After the spirits have left, all the offerings are taken to a sheet of water and thrown therein.
However, in this respect ancient custom has been compromised with, due no doubt to hygienic reasons; and, in the bigger cities, men go through the streets. shouting: "Omukail Omukai!" and for a few sen pledge themselves to throw the offerings to the spirits into the sea for a river. But it is an open secret that all this is sold to dealers and, in consequence, the truly pious housewife slips away from a backdoor, eludes the eye of the policeman, and casts the offerings on the water herself.
Associated with the Bon festival the Segaki, or special prayer of intervention for the unseen dead on earth and In Tokyo, thi formed on the Sui Segaki is a prayer analogous to the Libera Me, Domine" of the Roman Catholic Church, and is a petition for merey upon souls in torment. The ceremony is extremely colour ful and impressive. A number of craft go into mid-stream, and the priests who are on the largest vessel chant the prayer, while thousands of voices join in responses, When the prayer is over, the boats with the fait go past that containing the priests, and in which is an image of the Buddha to which homage is paid. Later, offerings of money and rice are made to these priests who, la return, hand over paper slips: hearing' an illustration of the Buddha and suitable sutras and quota tions from the Buddhist sacred books. These slips, after incantations have been muttered and further prayers chanted, are then thrown on the surface of the water.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.