During Setsubun, the Shinto Spring Festival, it is customary to chase all the Winter Oni out of your house by beaning them. Oni are those mischievous, devilish-looking creatures in Japanese mythology with horns, a tail and a lecherous leer.

Mame-maki (bean throwing) is the way to oni-uchi (cast out) these demons. That's right folks. Grab a bag of roasted soy or adzuki beans and start tossing them around the house while yelling:

Oni wa soto! (“Devils out!) Fuku wa uchi! (Fortune in!”)

Now watch the nasty Oni that have been lurking in the shadows of your home all Winter scatter to the four corners like there's no tomorrow.

Why beans? Because if an Oni is hit in the eye with a bean, he will be blinded.

After you have cleared the house of Onis, eat the number of roasted beans that match your age to receive the good energy which has just come into your house.

Then do your Spring cleaning, clear out all the beans and hang a hiiragi ~ a charm made by tying together a sprig of holly and a small dried fish ~ over your doorway. Oni love dried fish and will grab and eat the charms, but the sharp leaves of the holly wound them and send them running off in pain.

Now change into your Spring finery and hurry on down to the local Jinja (shrine) for deep prayer and then go outside and try to catch one of those bags of beans and toys the important people of your community are throwing to the crowd.

When the Spring festivities are over, hang your Oni mask in a place of honor to scare away evil until next Setsubun.