The Ceremony Did Not Correspond With The Rules Laid Down For
Marriages In The Books Of Etiquette That I Have
Seen, but this is
accounted for by the fact that they were for persons of the samurai
class, while this
Bride and bridegroom, though the children of
well-to-do merchants, belong to the heimin.
In this case the trousseau and furniture were conveyed to the
bridegroom's house in the early morning, and I was allowed to go to
see them. There were several girdles of silk embroidered with
gold, several pieces of brocaded silk for kimonos, several pieces
of silk crepe, a large number of made-up garments, a piece of white
silk, six barrels of wine or sake, and seven sorts of condiments.
Jewellery is not worn by women in Japan.
The furniture consisted of two wooden pillows, finely lacquered,
one of them containing a drawer for ornamental hairpins, some
cotton futons, two very handsome silk ones, a few silk cushions, a
lacquer workbox, a spinning-wheel, a lacquer rice bucket and ladle,
two ornamental iron kettles, various kitchen utensils, three bronze
hibachi, two tabako-bons, some lacquer trays, and zens, china
kettles, teapots, and cups, some lacquer rice bowls, two copper
basins, a few towels, some bamboo switches, and an inlaid lacquer
etagere. As the things are all very handsome the parents must be
well off. The sake is sent in accordance with rigid etiquette.
The bridegroom is twenty-two, the bride seventeen, and very comely,
so far as I could see through the paint with which she was
profusely disfigured. Towards evening she was carried in a
norimon, accompanied by her parents and friends, to the
bridegroom's house, each member of the procession carrying a
Chinese lantern. When the house-master and I arrived the wedding
party was assembled in a large room, the parents and friends of the
bridegroom being seated on one side, and those of the bride on the
other. Two young girls, very beautifully dressed, brought in the
bride, a very pleasing-looking creature dressed entirely in white
silk, with a veil of white silk covering her from head to foot.
The bridegroom, who was already seated in the middle of the room
near its upper part, did not rise to receive her, and kept his eyes
fixed on the ground, and she sat opposite to him, but never looked
up. A low table was placed in front, on which there was a two-
spouted kettle full of sake, some sake bottles, and some cups, and
on another there were some small figures representing a fir-tree, a
plum-tree in blossom, and a stork standing on a tortoise, the last
representing length of days, and the former the beauty of women and
the strength of men. Shortly a zen, loaded with eatables, was
placed before each person, and the feast began, accompanied by the
noises which signify gastronomic gratification.
After this, which was only a preliminary, the two girls who brought
in the bride handed round a tray with three cups containing sake,
which each person was expected to drain till he came to the god of
luck at the bottom.
The bride and bridegroom then retired, but shortly reappeared in
other dresses of ceremony, but the bride still wore her white silk
veil, which one day will be her shroud. An old gold lacquer tray
was produced, with three sake cups, which were filled by the two
bridesmaids, and placed before the parents-in-law and the bride.
The father-in-law drank three cups, and handed the cup to the
bride, who, after drinking two cups, received from her father-in-
law a present in a box, drank the third cup, and then returned the
cup to the father-in-law, who again drank three cups. Rice and
fish were next brought in, after which the bridegroom's mother took
the second cup, and filled and emptied it three times, after which
she passed it to the bride, who drank two cups, received a present
from her mother-in-law in a lacquer box, drank a third cup, and
gave the cup to the elder lady, who again drank three cups. Soup
was then served, and then the bride drank once from the third cup,
and handed it to her husband's father, who drank three more cups,
the bride took it again, and drank two, and lastly the mother-in-
law drank three more cups. 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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