MATSUE, August, 1891.
DEAR PROFESSOR CHAMBERLAIN,--I have just received and read your most
interesting letter on my return from Kizuki,--where I should have liked
to remain longer, but I must go to see the Bon-odori at Shimo-ichi,
where it is danced differently from anywhere else, so far as I can
learn, and in a thrillingly ghostly manner,--so that one thinks he is
looking at a Dance of Souls.
Before leaving I had a copy of Murray's Guide sent to the Kokuzō, who
was more than pleased to see the picture of the great temple reproduced
and to hear what was said about it. Before I went away, he gave me
another singular entertainment, such as he alone could do--for he is
King of Kizuki. (By the way, the old reverence for the Kokuzō is not
dead. Folks do not believe now that whoever he looks at immediately
becomes unable to move; but as I and my companion followed him to the
great shrine, the pilgrims fell down and worshipped him as he passed.)
This was the entertainment he gave me:--Having invited me to the temple
grounds, where seats were prepared, and a supper got ready for us, Mr.
Senke gave some order, and the immense court immediately filled with
people,--thousands. Then at a signal began a round dance, such as I
had never seen before,--the Hōnen-odori, as anciently performed in
Kizuki. It was so fascinating that I watched it until two o'clock in
the morning. At least three hundred dancers were in the ring;--and the
leader, standing on a mochi-mortar turned upside down, with an umbrella
over his head, formed the axis of the great round, and turned slowly
within it upon his pedestal. He had a superb voice. The Kokuzō also
got the beautiful _miko_ dances photographed to please me, and presented
me with many curious MSS., some of which I hope to show you later on.
They were written expressly for me.
Now as to the shōryō-bune. Just as the Bon-odori differs in every
part of Japan, and just as everything at Kizuki is totally different
from everything at Ise, even to the Miko-kagura, so is the custom of
sending away the Ships of the Souls different here. In many parts the
ships are launched at two or three o'clock in the morning of the day
after the Bon; or if ships are not launched, then floating lanterns
are sent out by way of guiding the dead home. But in Kizuki the
shōryō-bune are launched only by day and for those who have been
drowned at sea, and the shapes of the ships vary according to the kind
of ship in which the lost man or woman perished. And they are launched
every year for ten years after the death:--and when the soul returns
yearly to visit the home, the ship is made ready, and a little stick of
incense is lighted before launching it to take the beloved ghost back
again, and a little stock of provisions is placed in it upon _kawarake_
(principally _dango_). And the _kaimyō_ of the dead is written upon
the sail. And these boats are launched,--not at night, as elsewhere, but
in the daytime.
I have had the shōryō-bune boxed and addressed to you, and a
priest wrote for me the kaimyō upon the sail and the date of death,
according to the usual custom. But you will not get the thing before
three weeks, as I am forwarding it by express, and you know how slow the
process is!
As for my letters, use anything you wish, and, if you desire, my
name. The only matter is this: that I am so small a personage as an
author that I am much in doubt whether the use of my name attached
to any opinion would give the opinion more weight than if expressed
impersonally. Unless it should, it might not be good for the book. I
leave the decision entirely to you.
I have been reading Mr. Lowell's book over again; for it is one thing to
read it in Philadelphia, and quite another thing to read it after having
spent a year and a half in Japan. And the power and the charm impress
me more than ever. But I am so much horrified by its conclusions--at
least a few of them--that I try very hard to find a flaw therein. I
think the idea that the degree of the development of individuality in
a people necessarily marks its place in the great march of mind is not
true necessarily. At least it may be argued about. For as the tendency
of the age is toward class specialization and interdependent subdivision
of all branches of knowledge and all practical application of that
knowledge, the development of the individuality of every integer of a
community would seem to me to unfit the unit to form a close part of any
specialized class. In brief, I doubt, or rather I wish to doubt, that
the development of individuality is a lofty or desirable tendency. Much
of what is called personality and individuality is intensely repellent,
and makes the principal misery of Occidental life. It means much that
is connected with pure aggressive selfishness: and its extraordinary
development in a country like America or England seems a confirmation
of Viscount Torio's theory that Western civilization has the defect of
cultivating the individual at the expense only of the mass, and giving
unbounded opportunities to human selfishness, unrestrained by religious
sentiment, law, or emotional feeling.
[Illustration: THE CITY OF MATSUE]
What you say about your experience with Japanese poetry is indeed very
telling and very painful to one who loves Japan. Depth, I have long
suspected, does not exist in the Japanese soul-stream. It flows much
like the rivers of the country,--over beds three quarters dry,--very
clear and charmingly beshadowed;--but made temporarily profound only
by some passional storm. But it seems to me that some tendencies in
Japanese prose give hope of some beautiful things. There was a
story some time ago in the _Asahi Shimbun_ about a _shirabyōshi_
that brought tears to my eyes, as slowly and painfully translated by a
friend. There was tenderness and poetry and pathos in it worthy of Le
Fanu (I thought of the exquisite story of Le Fanu, "A Bird of Passage,"
simply as a superb bit of tender pathos) or Bret Harte--though, of
course, I don't know what the style is. But the Japanese poem, as I
judge from your work and the "Anthologie Japonaise," seems to me exactly
the Japanese coloured print in words,--nothing much more. Still, how the
sensation of that which has been is flashed into heart and memory by the
delicious print or the simple little verse.
I go to-morrow or the next day to Shimo-ichi. If you get the
shōryō-bune, let me know. Any of your servants can, I think,
fix the little masts and pennons in place. A small incense vessel and
_kawarake_ with _dango_, or models of _dango_, might be added by Dr.
Tylor to the exhibit; but I suppose these are not essential.
With sincerest regards, ever truly,