In the train a farmer who knew the prefecture spoke of Bon songs and dances: "The result of the action against them was not good. The meeting of young men and women at the Bon gatherings was in their minds half the year in prospect and half in retrospect. Bearing in mind the condition of the people, even the worst Bon songs are not objectionable. But when the people become educated some songs will be objectionable."
Visitors to a poor prefecture like Miyagi must be surprised to see so much adjusted paddy. There is more adjusted paddy in Miyagi than in any other prefecture. Some 90,000 acres have been taken in hand and a large amount of money has been spent. The work has been carried out largely by way of giving wages to farmers during famine. A new tunnel brought water to 6,000 acres. "The bad climate of Miyagi cannot be mended," I was told; "all that can be done is to seek for the earliest varieties of rice, to sow early, to work as diligently as possible and to deal with floods by embanking the rivers and by tree planting." As many as 7,000 people go from Miyagi to Hokkaido in a year. It seems to point to a certain amount of fecklessness that 15 per cent. of them return.
One man I spoke with during my journey south gave a vivid impression of the influence of young men's associations. "Before they started," said he, "the young men spent their time in singing indecent songs, in gambling, in talking foolishly, and twice or thrice a year in immorality. A young widow has sometimes been at fault; the parents-in-law need her help and village sentiment is against her remarriage. The suppression of Bon dances has done more harm than good by keeping out of sight what used to be said and done openly[[168] ]. Two or three priests are active in this prefecture. Where the Shinshu sect is strong you will find little divorce. But the influence of Buddhism has been stationary in recent years. There is some action by missionaries of the Japanese Christian church, but the number of Christians among real rustics is very small."
At Sendai it was pleasant to see a prefectural office—or most of it—housed in a Japanese building instead of a dreadful edifice "in Western style." In feudal times the building was a school. Portraits of daimyos and famous scholars of the Sendai clan surround the Governor's room, and adjoining it is the tatami-covered apartment in which the daimyo used to sit when he was present at the examinations. Among the portraits is one of a retainer which was painted in Rome, where he had been sent on a mission of inquiry.
A Scarecrow.—A sketch by Professor Nasu.
In his scarecrow-making the Japanese farmer seems to have great faith in the Western-style cap, felt hat, or even umbrella, if he can get hold of one. Ordinarily, the bogey man has a bow with the arrow strung. Occasionally a farmer seeks to scare birds by means of clappers which he places in the hands of a child or an old man who sits in a rough shelter raised high enough to overtop the rice. Now and then there is a clapper connected with a string to the farm-house. I have also seen a row of bamboos carried across a paddy field with a square piece of wood hanging loosely against each one. A rope connecting all the bamboos with one another was carried to the roadway, and now and then a passer-by of a benevolent disposition, or with nothing better to do, or, it may be, standing in some degree of relationship to the paddy-field proprietor, gave the rope a tug. Then all the bamboos bent, and as they smartly straightened themselves caused the clappers to give forth a sound sufficiently agitating to sparrow pillagers in several paddies.
On leaving Miyagi we were once more in Fukushima, with notes on which this account of a trip to the north of Japan and back again began. This time, instead of journeying by routes through the centre of the prefecture, as in coming north, or as in the visit paid to Fukushima in the Tokyo-to-Niigata journey, I travelled along the sea coast. When we had passed through Fukushima we were in Ibaraki, a characteristic feature of which is swamps. Drainage operations have been going on since the time of the Shogunate. There is in this prefecture the biggest production of beans in Japan, and we have come far enough south to see tea frequently. In the lower half of the prefecture we are in the great Kwanto plain, the prefectures in which are most conveniently surveyed from Tokyo.