Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella L. Bird

Author:Isabella L. Bird
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486120584
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

LETTER XXV.

A Holiday Scene—A Matsuri—Attractions of the Revel—Matsuri Cars—Gods and Demons—A Possible Harbour—A Village Forge—Prosperity of Saké Brewers—A “ Great Sight.”

TSUGURATA, July 27.

THREE miles of good road thronged with half the people of Kubota on foot and in kurumas, red vans drawn by horses, pairs of policemen in kurumas, hundreds of children being carried, hundreds more on foot, little girls, formal and precocious looking, with hair dressed with scarlet crêpe and flowers, hobbling toilsomely along on high clogs, groups of men and women, never intermixing, stalls driving a “roaring trade ” in cakes and sweetmeats, women making mochi as fast as the buyers ate it, broad rice-fields rolling like a green sea on the right, an ocean of liquid turquoise on the left, the grey roofs of Kubota looking out from their green surroundings, Taiheisan in deepest indigo blocking the view to the south, a glorious day, and a summer sun streaming over all, made up the cheeriest and most festal scene that I have seen in Japan ; men, women, and children, vans and kurumas, policemen and horsemen, all on their way to a mean-looking town, Minato,, the junk port of Kubota, which was keeping matsuri, or Festival in honour of the birthday of the god Shimmai. Towering above the low grey houses there were objects which at first looked like five enormous black fingers, then like trees with their branches wrapped in black, and then—comparisons ceased; they were a mystery.

Dismissing the kurumas, which could go no farther, we dived into the crowd, which was wedged along a mean street, nearly a mile long—a miserable street of poor tea-houses and poor shop-fronts ; but, in fact, you could hardly see the street for the people. Paper lanterns were hung close together along its whole length. There were rude scaffoldings supporting matted and covered platforms, on which people were drinking tea and saké, and enjoying the crowd below; monkey theatres and dog theatres, two mangy sheep and a lean pig attracting wondering crowds, for neither of these animals is known in this region of Japan ? a booth in which a woman was having her head cut off every half-hour for 2 sen a spectator; cars with roofs like temples, on which, with forty men at the ropes, dancing children of the highest class were being borne in procession; a theatre with an open front, on the boards of which two men in antique dresses, with sleeves touching the ground, were performing with tedious slowness a classic dance of tedious posturings, which consisted mainly in dexterous movements of the aforesaid sleeves, and occasional emphatic stampings, and utterances of the word Nô in a hoarse howl. It is needless to say that a foreign lady was not the least of the attractions of the fair. The cultus of children was in full force, all sorts of masks, dolls, sugar figures, toys, and sweet-meats were exposed for sale on mats on the ground, and found their way into the hands and sleeves

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