Towering Above The Low Grey Houses
There Were Objects Which At First Looked Like Five Enormous Black
Fingers, Then Like Trees With Their Branches Wrapped In Black, And
Then - Comparisons Ceased; They Were A Mystery.
Dismissing the kurumas, which could go no farther, we dived into
the crowd, which was wedged along a mean
Street, nearly a mile
long - a miserable street of poor tea-houses and poor shop-fronts;
but, in fact, you could hardly see the street for the people.
Paper lanterns were hung close together along its whole length.
There were rude scaffoldings supporting matted and covered
platforms, on which people were drinking tea and sake and enjoying
the crowd below; monkey theatres and dog theatres, two mangy sheep
and a lean pig attracting wondering crowds, for neither of these
animals is known in this region of Japan; a booth in which a woman
was having her head cut off every half-hour for 2 sen a spectator;
cars with roofs like temples, on which, with forty men at the
ropes, dancing children of the highest class were being borne in
procession; a theatre with an open front, on the boards of which
two men in antique dresses, with sleeves touching the ground, were
performing with tedious slowness a classic dance of tedious
posturings, which consisted mainly in dexterous movements of the
aforesaid sleeves, and occasional emphatic stampings, and
utterances of the word No in a hoarse howl. It is needless to say
that a foreign lady was not the least of the attractions of the
fair. The cultus of children was in full force, all sorts of
masks, dolls, sugar figures, toys, and sweetmeats were exposed for
sale on mats on the ground, and found their way into the hands and
sleeves of the children, for no Japanese parent would ever attend a
matsuri without making an offering to his child.
The police told me that there were 22,000 strangers in Minato, yet
for 32,000 holiday-makers a force of twenty-five policemen was
sufficient. I did not see one person under the influence of sake
up to 3 p.m., when I left, nor a solitary instance of rude or
improper behaviour, nor was I in any way rudely crowded upon, for,
even where the crowd was densest, the people of their own accord
formed a ring and left me breathing space.
We went to the place where the throng was greatest, round the two
great matsuri cars, whose colossal erections we had seen far off.
These were structures of heavy beams, thirty feet long, with eight
huge, solid wheels. Upon them there were several scaffoldings with
projections, like flat surfaces of cedar branches, and two special
peaks of unequal height at the top, the whole being nearly fifty
feet from the ground. All these projections were covered with
black cotton cloth, from which branches of pines protruded. In the
middle three small wheels, one above another, over which striped
white cotton was rolling perpetually, represented a waterfall; at
the bottom another arrangement of white cotton represented a river,
and an arrangement of blue cotton, fitfully agitated by a pair of
bellows below, represented the sea. The whole is intended to
represent a mountain on which the Shinto gods slew some devils, but
anything more rude and barbarous could scarcely be seen. On the
fronts of each car, under a canopy, were thirty performers on
thirty diabolical instruments, which rent the air with a truly
infernal discord, and suggested devils rather than their
conquerors. High up on the flat projections there were groups of
monstrous figures. On one a giant in brass armour, much like the
Nio of temple gates, was killing a revolting-looking demon. On
another a daimiyo's daughter, in robes of cloth of gold with satin
sleeves richly flowered, was playing on the samisen. On another a
hunter, thrice the size of life, was killing a wild horse equally
magnified, whose hide was represented by the hairy wrappings of the
leaves of the Chamaerops excelsa. On others highly-coloured gods,
and devils equally hideous, were grouped miscellaneously. These
two cars were being drawn up and down the street at the rate of a
mile in three hours by 200 men each, numbers of men with levers
assisting the heavy wheels out of the mud-holes. This matsuri,
which, like an English fair, feast, or revel, has lost its original
religious significance, goes on for three days and nights, and this
was its third and greatest day.
We left on mild-tempered horses, quite unlike the fierce fellows of
Yamagata ken. Between Minato and Kado there is a very curious
lagoon on the left, about 17 miles long by 16 broad, connected with
the sea by a narrow channel, guarded by two high hills called
Shinzan and Honzan. Two Dutch engineers are now engaged in
reporting on its capacities, and if its outlet could be deepened
without enormous cost it would give north-western Japan the harbour
it so greatly needs. Extensive rice-fields and many villages lie
along the road, which is an avenue of deep sand and ancient pines
much contorted and gnarled. Down the pine avenue hundreds of
people on horseback and on foot were trooping into Minato from all
the farming villages, glad in the glorious sunshine which succeeded
four days of rain. There were hundreds of horses, wonderful-
looking animals in bravery of scarlet cloth and lacquer and fringed
nets of leather, and many straw wisps and ropes, with Gothic roofs
for saddles, and dependent panniers on each side, carrying two
grave and stately-looking children in each, and sometimes a father
or a fifth child on the top of the pack-saddle.
I was so far from well that I was obliged to sleep at the wretched
village of Abukawa, in a loft alive with fleas, where the rice was
too dirty to be eaten, and where the house-master's wife, who sat
for an hour on my floor, was sorely afflicted with skin disease.
The clay houses have disappeared and the villages are now built of
wood, but Abukawa is an antiquated, ramshackle place, propped up
with posts and slanting beams projecting into the roadway for the
entanglement of unwary passengers.
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