"On the fifteenth day of the first month[277] green bamboos are burnt in the courtyard of the Seiryōden, and happy reports[278] sent up to Heaven therewith. On the eighteenth also bamboos are dressed up with fans attached to them, which are burnt at the same place. There is a reader of spells called Daikoku Matsudaiyu, who has four followers, two old men and two old women. These wear devil-masks and 'red-bear' wigs. The two old women carry drums, and the two old men run after them trying to beat the drums. There are two boys without masks, but with 'red-bear' wigs, who beat double cymbals. Moreover, there are five men in dress of ceremony who stand in a row and join in with cries of 'dondoya,' while one costumed somewhat differently calls out 'Ha!'"
The Wakan Sansai does not know the origin of this ceremony, which is said to expel demons. There is a similar Chinese practice, though on a different date, namely, the first day of the year. Its object is said to be to drive away mountain elves.
Mikado matsuri.--This ceremony was in honour of two Gate Gods named Kushi-iha-mado (wondrous-rock-gate) and Toyo-iha-mado (rich-rock-gate).[279] The Yengishiki contains a norito (No. 9) in which their praises are fulfilled, because they prevent the entrance to the Palace of noxious things and exercise a superintendence over the persons who come in and go out.
Tsuina or Oni-yarahi, that is to say, demon expelling, is a sort of drama in which disease, or more generally ill-luck, is personified, and driven away with threats and a show of violence. Like the Oho-harahi, it was performed on the last day of the year. This association is only natural. The demons of the tsuina are personified wintry influences, with the diseases which they bring with them, while the Oho-harahi is intended to cleanse the people from sin and uncleanness, things closely related to disease, as well as from disease itself. Though probably of Chinese origin, the tsuina is a tolerably ancient rite. It is alluded to in the Nihongi under the date a.d. 689. It was at one time performed at Court on an imposing scale. Four bands of twenty youths, each wearing a four-eyed mask, and each carrying a halberd in the left hand, marched simultaneously from the four gates of the Palace, driving the devils before them. Another account of this ceremony says that a man disguised himself as the demon of pestilence, in which garb he was shot at and driven off by the courtiers armed with peach-wood bows and arrows of reed. (See illustration, [p. 310.]) Peach-wood staves were used for the same purpose. There was formerly a practice at Asa-kusa in Tokio on the last day of the year for a man got up as a devil to be chased round the pagoda there by another wearing a mask. After this 3,000 tickets were scrambled for by the spectators. These were carried away and pasted up over the doors as a charm against pestilence. At the present day, the popular form of tsuina consists in scattering parched beans with the cry, "Oni ha soto: fuku ha uchi," that is, "Out with the devils and in with the luck." The former phrase is uttered in a loud voice, the latter in a low tone. This office should properly be discharged by the head of the family, but it is frequently delegated to a servant. The performer is called the toshi-otoko, or year-man. In the Shōgun's palace a specially appointed toshi-otoko sprinkled parched beans in all the principal rooms. These beans were picked up by the women of the palace, who wrapped them in paper in number equal to the years of their age, and then flung them backwards out of doors. Sometimes tsuina beans were gathered by people who had reached an unlucky year (yaku-toshi), one for each year of their age and one over, and wrapped in paper with a small copper coin, which had been rubbed over their body to transfer the ill-luck. These were placed in a bamboo tube and flung away at crossroads. This was called yaku-sute (flinging away ill-luck). Other people pass under seven tori-wi as an antidote.
The significance of the peach and bean in this ceremony has been already explained.[280] The vulgar notion is that the beans hit the devils in the eye and blind them. A more philosophical theory is that the beans dispel the in-aku no ki, or female evil influences, and welcome in the sei-yō, green male influences. By the female influences are here meant wintry influences; by male influences those of spring.
Mr. J. G. Frazer, in 'The Golden Bough,' iii. 67, second edition, gives an interesting account of another Japanese form of this custom.
