We have thus--without counting the great Izumo cult of Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami--four classes of ancestor-worship: the domestic religion, the religion of the Ujigami, the worship at the chief shrines [Ichi-no-miya] of the several provinces, and the national cult at Ise. All these cults are now linked together by tradition; and the devout Shintoist worships the divinities of all, collectively, in his daily morning prayer. Occasionally he visits the chief shrine of his province; and he makes a pilgrimage to Ise if he can. Every Japanese is expected to visit the shrines of Ise once in his lifetime, [124] or to send thither a deputy. Inhabitants of remote districts are not all able, of course, to make the pilgrimage; but there is no village which does not, at certain intervals, send pilgrims either to Kitzuki or to Ise on behalf of the community, the expense of such representation being defrayed by local subscription. And, furthermore, every Japanese can worship the supreme divinities of Shinto in his own house, where upon a "god-shelf" (Kamidana) are tablets inscribed with the assurance of their divine protection,--holy charms obtained from the priests of Ise or of Kitzuki. In the case of the Ise cult, such tablets are commonly made from the wood of the holy shrines themselves, which, according to primal custom, must be rebuilt every twenty years,--the timber of the demolished structures being then cut into tablets for distribution throughout the country. Another development of ancestor-worship--the cult of gods presiding over crafts and callings--deserves special study. Unfortunately we are as yet little informed upon the subject. Anciently this worship must have been more definitely ordered and maintained than it is now. Occupations were hereditary; artizans were grouped into guilds--perhaps we might even say castes;--and each guild or caste then probably had in patron-deity. In some cases the craft-gods may have been ancestors [125] of Japanese craftsmen; in other cases they were perhaps of Korean or Chinese origin,--ancestral gods of immigrant artizans, who brought their cults with them to Japan. Not much is known about them. But it is tolerably safe to assume that most, if not all of the guilds, were at one time religiously organized, and that apprentices were adopted not only in a craft, but into a cult. There were corporations of weavers, potters, carpenters, arrow-makers, bow-makers, smiths, boat-builders, and other tradesmen; and the past religious organization of these is suggested by the fact that certain occupations assume a religious character even to-day. For example, the carpenter still builds according to Shinto tradition: he dons a priestly costume at a certain stage of the work, performs rites, and chants invocations, and places the new house under the protection of the gods. But the occupation of the swordsmith was in old days the most sacred of crafts: he worked in