FUNERAL.
Unlucky ages—The Japanese cycle—Celebration of ages—Respect for old
age—Death—Preparations for the funeral—The wake—The coffin and
bier—The funeral procession—The funeral service—Cremation—Gathering
the bones—The grave—Prayers for the dead—Return presents—Memorial
services—The Shinto funeral.
When the Japanese child has passed through its teens without any
serious mishap, its mother is not yet altogether free from anxiety;
for there are certain stages of its life at which it is threatened by
misfortune. Superstition has fixed certain ages, different according
to sex, which must be passed with utmost circumspection if one would
escape calamities; these ages are the twenty-fifth, forty-second,
and sixty-first years for men and the nineteenth, thirty-third, and
thirty-seventh years for women. Here we may note a curious way of
counting years commonly practised in Japan; in official reports and
legal documents one’s age must be given according to the number of
full years and months one has lived, but on other occasions we have a
very loose way of computing our ages. Thus, when we say that a man is
thirty years old, we do not mean that he is full thirty years of age
or that he is in his thirtieth year, but we mean that he has seen
thirty solar years of the almanac; that is, if we say in 1910 that
he is thirty years old, we mean that he was born some time in 1881,
and if his birthday is the New Year’s Day, he would be twenty-nine
years old on the same day of 1910, but if it is the thirty-first of
December, he would be only twenty-eight years and a day on the first
day of 1910, still we speak of him in either case as being thirty
years old. A baby born on the last day of the year would be two
years old the next morning; its second year according to our mode of
computation is, in short, the solar year in which it completes its
first twelvemonth. When, therefore, we say, for instance, that a man’s
first inauspicious age is his twenty-fifth year, we mean the
solar year in which he completes his twenty-fourth year. Thus, the
twenty-fourth, forty-first, and sixtieth years of a man and the
eighteenth, thirty-second, and thirty-sixth years of a woman are
really their climacteric years; and of these the most critical are
the forty-first for a man and the thirty-second for a woman, for not
only these years themselves, but the years immediately preceding and
following each of them also, are considered inauspicious, so that the
crisis lasts in either case for three years, during which period men
and women refrain as much as possible from acts that may appear like
tempting Providence.
The sixtieth year is our grand climacteric, after which a man must be
prepared for death at any moment; but this age is treated as one for
congratulation and never for sorrow or anxiety, because it completes
our cycle of years. To each year is assigned an element of nature,
namely, wood, fire, earth, metal, or water, each of which is divided
into two kinds, elder and younger, so that there are practically ten
elemental signs by which the years are successively designated. Again,
there are twelve signs of animals, which are also applied to years;
these animals are the rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse,
sheep, ape, fowl, dog, and boar. The years are designated in order
after these animals. Since, then, the years are named in succession
after the ten elemental and twelve animal signs, the same combination
of an elemental and an animal sign recurs every sixty years; the
year of the first sign of metal and the sign of the rat, which last
coincided with the year 1852, will come again in 1912, that is, sixty
years after the other. Our cycle, therefore, comprises sixty years;
and a man who has completed this sexagenary cycle is supposed to
return to childhood, and often wears red under-garments or red-lined
clothes and a red cap after the manner of children. He invites friends
and relatives to a dinner to celebrate the occasion.
The next celebration takes place when a man has reached his
seventieth year, which is named “a rarity since antiquity,” after the
saying that man has seldom since antiquity reached seventy years. The
septuagenarian distributes among his friends and relatives large,
round, red and white rice-cakes with the character signifying
longevity written on them. The seventy-seventh year is celebrated as
the fête of joy, because the characters for seventy-seven resemble the
character for joy when written in a certain style. On this occasion
fans, cloth wrappers, and rice-cakes with the character for joy
written on them are distributed among friends and relatives. The
eightieth year is celebrated in the same manner as the seventieth; and
the celebration of the eighty-eighth year, which is called the fête of
rice because of the resemblance of the characters for eighty-eight to
the character for that useful cereal. The ninetieth and hundredth
years are also celebrated when such opportunities occur.
When a man whose days have exceeded threescore years and ten passes
away, the words that his friends come and sometimes utter to his
surviving family sound more like congratulation than condolence; it
is not, however, as a cynic might suppose, that they congratulate the
family upon having ridden itself of a peevish old man who was a damper
upon all its innocent enjoyments; it is because they consider it a
matter for congratulation that he should have lived to such an age,
and since death must come to all, he was to be envied for having
succeeded so long in keeping off that unwelcome guest. They often add
the wish that similar good fortune may be theirs. The aged as a rule
live happily, except such as have no relatives nor any one else to
depend upon; and though they may complain of the infirmities that
come with years, they never lack sympathy and, so long as they do not
make themselves disagreeable, are treated with tenderness by their
friends and neighbours. The respect for old age, which is one of
the fundamental precepts of Confucian philosophy, is a national
characteristic in Japan no less than in China.
When an illness takes a serious turn or an injury is likely to prove
fatal, the members of the family are, if they live apart, summoned
home and gather around the death-bed. It is considered unfilial, and
unfortunate if unintentional, not to be present at a parent’s death,
as, for instance, children are warned not to go to bed with their
socks on even in the coldest weather since, in that case, they
would be unable to attend at their parents’ death-bed. When the
patient is in the last article of death, his wife and children put
their mouths close to his ear and call him by name; recalled by the
dear voices, life flickers for a moment and then goes out. And when
the glazed eyes and rigid face show that all is over, his lips are
wetted with drops of water; so universal is this custom that the
expression “to wet the dying lips with water” has come to signify the
tending of a patient in his last illness, as when we say that the wife
should be younger than the husband since it is her duty to wet his
dying lips with water. The folding screen which is usually set
around the head of the bed to soften the daylight in the sick-room, is
put upside down. The bed is replaced by a matting, and the quilt is
put over the body with its ends reversed so that its foot is over the
dead man’s breast; and a white cloth is laid over the face to hide it
as its exposure is believed to be an obstacle to the soul’s journey on
the road to Hades. A table of plain white wood is set at the head of
the bed. At the furthest end is placed a tablet of white wood, on
which the Buddhistic name of the deceased is written in Indian ink.
The Buddhistic name is the name by which the deceased will be called
in prayers and at his temple; he may have received it in his lifetime
as many people ask priests of high virtue and reputation to give them
such a name, or more often, the superior of the temple where the
funeral service is to be held, is communicated with immediately
and desired to give the name, which he fixes upon according to the
deceased man’s social position, calling, and services to the temple.
In front of the tablet are ranged in a line a vase with a branch of
the Chinese anise or oldenlandia, a cup of water, and a lamp lighted
with rape-oil; all these utensils are made of unglazed earthenware. On
the nearest edge is set an earthen censer in which incense-sticks are
kept constantly burning, with a box of the sticks beside it. A sword
or a knife is placed on or near the corpse to avert the malign
influences of evil spirits.
[Illustration: OFFERINGS BEFORE A COFFIN.]
Meanwhile, the family shrine is not unfrequently covered to prevent
the ingress of the air polluted by the presence of the dead body.
The front gate is closed and, in shops and tradesmen’s houses, a
reed-screen is hung inside out over the front entrance with a notice
of the family bereavement and, often, of the date of the funeral. A
similar notice is sent to friends and relatives, and also advertised
in the papers. The family temple is notified and a priest comes from
it and recites prayers before the tablet. In the evening the body is
washed in a tub; first, cold water is poured into the tub and then
hot water is added to the required temperature. Superstitious people
insist at other times upon pouring hot water into any vessel and
then adding cold water even when the reverse process would be more
convenient, simply because the latter is the rule at the
body-washing. The washing is done by near relatives; sometimes the
body is merely wiped with water; and, in the case of a woman, the
water is simply poured on the body by inverting the dipper outward
with the left hand instead of inward with the right as on other
occasions. The head is shaved after washing by touching it with the
razor in small patches instead of running the razor continuously which
may presage a succession of misfortunes in the family. Next, the
grave-clothes are put on; the garment is made by two female relatives
sewing with the same piece of thread in opposite directions without
knotting the ends. Around the neck is suspended a bag containing
Buddhist charms and a small coin or picture of a coin to pay the
ferriage on the road to Hades. A rosary and a bamboo staff are also
put into the coffin. Mittens, leggings, and sandals are worn, the last
being tied with the heel-ends to the toes to signify that the dead
shall not return drawn back by love of this world. The wife, if the
deceased is her husband, sometimes cuts off her hair and puts it in
the coffin in token of her resolve never to marry again. Into the
child’s coffin a doll is put to keep it company on its lonely journey
to the other world. The coffin is then filled with incense powder or
dried leaves of the Chinese anise.
On the eve of the funeral a wake is kept. The body must be kept for at
least twenty-four hours after death. In great families where elaborate
preparations must be made for the funeral, it is often kept for
several days; but in most other houses the funeral takes place as soon
as possible. In the summer heat it is naturally important that the
body should be buried with the least delay. When more than one night
intervene between the death and the funeral, the wake is sometimes
held every night. Friends and relatives are invited, and they burn
incense before the coffin and offer prayers; and in the interval the
conversation turns upon the deceased and every effort is made to
console the bereaved family. A priest is called in from the family
temple, and he recites three or four prayers in the course of the
night. In a separate room a slight repast is offered to the persons
gathered in the house, and though _sake_ is drunk, it is taken very
quietly.
[Illustration: COFFINS AND AN URN.]
The coffin is among the better classes a double box of wood, oblong
in shape to allow the body to lie in it. Sometimes the box is single
and almost square, the body being made to sit in it, and sometimes an
earthen jar is used; and among the poorest it is no more than a barrel
with bamboo hoops. The coffin is wrapped in white cloth. The bier may
be only a rest with poles extending at both ends; but in most cases,
especially if the coffin is oblong, it has a curved roof with a pair
of gilt lotus flowers in front and behind. The square coffin has
usually a baldachin over it; formerly it used to be carried in a
palanquin. The pall differs in colour according to the sex and age of
the deceased. It is made of two square wadded covers like quilts; and
the upper or outer cover is light-blue for a man and the lower one is
white if he has not yet reached his forty-first year and red if he
is past that age, while the outer cover is white for a woman, and
the inner red or pink according as she has or has not passed her
thirty-second year. The lower cover differs in colour according as the
deceased is under or over the age which is considered most critical
for one of the deceased’s sex.
The funeral usually takes place in the afternoon; but in summer the
_cortège_ leaves the house at an early hour of the morning. In the
country the mourners gather before the funeral and take a meal; but in
Tokyo it is usually the chief mourner who has a meal before starting.
At such a meal a second helping is never taken as it may presage
another death in the family. One bowl of rice on which clear bean-curd
soup is poured, is eaten with a single chopstick. At other times,
therefore, it is considered unlucky to take only one helping of rice.
[Illustration: A BUDDHIST FUNERAL PROCESSION.]
The funeral procession is not always in the same order; but in a
middle-class funeral the order is commonly as follows:—The procession
is led by a person who acts as its guide; he is followed by men
carrying white lanterns on long poles, huge bundles of flowers stuck
in green-bamboo pedestals, birds in enormous cages, and stands
of artificial flowers which are almost always large gilt lotus plants;
these men always march two abreast with the exception of the caged
birds, for the flowers, natural or artificial, are invariably
presented in pairs, while the cages are single. They are the presents
of friends and relatives and their names are given on the wooden
tickets attached to these presents. The birds in the cages are taken
to the temple and there set free as an act of mercy, while the natural
flowers are thrown away or pulled to pieces by the children of the
poor in the neighbourhood who invariably come and beg when there is a
funeral. After the flowers comes the priest who has been sent from the
temple to return with the funeral procession; he is in a jinrikisha.
Then follow persons carrying incense and the tablet, and if the
deceased was a government official, a military or naval officer, or
otherwise a man of rank and position, the decorations which he
may have received are also carried. The tablet is carried by the
chief mourner or some other member of the family; in the latter case
the chief mourner follows the hearse. In the wake of some flags, on
one of which is inscribed the deceased’s Buddhistic name, comes the
hearse beside which walk the pall-bearers, generally persons in the
deceased’s employ. It is immediately followed by the family and
relatives, and then by other mourners. The mourners should properly
follow on foot; but frequently they go in jinrikisha and carriages;
moreover, it has become the custom for mourners who are not intimate
friends of the deceased to proceed straight to the temple and wait
there for the arrival of the procession.
When the funeral procession reaches the temple, the bier is placed in
front of the shrine, which stands at the furthest end of the temple
hall. The chief mourner, family, and relatives take their seats
usually on one side of the hall and the other mourners on the opposite
side, leaving a space between the shrine and the front entrance of the
hall for the officiating priest to hold the funeral service. When all
have taken their seats, the officiating priest, who is as a rule the
superior of the temple, enters with his assistants. With gong, bell,
drum, and cymbals the prayers are recited and sutras chanted. The
officiating priest then recites alone a prayer which is to guide the
spirit of the dead on the road to Hades. After this prayer, the chief
mourner, family, and friends and relatives advance in front of the
bier and, taking a pinch of incense, drop it into the censer to burn.
Where there are many mourners, two or more censers are placed close
to the bier and the incense-burning is begun simultaneously so as not
to keep the mourners waiting a long time for their turn. The chief
mourner and his nearest relatives come forward and thank the mourners
in the hall, or stand at the entrance and thank them as they leave.
Sometimes, an address expressive of sorrow or in eulogy of the
deceased is read by a relative or friend.
[Illustration: SERVICE AT THE TEMPLE.]
The bier is then taken to the crematory by the chief mourner and his
relatives. There are a few public cemeteries on the outskirts of
Tokyo, where the body may be taken immediately from the temple
and buried as it is. But for burial in a temple yard in the city the
body must be first burnt; and accordingly it is taken to a crematory.
There are seven crematories just outside Tokyo, none being permitted
in the city. The body is taken to one of these and put in an oven; the
fire is lighted; and the door of the oven is locked and the key taken
home by the chief mourner.
[Illustration: AT THE CREMATORY.]
Early next morning, the relatives return to the crematory, and in
their presence the oven is opened. The bones and ashes are gathered
into a tray, which is brought out and the mourners pick the bones from
among the ashes. Every piece must be picked up by two persons holding
it with two pairs of chopsticks and put into the urn. When all the
bones have been picked out, the urn is closed with a lid and taken to
the temple.
The grave may be dug in a small plot bought by the family in a public
cemetery when the body is to be buried with its coffin. In that case
a separate grave is dug for each body; but if it is to be interred in
a temple yard, one grave will serve for the whole family, for there is
a hollow under the tombstone which is closed with a stone, and at each
burial the stone is removed to put in the urn. The tombstone is
an upright stone, square in section and with a tapering top, which
stands on a stone pedestal. The front inscription merely gives the
name of the family with, perhaps, the family crest over it, and the
Buddhistic name of the deceased is engraved on a side. In a public
cemetery where the grave-enclosures are larger and a tombstone is set
up for every member of the family, the tombstone naturally cannot be
got ready in time for the funeral, and a wooden grave-post is stuck in
the grave with the Buddhistic name in front and the lay name and date
of decease on the sides.
[Illustration: GRAVES.]
After the funeral, the tablet of the deceased is set on a table at
home, and a light and incense are kept burning before it until the
seventh day from the day of decease; and prayers are offered at the
grave every day for the same length of time, after which a priest
comes from the temple every seven days until seven weeks are passed.
For forty-nine days the spirit of the dead wanders in the dark space
intervening between this world and the next, and every seven days it
makes an advance forward, in which it is materially helped by the
prayers of those it has left behind; according to some, the spirit
hovers for the same period over the roof of its old home, for
which reason many people dislike to remove until the period has
terminated from a house in which a member of the family has died,
as his spirit would have to hover over a house deserted by those he
loved.
At the end of the fifth week, packages of tea and boxes of cakes of
wheaten flour stuffed with red-bean jam are sent as return presents to
those persons who brought offerings to the dead. On the forty-ninth
day, forty-nine cakes are taken to the temple; in old times the human
body was believed to contain forty-eight bones, and if to these the
skull is added, the total becomes forty-nine, and as emblematic of
these bones, one of the cakes is made much larger than the rest. They
are offered before the dead, and after prayers have been recited and
incense burnt, the large cake is taken home and divided among the
family. A wake is sometimes kept on the night of the forty-eighth day;
and on the following day, after the service at the temple, those
who attend are taken to a restaurant and entertained, when the near
relatives, who have hitherto abstained from animal food in token of
their mourning, take it as this day ends the period of deep mourning.
A memorial service is next held on the hundredth day. On this day the
provisional tablet which has hitherto been set up in the family shrine
is exchanged for the permanent one; and at the temple also, the tablet
which is there kept is taken down from the shelf on which are placed
the tablets of the recently deceased. On the day of decease every
month prayers are recited and a meal-tray set before the tablet in the
family shrine. The next memorial service at the temple takes place on
the first anniversary, after which comes the second anniversary which,
after the method of reckoning mentioned at the beginning of this
chapter, is called the third anniversary, so that a second anniversary
is unknown in the commemoration of a death or any other event. The
later anniversaries on which services are held are the seventh,
thirteenth, seventeenth, twenty-third, twenty-seventh, thirty-third,
thirty-seventh, fiftieth, and every fifty years thereafter.
[Illustration: A SHINTO FUNERAL PROCESSION.]
We have given above an outline of the ordinary Buddhist funeral,
though the procedure varies slightly with each sect of Buddhism. There
is, however, another form of funeral, which is performed with Shinto
rites. As, however, the two forms resemble each other in the main, we
may here give a few points of difference between them.
[Illustration: A SHINTO FUNERAL SERVICE.]
When a death takes place, it is reported at once to the shrine of the
local tutelary deity, and a Shinto priest called in. The date of the
funeral is then fixed. The body is laid in the upper part of a room,
and the face is covered with a white cloth; before it is set a table,
on which are put some washed rice, water, and salt, and a lamp is
lighted; and perfect silence reigns in the room. A tablet is placed
before the body and the ceremony of transferring the spirit of the
dead to the tablet is performed. Then a new bed and pillow are put in
the coffin and the body is laid on them with the face covered and a
new quilt put over it; and at the same time many favourite articles
of the deceased are laid beside him. The coffin is then filled up,
and the lid nailed on it. The body is never washed, but it is
sometimes wiped with a wet cloth if it has lain long in the sick-bed.
The coffin is laid on wooden rests, and rice, water, and salt offered
before it; it is next placed in a bier which has a roof like that of
a Shinto shrine. The funeral procession is led by the guide, who
is followed by bearers of lanterns and branches of _cleyera japonica_;
after them come priests and carriers of red and white flags with a box
of offerings between them. Next comes the officiating priest and after
him is carried a flag bearing the name of the deceased with his court
rank and title, if he had any; and then, more lanterns, followed by
the hearse and the rests behind it. The grave-post is carried next,
and after it marches the chief mourner, behind whom walk the near
relatives and after them, the general mourners. When the procession
reaches the hall for burial service, the bier, is laid on the rests
and the _cleyera japonica_ and the flag with the deceased’s name
are set up. Offerings of food are made before the coffin and the
officiating priest reads out a funeral address giving a short sketch
of the deceased’s life; and then all the priests, the chief mourner,
the relatives, and the rest of the mourners take each in turn a
_tamagushi_, which is a branch of _cleyera japonica_ with strips of
paper hanging from it, and laying it before the coffin, makes a bow to
the dead. The food is removed and the coffin brought down and buried,
the relatives throwing the earth into the grave. The grave-post is
next set up and fenced round with bamboo poles, which are connected
with sacred rope. The priest announces the burial and bows to the
grave, in which act he is followed by the mourners present. Before
leaving the burial-ground, all the mourners are purified by the
priests with a sacred wand. On the night of the funeral, when the
house has been purified by sprinkling salt water over it, the _cleyera
japonica_ and flowers of the season are put in vases before the
tablet, a lamp is lighted, and food is offered to it; and the priest
reads a prayer and, together with the others present, offers the
_tamagushi_ and bows to the tablet, after which the food is removed,
and the service ends.