A Japanese Boy
rolling. We give each other the "grounder" repeatedly, so that even the
hard-rinded Japanese fruit gets ruptured in a little time; then our
business is to beat about for a supply of the new balls, which we
invariably accomplish by knocking down the fruit from the unguarded
arches. The people generally take the prank in good part.
Girls play out-of-doors with battledore and shuttlecock; they also play
with cotton-balls, which they toss with their dainty hands against hard
floors. They keep the ball bounding rhythmically between the palm of
their hand and the floor, and hum songs in time with it.
At home and in the evening we play cards and other games. The favorite
game of cards consists in giving out the first lines of couplets and
endeavoring to pick out from the confusion of cards, in competition with
others of the company, the particular cards on which are written the
following lines; the one with the largest number of cards in the end is
declared the winner. This game has the commendable feature of impressing
on the mind celebrated poems; it is not merely time thrown away.
Japanese poems, I remark in passing, are short and pithy; the classic
"a Hundred Poems from a Hundred Poets" are characteristic and are
consequently printed for the purpose of the game. The selected poems of
the Tō dynasty, which in the annals of Chinese literature correspond to
the English Elizabethan period. I mean in development and not in
chronology, are substituted by scholars for the Japanese poems. We also
play a kind of parchesi and a form of the game of authors, but whist,
poker, casino, euchre, cribbage, etc., we know nothing of. Chess and
checkers the Japanese are expert in, but they are not New Year games.
Fireside conversation, kind words and hearts constitute the quiet
enjoyment and sunshine of the holidays. All things conspire to produce
in us serene and tranquil pleasure, but nothing worth recording occurs
in the remaining days. Some business-like briskness is manifested in the
early hours of the second morning, for tradesmen observe the ancient
custom of inaugurating the commerce of the opening year and give out
presents to their customers.
Later in the spring--I forget the exact date--all the straw ornaments,
withering wreaths and the like used in the decoration are brought
together and burnt up with religious care on a broad sandy river flat
just beyond the town. The day appointed for the rite is another gala-day
of the calendar, at least in Imabari. For some time previous to the
occasion, the straw relics of all the houses of a street are carefully
collected in one spot, and then such as are artists exercise ingenuity
to produce some recognizable shape out of the heap that may catch the
eye of spectators, on its way to the place of combustion. Street vies
with street in originality in fashioning the straw stack and takes care
not to divulge what it is constructing until the day of display, then it
ostentatiously raises the finished work, whatever it may be, on a high
movable platform or pedestal on wheels, which takes its position in the
line of march with those of the other streets. The whole town is curious
to know what is in the parade and rushes out to behold.
I recall only one among many things which my own street produced on such
occasions; it was a military cap and a trumpet joined together.
Innumerable sheets of gilt paper were wasted in giving the monstrous
form of a trumpet the appearance of bright, shining brass; the cap, too,
was wonderfully like the real imported thing. These barbarian outlandish
articles, having been adopted by the Japanese government at the time,
were exciting the attention and comments of the people; hence, the
striking reproduction of them on a greatly magnified scale made
everybody utter a little cry of surprise and admiration. I forget to
which of us the inspiration came.
The pedestal or platform has two large massive iron rings in front, to
which are tied stout ropes: the younger part of the inhabitants of the
street hang together in two rows and haul the decorated burden. Song and
chorus, and the heavy wheels creak onward a short distance, then stop:
song again and chorus; then another pause. Among the crowd we
occasionally meet a man carrying a bamboo stick, one end of which is
split and holds half-a-dozen hardened mochis. He intends to scorch the
cakes in the flames of the relics and, upon returning home, to divide
them among his family and eat them for the miraculous power they are
then believed to possess.
This is, in short, the manner in which we observe and end our great
national holiday of New Year. Of late, it is to be regretted, many of
the old customs are omitted by the people who have got modern notions
into their heads. Innovations of the latter days not very desirable or
in good taste are fast gaining ground. A few years more, and, I fear,
the neglect of time-honored observances will be complete in Japan.
CHAPTER XII.
We have a great many other holidays; it is impossible to speak of them
all. Simply to name some, there are God Fox's day on the second of the
second month; the Feast of Dolls, for little girls, on the third of the
third month; the Feast of Flags for little boys on the fifth of the
fifth month; the ablution mass in the sixth month; the Tanabata (eve of
the seventh) on the seventh of the seventh month; the day of
chrysanthemum flowers and the festival of Inoko late in the fall, not to
mention festivals of several local deities. The vital importance of
these holidays to us children centered in the dainties and delicacies
with which our mothers and sisters served us then and not often at
ordinary times. We enjoy boiled red beans and rice on the second of
February; rice-flour cakes wrapped in the leaves of a species of oak
called kashiwa on the fifth of May; rice-flour cakes daubed with the an
on the day of the Buddhistic ceremony of ablution; roast and boiled
chestnuts and rice and chestnuts on the ninth of September; and the saké
on almost all occasions, but with a spray of peach blossom inserted in
the bottle on the third of March, and a bunch of chrysanthemum flowers
on the chrysanthemum day.
In Tanabata and Inoko the boys of the town used to club together on
payment of a small fee, the biggest among them presiding over their
affairs by common consent. Our first work is to canvass such houses in
consecutive order as have large front rooms, soliciting their owners to
loan us the room for a few days for a temporary club-house, free of
charge. And when we are given by a generous man the use of his house,
thither we convey our common property. The property comprises the scroll
gods, a holy mirror, the golden gohĕi (a sacred brass ornament), a pair
of pewter saké bottles, splendid curtains, a large number of the sambo
(offering stand of white wood, sometimes varnished), countless Japanese
lanterns, timber and board ready to be put together for an altar looking
like a staircase, Chinese crimson felt carpets, several drums and
certain kinds of bells. These things have been handed down to us by
successive generations of boys, repaired each year and additions made by
donations or by "chipping in," and all nicely packed in chests, on the
sides and covers of which we read the names of some that have died, and
of others that are yet living though well-nigh to the grave. The boys
take good care of the old heirlooms, that they may transmit them without
injury to their successors. The older boys take the things out and set
up a place of worship; on the days of festivity the members come to the
headquarters with their lunch-boxes well stocked. We assemble not to
worship really, you might as well understand now, but to have a good
time. Fruits and cakes have been taken in by the managers from the
wholesale merchants, and are piled up in pyramids on the samboes upon
the steps of the altar; they are to be divided equally among the
stockholders afterwards. The lanterns are lighted brilliantly at night;
a special lantern is hoisted on a very high pole planted before the
house to signify our quarters.
At Tanabata we march through the streets with green bamboo trees,
rending the air with certain shouts and beating the instruments, and
upon meeting the boys of other streets have a scuffle. The scene is a
confusion of bamboos and bits of rainbow-colored papers which are tied
plentifully to the branches. After a hot contest we come home to the
club, eat a hearty lunch and celebrate the incidents of our victory. The
day after the festival we take our bamboos to the sea and cast them off
to be drifted away by the waves and finally up to the Heavenly Stream or
the Milky Way, where the gods may read our wishes written on the
rainbow-colored papers. On this day everybody goes swimming, because the
sea-monkey is handcuffed that can lengthen one arm enormously at the
expense of the other, and draws in and drowns people, especially boys
who go swimming in opposition to their mothers' remonstrance.
At Inoko we bring forth our gorin. A gorin is a spherical stone, usually
granite, with an iron belt loose in a groove around the great
circumference; the belt has many small rings through it. A club of boys
possesses five to ten gorins of various sizes. To the rings are attached
ropes, and calling at the families to which came male offspring during
the year, the boys utter words of blessing and pound the ground by
pulling up and down the solid stone. After a series of thumps a
depression is left behind. We hold gorin collisions with neighboring
powers. A challenge is sent to other clubs to meet us with their best
gorin on neutral ground at such a time, that we may know which is
stronger. The war gorin is equipped for the contest with a network of
ropes, exposing a portion of the surface that shall deal the blow; the
leading boys guide it in the battle by several strong ropes. Generally
in the collision more noise is heard than the clash; however, not rarely
the contest is kept up until one or the other splits through the core,
and the opposition is so strong as to cause older people to interfere in
the affair, because it infallibly entails unpleasant feeling between the
parties and a scrimmage at all times. I call to mind that our club used
to plume itself upon the strength and durability of its gorins; no, not
one received so much as a crack, albeit many and severe were the tests
to which they had been subjected.
Besides the gorin sports, at Inoko we get up wrestling matches. On the
yard of the club-house we build a circular bank of clay and fill the
inside with sand; in this all the members contend in practice. Small as
I was, I did not like to be thought out of fashion, and to pay for my
uncalled-for prowess suffered from sores and bruises. In a body we visit
the headquarters of the other clubs and negotiate the matches, which
take place immediately on the spot in full view of both parties.
The ceremony of ablution is chiefly observed by Shinto priests. (Shinto
is the native faith, holding up the sun for the center figure of worship
and eight millions of spirits besides.) The way they observe it in my
province consists in setting up in the temple-yard three large hoops of
the sasaki tree (sacred to Shintoism) and inviting the people to pass
through them. The hoops are supposed to take up the people's sins and
transgressions, leaving them clean and fit for the further grace of the
gods. Thus loaded with the earthly corruptions and loathsome pollutions
of man, the round bands of the fresh, green trees, thickly stuck with
zigzag white paper hangings, at the end of the day are taken to running
water and washed thoroughly or more commonly committed to the sea.
At about the same time Buddhist priests hold mass for dead sinners. The