purest fire--that holy natural fire which lies hidden within all things.
Therefore in some little closet in the home of any strictly orthodox
Shinto family there is always a small box containing the ancient
instruments used for the lighting of' holy fire. These consist of the
hi-uchi-ishi, or 'fire-strike-stone'; the hi-uchi-gane, or steel; the
hokuchi, or tinder, made of dried moss; and the tsukegi, fine slivers of
resinous pine. A little tinder is laid upon the flint and set
smouldering with a few strokes of the steel, and blown upon until it
flames. A slip of pine is then ignited at this flame, and with it the
lamps of the ancestors and the gods are lighted. If several great
deities are represented in the miya or upon the kamidana by several
ofuda, then a separate lamp is sometimes lighted for each; and if there
be a butsuma in the dwelling, its tapers or lamp are lighted at the same
time.


Although the use of the flint and steel for lighting the lamps of the
gods will probably have become obsolete within another generation, it
still prevails largely in Izumo, especially in the country districts.
Even where the safety-match has entirely supplanted the orthodox
utensils, the orthodox sentiment shows itself in the matter of the
choice of matches to be used. Foreign matches are inadmissible: the
native matchmaker quite successfully represented that foreign matches
contained phosphorus 'made from the bones of dead animals,' and that to
kindle the lights of the Kami with such unholy fire would be sacrilege.
In other parts of Japan the matchmakers stamped upon their boxes the
words: 'Saikyo go honzon yo' (Fit for the use of the August High Temple
of Saikyo). [20] But Shinto sentiment in Izumo was too strong to be
affected much by any such declaration: indeed, the recommendation of the
matches as suitable for use in a Shin-shu temple was of itself