It is more than probable that the Japanese term kami is the same as the Aino word _kamui_, and that the despised and conquered aboriginal savage has furnished the mould of the ordinary Japanese idea of god--which even to-day with them means anything wonderful or extraordinary.[22] From the days before history the people have worshipped trees, and do so yet, considering them as the abodes of and as means of communication with supernatural powers.

On them the people hang their votive offerings, twist on the branches their prayers written on paper, avoid cutting down, breaking or in any way injuring certain trees.

The _sakaki_ tree is especially sacred, even to this day, in funeral or Shint[=o] services.

To wound or defile a tree sacred to a particular god was to call forth the vengeance of the insulted deity upon the insulter, or as the hearer of prayer upon another to whom guilt was imputed and punishment was due.
Thus, in the days older than this present generation, but still within this century, as the writer has witnessed, it was the custom of women betrayed by their lovers to perform the religious act of vengeance called _Ushi toki mairi_, or going to the temple at the hour of the ox, that is at 2 A.M.First making an image or manikin of straw, she set out on her errand of revenge, with nails held in her mouth and with hammer in one hand and straw figure in the other, sometimes also having on her head a reversed tripod in which were stuck three lighted candles.
Arriving at the shrine she selected a tree dedicated to a god, and then nailed the straw simulacrum of her betrayer to the trunk, invoking the kami to curse and annihilate the destroyer of her peace.

She adjures the god to save his tree, impute the guilt of desecration to the traitor and visit him with deadly vengeance.