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trees with consecrated axes, turning the sod with consecrated mattocks, and finished the entire structure with the aid of craftsmen. Thus completed, the houses and the gates were consecrated by the Imbe with the prescribed ceremonial rites of Shinto (124), and became actually fit for worship. Against these dear old Shinto customs and usage, the services of the Imbe Family are wholly dispensed with today, whether for re-building the Ise Shrine or erecting the sacred tabernacles (125) or pavilions for the Great Harvest Festival (126) at a new Emperor’s enthronement. Is this not a gross injustice to the time-honoured privilege of the Imbe Family?
Fifth, the Otono-Hogai or Shinto Ceremony for Blessing the Great Palace, and the Religious Service for the Guardian Gods of the Imperial Gates were both originally entrusted to Futotama-no-Mikoto (127), so it is beyond dispute that the Imbe Family alone should enjoy the time-honoured hierarchic privilege in both cases of Shinto worship, while, as the Nakatomi as well as the Imbe used to attend to the Shinto rites and ceremonies conjointly, being the officially commissioned priests of the Shinto Bureau, the officers of the Imperial Household Department, they were accustomed to report themselves in the following words: “Both Nakatomi and Imbe are present at the August Gates in order that they may solemnize the Shinto Ceremony for Blessing the Great Palace.”
In the Hoki (129)[errata 1] Era, however, it was Nakatomi-no-Asomi-Tsune of the Junior Sub-Fifth Court Rank (219)[errata 2] and the Third Rank of the Imperial Household Department who arbitrarily
