“What has become of Riki?” I then asked the old woodcutter who supplies our neighborhood with fuel. I remembered that Riki had often helped him to carry his bundles.
“Riki-Baka?” answered the old man. “Ah, Riki is dead—poor fellow!... Yes, he died nearly a year ago, very suddenly; the doctors said that he had some disease of the brain. And there is a strange story now about that poor Riki.
“When Riki died, his mother wrote his name, ‘Riki-Baka,’ in the palm of his left hand,—putting ‘Riki’ in the Chinese character, and ‘Baka’ in kana (1). And she repeated many prayers for him,—prayers that he might be reborn into some more happy condition.
“Now, about three months ago, in the honorable residence of Nanigashi-Sama (2), in Kojimachi (3), a boy was born with characters on the palm of his left hand; and the characters were quite plain to read,—‘RIKI-BAKA’!
“So the people of that house knew that the birth must have happened in answer to somebody’s prayer; and they caused inquiry to be made everywhere. At last a vegetable-seller brought word to them that there used to be a simple lad, called Riki-Baka, living in the Ushigomé quarter, and that he had died during the last autumn; and they sent two men-servants to look for the mother of Riki.
“Those servants found the mother of Riki, and told her what had happened; and she was glad exceedingly—for that Nanigashi house is a very rich and famous house. But the servants said that the family of Nanigashi-Sama were very angry about the word ‘Baka’ on the child’s hand. ‘And where is your Riki buried?’ the servants asked. ‘He is buried in the cemetery of Zendōji,’ she told them. ‘Please to give us some of the clay of his grave,’ they requested.
“So she went with them to the temple Zendōji, and showed them Riki’s grave; and they took some of the grave-clay away with them, wrapped up in a furoshiki[[1]]].... They gave Riki’s mother some money,—ten yen.”... (4)
“But what did they want with that clay?” I inquired.
“Well,” the old man answered, “you know that it would not do to let the child grow up with that name on his hand. And there is no other means of removing characters that come in that way upon the body of a child: you must rub the skin with clay taken from the grave of the body of the former birth.”...