SERVICE AT THE TEMPLE.
The bier is then taken to the crematory by the chief mourner and his relatives. There are a few public cemeteries on the outskirts of Tokyo, where the body may be taken immediately from the temple and buried as it is. But for burial in a temple yard in the city the body must be first burnt; and accordingly it is taken to a crematory. There are seven crematories just outside Tokyo, none being permitted in the city. The body is taken to one of these and put in an oven; the fire is lighted; and the door of the oven is locked and the key taken home by the chief mourner.
AT THE CREMATORY.
Early next morning, the relatives return to the crematory, and in their presence the oven is opened. The bones and ashes are gathered into a tray, which is brought out and the mourners pick the bones from among the ashes. Every piece must be picked up by two persons holding it with two pairs of chopsticks and put into the urn. When all the bones have been picked out, the urn is closed with a lid and taken to the temple.
The grave may be dug in a small plot bought by the family in a public cemetery when the body is to be buried with its coffin. In that case a separate grave is dug for each body; but if it is to be interred in a temple yard, one grave will serve for the whole family, for there is a hollow under the tombstone which is closed with a stone, and at each burial the stone is removed to put in the urn. The tombstone is an upright stone, square in section and with a tapering top, which stands on a stone pedestal. The front inscription merely gives the name of the family with, perhaps, the family crest over it, and the Buddhistic name of the deceased is engraved on a side. In a public cemetery where the grave-enclosures are larger and a tombstone is set up for every member of the family, the tombstone naturally cannot be got ready in time for the funeral, and a wooden grave-post is stuck in the grave with the Buddhistic name in front and the lay name and date of decease on the sides.
GRAVES.
After the funeral, the tablet of the deceased is set on a table at home, and a light and incense are kept burning before it until the seventh day from the day of decease; and prayers are offered at the grave every day for the same length of time, after which a priest comes from the temple every seven days until seven weeks are passed. For forty-nine days the spirit of the dead wanders in the dark space intervening between this world and the next, and every seven days it makes an advance forward, in which it is materially helped by the prayers of those it has left behind; according to some, the spirit hovers for the same period over the roof of its old home, for which reason many people dislike to remove until the period has terminated from a house in which a member of the family has died, as his spirit would have to hover over a house deserted by those he loved.
At the end of the fifth week, packages of tea and boxes of cakes of wheaten flour stuffed with red-bean jam are sent as return presents to those persons who brought offerings to the dead. On the forty-ninth day, forty-nine cakes are taken to the temple; in old times the human body was believed to contain forty-eight bones, and if to these the skull is added, the total becomes forty-nine, and as emblematic of these bones, one of the cakes is made much larger than the rest. They are offered before the dead, and after prayers have been recited and incense burnt, the large cake is taken home and divided among the family. A wake is sometimes kept on the night of the forty-eighth day; and on the following day, after the service at the temple, those who attend are taken to a restaurant and entertained, when the near relatives, who have hitherto abstained from animal food in token of their mourning, take it as this day ends the period of deep mourning.