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Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan

L >> Lafcadio Hearn >> Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan




Kobiki, the Sawyer. A figure of a Japanese workman, wearing only a
fundoshi about his loins, and standing on a plank, with a long saw in
his hands. If you pull a string below his feet, he will go to work in
good earnest, sawing the plank. Notice that he pulls the saw towards
him, like a true Japanese, instead of pushing it from him, as our own
carpenters do. Price, one-tenth of one cent.

Chie-no-ita, the 'Intelligent Boards,' or better, perhaps, 'The Planks
of Intelligence.' A sort of chain composed of about a dozen flat square
pieces of white wood, linked together by ribbons. Hold the thing
perpendicularly by one end-piece; then turn the piece at right angles to
the chain; and immediately all the other pieces tumble over each other
in the most marvellous way without unlinking. Even an adult can amuse
himself for half an hour with this: it is a perfect trompe-l'oeil in
mechanical adjustment. Price, one cent.

Kitsune-Tanuki. A funny flat paper mask with closed eyes. If you pull a
pasteboard slip behind it, it will open its eyes and put out a tongue of
surprising length. Price, one-sixth of one cent.

Chin. A little white dog, with a collar round its neck. It is in the
attitude of barking. From a Buddhist point of view, I should think this
toy somewhat immoral. For when you slap the dog's head, it utters a
sharp yelp, as of pain. Price, one sen and five rin. Rather dear.

Fuki-agari-koboshi, the Wrestler Invincible. This is still dearer; for
it is made of porcelain, and very nicely coloured The wrestler squats
upon his hams. Push him down in any direction, he always returns of his
own accord to an erect position. Price, two sen.

Oroga-Heika-Kodomo, the Child Reverencing His Majesty the Emperor. A
Japanese schoolboy with an accordion in his hands, singing and playing
the national anthem, or Kimiga. There is a little wind-bellows at the
bottom of the toy; and when you operate it, the boy's arms move as if
playing the instrument, and a shrill small voice is heard. Price, one
cent and a half.

Jishaku. This, like the preceding, is quite a modern toy. A small wooden
box containing a magnet and a tiny top made of a red wooden button with
a steel nail driven through it. Set the top spinning with a twirl of the
fingers; then hold the magnet over the nail, and the top will leap up to
the magnet and there continue to spin, suspended in air. Price, one
cent.

It would require at least a week to examine them all. Here is a model
spinning-wheel, absolutely perfect, for one-fifth of one cent. Here are
little clay tortoises which swim about when you put them into water--
one rin for two. Here is a box of toy-soldiers--samurai in full armour
--nine rin only. Here is a Kaze-Kuruma, or wind-wheel--a wooden whistle
with a paper wheel mounted before the orifice by which the breath is
expelled, so that the wheel turns furiously when the whistle is blown--
three rin. Here is an Ogi, a sort of tiny quadruple fan sliding in a
sheath. When expanded it takes the shape of a beautiful flower--one
rin. .

The most charming of all these things to me, however, is a tiny doll--
O-Hina-San (Honourable Miss Hina)--or beppin ('beautiful woman'). The
body is a phantom, only--a flat stick covered with a paper kimono--but
the head is really a work of art. A pretty oval face with softly
shadowed oblique eyes--looking shyly downward--and a wonderful maiden
coiffure, in which the hair is arranged in bands and volutes and
ellipses and convolutions and foliole curlings most beautiful and
extraordinary. In some respects this toy is a costume model, for it
imitates exactly the real coiffure of Japanese maidens and brides. But
the expression of the face of the beppin is, I think, the great
attraction of the toy; there is a shy, plaintive sweetness about it
impossible to describe, but deliciously suggestive of a real Japanese
type of girl-beauty. Yet the whole thing is made out of a little
crumpled paper, coloured with a few dashes of the brush by an expert
hand. There are no two O-Hina-San exactly alike out of millions; and
when you have become familiar by long residence with Japanese types, any
such doll will recall to you some pretty face that you have seen. These
are for little girls. Price, five rin.

º 10

Here let me tell you something you certainly never heard of before in
relation to Japanese dolls--not the tiny O-Hina-San I was just speaking
about, but the beautiful life-sized dolls representing children of two
or three years old; real toy-babes which, although far more cheaply and
simply constructed than our finer kinds of Western dolls, become, under
the handling of a Japanese girl, infinitely more interesting. Such dolls
are well dressed, and look so life-like--little slanting eyes, shaven
pates, smiles, and all!--that as seen from a short distance the best
eyes might be deceived by them. Therefore in those stock photographs of
Japanese life, of which so many thousands are sold in the open ports,
the conventional baby on the mother's back is most successfully
represented by a doll. Even the camera does not betray the substitution.
And if you see such a doll, though held quite close to you, being made
by a Japanese mother to reach out his 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. Even after having closely examined
the thing, you would still, I fancy, feel a little nervous at being left
alone with it, so perfect the delusion of that expert handling.

Now there is a belief that some dolls do actually become alive.

Formerly the belief was less rare than it is now. Certain dolls were
spoken of with a reverence worthy of the Kami, and their owners were
envied folk. Such a doll was treated like a real son or daughter: it was
regularly served with food; it had a bed, and plenty of nice clothes,
and a name. If in the semblance of a girl, it was O-Toku-San; if in that
of a boy, Tokutaro-San. It was thought that the doll would become angry
and cry if neglected, and that any ill-treatment of it would bring ill-
fortune to the house. And, moreover, it was believed to possess
supernatural powers of a very high order.

In the family of one Sengoku, a samurai of Matsue, there was a Tokutaro-
San which had a local reputation scarcely inferior to that of Kishibojin
--she to whom Japanese wives pray for offspring. And childless couples
used to borrow that doll, and keep it for a time--ministering unto it--
and furnish it with new clothes before gratefully returning it to its
owners. And all who did so, I am assured, became parents, according to
their heart's desire. 'Sengoku's doll had a soul.' There is even a
legend that once, when the house caught fire, the TokutarO-San ran out
safely into the garden of its own accord!

The idea about such a doll seems to be this: The new doll is only a
doll. But a doll which is preserved for a great many years in one
family, [5] and is loved and played with by generations of children,
gradually acquires a soul. I asked a charming Japanese girl: 'How can a
doll live?'

'Why,' she answered, 'if you love it enough, it will live!'

What is this but Renan's thought of a deity in process of evolution,
uttered by the heart of a child?

º11

But even the most beloved dolls are worn out at last, or get broken in
the course of centuries. And when a doll must be considered quite dead,
its remains are still entitled to respect. Never is the corpse of a doll
irreverently thrown away. Neither is it burned or cast into pure running
water, as all sacred objects of the miya must be when they have ceased
to be serviceable. And it is not buried. You could not possibly imagine
what is done with it.

It is dedicated to the God Kojin, [6]--a somewhat mysterious divinity,
half-Buddhist, half-Shinto. The ancient Buddhist images of Kojin
represented a deity with many arms;--the Shinto Kojin of Izumo has, I
believe, no artistic representation whatever. But in almost every
Shinto, and also in many Buddhist, temple grounds, is planted the tree
called enoki [7] which is sacred to him, and in which he is supposed by
the peasantry to dwell; for they pray before the enoki always to Kojin.
And there is usually a small shrine placed before the tree, and a little
torii also. Now you may often see laid upon such a shrine of Kojin, or
at the foot of his sacred tree, or in a hollow thereof--if there be any
hollow--pathetic remains of dolls. But a doll is seldom given to Kojin
during the lifetime of its possessor. When you see one thus exposed, you
may be almost certain that it was found among the effects of some poor
dead woman--the innocent memento of her girlhood, perhaps even also of
the girlhood of her mother and of her mother's mother.

º12

And now we are to see the Honen-odori--which begins at eight o'clock.
There is no moon; and the night is pitch-black overhead: but there is
plenty of light in the broad court of the Guji's residence, for a
hundred lanterns have been kindled and hung out. I and my friend have
been provided with comfortable places in the great pavilion which opens
upon the court, and the pontiff has had prepared for us a delicious
little supper.

Already thousands have assembled before the pavilion--young men of
Kitzuki and young peasants from the environs, and women and children in
multitude, and hundreds of young girls. The court is so thronged that it
is difficult to assume the possibility of any dance. Illuminated by the
lantern-light, the scene is more than picturesque: it is a carnivalesque
display of gala-costume. Of course the peasants come in their ancient
attire: some in rain-coats (mino), or overcoats of yellow straw; others
with blue towels tied round their heads; many with enormous mushroom
hats--all with their blue robes well tucked up. But the young townsmen
come in all guises and disguises. Many have dressed themselves in female
attire; some are all in white duck, like police; some have mantles on;
others wear shawls exactly as a Mexican wears his zarape; numbers of
young artisans appear almost as lightly clad as in working-hours,
barelegged to the hips, and barearmed to the shoulders. Among the girls
some wonderful dressing is to be seen--ruby-coloured robes, and rich
greys and browns and purples, confined with exquisite obi, or girdles of
figured satin; but the best taste is shown in the simple and very
graceful black and white costumes worn by some maidens of the better
classes--dresses especially made for dancing, and not to be worn at any
other time. A few shy damsels have completely masked themselves by tying
down over their cheeks the flexible brims of very broad straw hats. I
cannot attempt to talk about the delicious costumes of the children: as
well try to describe without paint the variegated loveliness of moths
and butterflies.

In the centre of this multitude I see a huge rice-mortar turned upside
down; and presently a sandalled peasant leaps upon it lightly, and
stands there--with an open paper umbrella above his head. Nevertheless
it is not raining. That is the Ondo-tori, the leader of the dance, who
is celebrated through all Izumo as a singer. According to ancient
custom, the leader of the Honen-odori [8] always holds an open umbrella
above his head while he sings.

Suddenly, at a signal from the Guji, who has just taken his place in the
pavilion, the voice of the Ondo-tori, intoning the song of thanksgiving,
rings out over all the murmuring of the multitude like a silver cornet.
A wondrous voice, and a wondrous song, full of trills and quaverings
indescribable, but full also of sweetness and true musical swing. And as
he sings, he turns slowly round upon his high pedestal, with the
umbrella always above his head; never halting in his rotation from right
to left, but pausing for a regular interval in his singing, at the close
of each two verses, when the people respond with a joyous outcry: 'Ya-
ha-to-nai!-ya-ha-to-nai!' Simultaneously, an astonishingly rapid
movement of segregation takes place in the crowd; two enormous rings of
dancers form, one within the other, the rest of the people pressing back
to make room for the odori. And then this great double-round, formed by
fully five hundred dancers, begins also to revolve from right to left--
lightly, fantastically--all the tossing of arms and white twinkling of
feet keeping faultless time to the measured syllabification of the
chant. An immense wheel the dance is, with the Ondo-tori for its axis--
always turning slowly upon his rice-mortar, under his open umbrella, as
he sings the song of harvest thanksgiving:

[9] Ichi-wa--Izumo-no-Taisha-Sama-ye;
Ni-ni-wa--Niigata-no-Irokami-Sama-ye;
San-wa--Sanuki-no-Kompira-Sama-ye;
Shi-ni-wa--Shinano-no-Zenkoji-Sama-ye;
Itsutsu--Ichibata-O-Yakushi-Sama-ye;
Roku-niwa--Rokkakudo-no-O-Jizo-Sama-ye;
Nanatsu--Nana-ura-no-O-Ebisu-Sama-ye;
Yattsu--Yawata-no-Hachiman-Sama-ye;
Kokonotsu--Koya-no-O-teradera-ye;
To-niwa--Tokoro-no-Ujigami-Sama-ye.

And the voices of all the dancers in unison roll out the chorus:

Ya-ha-to-nai!
Ya-ha-to-nail

Utterly different this whirling joyous Honen-odori from the Bon-odori
which I witnessed last year at Shimo-Ichi, and which seemed to me a very
dance of ghosts. But it is also much more difficult to describe. Each
dancer makes a half-wheel alternately to left and right, with a peculiar
bending of the knees and tossing up of the hands at the same time--as
in the act of lifting a weight above the head; but there are other
curious movements-jerky with the men, undulatory with the women--as
impossible to describe as water in motion. These are decidedly complex,
yet so regular that five hundred pairs of feet and hands mark the
measure of the song as truly as if they were under the control of a
single nervous system.

It is strangely difficult to memorise the melody of a Japanese popular
song, or the movements of a Japanese dance; for the song and the dance
have been evolved through an aesthetic sense of rhythm in sound and in
motion as different from the corresponding Occidental sense as English
is different from Chinese. We have no ancestral sympathies with these
exotic rhythms, no inherited aptitudes for their instant comprehension,
no racial impulses whatever in harmony with them. But when they have
become familiar through study, after a long residence in the Orient, how
nervously fascinant the oscillation of the dance, and the singular swing
of the song!

This dance, I know, began at eight o'clock; and the Ondo-tori, after
having sung without a falter in his voice for an extraordinary time, has
been relieved by a second. But the great round never breaks, never
slackens its whirl; it only enlarges as the night wears on. And the
second Ondo-tori is relieved by a third; yet I would like to watch that
dance for ever.

'What time do you think it is?' my friend asks, looking at his watch.

'Nearly eleven o'clock,' I make answer.

'Eleven o'clock! It is exactly eight minutes to three o'clock. And our
host will have little time for sleep before the rising of the sun.'




Chapter Twelve At Hinomisaki

KITZUKI, August 10, 1891.

MY Japanese friends urge me to visit Hinomisaki, where no European has
ever been, and where there is a far-famed double temple dedicated to
Amaterasu-oho-mi-Kami, the Lady of Light, and to her divine brother
Take-haya-susa-no-wo-no-mikoto. Hinomisaki is a little village on the
Izumo coast about five miles from Kitzuki. It maybe reached by a
mountain path, but the way is extremely steep, rough, and fatiguing. By
boat, when the weather is fair, the trip is very agreeable. So, with a
friend, I start for Hinomisaki in a very cozy ryosen, skilfully sculled
by two young fishermen.

Leaving the pretty bay of Inasa, we follow the coast to the right--a
very lofty and grim coast without a beach. Below us the clear water
gradually darkens to inky blackness, as the depth increases; but at
intervals pale jagged rocks rise up from this nether darkness to catch
the light fifty feet under the surface. We keep tolerably close to the
cliffs, which vary in height from three hundred to six hundred feet--
their bases rising from the water all dull iron-grey, their sides and
summits green with young pines and dark grasses that toughen in sea-
wind. All the coast is abrupt, ravined, irregular--curiously breached
and fissured. Vast masses of it have toppled into the sea; and the black
ruins project from the deep in a hundred shapes of menace. Sometimes our
boat glides between a double line of these; or takes a zigzag course
through labyrinths of reef-channels. So swiftly and deftly is the little
craft impelled to right and left, that one could almost believe it sees
its own way and moves by its own intelligence. And again we pass by
extraordinary islets of prismatic rock whose sides, just below the
water-line, are heavily mossed with seaweed. The polygonal masses
composing these shapes are called by the fishermen 'tortoise-shell
stones.' There is a legend that once Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami, to try his
strength, came here, and, lifting up one of these masses of basalt,
flung it across the sea to the mountain of Sanbeyama. At the foot of
Sanbe the mighty rock thus thrown by the Great Deity of Kitzuki may
still be seen, it is alleged, even unto this day.

More and more bare and rugged and ghastly the coast becomes as we
journey on, and the sunken ledges more numerous, and the protruding
rocks more dangerous, splinters of strata piercing the sea-surface from
a depth of thirty fathoms. Then suddenly our boat makes a dash for the
black cliff, and shoots into a tremendous cleft of it--an earthquake
fissure with sides lofty and perpendicular as the walls of a canon-and
lo! there is daylight ahead. This is a miniature strait, a short cut to
the bay. We glide through it in ten minutes, reach open water again, and
Hinomisaki is before us-a semicircle of houses clustering about a bay
curve, with an opening in their centre, prefaced by a torii.

Of all bays I have ever seen, this is the most extraordinary. Imagine an
enormous sea-cliff torn out and broken down level with the sea, so as to
leave a great scoop-shaped hollow in the land, with one original
fragment of the ancient cliff still standing in the middle of the gap--
a monstrous square tower of rock, bearing trees upon its summit. And a
thousand yards out from the shore rises another colossal rock, fully one
hundred feet high. This is known by the name of Fumishima or
Okyogashima; and the temple of the Sun-goddess, which we are now about
to see, formerly stood upon that islet. The same appalling forces which
formed the bay of Hinomisaki doubtless also detached the gigantic mass
of Fumishima from this iron coast.

We land at the right end of the bay. Here also there is no beach; the
water is black-deep close to the shore, which slopes up rapidly. As we
mount the slope, an extraordinary spectacle is before us. Upon thousands
and thousands of bamboo frames--shaped somewhat like our clothes-horses
-are dangling countless pale yellowish things, the nature of which I
cannot discern at first glance. But a closer inspection reveals the
mystery. Millions of cuttlefish drying in the sun! I could never have
believed that so many cuttlefish existed in these waters. And there is
scarcely any variation in the dimensions of them: out of ten thousand
there is not the difference of half an inch in length.

º2

The great torii which forms the sea-gate of Hinomisaki is of white
granite, and severely beautiful. Through it we pass up the main street
of the village--surprisingly wide for about a thousand yards, after
which it narrows into a common highway which slopes up a wooded hill and
disappears under the shadow of trees. On the right, as you enter the
street, is a long vision of grey wooden houses with awnings and
balconies--little shops, little two-story dwellings of fishermen--and
ranging away in front of these other hosts of bamboo frames from which
other millions of freshly caught cuttlefish are hanging. On the other
side of the street rises a cyclopean retaining wall, massive as the wall
of a daimyo's castle, and topped by a lofty wooden parapet pierced with
gates; and above it tower the roofs of majestic buildings, whose
architecture strongly resembles that of the structures of Kitzuki; and
behind all appears a beautiful green background of hills. This is the
Hinomisaki-jinja. But one must walk some considerable distance up the
road to reach the main entrance of the court, which is at the farther
end of the inclosure, and is approached by an imposing broad flight of
granite steps.

The great court is a surprise. It is almost as deep as the outer court
of the Kitzuki-no-oho-yashiro, though not nearly so wide; and a paved
cloister forms two sides of it. From the court gate a broad paved walk
leads to the haiden and shamusho at the opposite end of the court--
spacious and dignified structures above whose roofs appears the quaint
and massive gable of the main temple, with its fantastic cross-beams.
This temple, standing with its back to the sea, is the shrine of the
Goddess of the Sun. On the right side of the main court, as you enter,
another broad flight of steps leads up to a loftier court, where another
fine group of Shinto buildings stands--a haiden and a miya; but these
are much smaller, like miniatures of those below. Their woodwork also
appears to be quite new. The upper miya is the shrine of the god Susano-
o, [1]--brother of Amaterasu-oho-mi-Kami.

º3

To me the great marvel of the Hinomisaki-jinja is that structures so
vast, and so costly to maintain, can exist in a mere fishing hamlet, in
an obscure nook of the most desolate coast of Japan. Assuredly the
contributions of peasant pilgrims alone could not suffice to pay the
salary of a single kannushi; for Hinomisaki, unlike Kitzuki, is not a
place possible to visit in all weathers. My friend confirms me in this
opinion; but I learn from him that the temples have three large sources
of revenue. They are partly supported by the Government; they receive
yearly large gifts of money from pious merchants; and the revenues from
lands attached to them also represent a considerable sum. Certainly a
great amount of money must have been very recently expended here; for
the smaller of the two miya seems to have just been wholly rebuilt; the
beautiful joinery is all white with freshness, and even the carpenters'
odorous chips have not yet been all removed.

At the shamusho we make the acquaintance of the Guji of Hinomisaki, a
noble-looking man in the prime of life, with one of those fine aquiline
faces rarely to be met with except among the high aristocracy of Japan.
He wears a heavy black moustache, which gives him, in spite of his
priestly robes, the look of a retired army officer. We are kindly
permitted by him to visit the sacred shrines; and a kannushi is detailed
to conduct us through the buildings.

Something resembling the severe simplicity of the Kitzuki-no-oho-yashiro
was what I expected to see. But this shrine of the Goddess of the Sun is
a spectacle of such splendour that for the first moment I almost doubt
whether I am really in a Shinto temple. In very truth there is nothing
of pure Shinto here. These shrines belong to the famous period of Ryobu-
Shinto, when the ancient faith, interpenetrated and allied with
Buddhism, adopted the ceremonial magnificence and the marvellous
decorative art of the alien creed. Since visiting the great Buddhist
shrines of the capital, I have seen no temple interior to be compared
with this. Daintily beautiful as a casket is the chamber of the shrine.
All its elaborated woodwork is lacquered in scarlet and gold; the altar-
piece is a delight of carving and colour; the ceiling swarms with dreams
of clouds and dragons. And yet the exquisite taste of the decorators--
buried, doubtless, five hundred years ago--has so justly proportioned
the decoration to the needs of surface, so admirably blended the
colours, that there is no gaudiness, no glare, only an opulent repose.

This shrine is surrounded by a light outer gallery which is not visible
from the lower court; and from this gallery one can study some
remarkable friezes occupying the spaces above the doorways and below the
eaves--friezes surrounding the walls of the miya. These, although
exposed for many centuries to the terrific weather of the western coast,
still remain masterpieces of quaint carving. There are apes and hares
peeping through wonderfully chiselled leaves, and doves and demons, and
dragons writhing in storms. And while looking up at these, my eye is
attracted by a peculiar velvety appearance of the woodwork forming the
immense projecting eaves of the roof. Under the tiling it is more than a
foot thick. By standing on tiptoe I can touch it; and I discover that it
is even more velvety to the touch than to the sight. Further examination
reveals the fact that this colossal roofing is not solid timber, only
the beams are solid. The enormous pieces they support are formed of
countless broad slices thin as the thinnest shingles, superimposed and
cemented together into one solid-seeming mass. I am told that this
composite woodwork is more enduring than any hewn timber could be. The
edges, where exposed to wind and sun, feel to the touch just like the
edges of the leaves of some huge thumb-worn volume; and their stained
velvety yellowish aspect so perfectly mocks the appearance of a book,
that while trying to separate them a little with my fingers, I find
myself involuntarily peering for a running-title and the number of a
folio!

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