Lafcadio Hearn.
P. S.... I have been teaching three days, and find no difference in the boys from those of Izumo, —they are gentle, polite, manly and eager. But I am greatly hampered by the books. There are not books enough, and the reading-books chosen are atrociously unsuited for the students. Fancy “Silas Marner” and “John Halifax,” with the long double-compound complex semiphilosophical sentences of George Eliot, as text-books for boys who can scarcely speak in English! A missionary’s choice! Ye gods of old Japan! I think the Mombushō is economical in the wrong direction. Too much money cannot be spent on good reading-books. Less money on buildings and more for books would give better results. Buildings worth a quarter of a million (as building costs in America), and “Lovell’s Library” and “George Munro’s” piracies bought for text-books. I could scream!!
TO MASANOBU ŌTANI
Kumamoto, January, 1892.
Dear Ōtani,—Your long and most interesting letter gave me much pleasure, as well as much information. I am very glad to have had my questions so nicely answered; for I am writing an essay on Shintō home-worship in Izumo,—all about the kamidana, etc. I know a good deal about general forms and rules, but very little about the reverence paid in the house to the family dead (forefathers, father, mother, dead children, etc.)—in Shintō, which is very interesting to know. I think much of the modern customs shows a Chinese origin, though the spirit of pure Shintō seems to be wholly Japanese.
I think your first explanation of the form of the omiki dokkuri no kuchi-sashi is the correct one,—so far as this is concerned. I am not sure, but the shape is strikingly like that of the mystic jewel of Buddhist art. There is another form in brass, which I have, that seems intended to represent a folded paper; but I am not sure what it means.
Many thanks for your very valuable notes about the January customs. You told me quite a number of things I did not know before,—such as the rules about the twist of the straw-rope, and the symbolism of the charcoal and many other articles. But I would like to know why the pendent straws should be 3-5-7: is there any mystic signification in those numbers? I thought the Japanese mystic number was 8....