Also in September is the Ayaha Festival, in honour of the two Chinese women who first taught weaving to the Japanese, many centuries ago. These teachers died in September, and on the seventeenth of that month cotton and hempen fabrics are offered to their spirits at the shrines built in their honour.
At the temple of the goddess Amaterasu-Omikami, near Shiba Park, Tokyo, the Shinmei Feast is observed from the eleventh to the twenty-first of September. This is especially the time to offer the petition, "O God, make clean our hearts within us," hence much ginger is sold, the plant being supposed to prevent impurity. A sweetmeat called ame is sold in cypress-wood baskets, curved like the roofs of ancient shrines. Cypress is held sacred because the roof-trees of old shrines were made of it, and is supposed to have the power of warding off diseases.
One of the most curious of all Japanese festivals is the Laughing Festival of Wasa, celebrated in October. A procession is formed of old men carrying boxes full of oranges and persimmons impaled on sharpened sticks, followed by children with the same kinds of fruits on bamboo rods. On reaching the shrine, the leader turns round and makes up a comical face, which is greeted with shouts of laughter.
According to the legend, the gods, once upon a time, met in the great temple at Izumo to consider the love affairs of the kingdom. When all were seated, one alone, Miwa-Daimyo-jin, was missing, and although search was made, he could not be found. Now, this god was so deaf that he had misunderstood the day appointed for the assembly, and he appeared at Izumo only after all was over. The Laughing Festival commemorates the laughter of the gods when they heard of poor Miwa-Daimyo-jin's mistake.
Another October celebration is held in memory of Nichiren, called the Luther of Japan, who endeavoured to purify Buddhism from the superstitions that had crept into it. He was the founder of the sect named for him. On October thirteenth great numbers of his disciples assemble at Ikegami, the place of his death, near Tokyo, carrying lanterns and banners, and reciting a sutra in concert.
A curious feast is observed by merchants on the twentieth of October in honour of Ebisu, one of the seven gods of good luck, who is especially the guardian genius of tradesmen. They invite their friends and relatives to a banquet, upon which a large picture of the god looks down from the wall. Fishes, called tai, are laid before this picture as offerings, and are also eaten by the guests. After the feast has proceeded a little way, sport begins. Perhaps one of the guests starts an auction of the dishes before him, his companions bidding up to thousands of yen, [6] the joke continuing until it runs itself out. This little buying and selling episode is to emphasize the fact that it is a merchants' festival that is being celebrated.
[ [6] The yen is fifty cents.
The present Emperor's birthday is the thirty-first of August, but henceforth it is to be celebrated on the thirty-first of October, which brings it very near to the third of November, the late Emperor's birthday, so long a holiday all over Japan. Although this is one of the annual festivities, the celebration is so largely official and diplomatic that I have described it among Court Functions.
The fall matsuri in Tokyo is held early in November at the Shokonsha, a temple sacred to the memory of the patriots who have given their lives for their country. It is especially a soldiers' festival, and is the occasion when the garrison comes in a body to worship at this shrine. The troops form by divisions in front of the temple and salute, presenting arms while the bugles sound a sacred call. Afterward the soldiers have a race-meeting on a half-mile track, which is made very amusing by the rivalry between the different divisions and the mad careerings of the little horses. This is a large matsuri, and the booths of peddlers and mountebanks line the streets for blocks.
November eighth is the day of the Fuigo Matsuri, when thanks are returned to the god of fire, who invented the bellows—Fuigo meaning bellows. As the centre of the worship of this god is in Kyoto, it is observed to a greater extent there than elsewhere, beginning in a curious way, by opening the windows before sunrise and throwing out quantities of oranges to the children who are always waiting outside.