talismans

When we worked for the village of Ako, I just came across some references and thought it might be good to have some paper talismans from their local shrine / temple.

They are just papers but people at shrines / temples made prayer to make these paper special. So that they became talismans which have power to protect people, houses / area.

Here is some talisman samples I found. There is red chop on background then the main writings on top.

 This is a sort of sign book you can carry around, and when you visit temples / shrines, you can show this booklet to the monks. If they can they make special page for you. We call them ‘the red chop booklet’.
Above is from Sugimoto temple, Kamakura.

They are different from paper talismans but construction is the same...

Below is from Kumano taisha, Wakayama.
Their symbol is a special crow has three legs. And these crow pattern making special letterings here.
This is only seen in Kumano, and people used to make a vow to get these. If they break their vow after getting those, they'll be punished....
I personally love this one!

Anyway I made below combined with red chop and the prayer text with the name of their shrine.

 And printed onto tinted parchment like papers... and made them look older afterwards.

They appeared everywhere in the village - like this water tank on the corner.

It was fun to search all these designs of red chops and the writings...