Besides these 3,132
shrines, which are distinguished as Shikidai, that is contained in the
catalogue of the Yengishiki, there were a large number of enumerated
shrines in temples scattered all over the country, in every village or
hamlet, of which it was impossible to take any account, just as at the
present day there are temples of Hachiman, Kompira, Tenjin sama, San-no
sama and Sengen sama, as they are popularly called, wherever twenty or
thirty houses are collected together. The shrines are classed as great
and small, the respective numbers being 492 and 2,640, the distinction
being twofold, firstly in the proportionately larger quantity of
offerings made at the great shrines, and secondly that the offerings in
the one case were arranged upon tables or altars, while in the other
they were placed on mats spread upon the earth. In the Yengishiki the
amounts and nature of the offerings are stated with great minuteness,
but it will be sufficient if the kinds of articles offered are alone
mentioned here. It will be seen, by comparison with the text of the
norito, that they had varied somewhat since the date when the ritual was
composed. The offerings to a greater shrine consisted of coarse woven
silk (_ashiginu_), thin silk of five different colors, a kind of stuff
called _shidori_ or _shidzu_, which is supposed by some to have been a
striped silk, cloth of broussonetia bark or hemp, and a small quantity
of the raw materials of which the cloth was made, models of swords, a
pair of tables or altars (called _yo-kura-oki_ and _ya-kura-oki_), a
shield or mantlet, a spear-head, a bow, a quiver, a pair of stag's
horns, a hoe, a few measures of sake or rice-beer, some haliotis and
bonito, two measures of _kituli_ (supposed to be salt roe), various
kinds of edible seaweed, a measure of salt, a sake jar, and a few feet
of matting for packing.
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