JAPANESE WAR-SONG
| Ana u-reshi | yo-ro-ko-bashi | ta-ta-kai ka-chi no |
| Oh, how full of bliss, | how delightful ’tis, | When you fight, to win the day! |
| Momo chi-ji no | Ad-a wa mina | A-to naka nari nu |
| Hundreds went before, | Thousands are no more, | All our foes have passed away. |
Though precociously intelligent, Zaburo was not too old to play with toys, and the gift of a pop-gun cemented our too brief alliance.
In the middle of July falls the Buddhist festival of Bon, better known as the Feast of Lanterns, when the souls of the dead revisit the living. The decay of religion has unfortunately robbed this touching celebration of its more striking features. Formerly on the eve of the fête the graves were hung with lanterns, that the spirits might be lighted on the way to their old homes. On the day itself the villagers fasted, but left before the household shrine flowers and water and a little food, while they went out towards evening and danced in a large circle, singing quaint songs and clapping their hands to the strains of drum and flute. Then, when the time was come for the spirits to return, on river and stream were launched a fleet of tiny boats of straw, each with its paper lantern, in which the invisible visitors were wafted back to shadow-land. These things are done no more, or only in remote rural districts. Danger to shipping caused the floating of little fire-ships to be prohibited in the ports, while at Tōkyō the ceremony of “opening the river” covers the Sumidagawa with gay pleasure-boats, and in the secular crackle of fireworks the sacred associations of the day are forgotten. In the villages the peasants have not abandoned the dance, which town-folk delegate to geisha, but its date varies from district to district, and I did not witness one until a month later at Akakura. Yet Ikao has contrived to preserve the more pious aspect of All Souls’ Day by two simple services of devotion in graveyard and temple.
By the merest accident I caught sight of a group of women passing through a dark grove of cryptomeria, whose lofty aisles are sown with innumerable tombs. I had often been there, allured by the tranquil images of Buddha, whose face and posture seemed eloquent of everlasting repose. To-day their silent watch was broken by the passage of many rustling skirts and gentle laughter, for even in such places the childish musumé does not deem it sinful to smile. I struck across the wood and recognised the sister of my landlord, Kindayu San, accompanied by three or four serving-women. One carried a kettle of boiling water, another some sticks of incense, and a third some flowers. Permission being accorded to join them, I went along with them to more than thirty graves. On each a little water was poured, a little incense burned, and the prayer, “Namu Amida Butsu,” uttered. The humblest of the dead was equally honoured with the nearest kinsman, and, after relations by marriage or adoption had been visited, the last to receive salutation was a banto, or temporary bookkeeper, who had died four years before after eight years’ service. “Will not the honourable stranger also make a prayer?” was asked, and I complied, repeating “Namu Amida Butsu,” “I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha,” in the hope that their god would understand that his claim to adoration by barbarian lips lay in the kind memorial offices which his faith inspired. Many of the graves lay so far apart that we had crossed two valleys and found ourselves some miles from home at the luncheon-hour of noon. So we entered the nearest tea-house and were served with tea and sweet cakes. As the proprietor had a small stock of sacred images for sale, I bought for a souvenir of the day two clay foxes with tails gilded at the tip, the snarling door-keepers of the rice-goddess; but Inari must have rejected in anger my mock homage, for three weeks later in a carefully packed yanagori I grieved to find chaotic “fragments of no more a” fox.
