Shitomido

What a shitomido is

A shitomido is a latticed panel backed with boards, hinged along its top edge so that it swings upward and outward. Raised and hooked level, it serves as a canopy; lowered, it closes like a solid door.

Shrine halls use it across the front. The main hall of Kasuga Shrine in Oita Prefecture, from the late Edo period, is described as a three-bay Kirizuma-zukuri hall with a one-bay copper-roofed Kōhai, ringed by a Kirime-en with a bracketed Kōran, with panels of this kind at the front and panelled doors in the first bay of each side.

In worship halls the openness is what records praise. The worship hall at Sasayama Shrine in Fukuoka Prefecture, built in 1879 and altered about 1930, is described as five bays by three, Irimoya-zukuri and entered from the eaves side, roofed in copper on a two-course stone base, with a wide three-bay canopy at the front, a coved Gō-tenjō within, and a railed plank veranda all round; apart from panelled doors at the front and sliding doors behind, it hangs these panels, and the entry calls it a large and open hall.

Hanging many of them is precisely what makes the hall open. Raised, they leave almost no wall, and the interior runs continuously into the veranda.

The written form, and the half-panel

The records of the Agency for Cultural Affairs usually use the shorter Japanese word. A longer form and a term for a half-height version also circulate, the latter naming a panel where only the upper half swings up and the lower half is fixed or separately closed.

Searching under only the longer form misses examples. When quoting, keep the form used by the entry.

On site, look at the top edge of the fitting. Metal hooks at the eaves and a panel that lifts outward identify it, and its action distinguishes it from sliding Mairado and from framed panelled doors.