In the protohistoric Japan of Himiko, the meal is not divided into starter-main course-dessert. It is organized around steamed rice (kome) as the foundation, accompanied by fish and products from the sea and mountains. The most sacred moment is the naorai: after an offering to the spirits (kami), the community consumes the offered foods together to commune with the divine. Rice sake, drunk from ceramic cups, seals this bond between the living, the dead, and the spirits.

Rice, introduced on a large scale during the Yayoi period, is at once the staple food, the countable wealth of the kingdom, and the supreme offering to the kami. Fermented into sake, it becomes the bridge between the human world and the spirit world — the very tool of Himiko's shamanic power.