Japanese Girls and Women, Alice Mabel Bacon [ebook reader library TXT] 📗

month the trades-people begin to send in their bills, for every man expects to square up all his accounts by the last night of the old year, and early payments are expected and made, so that all may begin the new year out of debt. So universal is this custom that the man who finds at the eleventh hour that he cannot clear off all his debts is likely to offer his property at a heavy sacrifice in order to secure the necessary cash. For any one with ready money extraordinary bargains are to be met with in Japanese shops during the last week of the year. In case this resource fails, suicide is still a short and honorable way out of a world that has become too difficult to live in.

The Japanese housewife must feel, when December has been successfully passed, like the Yankee who had noticed that if he lived through the month of March he generally lived through the rest of the year. The observances of January, for which December has been one long preparation, begin with the rising of the New Year's sun, and continue in one form or another for about two weeks. Almost every day has its special food and its special festival duty. For the first three days the very best clothes in the wardrobe are worn by everybody, then till the seventh the second best, and from the seventh to the end of the month new clothes, though not the very best, must be worn. Within the first seven days every man in Japan is expected to call on all his friends and acquaintances, but the women, probably out of consideration for the many duties that the festival season puts upon them, are given until March to finish up their New Year's calls.

The streets of the cities, and even of the small villages, are full of life and interest for a week or two. Kurumayas in their new winter liveries trundle around fathers and mothers and happy children. All manner of mummers, musicians, and dancers go from house to house in search of custom. The manzai, who, with dances and songs and strange grimaces, undertake to drive out from your house for the new year all the devils who may have been residing there hitherto, are a special feature of this season. In every garden and in the public streets little girls, their faces freshly covered with white paint, their shining black hair newly dressed, their wing-sleeved kimonos gorgeous with many colors, play battledore and shuttlecock, toss small bags half filled with rice, or pat balls wound with shining silk to the accompaniment of a weird little chant. For the boys there are kites of many shapes and colors, or tops that they spin under every one's feet, well knowing that no one in Japan is too busy to turn aside for a child's pleasure. The very horses—small, shock-headed, evil-tempered beasts, who drag tremendous loads with many snorts and snaps at their masters—are decked out with gay streamers that reach nearly to the ground, at the ends of which are tinkling bells. The festival season closes on the fifteenth and sixteenth with a visit to the temple of Yemma, the god of hell, and with a holiday for all the apprentices.

Next to the New Year's holiday, perhaps the most important festival of the Japanese year is O Bon, the Feast of the Dead. This is, in its present form, a Buddhist institution, but in spirit it fitted so exactly into the ancient Japanese ideas of the tastes and habits of departed spirits that it merely supplanted the old Shintō feasts of the dead, and it is a little difficult to-day to determine whether its observance is more Buddhist or Shintō in its character. To find the O Bon ceremonies in their most perfect form, it is necessary now to go into the more remote country villages, for though, even in Tōkyō, this feast is still one of the most important in the whole year, it seems to be more distinctly itself in a small village, where all the old forms are still kept up.

In Tōkyō, the three days' festival is kept by the new calendar, and occurs on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth of July. At O Bon, as at New Year's time, it is customary to square off all obligations by a general giving of presents. This, while not quite as important a matter as at the beginning of the year, is still a severe tax upon the time, purse, and memory of the wife and mother in any large family. At this time, too, as at New Year's, mochi or some other festival dish must be provided, but at this point the resemblance between the two occasions ceases. In accordance with its character as a feast of departed spirits, the observance of O Bon is distinctively religious. On the twelfth, the family go to the graveyard and clean and put in order the graves and tombstones, so that the returning spirits may find all properly cared for. Fresh water and flowers are placed before each stone, and sometimes rice and fresh vegetables. At home, the ancestral tablets in the Butsudan form the centre of the ceremonies. Before the shrine are placed, on the thirteenth, offerings of food of any kind that can be made without fish or meat. Great balls of mochi, saké, flowers, and choice new varieties of vegetables are appropriate offerings. All are tastefully arranged, the lamps are carefully lighted every night, and special services are held before the shrine. For the three days of the feast, the souls of the dead are believed to be visiting their old haunts, and to need light and food and all the conveniences that their descendants can spare them. Each house is decorated with lanterns, that the spirits may be able to find their way. It is from this custom that the feast is often called by foreigners the Feast of Lanterns.

As I have already said, in Tōkyō and other modernized places, this feast is not seen at its best. Only the soft glow of the lanterns swinging from every house, and the decorations in the graveyards and at the household shrines, indicate to the traveler that anything unusual is going on. But in the country regions it is quite another matter, and the welcoming, entertainment, and proper dismissal of the visiting spirits form the entire business of the community for three days. Usually the middle of August is the time for the country celebration. On the twelfth, bands of children carrying red lanterns march singing through the village on their way to the graveyard, where the annual cleaning is taking place. That night bonfires in the cemetery and before the houses light the pathway of the wanderers. Then for three nights all the young people of the village gather in the temple court in grotesque disguises and with towels over their faces, and dance all night long in the moonlight, to primitive music produced by a drum and the monotonous chant of the dancers themselves. These three dance-nights are the great occasion of the year to the young peasants, for this is the only time when persons of both sexes meet together in a social way, and it is long looked forward to and enjoyed intensely. Of late years, the government, fearing the abuses that grow out of this exceptional social event, has endeavored to suppress the dancing, but it continues in full vigor throughout most of rural Japan, though conducted with more decorum than formerly on account of the standing dread of police interference. The object of the dance is to amuse the spirits of the ancestors, who must be imagined as hovering in the background, viewing with approval the antics of their descendants.

Other amusements are going on in the village on the O Bon evenings. At a summer resort every hotel-keeper will have a professional story-teller, a company of musicians, or some other entertainment to which the guests of the hotel are invited, and at which as many of the villagers as can crowd to the open house fronts stare until the dance drum in the temple court draws their feet in that direction. And then, on the last night of the feast, bonfires are once more kindled at every house, so that the spirits may find their way safely back to the land whence they came, and not stay to haunt their descendants at improper seasons.

No account of life in a Japanese home would be complete without a little space devoted to the special delights of the small boy. Although this book deals mainly with feminine concerns, the small boy in Japan, as in America, is the life and fun of the home, and one cannot fail to notice his times of surpassing enjoyment. He rules the house and his mother and his grandmother and his sisters, at all times, and his activity and enterprise secure for him a good share in any fun that is going on; but there are certain seasons that appeal to the boyish heart with a special message and of which he is the central figure.

As the Feast of Dolls is to the girls, so is the Feast of Flags to the boys,—their own special day, set apart for them out of the whole year. It comes on the fifth day of the fifth month (now May fifth), and for long before its arrival the shops are gay with all manner of tempting toys, while in every yard rises a great bamboo pole, from which, when the time comes, will float an enormous carp, its body inflated by the strong spring wind, its great mouth wide open, and its eyes glaring hideously, as it fights its way against the air currents. Sometimes there will be half a dozen such poles in one yard,—signs either that the household is blessed with many boys, or that the way to its heart is through gifts of toys to its son and heir. When the great day at last arrives, the feast within the home is conducted in much the same way as the Feast of Dolls. There are the same red-covered shelves, the same offerings of food and drink; but instead of the placid images of the Emperor and Empress and the five court musicians, the household furnishings and toilet articles, there are effigies of the heroes of history and folklore: Jingo, the warrior Empress; Takenouchi, her white-haired prime minister, holding in his arms her son, the infant war-god; Benkei, the giant retainer of Yoshitsune; Yoshitsune himself, the marvelous fencer and general; Kintaro, the fat, hairy, red boy, who was born and grew up in the mountains, and even in his babyhood fought with bears; Shoki Sama, the strong man who could conquer oni;—these are some of the characters to be found on the shelves at the boys' feast. Behind each figure stands a flag with the crest of the hero that it represents, and before them are set all manner of weapons in miniature. The food offered is mochi wrapped in oak leaves, because the oak is among trees what the carp is among fishes, the emblem of strength and endurance. The flower of this day is the iris or flag, because of its sword-shaped leaves,—hence the name, Shobu Matsuri, feast of iris or flag.

Another feast, which, while not founded for the boys, seems to have been adopted by them as a great occasion, is what is known as Buddha's birthday, celebrated on April eighth. On this day in every Buddhist temple a temporary platform is erected, the roof of which is covered with flowers. Upon this platform, in a great tub filled with licorice tea, is set a small image of the infant