Shinto Festival

　　In this entry I'll write about the autumnal festival of Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan. Shinto is popularly taken as one of the religions, but it has no founder and no scripture. I've no idea whether it should be categorized into religion.
　　Anyway, to know what the festival is like, you have to realize the "mikoshi" in the first place, which is translated into mikoshi portable shrine and is the focal point of the festival. The deity of the shrine is believed to enter the mikoshi portable shrine, which the local people carry from place to place around the neighborhood.
　　People take the mikoshi portable shrine, which is kept in every neighborhood at normal times, to their local shrine very early in the morning and it is brought out from the main shrine building and paraded through the streets. It takes short stops at every corner of the neighborhood and celebrates newly built homes or newborn babies. The deities accept peoples' desires at the same time.
　　In ancient times, the Ten-noh and aristocrats in Kyoto would ride in palanquins called "koshi". For the palanquins used to carry the deities, mi, the Japanese word for "god", was added, making the word mikoshi. Gradually, this practice of carrying the deities around local neighborhoods spread throughout the country.
　　Because deities are usually shut away deep inside shrines, annual mikoshi parades like this are a rare chance for the local people to get close to them. Transferring the deities into mikoshi and parading them around the streets... This is the way Japanese people deepen the connection with their local deities.
　　At last, one more thing I have to append; I deeply understood that my body was not built for carrying mikoshi. My whole body is smarting now.

(Vocabulary)
indigenous〈人・慣習・文化などが〉（土地）固有の, 土着の
scripture [C,U] (特定宗教の) 経典, 聖典