In
Japan, belief in the toilet god or
kawaya kami, most often depicted in the form of
Ususama-myō-ō (烏枢沙摩明王), served a dual purpose. Most bodily wastes were collected and used as fertilizers, ensuring a higher overall level of sanitation than in other countries where wastes were stored in
cesspits or otherwise disposed of. Toilets were often dark and unpleasant places where the user was at some risk of falling in and drowning. The protection of the toilet god was therefore sought to avoid such an unsanitary fate. The god also had a role to play in promoting fertility, as human waste was collected and used as fertiliser. Rituals were performed at the New Year to ask the
kawaya kami for help in producing a good harvest. In some places, family members would sit on a straw mat in front of the toilet and eat a mouthful of rice, symbolising eating something that the god had left. A properly appointed toilet would be decorated and kept as clean as possible, as the toilet god was considered to be very beautiful. The state of the toilet was said to have an effect on the physical appearance of unborn children. Pregnant women asked the toilet god to give boys a "high nose" and dimples to girls. If the toilet was dirty, however, it was said to cause children to be born ugly and unhappy. Various rituals and names were associated with the latrine god in different parts of Japan. On
Ishigaki Island it was called
kamu-taka and was propitiated by the sick with sticks of incense, flowers, rice and rice wine. In
Nagano Prefecture's former
Minamiazumi District, sufferers from toothache offered lights to the toilet god, which was called
takagamisama. The inhabitants of
Hiroshima called the toilet god
Setchinsan while those of
Ōita Prefecture called it
Sechinbisan and those of
Ehime Prefecture called it
Usshimasama. The American anthropologist
John Embree recorded in the 1930s that the inhabitants of part of the southernmost Japanese island of
Kyūshū would put a branch of willow or Chinese nettle tree, decorated with pieces of
mochi (rice cake), into the toilet as an offering to ask the toilet god to protect the house's inhabitants from bladder problems in the coming year. The
Ainu people of far northern Japan and the
Russian Far East believed that the
Rukar Kamuy, their version of a toilet god, would be the first to come to help in the event of danger. In the
Ryukyu Islands (including
Okinawa Islands), the
fuuru nu kami, or
"toilet god", is the family protector of the area of waste. The
pig toilet (ふーる / 風呂), lacking this benevolent god, could become a place of evil influence and potential haunting (such as by an
akaname, or other negative spirits, welcomed by the accumulation of waste matter, rejected and abandoned by the human body). Because he is considered a primary household god, the ''fuuru nu kami's'' habitat (the bathroom) is kept clean and is perceived to warrant deferential behavior. Reports on the family's status are delivered regularly to the
fuuru nu kami. He shares traits with the Korean bathroom goddess Cheukshin. Similarly in
Korea, the toilet god or
Cheukshin (or
cheukgansin) was known as the "young lady of the toilet". She was regarded as having a "perverse character" and was propitiated each year in October by housewives, along with the other household gods. Women worshipped her in the form of a home-made doll on the fifteenth day of each year's first month, when she was ritually summoned in the latrine during the night. Prayers were said to the doll, telling her that the husband and wife had gone and that she could now safely come out. The motions of the doll – sometimes manifested as
automatic writing – were used for
fortune telling by the worshippers. Another interpretation came from a popular novel of the
Ming period, which portrayed the latrine deity as three sisters who were responsible for the Primeval Golden Dipper (
hunyuan jindou) or celestial toilet bowl, from which all beings were born. Some variants of
Buddhism incorporate a belief in Ucchuṣma, the "god of the latrine", who is said to destroy defilement. A cult developed around Ucchuṣma in
Zen monasteries where the latrine, the bath and the meditation hall or
refectory were regarded as the three "silent places" (
sanmokudō) for contemplation. In
New Zealand, the
atua – the gods and spirits of the
Māori people – were believed to focus on the village latrine. If a warrior experienced sickness or faintness of heart or carried out an activity regarded as
tapu, he would retreat to the latrine and bite its structure. The gods were said to frequent the latrine in large numbers and excrement was regarded as the food of the dead. Biting the latrine was said to transfer the
tapu quality that the biter had acquired back to its origins in the world of the gods. The practice of biting to transfer
mana or
tapu was seen in other areas of Māori life, such as a son biting his dead father's penis to acquire his powers, or a student weaver biting part of the loom to acquire
tapu to assist with learning how to weave cloth. ==Ancient European cultures==