Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan Read online

  OLD WOMAN.—Please take some tea, sir. IYAJI.—Thank you! How far is it from here to the next town?—Akasaka? OLD WOMAN.—About one ri. But if you have no companion, you had better remain here to-night, because there is a bad fox on the way, who bewitches travellers. IYAJI.—I am afraid of that sort of thing. But I must go on; for my companion has gone on ahead of me, and will be waiting for me.

  (After having paid for his refreshments, Iyaji proceeds on his way. The night is very dark, and he feels quite nervous on account of what the old woman has told him. After having walked a considerable distance, he suddenly hears a fox yelping—kon-kon. Feeling still more afraid, he shouts at the top of his voice:-)

  IYAJI.—Come near me, and I will kill you!

  (Meanwhile Kidahachi, who has also been frightened by the old woman's stories, and has therefore determined to wait for Iyaji, is saying to himself in the dark: 'If I do not wait for him, we shall certainly be deluded.' Suddenly he hears Iyaji's voice, and cries out to him:-)

  KIDAHACHI.—O Iyaji-San! IYAJI.—What are you doing there? KIDAHACHI.—I did intend to go on ahead; but I became afraid, and so I concluded to stop here and wait for you. IYAJI (who imagines that the fox has taken the shape of Kidahachi to deceive him).—Do not think that you are going to dupe me? KIDAHACHI.—That is a queer way to talk! I have some nice mochi [105] here which I bought for you. IYAJI.—Horse-dung cannot be eaten! [106] KIDAHACHI.—Don't be suspicious!—I am really Kidahachi. IYAJI (springing upon him furiously).—Yes! you took the form of Kidahachi just to deceive me! KIDAHACHI.—What do you mean?—What are you going to do to me? IYAJI.—I am going to kill you! (Throws him down.) KIDAHACHI.—Oh! you have hurt me very much—please leave me alone! IYAJI.—If you are really hurt, then let me see you in your real shape! (They struggle together.) KIDAHACHI.—What are you doing?—putting your hand there? IYAJI.—I am feeling for your tail. If you don't put out your tail at once, I shall make you! (Takes his towel, and with it ties Kidahachi's hands behind his back, and then drives him before him.) KIDAHACHI.—Please untie me—please untie me first!

  (By this time they have almost reached Akasaka, and Iyaji, seeing a dog, calls the animal, and drags Kidahachi close to it; for a dog is believed to be able to detect a fox through any disguise. But the dog takes no notice of Kidahachi. Iyaji therefore unties him, and apologises; and they both laugh at their previous fears.)

  Sec. 13

  But there are some very pleasing forms of the Fox-God.

  For example, there stands in a very obscure street of Matsue—one of those streets no stranger is likely to enter unless he loses his way—a temple called Jigyoba-no-Inari, [107] and also Kodomo-no-Inari, or 'the Children's Inari.' It is very small, but very famous; and it has been recently presented with a pair of new stone foxes, very large, which have gilded teeth and a peculiarly playful expression of countenance. These sit one on each side of the gate: the Male grinning with open jaws, the Female demure, with mouth closed. [108] In the court you will find many ancient little foxes with noses, heads, or tails broken, two great Karashishi before which straw sandals (waraji) have been suspended as votive offerings by somebody with sore feet who has prayed to the Karashishi-Sama that they will heal his affliction, and a shrine of Kojin, occupied by the corpses of many children's dolls. [109]

  The grated doors of the shrine of Jigyoba-no-Inari, like those of the shrine of Yaegaki, are white with the multitude of little papers tied to them, which papers signify prayers. But the prayers are special and curious. To right and to left of the doors, and also above them, odd little votive pictures are pasted upon the walls, mostly representing children in bath-tubs, or children getting their heads shaved. There are also one or two representing children at play. Now the interpretation of these signs and wonders is as follows:

  Doubtless you know that Japanese children, as well as Japanese adults, must take a hot bath every day; also that it is the custom to shave the heads of very small boys and girls. But in spite of hereditary patience and strong ancestral tendency to follow ancient custom, young children find both the razor and the hot bath difficult to endure, with their delicate skins. For the Japanese hot bath is very hot (not less than 110 degs F., as a general rule), and even the adult foreigner must learn slowly to bear it, and to appreciate its hygienic value. Also, the Japanese razor is a much less perfect instrument than ours, and is used without any lather, and is apt to hurt a little unless used by the most skilful hands. And finally, Japanese parents are not tyrannical with their children: they pet and coax, very rarely compel or terrify. So that it is quite a dilemma for them when the baby revolts against the bath or mutinies against the razor.

  The parents of the child who refuses to be shaved or bathed have recourse to Jigyoba-no-Inati. The god is besought to send one of his retainers to amuse the child, and reconcile it to the new order of things, and render it both docile and happy. Also if a child is naughty, or falls sick, this Inari is appealed to. If the prayer be granted, some small present is made to the temple—sometimes a votive picture, such as those pasted by the door, representing the successful result of the petition. To judge by the number of such pictures, and by the prosperity of the temple, the Kodomo-no-Inani would seem to deserve his popularity. Even during the few minutes I passed in his court I saw three young mothers, with infants at their backs, come to the shrine and pray and make offerings. I noticed that one of the children—remarkably pretty— had never been shaved at all. This was evidently a very obstinate case.

  While returning from my visit to the Jigyoba Inani, my Japanese servant, who had guided me there, told me this story:

  The son of his next-door neighbour, a boy of seven, went out to play one morning, and disappeared for two days. The parents were not at first uneasy, supposing that the child had gone to the house of a relative, where he was accustomed to pass a day or two from time to time. But on the evening of the second day it was learned that the child had not been at the house in question. Search was at once made; but neither search nor inquiry availed. Late at night, however, a knock was heard at the door of the boy's dwelling, and the mother, hurrying out, found her truant fast asleep on the ground. She could not discover who had knocked. The boy, upon being awakened, laughed, and said that on the morning of his disappearance he had met a lad of about his own age, with very pretty eyes, who had coaxed him away to the woods, where they had played together all day and night and the next day at very curious funny games. But at last he got sleepy, and his comrade took him home. He was not hungry. The comrade promised 'to come to-morrow.'

  But the mysterious comrade never came; and no boy of the description given lived in the neighbourhood. The inference was that the comrade was a fox who wanted to have a little fun. The subject of the fun mourned long in vain for his merry companion.

  Sec. 14

  Some thirty years ago there lived in Matsue an ex-wrestler named Tobikawa, who was a relentless enemy of foxes and used to hunt and kill them. He was popularly believed to enjoy immunity from bewitchment because of his immense strength; but there were some old folks who predicted that he would not die a natural death. This prediction was fulfilled:

  Tobikawa died in a very curious manner. He was excessively fond of practical jokes. One day he disguised himself as a Tengu, or sacred goblin, with wings and claws and long nose, and ascended a lofty tree in a sacred grove near Rakusan, whither, after a little while, the innocent peasants thronged to worship him with offerings. While diverting himself with this spectacle, and trying to play his part by springing nimbly from one branch to another, he missed his footing and broke his neck in the fall.

  Sec. 15

  But these strange beliefs are swiftly passing away. Year by year more shrines of Inari crumble down, never to be rebuilt. Year by year the statuaries make fewer images of foxes. Year by year fewer victims of fox-possession are taken to the hospitals to be treated according to the best scientific methods by Japanese physicians who speak German. The cause is not to be found in the decadence o
f the old faiths: a superstition outlives a religion. Much less is it to be sought for in the efforts of proselytising missionaries from the West—most of whom profess an earnest belief in devils. It is purely educational. The omnipotent enemy of superstition is the public school, where the teaching of modern science is unclogged by sectarianism or prejudice; where the children of the poorest may learn the wisdom of the Occident; where there is not a boy or a girl of fourteen ignorant of the great names of Tyndall, of Darwin, of Huxley, of Herbert Spencer. The little hands that break the Fox-god's nose in mischievous play can also write essays upon the evolution of plants and about the geology of Izumo. There is no place for ghostly foxes in the beautiful nature-world revealed by new studies to the new generation The omnipotent exorciser and reformer is the Kodomo.

  * * *

  Endnotes

  *

  [1] In striking contrast to this indifference is the strong, rational, far-seeing conservatism of Viscount Torio—a noble exception.

  [2] Basil Hall Chamberlain.

  [3] I do not think this explanation is correct; but it is interesting, as the first which I obtained upon the subject. Properly speaking, Buddhist worshippers should not clap their hands, but only rub them softly together. Shinto worshippers always clap their hands four times.

  [4] Various writers, following the opinion of the Japanologue Satow, have stated that the torii was originally a bird-perch for fowls offered up to the gods at Shinto shrines—'not as food, but to give warning of daybreak.' The etymology of the word is said to be 'bird-rest' by some authorities; but Aston, not less of an authority, derives it from words which would give simply the meaning of a gateway. See Chamberlain's Things Japanese, pp. 429, 430.

  [5] Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain has held the extraordinary position of Professor of Japanese in the Imperial University of Japan—no small honour to English philology!

  [6] These Ni-O, however, the first I saw in Japan, were very clumsy figures. There are magnificent Ni-O to be seen in some of the great temple gateways in Tokyo, Kyoto, and elsewhere. The grandest of all are those in the Ni-O Mon, or 'Two Kings' Gate,' of the huge Todaiji temple at Nara. They are eight hundred years old. It is impossible not to admire the conception of stormy dignity and hurricane-force embodied in those colossal figures. Prayers are addressed to the Ni-O, especially by pilgrims. Most of their statues are disfigured by little pellets of white paper, which people chew into a pulp and then spit at them. There is a curious superstition that if the pellet sticks to the statue the prayer is heard; if, on the other hand, it falls to the ground, the prayer will not be answered.

  [7] Dainagon, the title of a high officer in the ancient Imperial Court.

  [8] Derived from the Sanscrit stupa.

  [9] 'The real origin of the custom of piling stones before the images of Jizo and other divinities is not now known to the people. The Custom is founded upon a passage in the famous Sutra, "The Lotus of the Good Law."

  'Even the little hoys who, in playing, erected here and there heaps of sand, with the intention of dedicating them as Stupas to the Ginas,- they have all of them reached enlightenment.'—Saddharma Pundarika, c. II. v. 81 (Kern's translation), 'Sacred Books of the East,' vol. xxi.

  [10] The original Jizo has been identified by Orientalists with the Sanscrit Kshitegarbha; as Professor Chamberlain observes, the resemblance in sound between the names Jizo and Jesus 'is quite fortuitous.' But in Japan Jizo has become totally transformed: he may justly be called the most Japanese of all Japanese divinities. According to the curious old Buddhist book, Sai no Kawara Kuchi zu sams no den, the whole Sai-no-Kawara legend originated in Japan, and was first written by the priest Kuya Shonin, in the sixth year of the period called TenKei, in the reign of the Emperor Shuyaku, who died in the year 946. To Kuya was revealed, in the village of Sai-in, near Kyoto, during a night passed by the dry bed of the neighbouring river, Sai-no-Kawa (said to be the modern Serikawa), the condition of child-souls in the Meido. (Such is the legend in the book; but Professor Chamberlain has shown that the name Sai-no-Kawara, as now written, signifies 'The Dry Bed of the River of Souls,' and modern Japanese faith places that river in the Meido.) Whatever be the true history of the myth, it is certainly Japanese; and the conception of Jizo as the lover and playfellow of dead children belongs to Japan. There are many other popular forms of Jizo, one of the most common being that Koyasu-Jizo to whom pregnant women pray. There are but few roads in Japan upon which statues of Jizo may not be seen; for he is also the patron of pilgrims.

  [11] Except those who have never married.

  [12] In Sanscrit, 'Yama-Raja.' But the Indian conception has been totally transformed by Japanese Buddhism.

  [13] Funeral customs, as well as the beliefs connected with them, vary considerably in different parts of Japan. Those of the eastern provinces differ from those of the western and southern. The old practice of placing articles of value in the coffin—such as the metal mirror formerly buried with a woman, or the sword buried with a man of the Samurai caste—has become almost obsolete. But the custom of putting money in the coffin still prevails: in Izumo the amount is always six rin, and these are called Rokudo-kane, or 'The Money for the Six Roads.'

  [14] Literally 'Western Capital,'—modern name of Kyoto, ancient residence of the emperors. The name 'Tokyo,' on the other hand, signifies 'Eastern Capital.'

  [15] These first ten lines of the original will illustrate the measure of the wasan:

  Kore wa konoyo no koto narazu,

  Shide no yamaji no suso no naru,

  Sai-no-Kawara no monogatari

  Kiku ni tsuketemo aware nari

  Futatsu-ya, mitsu-ya, yotsu, itsutsu,

  To nimo taranu midorigo ga

  Sai-no-Kawara ni atsumari te,

  Chichi koishi! haha koishi!

  Koishi! koishi! to naku koe wa

  Konoyo no koe towa ko to kawari..

  [16] Yane, 'roof'; shobu, 'sweet-flag' (Acorus calamus).

  [17] At the time this paper was written, nearly three years ago, I had not seen the mighty bells at Kyoto and at Nara.

  The largest bell in Japan is suspended in the grounds of the grand Jodo temple of Chion-in, at Kyoto. Visitors are not allowed to sound it. It was east in 1633. It weighs seventy-four tons, and requires, they say, twenty-five men to ring it properly. Next in size ranks the hell of the Daibutsu temple in Kyoto, which visitors are allowed to ring on payment of a small sum. It was cast in 1615, and weighs sixty-three tons. The wonderful bell of Todaiji at Nara, although ranking only third, is perhaps the most interesting of all. It is thirteen feet six inches high, and nine feet in diameter; and its inferiority to the Kyoto bells is not in visible dimensions so much as in weight and thickness. It weighs thirty-seven tons. It was cast in 733, and is therefore one thousand one hundred and sixty years old. Visitors pay one cent to sound it once.

  [18] 'In Sanscrit, Avalokitesvara. The Japanese Kwannon, or Kwanze-on, is identical in origin with the Chinese virgin-goddess Kwanyin adopted by Buddhism as an incarnation of the Indian Avalokitesvara. (See Eitel's Handbook of Chinese Buddhism.) But the Japanese Kwan-non has lost all Chinese characteristics,—has become artistically an idealisation of all that is sweet and beautiful in the woman of Japan.

  [19] Let the reader consult Mitford's admirable Tales of Old Japan for the full meaning of the term 'Ronin.

  [20] There is a delicious Japanese proverb, the full humour of which is only to be appreciated by one familiar with the artistic representations of the divinities referred to: Karutoki no Jizo-gao, Nasutoki no Emma- gao.

  'Borrowing-time, the face of Jizo;

  Repaying-time, the face of Emma.'

  [21] This old legend has peculiar interest as an example of the efforts made by Buddhism to absorb the Shinto divinities, as it had already absorbed those of India and of China. These efforts were, to a great extent, successful prior to the disestablishment of Buddhism and the revival of Shinto as the State religion. But in Izumo, and other parts of western J
apan, Shinto has always remained dominant, and has even appropriated and amalgamated much belonging to Buddhism.

  [22] In Sanscrit 'Hariti'—Karitei-Bo is the Japanese name for one form of Kishibojin.

  [23] It is related in the same book that Ananda having asked the Buddha how came Mokenren's mother to suffer in the Gakido, the Teacher replied that in a previous incarnation she had refused, through cupidity, to feed certain visiting priests.

  [24] A deity of good fortune

  [25] The period in which only deities existed.

  [26] Hyakusho, a peasant, husbandman. The two Chinese characters forming the word signify respectively, 'a hundred' (hyaku), and 'family name' (sei). One might be tempted to infer that the appellation is almost equivalent to our phrase, 'their name is legion.' And a Japanese friend assures me that the inference would not be far wrong. Anciently the peasants had no family name; each was known by his personal appellation, coupled with the name of his lord as possessor or ruler. Thus a hundred peasants on one estate would all be known by the name of their master.

  [27] This custom of praying for the souls of animals is by no means general. But I have seen in the western provinces several burials of domestic animals at which such prayers were said. After the earth was filled in, some incense-rods were lighted above the grave in each instance, and the prayers were repeated in a whisper. A friend in the capital sends me the following curious information: 'At the Eko-in temple in Tokyo prayers are offered up every morning for the souls of certain animals whose ihai (mortuary tablets) are preserved in the building. A fee of thirty sen will procure burial in the temple-ground and a short service for any small domestic pet.' Doubtless similar temples exist elsewhere. Certainly no one capable of affection for our dumb friends and servants can mock these gentle customs.