On the 5th day of the 5th month the yūjo changed their winter clothes for those of summer, and used to present new summer dresses to shinz� and kamuro, but it seems that the cost of these latter was defrayed by guests of the house out of compliment to the yūjo with whom they were acquainted. There is a comic song which runs:—“Those guests who ran away during the last days of the old year, and returned in the Spring, have again fed on account of the utsuri-gae (change of garments).� It is rather laughable that the yūjo themselves would tease guest by reciting these lines. On this day, as on New Year’s Day, the yūjo visited the tea-houses of Naka-no-ch� to wish them the compliments of the season. Later on, it became a custom to plant iris blossoms in the quarter, after this day, as a means of attracting visitors. After the beginning of the doy� season in June, yūjo made presents of fans to their familiar guests, and to tea-houses, as a token that they solicited continued patronage at the hands of their friends.
On the 7th day of the 7th month the festival of the weaver was celebrated in the quarter by yūjo tying branches of bamboo (with white fans, on which poems were written, fixed to them) before their doors. Even the inmates of smaller brothels observed this time-honoured custom. In some houses the keepers, acting on the advice of guests, took advantage of the opportunity to make a display of rare curios and furniture, and consequently the Yoshiwara was thronged with visitors.
On the 10th day the festival of the Asakusa Kwannon took place. This day was called the “shi-man-roku-sen-nichi (46,000 days) the idea being that he who visited the temple on that day performed as meritorious an action as if he made a pilgrimage there on 46,000 occasions, and consequently it follows that one visit to the Asakusa Kwannon on the 10th day of the 7th month ensured the pilgrim a life-long blessing from Buddha.
This festival attracted crowds of people to the Yoshiwara and “trade� boomed up on account of the large number of visitors seeking “blessings�! From the dawn of the 12th day until 9 o’clock on the following day the stalls of dealers in articles necessary for celebrating the festival of the dead were erected between the Ō-mon and Suid�-jiri. This festival was called the “Kusa-ichi� (Grass-market). Toilet articles and toys were also sold on this occasion. On the night of the 13th day no guests were received, and the yūjo roamed about the quarter, as they choose, in groups of threes or fives. In their rooms the i-hai (a wooden tablet bearing the posthumous name of dead persons) of their parents were placed on their wardrobes and before these improvised altars yūjo offered tearful prayers from aching hearts. A Japanese stanza says:—
Ushi uma no tsunagare-nagara nagare-keri, chiisai toki wo hanasu keisei.
“Courtesans separated from their parents in early childhood and drifting over the sea of life tethered together like dumb driven cattle.�
On the 15th day the yūjo paid another complimentary visit to the tea-houses, in the same way as they were wont to do on New’ Year’s Day. From the last day of the 6th month, and during the 7th month, while the “Feast of Lanterns� continued, the hikite-ja-ya (tea-houses) of the Naka-no-ch� hung lanterns, generally square in shape, inside and outside their houses, but on the 13th and 14th this practice was suspended and after the 15th new lanterns were substituted. The lighting of bon-d�r� (memorial lanterns) during the bon (feast in memory of the dead) is a universal custom in Japan, and originally lanterns of various shapes were used in the Yoshiwara. But since the lighting of a special kind of lantern in the 7th month of the 13th year of the Ky�h� era (1728) in memory of the third anniversary of the death of Tamagiku of the Manji-ya, the pattern has become more uniform and the custom more general in the quarter.
On the 1st day of the 8th month (hassaku) the yūjo went in procession through the Yoshiwara wearing shiro-muku no kosude (wadded clothes of white silk). In ancient times yūjo wore lined clothes (awase) of dyed stuffs on the tango no sekku (the festival of the sweet flag celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th month) and similar clothes of white silk on the 1st day of the 8th month. One year, in the beginning of the Kwambun era (1661–1672), it happened to be extraordinarily cold and a yūjo named Yūgiri (evening mist) belonging to the S�gyoku wore wadded clothes on the 1st of August, thus making a departure from the established usage. Her costume attracted universal attention, and she looked more beautiful and happier in it than the other women, who appeared chilly and uncomfortable in their lighter garments. Two years later, on the 1st day of the 8th month, all the yūjo turned out in wadded clothes in spite of the fact that the season was unusually warm, and henceforth this costume was generally adopted. Another version attributes its origin to the fact that during the Genroku period (1688–1703) a yūjo named Takahashi, of the Tomoeya, went to an ageya in response to the invitation of an intimate guest, despite her illness, attired in her night-garment of white wadded silk. This version of the origin of the custom is of doubtful authority. During the same period a yūjo belonging to the My�go-ya, named Ōshū, used to promenade wearing clothes of white silk on which were depicted human skulls and susuki (eularia japonica: “reed-grass�) painted in India ink, greatly surprising spectators with her extraordinary taste. On the 14th, 15th, and 16th, the ceremony of “viewing the moon� (tsuki-mi) was observed. On those nights sambo (wooden stands) were stood out and loaded with dumplings, chestnuts, beans in pods, sweet potatoes, persimmons, lespedeza blossoms (hagi), eularia grass (sususki), aster blossoms (shion) etc., as offerings to the moon. They also set out vessels filled with sacred wine, and burnt altar-lamps in her honour.
八朔之圖
Gathering of Courtesans at the “Hassaku� (1st day of the 8th month).
(After the Picture by Kitagawa Utamaro.)