The September 29th issue of Jinja Shinpō had an article on the front page about the next major matsuri in the Shikinen Sengū (式年遷宮) at Isë Jingū (伊勢神宮), the Mifunashirosai (御船代祭). This is another matsuri for which the Tennō (天皇) sets the date, and it was performed on September 17th at the Inner Sanctuary (Naikū, 内宮), and on the 19th at the Outer Sanctuary (Gekū, 外宮).
The Mifunashiro is the box that contains the box that contains the object, the goshintai (御神体), housing the kami. I think the Minfunashiro is inside another container most of the time, as well. The presence of multiple layers of containment for sacred objects or locations is very common in Shinto. The Mifunashirosai venerates the kami who dwell at the roots of the trees on the mountains from which the timber is sourced, and prays for the safe creation of the Mifunashiro. It is held when the tree from which the Mifunashiro for that sanctuary will be created is felled.
Unlike the Misomahajimesai, however, it is not held at the location of the felling. Instead, it is held at the Miyayama Saijō (宮山祭場), which means “sanctuary mountain matsuri place”, a location in Isë within the precincts of the appropriate sanctuary. It would be interesting to know whether it will move to a site in the forest when the trees are once again sourced from the mountains behind Jingū, but the projections do not suggest I will be alive to see that. (These are not quite the biggest trees used, so it may not be another century, but it is likely to be at least sixty years.)
The ceremony for the Naikū started at 10 am, with seventy people lining up in front of the Saikan (斎館), the building where priests purify themselves before serving. This included both the chief priests of Jingū, along with representatives of the people who will actually work on the buildings, and three young boys. As with the Yamaguchisai and Konomotosai, young children, called Mono’imi (物忌), play a central role in this matsuri. They were all purified with salt, and then proceeded into the sacred enclosure of the Naikū, where the priests announced that the Mifunashirosai would be performed.
When they left that area, a more junior (but not, I think, very junior) priest announced to the Senior Chief Priest that the matsuri would be performed, and the Senior Chief Priest acknowledged that and left, with most of the people. The fifteen who were actually involved in the matsuri itself were purified in front of the Imibiyaden (忌火屋殿), and proceeded to the site of the matsuri, carrying a chest containing the items for the ritual. The ritual site was set up on the eastern side of the path leading to the bridge to Kazahinominomiya (風日祈宮), one of the subsidiary sanctuaries of the Naikū.
The site was marked with a yellow cloth offering in the centre (from the photograph, it looks roughly like a long scarf hanging from a pole stuck vertically in the ground), and blue, red, white, and black at the corners. After one of the priests purified the area, the Mono’imi placed the offerings, which included two white chickens and eggs, in front of the kami, and the priest then read a norito. Everyone then did the eightfold bow, which is the way in which priests pay their respects at Jingū. (Normal people do it the normal way.)
After the offerings had been removed, the Mono’imi used a sacred spade to symbolically bury certain of the offerings (called Imimono (忌物), and not including the chickens), and a sacred sickle to symbolically cut the grass. With the help of a carpenter, he used a sacred axe to symbolically cut down the tree, and at the same time, hundreds of kilometres away, the actual tree was cut down, in Kisodani National Forest. The ceremony at Jingū was closed with a single bow from all participants.
At 11 am, the same ceremony was performed at the same site for the first subsidiary sanctuary, Aramatsurinomiya (荒祭宮), which enshrines the aramitama (荒魂) of Amaterasu Ōmikami. In this case, they started by paying their respects at Aramatsurinomiya, and there was a different Mono’imi, but otherwise the ceremony was the same. Finally, from noon, there was a joint ceremony for the other nine subsidiary sanctuaries (Betsugū, 別宮) of the Naikū, which started by paying respects to all nine of them from a designated location (they are scattered over a considerable area), and again involved a different Mono’imi.
The ceremonies for the Gekū were essentially the same, except that the ritual site was in the precincts of the Gekū, and all the Mono’imi were girls. I am not sure whether that is significant. It is improbable by pure chance, but the Mono’imi at the earlier ceremonies were not divided in this way. Maybe I will read more about it later and find out. In any case, the Mono’imi ranged in age from six to eleven, which means that they are probably all at elementary school.
The description of these ceremonies does help with the mystery of why they need a whole tree to make a box. It looks as though one tree is used to make all the Mifunashiro for the main and subsidiary sanctuaries, so there are eleven boxes at the Naikū and five at the Gekū. I think there would still be wood left over, but at this level it seems more reasonable to treat this as “enough to cover mistakes”, rather than “why do you need a whole tree for this?”.
“I think there would still be wood left over”
I don’t know how much experience with woodworking you have… But wood unavoidably (and not entirely predictably) shrinks as it dries. As the lumber is processed into finished goods, some of it will invariably be lost as sawdust and shavings. Scrap and trim will also be created at various points along the way.
Not a great deal, I admit, so my estimate may be off. Still, I would hope a tree trunk several metres long and the best part of one metre in diameter could still provide more timber than is needed for a box that one person can carry…
That is a bit much, even for the sixteen boxes you mention in the post… But it occurs to me that having that extra wood lets them be *very* picky about how the tree is broken down into rough planks and how the planks are subsequently processed and used. Lacking x-ray vision, there can be hidden imperfections that won’t show themselves until you process the wood. And there’s an art to predicting how the figure (grain pattern) will emerge. Even if the boxes are lacquered, I suspect the figure can affect how the wood takes up the laquer. (Though I have no idea how much this matters to them.)
It’s good to hear that my instinct was not completely wrong. And now that you mention it, I suspect that, for these boxes, they would be extremely picky about the wood and the grain. For the sanctuary buildings, I would expect them to choose good timber, but tolerate small imperfections, but for these boxes they might well look for the closest to perfect they can manage. I do not know — I haven’t yet read anything talking about this specifically — but it would be consistent with how these things often work in Shinto.