Yorishiro

Because of Shinto's nature, yorishiro are often natural objects like trees. Significantly, in ancient Japanese texts the words 神社 ("shrine"; now normally read as jinja) and 社 were sometimes read as yashiro ("sacred place"), but also sometimes read as mori ("grove"), reflecting the fact that the earliest shrines were simply sacred groves or forests where kami were present.[5] (Part of the reading disparity may have been due to the confusion between similar characters 社 and 杜.) Many shrines still have on their grounds one of the original great yorishiro, a great tree surrounded by a sacred rope called shimenawa (標縄・注連縄・七五三縄).[1] Now such trees have become divine by association, and no longer simply represent a kami.[1]

Shinto altars called himorogi are usually just square areas demarcated with sakaki (Cleyera japonica) at the corners supporting sacred border ropes (shimenawa).[6] A branch of sakaki at the center is erected as a yorishiro.[6]

A maneki-neko is supposed to attract the kami of luck

Rock sects are also common. An iwakura is simply a rock formation where a kami is invited to descend, and is therefore holy ground.[7] With time, through a process of association, the iwakura itself can come to be considered divine.[7] Archeological research in Japan confirms these sects to be ancient.[7] In shrines, even today stones considered to be related to the shrine's kami are used to make food offerings to the kami.[7]

An iwasaka is a stone altar or mound erected as a yorishiro to call a kami for worship.[8] The concepts of iwasaka and iwakura are so close that some suggest the two words are in fact synonymous.[8]

Yorishiro are, however, most numerous in people's homes.[4] During the New Year's holidays people decorate their entrances with kadomatsu, which are the yorishiro of the new year's kami.[4][9] Kamifuda, plaques of wood or pieces of paper (similar to an ofuda) representing the kami, are hung above the door.[4] There are kami who dwell in the toilet (benjō-gami) and in the well (suijin).[4] The kamado-gami lives in the oven, and its function is to protect the house from fires.[4] Other common yorishiro are the small altar called kamidana and the butsudan, which is an altar for the dead.[4] (Butsudan were originally meant just for Buddhist worship, but now often contain also spirit tablets called ihai, which are yorishiro used to recall the spirits of one's dead ancestors).[4] In shops one often sees clay cats with a raised paw called maneki-neko or rake-like bamboo objects called kumade supposed to attract good business.[4]