[4] The second husband, by adoption, of a daughter who lives with her own parents.
[5] Children in Japan, among the poorer classes, are not weaned until an age much later than what is considered the proper age for weaning children in Western countries. But "four years old" in this text may mean considerably less, than three by Western reckoning.
[6] From very ancient time in Japan it has been the custom to bury the dead in large jars,—usually of red earthenware,—called Kamé. Such jars are still used, although a large proportion of the dead are buried in wooden coffins of a form unknown in the Occident.
[7] The idea expressed is not that of lying down with the pillow under the head, but of hovering about the pillow, or resting upon it as an insect might do. The bodiless spirit is usually said to rest upon the roof of the home. The apparition of the aged man referred to in the next sentence seems a thought of Shinto rather than of Buddhism.
[8] The repetition of the Buddhist invocation Namu Amida Butsu! is thus named. The nembutsu is repeated by many Buddhist sects besides the sect of Amida proper,—the Shinshū.
[9] Botamochi, a kind of sugared rice-cake.
[10] Such advice is a commonplace in Japanese Buddhist literature. By Hotokė Sama here the boy means, not the Buddhas proper, but the spirits of the dead, hopefully termed Buddhas by those who loved them,—much as in the West we sometimes speak of our dead as "angels."
[11] The cooking-place in a Japanese kitchen. Sometimes the word is translated "kitchen-range," but the kamado is something very different from a Western kitchen-range.
[12] Here I think it better to omit a couple of sentences in the original rather too plain for Western taste, yet not without interest. The meaning of the omitted passages is only that even in the womb the child acted with consideration, and according to the rules of filial piety.
[13] Nono-San (or Sama) is the child-word for the Spirits of the dead, for the Buddhas, and for the Shintō Gods,—Kami. Nono-San wo ogamu,—"to pray to the Nono-San," is the child-phrase for praying to the gods. The spirits of the ancestors become Nono-San,—Kami,—according to Shintō thought.