During the negotiations with the builder, we were asked, several times but mostly in passing, whether or not we wanted to hold the various ceremonies associated with building a house. Understanding marginally that this would involve hiring a kanushi (shinto priest) to perform a jichinsai (rite of purifying the land) before construction could begin in earnest, we said no. Neither of us is religious in any denominational sense and regard shintoism as a convenient instrument of the state for propping up emperor worship, but in any case we have no desire to pay for something that is superstitious in essence. N-san, the salesman, said he understood and we assumed that was the end of it.

But after the foundation was poured and carpenters started erecting the frame, young N, the architect, who was now nominally in charge of the project and would be our sole liaison with the building side, sent us an email saying that the workers would be carrying out a jotoshiki, the ceremony to mark the raising of the roofbeam, which is a big deal and, since it involves the people who are actually building our house, seemed more momentous than the jichinsai, though initially we looked upon it as no more relevant. The idea is to give thanks for the successful completion of the house thus far, which seems sort of premature since only the frame has been finished, but we’re sure the ritual has somehow been streamlined over the centuries and, in any case, it’s entirely symbolic. We can appreciate that if it’s something the carpenters value, but from the way it was presented to us it sounded like yet another expense, an obligation that the builder was passing on to us for our approval, as if we were being asked to confirm something that had already been decided anyway. We knew that the carpenters would, however perfunctorily, carry out the jotoshiki and since we were the end beneficiaries of this gesture it would be considered cold of us not to participate–or so we were led to believe by the purport of the email. Upon further interrogation young N said we would be responsible for the refreshments for the ceremony. He also said it was customary to present go-shugi (gifts) to all the carpenters in the form of cash, usually ¥10,000-¥20,000 to the chief carpenter (toryo), and ¥5,000-¥10,000 to each of the others. After studying the matter on the Internet we came to the conclusion that, while the ritual did have the effect of bringing the house owners and work crew closer together, it was mostly a racket and could become quite expensive depending on how many contractors showed up for the ceremony–and that included the building company itself. Read More