Could any one explain the significance of ropes tied around trees in Shinto?

For example the in the film My Neighbour Totoro, the big camphor tree has a rope around it.

I assume this has some religious meaning, but what is it?


http://farm1.static.flickr.com/34/88826889_1e51ccae2f.jpg

trees are sometimes ancestors and this is to hon our their spirit

Someone drank too much Kirin at the stand bar the night before.

Sacred places are typically marked with a showmenWAspecial plaited rope) and gohei (strips of white paper). Placed at the entrances of holy places to ward off evil spirits, or placed around trees/objects to indicate presence of kami. Made of rice straw or hemp, the rope is called nawa. The pieces of white paper that are cut into strips and hung from these ropes (often hung from ropes on Torii gates as well) are called shime or gohei; they symbolize purity in the Shinto faith.

Shimenawa mark the boundary between the sacred and the profane, keeping out impurities and purifying the space within.

The shimenawa in your photograph indicates the presence of a kodama, or tree spirit. Cutting down a tree which houses a kodama is thought to bring misfortune, so these trees are often marked with a shimenawa.

The straw ropes are used in Shinto to denote areas that are sacred. When they are tied around a tree it indicates that the tree is home to a Jami, and thus, sacred.