TWO GREAT FESTIVALS
There are two great Japanese festivals of which we have not yet spoken, but
which are of the first importance. One is the New Year Festival, the other
is the Bon Matsuri, the Feast of the Dead, in the summer. The New Year
Festival is the great Japanese holiday of the year. No one does any work
for several days, and all devote themselves to making merry. Although this
festival comes in the middle of winter, every street looks like an arbour,
decorated as it is with arches of greenery before each house. On either
side of each door is a pine-tree and bamboo stems. These signify a hardy
old age, and they are joined by a grass rope which runs from house to
house along the street. This rope is supposed to prevent evil spirits from
entering the houses, and so it ensures the occupants a lucky year. Japanese
flags are entwined amid the decorations, and green feathery branches and
ferns are set about, until the street looks like a forest.
Japanese people are so polite to each other that even the beggars in the
streets bow to each other in the most ceremonious fashion, but at this
festival the bowing is redoubled. There is a special form of greeting for
this occasion, and not a bow is to be missed when two acquaintances meet.
There is much feasting and a great exchange of presents. The Japanese are
always making presents to each other, and there is a prescribed way for
every rank of life to make presents to every other rank, and for the manner
in which the presents are to be received. A present may always be known by
the little gold or red or white paper kite fastened to the paper string
which ties up the parcel.
Every one enters into the fun of the time, from the highest to the lowest.
They call upon each other; they march in great processions; they visit
the gayest and liveliest of fairs; they feast; they drink tea and saké
almost without ceasing. The fairs look most striking and picturesque after
darkness has fallen. Then the streets and the long rows of white booths
made of newly-sawn wood and gaily decorated, are lighted up by innumerable
lanterns of every colour that paper can be painted, and of every size, from
six inches high to six feet. The crowd wear their gayest kimonos, and the
moosmes are brilliant in flowered or striped silks and splendid sashes, and
the air is full of the rattle of the shuffling clogs and the tinkling
samisen played in almost every booth.
At times the crowd opens to let some procession pass through. Now it is the
dragon-dancers, the dragon's head being a huge and terrifying affair made
of coloured pasteboard, and carried on a pole draped with a long garment
which hides the dancer. In front march two men with drum and fife to herald
the dragon's approach. Next comes a batch of coolies dragging a car upon
which a swarm of masqueraders present some traditional pageant, and next a
number of boys perform an old dance with much spirit and shouting. On New
Year's Eve a very curious market is held. It is a custom in Japan for every
one to pay all that he owes to his Japanese creditors before the New Year
dawns. If he does not do so, he loses his credit. So on the last day of
the Old Year the Japanese who is behind in his payments looks among his
belongings for something to sell, and carries it to the market in order
that he may gain a few sen to settle with his creditor.
In the great city of Tokyo this fair is visited by every traveller. For
a space of two miles the stalls stretch along in double rows, lighted by
lanterns of oil flares, and here may be seen every imaginable thing which
is to be found in poorer Japanese households. As each Japanese arrives with
his worldly possessions in a couple of square boxes swinging one at each
end of a bamboo pole slung across his shoulder, he takes possession of a
little stall or a patch of pavement and sets out his poor wares.
He has brought mats, or cushions, or shabby kimonos, or clogs, or socks, or
little ornaments and vessels in porcelain or silver or bronze. Sometimes he
brings really beautiful things, the last precious possessions of a family
which has come down in the world--a fine piece of embroidery, a priceless
bit of lacquer, bronze and silver charms, little boxes of ivory, temples
and pagodas and bell-towers in miniature, tiny but perfect in every detail
and of the most exquisite workmanship. Everything comes to market on this
night of the year.
The Feast of the Dead takes place in the hot summer weather, and is
celebrated in different ways in various parts of Japan. Everywhere
the children, in their finest clothes, march through the streets in
processions, carrying fans and banners and lanterns, and chanting as
they march; but most great cities have their own form of celebration.
At Nagasaki the tombs of all those who have died during the past year
are illuminated with large bright lanterns on the first night of the
celebrations. On the second and third nights all tombs are illuminated,
and the burial-grounds are one glorious blaze of many-coloured lights. The
avenues leading to the burial-grounds are turned into fair-grounds, with
decorations and booths, stalls and tea-houses, each illuminated by many
brilliant lanterns. Fires are lighted on the hills, rockets shoot up on
every hand, and vast crowds of people gather in the cemeteries to feast and
make merry and drink saké in honour of their ancestors, whose spirits they
suppose to surround them and be present at the festival. At the end of the
feast a very striking scene takes place: the preparations for the departure
of the dead.
"But on the third vigil, suddenly, at about two o'clock in the morning,
long processions of bright lanterns are seen to descend from the heights
and group themselves on the shores of the bay, while the mountains
gradually return to obscurity and silence. It is fated that the dead
should embark and disappear before twilight. The living have plaited them
thousands of little ships of straw, each provisioned with some fruit and a
few pieces of money. The frail vessels are charged with all the coloured
lanterns which were used for the illumination of the cemeteries; the small
sails of matting are spread to the wind, and the morning breeze scatters
them round the bay, where they are not long in taking fire. It is thus that
the entire flotilla is consumed, tracing in all directions large trails of
fire. The dead depart rapidly. Soon the last ship has foundered, the last
light is extinguished, and the last soul has taken its departure again from
earth."
End of Project Gutenberg's Peeps at Many Lands: Japan, by John Finnemore