Shide - Sacred Paper Streamers
The zigzag paper strips that mark sacred spaces and objects in Shinto.
Shide are the distinctive zigzag paper streamers attached to shimenawa ropes, tamagushi offerings, and haraigushi wands. Their white color represents purity, and their lightning-bolt shape suggests divine power descending. They mark the boundary between ordinary and sacred space.
Where shide hang, there the sacred touches the mundane world.
Shide are ubiquitous markers of sacredness in the Japanese religious landscape.
Shrine traditions