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is a form of Shinto offering made from a ''sakaki''-tree branch decorated with shide strips of washi paper, silk, or cotton. At Japanese weddings, funerals, miyamairi and other ceremonies at Shinto shrines, ''tamagushi'' are ritually presented to the ''kami'' (spirits or gods) by parishioners or kannushi priests. ==Linguistic history== The Japanese word ''tamagushi'' is usually written with the ''kanji'' ''tama'' 玉 "jade; gem; jewel; precious; ball; bead" and ''kushi'' 串 "string together; skewer; spit; stick", or sometimes written 玉ぐし with ''hiragana'' since the official Tōyō kanji do not include 串. The earliest recorded transcription of ''tamagushi'' is 玉籤, using ''kuji'' 籤 "bamboo slip; (divination) lot; written oracle; raffle; lottery" instead of ''kushi''. The (ca. 720 CE) ''Nihon Shoki'' "Chronicles of Japan", which repeatedly mentions a 500-branched ''masakaki'' 真榊 "true ''sakaki''" tree (tr. Aston 1896:43, 47, 121), is the ''locus classicus'' for ''tamagushi'' 玉籤. This mytho-history records a legend that when the sun-goddess Amaterasu got angry with her brother Susano'o and closed the door on the "Rock-cave of Heaven", the gods decorated a giant ''sakaki'' tree in order to lure the sun out of the darkness. Then all the Gods were grieved at this, and forthwith caused Ama no nuka-do no Kami, the ancestor of the Be (guild" ) of mirror-makers, to make a mirror, Futo-dama, the ancestor of the Imibe (clan ), to make offerings, and Toyo-tama, the ancestor of the Be of jewel-makers, to make jewels. They also caused Yama-Tuschi () to procure eighty precious combs of the five-hundred-branched true sakaki tree, and Nu-dzuchi () to procure eighty precious combs of the five-hundred-branched Suzuki grass. (tr. Aston 1896:47) This "precious combs" translation derives from ''tama'' 玉 (tr. "Toyo-tama" and "jewels") and ''kushi'' 櫛 "comb", which is a ''Nihon Shoki'' graphic variant of ''kuji'' 籤 in the goddess named Tamakushi Hime 玉櫛姫 (tr. "jewel-comb" Aston 1896:62). The (ca. 645-760 CE) ''Man'yōshū'' "Myriad Leaves Collection" does not use the word ''tamagushi'' but one poem (tr. Pierson 1929-1938:199) describes making it with paper mulberry: "I tie pure white strands of mulberry to the branches of the sacred tree". Some common ''tamagushi'' collocations include: *''tamagushi o sasageru'' 玉串を捧げる "offer a ''tamagushi''" *''tamagushi hōnō'' 玉串奉納 "dedicate/offer ''tamagushi'' (front of a shrine altar )" *''tamagushi-ryō'' 玉串料 "() offerings for ''tamagushi'' (at a shrine )" ''Tamagushi'' has an uncommon secondary meaning of "name for the ''sakaki'' tree". The (ca. 1439 CE) Shin Kokin Wakashū "New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems" (tr. Carr 1995:8) contains the first occurrence, "Holding the ornamented ''tamagushi'' leaves". The ''sakaki'' (''Cleyera japonica'') is a flowering evergreen tree, which is considered sacred in Japanese mythology. In the present day, Shinto shrines often plant it as a ''sakaiki'' 境木 "boundary tree" to demarcate sanctified space. ''Sakaki'' is written with the ''kanji'' 榊, which graphically combines ''boku'' or ''ki'' 木 "tree; wood" and ''shin'' or ''kami'' 神 "spirit; god", compare ''shinboku'' 神木 "sacred tree". Carr (1995:11) characterizes 榊 as "a doubly exceptional logograph"; it is an ideograph "character representing an idea" (which is an infrequent type of logograph "character representing a word", see Chinese character classification), and it is a ''kokuji'' 国字 "national character; Japanese-made character" (rather than a typical ''kanji'' 漢字 "Chinese character" loanword). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tamagushi」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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