In this district I first noticed cotton. It is sown in June and is picked from time to time between early September and early November. Cotton has been grown for centuries in Japan, but nowadays it is produced for household weaving only, the needs of the factories being met by foreign imports. The plant has a beautiful yellow flower with a dark brown eye.
In one village I asked how many people smoked. The answer was 60 per cent. of the men and 10 per cent. of the women. In the same village, which did not seem particularly well off, I was told that 200 daily papers might be taken among 1,300 families. Eighty per cent. of the local papers were dailies and cost 35 sen a month. Tokyo papers cost 45 or 50 sen a month.
I visited a school, half of which was in a building adjoining a temple and half in the temple itself. In the same county there were two other schools housed in temples. The small Shinto shrine in this temple held the Imperial Rescript on education. On one side of it was an ugly American clock and on the other a thermometer. In the temple (Zen) two Tokyo University students were staying in ideal conditions for vacation study.
I saw at one place a very tired, unslept-looking peasant with a small closed tub carried over his shoulder by means of a pole. On the tub was tied a white streamer, such as is supplied at a Shinto shrine, and a branch of sakaki (Eurya ochnacea, the sacred tree). The traveller was the delegate of his village. He had been to a mountain shrine in the next prefecture and the tub held the water he had got there. The idea is that if he succeeds in making the journey home without stopping anywhere his efforts will result in rain coming down at his village. If he should stop at any place to rest or sleep, and there should be the slightest drip from his tub there, then the rain will be procured not for his own village but for the community in which he has tarried. So our voyager had walked not only for a whole day but through the night. I heard of a rain delegate who had stamina enough to keep walking for three or four days without sleeping.
Another way of obtaining rain has principally to do with tugging at a rock with a straw rope. Then there is the plan already referred to of tying straw ropes to a stone image and flinging it into the river, saying, "If you don't give us rain you will stay there; if you do give us rain you shall come out." There is also the method of paying someone liberally to throw the split open head of an ox into the deep pool of a waterfall. "Then the water god being much angry," said my informant, "he send his dragon to that village, so storm and rain come necessarily." Yet another plan is for the villagers simply to ascend to a particular mountain top crying, "Give us rain! Give us rain!" While dealing with these magic arts I may reproduce the following rendering of a printed "fortune" which I received from a rural shrine: "Wish to agree but now somewhat difficult. Wait patiently for a while. Do nothing wrong. Wait for the spring to come. Everything will be completed and will become better. Endeavouring to accomplish it soon will be fruitless."
It was a student of agricultural conditions, in Toyama who gossiped to me of the large expenditure by farmers of that prefecture on the marriage of their daughters. "It is not so costly as the boys' education and it procures a good reception for the girl from father-and mother-in-law. The pinch comes when there is a second and third daughter, for the average balance in hand of a peasant proprietor in this prefecture at the end of the year is only 48 yen. Borrowing is necessary and I heard of one bankruptcy. The Governor tried to stop the custom but it is too old. They say Toyama people spend more proportionately than the people in other prefectures. In general they do not keep a horse or ox. I heard of young farmers stealing each other's crops. Parents are very severe upon a daughter who becomes ill-famed, for when they seek a husband for her they must spend more. So mostly daughters keep their purity before marriage. But I know parts of Japan where a large number of the girls have ceased to be virtuous. Concerning the priests, those of Toyama are the worst. A peasant proprietor with seven of a family and a balance at the end of the year of 100 yen must pay 30 to 40 yen to the temple. Some priests threaten the farmer, saying that if he does not pay as much as is imposed on him by the collector an inferior Buddha will go past his door. Priests want to keep farmers foolish as long as they can."
FOOTNOTES:
[ [130] For prices of land, see [Appendix LIV].
[ [131] There are about 116,000 Shinto shrines of all grades and 14,000 priests, and 71,000 temples and 51,000 priests. There are about a dozen Shinto sects and about thirty Buddhist sects and sub-sects.
[ [132] It is done by wading in leech-infested water under a burning sun and pulling out the weeds by hand and pushing them down into the sludge.