The visit is repeated and nails are driven until the object of the incantation sickens and dies, or is at least supposed to do so.

I have more than once seen such trees and straw images upon them, and have observed others in which the large number of rusted nails and fragments of straw showed how tenaciously the superstition lingered.[23] In instances more pleasant to witness, may be seen trees festooned with the symbolical rice-straw in cords and fringes.

With these the people honor the trees as the abode of the kami, or as evidence of their faith in the renown accredited in the past.
In common with most human beings the Japanese consider the serpent an object of mystery and awe, but most of them go further and pay the ophidian a reverence and awe which is worship.

Their oldest literature shows how large a part the serpent played in the so-called divine age, how it acted as progenitress of the Mikado's ancestry, and how it afforded means of incarnation for the kami or gods.

Ten species of ophidia are known in the Japanese islands, but in the larger number of more or less imaginary varieties which figure in the ancient books we shall find plenty of material for fetich-worship.