There, Through The Good Offices Of The Police, I Was Enabled To
Attend A Buddhist Funeral Of A Merchant Of Some Wealth.
It
interested me very much from its solemnity and decorum, and Ito's
explanations of what went before were remarkably
Distinctly given.
I went in a Japanese woman's dress, borrowed at the tea-house, with
a blue hood over my head, and thus escaped all notice, but I found
the restraint of the scanty "tied forward" kimono very tiresome.
Ito gave me many injunctions as to what I was to do and avoid,
which I carried out faithfully, being nervously anxious to avoid
jarring on the sensibilities of those who had kindly permitted a
foreigner to be present.
The illness was a short one, and there had been no time either for
prayers or pilgrimages on the sick man's behalf. When death occurs
the body is laid with its head to the north (a position that the
living Japanese scrupulously avoid), near a folding screen, between
which and it a new zen is placed, on which are a saucer of oil with
a lighted rush, cakes of uncooked rice dough, and a saucer of
incense sticks. The priests directly after death choose the
kaimiyo, or posthumous name, write it on a tablet of white wood,
and seat themselves by the corpse; his zen, bowls, cups, etc., are
filled with vegetable food and are placed by his side, the
chopsticks being put on the wrong, i.e. the left, side of the zen.
At the end of forty-eight hours the corpse is arranged for the
coffin by being washed with warm water, and the priest, while
saying certain prayers, shaves the head.
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