on their homes and places of business. Some also put up ("gateway pine"), an arrangement of pine branches, plum tree, and bamboo sticks. Also displayed are , which are smaller and more colourful; their purpose is to keep away misfortune and attract good fortune. In many places, new year celebrations incorporate ("naked festivals") in which men dressed only in a loincloth engage in a particular activity, such as fighting over a specific object or immersing themselves in a river. A common feature of festivals are processions or parades known as . These can be raucous, with many participants being drunk; Breen and Teeuwen characterised them as having a "carnivalesque atmosphere". They are often understood as having a regenerative effect on both the participants and the community. During these processions, the travel in portable shrines known as . In various cases the undergo ("going down to the beach"), a process by which they are carried to the sea shore and sometimes into the sea, either by bearers or a boat. For instance, in the Okunchi festival held in the southwestern city of Nagasaki, the of the Suwa Shrine are paraded down to Ohato, where they are placed in a shrine there for several days before being paraded back to Suwa. These sort of celebrations are often organized largely by members of the local community rather than by the priests themselves. Rites of passage The formal recognition of events is given great importance in Japanese culture. A common ritual, the , entails a child's first visit to a Shinto shrine. A tradition holds that, if a boy he should be brought to the shrine on the thirty-second day after birth, and if a girl she should be brought on the thirty-third day. Historically, the child was commonly brought to the shrine not by the mother, who was considered impure after birth, but by another female relative; since the late 20th century it has been more common for the mother to do so. Another rite of passage, the or , is a coming of age ritual marking the transition to adulthood and occurs when an individual is around twenty. Wedding ceremonies are often carried out at Shinto shrines; these are called ("a wedding before the "). Prior to the Meiji period, weddings were commonly performed in the home, although shrines now regard them as an important source of income. In Japan, funerals tend