About the time of old style New Year's Day, when the winds o_Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories

and March are favorable to the sport, kites are flown, and there are few

games in which Japanese boys, from the infant on the back to the

full-grown and the over-grown boy, take more delight. I have never

observed, however, as foreign books so often tell us, old men flying

kites and boys merely looking on. The Japanese kites are made of tough

paper pasted on a frame of bamboo sticks, and are usually of a

rectangular shape. Some of them, however, are made to represent children

or men, several kinds of birds and animals, fans, etc. On the

rectangular kites are pictures of ancient heroes or beautiful women,

dragons, horses, monsters of various kinds, the symbol of the sun, or

huge Chinese characters. Among the faces most frequently seen on these

kites are those of the national heroes or heroines. Some of the kites

are six feet square. Many of them have a thin tense ribbon of whalebone

at the top of the kite which vibrates in the wind, making a loud humming

noise. The boys frequently name their kites Genji or Heiki, and each

contestant endeavors to destroy that of his rival. For this purpose the

string for ten or twenty feet near the kite end is first covered with

glue, and then dipped into pounded glass, by which the string becomes

covered with tiny blades, each able to cut quickly and deeply. By

getting the kite in proper position and suddenly sawing the string of

his antagonist, the severed kite falls, to be reclaimed by the victor.

The Japanese tops are of several kinds, some are made of univalve

shells, filled with wax. Those intended for contests are made of hard

wood, and are iron-clad by having a heavy iron ring round as a sort of

tire. The boys wind and throw them in a manner somewhat different from

ours. The object of the player is to damage his adversary's top, or to

make it cease spinning. The whipping top is also known and used. Besides

the athletic sports of leaping, running, wrestling, slinging, the

Japanese boys play at blindman's buff, hiding-whoop, and with stilts,

pop-guns, and blow-guns. On stilts they play various games and run

races.

In the northern and western coast provinces, where the snow falls to the

depth of many feet and remains long on the ground, it forms the material

of the children's playthings, and the theatre of many of their sports.

Besides sliding on the ice, coasting with sleds, building snow-forts

and fighting mimic battles with snow-balls, they make many kinds of

images and imitations of what they see and know. In America the boy's

snow-man is a Paddy with a damaged hat, clay pipe in mouth, and the

shillelah in his hand. In Japan the snow-man is an image of Daruma.

Daruma was one of the followers of Shaka (Buddha) who, by long

meditation in a squatting position, lost his legs from paralysis and

sheer decay. The images of Daruma are found by the hundreds in

toy-shops, as tobacconists' signs, and as the snow-men of the boys.

Occasionally the figure of Geiho, the sage with a forehead and skull so

high that a ladder was required to reach his pate, or huge cats and the

peculiar-shaped dogs seen in the toy-shops, take the place of Daruma.

[Illustration: Daruma, the Snow-Image.]

Many of the amusements of the children in-doors are mere imitations of

the serious affairs of adult life. Boys who have been to the theatre

come home to imitate the celebrated actors, and to extemporize mimic

theatricals for themselves. Feigned sickness and "playing the doctor,"

imitating with ludicrous exactness the pomp and solemnity of the real

man of pills and powders, and the misery of the patient, are the

diversions of very young children. Dinners, tea-parties, and even

weddings and funerals, are imitated in Japanese children's plays.

Among the ghostly games intended to test the courage of, or perhaps to

frighten children, are two plays called respectively, the "One Hundred

Stories" and "Soul-Examination." In the former play, a company of boys

and girls assemble round the hibachi, while they or an adult, an aged

person or a servant, usually relate ghost stories, or tales calculated

to straighten the hair and make the blood crawl. In a distant dark room,

a lamp (the usual dish of oil) with a wick of one hundred strands or

piths, is set. At the conclusion of each story, the children in turn

must go to the dark room and remove a strand of the wick. As the lamp

burns down low the room becomes gloomy and dark, and the last boy, it is

said, always sees a demon, a huge face, or something terrible. In

"Soul-Examination," a number of boys during the day plant some flags in

different parts of a graveyard, under a lonely tree, or by a haunted

hill-side. At night they meet together and tell stories about ghosts,

goblins, devils, etc., and at the conclusion of each tale, when the

imagination is wrought up, the boys, one at a time, must go out in the

dark and bring back the flags, until all are brought in.

On the third day of the third month is held the Doll Festival. This is

the day especially devoted to the girls, and to them it is the greatest

day in the year. It has been called in some foreign works on Japan, the

"Feast of Dolls." Several days before the Matsuri the shops are gay with

the images bought for this occasion, and which are on sale only at this

time of year. Every respectable family has a number of these

splendidly-dressed images, which are from four inches to a foot in

height, and which accumulate from generation to generation. When a

daughter is born in the house during the previous year, a pair of hina

or images are purchased for the little girl, which she plays with until

grown up. When she is married her hina are taken with her to her

husband's house, and she gives them to her children, adding to the stock

as her family increases. The images are made of wood or enamelled clay.

They represent the Mikado and his wife; the kuge or old Kioto nobles,

their wives and daughters, the court minstrels, and various personages

in Japanese mythology and history. A great many other toys,

representing all the articles in use in a Japanese lady's chamber, the

service of the eating table, the utensils of the kitchen, travelling

apparatus, etc., some of them very elaborate and costly, are also

exhibited and played with on this day. The girls make offerings of sake

and dried rice, etc., to the effigies of the emperor and empress, and

then spend the day with toys, mimicking the whole round of Japanese

female life, as that of child, maiden, wife, mother, and grand-mother.

In some old Japanese families in which I have visited, the display of

dolls and images was very large and extremely beautiful.

The greatest day in the year for the boys is on the fifth day of the

fifth month. On this day is celebrated what has been called the "Feast

of Flags." Previous to the coming of the day, the shops display for sale

the toys and tokens proper to the occasion. These are all of a kind

suited to young Japanese masculinity. They consist of effigies of heroes

and warriors, generals and commanders, soldiers on foot and horse, the

genii of strength and valor, wrestlers, etc. The toys represent the

equipments and regalia of a daimio's procession, all kinds of things

used in war, the contents of an arsenal, flags, streamers, banners, etc.

A set of these toys is bought for every son born in the family. Hence in

old Japanese families the display on the fifth day of the fifth month

is extensive and brilliant. Besides the display in-doors, on a bamboo

pole erected outside is hung, by a string to the top of the pole, a

representation of a large fish in paper. The paper being hollow, the

breeze easily fills out the body of the fish, which flaps its tail and

fins in a natural manner. One may count hundreds of these floating in

the air over the city.

The nobori, as the paper fish is called, is intended to show that a son

has been born during the year, or at least that there are sons in the

family. The fish represented is the carp, which is able to swim swiftly

against the current and to leap over waterfalls. This act of the carp is

a favorite subject with native artists, and is also typical of the young

man, especially the young Samurai, mounting over all difficulties to

success and quiet prosperity.

One favorite game, which has now gone out of fashion, was that in which

the boys formed themselves into a daimio's procession, having

forerunners, officers, etc., and imitating as far as possible the pomp

and circumstance of the old daimio's train. Another game which was very

popular represented, in mimic war, the struggles of two great noble

families (like the red and white roses of England). The boys of a town,

district, or school, ranged themselves into two parties, each with

flags. Those of the Heiki were white, those of the Genji red. Sometimes

every boy had a flag, and the object of the contest, which was begun at

the tap of a gun, was to seize the flags of the enemy. The party

securing the greatest number of flags won the victory. In other cases

the flags were fastened on the back of each contestant, who was armed

with a bamboo for a sword, and who had fastened on a pad over his head a

flat round piece of earthenware, so that a party of them looked not

unlike the faculty of a college. Often these parties of boys numbered

several hundred, and were marshalled in squadrons as in a battle. At a

given signal the battle commenced, the object being to break the earthen

disk on the head of the enemy. The contest was usually very exciting.

Whoever had his earthen disk demolished had to retire from the field.

The party having the greatest number of broken disks, indicative of

cloven skulls, were declared the losers. This game has been forbidden by

the Government as being too severe and cruel. Boys were often injured in

it.

There are many other games which we simply mention without describing.

There are three games played by the hands, which every observant

foreigner long resident in Japan must have seen played, as men and women

seem to enjoy them as much as children. In the Stone game, a stone, a

pair of scissors, and a wrapping-cloth are represented. The stone

signifies the clenched fist, the parted fore and middle fingers the

scissors, and the curved forefinger and thumb the cloth. The scissors

can cut the cloth, but not the stone, but the cloth can wrap the stone.

The two players sit opposite each other at play, throwing out their

hands so as to represent either of the three things, and win, lose, or

draw, as the case may be.

In the Fox game, the fox, man, and gun are the figures. The gun kills

the fox, but the fox deceives the man, and the gun is useless without

the man. In the third game, five or six boys represent the various

grades of rank, from the peasant up to the great daimios or shogun. By

superior address and skill in the game the peasant rises to the highest

rank, or the man of highest rank is degraded.

From the nature of the Japanese language, in which a single word or

sound may have a great many significations, riddles and puns are of

extraordinary frequency. I do not know of any published collection of

riddles, but every Japanese boy has a good stock of them on hand. There

are few Japanese works of light, and perhaps of serious, literature, in

which puns do not continually recur. The popular songs and poems are

largely plays on words. There are also several puzzles played with

sticks, founded upon the shape of certain Chinese characters. As for

the short and simple story-books, song-books, nursery rhymes, lullabys,

and what for want of a better name may be styled Mother Goose

Literature, they are as plentiful as with us, but they have a very

strongly characteristic Japanese flavor, both in style and matter.

It is curious that the game of foot-ball seems to have been confined to

the courtiers of the Mikado's court, where there were regular

instructors of the game. In the games of Pussy wants a Corner and

Prisoner's Base, the Oni, or devil, takes the place of Puss or the

officer.

I have not mentioned all the games and sports of Japanese children, but

enough has been said to show their general character. In general they

seem to be natural, sensible, and in every sense beneficial. Their

immediate or remote effects, next to that of amusement, are either

educational, or hygienic. Some teach history, some geography, some

excellent sentiments or good language. Others inculcate reverence and

obedience to the elder brother or sister, to parents or to the emperor,

or stimulate the manly virtues of courage and contempt for pain. The

study of the subject leads one to respect more highly, rather than

otherwise, the Japanese people for being such affectionate fathers and

mothers, and for having such natural and docile children. The character

of the children's plays and their encouragement by the parents has, I

think, much to do with that frankness, affection, and obedience on the

side of the children, and that kindness and sympathy on the side of the

parents, which are so noticeable in Japan, and which is one of the many

good points of Japanese life and character.

About the time of old style New Year's Day, when the winds of February