The Festival of the Dolls occurred on the third day of the third month. This day was especially devoted to the girls, and to them it was the greatest day of the year. All the dolls belonging to the family were brought out and which had been accumulating in some families for hundreds of years. When a daughter was born in a home, two images of wood or enameled clay were bought for her, with which she played, and when she was married she took them to her new home and kept them for her children, as well as any other dolls she might have. "The Tokugawa collection, of which I have spoken, is remarkably full and costly, for it has been making for hundreds of years in one of the younger branches of a family which for two and a half centuries was possessed of almost imperial power, and lived in more than imperial luxury; but there are few households so poor that they do not from year to year accumulate a little store of toys wherewith to celebrate the feast, and, whether the toys are many or few, the feast is the event of the year in the lives of the little girls of Japan."[123]
On the fifth day of the fifth month was celebrated the Festival of the Banners, which was celebrated in honor of the boys, and it was to them the greatest day in the year. On this day all kinds of military toys were displayed, such as heroes, warriors, generals, soldiers, etc. Also there were flags, streamers, banners, etc. A set of these toys was bought for every son born in the family. So as with the display of dolls, in old Japanese families the display on the Feast of Banners was very great. About the houses and on poles in the yards were hung long paper pennons of every color, banners with coats of arms, and also attached to a pole by a string was a paper fish, hollow so that as the wind filled it out it would flop its tail and fins in a most natural way. This paper fish was to show that a son had been born during the year or that there were sons in the family.
The Feast of Lanterns occurred on the seventh day of the seventh month. On this occasion the whole city or town was decorated with lanterns. In some places little girls would go in crowds through the streets and sing with all their might while swinging paper lanterns.
"The fifth festival takes place on the ninth day of the ninth month, and is called the Feast of Chrysanthemums. At all the family repasts during the day, the leaves of chrysanthemum flowers are scattered over the cups of tea and saké. It is believed that the libations prepared in this manner have the power of prolonging life. The citizen of Tokio would consider that he was wanting in his duty as a good husband and father, if he should partake sparingly of this specific."[124]
That children enjoyed themselves and that they were helped to enjoy themselves was well shown in the abundance of toys and toy-shops and many holidays on which to display them. The streets of the towns and cities were full of toy-shops, where every kind of toys imaginable could be found. Too, toys, and especially the religious varieties, were displayed for sale about the temples on feast days. There were images of the various gods and of implements and appliances used about the temples. There were on the streets toys of all kinds of animals, of wrestlers and acrobats, of soldiers, etc., etc. Dolls were one of the strongest features of toy-makers and toy-sellers. "Here let me tell you something you certainly never heard of before in relation to Japanese dolls,—not the tiny O-Hina-San I was just speaking about, but the beautiful life-sized dolls representing children of two or three years old; real toy-babes which, although far more cheaply and simply constructed than our finer kinds of Western dolls, become, under the handling of a Japanese girl, infinitely more interesting. Such dolls are well dressed, and look so life-like,—little slanting eyes, shaven pates, smiles, and all!—that as seen from a short distance the best eyes might be deceived by them. Therefore, in those stock photographs of Japanese life, of which so many thousands are sold in the open ports, the conventional baby on the mother's back is most successfully represented by a doll. Even the camera does not betray the substitution. And if you see such a doll, though held, quite close to you, being made by a Japanese mother to reach out its hands, to move its little bare feet, and to turn its head, you would be almost afraid to venture a heavy wager that it was only a doll. Even after having closely examined the thing, you would still, I fancy, feel a little nervous at being left alone with it, so perfect the delusion of that expert handling.
"Now there is a belief that some dolls do actually become alive.
"Formerly the belief was less rare than it is now. Certain dolls were spoken of with reverence worthy of the Kami, and their owners were envied folk. Such a doll was treated like a real son or daughter: it was regularly served with food; it had a bed, and plenty of nice clothes, and a name. If in the semblance of a girl, it was O-Toku-San; if in that of a boy, Tokutarō-San. It was thought that the doll would become angry and cry if neglected, and that any ill-treatment of it would bring ill-fortune to the house. And, moreover, it was believed to possess supernatural powers of a very high order.
"In the family of one Sengoku, a samurai of Matsue, there was a Tokutarō-San which had a local reputation scarcely inferior to that of Kishibojin,—she to whom Japanese wives pray for offspring. And childless couples used to borrow that doll, and keep it for a time,—ministering unto it,—and furnish it with new clothes before gratefully returning it to its owners. And all who did so, I am assured, became parents, according to their heart's desire. 'Sengoku's doll had a soul.' There is even a legend that once, when the house caught fire, the Tokutarō-San ran out safely into the garden of its own accord!
"The idea about such a doll seems to be this: The new doll is only a doll. But a doll which is preserved for a great many years in one family, and is loved and played with by generations of children, gradually acquires a soul."[125]
There was an abundance of outdoor sports among the Japanese children. Beginning with the New Year there came the great game with the girls of battledore and shuttlecock. The girls made a beautiful sight, of which, no doubt, they were aware. With their gayest dresses, hair arranged in a most pleasing way, faces powdered and lips painted, the graceful, rhythmic motion of their bodies, their bright eyes and laughing faces, all combined to make them and their sport a most attractive scene. Kite-flying was about as great an amusement in Japan as in China. All kinds and sizes of kites were used. Some represented birds, others men, and yet others monsters. Kite-fights were of frequent occurrence. A part of the kite-string was smeared with glue and then sprinkled with powdered glass, which prepared it for sawing another kite-string in two, thus causing it to fall and become the property of the one sawing the string. To make the fight the more realistic, at the top of the frame of the kite was set a piece of whalebone, which in vibrating in the wind made the most blood-curdling howls. Also contests in tops were held, in which it was the aim to damage one another's tops and stop the spinning. There was leaping and running and jumping and wrestling and slinging. They played blind-man's-buff, prisoner's base, and pussy wants a corner, but in these last two instead of the officer and Puss, the oni, or devil, was the chief performer. They had stilts and handled them so well as to play games on them and run races. Where there was snow and ice, the Japanese children coasted, built snow-forts, fought battles with snow-balls, and the like. They made snow-men in the likeness of Daruma, a follower of Buddha, who lost his legs by paralysis and decay from long meditation and prayer in a squatting position.