Japanese Girls and Women by Alice Mabel Bacon (best e reader for epub .txt) 📕

When the builders have left, and the house is ready for occupation, even to the soft, thick mats on the floor and the white paper windows, the family will move in on the first day thereafter that is both lucky and pleasant. So far as possible, everything in the old house will be packed and ready the day before, and very early in the morning the relatives and friends of the mover will begin to rally around him. All come who can, and those who cannot come send servants or provisions. Every tradesman or kurumaya who has had or who hopes to have the patronage of the moving household sends a representative to help along the work, so that there is always a sufficient force to carry the household belongings into the new home and settle them in place before the day is over. All these visiting helpers must be fed and provided with tea and cakes at proper intervals, and the presents of cooked food that pour in at such times are highly acceptable and of great practical usefulness. When the long day is ended and the visitors return one by one to their homes, it is the mistress of the house who must see that every servant and representative of a business firm receives, neatly done up in white paper, a present of money properly proportioned to his services, and the style and circumstances of the family he has been aiding. And when all are gone, the shutters closed, and the family left alone in their new home, the little wife must make a list of all who have helped in any way during the day, and to all, within a short time, make some acknowledgment of their kindness by either a call or a present. It is upon the wife, too, that the duty falls of sending to each of the near neighbors soba, a kind of macaroni, as an announcement of the family's arrival. The number of neighbors to whom this gift is sent is determined differently according to circumstances. If the house is one of several in a compound, soba will be sent to all within the gate; but if the compound is very large, so that the sending to all would be too great an expense, the five nearest houses will be selected to receive the gift, or all who draw water from the same well. A very late fashion in Tōkyō, but one that is gaining ground because of its convenience, is to send, not the macaroni itself, but an order on the nearest restaurant at which that delicacy is sold.

As I have already said, much of a woman's time and thought must be given to the proper distribution of presents among friends and dependents. The subject of what to give, when to give, to whom to give, and how to do up the gift acceptably, is one the thorough understanding of which requires the study of years. No foreigner can hope to do more than dabble in the shallows of it. Presents seem to be used more for the purpose of keeping those persons whose services you may need, or whose enmity you dread, under a sense of obligation, than they are as expressions of sentiment. Every housekeeper, for instance, must need the occasional services of a carpenter or a gardener, and in a large city like Tōkyō the chances are that she will some day need, and need very badly, the services of a fireman. A wise woman—one who is not penny wise and pound foolish—will by timely presents keep herself constantly in the minds of such persons, so that when she sends for them, they may feel under sufficient obligation to her to come at once. So will her house be quickly put in repair after earthquake or other accident; her garden show for only the briefest interval the ravages of the typhoon which has gullied out her lawn and leveled her choicest trees; and when some night "the flower of Yedo" blooms suddenly by her side, she will have the speedy assistance of the firemen, who will seal her storehouse securely with clay, wet her roof and walls thoroughly with water, and light at her gates the great alarm lanterns to tell her friends that her house is in danger and summon them to her assistance. No friend can disregard such a signal, but all will rally round her once more to help in this less orderly and cheerful moving,—will pack and cord and carry out her goods, and if at last the fire consumes her dwelling, will gather her household and belongings into their hospitable homes. But the foolish woman, who neglects or forgets her dependents when she does not need them, finds some day that her roof is leaking, but all the carpenters are too busy to mend it, her garden is destroyed because the gardener had an important engagement elsewhere just when she needed him, and her property is burned up or ruined by water and smoke because the firemen attended to her house last when the fire swept over her compound.

When death enters a house in Japan, there are no undertakers to relieve the family of the painful duty of caring for the dead body and placing it in the coffin. There are coffin-makers and funeral managers who supply the great white bier and lanterns and the bunches of paper flowers that adorn every funeral procession, but within the house the preparations are all made by the family and friends, and the heaviest and most painful part of the work falls, as usual, on the women of the family. As soon as the breath finally leaves the body, it is wrapped in a quilt, laid with its head to the north, and an inverted screen placed around it. On one corner of the screen is hung a sword or knife to keep off any evil spirit that may wander into the room in the shape of a cat and disturb the dead.

Etiquette requires that relatives and intimate friends of the family call immediately on learning of the death. To receive these calls the mourners, in full ceremonial dress, must sit in the death chamber and remove for each guest the covering from the face of the dead. The visitors then offer the ceremonial bows to the corpse, as if it were alive. During this time, too, presents to the spirit of the dead are pouring in. The proper offerings are flowers, cake, vegetables, candles, incense, or small gifts of money for the purchase of incense. If the deceased is a person of rank or distinction, the house is flooded with cumbersome and useless offerings. This custom has become so great an addition to the trials necessarily incident to a bereavement that one occasionally sees in the newspaper announcements of deaths a request that no offerings to the dead be sent.

On the day after the death, often in the evening, the body must be placed in the cask-shaped coffin that until recently was the style commonly in use in Japan. Now, among the wealthier classes, the long coffin has superseded the small square or round one, but the smaller expense connected with burial in the old way makes the survival of the old type a necessity for the majority of Japanese. At an appointed time all the relatives assemble in the death chamber, and preparations are made for the bathing of the corpse. Two of the tatami, or floor mats, are turned over, and upon them are placed a new tub, a new pail, and a new dipper. These utensils must have no metal of any kind about them. In the washing of the body none but members of the family must assist, and respect for the dead absolutely requires that all the relatives of the deceased who are below him in rank must have a hand in these final ablutions. In Japan, the mourning for the dead is the duty of inferiors, never of superiors. There is no official, ceremonial mourning of parents for their children, nor does custom require them to perform any of the last rites, or attend the funeral. Upon the younger brothers and sisters falls the duty of attending to all the last sad ministrations. If the wife dies, her husband does not mourn for her, though her children do; but if the husband dies, the wife must mourn the rest of her life, cutting off her hair and placing it in the coffin as a sign of her perpetual faithfulness.

When the body has been washed, it is dressed in white, in silk habutai whenever the family can afford it. The dress, which must be appropriate to the season, in the making of which all the women of the family must assist, is the plain, straight kimono, but must be folded from right to left, instead of from left to right as in life. The body, to be placed in the coffin, must be folded into a sitting posture, the chin resting upon the knees,—the position of the mummies found in many aboriginal American tombs. This difficult, to us apparently impossible feat, safely accomplished, there are placed in the coffin a number of small things that the dead takes with him to the next world. Some of these have been already mentioned, the others are little keepsakes, or perhaps tokens of the tastes and employments of the dead,—dice, cards, saké bottles, the image of a horse, toy weapons,—anything, provided only that it be not of metal, may be used for this purpose. The single exception to this rule about metal is that small copper coins may be put in, to fee the old hag who guards the bank of the river of death. Last of all, the vacant spaces in the coffin are filled in with bags of tea. Then the coffin is closed and nailed up, wrapped with a white silk cloth fastened with a white silk or cotton cord, and placed on a high stand, and food and incense are placed before it.

So long as the coffin is in the house, it must be watched over continually. To aid in this protracted vigil, which must be kept up day and night until the burial, the relatives, friends, and retainers of the dead assemble at the house in large numbers. In the case of a person of wealth and influence, there will often be a hundred or more of these watchers, who must be fed and cared for; and who take turns in watching, eating, and sleeping. It is their duty to see that the incense burning before the coffin is never allowed to go out, while the food for the dead is renewed at regular intervals by the mourners themselves.

This somewhat detailed description of the duties to be performed by the members of a bereaved family in the house of mourning is sufficient to show that the presence of death in the home is made as terrible as possible by the painful ceremonies, the continual bustle and excitement, and the strain upon the resources and executive ability of the housekeeper and her assistants. There are few enlightened Japanese who will defend the present system of cruelty to the afflicted, or who do not long for some change, but