The mikoshi is a portable shrine, lacquered and gilded, with a phoenix on the roof, carried on two long beams by dozens of people. At the festival the kami is transferred into it and taken out through the parish along a route that traces the district's boundaries, so that it can inspect its own territory. The carriers shout in rhythm — wasshoi, or a local variant — and deliberately jolt, rock and sometimes throw the mikoshi, because the shaking is understood to please the kami and to amplify its power; a mikoshi carried smoothly and quietly is regarded as badly carried. It is physically punishing, the beams bruise shoulders, and a great deal of alcohol is involved. Participation was traditionally young men of the neighbourhood associations, and it is a real site of belonging — who carries, in what order, wearing whose happi coat. Depopulation and ageing have forced many parishes to open it to women, to outsiders and to volunteers recruited online, and some have put the mikoshi on a cart.