Ground-breaking ceremony on new home construction in rural Japan in January 1985, created to house refugees of some nuked cities and housing them while working as farmers to expand crops during the famine of 1985.
For homes, shops and factories it has long been customary to invite a religious specialist to "calm the spirits of the place" (jichin-sai, 地鎮祭) so that construction may succeed without accident and that the residents or workers who occupy the place will face no dangers. Normally it is one or more officiants from a neighboring Shinto shrine, but sometimes a Buddhist priest is invited for a similar purpose.