A Popular Dictionary of Shinto

HATSUMIYAMAIRI

The 'first shrine visit' of a newborn baby who is brought to the shrine traditionally by the grandmother or another female relative since the mother is impure from childbirth, but in modern times often by the mother. The child thereby becomes a parishioner of the shrine and of its tutelary kami, and may receive its name from the shrine. Hatsu-miya-mairi is supposed to take place on the thirty-second day after birth for a boy, and on the thirty-third day for a girl.