Hatsumōde

The practice

Hatsumōde is the first visit of the year to a Shinto shrine, made in the opening days of January. It is the most widely kept of all Shinto practices; the great shrines, such as Meiji Jingū in Tokyo and Fushimi Inari in Kyoto, each receive millions of visitors in the first three days alone.

How it is kept

At the shrine the visitor passes under the torii gate, purifies hands and mouth at the water basin, tosses a coin in the offering box, bows twice, claps twice, and bows once more in prayer. Many buy a hamaya, an arrow to break evil, or draw an omikuji, a paper fortune for the year, and tie the bad ones to a pine or a rack at the shrine to leave them behind.

What it means

The New Year, for Shinto, is a renewal of the world, and hatsumōde lets a whole nation begin it standing in the same queue. The year's first prayer is offered before the year's first work, and the order is the teaching.