Vast as the courts of the Oho-yashiro are, the crowd within them is now
so dense that one must move very slowly, for the whole population of
Kitzuki and its environs has been attracted here by the matsuri. All are
making their way very gently toward a little shrine built upon an island
in the middle of an artificial lake and approached by a narrow causeway.
This little shrine, which I see now for the first time (Kitzuki temple
being far too large a place to be all seen and known in a single visit),
is the Shrine of Tenjin. As the sound of a waterfall is the sound of the
clapping of hands before it, and myriads of nin, and bushels of handfuls
of rice, are being dropped into the enormous wooden chest there placed
to receive the offerings. Fortunately this crowd, like all Japanese
crowds, is so sympathetically yielding that it is possible to traverse
it slowly in any direction, and thus to see all there is to be seen.
After contributing my mite to the coffer of Tenjin, I devote my
attention to the wonderful display of toys in the outer courts.
At almost every temple festival in Japan there is a great sale of toys,
usually within the court itself--a miniature street of small booths
being temporarily erected for this charming commence. Every matsuri is a
children's holiday. No mother would think of attending a temple-festival
without buying her child a toy: even the poorest mother can afford it;
for the price of the toys sold in a temple court varies from one-fifth
of one sen [3] or Japanese cent, to three or four sen; toys worth so
much as five sen being rarely displayed at these little shops. But
cheap as they are, these frail playthings are full of beauty and
suggestiveness, and, to one who knows and loves Japan, infinitely
more interesting than the costliest inventions of a Parisian
toy-manufacturer. Many of them, however, would be utterly
incomprehensible to an English child. Suppose we peep at a few of them.
Here is a little wooden mallet, with a loose tiny ball fitted into a
socket at the end of the handle. This is for the baby to suck. On either
end of the head of the mallet is painted the mystic tomoye--that Chinese
symbol, resembling two huge commas so united as to make a perfect
circle, which you may have seen on the title-page of Mr. Lowell's
beautiful Soul of the Far East. To you, however, this little wooden
mallet would seem in all probability just a little wooden mallet and
nothing more. But to the Japanese child it is full of suggestions. It
is the mallet of the Great Deity of Kitzuki,
Ohokuni-nushi-no-Kami--vulgarly called Daikoku--the God of Wealth, who,
by one stroke of his hammer, gives fortune to his worshippers.
Perhaps this tiny drum, of a form never seen in the Occident (tsudzumi),
or this larger drum with a mitsudomoye, or triple-comma symbol, painted
on each end, might seem to you without religious signification; but both
are models of drums used in the Shinto and the Buddhist temples. This
queer tiny table is a miniature sambo: it is upon such a table that
offerings are presented to the gods. This curious cap is a model of
the cap of a Shinto priest. Here is a toy miya, or Shinto shrine, four
inches high. This bunch of tiny tin bells attached to a wooden handle
might seem to you something corresponding to our Occidental tin rattles;
but it is a model of the sacred suzu used by the virgin priestess in
her dance before the gods. This face of a smiling chubby girl, with two
spots upon her forehead--a mask of baked clay--is the traditional image
of Ame-no-uzume-no-mikoto, commonly called Otafuku, whose merry laughter
lured the Goddess of the Sun out of the cavern of darkness. And here is
a little Shinto priest in full hieratic garb: when this little string
between his feet is pulled, he claps his hands as if in prayer.
Hosts of other toys are here--mysterious to the uninitiated European,
but to the Japanese child full of delightful religious meaning. In these
faiths of the Far East there is little of sternness or grimness--the
Kami are but the spirits of the fathers of the people; the Buddhas and
the Bosatsu were men. Happily the missionaries have not succeeded as
yet in teaching the Japanese to make religion a dismal thing. These gods
smile for ever: if you find one who frowns, like Fudo, the frown seems
but half in earnest; it is only Emma, the Lord of Death, who somewhat
appals. Why religion should be considered too awful a subject for
children to amuse themselves decently with never occurs to the common
Japanese mind. So here we have images of the gods and saints
for toys--Tenjin, the Deity of Beautiful Writing--and Uzume, the
laughter-loving--and Fukusuke, like a happy schoolboy--and the
Seven Divinities of Good Luck, in a group--and Fukurojin, the God of
Longevity, with head so elongated that only by the aid of a ladder can
his barber shave the top of it--and Hotei, with a belly round and huge
as a balloon--and Ebisu, the Deity of Markets and of fishermen, with a
tai-fish under his arm--and Daruma, ancient disciple of Buddha, whose
legs were worn off by uninterrupted meditation.
Here likewise are many toys which a foreigner could scarcely guess the
meaning of, although they have no religious signification. Such is this
little badger, represented as drumming upon its own belly with both
forepaws. The badger is believed to be able to use its belly like a
drum, and is credited by popular superstition with various supernatural
powers. This toy illustrates a pretty fairy-tale about some hunter who
spared a badger's life and was rewarded by the creature with a wonderful
dinner and a musical performance. Here is a hare sitting on the end of
the handle of a wooden pestle which is set horizontally upon a pivot. By
pulling a little string, the pestle is made to rise and fall as if moved
by the hare. If you have been even a week in Japan you will recognise
the pestle as the pestle of a kometsuki, or rice-cleaner, who works
it by treading on the handle. But what is the hare? This hare is the
Hare-in-the-Moon, called Usagi-no-kometsuki: if you look up at the moon
on a clear night you can see him cleaning his rice.
Now let us see what we can discover in the way of cheap ingenuities.
Tombo, 'the Dragon-Fly.' Merely two bits of wood joined together in the
form of a T. The lower part is a little round stick, about as thick as
a match, but twice as long; the upper piece is flat, and streaked with
paint. Unless you are accustomed to look for secrets, you would scarcely
be able to notice that the flat piece is trimmed along two edges at a
particular angle. Twirl the lower piece rapidly between the palms
of both hands, and suddenly let it go. At once the strange toy rises
revolving in the air, and then sails away slowly to quite a distance,
performing extraordinary gyrations, and imitating exactly--to the eye
at least--the hovering motion of a dragon-fly. Those little streaks of
paint you noticed upon the top-piece now reveal their purpose; as the
tombo darts hither and thither, even the tints appear to be those of
a real dragon-fly; and even the sound of the flitting toy imitates the
dragon-fly's hum. The principle of this pretty invention is much like
that of the boomerang; and an expert can make his tombo, after flying
across a large room, return into his hand. All the tombo sold, however,
are not as good as this one; we have been lucky. Price, one-tenth of one
cent!
Here is a toy which looks like a bow of bamboo strung with wire. The
wire, however, is twisted into a corkscrew spiral. On this spiral a
pair of tiny birds are suspended by a metal loop. When the bow is held
perpendicularly with the birds at the upper end of the string, they
descend whirling by their own weight, as if circling round one another;
and the twittering of two birds is imitated by the sharp grating of the
metal loop upon the spiral wire. One bird flies head upward, and the
other tail upward. As soon as they have reached the bottom, reverse
the bow, and they will recommence their wheeling flight. Price, two
cents--because the wire is dear.
O-Saru, the 'Honourable Monkey.' [4] A little cotton monkey, with a
blue head and scarlet body, hugging a bamboo rod. Under him is a bamboo
spring; and when you press it, he runs up to the top of the rod. Price,
one-eighth of one cent.
O-Saru. Another Honourable Monkey. This one is somewhat more complex in
his movements, and costs a cent. He runs up a string, hand over hand,
when you pull his tail.
Tori-Kago. A tiny gilded cage, with a bird in it, and plum
flowers. Press the edges of the bottom of the cage, and a minuscule
wind-instrument imitates the chirping of the bird. Price, one cent.
Karuwazashi, the Acrobat. A very loose-jointed wooden boy clinging with
both hands to a string stretched between two bamboo sticks, which are
curiously rigged together in the shape of an open pair of scissors.
Press the ends of the sticks at the bottom; and the acrobat tosses
his legs over the string, seats himself upon it, and finally turns a
somersault. Price, one-sixth of one cent.
Kobiki, the Sawyer. A figure of a Japanese workman, wearing only a
fundoshi about his loins, and standing on a plank, with a long saw in
his hands. If you pull a string below his feet, he will go to work in
good earnest, sawing the plank. Notice that he pulls the saw towards
him, like a true Japanese, instead of pushing it from him, as our own
carpenters do. Price, one-tenth of one cent.
Chie-no-ita, the 'Intelligent Boards,' or better, perhaps, 'The Planks
of Intelligence.' A sort of chain composed of about a dozen flat
square pieces of white wood, linked together by ribbons. Hold the thing
perpendicularly by one end-piece; then turn the piece at right angles to
the chain; and immediately all the other pieces tumble over each other
in the most marvellous way without unlinking. Even an adult can amuse
himself for half an hour with this: it is a perfect trompe-l'oeil in
mechanical adjustment. Price, one cent.
Kitsune-Tanuki. A funny flat paper mask with closed eyes. If you pull a
pasteboard slip behind it, it will open its eyes and put out a tongue of
surprising length. Price, one-sixth of one cent.
Chin. A little white dog, with a collar round its neck. It is in the
attitude of barking. From a Buddhist point of view, I should think this
toy somewhat immoral. For when you slap the dog's head, it utters a
sharp yelp, as of pain. Price, one sen and five rin. Rather dear.
Fuki-agari-koboshi, the Wrestler Invincible. This is still dearer; for
it is made of porcelain, and very nicely coloured The wrestler squats
upon his hams. Push him down in any direction, he always returns of his
own accord to an erect position. Price, two sen.
Oroga-Heika-Kodomo, the Child Reverencing His Majesty the Emperor. A
Japanese schoolboy with an accordion in his hands, singing and playing
the national anthem, or Kimiga. There is a little wind-bellows at the
bottom of the toy; and when you operate it, the boy's arms move as if
playing the instrument, and a shrill small voice is heard. Price, one
cent and a half.
Jishaku. This, like the preceding, is quite a modern toy. A small wooden
box containing a magnet and a tiny top made of a red wooden button with
a steel nail driven through it. Set the top spinning with a twirl of the
fingers; then hold the magnet over the nail, and the top will leap up
to the magnet and there continue to spin, suspended in air. Price, one
cent.
It would require at least a week to examine them all. Here is a model
spinning-wheel, absolutely perfect, for one-fifth of one cent. Here are
little clay tortoises which swim about when you put them into water--one
rin for two. Here is a box of toy-soldiers--samurai in full
armour--nine rin only. Here is a Kaze-Kuruma, or wind-wheel--a wooden
whistle with a paper wheel mounted before the orifice by which the
breath is expelled, so that the wheel turns furiously when the whistle
is blown--three rin. Here is an Ogi, a sort of tiny quadruple fan
sliding in a sheath. When expanded it takes the shape of a beautiful
flower--one rin.
The most charming of all these things to me, however, is a tiny
doll--O-Hina-San (Honourable Miss Hina)--or beppin ('beautiful
woman'). The body is a phantom, only--a flat stick covered with a paper
kimono--but the head is really a work of art. A pretty oval face with
softly shadowed oblique eyes--looking shyly downward--and a wonderful
maiden coiffure, in which the hair is arranged in bands and volutes
and ellipses and convolutions and foliole curlings most beautiful and
extraordinary. In some respects this toy is a costume model, for it
imitates exactly the real coiffure of Japanese maidens and brides.
But the expression of the face of the beppin is, I think, the great
attraction of the toy; there is a shy, plaintive sweetness about it
impossible to describe, but deliciously suggestive of a real Japanese
type of girl-beauty. Yet the whole thing is made out of a little
crumpled paper, coloured with a few dashes of the brush by an expert
hand. There are no two O-Hina-San exactly alike out of millions; and
when you have become familiar by long residence with Japanese types, any
such doll will recall to you some pretty face that you have seen. These
are for little girls. Price, five rin.