WITHIN THE HOME.
Into the life of a Japanese home enter many customs and observances that
have not been dwelt upon in the preceding pages, but without some
understanding of which our knowledge of the life of Japanese women is by
no means complete. In Japan the woman's place is so entirely in the home
that all the ceremonies and superstitions that gather about the conduct
of every-day affairs are more to her than they are to the freer and
broader-minded man. The household worship, the yearly round of
festivals, each with its special food to be prepared, the observances
connected with birth and marriage and death; what is to be done in time
of illness, of earthquake, of fire, or of the frequent flittings that
render life in Japan one succession of packings and unpackings,--all
these are matters of high importance to the wife and mother, and their
proper observance is left largely in her hands.
Every well-ordered Japanese home of the old-fashioned kind has its
little shrine, which is the centre of the religious life of the house.
If the household is of the Shint[=o] faith, this shrine is called the
_kami-dana_, or god shelf, and contains the symbols of the gods, _gohei_
in vases, receptacles for food and drink, and a primitive lamp,--only a
saucer of oil in which a bit of pith serves for a wick. Daily offerings
must be made before this shrine, and reverence paid by the clapping of
hands; while on feast days special offerings and invocations are
required. In Buddhist families, the _Butsudan_, or Buddha shelf, takes
the place of the _kami-dana_, and the worship is slightly more
complicated. Greater variety of food is offered, and the simple clapping
of the hands and bowing of the head that is the form of prayer in the
Shint[=o] religion is replaced by the burning of incense and by actual
verbal invocation of Buddha. These religious ceremonies must be
attended to by the mother or wife. She it is who sets the rice and wine
before the ancestral tablets, who lights the little lamp each night, and
who sees that at each feast day and anniversary season the proper food
is prepared and set out for the household gods.
Upon the wife, and her attention to minute and apparently trifling
details, depends much of the well-being of the family. Each child, as it
grows toward maturity, gathers from various sources a collection of
amulets, which, while worn always when the child is in full dress, are
frequently too precious for ordinary play times and the risks and perils
of every-day life. These must be kept carefully by the mother as a
safeguard against the many evils that beset child-life. I have spoken of
the amulets given at the times of the _miya mairi_,--both the first,
when the name is given to the baby, and the subsequent visits made to
the temple by the children as they pass certain stated points in their
progress toward maturity. These amulets are simply written papers or
slips of wood with the seal of the temple from which they are issued
stamped upon them. Visits to noted temples by relatives and friends
often result in additions to the child's collection. One kind of charm
is good to keep the eyes strong; another will help its possessor to that
much-prized accomplishment, a good handwriting; another acts as an
assurance against accident and saves the child from harm in case of a
fall. All these are put together by the careful mother and preserved as
jealously as Queen Althea kept the charred stick that governed the
destiny of her son. As the children arrive at years of discretion, these
treasures pass out of the mother's faithful keeping into the hands of
their actual owners, and they are usually kept stored away in some
little-used drawer or cabinet until death removes the necessity for any
further safeguards over life. Perhaps of all the curious things that go
to make up these intimate personal belongings of a Japanese man or
woman, there is none more curious than the small white parcel containing
a portion of the umbilical cord,--saved at birth and preserved until
death that it may be buried with its possessor and furnish him the means
of a new birth. These little paper packages, each marked with the name
of the child to whom it belongs, are kept by the mother.
Upon the mother of the family rests very largely the determining of
lucky and unlucky days for the beginning or transaction of different
kinds of business. A fortune-teller is consulted for important things,
such as removals or marriages, but in every-day life one cannot be
running to a fortune-teller about everything; and yet there is bad luck
lurking in the background that may baffle all our plans if we do not
observe the proper times and seasons for our undertakings. Just as the
Japanese calendar divides time into cycles of twelve years, each year
named for a different animal, so also the days and hours are divided
into twelves and bear the names of the same twelve animals,--the Chinese
signs of the zodiac. These animals are as follows: the rat, the bull,
the tiger, the hare, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the goat, the
monkey, the cock, the dog, and the boar. Each animal brings its own
kind of good or bad luck into the hour, day, or year over which it
presides, and only a skillful balancer of pros and cons can read aright
the combinations, and understand what the luck of any particular hour in
any particular day of any particular year will be. For instance, the
rat, which is the companion of Daikoku, the money god, is a lucky animal
so far as money is concerned. A person born in the year of the rat will
never need money, and will be economical, possibly miserly; and in one
born on the day of the rat in the year of the rat these chances and
qualities will be doubled. But the luck of the rat may be very seriously
interfered with by the bad luck of the monkey or of the proverbially
unlucky dog, when their days and hours occur in the rat year. On the
other hand, their bad luck may be counteracted by the good luck of the
tiger or hare, for as a rule three animals of different portent are
presiding over human prospects every hour. This makes prophecy a
ticklish business, requiring a wise head, but it also leaves much room
for the subsequent explanation of failures by the superior and unusual
influence of one or another of the animals, as the case may require.
Momentous questions of this kind have frequently to be settled by the
Japanese wife and mother, and she gains dignity and value in her home
and neighborhood according to her skill in interpreting the portents of
the day and hour.
For the greater events of family life the home prophecies are felt to be
too uncertain, and the services of the fortune-teller must be called in.
No well-managed family would think of building a new house without
finding in what direction to face the front door. In an American city
this necessity would cause considerable inconvenience, as the position
of the front door is usually determined by the relation of the
building-lot to the street; but in a Japanese city, where, in all but
the business quarters, every house is concealed by a high board fence,
and where the gate that admits one within the fence is the only sign by
which any one in the street can judge of the worldly condition of the
dwellers within, the houses are faced about any and every way, and the
position of each is determined by the good luck that it will bring its
owner. After this matter has been settled and the house is fairly begun,
there are occasional crises in its construction upon which much depends.
Of these the most important is the day when the roof is raised. The roof
timbers, which are unsquared logs, often rather crooked, after being
carefully fitted and framed in some convenient vacant lot, are brought
on carts to the site of the new building, and when all is ready, the
head carpenter sends word to the house-owner that he is about to set the
roof in place. The house-owner then decides whether the day set by the
builder is a lucky one for himself and his family. If it is not, a delay
in the building is always preferable to any danger of incurring the
displeasure of the luck gods. This crisis safely passed, and the last of
the roof beams secured in its place, the men take a holiday, and are
feasted on _saké_ and spaghetti by the house-owner. A present of money
to each workman is also in order, and will conduce to the rapid and
faithful execution of the job in hand. When, at last, the house is
finished, and carpenters and plasterers are ready to leave it, the local
firemen, who have assisted all along in the building as unskilled
laborers, often ascend to the roof, and from the ridge-pole cast down
cakes, for which the children of the neighborhood scramble joyfully.
When the builders have left, and the house is ready for occupation, even
to the soft, thick mats on the floor and the white paper windows, the
family will move in on the first day thereafter that is both lucky and
pleasant. So far as possible, everything in the old house will be packed
and ready the day before, and very early in the morning the relatives
and friends of the mover will begin to rally around him. All come who
can, and those who cannot come send servants or provisions. Every
tradesman or _kurumaya_ who has had or who hopes to have the patronage
of the moving household sends a representative to help along the work,
so that there is always a sufficient force to carry the household
belongings into the new home and settle them in place before the day is
over. All these visiting helpers must be fed and provided with tea and
cakes at proper intervals, and the presents of cooked food that pour in
at such times are highly acceptable and of great practical usefulness.
When the long day is ended and the visitors return one by one to their
homes, it is the mistress of the house who must see that every servant
and representative of a business firm receives, neatly done up in white
paper, a present of money properly proportioned to his services, and the
style and circumstances of the family he has been aiding. And when all
are gone, the shutters closed, and the family left alone in their new
home, the little wife must make a list of all who have helped in any way
during the day, and to all, within a short time, make some
acknowledgment of their kindness by either a call or a present. It is
upon the wife, too, that the duty falls of sending to each of the near
neighbors _soba_, a kind of macaroni, as an announcement of the family's
arrival. The number of neighbors to whom this gift is sent is
determined differently according to circumstances. If the house is one
of several in a compound, _soba_ will be sent to all within the gate;
but if the compound is very large, so that the sending to all would be
too great an expense, the five nearest houses will be selected to
receive the gift, or all who draw water from the same well. A very late
fashion in T[=o]ky[=o], but one that is gaining ground because of its
convenience, is to send, not the macaroni itself, but an order on the
nearest restaurant at which that delicacy is sold.
As I have already said, much of a woman's time and thought must be given
to the proper distribution of presents among friends and dependents. The
subject of what to give, when to give, to whom to give, and how to do up
the gift acceptably, is one the thorough understanding of which requires
the study of years. No foreigner can hope to do more than dabble in the
shallows of it. Presents seem to be used more for the purpose of keeping
those persons whose services you may need, or whose enmity you dread,
under a sense of obligation, than they are as expressions of sentiment.
Every housekeeper, for instance, must need the occasional services of a
carpenter or a gardener, and in a large city like T[=o]ky[=o] the
chances are that she will some day need, and need very badly, the
services of a fireman. A wise woman--one who is not penny wise and pound
foolish--will by timely presents keep herself constantly in the minds of
such persons, so that when she sends for them, they may feel under
sufficient obligation to her to come at once. So will her house be
quickly put in repair after earthquake or other accident; her garden
show for only the briefest interval the ravages of the typhoon which has
gullied out her lawn and leveled her choicest trees; and when some night
"the flower of Yedo" blooms suddenly by her side, she will have the
speedy assistance of the firemen, who will seal her storehouse securely
with clay, wet her roof and walls thoroughly with water, and light at
her gates the great alarm lanterns to tell her friends that her house is
in danger and summon them to her assistance. No friend can disregard
such a signal, but all will rally round her once more to help in this
less orderly and cheerful moving,--will pack and cord and carry out her
goods, and if at last the fire consumes her dwelling, will gather her
household and belongings into their hospitable homes. But the foolish
woman, who neglects or forgets her dependents when she does not need
them, finds some day that her roof is leaking, but all the carpenters
are too busy to mend it, her garden is destroyed because the gardener
had an important engagement elsewhere just when she needed him, and her
property is burned up or ruined by water and smoke because the firemen
attended to her house last when the fire swept over her compound.
When death enters a house in Japan, there are no undertakers to relieve
the family of the painful duty of caring for the dead body and placing
it in the coffin. There are coffin-makers and funeral managers who
supply the great white bier and lanterns and the bunches of paper
flowers that adorn every funeral procession, but within the house the
preparations are all made by the family and friends, and the heaviest
and most painful part of the work falls, as usual, on the women of the
family. As soon as the breath finally leaves the body, it is wrapped in
a quilt, laid with its head to the north, and an inverted screen placed
around it. On one corner of the screen is hung a sword or knife to keep
off any evil spirit that may wander into the room in the shape of a cat
and disturb the dead.
Etiquette requires that relatives and intimate friends of the family
call immediately on learning of the death. To receive these calls the
mourners, in full ceremonial dress, must sit in the death chamber and
remove for each guest the covering from the face of the dead. The
visitors then offer the ceremonial bows to the corpse, as if it were
alive. During this time, too, presents to the spirit of the dead are
pouring in. The proper offerings are flowers, cake, vegetables, candles,
incense, or small gifts of money for the purchase of incense. If the
deceased is a person of rank or distinction, the house is flooded with
cumbersome and useless offerings. This custom has become so great an
addition to the trials necessarily incident to a bereavement that one
occasionally sees in the newspaper announcements of deaths a request
that no offerings to the dead be sent.
On the day after the death, often in the evening, the body must be
placed in the cask-shaped coffin that until recently was the style
commonly in use in Japan. Now, among the wealthier classes, the long
coffin has superseded the small square or round one, but the smaller
expense connected with burial in the old way makes the survival of the
old type a necessity for the majority of Japanese. At an appointed time
all the relatives assemble in the death chamber, and preparations are
made for the bathing of the corpse. Two of the _tatami_, or floor mats,
are turned over, and upon them are placed a new tub, a new pail, and a
new dipper. These utensils must have no metal of any kind about them. In
the washing of the body none but members of the family must assist, and
respect for the dead absolutely requires that all the relatives of the
deceased who are below him in rank must have a hand in these final
ablutions. In Japan, the mourning for the dead is the duty of inferiors,
never of superiors. There is no official, ceremonial mourning of parents
for their children, nor does custom require them to perform any of the
last rites, or attend the funeral. Upon the younger brothers and sisters
falls the duty of attending to all the last sad ministrations. If the
wife dies, her husband does not mourn for her, though her children do;
but if the husband dies, the wife must mourn the rest of her life,
cutting off her hair and placing it in the coffin as a sign of her
perpetual faithfulness.
When the body has been washed, it is dressed in white, in silk _habutai_
whenever the family can afford it. The dress, which must be appropriate
to the season, in the making of which all the women of the family must
assist, is the plain, straight kimono, but must be folded from right to
left, instead of from left to right as in life. The body, to be placed
in the coffin, must be folded into a sitting posture, the chin resting
upon the knees,--the position of the mummies found in many aboriginal
American tombs. This difficult, to us apparently impossible feat, safely
accomplished, there are placed in the coffin a number of small things
that the dead takes with him to the next world. Some of these have been
already mentioned, the others are little keepsakes, or perhaps tokens of
the tastes and employments of the dead,--dice, cards, _saké_ bottles,
the image of a horse, toy weapons,--anything, provided only that it be
not of metal, may be used for this purpose. The single exception to this
rule about metal is that small copper coins may be put in, to fee the
old hag who guards the bank of the river of death. Last of all, the
vacant spaces in the coffin are filled in with bags of tea. Then the
coffin is closed and nailed up, wrapped with a white silk cloth fastened
with a white silk or cotton cord, and placed on a high stand, and food
and incense are placed before it.
So long as the coffin is in the house, it must be watched over
continually. To aid in this protracted vigil, which must be kept up day
and night until the burial, the relatives, friends, and retainers of the
dead assemble at the house in large numbers. In the case of a person of
wealth and influence, there will often be a hundred or more of these
watchers, who must be fed and cared for; and who take turns in watching,
eating, and sleeping. It is their duty to see that the incense burning
before the coffin is never allowed to go out, while the food for the
dead is renewed at regular intervals by the mourners themselves.
This somewhat detailed description of the duties to be performed by the
members of a bereaved family in the house of mourning is sufficient to
show that the presence of death in the home is made as terrible as
possible by the painful ceremonies, the continual bustle and excitement,
and the strain upon the resources and executive ability of the
housekeeper and her assistants. There are few enlightened Japanese who
will defend the present system of cruelty to the afflicted, or who do
not long for some change, but so great is the force of conservatism in
this regard, so haunting the fear that any change may indicate a lack
of respect for the dead, that reform advances slowly.
Individual instances occur in which some of the worst features of these
customs are modified. A case in point is that of the late Mr. Fukuzawa,
a man whose life was devoted to the advancement of his countrymen in
modern ways, and who in his death continued his teaching. In his will he
provided that his body was to be buried, without washing, in the
clothing in which he died. This provision would seem in most countries
to be mere eccentricity, but when one has seen or heard of the gruesome
ceremony that follows immediately after death, and the burden of which
falls, not on the old and hardened, but on the young and tender,
suffering, in many cases, under the weight of a first and crushing
affliction, one can see that only through such means as this can the
burden ever be lifted from the shoulders of those who mourn. There are
young and enlightened mothers in Japan to-day who have felt, in minds
awakened to thought and action, the horrors of the system, and who will
not allow their children to suffer for them what they have suffered in
paying respect to their dead parents. Through this growing feeling and
the unselfishness of maternal affection may come in time the release
from these mournful ceremonies.
While the body remains in the house, a priest comes from time to time to
offer prayers, longer or shorter according to the wealth of the family
employing him; and when the funeral cortège sets out on its way to the
cemetery, the priests in their professional robes form an imposing part
of the spectacle. The day of the burial is selected with due respect to
the calendar, for, though there may be little good luck about a funeral,
there is a chance of extremely bad luck growing out of it unless every
precaution is taken. Just before the procession starts, a religious
ceremony is held at the house, which is attended by the friends of the
deceased, and which is substantially the same as that performed at the
cemetery. On the day of the burial, great bunches of natural flowers are
sent to the dead, each bunch so large as to require the services of one
man to carry it. Sometimes with the gift a man is sent to take part in
the procession, but if the giver feels too poor to hire a man, this
burden, too, falls upon the bereaved household, for etiquette requires
that all flowers sent be borne to the grave by uniformed coolies, who
march in the funeral train. Another favorite present at this time, among
Buddhists, is a cage of living birds, to be borne to the grave and
released thereon. This act of mercy is counted to the deceased for
righteousness, and is believed to aid in rendering his next incarnation
a happy one.
A funeral procession is an imposing spectacle, and, to the uninstructed
foreigner, a cheerful one; for there is nothing sad or sombre in the
white, or bright-colored, robes of the priests, the white,
tinsel-decorated bier, the red and white flags borne aloft, the enormous
bunches of gay-colored flowers;--the very mourners in white silk, and
with faces apparently unmoved by grief, bring no thought of the object
of the procession to the Western mind. It seems more like a bridal than
a burial. But if you follow the cortège to the cemetery and there
listen to the wailing of the wind instruments, and the droning of the
priests as they perform the last rites, and watch the silent company
that one by one go forward to bow before the coffin and place upon it a
branch of _sakaki_ or burn a bit of incense, the trappings of woe in
Japan will impress themselves strongly upon your mind, and the gayly
appareled funeral processions will seem to you ever afterward as
mournful and hopeless a spectacle as you can find in any country.
The house of death remains a place of mourning for forty-nine days after
the funeral. During this period the spirit of the deceased is supposed
to be still inhabiting the house, and a tablet or shrine is set up in
the death chamber before which food and flowers are renewed daily.
Visitors are expected to make obeisance to the dead. At the end of this
time, some acknowledgment must be sent to every friend who has sent
anything to the house at the funeral. For a time after death has come
into the family the relatives of the dead are regarded as ceremonially
unclean. The period of defilement varies with the nearness of
relationship. In the old days, no one thus defiled was allowed to go
about his regular business or to mingle with other men; but busy modern
Japan does not find it convenient to pause long in its work, so that
government officials and school-children are now sent written papers
excusing them for coming back to their tasks even while ceremonially
unclean. Thus the old custom is passing away. In the first year after
death, certain days are observed with special honors before the memorial
tablet, and later, certain anniversaries of the death must be kept,
until, at last, at the end of fifty or one hundred years, the
personality of the spirit seems to become merged with that of the other
ancestral spirits, and no offerings are made to it except at the general
feasts of the dead.
With the coming in of the last month of the year begin the preparations
for the great New Year's festival, and the housekeeper finds herself
occupied through every moment of the brief days. A woman who is at the
head of a large household has upon her hands in the month of December
spring house-cleaning and preparations for Christmas, New Year's,
Thanksgiving, and Easter, all at once. The work of getting the family
wardrobe ready for the festival must begin very early in the month, for
every man, woman, and child in the household must be provided with new
clothes, and the thrifty housewife sends no sewing out. In the old days,
it was ordained that the eighth day of the twelfth month should be a
needle festival,--a day on which all women rest from their sewing and
amuse themselves by indulging their own fancies instead of their
husbands', as is their duty on other days. This day was supposed to mark
the dividing line between the old year's and the new year's sewing, but,
as a matter of fact, the forehanded woman will finish up the old and
begin the new even earlier in the month, so as to have this part of her
work well out of the way before the house-cleaning, which should be
begun not later than the fifteenth.
This house-cleaning, even with the small amount of furniture found in a
Japanese house, is an elaborate affair. Every box and closet and
rubbish-hole in the house is turned out and put in order, the _tatami_
are taken up and brushed and beaten, the woodwork from ceiling to floor
is carefully washed, the plaster and paper walls flicked with the paper
flapper that takes the place in Japan of our feather duster. All the
quilts and clothing must be sunned and aired, the kakémonos and curios
belonging to the family unpacked, carefully dusted, and put back into
their wrappings and boxes, and the house and garden put into perfect
repair. This work, if thoroughly done, takes about a week. When all is
finished, even to the final purification by beating everything in the
house with a fresh bamboo, games and festivities and _soba_ are in
order. In the old daimi[=o] houses, where great numbers of men and women
were employed, and where the women's quarters were in a distinct part of
the house, it was considered a great joke to catch a man on the women's
side any time between the close of the cleaning and the beginning of the
new year. The intruder was promptly seized and shouldered by the women,
who carried him about the house in triumph, finally returning him to his
own quarters. If, by any chance, they could catch the chief steward,
they sang as they carried him about:--
"This is the great pillar of the house!
May he be happy till the stone foundations rot!"
The week following the house-cleaning is devoted to the preparation of
food for the festival. Of this, the most characteristic is _mochi_, a
sort of dumpling made of rice steamed and pounded, the preparation of
which is so difficult and protracted a process that it is not lightly
undertaken. It is so distinctively the festival food of Japan that if
you find _mochi_ in a friend's house at any time except the new year,
you immediately ask what has happened, and are pretty sure to be told
that it is a present received in celebration of a birth or a marriage,
or some other domestic festival. It is, to Japanese children, what
turkey and cranberry sauce are to American children, not only a delight
to the palate, but a dish the very smell of which brings back the most
cheerful occasions in the year.
When the _mochi_ is made and set away to await the festal day, the
matter of decoration must be attended to. At every gate is erected some
token of the season, if it be only a bit of pine stuck into the ground,
or a wisp of straw rope decorated with white paper _gohei_. The great
black gates that indicate the homes of the wealthier classes are almost
concealed by structures of pine and bamboo, on which oranges, lobsters,
straw rope, straw fringe, white paper, and images of the good luck gods
are used as decorations. All these things are either efficacious in
keeping off evil spirits, or are symbols of good luck. Within the house,
in the _tokonoma_, or place of honor, in the best room, great cakes of
_mochi_, two, three, five, or seven in number, are set one upon another
in a dish covered with fern leaves, and the structure surrounded by
seaweed.
Before the new year comes in the capable housewife will have sent out
presents to every one who has during the year been of service to her
husband, her children, or herself in any way. Her own servants will be
remembered with gifts of clothing, something will be sent to the
servants of friends at whose houses any of the family have visited
often, and every dependent, poor relation, employee, and employee's
child must be given a present, large or small, according to the amount
of obligation felt by the giver. To persons of greater wealth and
importance, to whom the family are grateful for past favors or from whom
they are hoping for something in the future, gifts, often quite out of
proportion to the resources of the givers, are sent,--a method of
investing capital that is a little risky, though it sometimes yields
prompt and bountiful returns. On the other hand, all the merchants and
marketmen who supply the house send presents to the mistress and
frequently to the head servants as well, and _furushiki_ (bundle
handkerchiefs), cooking utensils, packages of sugar, boxes of eggs,
dried fish, etc., flow in at the kitchen; while crêpe, silk, cotton
cloth, money, toys, curios, and other valuables flow out of the parlor.
All this present-giving is a severe tax upon the strength and resources
of the housekeeper, and adds heavily to the burden that the last month
of the year imposes upon her.
By the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth of the month the trades-people begin
to send in their bills, for every man expects to square up all his
accounts by the last night of the old year, and early payments are
expected and made, so that all may begin the new year out of debt. So
universal is this custom that the man who finds at the eleventh hour
that he cannot clear off all his debts is likely to offer his property
at a heavy sacrifice in order to secure the necessary cash. For any one
with ready money extraordinary bargains are to be met with in Japanese
shops during the last week of the year. In case this resource fails,
suicide is still a short and honorable way out of a world that has
become too difficult to live in.
The Japanese housewife must feel, when December has been successfully
passed, like the Yankee who had noticed that if he lived through the
month of March he generally lived through the rest of the year. The
observances of January, for which December has been one long
preparation, begin with the rising of the New Year's sun, and continue
in one form or another for about two weeks. Almost every day has its
special food and its special festival duty. For the first three days the
very best clothes in the wardrobe are worn by everybody, then till the
seventh the second best, and from the seventh to the end of the month
new clothes, though not the very best, must be worn. Within the first
seven days every man in Japan is expected to call on all his friends and
acquaintances, but the women, probably out of consideration for the many
duties that the festival season puts upon them, are given until March to
finish up their New Year's calls.
The streets of the cities, and even of the small villages, are full of
life and interest for a week or two. _Kurumayas_ in their new winter
liveries trundle around fathers and mothers and happy children. All
manner of mummers, musicians, and dancers go from house to house in
search of custom. The _manzai_, who, with dances and songs and strange
grimaces, undertake to drive out from your house for the new year all
the devils who may have been residing there hitherto, are a special
feature of this season. In every garden and in the public streets little
girls, their faces freshly covered with white paint, their shining black
hair newly dressed, their wing-sleeved kimonos gorgeous with many
colors, play battledore and shuttlecock, toss small bags half filled
with rice, or pat balls wound with shining silk to the accompaniment of
a weird little chant. For the boys there are kites of many shapes and
colors, or tops that they spin under every one's feet, well knowing that
no one in Japan is too busy to turn aside for a child's pleasure. The
very horses--small, shock-headed, evil-tempered beasts, who drag
tremendous loads with many snorts and snaps at their masters--are decked
out with gay streamers that reach nearly to the ground, at the ends of
which are tinkling bells. The festival season closes on the fifteenth
and sixteenth with a visit to the temple of Yemma, the god of hell, and
with a holiday for all the apprentices.
Next to the New Year's holiday, perhaps the most important festival of
the Japanese year is _O Bon_, the Feast of the Dead. This is, in its
present form, a Buddhist institution, but in spirit it fitted so exactly
into the ancient Japanese ideas of the tastes and habits of departed
spirits that it merely supplanted the old Shint[=o] feasts of the dead,
and it is a little difficult to-day to determine whether its observance
is more Buddhist or Shint[=o] in its character. To find the O Bon
ceremonies in their most perfect form, it is necessary now to go into
the more remote country villages, for though, even in T[=o]ky[=o], this
feast is still one of the most important in the whole year, it seems to
be more distinctly itself in a small village, where all the old forms
are still kept up.
In T[=o]ky[=o], the three days' festival is kept by the new calendar, and
occurs on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth of July. At O Bon, as
at New Year's time, it is customary to square off all obligations by a
general giving of presents. This, while not quite as important a matter
as at the beginning of the year, is still a severe tax upon the time,
purse, and memory of the wife and mother in any large family. At this
time, too, as at New Year's, _mochi_ or some other festival dish must be
provided, but at this point the resemblance between the two occasions
ceases. In accordance with its character as a feast of departed spirits,
the observance of O Bon is distinctively religious. On the twelfth, the
family go to the graveyard and clean and put in order the graves and
tombstones, so that the returning spirits may find all properly cared
for. Fresh water and flowers are placed before each stone, and sometimes
rice and fresh vegetables. At home, the ancestral tablets in the
_Butsudan_ form the centre of the ceremonies. Before the shrine are
placed, on the thirteenth, offerings of food of any kind that can be
made without fish or meat. Great balls of _mochi_, _saké_, flowers, and
choice new varieties of vegetables are appropriate offerings. All are
tastefully arranged, the lamps are carefully lighted every night, and
special services are held before the shrine. For the three days of the
feast, the souls of the dead are believed to be visiting their old
haunts, and to need light and food and all the conveniences that their
descendants can spare them. Each house is decorated with lanterns, that
the spirits may be able to find their way. It is from this custom that
the feast is often called by foreigners the Feast of Lanterns.
As I have already said, in T[=o]ky[=o] and other modernized places, this
feast is not seen at its best. Only the soft glow of the lanterns
swinging from every house, and the decorations in the graveyards and at
the household shrines, indicate to the traveler that anything unusual is
going on. But in the country regions it is quite another matter, and the
welcoming, entertainment, and proper dismissal of the visiting spirits
form the entire business of the community for three days. Usually the
middle of August is the time for the country celebration. On the
twelfth, bands of children carrying red lanterns march singing through
the village on their way to the graveyard, where the annual cleaning is
taking place. That night bonfires in the cemetery and before the houses
light the pathway of the wanderers. Then for three nights all the young
people of the village gather in the temple court in grotesque disguises
and with towels over their faces, and dance all night long in the
moonlight, to primitive music produced by a drum and the monotonous
chant of the dancers themselves. These three dance-nights are the great
occasion of the year to the young peasants, for this is the only time
when persons of both sexes meet together in a social way, and it is long
looked forward to and enjoyed intensely. Of late years, the government,
fearing the abuses that grow out of this exceptional social event, has
endeavored to suppress the dancing, but it continues in full vigor
throughout most of rural Japan, though conducted with more decorum than
formerly on account of the standing dread of police interference. The
object of the dance is to amuse the spirits of the ancestors, who must
be imagined as hovering in the background, viewing with approval the
antics of their descendants.
Other amusements are going on in the village on the O Bon evenings. At
a summer resort every hotel-keeper will have a professional
story-teller, a company of musicians, or some other entertainment to
which the guests of the hotel are invited, and at which as many of the
villagers as can crowd to the open house fronts stare until the dance
drum in the temple court draws their feet in that direction. And then,
on the last night of the feast, bonfires are once more kindled at every
house, so that the spirits may find their way safely back to the land
whence they came, and not stay to haunt their descendants at improper
seasons.
No account of life in a Japanese home would be complete without a little
space devoted to the special delights of the small boy. Although this
book deals mainly with feminine concerns, the small boy in Japan, as in
America, is the life and fun of the home, and one cannot fail to notice
his times of surpassing enjoyment. He rules the house and his mother and
his grandmother and his sisters, at all times, and his activity and
enterprise secure for him a good share in any fun that is going on; but
there are certain seasons that appeal to the boyish heart with a special
message and of which he is the central figure.
As the Feast of Dolls is to the girls, so is the Feast of Flags to the
boys,--their own special day, set apart for them out of the whole year.
It comes on the fifth day of the fifth month (now May fifth), and for
long before its arrival the shops are gay with all manner of tempting
toys, while in every yard rises a great bamboo pole, from which, when
the time comes, will float an enormous carp, its body inflated by the
strong spring wind, its great mouth wide open, and its eyes glaring
hideously, as it fights its way against the air currents. Sometimes
there will be half a dozen such poles in one yard,--signs either that
the household is blessed with many boys, or that the way to its heart is
through gifts of toys to its son and heir. When the great day at last
arrives, the feast within the home is conducted in much the same way as
the Feast of Dolls. There are the same red-covered shelves, the same
offerings of food and drink; but instead of the placid images of the
Emperor and Empress and the five court musicians, the household
furnishings and toilet articles, there are effigies of the heroes of
history and folklore: Jingo, the warrior Empress; Takenouchi, her
white-haired prime minister, holding in his arms her son, the infant
war-god; Benkei, the giant retainer of Yoshitsune; Yoshitsune himself,
the marvelous fencer and general; Kintaro, the fat, hairy, red boy, who
was born and grew up in the mountains, and even in his babyhood fought
with bears; Shoki Sama, the strong man who could conquer _oni_;--these
are some of the characters to be found on the shelves at the boys'
feast. Behind each figure stands a flag with the crest of the hero that
it represents, and before them are set all manner of weapons in
miniature. The food offered is _mochi_ wrapped in oak leaves, because
the oak is among trees what the carp is among fishes, the emblem of
strength and endurance. The flower of this day is the iris or flag,
because of its sword-shaped leaves,--hence the name, _Shobu Matsuri_,
feast of iris or flag.
Another feast, which, while not founded for the boys, seems to have
been adopted by them as a great occasion, is what is known as Buddha's
birthday, celebrated on April eighth. On this day in every Buddhist
temple a temporary platform is erected, the roof of which is covered
with flowers. Upon this platform, in a great tub filled with licorice
tea, is set a small image of the infant Buddha. Hither flock the small
boys with bamboo dippers, and spend the day ladling up the tea and
pouring it over the image, and then ladling it out into small bamboo
buckets. This licorice tea, through contact with the image, acquires
miraculous healing properties, and the devout, after making offerings of
money twisted up in white paper, carry away the little buckets. The tea
is good for the eyes and the throat, and if some of it be used in mixing
ink, and then, with the ink thus mixed, a charm be written and placed
about the house, it will keep away all vermin. It is not easy to see
exactly what the fascination of this feast is to the boys, but I am told
that many of them like it even better than their own specially
appointed day.
But of all the delights that come into the year, there is nothing to
compare for joyous excitement with the great _matsuri_ of the parish
temple. For at least a week beforehand there are enough interesting
things going on in every house and shop along the street to keep every
small boy in the parish agog from morning till night. Here are lanterns
being made with the _mon_ of the gods on one side and the rising sun of
the Japanese flag on the other. There a dancing platform is being
erected, and at every stage of its development it is swarming with
active youngsters, who shin up its poles, turn somersaults on the
platform, and sit in rows on its edge, with bare legs swinging high over
the heads of the passers-by; and when it is done, and the drums
installed, they take turns all day and far into the night in keeping
them going. Then, too, there are the _dashi_, or floats, on one of which
each street in the parish spends its money and its ingenuity. How the
boys haunt the shops in which they are being made! How they watch the
wondrous changes of paper into flowers, and of bamboo and cotton cloth
into sea waves, or castle walls, or monsters of earth or sea or air! How
they chatter and wriggle and push and squirm for front places, when at
last the great cars are built up in the open street, the marvelous
edifices erected upon them, and at the top of all the heroic figures of
well-known mythological or historical characters rise majestic in
flowing robes! Then, when the black bullocks, resplendent in collars and
halters of red rope, are yoked to the triumphal car, and the structure
moves slowly down the shouting street, how the boys crawl into every
joint and cranny of the _dashi_, how they hang from every beam, how they
yell from before and behind in sheer abandon of joy! And at last, when
the procession forms, and with fantastically garbed men marching in
front and wild-eyed singers yelling just behind them, with dancing-girls
on moving platforms and jugglers and tumblers on the _dashi_ themselves,
the twenty or more festal cars move, with frequent stops, down to the
temple, to escort the sacred symbols on their annual pilgrimage through
the parish, who so noisy or so ubiquitous as these same bullet-headed,
blue-gowned boys? They bob up at every turn, ooze out at every pore of
the procession, and enjoy, as only boys can enjoy, the noise and
confusion, the barbaric splendor, the dancing and tumbling, the mumming
and drumming, the excruciating howls of the singers, the jingling of the
marshals' iron-ringed staves, the clapping of the great wooden clappers
that time the movement and the stops of the pageant.
Better than all, perhaps, is the evening, when the streets, lighted by
many lanterns, are filled with throngs of holiday-makers,--now stopping
to stare in at some shop where the devout worshiper has established a
beautiful shrine, has set out _mochi_ and other offerings before some
image, or has arranged a landscape garden in a box, or constructed a
_matsuri_ procession just entering the court of a miniature temple; now
haggling with the ever-present booth-keepers for lanterns or cakes or
hairpins to take back to the friends left at home. Suddenly there is a
joyous, rhythmic shout of many excited boyish voices, there is a
gleaming of square red lanterns, a whirl and a rush through the crowd.
Now is the time to get out of the way, for the boys move quickly and are
too excited to turn aside for anything. On they come at a sharp trot,
each little round head bound about with a fillet of blue and white
toweling, each lithe, active body more or less covered by a blue and
white gown, all shouting in unison and bearing on their shoulders a
miniature _dashi_, made most often of a _saké_ tub mounted on a frame,
and decorated with lanterns and white paper. They charge through the
crowd, which makes way quickly at their approach, until the pace, the
weight of their burden, and the frantic shouting exhaust their breath.
Then they plunge down a side street, rest for a few moments, gather
themselves together, and charge once more into the crowd. There must be
some pretty tired little boys in the parish when the fun is all over,
for these performances are kept up far into the night; but for absolute
and perfect enjoyment there is nothing I have yet seen that seems to me
to compare with the enjoyment that a Japanese boy gets out of a
_matsuri_. It is worth being tired for!
There is no space in this work for a more detailed picture of life in a
Japanese home. Enough has been said in this chapter to show that it is
made up of many little things,--of cares and sorrows and
pleasures,--just as is life in any American home, and it is the little
things we care about that make the oneness of the family, and the
nation, and the oneness, too, of humanity, if we can only understand one
another.