HatsumÅde
Hatsumōde (Japanese初 诣) or Hatsumairi (初参り) is a Japanese custom, (usually on the first day of the new year and usually together with family or friends ) to visit a Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine to the Japanese New Year. On this occasion (only small sums usually) is usually prayed for divine protection and personal happiness for the new year, each sanctuary donated money and you often acquires new O- Mamori ( talismans ).
The number of participants has increased steadily in recent decades; In 1979 it was 56%, in 1994 already 62 % of the population. Today, take about three quarters of all Japanese part of the hatsumode. Temples and shrines recorded during this period, the highest attendance of the year, with particularly popular sanctuaries (including Meiji Shrine, Narita -san Shinsho -ji, Heiken -ji, Fushimi Inari Taisha, Atsuta- jingū, Sumiyoshi Taisha, Sensō -ji and Tsurugaoka Hachiman- gū ) are the several million.
The origins of the first in the Meiji period to a regular tradition that has become national distribution hatsumode are unclear, one assumes, however, that it and its present form mainly from the mixing of older Onmyodo - customs, so the Toshigomori (年 笼) the Ehōmairi (恵 方 参or恵方 詣り) or Ehōmōde (恵 方 诣) has received. When Toshigomori the believer ( Ujigami ) draws from the last night of the old year to the new day in the shrine of his patron deity and remains there awake all the time in the presence of the deity. Ehōmairi is the practice of making a pilgrimage to a shrine or a temple in an auspicious direction ( EHO ) to where the auspicious Gods of the New Year, the Toshigami (歳 神or年 神) or Toshitokujin (歳 徳 神or年 徳 神 ) to meet, and to avoid the curse -making gods who Tatarigami (祟り 神).