Part 16
Of course I consented to receive the visitor, and with the mercury at 84°, five men, two boys, and five women entered my small, low room, and after bowing to the earth three times, sat down on the floor. They had evidently come to spend the afternoon. Trays of tea and sweetmeats were handed round, and a _labako-bon_ was brought in, and they all smoked, as I had told Ito that all usual courtesies were to be punctiliously performed. They expressed their gratification at seeing so “honourable” a traveller. I expressed mine at seeing so much of their “honourable” country. Then we all bowed profoundly. Then I laid Brunton’s map on the floor and showed them my route, showed them the Asiatic Society’s Transactions, and how we read from left to right, instead of from top to bottom, showed them my knitting, which amazed them, and my Berlin work, and then had nothing left. Then they began to entertain me, and I found that the real object of their visit was to exhibit an “infant prodigy,” a boy of four, with a head shaven all but a tuft on the top, a face of preternatural thoughtfulness and gravity, and the self-possessed and dignified demeanour of an elderly man. He was dressed in scarlet silk _hakama_, and a dark, striped, blue silk _kimono_, and fanned himself gracefully, looking at everything as intelligently and courteously as the others. To talk child’s talk to him, or show him toys, or try to amuse him, would have been an insult. The monster has taught himself to read and write, and has composed poetry. His father says that he never plays, and understands everything just like a grown person. The intention was that I should ask him to write, and I did so.
It was a solemn performance. A red blanket was laid in the middle of the floor, with a lacquer writing-box upon it. The creature rubbed the ink with water on the inkstone, unrolled four rolls of paper, five feet long, and inscribed them with Chinese characters, nine inches long, of the most complicated kind, with firm and graceful curves of his brush, and with the ease and certainty of Giotto in turning his O. He sealed them with his seal in vermilion, bowed three times, and the performance was ended. People get him to write _kakemonos_ and signboards for them, and he had earned 10 _yen_, or about £2, that day. His father is going to travel to Kiyôto with him, to see if any one under fourteen can write as well. I never saw such an exaggerated instance of child worship. Father, mother, friends, and servants, treated him as if he were a prince.
The house-master, who is a most polite man, procured me an invitation to the marriage of his niece, and I have just returned from it. He has three “wives” himself. One keeps a _yadoya_ in Kiyôto, another in Morioka, and the third and youngest is with him here. From her limitless stores of apparel she chose what she considered a suitable dress for me—an under-dress of sage green silk _crêpe_, a _kimono_ of soft, green, striped silk of a darker shade, with a fold of white _crêpe_, spangled with gold at the neck, and a girdle of sage green corded silk, with the family badge here and there upon it in gold. I went with the house-master, Ito, to his disgust, not being invited, and his absence was like the loss of one of my senses, as I could not get any explanations till afterwards.
The ceremony did not correspond with the rules laid down for marriages in the books of etiquette that I have seen, but this is accounted for by the fact that they were for persons of the _samurai_ class, while this bride and bridegroom, though the children of well-to-do merchants, belong to the _heimin_.
In this case the _trousseau_ and furniture were conveyed to the bridegroom’s house in the early morning, and I was allowed to go to see them. There were several girdles of silk embroidered with gold, several pieces of brocaded silk for _kimonos_, several pieces of silk _crêpe_, a large number of made-up garments, a piece of white silk, six barrels of wine or _saké_, and seven sorts of condiments. Jewellery is not worn by women in Japan.
The furniture consisted of two wooden pillows, finely lacquered, one of them containing a drawer for ornamental hairpins, some cotton _futons_, two very handsome silk ones, a few silk cushions, a lacquer workbox, a spinning-wheel, a lacquer rice bucket and ladle, two ornamental iron kettles, various kitchen utensils, three bronze _hibachi_, two _tabako-bons_, some lacquer trays, and _zens_, china kettles, teapots, and cups, some lacquer rice bowls, two copper basins, a few towels, some bamboo switches, and an inlaid lacquer _étagère_. As the things are all very handsome the parents must be well off. The _saké_ is sent in accordance with rigid etiquette.
The bridegroom is twenty-two, the bride seventeen, and very comely, so far as I could see through the paint with which she was profusely disfigured. Towards evening she was carried in a _norimon_, accompanied by her parents and friends, to the bridegroom’s house, each member of the procession carrying a Chinese lantern. When the house-master and I arrived the wedding party was assembled in a large room, the parents and friends of the bridegroom being seated on one side, and those of the bride on the other. Two young girls, very beautifully dressed, brought in the bride, a very pleasing-looking creature dressed entirely in white silk, with a veil of white silk covering her from head to foot. The bridegroom, who was already seated in the middle of the room near its upper part, did not rise to receive her, and kept his eyes fixed on the ground, and she sat opposite to him, but never looked up. A low table was placed in front, on which there was a two-spouted kettle full of _saké_, some _saké_ bottles, and some cups, and on another there were some small figures representing a fir-tree, a plum-tree in blossom, and a stork standing on a tortoise, the last representing length of days, and the former the beauty of women and the strength of men. Shortly a _zen_, loaded with eatables, was placed before each person, and the feast began, accompanied by the noises which signify gastronomic gratification.
After this, which was only a preliminary, the two girls who brought in the bride handed round a tray with three cups containing _saké_, which each person was expected to drain till he came to the god of luck at the bottom.
The bride and bridegroom then retired, but shortly reappeared in other dresses of ceremony, but the bride still wore her white silk veil, which one day will be her shroud. An old gold lacquer tray was produced, with three _saké_ cups, which were filled by the two bridesmaids, and placed before the parents-in-law and the bride. The father-in-law drank three cups, and handed the cup to the bride, who, after drinking two cups, received from her father-in-law a present in a box, drank the third cup, and then returned the cup to the father-in-law, who again drank three cups. Rice and fish were next brought in, after which the bridegroom’s mother took the second cup, and filled and emptied it three times, after which she passed it to the bride, who drank two cups, received a present from her mother-in-law in a lacquer box, drank a third cup, and gave the cup to the elder lady, who again drank three cups. Soup was then served, and then the bride drank once from the third cup, and handed it to her husband’s father, who drank three more cups, the bride took it again, and drank two, and lastly the mother-in-law drank three more cups. Now, if you possess the clear-sightedness which I laboured to preserve, you will perceive that each of the three had inbibed nine cups of some generous liquor! {168}
After this the two bridesmaids raised the two-spouted kettle and presented it to the lips of the married pair, who drank from it alternately, till they had exhausted its contents. This concluding ceremony is said to be emblematic of the tasting together of the joys and sorrows of life. And so they became man and wife till death or divorce parted them.
This drinking of _saké_ or wine, according to prescribed usage, appeared to constitute the “marriage service,” to which none but relations were bidden. Immediately afterwards the wedding guests arrived, and the evening was spent in feasting and _saké_ drinking; but the fare is simple, and intoxication is happily out of place at a marriage feast. Every detail is a matter of etiquette, and has been handed down for centuries. Except for the interest of the ceremony, in that light it was a very dull and tedious affair, conducted in melancholy silence, and the young bride, with her whitened face and painted lips, looked and moved like an automaton.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXV.
A Holiday Scene—A _Matsuri_—Attractions of the Revel—_Matsuri_ Cars—Gods and Demons—A Possible Harbour—A Village Forge—Prosperity of _Saké_ Brewers—A “Great Sight.”
TSUGURATA, _July_ 27.
THREE miles of good road thronged with half the people of Kubota on foot and in _kurumas_, red vans drawn by horses, pairs of policemen in _kurumas_, hundreds of children being carried, hundreds more on foot, little girls, formal and precocious looking, with hair dressed with scarlet _crépe_ and flowers, hobbling toilsomely along on high clogs, groups of men and women, never intermixing, stalls driving a “roaring trade” in cakes and sweetmeats, women making _mochi_ as fast as the buyers ate it, broad rice-fields rolling like a green sea on the right, an ocean of liquid turquoise on the left, the grey roofs of Kubota looking out from their green surroundings, Taiheisan in deepest indigo blocking the view to the south, a glorious day, and a summer sun streaming over all, made up the cheeriest and most festal scene that I have seen in Japan; men, women, and children, vans and _kurumas_, policemen and horsemen, all on their way to a mean-looking town, Minato, the junk port of Kubota, which was keeping _matsuri_, or festival, in honour of the birthday of the god Shimmai. Towering above the low grey houses there were objects which at first looked like five enormous black fingers, then like trees with their branches wrapped in black, and then—comparisons ceased; they were a mystery.
Dismissing the _kurumas_, which could go no farther, we dived into the crowd, which was wedged along a mean street, nearly a mile long—a miserable street of poor tea-houses and poor shop-fronts; but, in fact, you could hardly see the street for the people. Paper lanterns were hung close together along its whole length. There were rude scaffoldings supporting matted and covered platforms, on which people were drinking tea and _saké_ and enjoying the crowd below; monkey theatres and dog theatres, two mangy sheep and a lean pig attracting wondering crowds, for neither of these animals is known in this region of Japan; a booth in which a woman was having her head cut off every half-hour for 2 _sen_ a spectator; cars with roofs like temples, on which, with forty men at the ropes, dancing children of the highest class were being borne in procession; a theatre with an open front, on the boards of which two men in antique dresses, with sleeves touching the ground, were performing with tedious slowness a classic dance of tedious posturings, which consisted mainly in dexterous movements of the aforesaid sleeves, and occasional emphatic stampings, and utterances of the word _Nô_ in a hoarse howl. It is needless to say that a foreign lady was not the least of the attractions of the fair. The _cultus_ of children was in full force, all sorts of masks, dolls, sugar figures, toys, and sweetmeats were exposed for sale on mats on the ground, and found their way into the hands and sleeves of the children, for no Japanese parent would ever attend a _matsuri_ without making an offering to his child.
The police told me that there were 22,000 strangers in Minato, yet for 32,000 holiday-makers a force of twenty-five policemen was sufficient. I did not see one person under the influence of _saké_ up to 3 p.m., when I left, nor a solitary instance of rude or improper behaviour, nor was I in any way rudely crowded upon, for, even where the crowd was densest, the people of their own accord formed a ring and left me breathing space.
We went to the place where the throng was greatest, round the two great _matsuri_ cars, whose colossal erections we had seen far off. These were structures of heavy beams, thirty feet long, with eight huge, solid wheels. Upon them there were several scaffoldings with projections, like flat surfaces of cedar branches, and two special peaks of unequal height at the top, the whole being nearly fifty feet from the ground. All these projections were covered with black cotton cloth, from which branches of pines protruded. In the middle three small wheels, one above another, over which striped white cotton was rolling perpetually, represented a waterfall; at the bottom another arrangement of white cotton represented a river, and an arrangement of blue cotton, fitfully agitated by a pair of bellows below, represented the sea. The whole is intended to represent a mountain on which the Shintô gods slew some devils, but anything more rude and barbarous could scarcely be seen. On the fronts of each car, under a canopy, were thirty performers on thirty diabolical instruments, which rent the air with a truly infernal discord, and suggested devils rather than their conquerors. High up on the flat projections there were groups of monstrous figures. On one a giant in brass armour, much like the _Niô_ of temple gates, was killing a revolting-looking demon. On another a _daimiyô’s_ daughter, in robes of cloth of gold with satin sleeves richly flowered, was playing on the _samisen_. On another a hunter, thrice the size of life, was killing a wild horse equally magnified, whose hide was represented by the hairy wrappings of the leaves of the _Chamærops excelsa_. On others highly-coloured gods, and devils equally hideous, were grouped miscellaneously. These two cars were being drawn up and down the street at the rate of a mile in three hours by 200 men each, numbers of men with levers assisting the heavy wheels out of the mud-holes. This _matsuri_, which, like an English fair, feast, or revel, has lost its original religious significance, goes on for three days and nights, and this was its third and greatest day.
We left on mild-tempered horses, quite unlike the fierce fellows of Yamagata _ken_. Between Minato and Kado there is a very curious lagoon on the left, about 17 miles long by 16 broad, connected with the sea by a narrow channel, guarded by two high hills called Shinzan and Honzan. Two Dutch engineers are now engaged in reporting on its capacities, and if its outlet could be deepened without enormous cost it would give north-western Japan the harbour it so greatly needs. Extensive rice-fields and many villages lie along the road, which is an avenue of deep sand and ancient pines much contorted and gnarled. Down the pine avenue hundreds of people on horseback and on foot were trooping into Minato from all the farming villages, glad in the glorious sunshine which succeeded four days of rain. There were hundreds of horses, wonderful-looking animals in bravery of scarlet cloth and lacquer and fringed nets of leather, and many straw wisps and ropes, with Gothic roofs for saddles, and dependent panniers on each side, carrying two grave and stately-looking children in each, and sometimes a father or a fifth child on the top of the pack-saddle.
I was so far from well that I was obliged to sleep at the wretched village of Abukawa, in a loft alive with fleas, where the rice was too dirty to be eaten, and where the house-master’s wife, who sat for an hour on my floor, was sorely afflicted with skin disease. The clay houses have disappeared and the villages are now built of wood, but Abukawa is an antiquated, ramshackle place, propped up with posts and slanting beams projecting into the roadway for the entanglement of unwary passengers.
The village smith was opposite, but he was not a man of ponderous strength, nor were there those wondrous flights and scintillations of sparks which were the joy of our childhood in the Tattenhall forge. A fire of powdered charcoal on the floor, always being trimmed and replenished by a lean and grimy satellite, a man still leaner and grimier, clothed in goggles and a girdle, always sitting in front of it, heating and hammering iron bars with his hands, with a clink which went on late into the night, and blowing his bellows with his toes; bars and pieces of rusty iron pinned on the smoky walls, and a group of idle men watching his skilful manipulation, were the sights of the Abukawa smithy, and kept me thralled in the balcony, though the whole clothesless population stood for the whole evening in front of the house with a silent, open-mouthed stare.
Early in the morning the same melancholy crowd appeared in the dismal drizzle, which turned into a tremendous torrent, which has lasted for sixteen hours. Low hills, broad rice valleys in which people are puddling the rice a second time to kill the weeds, bad roads, pretty villages, much indigo, few passengers, were the features of the day’s journey. At Morioka and several other villages in this region I noticed that if you see one large, high, well-built house, standing in enclosed grounds, with a look of wealth about it, it is always that of the _saké_ brewer. A bush denotes the manufacture as well as the sale of _saké_, and these are of all sorts, from the mangy bit of fir which has seen long service to the vigorous truss of pine constantly renewed. It is curious that this should formerly have been the sign of the sale of wine in England.
The wind and rain were something fearful all that afternoon. I could not ride, so I tramped on foot for some miles under an avenue of pines, through water a foot deep, and, with my paper waterproof soaked through, reached Toyôka half drowned and very cold, to shiver over a _hibachi_ in a clean loft, hung with my dripping clothes, which had to be put on wet the next day. By 5 a.m. all Toyôka assembled, and while I took my breakfast I was not only the “cynosure” of the eyes of all the people outside, but of those of about forty more who were standing in the _doma_, looking up the ladder. When asked to depart by the house-master, they said, “It’s neither fair nor neighbourly in you to keep this great sight to yourself, seeing that our lives may pass without again looking on a foreign woman;” so they were allowed to remain!
I. L. B.
LETTER XXVI.
The Fatigues of Travelling—Torrents and Mud—Ito’s Surliness—The Blind Shampooers—A Supposed Monkey Theatre—A Suspended Ferry—A Difficult Transit—Perils on the Yonetsurugawa—A Boatman Drowned—Nocturnal Disturbances—A Noisy Yadoya—Storm-bound Travellers—_Hai_! _Hai_!—More Nocturnal Disturbances.
ODATÉ, _July_ 29.
I HAVE been suffering so much from my spine that I have been unable to travel more than seven or eight miles daily for several days, and even that with great difficulty. I try my own saddle, then a pack-saddle, then walk through the mud; but I only get on because getting on is a necessity, and as soon as I reach the night’s halting-place I am obliged to lie down at once. Only strong people should travel in northern Japan. The inevitable fatigue is much increased by the state of the weather, and doubtless my impressions of the country are affected by it also, as a hamlet in a quagmire in a gray mist or a soaking rain is a far less delectable object than the same hamlet under bright sunshine. There has not been such a season for thirty years. The rains have been tremendous. I have lived in soaked clothes, in spite of my rain-cloak, and have slept on a soaked stretcher in spite of all waterproof wrappings for several days, and still the weather shows no signs of improvement, and the rivers are so high on the northern road that I am storm-bound as well as pain-bound here. Ito shows his sympathy for me by intense surliness, though he did say very sensibly, “I’m very sorry for you, but it’s no use saying so over and over again; as I can do nothing for you, you’d better send for the blind man!”
In Japanese towns and villages you hear every evening a man (or men) making a low peculiar whistle as he walks along, and in large towns the noise is quite a nuisance. It is made by blind men; but a blind beggar is never seen throughout Japan, and the blind are an independent, respected, and well-to-do class, carrying on the occupations of shampooing, money-lending, and music.
[Picture: Myself in a Straw Rain-Cloak]
We have had a very severe journey from Toyôka. That day the rain was ceaseless, and in the driving mists one could see little but low hills looming on the horizon, pine barrens, scrub, and flooded rice-fields; varied by villages standing along roads which were quagmires a foot deep, and where the clothing was specially ragged and dirty. Hinokiyama, a village of _samurai_, on a beautiful slope, was an exception, with its fine detached houses, pretty gardens, deep-roofed gateways, grass and stone-faced terraces, and look of refined, quiet comfort. Everywhere there was a quantity of indigo, as is necessary, for nearly all the clothing of the lower classes is blue. Near a large village we were riding on a causeway through the rice-fields, Ito on the pack-horse in front, when we met a number of children returning from school, who, on getting near us, turned, ran away, and even jumped into the ditches, screaming as they ran. The _mago_ ran after them, caught the hindmost boy, and dragged him back—the boy scared and struggling, the man laughing. The boy said that they thought that Ito was a monkey-player, _i.e._ the keeper of a monkey theatre, I a big ape, and the poles of my bed the scaffolding of the stage!