THE NO DANCE.
We were fortunate enough to see an excellent No dance which was being performed in a private house. The performance was given in honour of an ancestor of theirs, who had died two hundred years before. It was a very aristocratic audience—the upper class people are easily distinguished, as they are more intelligent and stronger looking, as well as more refined, than the middle and lower classes. The play was given in a very dignified and ceremonious manner, and the acting was of the highest order, but to one unacquainted with the language and the meaning of the various postures even the best No dance is apt to prove tedious. The No is further described in the chapter on literature.
An even more serious form of entertainment, and one well worth the attention of those who have longer to stay in the country and who wish to make a study of the customs, is the cha-no-yu, a ceremony which has almost the force of a religious rite.
Viscounts Kadenokuji and Kiogoku took us to one of these tea-ceremonies at a private club house—Hosigaoko—in Sanno. This was the most wonderful piece of house-building I have ever seen—the polish on the floor, the fitting of the frames, the joining, were simply perfect. Some of the porch boards were forty-five feet long and as smooth and polished as glass.
A very small room of four and a half mats (nine feet square) is held sacred for the ceremony. The entrance is made through a door which is only a couple of feet square—a custom remaining from the time when visitors were so received lest they hold swords hidden in their robes. The guests, who should be five in number, sit down in a row, the Japanese sitting on their feet in ceremonial manner; foreigners, however, are allowed to cross their legs, tailor-fashion, for one is expected to remain without moving during the whole affair.
This cha-no-yu is a relic of the old days when ceremonies were invented to pass away the time, and is the most formal mode of entertainment. It is taught as a fine art and accomplishment by various schools, which differ in regard to small details of etiquette. The master who performed it for us, Nakamura, is the most famous teacher in Tokyo.
The rite consists in making a bowl of tea. Even the tiniest motion has its own particular meaning, and is performed most solemnly and religiously. As in all Japanese ceremonials, it is done very slowly, requiring three hours for its completion. Certain implements are used for the cha-no-yu alone, and these are of the finest make. It is part of the performance to pass them around for the guests to examine, and it is etiquette to admire them. The tea-making is followed by a formal dinner, in which the guests get a chance to air their knowledge of strict social laws, even as to what to eat, and how much. The exit is made, after it is all over, by crawling out through the hole of a door.