The duties of morning worship, which include the placing of offerings before the tablets, are not the only duties of the domestic cult. In a Shinto household, where the ancestors and the higher gods are separately worshipped, the ancestral shrine may be said to correspond with the Roman lararium; while the "god-shelf," with its taima or o-nusa (symbols of those higher gods especially revered by the family), may be compared with the place accorded by Latin custom to the worship of the Penates. Both Shinto cults have their particular feast-days; and, in the case of the ancestor-cult, the feast-days are occasions of religious assembly,--when the relatives of the family should gather to celebrate the domestic rite .... The Shintoist must also take part in the celebration of the festivals of the Ujigami, and must at least aid in the celebration of the nine great national holidays related to the national cult; these nine, out of a total eleven, being occasions of imperial ancestor-worship. The nature of the public rites varied according to [138] the rank of the gods. Offerings and prayers were made to all; but the greater deities were worshipped with exceeding ceremony. To-day the offerings usually consist of food and rice-wine, together with symbolic articles representing the costlier gifts of woven stuffs presented by ancient custom. The ceremonies include processions, music, singing, and dancing. At the very small shrines there are few ceremonies,--only offerings of food are presented. But at the great temples there are hierarchies of priests and priestesses (miko)--usually daughters of priests; and the ceremonies are elaborate and solemn. It is particularly at the temples of Ise (where, down to the fourteenth century the high-priestess was a daughter of emperors), or at the great temple of Izumo, that the archaic character of the ceremonial can be studied to most advantage. There, in spite of the passage of that huge wave of Buddhism, which for a period almost submerged the more ancient faith, all things remain as they were a score of centuries ago;--Time, in those haunted precincts, would seem to have slept, as in the enchanted palaces of fairy-tale. The mere shapes of the buildings, weird and tall, startle by their unfamiliarity. Within, all is severely plain and pure: there are no images, no ornaments, no symbols visible--except those strange paper-cuttings (gohei), suspended to upright rods, which are symbols of offerings and also tokens of the [139] viewless. By the number of them in the sanctuary, you know the number of the deities to whom the place is consecrate. There is nothing imposing but the space, the silence, and the suggestion of the past. The innermost shrine is veiled: it contains, perhaps, a mirror of bronze, an ancient sword, or other object enclosed in multiple wrappings: that is all. For this faith, older than icons, needs no images: its gods are ghosts; and the void stillness of its shrines compels more awe than tangible