6 I may make mention here of another matter, in no way relating to the Setsubun.

There lingers in Izumo a wholesome—and I doubt not formerly a most valuable—superstition about the sacredness of writing. Paper upon which anything has been written, or even printed, must not be crumpled up, or trodden upon, or dirtied, or put to any base use. If it be necessary to destroy a document, the paper should be burned. I have been gently reproached in a little hotel at which I stopped for tearing up and crumpling some paper covered with my own writing.

NOtes for Chapter Six

1 'A bucket honourably condescend [to give].

2 The Kappa is not properly a sea goblin, but a river goblin, and haunts the sea only in the neighbourhood of river mouths. About a mile and a half from Matsue, at the little village of Kawachi-mura, on the river called Kawachi, stands a little temple called Kawako-no-miya, or the Miya of the Kappa. (In Izumo, among the common people, the word 'Kappa' is not used, but the term Kawako, or 'The Child of the River.') In this little shrine is preserved a document said to have been signed by a Kappa. The story goes that in ancient times the Kappa dwelling in the Kawachi used to seize and destroy many of the inhabitanta of the village and many domestic animals. One day, however, while trying to seize a horse that had entered the river to drink, the Kappa got its head twisted in some way under the belly-band of the horse, and the terrified animal, rushing out of the water, dragged the Kappa into a field. There the owner of the horse and a number of peasants seized and bound the Kappa. All the villagers gathered to see the monster, which bowed its head to the ground, and audibly begged for mercy. The peasants desired to kill the goblin at once; but the owner of the horse, who happened to be the head-man of the mura, said: 'It is better to make it swear never again to touch any person or animal belonging to Kawachi- mura. A written form of oath was prepared and read to the Kappa. It said that It could not write, but that It would sign the paper by dipping Its hand in ink, and pressing the imprint thereof at the bottom of the document. This having been agreed to and done, the Kappa was set free. From that time forward no inhabitant or animal of Kawachi-mura was ever assaulted by the goblin.

3 The Buddhist symbol. [The small illustration cannot be presented here. The arms are bent in the opposite direction to the Nazi swastika. Preparator's note]

4 'Help! help!'

5 Furuteya, the estab!ishment of a dea!er in second-hand wares—furute.

6 Andon, a paper lantern of peculiar construction, used as a night light. Some forms of the andon are remarkably beautiful.

7 'Ototsan! washi wo shimai ni shitesashita toki mo, chodo kon ya no yona tsuki yo data-ne?'—Izumo dialect.

Notes for Chapter Seven

1 The Kyoto word is maiko.

2 Guitars of three strings.

3 It is sometimes customary for guests to exchange cups, after duly rinsing them. It is always a compliment to ask for your friend's cup.

4 Once more to rest beside her, or keep five thousand koku? What care I for koku? Let me be with her!'

There lived in ancient times a haramoto called Fuji-eda Geki, a vassal of the Shogun. He had an income of five thousand koku of rice—a great income in those days. But he fell in love with an inmate of the Yoshiwara, named Ayaginu, and wished to marry her. When his master bade the vassal choose between his fortune and his passion, the lovers fled secretly to a farmer's house, and there committed suicide together. And the above song was made about them. It is still sung.

5 'Dear, shouldst thou die, grave shall hold thee never! I thy body's ashes, mixed with wine, wit! drink.'

6 Maneki-Neko

7 Buddhist food, containing no animal substance. Some kinds of shojin- ryori are quite appetising.

8 The terms oshiire and zendana might be partly rendered by 'wardrobe' and 'cupboard.' The fusuma are sliding screens serving as doors.

9 Tennin, a 'Sky-Maiden,' a Buddhist angel.

10 Her shrine is at Nara—not far from the temple of the giant Buddha.

Notes for Chapter Eight

1 The names Dozen or Tozen, and Dogo or Toga, signify 'the Before- Islands' and 'the Behind-Islands.'

2 'Dokoe, dokoel' 'This is only a woman's baby' (a very small package). 'Dokoe, dokoel' 'This is the daddy, this is the daddy' (a big package). 'Dokoe, dokoel' ''Tis very small, very small!' 'Dokoe, dokoel' 'This is for Matsue, this is for Matsue!' 'Dokoe, dokoel' 'This is for Koetsumo of Yonago,' etc.

3 These words seem to have no more meaning than our 'yo-heaveho.' Yan- yui is a cry used by all Izumo and Hoki sailors.

4 This curious meaning is not given in Japanese-English dictionaries, where the idiom is translated merely by the phrase 'as aforesaid.'

5 The floor of a Japanese dwelling might be compared to an immense but very shallow wooden tray, divided into compartments corresponding to the various rooms. These divisions are formed by grooved and polished woodwork, several inches above the level, and made for the accommodation of the fusurna, or sliding screens, separating room from room. The compartments are filled up level with the partitions with tatami, or mats about the thickness of light mattresses, covered with beautifully woven rice-straw. The squared edges of the mats fit exactly together, and as the mats are not made for the house, but the house for the mats, all tatami are exactly the same size. The fully finished floor of each roam is thus like a great soft bed. No shoes, of course, can be worn in a Japanese house. As soon as the mats become in the least soiled they are replaced by new ones.

6 See article on Art in his Things Japanese.

7 It seems to be a black, obsidian.

8 There are several other versions of this legend. In one, it is the mare, and not the foal, which was drowned.

9 There are two ponds not far from each other. The one I visited was called 0-ike, or 'The Male Pond,' and the other, Me-ike, or 'The Female Pond.'

10 Speaking of the supposed power of certain trees to cure toothache, I may mention a curious superstition about the yanagi, or willow-tree. Sufferers from toothache sometimes stick needles into the tree, believing that the pain caused to the tree-spirit will force it to exercise its power to cure. I could not, however, find any record of this practice in Oki.

11 Moxa, a corruption of the native name of the mugwort plant: moe- kusa, or mogusa, 'the burning weed.' Small cones of its fibre are used for cauterising, according to the old Chinese system of medicine—the little cones being placed upon the patient's skin, lighted, and left to smoulder until wholly consumed. The result is a profound scar. The moxa is not only used therapeutically, but also as a punishment for very naughty children. See the interesting note on this subject in Professor Chamberlain's Things Japanese.

12 Nure botoke, 'a wet god.' This term is applied to the statue of a deity left exposed to the open air.

13 According to popular legend, in each eye of the child of a god or a dragon two Buddhas are visible. The statement in some of the Japanese ballads, that the hero sung of had four Buddhas in his eyes, is equivalent to the declaration that each of his eyes had a double-pupil.

14 The idea of the Atman will perhaps occur to many readers.

15 In 1892 a Japanese newspaper, published in Tokyo stated upon the authority of a physician who had visited Shimane, that the people of Oki believe in ghostly dogs instead of ghostly foxes. This is a mistake caused by the literal rendering of a term often used in Shi-mane, especially in Iwami, namely, inu-gami-mochi. It is only a euphemism for kitsune-mochi; the inu-gami is only the hito-kitsune, which is supposed to make itself visible in various animal forms.

16 Which words signify something like this:

'Sleep, baby, sleep! Why are the honourable ears of the Child of the Hare of the honourable mountain so long? 'Tis because when he dwelt within her honoured womb, his mamma ate the leaves of the loquat, the leaves of the bamboo-grass, That is why his honourable ears are so long.'

17 The Japanese police are nearly all of the samurai class, now called shizoku. I think this force may be considered the most perfect police in the world; but whether it will retain those magnificent qualities which at present distinguish it, after the lapse of another generation, is doubtful. It is now the samurai blood that tells.

Notes for Chapter Nine

1 Afterwards I found that the old man had expressed to me only one popular form of a belief which would require a large book to fully explain—a belief founded upon Chinese astrology, but possibly modified by Buddhist and by Shinto ideas. This notion of compound Souls cannot be explained at all without a prior knowledge of the astrological relation between the Chinese Zodiacal Signs and the Ten Celestial Stems. Some understanding of these may be obtained from the curious article 'Time,' in Professor Chamberlain's admirable little book, Things Japanese. The relation having been perceived, it is further necessary to know that under the Chinese astrological system each year is under the influence of one or other of the 'Five Elements'—Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water; and according to the day and year of one's birth, one's temperament is celestially decided. A Japanese mnemonic verse tells us the number of souls or natures corresponding to each of the Five Elemental Influences —namely, nine souls for Wood, three for Fire, one for Earth, seven for Metal, five for Water:

Kiku karani Himitsu no yama ni Tsuchi hitotsu Nanatsu kane to zo Go suiryo are.

Multiplied into ten by being each one divided into 'Elder' and 'Younger,' the Five Elements become the Ten Celestial Stems; and their influences are commingled with those of the Rat, Bull, Tiger, Hare, Dragon, Serpent, Horse, Goat, Ape, Cock, Dog, and Boar (the twelve Zodiacal Signs)—all of which have relations to time, place, life, luck, misfortune, etc. But even these hints give no idea whatever how enormously complicated the subject really is.

The book the old gardener referred to—once as widely known in Japan as every fortune-telling book in any European country—was the San-re-so, copies of which may still be picked up. Contrary to Kinjuro's opinion, however, it is held, by those learned in such Chinese matters, just as bad to have too many souls as to have too few. To have nine souls is to be too 'many-minded'—without fixed purpose; to have only one soul is to lack quick intelligence. According to the Chinese astrological ideas, the word 'natures' or 'characters' would perhaps be more accurate than the word 'souls' in this case. There is a world of curious fancies, born out of these beliefs. For one example of hundreds, a person having a Fire-nature must not marry one having a Water-nature. Hence the proverbial saying about two who cannot agree—'They are like Fire and Water.'

2 Usually an Inari temple. Such things are never done at the great Shinto shrines.

Notes for Chapter Ten

1 In other parts of Japan I have heard the Yuki-Onna described as a very beautiful phantom who lures young men to lonesome places for the purpose of sucking their blood.

2 In Izumo the Dai-Kan, or Period of Greatest Cold, falls in February.

3 'It is excellent: I pray you give me a little more.'

4 Kwashi: Japanese confectionery

Notes for Chapter Eleven

1 The reader will find it well worth his while to consult the chapter entitled 'Domestic Service,' in Miss Bacon's Japanese Girls and Women, for an interesting and just presentation of the practical side of the subject, as relating to servants of both sexes. The poetical side, however, is not treated of—perhaps because intimately connected with religious beliefs which one writing from the Christian standpoint could not be expected to consider sympathetically. Domestic service in ancient Japan was both transfigured and regulated by religion; and the force of the religious sentiment concerning it may be divined from the Buddhist saying, still current:

Oya-ko wa is-se, Fufu wa ni-se, Shuju wa san-se.

The relation of parent and child endures for the space of one life only; that of husband and wife for the space of two lives; but the relation between msater and servant continues for the period of three existences.

2 The shocks continued, though with lessening frequency and violence, for more than six months after the cataclysm.

3 Of course the converse is the rule in condoling with the sufferer.

4 Dhammapada.

5 Dammikkasutta.

6 Dhammapada.

7 These extracts from a translation in the Japan Daily Mail, November 19, 20, 1890, of Viscount Torio's famous conservative essay do not give a fair idea of the force and logic of the whole. The essay is too long to quote entire; and any extracts from the Mail's admirable translation suffer by their isolation from the singular chains of ethical, religious, and philosophical reasoning which bind the Various parts of the composition together. The essay was furthermore remarkable as the production of a native scholar totally uninfluenced by Western thought. He correctly predicted those social and political disturbances which have occurred in Japan since the opening of the new parliament. Viscount Torio is also well known as a master of Buddhist philosophy. He holds a high rank in the Japanese army.

8 In expressing my earnest admiration of this wonderful book, I must, however, declare that several of its conclusions, and especially the final ones, represent the extreme reverse of my own beliefs on the subject. I do not think the Japanese without individuality; but their individuality is less superficially apparent, and reveals itself much less quickly, than that of Western people. I am also convinced that much of what we call 'personality' and 'force of character' in the West represents only the survival and recognition of primitive aggressive tendencies, more or less disguised by culture. What Mr. Spencer calls the highest individuation surely does not include extraordinary development of powers adapted to merely aggressive ends; and yet it is rather through these than through any others that Western individuality most commonly and readily manifests itself. Now there is, as yet, a remarkable scarcity in Japan, of domineering, brutal, aggressive, or morbid individuality. What does impress one as an apparent weakness in Japanese intellectual circles is the comparative absence of spontaneity, creative thought, original perceptivity of the highest order. Perhaps this seeming deficiency is racial: the peoples of the Far East seem to have been throughout their history receptive rather than creative. At all events I cannot believe Buddhism—originally the faith of an Aryan race—can be proven responsible. The total exclusion of Buddhist influence from public education would not seem to have been stimulating; for the masters of the old Buddhist philosophy still show a far higher capacity for thinking in relations than that of the average graduate of the Imperial University. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that an intellectual revival of Buddhism—a harmonising of its loftier truths with the best and broadest teachings of modern science—would have the most important results for Japan.

9 Herbert Spencer. A native scholar, Mr. Inouye Enryo, has actually founded at Tokyo with this noble object in view, a college of philosophy which seems likely, at the present writing, to become an influential institution.

THE END