Tokushu shinji

   Special shrine ceremonies or rites. A term used since the Meiji period to identify an archaic or otherwise important local rite or element within a festival unique to a particular shrine. Examples include many of the five annual festivals (go sekkai), yabusame, kurabe-uma (horse races) and rites with a Chinese or Buddhist flavour such as the new year s shusho-e or a tsuina rite where people dressed as devils try to enter the shrine or temple and are chased away by priests. Two specific examples are the Mi-are matsuri for the selection of seeds held on May 12th at the Kamo Wake-ikazuchi jinja and the morotabune (many-handed boat) matsuri at Miho jinja, Shimane. The boat race recapitulates an episode from the Izumo fudoki in which a kami pulled areas of land together. A list of 'special rites' was developed over many years and finalised in a register published in 1941, but the Jinja Honcho today does not maintain a category of such rites. Some of these rites are believed to have very ancient origins and contain elements not shown to the public.