And now strange signs begin to appear in all these rice-fields: I see
everywhere, sticking up above the ripening grain, objects like
white-feathered arrows. Arrows of prayer! I take one up to examine it. The
shaft is a thin bamboo, split down for about one-third of its length;
into the slit a strip of strong white paper with ideographs upon it—an
ofuda, a Shinto charm—is inserted; and the separated ends of the cane
are then rejoined and tied together just above it. The whole, at a
little distance, has exactly the appearance of a long, light,
well-feathered arrow. That which I first examine bears the words,
'Yu-Asaki-jinja-kozen-son-chu-an-zen' (From the God whose shrine is before the
Village of Peace). Another reads, 'Mihojinja-sho-gwan-jo-ju-go-kito-shugo,'
signifying that the Deity of the temple Miho-jinja granteth
fully every supplication made unto him. Everywhere, as we proceed, I see
the white arrows of prayer glimmering above the green level of the
grain; and always they become more numerous. Far as the eye can reach
the fields are sprinkled with them, so that they make upon the verdant
surface a white speckling as of flowers.
Sometimes, also, around a little rice-field, I see a sort of magical
fence, formed by little bamboo rods supporting a long cord from which
long straws hang down, like a fringe, and paper cuttings, which are
symbols (gohei) are suspended at regular intervals. This is the
shimenawa, sacred emblem of Shinto. Within the consecrated space
inclosed by it no blight may enter—no scorching sun wither the young
shoots. And where the white arrows glimmer the locust shall not prevail,
nor shall hungry birds do evil.
But now I look in vain for the Buddhas. No more great tera, no Shaka, no
Amida, no Dai-Nichi-Nyorai; even the Bosatsu have been left behind.
Kwannon and her holy kin have disappeared; Koshin, Lord of Roads, is
indeed yet with us; but he has changed his name and become a Shinto
deity: he is now Saruda-hiko-no-mikoto; and his presence is revealed
only by the statues of the Three Mystic Apes which are his servants—
Mizaru, who sees no evil, covering his eyes with his hands, Kikazaru,
who hears no evil, covering his ears with his hands. Iwazaru, who speaks
no evil, covering his mouth with his hands.
Yet no! one Bosatsu survives in this atmosphere of magical Shinto: still
by the roadside I see at long intervals the image of Jizo-Sama, the
charming playfellow of dead children. But Jizo also is a little changed;
even in his sextuple representation,
[28]
the Roku-Jizo, he appears not
standing, but seated upon his lotus-flower, and I see no stones piled up
before him, as in the eastern provinces.
At last, from the verge of an enormous ridge, the roadway suddenly
slopes down into a vista of high peaked roofs of thatch and green-mossed
eaves—into a village like a coloured print out of old Hiroshige's
picture-books, a village with all its tints and colours precisely like
the tints and colours of the landscape in which it lies. This is Kami-
Ichi, in the land of Hoki.
We halt before a quiet, dingy little inn, whose host, a very aged man,
comes forth to salute me; while a silent, gentle crowd of villagers,
mostly children and women, gather about the kuruma to see the stranger,
to wonder at him, even to touch his clothes with timid smiling
curiosity. One glance at the face of the old innkeeper decides me to
accept his invitation. I must remain here until to-morrow: my runners
are too wearied to go farther to-night.
Weather-worn as the little inn seemed without, it is delightful within.
Its polished stairway and balconies are speckless, reflecting like
mirror-surfaces the bare feet of the maid-servants; its luminous rooms
are fresh and sweet-smelling as when their soft mattings were first laid
down. The carven pillars of the alcove (toko) in my chamber, leaves and
flowers chiselled in some black rich wood, are wonders; and the kakemono
or scroll-picture hanging there is an idyll, Hotei, God of Happiness,
drifting in a bark down some shadowy stream into evening mysteries of
vapoury purple. Far as this hamlet is from all art-centres, there is no
object visible in the house which does not reveal the Japanese sense of
beauty in form. The old gold-flowered lacquer-ware, the astonishing box
in which sweetmeats (kwashi) are kept, the diaphanous porcelain wine-
cups dashed with a single tiny gold figure of a leaping shrimp, the tea-
cup holders which are curled lotus-leaves of bronze, even the iron
kettle with its figurings of dragons and clouds, and the brazen hibachi
whose handles are heads of Buddhist lions, delight the eye and surprise
the fancy. Indeed, wherever to-day in Japan one sees something totally
uninteresting in porcelain or metal, something commonplace and ugly, one
may be almost sure that detestable something has been shaped under
foreign influence. But here I am in ancient Japan; probably no European
eyes ever looked upon these things before.
A window shaped like a heart peeps out upon the garden, a wonderful
little garden with a tiny pond and miniature bridges and dwarf trees,
like the landscape of a tea-cup; also some shapely stones of course, and
some graceful stone-lanterns, or toro, such as are placed in the courts
of temples. And beyond these, through the warm dusk, I see lights,
coloured lights, the lanterns of the Bonku, suspended before each home
to welcome the coming of beloved ghosts; for by the antique calendar,
according to which in this antique place the reckoning of time is still
made, this is the first night of the Festival of the Dead.
As in all the other little country villages where I have been stopping,
I find the people here kind to me with a kindness and a courtesy
unimaginable, indescribable, unknown in any other country, and even in
Japan itself only in the interior. Their simple politeness is not an
art; their goodness is absolutely unconscious goodness; both come
straight from the heart. And before I have been two hours among these
people, their treatment of me, coupled with the sense of my utter
inability to repay such kindness, causes a wicked wish to come into my
mind. I wish these charming folk would do me some unexpected wrong,
something surprisingly evil, something atrociously unkind, so that I
should not be obliged to regret them, which I feel sure I must begin to
do as soon as I go away.
While the aged landlord conducts me to the bath, where he insists upon
washing me himself as if I were a child, the wife prepares for us a
charming little repast of rice, eggs, vegetables, and sweetmeats. She is
painfully in doubt about her ability to please me, even after I have
eaten enough for two men, and apologises too much for not being able to
offer me more.
There is no fish,' she says, 'for to-day is the first day of the Bonku,
the Festival of the Dead; being the thirteenth day of the month. On the
thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth of the month nobody may eat fish.
But on the morning of the sixteenth day, the fishermen go out to catch
fish; and everybody who has both parents living may eat of it. But if
one has lost one's father or mother then one must not eat fish, even
upon the sixteenth day.'
While the good soul is thus explaining I become aware of a strange
remote sound from without, a sound I recognise through memory of
tropical dances, a measured clapping of hands. But this clapping is very
soft and at long intervals. And at still longer intervals there comes to
us a heavy muffled booming, the tap of a great drum, a temple drum.
'Oh! we must go to see it,' cries Akira; 'it is the Bon-odori, the Dance
of the Festival of the Dead. And you will see the Bon-odori danced here
as it is never danced in cities—the Bon-odori of ancient days. For
customs have not changed here; but in the cities all is changed.'
So I hasten out, wearing only, like the people about me, one of those
light wide-sleeved summer robes—yukata—which are furnished to male
guests at all Japanese hotels; but the air is so warm that even thus
lightly clad, I find myself slightly perspiring. And the night is divine
-still, clear, vaster than nights of Europe, with a big white moon
flinging down queer shadows of tilted eaves and horned gables and
delightful silhouettes of robed Japanese. A little boy, the grandson of
our host, leads the way with a crimson paper lantern; and the sonorous
echoing of geta, the koro-koro of wooden sandals, fills all the street,
for many are going whither we are going, to see the dance.
A little while we proceed along the main street; then, traversing a
narrow passage between two houses, we find ourselves in a great open
space flooded by moonlight. This is the dancing-place; but the dance has
ceased for a time. Looking about me, I perceive that we are in the court
of an ancient Buddhist temple. The temple building itself remains
intact, a low long peaked silhouette against the starlight; but it is
void and dark and unhallowed now; it has been turned, they tell me, into
a schoolhouse. The priests are gone; the great bell is gone; the Buddhas
and the Bodhisattvas have vanished, all save one—a broken-handed Jizo
of stone, smiling with eyelids closed, under the moon.
In the centre of the court is a framework of bamboo supporting a great
drum; and about it benches have been arranged, benches from the
schoolhouse, on which villagers are resting. There is a hum of voices,
voices of people speaking very low, as if expecting something solemn;
and cries of children betimes, and soft laughter of girls. And far
behind the court, beyond a low hedge of sombre evergreen shrubs, I see
soft white lights and a host of tall grey shapes throwing long shadows;
and I know that the lights are the white lanterns of the dead (those
hung in cemeteries only), and that the grey shapes are shapes of tombs.
Suddenly a girl rises from her seat, and taps the huge drum once. It is
the signal for the Dance of Souls.
Out of the shadow of the temple a processional line of dancers files
into the moonlight and as suddenly halts—all young women or girls,
clad in their choicest attire; the tallest leads; her comrades follow in
order of stature; little maids of ten or twelve years compose the end of
the procession. Figures lightly poised as birds—figures that somehow
recall the dreams of shapes circling about certain antique vases; those
charming Japanese robes, close-clinging about the knees, might seem, but
for the great fantastic drooping sleeves, and the curious broad girdles
confining them, designed after the drawing of some Greek or Etruscan
artist. And, at another tap of the drum, there begins a performance
impossible to picture in words, something unimaginable, phantasmal—a
dance, an astonishment.
All together glide the right foot forward one pace, without lifting the
sandal from the ground, and extend both hands to the right, with a
strange floating motion and a smiling, mysterious obeisance. Then the
right foot is drawn back, with a repetition of the waving of hands and
the mysterious bow. Then all advance the left foot and repeat the
previous movements, half-turning to the left. Then all take two gliding
paces forward, with a single simultaneous soft clap of the hands, and
the first performance is reiterated, alternately to right and left; all
the sandalled feet gliding together, all the supple hands waving
together, all the pliant bodies bowing and swaying together. And so
slowly, weirdly, the processional movement changes into a great round,
circling about the moonlit court and around the voiceless crowd of
spectators.
[29]
And always the white hands sinuously wave together, as if weaving
spells, alternately without and within the round, now with palms upward,
now with palms downward; and all the elfish sleeves hover duskily
together, with a shadowing as of wings; and all the feet poise together
with such a rhythm of complex motion, that, in watching it, one feels a
sensation of hypnotism—as while striving to watch a flowing and
shimmering of water.
And this soporous allurement is intensified by a dead hush. No one
speaks, not even a spectator. And, in the long intervals between the
soft clapping of hands, one hears only the shrilling of the crickets in
the trees, and the shu-shu of sandals, lightly stirring the dust. Unto
what, I ask myself, may this be likened? Unto nothing; yet it suggests
some fancy of somnambulism—dreamers, who dream themselves flying,
dreaming upon their feet.
And there comes to me the thought that I am looking at something
immemorially old, something belonging to the unrecorded beginnings of
this Oriental life, perhaps to the crepuscular Kamiyo itself, to the
magical Age of the Gods; a symbolism of motion whereof the meaning has
been forgotten for innumerable years. Yet more and more unreal the
spectacle appears, with its silent smilings, with its silent bowings, as
if obeisance to watchers invisible; and I find myself wondering whether,
were I to utter but a whisper, all would not vanish for ever save the
grey mouldering court and the desolate temple, and the broken statue of
Jizo, smiling always the same mysterious smile I see upon the faces of
the dancers.
Under the wheeling moon, in the midst of the round, I feel as one within
the circle of a charm. And verily this is enchantment; I am bewitched,
bewitched by the ghostly weaving of hands, by the rhythmic gliding of
feet, above all by the flitting of the marvellous sleeves—
apparitional, soundless, velvety as a flitting of great tropical bats.
No; nothing I ever dreamed of could be likened to this. And with the
consciousness of the ancient hakaba behind me, and the weird invitation
of its lanterns, and the ghostly beliefs of the hour and the place there
creeps upon me a nameless, tingling sense of being haunted. But no!
these gracious, silent, waving, weaving shapes are not of the Shadowy
Folk, for whose coming the white fires were kindled: a strain of song,
full of sweet, clear quavering, like the call of a bird, gushes from
some girlish mouth, and fifty soft voices join the chant: