Ukehi orUkei (誓占; lit. "divination [by] oath") was a Japanese Shintodivination ritual.
Generally, it was a type ofcleromancy which involved asking a question of thekami and coming to an answer through some type of sortition. The belief was that thekami would influence the outcome of the sortition in order to communicate their will.
Hayashi Oen, a nineteenth-century practitioner ofukehi, identified six functions of the rite. He claimed it could be used to:
The dictates ofukehi can come as a dream, but more commonly the petitioner would use the ritual to ask a question of thekami and then await an omen of some sort to confirm their[2] response. If nothing happened, it was assumed that thekami did not favour the proposed course of action.[1] The questioning of thekami took the form of an oath or vow.[3][4] Sometimes the ritual involved inscribing the choices available on bamboo slips, which were then shaken in a container; whichever slip fell out dictated the appropriate course of action.[citation needed]
In the novelRunaway Horses,Mishima Yukio described the procedure ofukehi as "contain[ing] an element of danger not unlike a footing that could give way at any moment".[5]