Prayer Strips

[Shifon]

Jya, all..

Iirc, the staff is called a shakujo (sp?), and originally was a Buddhist implement; as the bearer walked the jingling of the rings alerted any wee critters in his path so that they would move and thus not be harmed.

In anime shakujo are sometime used as the focus (or even source) of nifty magical ability; examples include that used by Chichiri from Fushigi Yuugi (Mysterious Play), or Kaos from Yoroiden (Ronin Warriors)...


Shifon

 

[Skade]

My friends and I used to joke that the shakujo was a way to tell how bad-ass the character was in anime. One could also gauge this by the width of their shoulder pads, and in the case of female ninja the lack of clothing.