A is an altar used in Shinto

Shinto

or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...

-style ancestor worship, dedicated in the memory of deceased forebears. It generally has a mirror symbolizing the spirit

Spirit

The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...

s of the deceased or a tablet bearing their names and is used not only to enshrine blood relatives, but also to honor respected non-family members.

Since Buddhist

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 funeral rites dominate in Japanese religious practise

Religion in Japan

Most Japanese people do not exclusively identify themselves as adherents of a single religion; rather, they incorporate elements of various religions in a syncretic fashion known as . Shinbutsu Shūgō officially ended with the Shinto and Buddhism Separation Order of 1886, but continues in practice...

, tamaya are found less often in Japanese houses than their Buddhist counterpart, the butsudan

Butsudan

A butsudan is a shrine commonly found in temples and homes in Japanese Buddhist cultures. A butsudan is a wooden cabinet with doors that enclose and protect a gohonzon or religious icon, typically a statue or painting of a Buddha or Bodhisattva, or a "script" mandala scroll...

. Their value are also below that of the more highly respected kamidana

Kamidana

Kamidana , is a miniature Shinto shrine found in many Japanese homes. The kamidana is typically placed high on a wall and contains a wide variety of items related to Shinto-style ceremonies, the most prominent of which is the shintai, most commonly in the form of a small circular mirror, though it...

.

Ritual

The tamaya is placed in an inner chamber, on a shelf, the mitama-san-no-tana, attached to the wall about six feet high. It is placed lower than the kamidana.

Rites are performed for the tamaya every tenth day up to the fiftieth, and thereafter on the one-hundredth day and one-year anniversary. The one-year ritual is followed by another which marks the spirit's joining of the ancestors at the family shrine.

History

The first tamaya was built in 1599 in the Toyokuni Shrine

Toyokuni Shrine

is a Shinto shrine located in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Japan. It was built in 1599 to commemorate Toyotomi Hideyoshi. It is the location of the first tamaya ever constructed, which was later destroyed by the Tokugawa clan....

 in Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

 for Toyotomi Hideyoshi

Toyotomi Hideyoshi

was a daimyo warrior, general and politician of the Sengoku period. He unified the political factions of Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period, named after Hideyoshi's castle...

. Screen paintings and its ruins suggest that it was modeled after the Kitano Tenman-gū

Kitano Tenman-gu

' is a Shinto shrine in Kamigyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan.-History:It was built in 947, to appease the angry spirit of bureaucrat, scholar and poet Sugawara no Michizane, who had been exiled as a result of political maneuvers of his enemies in the Fujiwara clan....

. It was later destroyed by the Tokugawa

Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...

.

Later the tamaya was generally established for Japanese nobles, military heroes, and other people with high reputation. This practice spread in the Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

. During the Kokugaku

Kokugaku

Kokugaku was a National revival, or, school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Tokugawa period...

movement it became more common to erect tamaya in ordinary homes. It formed a central part of the Shinto funeral rituals (神葬祭, shinsōsai).