Miko are young women who attend to the
kami at a particular
Shinto shrine ("
jinja").
Most commonly they wear white kimono and scarlet hakama (a kind of divided, pleated skirt) with hair ornaments specific to that shrine.
On various matsuri, or festival days, they perform ancient kagura, dances which evoke the blessings of the shrine kami.
Some miko enter into trance states and make various oracular predictions, sometimes as the shrine kami.