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[Illustration: The Lion of Korea.]
CHILD-LIFE IN JAPAN
AND
JAPANESE CHILD STORIES
BY
MRS. M. CHAPLIN AYRTON
EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY
WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, L.H.D.
Author of "The Mikado's Empire" and "Japanese Fairy World"
_WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS, INCLUDING SEVEN FULL-PAGE PICTURES DRAWN AND
ENGRAVED BY JAPANESE ARTISTS_
BOSTON, U.S.A.
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1901,
BY D. C. HEATH & CO.
PREFACE.
Over a quarter of a century ago, while engaged in introducing the
American public school system into Japan, I became acquainted in Tokio
with Mrs. Matilda Chaplin Ayrton, the author of "Child-Life in Japan."
This highly accomplished lady was a graduate of Edinburgh University,
and had obtained the degrees of Bachelor of Letters and Bachelor of
Sciences, besides studying medicine in Paris. She had married Professor
William Edward Ayrton, the electric engineer and inventor, then
connected with the Imperial College of Engineering of Japan, and since
president of the Institute of Electric Engineers in London. She took a
keen interest in the Japanese people and never wearied of studying them
and their beautiful country. With my sister, she made excursions to some
of the many famous places in the wonderful city of Tokio. When her own
little daughter, born among the camellias and chrysanthemums, grew up
under her Japanese nurse, Mrs. Ayrton became more and more interested in
the home life of the Japanese and in the pictures and stories which
delighted the children of the Mikado's Empire. After her return to
England, in 1879, she wrote this book.
In the original work, the money and distances, the comparisons and
illustrations, were naturally English, and not American. For this
reason, I have ventured to alter the text slightly here and there, that
the American child reader may more clearly catch the drift of the
thought, have given to each Japanese word the standard spelling now
preferred by scholars and omitted statements of fact which were once,
but are no longer, true. I have also translated or omitted hard Japanese
words, shortened long sentences, rearranged the illustrations, and added
notes which will make the subject clearer. Although railways,
telegraphs, and steamships, clothes and architecture, schools and
customs, patterned more or less closely after those in fashion in
America and Europe, have altered many things in Japan and caused others
to disappear, yet the children's world of toys and games and stories
does not change very fast. In the main, it may be said, we have here a
true picture of the old Japan which we all delighted in seeing, when, in
those sunny days, we lived in sight of Yedo Bay and Fuji Yama, with
Japanese boys and girls all around us.
The best portions and all the pictures of Mrs. Ayrton's big and costly
book have been retained and reproduced, including her own preface or
introduction, and the book is again set forth with a hearty "ohio" (good
morning) of salutation and sincere "omedeto" (congratulations) that the
nations of the world are rapidly becoming one family. May every reader
of "Child-Life in Japan" see, sometime during the twentieth century, the
country and the people of whom Mrs. Ayrton has written with such lively
spirit and such warm appreciation.
WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS.
ITHACA, N.Y.
CONTENTS
Page
Preface by William Elliot Griffis v
Introduction by the Author xi
Seven Scenes of Child-Life in Japan 1
First Month 16
The Chrysanthemum Show 30
Fishsave 34
The Filial Girl 37
The Parsley Queen 38
The Two Daughters 40
Second Sight 44
Games 46
The Games and Sports of Japanese
Children, by William Elliot Griffis 50
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Lion of Korea _Frontispiece_
PAGE
A Ride on a Bamboo Rail 1
A Game of Snowball 3
Boys' Concert--Flute, Drum, and Song 5
Lion Play 6
Ironclad Top Game 7
Playing with Doggy 9
Heron-Legs, or Stilts 11
The Young Wrestlers 13
Playing with the Turtle 15
Presenting the Tide-Jewels to Hachiman 18
"Bronze fishes sitting on their throats" 19
The Treasure-Ship 23
Girls' Ball and Counting Game 26
Firemen's Gymnastics 28
Street Tumblers 29
Eating Stand for the Children 31
Fishsave riding the Dolphin 35
Bowing before her Mother's Mirror 37
Imitating the Procession 39
The Two White Birds 41
Eye-Hiding, or Blindman's Buff 47
Stilts and Clog-Throwing 48
Playing at Batter-Cakes 49
Hoisting the Rice-Beer Keg 51
Getting ready to raise the Big Humming Kite 60
Daruma, the Snow-Image 62
INTRODUCTION
In almost every home are Japanese fans, in our shops Japanese dolls and
balls and other knick-knacks, on our writing-tables bronze crabs or
lacquered pen-tray with outlined on it the extinct volcano [Fuji San][1]
that is the most striking mountain seen from the capital of Japan. At
many places of amusement Japanese houses of real size have been
exhibited, and the jargon of fashion for "Japanese Art" even reaches our
children's ears.
[1] _Fuji San_, or Fuji no Yama, the highest mountain in the Japanese
archipelago, is in the province of Suruga, sixty miles west of Tokio.
Its crest is covered with snow most of the year. Twenty thousand
pilgrims visit it annually. Its name may mean Not Two (such), or
Peerless.
Yet all these things seem dull and lifeless when thus severed from the
quaint cheeriness of their true home. To those familiar with Japan, that
bamboo fan-handle recalls its graceful grassy tree, the thousand and one
daily purposes for which bamboo wood serves. We see the open shop where
squat the brown-faced artisans cleverly dividing into those slender
divisions the fan-handle, the wood-block engraver's where some dozen
men sit patiently chipping at their cherry-wood blocks, and the
printer's where the coloring arrangements seem so simple to those used
to western machinery, but where the colors are so rich and true. We see
the picture stuck on the fan frame with starch paste, and drying in the
brilliant summer sunlight. The designs recall vividly the life around,
whether that life be the stage, the home, insects, birds, or flowers. We
think of halts at wayside inns, when bowing tea-house girls at once
proffer these fans to hot and tired guests.
The tonsured oblique-eyed doll suggests the festival of similarly
oblique-eyed little girls on the 3rd of March. Then dolls of every
degree obtain for a day "Dolls' Rights." In every Japanese household all
the dolls of the present and previous generations are, on that festival,
set out to best advantage. Beside them are sweets, green-speckled rice
cake, and daintily gilt and lacquered dolls' utensils. For some time
previous, to meet the increased demand, the doll shopman has been very
busy. He sits before a straw-holder into which he can readily stick, to
dry, the wooden supports of the plaster dolls' heads he is painting, as
he takes first one and then another to give artistic touches to their
glowing cheeks or little tongue. That dolly that seems but "so odd" to
Polly or Maggie is there the cherished darling of its little owner. It
passes half its day tied on to her back, peeping companionably its head
over her shoulder. At night it is lovingly sheltered under the green
mosquito curtains, and provided with a toy wooden pillow.
The expression "Japanese Art" seems but a created word expressing either
the imitations of it, or the artificial transplanting of Japanese things
to our houses. The whole glory of art in Japan is, that it is not Art,
but Nature simply rendered, by a people with a fancy and love of fun
quite Irish in character. Just as Greek sculptures were good, because in
those days artists modelled the corsetless life around them, so the
Japanese artist does not draw well his lightly draped figures, cranes,
and insects because these things strike him as beautiful, but because he
is familiar with their every action.
The Japanese house out of Japan seems but a dull and listless affair. We
miss the idle, easy-going life and chatter, the tea, the sweetmeats, the
pipes and charcoal brazier, the clogs awaiting their wearers on the
large flat stone at the entry, the grotesquely trained ferns, the glass
balls and ornaments tinkling in the breeze, that hang, as well as
lanterns, from the eaves, the garden with tiny pond and goldfish, bridge
and miniature hill, the bright sunshine beyond the sharp shadow of the
upward curving angles of the tiled roof, the gay, scarlet folds of the
women's under-dress peeping out, their little litter of embroidery or
mending, and the babies, brown and half naked, scrambling about so
happily. For, what has a baby to be miserable about in a land where it
is scarcely ever slapped, where its clothing, always loose, is yet warm
in winter, where it basks freely in air and sunshine? It lives in a
house, that from its thick grass mats, its absence of furniture, and
therefore of commands "not to touch," is the very beau-ideal of an
infant's playground.
The object with which the following pages were written, was that young
folks who see and handle so often Japanese objects, but who find books
of travels thither too long and dull for their reading, might catch a
glimpse of the spirit that pervades life in the "Land of the Rising
Sun." A portion of the book is derived from translations from Japanese
tales, kindly given to the author by Mr. Basil H. Chamberlain, whilst
the rest was written at idle moments during graver studies.
The games and sports of Japanese children have been so well described by
Professor Griffis, that we give, as an Appendix, his account of their
doings.
Child-Life in Japan.
SEVEN SCENES OF CHILD-LIFE IN JAPAN.
[Illustration: A Ride on a Bamboo Rail.]
These little boys all live a long way off in islands called "Japan."
They have all rather brown chubby faces, and they are very merry. Unless
they give themselves a really hard knock they seldom get cross or cry.
In the second large picture two of the little boys are playing at
snowball. Although it may be hotter in the summer in their country than
it is here, the winter is as cold as you feel it. Like our own boys,
these lads enjoy a fall of snow, and still better than snowballing they
like making a snowman with a charcoal ball for each eye and a streak of
charcoal for his mouth. The shoes which they usually wear out of doors
are better for a snowy day than your boots, for their feet do not sink
into the snow, unless it is deep. These shoes are of wood, and make a
boy seem to be about three inches taller than he really is. The shoe,
you see, has not laces or buttons, but is kept on the foot by that thong
which passes between the first and second toe. The thong is made of
grass, and covered with strong paper, or with white or colored calico.
The boy in the check dress wears his shoes without socks, but you see
the other boy has socks on. His socks are made of dark blue calico, with
a thickly woven sole, and a place, like one finger of a glove, for his
big toe. If you were to wear Japanese shoes, you would think the thong
between your toes very uncomfortable. Yet from their habit of wearing
this sort of shoe, the big toe grows more separate from the other toes,
and the skin between this and the next toe becomes as hard as the skin
of a dog's or a cat's paw.
[Illustration: A Game of Snowball.]
The boys are not cold, for their cotton clothes, being wadded, are warm
and snug. One boy has a rounded pouch fastened to his sash. It is red
and prettily embroidered with flowers or birds, and is his purse, in
which he keeps some little toys and some money. The other boy very
likely has not a pouch, but he has two famous big pockets. Like all
Japanese, he uses the part of his large sleeve which hangs down as his
pocket. Thus when a group of little children are disturbed at play you
see each little hand seize a treasured toy and disappear into its
sleeve, like mice running into their holes with bits of cheese.
In the next large picture are two boys who are fond of music. One has a
flute, which is made of bamboo wood. These flutes are easy to make, as
bamboo wood grows hollow, with cross divisions at intervals. If you cut
a piece with a division forming one end you need only make the outside
holes in order to finish your flute.
[Illustration]
The child sitting down has a drum. His drum and the paper lanterns
hanging up have painted on them an ornament which is also the crest of
the house of "Arima."[2] If these boys belong to this family they wear
the same crest embroidered on the centre of the backs of their coats.
[2] _Arima_ was one of the daimios or landed nobleman, nearly three
hundred in number, out of whom has been formed the new nobility of
Japan, a certain number of which are in the Upper House of the Imperial
Diet.
[Illustration: Boys' Concert--Flute, Drum, and Song.]
[Illustration: Kangura, or Korean Lion Play]
Korean Lion is the title of the picture which forms the frontispiece; it
represents a game that children in Japan are very fond of playing. They
are probably trying to act as well as the maskers did whom they saw on
New Year's Day, just as our children try and imitate things they see
in a pantomime. The masker goes from house to house accompanied by one
or two men who play on cymbals, flute, and drum. He steps into a shop
where the people of the house and their friends sit drinking tea, and
passers-by pause in front of the open shop to see the fun. He takes a
mask, like the one in the picture, off his back and puts it over his
head. This boar's-head mask is painted scarlet and black, and gilt. It
has a green cloth hanging down behind, in order that you may not
perceive where the mask ends and the mans body begins. Then the masker
imitates an animal. He goes up to a young lady and lays down his ugly
head beside her to be patted, as "Beast" may have coaxed "Beauty" in the
fairy tale. He grunts, and rolls, and scratches himself. The children
almost forget he is a man, and roar with laughter at the funny animal.
When they begin to tire of this fun he exchanges this mask for some of
the two or three others he carries with him. He puts on a mask of an old
woman over his face, and at the back of his head a very different second
mask, a cloth tied over the centre of the head, making the two faces
yet more distinct from each other. He has quickly arranged the back of
his dress to look like the front of a person, and he acts, first
presenting the one person to his spectators, then the other. He makes
you even imagine he has four arms, so cleverly can he twist round his
arm and gracefully fan what is in reality the back of his head.
[Illustration: Ironclad Top Game.]
The tops the lads are playing with in this picture[3] are not quite the
same shape as our tops, but they spin very well. Some men are so clever
at making spinning-tops run along strings, throwing them up into the air
and catching them with a tobacco-pipe, that they earn a living by
exhibiting their skill.
[3] See page 7.
Some of the tops are formed of short pieces of bamboo with a wooden peg
put through them, and the hole cut in the side makes them have a fine
hum as the air rushes in whilst they spin.
The boys in the next large picture (p. 9) must be playing with the
puppies of a large dog, to judge from their big paws. There are a great
many large dogs in the streets of Tokio; some are very tame, and will
let children comb their hair and ornament them and pull them about.
These dogs do not wear collars, as do our pet dogs, but a wooden label
bearing the owner's name is hung round their necks. Other big dogs are
almost wild.[4]
[4] _Wild-dogs:_ ownerless dogs have now been exterminated, and every
dog in Japan is owned, licensed, taxed, or else liable to go the way of
the old wolfish-looking curs. The pet spaniel-like dogs are called
_chin_.
Half-a-dozen of these dogs will lie in one place, stretched drowsily on
the grassy city walls under the trees, during the daytime. Towards
evening they rouse themselves and run off to yards and rubbish-heaps to
pick up what they can. They will eat fish, but two or three dogs soon
get to know where the meat-eating Englishmen live. They come trotting in
regularly with a business-like air to search among the day's refuse for
bones. Should any interloping dog try to establish a right to share the
feast he can only gain his footing after a victorious battle. All these
dogs are very wolfish-looking, with straight hair, which is usually
white or tan-colored. There are other pet dogs kept in houses. These
look something like spaniels. They are small, with their black noses so
much turned up that it seems as if, when they were puppies, they had
tumbled down and broken the bridge of their nose. They are often
ornamented like dog Toby in "Punch and Judy," with a ruff made of some
scarlet stuff round their necks.
[Illustration: Playing with Doggy.]
After the heavy autumn rains have filled the roads with big puddles,
it is great fun, this boy thinks, to walk about on stilts. You see him
on page 11. His stilts are of bamboo wood, and he calls them
"Heron-legs," after the long-legged snowy herons that strut about in the
wet rice-fields. When he struts about on them, he wedges the upright
between his big and second toe as if the stilt was like his shoes. He
has a good view of his two friends who are wrestling, and probably
making hideous noises like wild animals as they try to throw one
another. They have seen fat public wrestlers stand on opposite sides of
a sanded ring, stoop, rubbing their thighs, and in a crouching attitude
and growling, slowly advance upon one another. Then when near to one
another, the spring is made and the men close. If after some time the
round is not decided by a throw, the umpire, who struts about like a
turkey-cock, fanning himself, approaches. He plucks the girdle of the
weaker combatant, when the wrestlers at once retire to the sides of the
arena to rest, and to sprinkle a little water over themselves.
[Illustration: Heron-legs, or Stilts.]
[Illustration: The Young Wrestlers.]
In the neighborhood in which the children shown in the picture live,
there is a temple (p. 11). In honor of the god a feast-day is held on
the tenth of every month. The tenth day of the tenth month is a yet
greater feast-day. On these days they go the first thing in the morning
to the barber's, have their heads shaved and dressed, and their faces
powdered with white, and their lips and cheeks painted pink. They wear
their best clothes and smartest sashes. Then they clatter off on their
wooden clogs to the temple and buy two little rice-cakes at the gates.
Next they come to two large, comical bronze dogs sitting on stands, one
on each side of the path. They reach up and gently rub the dog's nose,
then rub their own noses, rub the dog's eyes, and then their own, and so
on, until they have touched the dog's and their own body all over. This
is their way of praying for good health. They also add another to the
number of little rags that have been hung by each visitor about the
dog's neck. Then they go to the altar and give their cakes to a boy
belonging to the temple. In exchange he presents them with one rice-cake
which has been blessed. They ring a round brass bell to call their god's
attention, and throw him some money into a grated box as big as a
child's crib. Then they squat down and pray to be good little boys. Now
they go out and amuse themselves by looking at all the stalls of toys
and cakes, and flowers and fish.
The man who sells the gold-fish, with fan-like tails as long as their
bodies, has also turtles. These boys at last settle that of all the
pretty things they have seen they would best like to spend their money
on a young turtle. For their pet rabbits and mice died, but turtles,
they say, are painted on fans and screens and boxes because turtles live
for ten thousand years. Even the noble white crane is said to live no
more than a thousand years. In this picture they have carried home the
turtle and are much amused at the funny way it walks and peeps its head
in and out from under its shell.
[Illustration: Playing with the Turtle.]
FIRST MONTH.
Little Good Boy had just finished eating the last of five rice cakes
called "dango," that had been strung on a skewer of bamboo and dipped in
soy sauce, when he said to his little sister, called Chrysanthemum:--
"O-Kiku, it is soon the great festival of the New Year."
"What shall we do then?" asked little O-Kiku, not clearly remembering
the festival of the previous year.
Thus questioned, Yoshi-san[5] had his desired opening to hold forth on
the coming delights, and he replied:--
"Men will come the evening before the great feast-day and help
Plum-blossom, our maid, to clean all the house with brush and broom.
Others will set up the decoration in front of our honored gateway. They
will dig two small holes and plant a gnarled, black-barked father-pine
branch on the left, and the slighter reddish mother-pine branch on the
right. They will then put with these the tall knotted stem of a bamboo,
with its smooth, hard green leaves that chatter when the wind blows.
Next they will take a grass rope, about as long as a tall man, fringed
with grass, and decorated with zigzag strips of white paper. These, our
noble father says, are meant for rude images of men offering themselves
in homage to the august gods."
[5] _Yoshi-san. Yoshi_ means good, excellent, and _san_ is like our
"Mr.," but is applied to any one from big man to baby. The girls are
named after flowers, stars, or other pretty or useful objects.
"Oh, yes! I have not forgotten," interrupts Chrysanthemum, "this cord is
stretched from bamboo to bamboo; and Plum-blossom says the rope is to
bar out the nasty two-toed, red, gray, and black demons, the badgers,
the foxes, and other evil spirits from crossing our threshold. But I
think it is the next part of the arch which is the prettiest, the whole
bunch of things they tie in the middle of the rope. There is the
crooked-back lobster, like a bowed old man, with all around the camellia
branches, whose young leaves bud before the old leaves fall. There are
pretty fern leaves shooting forth in pairs, and deep down between them
the little baby fern-leaf. There is the bitter yellow orange, whose
name, you know, means 'many parents and children.' The name of the black
piece of charcoal is a pun on our homestead."
"But best of all," says Yoshi-san, "I like the seaweed hontawara, for it
tells me of our brave Queen Jingu Kogo, who, lest the troops should be
discouraged, concealed from the army that her husband the king had died,
put on armor, and led the great campaign against Korea.[6] Her troops,
stationed at the margin of the sea, were in danger of defeat on account
of the lack of fodder for their horses; when she ordered this hontawara
to be plucked from the shore, and the horses, freshened by their meal of
seaweed, rushed victoriously to battle. On the bronzed clasp of our
worthy father's tobacco-pouch is, our noble father says, the Queen with
her sword and the dear little baby prince,[7] Hachiman, who was born
after the campaign, and who is now our Warrior God,[8] guiding our
troops to victory, and that spirit on whose head squats a dragon has
risen partly from the deep, to present an offering to the Queen and the
Prince."
[6] _The campaign against Korea_: 200 A.D.
[7] _The Queen and the Prince_: See the story of "The Jewels of the
Ebbing and the Flowing Tide" in the book of "Japanese Fairy Tales" in
this series.
[8] Ojin, son of Jingu Kogo, was, much later, deified as the god of
war, Hachiman. See "The Religions of Japan," p. 204.
[Illustration: Presenting the Tide-jewels to Hachiman.]
"Then there is another seaweed, whose name is a pun on 'rejoicing.'
There is the lucky bag that I made, for last year, of a square piece of
paper into which we put chestnuts and the roe of a herring and dried
persimmon fruit. Then I tied up the paper with red and white
paper-string, that the sainted gods might know it was an offering."
[Illustration: "Bronze fishes sitting on their throats."]
Yoshi-san and his little sister had now reached the great gate
ornamented with huge bronze fishes[9] sitting on their throats and
twisting aloft their forked tails, that was near their home. He told his
sister she must wait to know more about the great festival till the time
arrived. They shuffled off their shoes, bowed, till their foreheads
touched the ground, to their parents, ate their evening bowl of rice and
salt fish, said a prayer and burnt a stick of incense to many-armed
Buddha at the family altar. They spread their cotton-wadded quilts,
rested their dear little shaved heads, with quaint circlet of hair, on
the roll of cotton covered with white paper that formed the cushion of
their hard wooden pillows. Soon they fell asleep to their mother's
monotonously chanted lullaby of "Nenne ko."
"Sleep, my child, sleep, my child,
Where is thy nurse gone?
She is gone to the mountains
To buy thee sweetmeats.
What shall she buy thee?
The thundering drum, the bamboo pipe,
The trundling man, or the paper kite."
[9] The _bronze fishes_, called shachi-hoko, are huge metal figures,
like dolphins, from four to twelve feet high, which were set on the
pinnacles of the old castle towers in the days of feudalism. That from
Nagoya, exhibited at the Vienna Exposition, had scales of solid gold.
The great festival drew still nearer, to the children's delight, as they
watched the previously described graceful bamboo arch rise before their
gateposts. Then came a party of three with an oven, a bottomless tub,
and some matting to replace the bottom. They shifted the pole that
carried these utensils from their shoulders, and commenced to make the
Japanese cake that may be viewed as the equivalent of a Christmas
pudding. They mixed a paste of rice and put the sticky mass, to prevent
rebounding, on the soft mat in the tub. The third man then beat for a
long time the rice cake with a heavy mallet. Yoshi-san liked to watch
the strong man swing down his mallet with dull resounding thuds. The
well-beaten dough was then made up into flattish rounds of varying size
on a pastry board one of the men had brought. Three cakes of graduated
size formed a pyramid that was placed conspicuously on a lacquered
stand, and the cakes were only to be eaten on the 11th of January.
The mother told Plum-blossom and the children to get their clogs and
overcoats and hoods, for she was going to get the New Year's
decorations. The party shuffled off till they came to a stall where were
big grass ropes and fringes and quaint grass boats filled with supposed
bales of merchandise in straw coverings, a sun in red paper, and at bow
and stern sprigs of fir. The whole was brightened by bits of gold leaf,
lightly stuck on, that quivered here and there. When the children had
chosen the harvest ship that seemed most besprinkled with gold,
Plum-blossom bargained about the price. The mother, as a matter of form
and rank, had pretended to take no interest in the purchase. She took
her purse out of her sash, handed it to her servant, who opened it, paid
the shopman, and then returned the purse to her mistress. This she did
with the usual civility of first raising it to her forehead. The
decorations they hung up in their sitting-room. Then they sent presents,
such as large dried carp, tea, eggs, shoes, kerchiefs, fruits, sweets,
or toys to various friends and dependants.
On the 1st of January all were early astir, for the father, dressed at
dawn in full European evening dress,[10] as is customary on such
occasions, had to pay his respects at the levee of the Emperor. When
this duty was over, he returned home and received visitors of rank
inferior to himself. Later in the day and on the following day he paid
visits of New Year greeting to all his friends. He took a present to
those to whom he had sent no gift. Sometimes he had his little boy with
him. For these visits Yoshi-san, in place of his usual flowing robe,
loose trousers, and sash, wore a funny little knickerbocker suit, felt
hat, and boots. These latter, though he thought them grand, felt very
uncomfortable after his straw sandals. They were more troublesome to
take off before stepping on the straw mats, that, being used as chairs
as well as carpets, it would be a rudeness to soil. The maids, always
kneeling, presented them with tiny cups of tea on oval saucers, which,
remaining in the maid's hand, served rather as waiters. Sweetmeats, too,
usually of a soft, sticky nature, but sometimes hard like sugar-plums,
and called "fire-sweets," were offered on carved lotus-leaf or lacquered
trays.
[10] _First of January_: The old Chinese or lunar calendar ended in
Japan, and the solar or Gregorian calendar began, January 1, 1872, when
European dress was adopted by the official class.
For the 2nd of January Plum-blossom bought some pictures of the
treasure-ship or ship of riches, in which were seated the seven Gods of
Wealth.[11] It has been sung thus about this Ship of Luck:--
"Nagaki yo no, It is a long night.
To no numuri no. The gods of luck sleep.
Mina me same. They all open their eyes.
Nami nori fune no. They ride in a boat on the waves.
Oto no yoki kana." The sound is pleasing!
[11] _The seven Gods of Wealth_: Concerning the origin of these popular
deities, see "The Religions of Japan," p. 218.
[Illustration: The Treasure-ship and the Seven Gods of Happiness.]
These pictures they each tied on their pillow to bring lucky dreams.
Great was the laughter in the morning when they related their dreams.
Yoshi-san said he had dreamt he had a beautiful portmanteau full of nice
foreign things, such as comforters, note-books, pencils, india-rubber,
condensed milk, lama, wide-awakes, boots, and brass jewelry. Just as he
opened it, everything vanished and he found only a torn fan, an odd
chop-stick, a horse's cast straw shoe, and a live crow.
When at home, the children, for the first few days of the New Year,
dressed in their best crepe, made up in three silken-wadded layers.
Their crest was embroidered on the centre of the back and on the sleeves
of the quaintly flowered long upper skirt. Beneath its wadded hem peeped
the scarlet rolls of the hems of their under-dresses, and then the
white-stockinged feet, with, passing between the toes, the scarlet thong
of the black-lacquered clog. The little girl's sash was of many-flowered
brocade, with scarlet broidered pouch hanging at her right side. A
scarlet over-sash kept the large sash-knot in its place. Her hair was
gay with knot of scarlet crinkled crepe, lacquered comb, and hairpin of
tiny golden battledore. Resting thereon were a shuttlecock of coral,
another pin of a tiny red lobster and a green pine sprig made of silk.
In her belt was coquettishly stuck the butterfly-broidered case that
held her quire of paper pocket-handkerchiefs. The brother's dress was of
a simpler style and soberer coloring. His pouch of purple had a dragon
worked on it, and the hair of his partly shaven head was tied into a
little gummed tail with white paper-string. They spent most of the day
playing with their pretty new battledores, striking with its plain side
the airy little shuttlecock whose head is made of a black seed. All the
while they sang a rhyme on the numbers up to ten:--
"Hitogo ni futa-go--mi-watashi yo me-go,
Itsu yoni musashi nan no yakushi,
Kokono-ya ja--to yo."
When tired of this fun, they would play with a ball made of paper and
wadding evenly wound about with thread or silk of various colors. They
sang to the throws a song which seems abrupt because some portions have
probably fallen into disuse; it runs thus:--
"See opposite--see Shin-kawa! A very beautiful lady who is one of the
daughters of a chief magistrate of Odawara-cho. She was married to a
salt merchant. He was a man fond of display, and he thought how he would
dress her this year. He said to the dyer, 'Please dye this brocade and
the brocade for the middle dress into seven-or eight-fold dresses;' and
the dyer said, 'I am a dyer, and therefore I will dye and stretch it.
What pattern do you wish?' The merchant replied, 'The pattern of falling
snow and broken twigs, and in the centre the curved bridge of Gojo.'"
[Illustration: Girls' Ball and Counting Game.]
Then to fill up the rhyme come the words, "Chokin, chokera, kokin,
kokera," and the tale goes on: "Crossing this bridge the girl was struck
here and there, and the tea-house girls laughed. Put out of countenance
by this ridicule, she drowned herself in the river Karas, the body sunk,
the hair floated. How full of grief the husband's heart--now the ball
counts a hundred."
This they varied with another song:--
"One, two, three, four,
Grate hard charcoal, shave kiri wood;
Put in the pocket, the pocket is wet,
Kiyomadzu, on three yenoki trees
Were three sparrows, chased by a pigeon.
The sparrows said, 'Chiu, chiu,'
The pigeon said, 'po, po,'--now the
Ball counts a hundred."
The pocket referred to means the bottom of the long sleeve, which is apt
to trail and get wet when a child stoops at play. Kiyomadzu may mean a
famous temple that bears that name. Sometimes they would simply count
the turns and make a sort of game of forfeiting and returning the number
of rebounds kept up by each.
Yoshi-san had begun to think battledore and balls too girlish an
amusement. He preferred flying his eagle or mask-like kite, or playing
at cards, verses, or lotteries. Sometimes he played a lively game with
his father, in which the board is divided into squares and diagonals. On
these move sixteen men held by one player and one large piece held by
the second player. The point of the game is either that the holder of
the sixteen pieces hedges the large piece so it that can make no move,
or that the big piece takes all its adversaries. A take can only be made
by the large piece when it finds a piece immediately on each side of it
and a blank point beyond. Or he watched a party of several, with the
pictured sheet of Japanese backgammon before them, write their names on
slips of paper or wood, and throw in turn a die. The slips are placed on
the pictures whose numbers correspond with the throw. At the next round,
if the number thrown by the particular player is written on the picture,
he finds directions as to which picture to move his slip backward or
forward to. He may, however, find his throw a blank and have to remain
at his place. The winning consists in reaching a certain picture. When
tired of these quieter games, the strolling woman player on a
guitar-like instrument, would be called in. Or, a party of Kangura boy
performers afforded pastime by the quaint animal-like movements of the
draped figure. He wears a huge grotesque scarlet mask on his head, and
at times makes this monster appear to stretch out and draw in its neck
by an unseen change in position of the mask from the head to the
gradually extended and draped hand of the actor. The beat of a drum and
the whistle of a bamboo flute formed the accompaniment to the dumb-show
acting.
[Illustration: Firemen's Gymnastics at New Year's Time.]
Yoshi-san thought the 4th and 5th days of January great fun, because
loud shoutings were heard. Running in the direction of the sound, he
found the men of a fire-brigade who had formed a procession to carry
their new paper standard, bamboo ladders, paper lanterns, etc. This
procession paused at intervals. Then the men steadied the ladder with
their long fire-hooks, whilst an agile member of the band mounted the
erect ladder and performed gymnastics at the top. His performance
concluded, he dismounted, and the march continued, the men as before
yelling joyously, at the highest pitch of their voices.
[Illustration: Street Tumblers playing Kangura in Tokio.]
After about a week of fun, life at the villa, gradually resumed its
usual course, the father returned to his office, the mother to her
domestic employments, and the children to school, all having said for
that new year their last joy-wishing greeting--omedeto
(congratulations).
THE CHRYSANTHEMUM SHOW.
Yoshi-san and his Grandmother go to visit the great temple at Shiba.
They walk up its steep stairs, and arrive at the lacquered threshold.
Here they place aside their wooden clogs, throw a few coins into a huge
box standing on the floor. It is covered with a wooden grating so
constructed as to prevent pilfering hands afterward removing the coin.
Then they pull a thick rope attached to a big brass bell like an
exaggerated sheep-bell, hanging from the ceiling, but which gives forth
but a feeble, tinkling sound. To insure the god's attention, this is
supplemented with three distinct claps of the hands, which are afterward
clasped in prayer for a short interval; two more claps mark the
conclusion. Then, resuming their clogs, they clatter down the steep,
copper-bound temple steps into the grounds. Here are stalls innumerable
of toys, fruit, fish-cakes, birds, tobacco-pipes, ironmongery, and rice,
and scattered amidst the stalls are tea-houses, peep-shows, and other
places of amusement. Of these the greatest attraction is a newly-opened
chrysanthemum show.
The chrysanthemums are trained to represent figures. Here is a
celebrated warrior, Kato Kiyomasa by name, who lived about the year
1600, when the eminent Hashiba (Hideyoshi) ruled Japan. Near the end of
his reign Hashiba, wishing to invade China, but being himself unable to
command the expedition, intrusted the leadership of the fleet and army
to Kiyomasa. They embarked, reached Korea, where a fierce battle was
fought and victory gained by Kiyomasa. When, however, he returned to
Japan, he found Hideyoshi had died, and the expedition was therefore
recalled. Tales of the liberality and generosity of the Chief, and how
he, single-handed, had slain a large and wild tiger with the spear that
he is represented as holding, led to his being at length addressed as a
god. His face is modelled in plaster and painted, and the yellow
chrysanthemum blossoms may be supposed to be gold bosses on the verdant
armor.
[Illustration: Eating Stand for the Children.]
Next they looked at eccentric varieties of this autumn flower, such as
those having the petals longer and more curly than usual. To show off
the flowers every branch was tied to a stick, which caused Yoshi-san to
think the bushes looked a little stiff and ugly. Near the warrior was a
chrysanthemum-robed lady, Benten, standing in a flowery sailing-boat
that is supposed to contain a cargo of jewels. Three rabbits farther on
appeared to be chatting together. Perhaps the best group of all was old
Fukurokujin, with white beard and bald head. He was conversing with two
of the graceful waterfowl so constantly seen in Japanese decorations. He
is the god of luck, and has a reputation for liking good cheer. This is
suggested by a gourd, a usual form of wine-bottle, that is suspended to
his cane, whilst another gourd contains homilies. He was said to be so
tender-hearted that even timid wild fowl were not afraid of him.
Not the least amusing part of the show was the figure before which
Yoshi's Grandmother exclaimed, "Why, truly, that is clever! Behold, I
pray thee, a barbarian lady, and even her child!" In truth it was an
unconscious caricature of Europeans, although the lady's face had not
escaped being made to look slightly Japanese. The child held a toy, and
had a regular shock head of hair. The frizzed hair of many foreign
children appeared very odd to Yoshi-san. He thought their mothers must
be very unkind not to take the little "western men" more often to the
barber's. He complacently compared the neatness of his own shaven crown
and tidily-clipped and gummed side-locks.
Being tired of standing, the old Grandmother told her grandson they
would go and listen to a recital at the story-teller's. Leaving their
wooden shoes in a pigeon-hole for that purpose, they joined an attentive
throng of some twenty listeners seated on mats in a dimly-lighted room.
Yoshi could not make out all the tale-teller said, but he liked to watch
him toy with his fan as he introduced his listeners to the characters of
his story. Then the story-teller would hold his fan like a rod of
command, whilst he kept his audience in rapt attention, then sometimes,
amidst the laughter of those present, he would raise his voice to a
shrill whine, and would emphasize a joke by a sharp tap on the table
with his fan. After they had listened to one tale Yoshi-san was sleepy.
So they went and bargained with a man outside who had a carriage like a
small gig with shafts called a "jin-riki-sha."[12] He ran after them to
say he consented to wheel them home the two and a half miles for five
cents.
[12] The _jin-riki-sha_, man-power-carriage, invented in Japan in 1871,
is now used all over the East.
FISHSAVE.
[Illustration]
There was once upon a time a little baby whose father was Japanese
ambassador to the court of China, and whose mother was a Chinese lady.
While this child was still in its infancy the ambassador had to return
to Japan. So he said to his wife, "I swear to remember you and to send
you letters by the ambassador that shall succeed me; and as for our
baby, I will despatch some one to fetch it as soon as it is weaned."
Thus saying he departed.
Well, embassy after embassy came (and there was generally at least a
year between each), but never a letter from the Japanese husband to the
Chinese wife. At last, tired of waiting and of grieving, she took her
boy by the hand, and sorrowfully leading him to the seashore, fastened
round his neck a label bearing the words, "The Japanese ambassador's
child." Then she flung him into the sea in the direction of the Japanese
Archipelago, confident that the paternal tie was one which it was not
possible to break, and that therefore father and child were sure to meet
again.
One day, when the former ambassador, the father, was riding by the beach
of Naniwa (where afterward was built the city of Osaka), he saw
something white floating out at sea, looking like a small island. It
floated nearer, and he looked more attentively. There was no doubt about
its being a child. Quite astonished, he stopped his horse and gazed
again. The floating object drew nearer and nearer still. At last with
perfect distinctness it was perceived to be a fair, pretty little boy,
of about four years old, impelled onward by the waves.
[Illustration: Fishsave riding the Dolphin to Japan.]
Still closer inspection showed that the boy rode bravely on the back of
an enormous fish. When the strange rider had dismounted on the strand,
the ambassador ordered his attendants to take the manly little fellow in
their arms, when lo, and behold! there was the label round his neck, on
which was written, "The Japanese ambassador's child." "Oh, yes," he
exclaimed, "it must be my child and no other, whom its mother, angry at
having received no letters from me, must have thrown into the sea. Now,
owing to the indissoluble bond tying together parents and children, he
has reached me safely, riding upon a fish's back." The air of the little
creature went to his heart, and he took and tended him most lovingly.
To the care of the next embassy that went to the court of China, he
intrusted a letter for his wife, in which he informed her of all the
particulars; and she, who had quite believed the child to be dead,
rejoiced at its marvellous escape.
The child grew up to be a man, whose handwriting was beautiful.[13]
Having been saved by a fish, he was given the name of "Fishsave."
[13] _Beautiful handwriting_ was considered one of the most admirable of
accomplishments in old Japan.
THE FILIAL GIRL.
[Illustration: Bowing before her Mother's Mirror.]
A girl once lived in the province of Echigo,[14] who from her earliest
years tended her parents with all filial piety. Her mother, when, after
a long illness she lay at the point of death, took out a mirror that she
had for many years concealed, and giving it to her daughter, spoke thus,
"when I have ceased to exist, take this mirror in thy hand night and
morning, and looking at it, fancy that 'tis I thou seest."
[14] A _Echigo:_ the province on the west coast, now famous for its
petroleum wells.
With these last words she expired, and the girl, full of grief, and
faithful to her mother's commands, used to take out the mirror night and
morning, and gazing in it, saw there in a face like to the face of her
mother. Delighted thereat (for the village was situated in a remote
country district among the mountains, and a mirror was a thing the girl
had never heard of), she daily worshipped her reflected face. She bowed
before it till her forehead touched the mat, as if this image had been
in very truth her mother's own self.
Her father one day, astonished to see her thus occupied, inquired the
reason, which she directly told him. But he burst out laughing, and
exclaimed, "Why! 'tis only thine own face, so like to thy mother's, that
is reflected. It is not thy mother's at all!"
This revelation distressed the girl. Yet she replied: "Even if the face
be not my mother's, it is the face of one who belonged to my mother, and
therefore my respectfully saluting it twice every day is the same as
respectfully saluting her very self." And so she continued to worship
the mirror more and more while tending her father with all filial
piety--at least so the story goes, for even to-day, as great poverty and
ignorance prevail in some parts of Echigo, the peasantry know as little
of mirrors as did this little girl.
THE PARSLEY QUEEN.[15]
How curious that the daughter of a peasant dwelling in a obscure country
village near Aska, in the province of Yamato,[16] should become a Queen!
Yet such was the case. Her father died while she was yet in her infancy,
and the girl applied herself to the tending of her mother with all
filial piety. One day when she had gone out in the fields to gather some
parsley, of which her mother was very fond, it chanced that Prince
Shotoku, the great Buddhist teacher,[17] was making a progress to his
palace, and all the inhabitants of the country-side flocked to the road
along which the procession was passing, in order to behold the gorgeous
spectacle, and to show their respect for the Mikado's son. The filial
girl, alone, paying no heed to what was going on around her, continued
picking her parsley. She was observed from his carriage by the Prince,
who, astonished at the circumstance, sent one of his retainers to
inquire into its cause.
[15] A story much like that of "The Parsley Queen" is told in the
province of Echizen.
[16] Yamato is the old classic centre of ancient life and history.
[17] _Prince Shotoku Taishi_, a great patron of Buddhism, who, though a
layman, is canonized (see "The Religions of Japan," p. 180).
[Illustration: Imitating the Procession to the Temple.]
The girl replied, "My mother bade me pick parsley, and I am following
her instructions--that is the reason why I have not turned round to pay
my respects to the Prince." The latter being informed of her answer, was
filled with admiration at the strictness of her filial piety. Alighting
at her mother's cottage on the way back, he told her of the occurrence,
and placing the girl in the next carriage to his own, took her home with
him to the Imperial Palace, and ended by making her his wife, upon which
the people, knowing her story, gave her the name of the "Parsley Queen."
THE TWO DAUGHTERS.