"He says: 'More especially would I enjoin on the kannushi and hafuri with all due ceremony to receive, take up, and present the offerings purely provided by the Imbe, hanging stout straps on weak shoulders.'_" A special embassy was sent to Ise, consisting of one Prince, one Nakatomi, one Imbe, and one Urabe. In the third decade of the tenth month the Mikado went in state to a river-bank near Kioto and performed a ceremonial ablution (_misogi_). For one month before the Ohonihe lesser abstinence (_ara-imi_) was enjoined, and for three days greater abstinence (_ma-imi_). Buddhist ceremonies, and the eating of impure food, were interdicted throughout the five home provinces. Purity of language[225] was also necessary. During the three days of _ma-imi_, no official was allowed to do any work except that connected with the ceremony. Special buildings were erected for the Ohonihe at Kitano, a suburb of Kiōto. After a purification ceremony, a site 480 feet square was marked out by twigs of _sakaki_ hung with tree-fibre. On the arrival of the _yuki_ and _suki_ rice from the provinces, this site was propitiated. The Brewer-maidens then with a pure mattock turned the first sod and dug the holes for the four corner posts. The Urabe went to the mountain where the timber was to be cut, and worshipped the God of the mountain. The Brewer-maiden struck the first blow with a pure axe, and wood-cutters completed the work. Similar formalities were practised in cutting the grass for thatch and in digging wells. The sacred enclosure (_yu-niha_) was divided into two sections, an inner and an outer, and contained numerous buildings, such as shrines to the eight Gods already mentioned, storehouses for the rice and other necessaries, lodgings for the Brewer-maidens and their assistants, kitchens, &c. The site of the principal building, or Ohonihe no Miya, measured 214 feet by 150 feet. It was erected after the others and was in duplicate, one being for the _yuki_, the other for the _suki_. Each was forty feet long by sixteen feet wide. The roof-tree ran north and south. Undressed wood was used for the erection, which was covered by a roof of thatch. The floor was strewn with bundles of grass over which bamboo mats were placed. In the centre of the sleeping-chamber (the sanctum) several white _tatami_ (thick mats) were laid down and upon them the _Saka-makura_, which was a cushion three feet broad by four feet long, for the use of the God or Gods.[226] This was called the "Deity seat." The Mikado's seat was placed to the south of it.