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with respect to offerings is not perfectly uniform, either as to the articles offered, or the days on which this is done, but no one omits the sake. Every evening, too a lighted wick floating in a saucer of oil is placed in the kami-dana.
Hirata would add to the o-harai of the two gods of Ise and the fuda of the other gods worshipped in this way an image of Sohodo no kami, the scarecrow. Concerning this god he says, ‘Sohodo no kami, also called Kuye-biko, is the scare-crow placed in the fields to frighten away birds and animals, and though it is a very ugly and miserable creature, the divine books say of it “this is a god which knows everything in the empire, although his legs are unable to walk.” As the spirits of all the gods have recourse to it, and perform wonders, it is a very dreadful deity, and therefore an image of it should be placed before the door of the shrine for the spirits of the gods who are bidden thither to rest upon.’ The ancient legend says that as Oho-kuni-nushi was walking along the shore, he saw a tiny god coming towards him on the crests of the waves, in a boat made of the milkweed shell, and dressed in the skin of a wren. When asked his name, he was silent, and none of the gods who were in Oho-kuni-nushi’s following could tell. Then the taniguku[1] spoke, and said, “Kuyebiko will know.” So they called Kuyebiko, who replied, on being asked, “This is Sukunabikona, the child of the Musubi no kami.”
The following prayer is to be addressed to the kami-dana.
“Reverently adoring the great god of the two palaces of Isé in the first place, the eight hundred myriads of celestial gods, the eight hundred myriads of terrestrial gods, all the fifteen hundred myriads[2] of gods to whom are consecrated the great and small temples in all provinces, all islands and all places of the Great Land of Eight Islands, the fifteen hundreds of
