Another bamboo fairy-story dear to the hearts of all Japanese children is that of the Tongue-cut Sparrow. Sparrows and bamboos have been the closest friends from an unknown age, and we hear the song “The sparrows sing on the bamboos so sweetly.” The bamboo and sparrows combined form the crest of the great lord of Sendai. Any Japanese child will tell you how the poor little sparrow was driven out of his bamboo cage after losing his little tongue, because he had eaten starch for washing clothes belonging to a mean old woman. When her husband returned home from the mountain and learned the fate of his pet bird, he said, “He meant nothing bad in eating your starch. When you could so easily have forgiven him, how could you be so cruel as to cut off his tongue and drive him away? If I had been here he should never have been punished so severely: this heartless deed was done because I was away. Alas! how can I help shedding tears?” He started out the next morning to find his lost pet, singing—
“Tongue-cut sparrow,
Where are you?
Where is your lodging,
Where are you?
Tongue-cut sparrow,
Chu, Chu, Chu.”
The sparrow soon recognised the voice of his master, and jumped out of his house, exclaiming, “Pray enter my humble home!” The house was made, of course, of bamboo bush, as sparrows’ houses always are, and the pillars and roofs were also of bamboo. The sparrow said, “You have come a long way to see me. How can I thank you enough! I cannot help shedding tears of joy.” The story goes on to tell of all the strange things the sparrow did, which turned to fortune for the old man. However, when his wife came singing the same song, her greediness made her bring a heavy basket instead of a light one, as her husband had done. So when she opened the cover she found not gold and treasures as her husband had done, but a monster with three eyes, a giant toad, a viper, and other terrible reptiles.
Another simple Chinese story is from the so-called “Four-and-Twenty Paragons of Filial Piety.” There was a man whose filial piety was so wonderful that his true heart moved even Heaven
IRISES, HORIKIRI
and Earth. His old mother wished to eat the tender bamboo shoots one cold winter day when it was absurd to try and get them. This man started towards a bush of bamboo to look into it, and there, to his great surprise, he found plenty of the new shoots. It is said that his great filial piety moved the hearts of the bamboo bushes and they answered his true devotion voluntarily. Filial piety is the virtue par excellence of the Eastern world; such a story is very popular with the Japanese people, and is read to their children to encourage their devotion towards their old parents.
Like its associate the pine, the bamboo plays an important part in the art of flower arrangement, though there again we are told by Mr. Conder that strictly speaking it is regarded as neither a tree nor a plant. Possibly the most important of all its uses in the art lies in the fact that so many of the vessels made for holding the flowers are made of bamboo, some merely plain sections, others of the most fanciful description. Some of the baskets of Chinese origin were made of split bamboo, and were so much prized in Japan that high prices were given for antique specimens. So complicated an art does this one of floral arrangement appear to be, that it would require many years to learn the correct choice of the vessels into which certain flowers should be arranged, which flowers are suitable as offerings for ceremonial occasions, the correct combination of flowers and trees or shrubs, and the shape in which they are to be arranged. The list of bamboo vessels alone, with their fanciful names, would require months to master, and no doubt in each separate one only certain flowers are permissible. The original use of bamboo flower-vases seems to date from the days of Yoshimasa, and, like so many other things, started by being merely simple sections of a thick bamboo cut so that the bottom was closed by a natural division, and the cylinders were a foot or so high. Then came the invention of innumerable fancy forms: portions of the sides were notched out, side apertures were introduced, and sometimes four or five compositions were arranged in one vase. The names chiefly refer to some fancied resemblance in the general shape—so we read of the Lion’s Mouth shape, the Travelling-Pillow shape, Chinese Gateway, Shark’s Mouth, Wild Geese’s Gateway, Lantern shape, Five Storey shape, Crane’s Neck shape, and Monkey shape; in fact a list of many pages in length might be given of all the varieties, but from the above will be seen the extreme fancifulness of the supposed resemblance. Then, again, do not imagine that the much-prized baskets are just a basket and nothing more. They also assume fanciful names and shapes, such as the Raincoat basket, so called because the frayed top hanging over the edge is suggestive of the collar of a Japanese farmer’s straw raincoat; Cicada and Butterfly baskets, from their resemblance to the insect; and the Hood-shaped basket, suggesting the shape of the hoods worn by Japanese women in cold weather.