The New Year

The San-ga-nichi, or "three days" of the New Year, is one of the most important of the Japanese festivals, for the Japanese make far more of the New Year than we do in this country. They regard the first three days of the year as a fitting occasion when it is most important to insure good luck and happiness for the days that follow, and in order to bring this about many quaint and ancient observances take place. Before the houses are decorated a thorough winter cleaning is carried out. "In ancient times," writes Mrs. C. M. Salwey, "from the Court of the Emperor to the hut of the peasant, this attention was observed to such an extent that the Shōgun's Court provided overseers, who visited with ornamented dusting poles, to overhaul the labour of the servants, passing their official brooms over ledges and crevices, and in so doing flourishing in a certain manner their mystic wands to demonstrate the Chinese ideograph which signified water." Not only is the house thoroughly cleaned and everything put in order, but evil spirits are got rid of by throwing out peas and beans from the open shoji, or paper slides.

On the festival of the New Year the houses and gate-posts are adorned with straw ropes, and these are often made to represent such lucky Chinese numbers as three, five, and seven. The food chiefly eaten on this occasion comprises lobsters (their bent and ancient appearance suggesting long life), oranges, and certain varieties of edible seaweeds. In addition there are mirror cakes, associated with the Sun Goddess, and these cakes, composed of rice, are eaten with the oranges and lobster, and served on pure white trays. One other important[Pg 221] decoration must not be overlooked, and that is the branches of the pine-tree. These branches symbolise long life, and for some unknown reason they are burnt when the festival is over.

One of the most picturesque customs associated with this festival, and one particularly appealing to children, is the Treasure Ship with the Seven Gods of Good Luck on board, to which we have referred elsewhere.[1]
The Boys' Festival

The Tango no Sekku, or Boys' Festival, takes place on May 5, and is intended to inspire the youth of Japan with warlike qualities. It is the day when flags are to be seen in every direction, when the roofs of the houses are decorated with the leaves of iris, so that Nature's flag and the flag made by human hands are both conspicuous on this joyous festival, which is popularly known as the Feast of Flags. Boys are presented with small figures representing certain great heroes of the past, while ancient swords, bows, arrows, spears, &c., are handed down from one generation of children to another.

Perhaps the dominant feature of this festival is the paper flag shaped like a carp. It is hollow, and when inflated with wind has the appearance of vigorously flying through the air. The carp symbolises something more than the crude spirit of warfare, for it typifies tenacity of purpose and indomitable courage. As the carp swims against the stream, so is the Japanese youth expected to fight against all the fierce currents of adversity. This idea is probably derived from the fascinating Chinese legend of the Dragon Carp which, after a long struggle, succeeded in swimming past the Dragon Gate rapids, lived a thousand years, and finally rose into the sky.

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The Festival of the Dead

The Festival of the Dead, or Bommatsuri, deserves mention here because it contains much that is legendary. The Japanese peasant's conception of a future life is not a very delightful one. At death the body is washed and shaven and then arrayed in a pure white garment—indeed, in the garment of a pilgrim. Round the neck is hung a wallet containing three or six rin, according to the custom of the place in which the death occurs, and these rin are buried with the deceased. The idea of burying coin with the dead is to be found in the belief that all who die, children alone excepted, must journey to the Sanzu-no-Kawa, or "The River of the Three Roads." On the bank of this dismal river Sodzu-Baba, the Old Woman of the Three Roads, awaits the coming of souls, together with her husband, Ten Datsu-Ba. If three rin are not paid to the Old Woman she takes away the white garments of the dead and, regardless of entreaties, hangs them on trees. Then there is the no less formidable Emma-Ō, the Lord of the Dead; and when we add to these dread figures some of the terrors of the Buddhist hells it is not surprising that the gentle and poetical Japanese should have founded a festival that will afford a pleasant, if all too brief, respite from the horrors of Hades.

The festival takes place from July 13 to 15. At such a time most of the houses are mere skeletons, being open to the summer breeze on all sides. People saunter about in the lightest of garments. Butterflies and dragon-flies disport in countless numbers, flying over a cool stretch of lotus or settling on the purple petal of an iris. Fuji rears her great head into the clear blue sky, bearing like a white scarf a patch of fast-fading snow.

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When the morning of the 13th arrives new mats of rice straw are spread upon all Buddhist altars and on the little household shrines. Every Japanese home on that day is provided with a quaint, minute meal in readiness for the great company of ghosts.

At sunset the streets are bright with the flames of torches, and the entrances of houses gay with brightly coloured lanterns. Those to whom this festival applies in a particular sense and not in a general one—that is to say, those who have recently lost some dear one—go out on this night to the cemeteries, and there pray, make offerings, burn incense, and pour out water. Lanterns are lit and bamboo vases filled with flowers.

On the evening of the 15th the ghosts of the Circle of Penance or Gakidō are fed, and in addition those ghosts who have no friends among the living to care for them. There is a legend bearing upon this particular phase of the Festival of the Dead. Dai-Mokenren, a great disciple of Buddha, was once permitted to see the soul of his mother in the Gakidō. He grieved so much on account of intense suffering that he gave her a bowl containing choice food. Every time she tried to eat the food would suddenly turn into fire, and finally to ashes. Then Mokenren asked Buddha to tell him what he could do to ease his mother's suffering. He was told to feed the ghosts of the great priests of all countries "on the fifteenth day of the seventh month." When this had been done Mokenren returned, to find his mother dancing for joy. In this happy dance after much tribulation we trace the origin of the Bon-odori, which takes place on the third night of the festival.

When the evening of the third day arrives preparations are made for the departure of the ghosts. Thousands of little boats are packed with ............