The Guji waves his hand, and from the farther end of the huge apartment
there comes a sudden burst of strange music--a sound of drums and bamboo
flutes; and turning to look, I see the musicians, three men, seated upon
the matting, and a young girl with them. At another sign from the Guji
the girl rises. She is barefooted and robed in snowy white, a virgin
priestess. But below the hem of the white robe I see the gleam of hakama
of crimson silk. She advances to a little table in the middle of the
apartment, upon which a queer instrument is lying, shaped somewhat like
a branch with twigs bent downward, from each of which hangs a little
bell. Taking this curious object in both hands, she begins a sacred
dance, unlike anything I ever saw before. Her every movement is a poem,
because she is very graceful; and yet her performance could scarcely be
called a dance, as we understand the word; it is rather a light swift
walk within a circle, during which she shakes the instrument at regular
intervals, making all the little bells ring. Her face remains impassive
as a beautiful mask, placid and sweet as the face of a dreaming Kwannon;
and her white feet are pure of line as the feet of a marble nymph.
Altogether, with her snowy raiment and white flesh and passionless face,
she seems rather a beautiful living statue than a Japanese maiden. And
all the while the weird flutes sob and shrill, and the muttering of the
drums is like an incantation.
What I have seen is called the Dance of the Miko, the Divineress.