Japanese Plays and Playfellows

by Osman Edwards

Dancers at Feast of Lanterns.

Geisha, dramatic reciters, jugglers, and itinerant musicians never reach such solitary heights. But, happily for us, the Bon-Odori, those antique dances, which should have been danced on All Souls’ Day by the modernised Ikao folk, began in this neighbourhood two nights after our arrival. The landlord requested a contribution of forty sen (about fourpence), which we readily doubled, for the benefit of the performers. Then ensued a long wait, for, if Japanese city-people are dilatory, no adjective exists which could do justice to the country-people’s contempt for celerity. Always accurate, Murray very properly translates tadaima (immediately) by “anytime between now and Christmas.” First one lantern entered the courtyard; after half-an-hour, another; one by one the young men and maidens assembled; forty minutes more elapsed before the musicians could be induced to appear: at last a flute-player and a drummer squatted on a mat in the centre, while the dancers circled slowly about them. Youths and girls wore a blue kerchief tied round the temples: they revolved, as in a game of “Follow my leader,” without ever touching hands; two steps forward, a half-turn, two steps back, and at irregular intervals a clapping of hands. Such was the simple measure. But the waving of arms and the graceful free gestures of these rustic coryphées were only less effective than the strange chanting, which rose or sank in volume as the number of participants increased or fell away. And what do you suppose they sang? Something in the following vein, one might imagine:

“While we loudly dance and sing,

Spirits of our dead return,

Guided, where the lanterns burn;

In the houses they will find

Rice and water left behind;

Then sail in boats of straw away,

Until next Bon-Odori day.