Hatsumōde (初詣) is the first shrine or temple visit of the New Year, one of Japan's most widely observed customs, when millions of people, over the first days of January, pour through the torii gates to pray for health, happiness, and good fortune in the year ahead. It is a quiet, hopeful ritual and, at the great shrines, a spectacular mass event.
The first visit of the year
In the first hours and days of January, people go to a shrine (or a Buddhist temple) to make their first prayers of the year: to give thanks for the year past and to ask the kami for blessings in the one beginning. At the offering hall they toss a coin, bow, clap, and pray. The biggest shrines, Tokyo's Meiji Jingū, Kyoto's Fushimi Inari, and Osaka's Sumiyoshi Taisha, draw millions over the three-day period, the approaches packed shoulder to shoulder and lined with food stalls, so that hatsumōde is as much a festive outing as an act of worship.
Fortunes, charms, and arrows
Hatsumōde is when people renew their luck for the year. Many draw an omikuji (御神籤), a paper fortune ranging from "great blessing" to "curse"; a bad one is traditionally tied to a rack or tree at the shrine to leave the misfortune behind. Visitors buy new omamori (protective charms) for the year and often a hamaya (破魔矢), a "demon-breaking arrow," a decorative arrow bought to ward off evil and hung at home. The old year's charms and decorations are returned to the shrine to be ritually burned. Warm sweet sake (amazake) is often handed out against the cold.
Words & idioms to take away
Idioms & proverbs to carry away
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御神籤 / おみくじ (omikuji): a written oracle drawn at random at a shrine or temple, telling your fortune for the year; a bad one is tied up and left behind.
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破魔矢 (hamaya): literally "demon-breaking arrow," a lucky arrow bought at New Year to drive off evil and protect the household.