"I asked a charming Japanese girl: 'How can a doll
live?' 'Why,' she answered, '_if you love it enough_, it
will live!'"
Lafcadio Hearn.
The English and Japanese Doll
Our English dolls, with their flaxen hair, blue eyes, and simpering
faces, are certainly not a credit to the toy-maker's art if they are
to be regarded as bearing even a remote likeness to living children.
Put in a horizontal position, something will click in their little
heads and their blue eyes will close, or more correctly roll backward;
a pinch will make them emit a tolerable imitation of the words "Papa!"
"Mamma!" and yet in spite of these mechanical devices they have nothing
more to their credit than a child's short-lived love. They are speedily
broken, or liable at any moment to be decapitated by a little brother
who has learnt too well the story of Lady Jane Grey!
In Japan, however, the doll is not merely a play-thing by which little
children may become make-believe mothers, but in earlier days it was
regarded as a means to make a wife a mother. Lafcadio Hearn writes:
"And if you see such a doll, though held quite close to you, being
made by a Japanese mother to reach out its hands, to move its little
bare feet, and to turn its head, you would be almost afraid to venture
a heavy wager that it was only a doll." It is this startling likeness
that is perhaps accountable for the quaint and beautiful love connected
with Japanese dolls.
Live Dolls
At one time certain dolls were actually said to become alive, to take
to their small bodies a human soul, and the belief is merely an echo of
the old idea that much love will quicken to life the image of a living
thing. In Old Japan the doll was handed down from one generation to
another, and sometimes remained in an excellent condition for over a
hundred years. A hundred years spent in little children's arms, served
with food, put to bed regularly every night, and the object of constant
endearments, will no doubt work wonders in the poetic imagination of a
happy and childlike people.
The tiny doll known as O-Hina-San does not come within the region
of our present study; it was simply a toy and nothing more. It is
the life-size dolls we must deal with, those dolls so cunningly
representing little children two or three years old. The girl doll of
this class is known as O-Toku-San and the boy doll as Tokutarō-San.
It was believed that if these dolls were ill-treated or neglected in
any way they would weep, become angry, and bring misfortune upon their
possessors. They had in addition many other supernatural powers.
In a certain old family there was a Tokutarō-San which received a
reverence almost equal to that shown to Kishibōjin, the Goddess to whom
Japanese wives pray for offspring. This Tokutarō-San was borrowed by
childless couples. They gave it new clothes and tended it with loving
care, assured that such a doll which had a soul would make them happy
by answering their prayers for a child. Tokutarō-San, according to
legend, was very much alive, for when the house caught fire it speedily
ran into the garden for safety!
A Doll's Last Resting-place
What happens to a Japanese doll when after a very long and happy
life it eventually gets broken? Though finally regarded as dead, its
remains are treated with the utmost respect. It is not thrown away
with rubbish, or burned, or even reverently laid upon running water,
as is often the case with dead Japanese flowers. It is not buried, but
dedicated to Kōjin, frequently represented as a deity with many arms.
Kōjin is supposed to reside in the _enoki_ tree, and in front of this
tree there is a small shrine and _torii_. Here, then, the remains of
a very old Japanese doll are reverently laid. Its little face may be
scratched, its silk dress torn and faded and its arms and legs broken,
but it once had a soul, once had the mysterious _desire_ to give
maternity to those who longed for it.
On March 3 the Girls' Festival takes place. It is known as _Jōmi no
Sekku_, or _Hina Matsuri_, the Feast or Dolls.
Butterflies
"Where the soft drifts lie
Of fallen blossoms, dying,
Did one flutter now,
From earth to its brown bough?
Ah, no! 'twas a butterfly,
Like fragile blossom flying!"
_Arakida Mortitake_.
(Trans. by Clara A. Walsh.)
It is in China rather than in Japan that the butterfly is connected
with legend and folk-lore. The Chinese scholar Rōsan is said to have
received visits from two spirit maidens who regaled him with ghostly
stories about these bright-winged insects.
It is more than probable that the legends concerning butterflies in
Japan have been borrowed from China. Japanese poets and artists were
fond of choosing for their professional appellation such names as
"Butterfly-Dream," "Solitary Butterfly," "Butterfly-Help," and so on.
Though probably of Chinese origin, such ideas naturally appealed to
the æsthetic taste of the Japanese people, and no doubt they played
in early days the romantic game of butterflies. The Emperor Gensō
used to make butterflies choose his loves for him. At a wine-party
in his garden fair ladies would set caged butterflies free. These
bright-coloured insects would fly and settle upon the fairest damsels,
and those maidens immediately received royal favours.
Butterflies of Good and Evil Omen
In Japan the butterfly was at one time considered to be the soul of a
living man or woman. If it entered a guest-room and pitched behind the
bamboo screen it was a sure sign that the person whom it represented
would shortly appear in the house. The presence of a butterfly in the
house was regarded as a good omen, though of course everything depended
on the individual typified by the butterfly.
The butterfly was not always the harbinger of good. When
Taira-no-Masakado was secretly preparing for a revolt Kyōto was the
scene of a swarm of butterflies, and the people who saw them were much
frightened. Lafcadio Hearn suggests that these butterflies may have
been the spirits of those fated to fall in battle, the spirits of the
living who were stirred by a premonition of the near approach of death.
Butterflies may also be the souls of the dead, and they often appear in
this form in order to announce their final leave-taking from the body.
"The Flying Hairpin of Kochō"
The Japanese drama contains reference to the ghostly significance of
butterflies. In the play known as _The Flying Hairpin of Kochō_, the
heroine, Kochō, kills herself on account of false accusations and cruel
treatment. Her lover seeks to discover who has been the cause of her
untimely death. Eventually Kochō's hairpin turns into a butterfly and
hovers over the hiding-place of the villain who has caused all the
trouble.
The White Butterfly
There is a quaint and touching Japanese legend connected with the
butterfly. An old man named Takahama lived in a little house behind
the cemetery of the temple of Sōzanji. He was extremely amiable and
generally liked by his neighbours, though most of them considered him
to be a little mad. His madness, it would appear, entirely rested upon
the fact that he had never married or evinced desire for intimate
companionship with women.
One summer day he became very ill, so ill, in fact, that he sent for
his sister-in-law and her son. They both came and did all they could to
bring comfort during his last hours. While they watched Takahama fell
asleep; but he had no sooner done so than a large white butterfly flew
into the room, and rested on the old man's pillow. The young man tried
to drive it away with a fan; but it came back three times, as if loth
to leave the sufferer.
At last Takahama's nephew chased it out into the garden, through the
gate, and into the cemetery beyond, where it lingered over a woman's
tomb, and then mysteriously disappeared. On examining the tomb the
young man found the name "Akiko" written upon it, together with a
description narrating how Akiko died when she was eighteen. Though
the tomb was covered with moss and must have been erected fifty years
previously, the boy saw that it was surrounded with flowers, and that
the little water-tank had been recently filled.
When the young man returned to the house he found that Takahama had
passed away, and he returned to his mother and told her what he had
seen in the cemetery.
"Akiko?" murmured his mother. "When your uncle was young he was
betrothed to Akiko. She died of consumption shortly before her
wedding-day. When Akiko left this world your uncle resolved never to
marry and to live ever near her grave. For all these years he has
remained faithful to his vow, and kept in his heart all the sweet
memories of his one and only love. Every day Takahama went to the
cemetery, whether the air was fragrant with summer breeze or thick
with falling, snow. Every day he went to her grave and prayed for her
happiness, swept the tomb and set flowers there. When Takahama was
dying, and he could no longer perform his loving task, Akiko came for
him. That white butterfly was her sweet and loving soul."
Just before Takahama passed away into the Land of the Yellow Spring he
may have murmured words like those of Yone Noguchi:
"Where the flowers sleep,
Thank God! I shall sleep to-night.
Oh, come, butterfly!"[1]
[Footnote 1: Legends concerning other insects will be found in Chapter
XXIII.]