Now, If You Possess The Clear-
Sightedness Which I Laboured To Preserve, You Will Perceive That
Each Of The Three Had Inbibed Nine Cups Of Some Generous Liquor!
{16}
After this the two bridesmaids raised the two-spouted kettle and
presented it to the lips of the married pair, who drank from it
alternately, till they had exhausted its contents.
This concluding
ceremony is said to be emblematic of the tasting together of the
joys and sorrows of life. And so they became man and wife till
death or divorce parted them.
This drinking of sake or wine, according to prescribed usage,
appeared to constitute the "marriage service," to which none but
relations were bidden. Immediately afterwards the wedding guests
arrived, and the evening was spent in feasting and sake drinking;
but the fare is simple, and intoxication is happily out of place at
a marriage feast. Every detail is a matter of etiquette, and has
been handed down for centuries. Except for the interest of the
ceremony, in that light it was a very dull and tedious affair,
conducted in melancholy silence, and the young bride, with her
whitened face and painted lips, looked and moved like an automaton.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXV
A Holiday Scene - A Matsuri - Attractions of the Revel - Matsuri Cars-
-Gods and Demons - A Possible Harbour - A Village Forge - Prosperity
of Sake Brewers - A "Great Sight."
TSUGURATA, July 27.
Three miles of good road thronged with half the people of Kubota on
foot and in kurumas, red vans drawn by horses, pairs of policemen
in kurumas, hundreds of children being carried, hundreds more on
foot, little girls, formal and precocious looking, with hair
dressed with scarlet crepe and flowers, hobbling toilsomely along
on high clogs, groups of men and women, never intermixing, stalls
driving a "roaring trade" in cakes and sweetmeats, women making
mochi as fast as the buyers ate it, broad rice-fields rolling like
a green sea on the right, an ocean of liquid turquoise on the left,
the grey roofs of Kubota looking out from their green surroundings,
Taiheisan in deepest indigo blocking the view to the south, a
glorious day, and a summer sun streaming over all, made up the
cheeriest and most festal scene that I have seen in Japan; men,
women, and children, vans and kurumas, policemen and horsemen, all
on their way to a mean-looking town, Minato, the junk port of
Kubota, which was keeping matsuri, or festival, in honour of the
birthday of the god Shimmai.
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