This ancient grove--so dense that when you first pass into its shadows
out of the sun all seems black--is composed of colossal cedars and
pines, mingled with bamboo, tsubaki (Camellia Japonica), and sakaki,
the sacred and mystic tree of Shinto. The dimness is chiefly made by
the huge bamboos. In nearly all sacred groves bamboos are thickly set
between the trees, and their feathery foliage, filling every lofty
opening between the heavier crests, entirely cuts off the sun. Even in a
bamboo grove where no other trees are, there is always a deep twilight.
As the eyes become accustomed to this green gloaming, a pathway outlines
itself between the trees--a pathway wholly covered with moss, velvety,
soft, and beautifully verdant. In former years, when all pilgrims were
required to remove their footgear before entering the sacred grove, this
natural carpet was a boon to the weary. The next detail one observes is
that the trunks of many of the great trees have been covered with thick
rush matting to a height of seven or eight feet, and that holes have
been torn through some of the mats. All the giants of the grove are
sacred; and the matting was bound about them to prevent pilgrims from
stripping off their bark, which is believed to possess miraculous
virtues. But many, more zealous than honest, do not hesitate to tear
away the matting in order to get at the bark. And the third curious fact
which you notice is that the trunks of the great bamboos are covered
with ideographs--with the wishes of lovers and the names of girls. There
is nothing in the world of vegetation so nice to write a sweetheart's
name upon as the polished bark of a bamboo: each letter, however lightly
traced at first, enlarges and blackens with the growth of the bark, and
never fades away.
The deeply mossed path slopes down to a little pond in the very heart
of the grove--a pond famous in the land of Izumo. Here there are many
imori, or water-newts, about five inches long, which have red bellies.
Here the shade is deepest, and the stems of the bamboos most thickly
tattooed with the names of girls. It is believed that the flesh of the
newts in the sacred pond of Yaegaki possesses aphrodisiac qualities;
and the body of the creature, reduced to ashes, by burning, was formerly
converted into love-powders. And there is a little Japanese song
referring to the practice:
'Hore-gusuri koka niwa naika to imori ni toeba, yubi-wo marumete kore
bakari.' [7]
The water is very clear; and there are many of these newts to be seen.
And it is the custom for lovers to make a little boat of paper, and put
into it one rin, and set it afloat and watch it. So soon as the paper
becomes wet through, and allows the water to enter it, the weight of the
copper coin soon sends it to the bottom, where, owing to the purity of
the water, it can be still seen distinctly as before. If the newts then
approach and touch it, the lovers believe their happiness assured by
the will of the gods; but if the newts do not come near it, the omen is
evil. One poor little paper boat, I observe, could not sink at all; it
simply floated to the inaccessible side of the pond, where the trees
rise like a solid wall of trunks from the water's edge, and there became
caught in some drooping branches. The lover who launched it must have
departed sorrowing at heart.
Close to the pond, near the pathway, there are many camellia-bushes, of
which the tips of the branches have been tied together, by pairs, with
strips of white paper. These are shrubs of presage. The true lover must
be able to bend two branches together, and to keep them united by tying
a paper tightly about them--all with the fingers of one hand. To do this
well is good luck. Nothing is written upon the strips of paper.
But there is enough writing upon the bamboos to occupy curiosity for
many an hour, in spite of the mosquitoes. Most of the names are
yobi-na,--that is to say, pretty names of women; but there are likewise
names of men--jitsumyo; [8] and, oddly enough, a girl's name and a man's
are in no instance written together. To judge by all this ideographic
testimony, lovers in Japan--or at least in Izumo--are even more
secretive than in our Occident. The enamoured youth never writes his own
jitsumyo and his sweetheart's yobi-na together; and the family name, or
myoji, he seldom ventures to inscribe. If he writes his jitsumyo, then
he contents himself with whispering the yobi-na of his sweetheart to the
gods and to the bamboos. If he cuts her yobi-na into the bark, then he
substitutes for his own name a mention of his existence and his age
only, as in this touching instance: