From the 13th to the 15th day of July is held the Festival of the
Dead--the Bommatsuri or Bonku--by some Europeans called the Feast of
Lanterns. But in many places there are two such festivals annually; for
those who still follow the ancient reckoning of time by moons hold
that the Bommatsuri should fall on the 13th, 14th, and 15th days of
the seventh month of the antique calendar, which corresponds to a later
period of the year.
Early on the morning of the 13th, new mats of purest rice straw, woven
expressly for the festival, are spread upon all Buddhist altars and
within each butsuma or butsudan--the little shrine before which the
morning and evening prayers are offered up in every believing home.
Shrines and altars are likewise decorated with beautiful embellishments
of coloured paper, and with flowers and sprigs of certain hallowed
plants--always real lotus-flowers when obtainable, otherwise
lotus-flowers of paper, and fresh branches of shikimi (anise) and
of misohagi (lespedeza). Then a tiny lacquered table--a zen-such as
Japanese meals are usually served upon, is placed upon the altar,
and the food offerings are laid on it. But in the smaller shrines of
Japanese homes the offerings are more often simply laid upon the rice
matting, wrapped in fresh lotus-leaves.
These offerings consist of the foods called somen, resembling our
vermicelli, gozen, which is boiled rice, dango, a sort of tiny dumpling,
eggplant, and fruits according to season--frequently uri and saikwa,
slices of melon and watermelon, and plums and peaches. Often sweet cakes
and dainties are added. Sometimes the offering is only O-sho-jin-gu
(honourable uncooked food); more usually it is O-rio-gu (honourable
boiled food); but it never includes, of course, fish, meats, or wine.
Clear water is given to the shadowy guest, and is sprinkled from time to
time upon the altar or within the shrine with a branch of misohagi; tea
is poured out every hour for the viewless visitors, and everything is
daintily served up in little plates and cups and bowls, as for living
guests, with hashi (chopsticks) laid beside the offering. So for three
days the dead are feasted.
At sunset, pine torches, fixed in the ground before each home, are
kindled to guide the spirit-visitors. Sometimes, also, on the first
evening of the Bommatsuri, welcome-fires (mukaebi) are lighted along
the shore of the sea or lake or river by which the village or city is
situated--neither more nor less than one hundred and eight fires; this
number having some mystic signification in the philosophy of Buddhism.
And charming lanterns are suspended each night at the entrances of
homes--the Lanterns of the Festival of the Dead--lanterns of special
forms and colours, beautifully painted with suggestions of landscape and
shapes of flowers, and always decorated with a peculiar fringe of paper
streamers.
Also, on the same night, those who have dead friends go to the
cemeteries and make offerings there, and pray, and burn incense, and
pour out water for the ghosts. Flowers are placed there in the bamboo
vases set beside each haka, and lanterns are lighted and hung up before
the tombs, but these lanterns have no designs upon them.
At sunset on the evening of the 15th only the offerings called Segaki
are made in the temples. Then are fed the ghosts of the Circle of
Penance, called Gakido, the place of hungry spirits; and then also are
fed by the priests those ghosts having no other friends among the
living to care for them. Very, very small these offerings are--like the
offerings to the gods.