"The yama-no-mono are so called because they live among the hills (yama) at the southern end of Matsue. They have a monopoly of the rag-and-waste-paper business, and are buyers of all sorts of refuse, from old bottles to broken-down machinery. Some of them are rich. Indeed, the whole class is, compared with other outcast classes, prosperous. Nevertheless, public prejudice against them is still almost as strong as in the years previous to the abrogation of the special laws concerning them. Under no conceivable circumstances could any of them obtain employment as servants. Their prettiest girls in old times often became joro; but at no time could they enter a joroya in any neighboring city, much less in their own, so they were sold to establishments in remote places. A yama-no-mono to-day could not even become a kurumaya. He could not obtain employment as a common laborer in any capacity, except by going to some distant city where he could hope to conceal his origin. But if detected under such conditions he would run serious risk of being killed by his fellow-laborers. Under any circumstance it would be difficult for a yama-no-mono to pass himself off for a heimin. Centuries of isolation and prejudice have fixed and moulded the manners of the class in recognizable ways; and even its language has become a special and curious dialect.
"I was anxious to see something of a class so singularly situated and specialized; and I had the good fortune to meet a Japanese gentleman who, although belonging to the highest class of Matsue, was kind enough to agree to accompany me to their village, where he had never been himself. On the way thither he told me many curious things about the yama-no-mono. In feudal times these people had been kindly treated by the samurai; and they were often allowed or invited to enter the courts of samurai dwellings to sing and dance, for which performances they were paid. The songs and the dances with which they were able to entertain even those aristocratic families were known to no other people, and were called Daikoku-mai. Singing the Daikoku-mai was, in fact, the special hereditary art of the yama-no-mono, and represented their highest comprehension of aesthetic and emotional matters. In former times they could not obtain admittance to a respectable theatre; and, like the hachiya, had theatres of their own. It would be interesting, my friend added, to learn the origin of their songs and their dances; for their songs are not in their own special dialect, but in pure Japanese. And that they should have been able to preserve this oral literature without deterioration is especially remarkable from the fact that the yama-no-mono were never taught to read or write. They could not even avail themselves of those new educational opportunities which the era of Meiji has given to the masses; prejudice is still far too strong to allow of their children being happy in a public school. A small special school might be possible, though there would perhaps be no small difficulty in obtaining willing teachers(1).
"The hollow in which the village stands is immediately behind the Buddhist cemetery of Tokoji. The settlement has its own Shinto temple. I was extremely surprised at the aspect of the place; for I had expected to see a good deal of ugliness and filth. On the contrary, I saw a multitude of neat dwellings, with pretty gardens about them, and pictures on the walls of the rooms. There were many trees; the village was green with shrubs and plants, and picturesque to an extreme degree; for, owing to the irregularity of the ground, the tiny streets climbed up and down hill at all sorts of angles,—the loftiest street being fifty or sixty feet above the lowermost. A large public bath-house and a public laundry bore evidence that the yama-no-mono liked clean linen as well as their heimin neighbors on the other side of the hill.
"A crowd soon gathered to look at the strangers who had come to their village,—a rare event for them. The faces I saw seemed much like the faces of the heimin, except that I fancied the ugly ones were uglier, making the pretty ones appear more pretty by contrast. There were one or two sinister faces, recalling faces of gypsies that I had seen; while some little girls, on the other hand, had remarkably pleasing features. There were no exchanges of civilities, as upon meeting heimin; a Japanese of the better class would as soon think of taking off his hat to a yama-no-mono as a West-Indian planter would think of bowing to a negro. The yama-no-mono themselves usually show by their attitude that they expect no forms. None of the men saluted us; but some of the women, on being kindly addressed, made obeisance. Other women, weaving coarse straw sandals (an inferior quality of zori), would answer only 'yes' or 'no' to questions, and seemed to be suspicious of us. My friend called my attention to the fact that the women were dressed differently from Japanese women of the ordinary classes. For example, even among the very poorest heimin there are certain accepted laws of costume; there are certain colors which may or may not be worn, according to age. But even elderly women among these people wear obi of bright red or variegated hues, and kimono of a showy tint.
"Those of the women seen in the city street, selling or buying, are the elders only. The younger stay at home. The elderly women always go into town with large baskets of a peculiar shape, by which the fact that they are yama-no-mono is at once known. Numbers of these baskets were visible, principally at the doors of the smaller dwellings. They are carried on the back, and are used to contain all that the yama-no-mono buy,—old paper, old wearing apparel, bottles, broken glass, and scrap-metal.
"A woman at last ventured to invite us to her house, to look at some old colored prints she wished to sell. Thither we went, and were as nicely received as in a heimin residence. The pictures —including a number of drawings by Hiroshige—proved to be worth buying; and my friend then asked if we could have the pleasure of hearing the Daikoku-mai. To my great satisfaction the proposal was well received; and on our agreeing to pay a trifle to each singer, a small band of neat-looking young girls, whom we had not seen before, made their appearance, and prepared to sing, while an old woman made ready to dance. Both the old woman and the girls provided themselves with curious instruments for the performance. Three girls had instruments shaped like mallets, made of paper and bamboo: these were intended to represent the hammer of Dai-koku(2); they were held in the left hand, a fan being waved in the right. Other girls were provided with a kind of castanets,—two flat pieces of hard dark wood, connected by a string. Six girls formed in a line before the house. The old woman took her place facing the girls, holding in her hands two little sticks, one stick being notched along a part of its length. By drawing it across the other stick, a curious rattling noise was made.
"My friend pointed out to me that the singers formed two distinct parties, of three each. Those bearing the hammer and fan were the Daikoku band: they were to sing the ballads. Those with the castanets were the Ebisu party and formed the chorus.
"The old woman rubbed her little sticks together, and from the throats of the Daikoku band there rang out a clear, sweet burst of song, quite different from anything I had heard before in Japan, while the tapping of the castanets kept exact time to the syllabification of the words, which were very rapidly uttered. When the first three girls had sung a certain number of lines, the voices of the other three joined in, producing a very pleasant though untrained harmony; and all sang the burden together. Then the Daikoku party began another verse; and, after a certain interval, the chorus was again sung. In the meanwhile the old woman was dancing a very fantastic dance which provoked laughter from the crowd, occasionally chanting a few comic words.
"The song was not comic, however; it was a very pathetic ballad entitled 'Yaoya O-Shichi.' Yaoya O-Shichi was a beautiful girl, who set fire to her own house in order to obtain another meeting with her lover, an acolyte in a temple where she expected that her family would be obliged to take refuge after the fire. But being detected and convicted of arson, she was condemned by the severe law of that age to be burnt alive. The sentence was carried into effect; but the youth and beauty of the victim, and the motive of her offense, evoked a sympathy in the popular heart which found later expression in song and, drama.
"None of the performers, except the old woman, lifted the feet from the ground while singing—but all swayed their bodies in time to the melody. The singing lasted more than one hour, during which the voices never failed in their quality; and yet, so far from being weary of it, and although I could not understand a word uttered, I felt very sorry when it was all over. And with the pleasure received there came to the foreign listener also a strong sense of sympathy for the young singers, victims of a prejudice so ancient that its origin is no longer known."