=Removal of Impurity. Lustration=.--With every precaution, it is not always possible to avoid the pollution of dirt, disease, and sin. In order, therefore, to do away with the offence to the Gods arising from such impure conditions, various expedients are resorted to. The most natural and universal of these is washing or lustration.[211] The Chinese notices of ancient Japan already quoted from inform us that the Japanese, after the ten days' mourning was concluded, all went into the river and washed. Hirata says that even at the present day, when mourning is over, people go to the bank of a stream or to the sea-beach and cleanse themselves. The mythical account of Izanagi's washing in the sea in order to remove the pollutions of Yomi has been given above. In a fourteenth-century work entitled _Kemmu nenchiu giōgi_, the ablutions of the Mikado previous to the ceremony of Shingonjiki are described with great minuteness; and if this preliminary is usually passed over in descriptions of Shinto ceremonies, the reason no doubt is that it was too well known to require special mention. Clean garments were put on at the same time. Both the Japanese words for the purification ceremony show by their derivation that washing was originally its cardinal feature. _Misogi_ means "body-sprinkling," and _harahi_ is probably the same word as _arahi_, "wash."[212] Penitence is not one of the old Shinto means of purification. =Salt=.--In Japan, as in other countries, the antiseptic quality of salt has led to its religious use as a symbol for, and means of, purification. In a modern _harahi_ ceremony the priest purifies the _himorogi_ with salt water. At the entrances to theatres at the present day a saucer of salt is placed on a table in order to keep out evil influences. The _kaname-ishi_, or pivot stones of the earth,[213] are covered with salt, which is then rubbed on a diseased part in order to obtain relief. "A housewife will not buy salt at night. When obtained in the daytime, a portion of it must first be thrown into the fire to ward off all danger, and especially to prevent quarrelling in the family. It is also used to scatter round the threshold and in the house after a funeral for purificatory purposes."[214]