delivers it over to his successor. This ceremony is called _hi-tsugi_ (fire-continuance). It is curious that the same term (_hitsugi_) is constantly used of the succession to the Mikado's throne, and that the delivery of the sun-mirror formed part of the ceremony used on his accession. _Hi_ means either sun or fire. The old fire-drill was worshipped every New Year's day at Idzumo at a festival called _hi no matsuri_ (fire or sun-festival). A fire-drill was among the objects carried in procession at the _Ohonihe_, or coronation ceremony, and was used to produce the fire used for cooking the sacred rice offered on this occasion. A modern Japanese writer, describing a festival celebrated at Gion in Kiôto on the last day of the year, says: "A big bonfire burns within the precincts of the shrine. It has been kindled from a year-old flame tended in a lamp under the eaves of the sacred building, and people come there to light a taper, which, burning before the household altar, shall be the beacon of domestic prosperity. At 2 A.M. the Festival of Pine Shavings takes place. A Shinto priest reads a ritual. His colleagues obtain a spark by the friction of two pieces of wood, and set fire to a quantity of shavings packed into a large iron lamp. These charred fragments of pine wood the worshippers receive and carry away as amulets against plague and pestilence." A Japanese book written two centuries ago informs us that sticks resembling the wands used for offerings at the purification ceremony were part shaven and set up in bundles at the four corners of the Gion shrine on the last day of the year. The priests, after prayers were recited, broke up the bundles and set fire to the sticks, which the people then carried home to light their household fires with for the New Year.[209] The object of this ceremony was to avert pestilence. There is here a striking resemblance to the Christian practice mentioned by M. D'Alviella: "The fire which the clergy, on the dawn of Easter, had struck from the flint and steel, served to rekindle the fires of individuals which had all been previously extinguished." The use of such fire to prevent pestilence may also be illustrated from European customs. The need-fire, made by striking flints or by the fire-drill, and used to rekindle all household fires, is one of numerous examples.[210]