Here let me tell you something you certainly never heard of before in
relation to Japanese dolls--not the tiny O-Hina-San I was just speaking
about, but the beautiful life-sized dolls representing children of two
or three years old; real toy-babes which, although far more cheaply and
simply constructed than our finer kinds of Western dolls, become, under
the handling of a Japanese girl, infinitely more interesting. Such dolls
are well dressed, and look so life-like--little slanting eyes, shaven
pates, smiles, and all!--that as seen from a short distance the best
eyes might be deceived by them. Therefore in those stock photographs of
Japanese life, of which so many thousands are sold in the open ports,
the conventional baby on the mother's back is most successfully
represented by a doll. Even the camera does not betray the substitution.
And if you see such a doll, though held quite close to you, being made
by a Japanese mother to reach out his hands, to move its little bare
feet, and to turn its head, you would be almost afraid to venture a
heavy wager that it was only a doll. Even after having closely examined
the thing, you would still, I fancy, feel a little nervous at being left
alone with it, so perfect the delusion of that expert handling.
Now there is a belief that some dolls do actually become alive.
Formerly the belief was less rare than it is now. Certain dolls were
spoken of with a reverence worthy of the Kami, and their owners were
envied folk. Such a doll was treated like a real son or daughter: it was
regularly served with food; it had a bed, and plenty of nice clothes,
and a name. If in the semblance of a girl, it was O-Toku-San; if in that
of a boy, Tokutaro-San. It was thought that the doll would become angry
and cry if neglected, and that any ill-treatment of it would bring
ill-fortune to the house. And, moreover, it was believed to possess
supernatural powers of a very high order.
In the family of one Sengoku, a samurai of Matsue, there was a
Tokutaro-San which had a local reputation scarcely inferior to that
of Kishibojin--she to whom Japanese wives pray for offspring.
And childless couples used to borrow that doll, and keep it for a
time--ministering unto it--and furnish it with new clothes before
gratefully returning it to its owners. And all who did so, I am assured,
became parents, according to their heart's desire. 'Sengoku's doll had a
soul.' There is even a legend that once, when the house caught fire, the
Tokutar O-San ran out safely into the garden of its own accord!
The idea about such a doll seems to be this: The new doll is only
a doll. But a doll which is preserved for a great many years in one
family, [5] and is loved and played with by generations of children,
gradually acquires a soul. I asked a charming Japanese girl: 'How can a
doll live?'
'Why,' she answered, 'if you love it enough, it will live!'
What is this but Renan's thought of a deity in process of evolution,
uttered by the heart of a child?