“Time would fail me to tell of the various fetiches placed over and beside the doorways and gates. Beside the very elaborate New Year’s symbolism signifying prosperity, longevity, congratulations, etc., there is always, on the last night of the year, a sort of ‘purging out of the old leaven,’ cleaning up of the house, and exorcism, by means of beans as projectiles, of all evil and evil spirits. Then bunches of thorny leaves, like holly, are affixed outside on the door lintel. Over the doorway of almost every house of country folk and many of the townspeople, one can see the wooden charms nailed up. These are bought in the temples of the priests as well as the packages of sacred paper with Sanskrit letters or monograms for the better class of houses.
“Besides the red cord with which almost every present in Japan is tied, the stamp of the red hand on or at the side of the door, either on the wood itself or on a sheet of paper, nailed up beside the door, is very common at particular times.
“The Mecca of Japanese Shintō is at Isé, where the temples have had from time immemorial ‘only one foundation.’ The buildings are renewed every twenty years on the same spot. For many centuries it has been the custom to rebuild Buddhist temples on the same foundation when destroyed by fire, or when ‘captured’ from Shintoist to Buddhist ownership....
“Let me call your attention to the idea underlying the political and religious covenant of the great Iroquois Confederacy–the most remarkable political structure of North American Indian life. The five tribes (later a sixth was added) called their dwelling-place in New York, between Niagara and the Hudson ‘the Long House’ after the typical Iroquois dwelling in which lived many families. Few Iroquois lived east of Schenectady, though they went to fish in the Hudson River, which they then named (a) ‘Schenectady.’ Schenectady (which in the Indian conception was the region in their extreme east) means, when analyzed, ‘just outside the threshold,’ or ‘without the door.’ While Onondaga was the central fore-place of the Confederacy, the site of Schenectady had special sacredness in the minds of the Iroquois, and the Mohawks, who occupied this portion of the country, were called ‘the guardians of the threshold.’