Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan Volume II Part 27

10 Speaking of the supposed power of certain trees to cure toothache, I may mention a curious superst.i.tion about the yanagi, or willow-tree.

Sufferers from toothache sometimes stick needles into the tree, believing that the pain caused to the tree-spirit will force it to exercise its power to cure. I could not, however, find any record of this practice in Oki.

11 Moxa, a corruption of the native name of the mugwort plant: moe- kusa, or mogusa, 'the burning weed.' Small cones of its fibre are used for cauterising, according to the old Chinese system of medicine--the little cones being placed upon the patient's skin, lighted, and left to smoulder until wholly consumed. The result is a profound scar. The moxa is not only used therapeutically, but also as a punishment for very naughty children. See the interesting note on this subject in Professor Chamberlain's Things j.a.panese.

12 Nure botoke, 'a wet G.o.d.' This term is applied to the statue of a deity left exposed to the open air.

13 According to popular legend, in each eye of the child of a G.o.d or a dragon two Buddhas are visible. The statement in some of the j.a.panese ballads, that the hero sung of had four Buddhas in his eyes, is equivalent to the declaration that each of his eyes had a double-pupil.

14 The idea of the Atman will perhaps occur to many readers.

15 In 1892 a j.a.panese newspaper, published in Tokyo stated upon the authority of a physician who had visited Shimane, that the people of Oki believe in ghostly dogs instead of ghostly foxes. This is a mistake caused by the literal rendering of a term often used in Shi-mane, especially in Iwami, namely, inu-gami-mochi. It is only a euphemism for kitsune-mochi; the inu-gami is only the hito-kitsune, which is supposed to make itself visible in various animal forms.

16 Which words signify something like this:

'Sleep, baby, sleep! Why are the honourable ears of the Child of the Hare of the honourable mountain so long? 'Tis because when he dwelt within her honoured womb, his mamma ate the leaves of the loquat, the leaves of the bamboo-gra.s.s, That is why his honourable ears are so long.'

17 The j.a.panese police are nearly all of the samurai cla.s.s, now called shizoku. I think this force may be considered the most perfect police in the world; but whether it will retain those magnificent qualities which at present distinguish it, after the lapse of another generation, is doubtful. It is now the samurai blood that tells.

Notes for Chapter Nine

1 Afterwards I found that the old man had expressed to me only one popular form of a belief which would require a large book to fully explain--a belief founded upon Chinese astrology, but possibly modified by Buddhist and by Shinto ideas. This notion of compound Souls cannot be explained at all without a prior knowledge of the astrological relation between the Chinese Zodiacal Signs and the Ten Celestial Stems. Some understanding of these may be obtained from the curious article 'Time,'

in Professor Chamberlain's admirable little book, Things j.a.panese. The relation having been perceived, it is further necessary to know that under the Chinese astrological system each year is under the influence of one or other of the 'Five Elements'--Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water; and according to the day and year of one's birth, one's temperament is celestially decided. A j.a.panese mnemonic verse tells us the number of souls or natures corresponding to each of the Five Elemental Influences --namely, nine souls for Wood, three for Fire, one for Earth, seven for Metal, five for Water:

Kiku karani Himitsu no yama ni Tsuchi hitotsu Nanatsu kane to zo Go suiryo are.

Multiplied into ten by being each one divided into 'Elder' and 'Younger,' the Five Elements become the Ten Celestial Stems; and their influences are commingled with those of the Rat, Bull, Tiger, Hare, Dragon, Serpent, Horse, Goat, Ape, c.o.c.k, Dog, and Boar (the twelve Zodiacal Signs)--all of which have relations to time, place, life, luck, misfortune, etc. But even these hints give no idea whatever how enormously complicated the subject really is.

The book the old gardener referred to--once as widely known in j.a.pan as every fortune-telling book in any European country--was the San-re-so, copies of which may still be picked up. Contrary to Kinjuro's opinion, however, it is held, by those learned in such Chinese matters, just as bad to have too many souls as to have too few. To have nine souls is to be too 'many-minded'--without fixed purpose; to have only one soul is to lack quick intelligence. According to the Chinese astrological ideas, the word 'natures' or 'characters' would perhaps be more accurate than the word 'souls' in this case. There is a world of curious fancies, born out of these beliefs. For one example of hundreds, a person having a Fire-nature must not marry one having a Water-nature. Hence the proverbial saying about two who cannot agree--'They are like Fire and Water.'

2 Usually an Inari temple. Such things are never done at the great Shinto shrines.

Notes for Chapter Ten

1 In other parts of j.a.pan I have heard the Yuki-Onna described as a very beautiful phantom who lures young men to lonesome places for the purpose of sucking their blood.

2 In Izumo the Dai-Kan, or Period of Greatest Cold, falls in February.

3 'It is excellent: I pray you give me a little more.'

4 Kwashi: j.a.panese confectionery

Notes for Chapter Eleven

1 The reader will find it well worth his while to consult the chapter ent.i.tled 'Domestic Service,' in Miss Bacon's j.a.panese Girls and Women, for an interesting and just presentation of the practical side of the subject, as relating to servants of both s.e.xes. The poetical side, however, is not treated of--perhaps because intimately connected with religious beliefs which one writing from the Christian standpoint could not be expected to consider sympathetically. Domestic service in ancient j.a.pan was both transfigured and regulated by religion; and the force of the religious sentiment concerning it may be divined from the Buddhist saying, still current:

Oya-ko wa is-se, Fufu wa ni-se, Shuju wa san-se.

The relation of parent and child endures for the s.p.a.ce of one life only; that of husband and wife for the s.p.a.ce of two lives; but the relation between msater and servant continues for the period of three existences.

2 The shocks continued, though with lessening frequency and violence, for more than six months after the cataclysm.

3 Of course the converse is the rule in condoling with the sufferer.

4 Dhammapada.

5 Dammikkasutta.

6 Dhammapada.

7 These extracts from a translation in the j.a.pan Daily Mail, November 19, 20, 1890, of Viscount Torio's famous conservative essay do not give a fair idea of the force and logic of the whole. The essay is too long to quote entire; and any extracts from the Mail's admirable translation suffer by their isolation from the singular chains of ethical, religious, and philosophical reasoning which bind the Various parts of the composition together. The essay was furthermore remarkable as the production of a native scholar totally uninfluenced by Western thought.

He correctly predicted those social and political disturbances which have occurred in j.a.pan since the opening of the new parliament. Viscount Torio is also well known as a master of Buddhist philosophy. He holds a high rank in the j.a.panese army.

8 In expressing my earnest admiration of this wonderful book, I must, however, declare that several of its conclusions, and especially the final ones, represent the extreme reverse of my own beliefs on the subject. I do not think the j.a.panese without individuality; but their individuality is less superficially apparent, and reveals itself much less quickly, than that of Western people. I am also convinced that much of what we call 'personality' and 'force of character' in the West represents only the survival and recognition of primitive aggressive tendencies, more or less disguised by culture. What Mr. Spencer calls the highest individuation surely does not include extraordinary development of powers adapted to merely aggressive ends; and yet it is rather through these than through any others that Western individuality most commonly and readily manifests itself. Now there is, as yet, a remarkable scarcity in j.a.pan, of domineering, brutal, aggressive, or morbid individuality. What does impress one as an apparent weakness in j.a.panese intellectual circles is the comparative absence of spontaneity, creative thought, original perceptivity of the highest order. Perhaps this seeming deficiency is racial: the peoples of the Far East seem to have been throughout their history receptive rather than creative. At all events I cannot believe Buddhism--originally the faith of an Aryan race--can be proven responsible. The total exclusion of Buddhist influence from public education would not seem to have been stimulating; for the masters of the old Buddhist philosophy still show a far higher capacity for thinking in relations than that of the average graduate of the Imperial University. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that an intellectual revival of Buddhism--a harmonising of its loftier truths with the best and broadest teachings of modern science--would have the most important results for j.a.pan.

9 Herbert Spencer. A native scholar, Mr. Inouye Enryo, has actually founded at Tokyo with this n.o.ble object in view, a college of philosophy which seems likely, at the present writing, to become an influential inst.i.tution.