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The greater part of the city lies behind you and off at your left. That is the Kamo river you see yonder and part of this procession is just coming over across Schichijo bridge from the Shinto temple of Inari, sacred to the Goddess of Rice. The temple itself is over on the other side of the river, farther towards the south (right) than you can see now. That white building at the left, beyond the river, is the Imperial Museum. The procession is bound now for a shrine near the Shinto temple of Toji, behind you in the southern suburbs of the town.

This is the first of two days devoted in early May of each year to such a religious festival. To-day the chief priests and minor priests and temple attendants are carrying various sacred objects, under those veiled canopies, to the other shrine; tomorrow the venerated objects will all be brought back again while crowds of people line the road as you see them to-day.

Those swinging, pagoda-like structures are heavy with glittering metal and gay with colored hangings; it is no small task to support and carry their weight by means of those upright poles. The bearers chant loudly as they move along and the bystanders are more or less seriously interested, according to temperament. Some feel a devotional significance in the pageant and others probably enjoy it merely as a beautiful show, without any special thought of whatever it may symbolize. The Shinto faith does not seem to make any great demands on the emotional nature of its adherents. It is a combination of nature worship and ancestor worship which cultivates the serene proprieties of life though it may not throw much light on either philosophical questions or moral perplexities.

(For very intelligent and sympathetic explanations of Japanese religious ideas, see Lafeadio Hearn's "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.")

From Notes of Travel, No. 8, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.


A Gay Procession Carrying Sacred Objects through Street, Kyoto, Japan.
Procession Bigarrée qui Porte des Objets Sacrés par la Rue, Kioto, Japon.
Eine bunte Prozession, geheiligte Gegenstände durch die Straßen tragend, Kioto, Japan.
Procesión Abigarrada Llevando Objetos Sagrados por la Calle, Kioto, Japón.
En lysande procession bärande heliga föremål genom gatan, Kyoto, Japan.
Изящная процессія съ святыми предметами на улицѣ, Кіото, Японія.