Gohei

What it is

A gohei is a plain wooden wand that carries two streamers of cut paper, folded into a zigzag and known as shide. The same object is also called onbe, written with the same characters, 御幣, and heisoku. It belongs to Shinto ceremony in Japan. Priests and miko, the shrine attendants, handle it in rites: passed over or touched to a person or a thing, it is believed to purify and bless, and its sweeping through a shrine hall is held to clear the space. It can hang as ornament on shimenawa rope, or stand in a sanctuary as shintai, the visible thing worshippers address for an unseen kami. Carrying just a pair of streamers, it reads as the barest form of the many-streamer ōnusa.

Where it comes from

The wand began as a gift rather than a tool. Its older ancestor was the mitegura: lengths of cloth bound to a pole and raised up for the kami. In time the flat sheets of cloth, and later paper, were traded for narrow strips folded into the crinkled zigzag now called shide, hung along the staff. The Engishiki, a compendium that preserves Shinto liturgy, keeps norito, its prayer texts, which sort these heihaku gifts into four kinds: food (shinsen), sake (omiki), garments and arms. A later scheme pared that down to cloth gifts, yū and nigite, alongside the gohei itself. Step by step, an offering turned into an implement, though it still carries the shape of a gift.

How it is done

The gesture is simple to watch. A priest or miko lifts the wand and moves it over, or touches it to, whatever is to receive blessing, a worshipper or an object brought to the shrine. Broad sweeps through a sanctuary are read as purifying the ground itself. Where a thing is thought to hold unclean energy, the same passing of the wand counts as driving the taint out. Fixed to shimenawa, the heavy straw ropes strung across holy precincts, the streamers also mark a boundary without a hand near them. Inside a sanctuary a gohei may be stood as mishōtai, a body that receives the kami's spirit, or set before the kami as ornament, a place a mirror might hold instead.

Tools and materials

The staff is wood. At its head sit the shide, paper strips folded into a zigzag; white is the common colour, with gold, silver and jade shades also made, and some wands wear several colours together. The same streamers serve as ornament on shimenawa, the thick straw ropes that ring off shrine precincts. Size carries meaning too: a wand crowned with many shide is an ōnusa, and the two-streamer gohei is that implement pared down.

What it is for

Cleansing comes first. The wand's everyday office is purification: freshening sacred ground in temples, and blessing or sweeping clean whatever is brought to a shrine, people included. Where an object is held to carry a charge of unclean energy, the rite over it is described as exorcism, a sending-away of that taint. Then comes veneration. Mounted in a shrine, a gohei can be shintai, the object worshippers address for a kami they cannot see, or mishōtai, the seat of that spirit. And because it grew out of heihaku offerings, it keeps an older sense as well: a gift standing open before the kami.

What people believe

Behind the wand stands Shinto's world of kami. Because worship needs something to rest on, a mirror may stand before a kami, and so may a gohei. Set inside a sanctuary as mishōtai, the wand is thought to house the kami's spirit; as shintai it is simply what veneration lands on. Purity governs the rest. Ground, objects and people are held to gather taint as ordinary life goes on, and the wand's passing is believed to lift it. The heihaku lists in the Engishiki show the same logic of giving: garments, arms, sake and food once went to the kami, and the wand began as cloth on a pole, a gift like any other.

Compare and confuse

The nearest kin is the ōnusa, a wand hung with many shide; a two-streamer gohei can be counted that tool in its plainest dress. Inau, wooden wands of the Ainu, are a separate tradition with a look much like it. The gohei also works in company with shimenawa, the rope that marks holy ground.

Today

Gohei remain part of ordinary shrine life in Japan. Priests and miko still lift them in purification rites, and their shide flutter from shimenawa ropes wherever sacred precincts need marking. Older uses are recorded as history rather than current custom, such as keeping a gohei inside a sanctuary as mishōtai, a seat for the kami's spirit. Even the kitchen remembers the wand: a food called goheimochi is said to take its name from it.

Questions people ask about Gohei

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle

• Gohei on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data