A Japanese Bed
Though the wearing of white garments and other formalities of the special mourning, called imi, cease at the end of fifty days at the longest, bright colors are not to be worn, or a Shintō temple to be entered, for thirteen months, and this is called buku. For a husband, imi lasts thirty days and buku thirteen months; for a wife, imi twenty days and buku three months; for grandparents and uncles, the periods are thirty days and five months; for an eldest brother or sister, or aunt on the father’s side, and great-grandparents, twenty days and three months; for great-great-grandparents and aunts on the mother’s side, fathers and mothers-in-law, brother-in-law or sister-in-law, or eldest grandchild, ten days and one month; for other grandchildren, and for cousins of either sex, and their children, three days and seven days. For children under the age of seven years, whatever the relationship, there is no mourning.
The great dignitaries must wear mourning for the Shōgun; all officers, civil and military, for their princes; and whoever derives his subsistence from another must mourn for him as for a father. Pupils also must mourn for their teacher, education being esteemed equivalent to a livelihood. The sons of a mother repudiated by her husband and expelled from his house mourn for her as if dead.
In case of persons holding office, who die suddenly without previously having resigned in favor of their heirs, it is not unusual to bury them the night after their death, in a private manner. The death, though whispered about, is not officially announced. The heir, who dresses and acts as usual, notifies the authorities that his father is sick and wishes to resign. Having obtained the succession, he soon after announces his father’s death, and the formal funeral and mourning then take place.
The honors paid to deceased parents do not terminate with the mourning. Every month, on the day of the ancestor’s decease, for fifty, or even for a hundred years, food, sweetmeats, and fruit are set before the ihai. One hundred days after the decease of a father or mother, an entertainment is to be given to all the intimate friends, including the priest who presided at the funeral. This is to be repeated a year from the death; and again on the third, seventh, thirteenth, twenty-fifth, thirty-third, fiftieth, hundredth, and hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and so on, as long as the family exists. To secure the due payment to themselves of funeral honors, those who have no sons of their own adopt one. If any accident, fortunate or disastrous, happens to the family, it is formally communicated to the ihai, such as the birth of a child, a safe return from a journey, etc. In case of floods or fires, the ihai must be saved in preference to everything else, their loss being regarded as the greatest of misfortunes.
The fifteenth day of the seventh Japanese month is a festival, devoted to the honor of parents and ancestors. Every Japanese whose parents are still living considers this a happy day. People regale themselves and their children with fish. Married sons and daughters, or adopted sons, send presents to their parents. On the evening of the 13th, the ihai are taken from their cases, and a repast set before them of vegetables and the fruits then ripening. In the middle is set a vase, in which perfumes are burnt, and other vases containing flowers. The next day, meals of rice, tea, and other food are regularly served to the ihai, as to living guests.
Towards evening, lanterns, suspended from long bamboos, are lighted before each hiseki, or gravestone, and refreshments are also placed there. This is repeated on the fifteenth. Before daylight of the sixteenth the articles placed at the graves are packed into small boats of straw, provided with sails of paper or cloth, which are earned in procession, with vocal and instrumental music and loud cries, to the waterside, where they are launched, by way of dismissing the souls of the dead, who are supposed now to return to their graves. “This festival,” says Titsingh, speaking of its celebration at Nagasaki, “produces a highly picturesque effect. Outside the town, the view of it from the island Deshima is one of the most beautiful. The spectator would almost imagine that he beheld a torrent of fire pouring from the hill, owing to the immense number of small boats that are carried to the shore to be turned adrift on the sea. In the middle of the night, and when there is a brisk wind, the agitation of the water causing all these lights to dance to and fro, produces an enchanting scene. The noise and bustle in the town, the sound of gongs and the voices of the priests, combine to form a discord that can scarcely be conceived. The whole bay seems to be covered with ignes fatui. Though these barks have sails of paper, or stronger stuff, very few of them pass the place where our ships lie at anchor. In spite of the guards, thousands of paupers rush into the water to secure the small copper coin and other things placed in them. Next day, they strip the barks of all that is left, and the tide carries them out to sea. Thus terminates this ceremony.”[80]
CHAPTER XLII
Exploration of the Northern Japanese Seas—First Russian Mission to Japan—Professorship of Japanese at Irkutsk—New Restrictions on the Dutch—Embarrassments growing out of the War of the French Revolution—American Flag at Nagasaki—Captain Stewart—Ingenuity of a Japanese Fisherman—Heer Doeff, Director at Deshima—Suspicious Proceedings of Captain Stewart—Russian Embassy—Klaproth’s Knowledge of Japanese—Doeff’s First Journey to Yedo—Dutch Trade in 1804 and 1806—An American Ship at Nagasaki—The British Frigate “Phaeton”—No Ships from Batavia—The Dutch on Short Allowance—English Ships from Batavia—Communication again suspended—Dutch and Japanese Dictionary—Children at the Factory—A. D. 1792-1817.
Till comparatively a recent period Europe was very much in the dark as to the geography of northeastern Asia. Through the explorations and conquests of the Russians, Kamtchatka (long before visited by the Japanese) first became known to Europeans, about the year 1700. The exploration of the Kurile Islands, stretching from the southern point of that peninsula, led the Russians towards Japan. In 1713, the Cossack Kosierewski reached Kunajiri (the twentieth Kurile, according to the Russian reckoning, beginning from Kamtchatka), close to the northeastern coast of Yezo, and claimed by the Japanese. In 1736, Spagenburg, a Dane in the Russian service, visited all the southern Kuriles, coasted the island of Yezo, made the land of Nippon, and entered several harbors on its eastern coast. These explorations were renewed by Potonchew in 1777; but it was not till 1787 that La Perouse obtained for Europe the first distinct knowledge of the outline of the Sea of Japan, of the relative situations of Sakhalin and Yezo, and of the strait between them, which still bears his name.