The Japanese counterpart of our New England Thanksgiving occurs the twenty-third of November, when the Emperor is the chief celebrant, making an offering of the new rice of the year before the shrine of his ancestors, and in behalf of the nation uttering a prayer of thanksgiving and a plea for protection. After presenting this offering His Majesty partakes of a sacred feast, consisting of the first fruits of the year, and the next day he invites the highest officials of the State to a grand banquet at the palace.
Near the end of December comes the Kamado-harai Feast of the Oven. The kamado is the fire-box on which the food is cooked, and it has a god of its own. As the year draws to a close, the god of the kamado carries to heaven a report of the conduct of the household during the twelve months. So the priests are called in to pray the oven-god that he will give as favourable an account as possible. As modern stoves are now taking the place of the old kamado to some extent, this feast is less observed in the larger cities than in the country districts.
At a shrine in Shimonoseki the festival of Wakamegari-no Shinji is observed on the thirty-first of December. A flight of stone steps leads through a stone torii down into the sea far below the lowest tide-mark. The Shinto priests, in full robes, are obliged to descend these steps on the feast-day until they reach and cut some of the seaweed (wakame), which they offer at the temple the next day. Japanese legend relates that the Empress Jingo sailed from this spot to the conquest of Korea, bearing two jewels that were given her by the god of this shrine. When off the Korean coast, she threw one jewel into the water, and a flood tide at once bore her ships high up on the shore; then she tossed the other gem into the waves, and the swift ebbing of the tide left the fleet safely stranded.
CHAPTER VIII
CULTS AND SHRINES
"He that practiseth righteousness receiveth a blessing; it cometh as surely as the shadow followeth the man."
THE quotation at the head of this chapter is of especial interest, because it reminds one so much of a precept from the Bible. It is taken from a little Japanese text-book of ethics, which is ascribed to a Buddhist abbot of the ninth century.