The Foundations of Japan Part 15

We had before us a week's travel by _kuruma_. Otherwise we should have liked to have brought away specimens of the wooden utensils of some of the villages. The travelling woodworker whom we often encountered--he has to travel about in order to reach new sources of wood supply--has been despised because of his unsettled habits, but I was told that there was a special deity to look after him. In the town we had left there was delightful woodwork, but most of the draper's stuff was pitiful trash made after what was supposed to be foreign fas.h.i.+ons. I may also mention the large collection of blood-and-thunder stories upon Western models which were piled up in the stationers' shops.

As we walked up into the hills--the _kuruma_ men were sent by an easier route--we pa.s.sed plenty of sweet chestnuts and saw large ma.s.ses of blue single hydrangea and white and pink spirea. We came on the ruined huts of those who had burnt a bit of hillside and taken from it a few crops of buckwheat. The charred trunks of trees stood up among the green undergrowth that had invaded the patches. There was a great deal of plantain and a _kurumaya_ mentioned that sometimes when children found a dead frog they buried it in leaves of that plant.

j.a.panese children are also in the habit of angling for frogs with a piece of plantain. The frogs seize the plantain and are jerked ash.o.r.e.

We took our lunch on a hill top. It had been a stiff climb and we marvelled at the expense to which a poor county must be put for the maintenance of roads which so often hang on cliff sides or span torrents. The great piles of wood acc.u.mulated at the summit turned the talk to "silent trade." In "silent trade" people on one side of a hill traded with people on the other side without meeting. The products were taken to the hill top and left there, usually in a rough shed built to protect the goods from rain. The exchange might be on the principle of barter or of cash payment. But the amount of goods given in exchange or the cash payment made was left to honour. "Silent trade" still continues in certain parts of j.a.pan. Sometimes the price expected for goods is written up in the shed. "Silent trade"

originated because of fears of infectious disease; it survives because it is more convenient for one who has goods to sell or to buy to travel up and down one side of a mountain than up and down two sides.

As we proceeded on our way we were once more struck by the extraordinary wealth of wood. Here is a country where every household is burning wood and charcoal daily, a country where not only the houses but most of the things in common use are made of wood; and there seems to be no end to the trees that remain. It is little wonder that in many parts there has been and is improvident use of wood.

Happily every year the regulation of timber areas and wise planting make progress. But for many square miles of hillside I saw there is no fitting word but jungle.

At the small ramshackle hot-spring inns of the remote hills the guests are mostly country folk. Many of them carefully bring their own rice and _miso_, and are put up at a cost of about 10 sen a day. In the pa.s.sage ways one finds rough boxes about 4 ft. square full of wood ash in the centre of which charcoal may be burned and kettles boiled.

We were in a region where there is snow from the middle of November to the middle of April. For two-thirds of December and January the snow is never less than 2 ft. deep. The attendance of the children at one school during the winter was 95 per cent. for boys and 90 per cent.

for girls. (See note, p. 112.)

My _kurumaya_ pointed to a mountain top where, he said, there were nearly three acres of beautiful flowers. The rice fields in the hills were suffering from lack of water and a deputation of villagers had gone ten miles into the mountains to pray for rain. It is wonderful at what alt.i.tudes rice fields are contrived. I noted some at 2,500 ft. In looking down from a place where the cliff road hung out over the river that flowed a hundred feet below I noticed a stone image lying on its back in the water. It may have come there by accident, but the ducking of such a figure in order to procure rain is not unknown.

At an inn I asked one of the greybeards who courteously visited us if there would be much compet.i.tion for his seat when he retired from the village a.s.sembly. He thought that there would be several candidates.

In the town from which we had set out on our journey through the highlands a doctor had spent 500 yen in trying to get on the a.s.sembly.

The tea at this resting place was poor and someone quoted the proverb, "Even the devil was once eighteen and bad tea has its tolerable first cup." On going to the village office I found that for a population of 2,000 there were, in addition to the village shrine, sixteen other shrines and three Buddhist temples. Against fire there were four fire pumps and 155 "fire defenders." A dozen of the young men of the village were serving in the army, four were home on furlough, six were invalided and forty were of the reserve. As many as thirty-seven had medals. The doctors were two in number and the midwives three. There was a sanitary committee of twenty-three members. The revenue of the village was 5,740 yen. It had a fund of 740 yen "against time of famine." The taxes paid were 2,330 yen for State tax, 2,460 yen for prefectural tax and 4,350 yen for village tax. The village possessed two co-operative societies, a young men's a.s.sociation, a Buddhist young men's a.s.sociation, a Buddhist young women's a.s.sociation, a society for the development of knowledge, a society of the graduates of the primary school, two thrift organisations, a society for "promoting knowledge and virtue," and an a.s.sociation the members of which "aimed at becoming distinguished." There were in the village ninety subscribers to the Red Cross and two dozen members of the national Patriotic Women's a.s.sociation.

In the county through which we were moving there was gold, silver and copper mining.[124] Out of its population of 36,000 only 632 were ent.i.tled to vote for an M.P.

We rested at a school where the motto was, "Even in this good reign I pray because I wish to make our country more glorious." There were portraits of four deceased local celebrities and of Peter the Great, Franklin, Lincoln, Commander Perry and Bismarck. Ill.u.s.trated wall charts showed how to sit on a school seat, how to identify poisonous plants and how to conform to the requirements of etiquette. The following admonitions were also displayed--a copy of them is given to each child, who is expected to read the twelve counsels every morning before coming to school:

1.--Do your own work and don't rely on others to do it.

2.--Be ardent when you learn or play.

3.--Endeavour to do away with your bad habits and cultivate good ones.

4.--Never tell a lie and be careful when you speak.

5.--Do what you think right in your heart and at the same time have good manners.

6.--Overcome difficulties and never hold back from hard work.

7.--Do not make appointments which you are uncertain to keep.

8.--Do not carelessly lend or borrow.

9.--Do not pa.s.s by another's difficulties and do not give another much trouble.

10.--Be careful about things belonging to the public as well as about things belonging to yourself.

11.--Keep the outside and inside of the school clean and also take care of waste paper.

12.--Never play with a grumbling spirit.

There was stuck on the roofs of many houses a rod with a piece of white paper attached, a charm against fire. One house so provided was next door to the fire station. Frequently we pa.s.sed a children's _jizo_ or Buddha, comically decked in the hat and miscellaneous garments of youngsters whose grateful mothers believed them to have been cured by the power of the deity.

Speaking of clothes, it was the hottest July weather and the natural garment was at most a loin cloth. The women wore a piece of red or coloured cotton from their waist to their knees. The backs of the men and women who were working in the open were protected by a flapping ricestraw mat or by an armful of green stuff. The boys under ten or so were naked and so were many little girls. But the influence of the Westernising period ideas of what was "decent" in the presence of foreigners survives. So, whenever a policeman was near, people of all ages were to be seen huddling on their kimonos. I was sorry for a merry group of boys and girls aged 12 or 13 who in that torrid weather[125] were bathing at an ideal spot in the river and suddenly caught sight of a policeman. It is deplorable that a consciousness of nakedness should be cultivated when nakedness is natural, traditional and hygienic. (Even in the schools the girls are taught to make their kimonos meet at the neck--with a pin![126]--much higher than they used to be worn.) It is only fair to bear in mind, however, that some hurrying on of clothes by villagers is done out of respect to the pa.s.sing superior, before whom it is impolite to appear without permission half dressed or wearing other than the usual clothing.

At a hot spring we found many patrons because, as I was told, "Ox-day is very suitable for bathing." The old pre-Meiji days of the week were twelve: Rat-, Ox-, Tiger-, Hare-, Dragon-, Snake-, Horse-, Sheep-, Monkey-, Fowl-, Dog-and Boar-day. When the Western seven days of the week were adopted they were rendered into j.a.panese as: Sun, Moon, Fire, Water, Wood, Metal and Earth, followed by the word meaning star or planet and day. For instance, Sunday is _Nichi_ (Sun) _yo_ (star) _bi_ (day), and Monday, _Getsu_ (Moon) _yo_ (planet) _bi_ (day), or _Nichi-yo-bi_ and _Getsu-yo-bi_. For brevity the _bi_ is often dropped off.

The headman of a village we pa.s.sed through told me that the occasion of my coming was the first on which English had been heard in those parts. Talking about the people of his village, he said that there had been four divorces in the year. Once in four or five years a child was born within a few months of marriage. In the whole county there had been among 310 young men examined for the army only four cases of "disgraceful disease." There was no immoral woman in the 75-miles-long valley. Elsewhere in the county many young men were in debt, but in the headman's village no youth was without a savings-bank book. And the local men-folk "did not use women's savings as in some places."

One shrine we pa.s.sed seemed to be dedicated to the moon. Another was intended to propitiate the horsefly. Several villages had boxes fastened on posts for the reception of broken gla.s.s. As we approached one village I saw an inscription put up by the young men's a.s.sociation, "Good Crops and Prosperity to the Village." When we came to the next village the schoolmaster was responsible for an inscription, "Peace to the World and Safety to the State." In other places I found young men's society notice boards giving information about the area of land in a village, how it was cropped, the kind of crops, the area of forest, lists of famous places, etc.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOVABLE STAGE AT A FESTIVAL FIFTY MILES FROM A RAILWAY.

p. 114]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FARMHOUSE AT WHICH MR. UCHIMURA PREACHED. p. 94]

In the gorges we rode over many suspension bridges and crossed the backbone of j.a.pan in unforgettable scenes of romantic beauty. From the craggy paths of our highlands, amid a wealth not only of gorgeous flowers and greenery but of great velvety b.u.t.terflies, we saw the far-off snow-clad j.a.panese Alps.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TENANT FARMERS' HOUSES, p. 37]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AUTHOR AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING." p. 36]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOME PERFORMERS AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING." p. 36]

At one of the schools where we lunched I noticed that the large wall maps were of Siam and Malaya, Borneo, Australia and China (two). The portraits were of Florence Nightingale, Lincoln, Napoleon and Christ as the Good Shepherd, the last named being "a present from a believer friend of the schoolmaster."[127] This school closed at noon from July 10 to July 31, and had twenty days' vacation in August and another twenty days in the rice-planting and busy sericultural season. The sewing-room of the school was used in winter as a dormitory for boys who lived at a distance. Accommodation for girls was provided in the village. The children brought their rice with them. The products of the school farm were also eaten by the boarding pupils. It was estimated that the cost of maintaining the girls was 10 sen a day.

Three-fourths of this expense was borne by the village. The regularity and strictness of the dormitory management were found to have an excellent effect. At the winter school, an adjunct of the day school, there was an attendance of a score of youths and sixty girls.

Speaking of a place where we stayed for the night, one who had a wide knowledge of rural j.a.pan said that he did not think that there was a lonelier spot where farming was carried on. There was no market or fair for 80 or 90 miles and the little groups of houses were 2 or 3 miles apart. In this district, it was explained, "the rich are not so rich and the poor are not so poor."

We pa.s.sed somewhere a fine shrine for the welfare of horses. At a certain festival hundreds of horses are driven down there to gallop round and round the sacred buildings. Thousands of people attend this festival, but it was declared that no one was ever hurt by the horses.

The poetical names of country inns would make an interesting collection. I remember that it was at "the inn of cold spring water"

that the waiting-maid had never seen cow's milk. She proved to be the daughter of the host and wore a gold ring by way of marking the fact.

This girl told us that on the banks of the river there was only one house in 70 miles. The village was having the usual holiday to celebrate the end of the toilsome sericultural season.

On our way to the next village we met two far-travelled young women selling the dried seaweed which, in many varieties, figures in the j.a.panese dietary.[128] (There are shops which sell nothing but prepared seaweeds.) A notice board there informed us that the road was maintained at the cost of the local young men's society. As we were on foot we felt grateful, for the road was well kept. We pa.s.sed for miles over planking hung on the cliff side or on roadway carried on embankments. On the suspended pathways there was now and then a plank loose or broken, and there was no rail between the pedestrian and the torrent das.h.i.+ng below. Where there was embanked roadway it was almost always uphill and downhill and it frequently swung sharply round the corner of a cliff. As the river increased in volume we saw many rafts of timber shooting the rapids. At one place twenty-six raftsmen had been drowned. The remnants of two bridges showed the force of the floods.

In this region the _kurumaya_ were hard put to it at times and once a _kuruma_ broke down. Its owner cheerfully detached its broken axle and went off with it at a trot ten miles or so to a blacksmith. Later he traversed the ten miles once more to refit his _kuruma_, afterwards coming on fifteen more miles to our inn. The endurance and cheeriness of the _kurumaya_ were surprising. It was usually in face of their protests that we got out to ease them while going uphill. Every morning they wanted to arrange to go farther than we thought reasonable. Each man had not only his pa.s.senger but his pa.s.senger's heavy bag. One day we did thirty-six miles over rough roads. The _kurumaya_ proposed to cover fifty. They showed spirit, good nature and loyalty. The character of their conversation is worth mentioning.

At one point they were discussing the plays we had witnessed, at other times the scenery, local legends, the best routes and the crops, material condition and disposition of the villagers. Our _kurumaya_ compared very favourably indeed with men of an equal social cla.s.s at home. Their manners were perfect. They stayed at the same inns as we did--once in the next room--and behaved admirably. Every evening the men washed their white cotton shorts and jackets--their whole costume except for a wide-brimmed sun hat and straw _waraji_. Tied to the axle of each _kuruma_ were several pairs of _waraji_, for on the rough hill roads this simple form of footgear soon wears out. Discarded _waraji_ are to be seen on every roadside in j.a.pan.

The inscriptions on some of the wayside stones we pa.s.sed had been written by priests so ignorant that the wording was either ridiculous or almost without meaning. But there was no difficulty in deciphering an inscription on a stone which declared that it had been erected by a company of Buddhists who claimed to have repeated the holy name of Amida 2,000,000 times. (The idea is that salvation may be obtained by the repet.i.tion of the phrase _Namu Amida Butsu_.) A small stone set up on a rock in the middle of paddy fields intimated that at that spot "people gathered to see the moon one night every month." A third stone was dedicated to the monkey as the messenger of a certain G.o.d, just as the fox is regarded as the messenger of Inari.

We saw during our journey large numbers of _kiri_ (Paulownia) used for making _geta_ and bride's chests. Some farmers seem to plant _kiri_ trees at the birth of a daughter so as to have wood for her wedding chest or money for her outfit[129]. _Kiri_ seems to be increasingly grown. On the other hand in the same districts lacquer trees were now seldom planted. The farmers complained that they were cheated by the collectors of lacquer who come round to cut the trees. The age of cutting was given me as the eighth or ninth year, but poor farmers sometimes allowed a young tree to be cut. A tree may be cut once a year for three or four years. After that it is useless even for fuel, owing to the smell it gives off, and is often left standing. The old scarred trunks, sometimes headless, suggested the tattooed faces and bodies of Maori veterans. As lacquer is poisonous to the skin the wood calls for careful handling. I saw one of the itinerant lacquer collectors, his hands wrapped in cotton, operating on a tree.

During a particularly hot run we had the good fortune to come on a soda-water spring from which we all drank freely. A factory erected to tap the spring was in ruins. Evidently the cost of carriage was prohibitive.

In these hills the rice was planted farther apart than is usual so that the sun might warm the water. Here as elsewhere _daikon_ were hung up to dry on walls and trees, and looked like giant tallow candles. Below a bridge, which marked the village boundary, flags had been flung down by way of keeping off epidemics. Evil spirits were warded off by special dances.

The porch of a little tea-house where we rested was covered with grapes. Soon after leaving it we reached our destination for the night, a small town of houses of several storeys which cl.u.s.tered on a hillside under the shadow of a Zen temple. Meat and eggs were forbidden to the town, but as the residents were all Zen Buddhists the restriction was no hards.h.i.+p. There was no cow in the place, but condensed milk was allowed. A man at the inn told me that he knew of ten s.h.i.+nto shrines which forbade the use of chickens and eggs in their localities. The view from the temple, perched high on its rock above the wide riverway, was exceptionally fine. Parties of boys and girls of thirteen paid visits to this temple "because thirteen is known as a perilous age." The people of the vegetarian town, instead of feeding on the fish in the river, fed them. I saw a shoal of fish being given sc.r.a.ps at the water edge.