all the others printed in capitals are so rendered in order to
express in English the force of "an untranslatable honorific syllable,
supposed to be originally identical with a root meaning 'true,' but no
longer possessing that signification." Instead of the word "earth," that
of "country" (Japan) is used as the correlative of Heaven.

Ritual in Praise of the Sun-goddess.

He (the priest-envoy) says: Hear all of you, ministers of the
gods and sanctifiers of offerings, the great ritual, the
heavenly ritual, declared in the great presence of the
From-Heaven-Shining-Great-DEITY, whose praises are fulfilled by
setting up the stout pillars of the great HOUSE, and exalting
the cross-beams to the plain of high heaven at the sources of
the Isuzu River at Uji in Watarai.

He says: It is the sovran's great WORD. Hear all of you,
ministers of the gods and sanctifiers of offerings, the
fulfilling of praises on this seventeenth day of the sixth moon
of this year, as the morning sun goes up in glory, of the
Oho-Nakatomi, who--having abundantly piled up like a range of
hills the TRIBUTE thread and sanctified LIQUOR and FOOD
presented as of usage by the people of the deity's houses
attributed to her in the three departments and in various
countries and places, so that she deign to bless his [the
Mikado's] LIFE as a long LIFE, and his AGE as a luxuriant AGE
eternally and unchangingly as multitudinous piles of rock; may
deign to bless the CHILDREN who are born to him, and deigning to
cause to flourish the five kinds of grain which the men of a
hundred functions and the peasants of the countries in the four
quarters of the region under heaven long and peacefully
cultivate and eat, and guarding and benefiting them to deign to
bless them--is hidden by the great offering-wands.

In the Imperial City the ritual services were very imposing. Those in
expectation of the harvest were held in the great hall of the
Jin-Gi-Kuan, or Council of the Gods of Heaven and Earth. The description
of the ceremonial is given by Mr. Satow.[11] In the prayers offered to
the sun-goddess for harvest, and in thanksgiving to her for bestowing
dominion over land and sea upon her descendant the Mikado, occurs the
foll