scribed with possible names. Three or five is the usual number. The priest rolls them up separately, puts them into a bowl, and after due incarnation angles for them with a gohei upon a wand. Whichever the gohei fishes out first is the god-given name the child is to bear; a convenient custom when a father is in doubt between the far-eastern equivalents of Tom, Dick, or Harry. This ceremony takes place when the infant is a week old. It is not to be confounded with the miya mairi, which takes place a month after birth and is not our christening at all, but akin to the Hebraic presentation of the child at the temple. For at the miya mairi the child, named some weeks before, is presented to its guardian god and formally put under his protection. This style of christening is also largely performed by the pilgrim clubs.
The third method of getting the babe a name is by possession pure and simple. The nakaza goes into his trance, the god descending through the gohei, and the maeza asks the god what he will have the baby called, to which the god makes reply. This method of christening one's child is reputed
