[*On the kamidana, "or god-shelf," there is usually placed a kind of oblong paper-box containing fragments of the wands used by the priests of Ise at the great national purification-ceremony, or o-harai. This box is commonly called by the name of the ceremony, o-harai, or "august purification," and is inscribed with the names of the great gods of Ise. The presence of this object is supposed to protect the home; but it should be replaced by a new o-harai at the expiration of six months; for the virtue of the charm is supposed to last only during the interval between two official purifications. This distribution to thousands of homes of fragments of the wands, used to "drive away evils" at the time of the Ise lustration, represents of course the supposed extension of the high-priest's protection to those homes until the time of the next o-harai. The modern domestic form of the harai is very simple. Each Shinto parish-temple furnishes to all its Ujiko, or parishioners, small paper-cuttings called hitogata ("mankind-shapes"), representing figures of men, women, and children as in silhouette,--only that the paper is white, and folded curiously. Each household receives a number of hitogata corresponding to the number of its members,--"men-shapes" for the men and boys, "women-shapes"] _________________________________________________________________ [148] for the women and girls. Each person in the house touches his head, face, limbs, and body with one of these hitogata; repeating the while a Shinto invocation, and praying that any misfortune or sickness incurred by reason of offences involuntarily committed against the gods (for in Shinto belief sickness and misfortune are divine punishments) may be mercifully taken away. Upon each hitogata is then written the age and sex (not the name) of the person for whom it was furnished; and when this has been done, all are returned to the parish-temple, and there burnt, with rites of purification. Thus the community is "lustrated" every six Months.