ANONYMOUS (LATE 19TH CENTURY)

Men wearing fox masks accompany a processional cart toward a Shinto shrine. The cart houses the deity identified in two long banners as Inari Daimyojin. Originally associated with the deity of cereals, Inari Daimyojin is the deity most widely worshipped by the Japanese people because of a close association with the nation's rice-centered agriculture. In medieval times, the white fox came to be associated with Inari and regarded as the deity's messenger