What?
Among these people of the west something is always preserved which in other lands is cast away without a thought—the hozo-no-o, the flower- stalk of a life, the navel-string of the newly-born. It is enwrapped carefully in many wrappings; and upon its outermost covering are written the names of the father, the mother, and the infant, together with the date and hour of birth,—and it is kept in the family o-'mamori-bukuro. The daughter, becoming a bride, bears it with her to her new home: for the son it is preserved by his parents. It is buried with the dead; and should one die in a foreign land, or perish at sea, it is entombed in lieu of the body.
Sec. 5
Concerning them that go down into the sea in ships, and stay there, strange beliefs prevail on this far coast—beliefs more primitive, assuredly, than the gentle faith which hangs white lanterns before the tombs. Some hold that the drowned never journey to the Meido. They quiver for ever in the currents; they billow in the swaying of tides; they toil in the wake of the junks; they shout in the plunging of breakers. 'Tis their white hands that toss in the leap of the surf; their clutch that clatters the shingle, or seizes the swimmer's feet in the pull of the undertow. And the seamen speak euphemistically of the O-'bake, the honourable ghosts, and fear them with a great fear.
Wherefore cats are kept on board!
A cat, they aver, has power to keep the O-bake away. How or why, I have not yet found any to tell me. I know only that cats are deemed to have power over the dead. If a cat be left alone with a corpse, will not the corpse arise and dance? And of all cats a mike-neko, or cat of three colours, is most prized on this account by sailors. But if they cannot obtain one—and cats of three colours are rare—they will take another kind of cat; and nearly every trading junk has a cat; and when the junk comes into port, its cat may generally be seen—peeping through some little window in the vessel's side, or squatting in the opening where the great rudder works—that is, if the weather be fair and the sea still.
Sec. 6
But these primitive and ghastly beliefs do not affect the beautiful practices of Buddhist faith in the time of the Bon; and from all these little villages the shoryobune are launched upon the sixteenth day. They are much more elaborately and expensively constructed on this coast than in some other parts of Japan; for though made of straw only, woven over a skeleton framework, they are charming models of junks, complete in every detail. Some are between three and four feet long. On the white paper sail is written the kaimyo or soul-name of the dead. There is a small water-vessel on board, filled with fresh water, and an incense- cup; and along the gunwales flutter little paper banners bearing the mystic manji, which is the Sanscrit swastika.[3]
The form of the shoryobune and the customs in regard to the time and manner of launching them differ much in different provinces. In most places they are launched for the family dead in general, wherever buried; and they are in some places launched only at night, with small lanterns on board. And I am told also that it is the custom at certain sea-villages to launch the lanterns all by themselves, in lieu of the shoryobune proper—lanterns of a particular kind being manufactured for that purpose only.
But on the Izumo coast, and elsewhere along this western shore, the soul-boats are launched only for those who have been drowned at sea, and the launching takes place in the morning instead of at night. Once every year, for ten years after death, a shoryobune is launched; in the eleventh year the ceremony ceases. Several shoryobune which I saw at Inasa were really beautiful, and must have cost a rather large sum for poor fisher-folk to pay. But the ship-carpenter who made them said that all the relatives of a drowned man contribute to purchase the little vessel, year after year.