ABSTRACT
This chapter explains about Mr Inoue, who had an itch on his penis. It itched both internally and externally. He also had pain while urinating and during sexual intercourse. When the symptoms persisted, however, the Inoue family asked the opinion of a Shinto priest. He told them that their house, which dated from the nineteenth century, had a storehouse on its diagonal boundary: this boundary was also its 'devil-door' (kimon). A respect for the kimon or 'devil-door' is very widespread in Japanese tradition. Its location is determined by various rules of geomancy, but for houses built on a square or rectangular plot the 'rear' devil-door (ura-kimon) normally lies on the north-east and the 'front' one (omote-kimon) on the south-west of the building. The common plant used to protect the kimon is called the nanten tree which written in the Japanese hiragana syllabic 'alphabet', but by a play on words the sound could also be rendered by the Chinese characters.
