# Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 6/Chapter 3

Chapter III
OBSERVANCES AND PASTIMES
(Continued)
IT is probable that very few foreigners ever learn to appreciate Japanese dancing. One reason for their want of sympathy is that they approach the study with prejudiced minds. Their conception of dancing is that it must be either musical gymnastics deriving their charm from harmony of sound and motion and pleasurable chiefly to the performer, or a spectacular display, like the Occidental ballet, representing large combinations of graceful movements, enhanced by splendid scenery and accessories of painting and sculpture. But in Japan dancing has primarily a mimetic purpose. With rare exceptions, the dance represents some historical incident, some mythical legend, some scene from the realm of folk-lore or superstition. The technique is elaborate, and although the motions never suggest muscular effort or display abnormal contortions, it is nevertheless certain that physical training of the most rigorous character cannot be dispensed with, and that the very ease of the seemingly ​smooth and spontaneous action results from art hidden by its own perfection. It is also certain that the mechanics of the dance are as nothing to the Japanese spectator compared with the music of its motion, and that he interprets the staccato and legato of its passages with discrimination amounting almost to instinct and, in some degree, hereditary. In exceptional cases the foreigner's perception may be similarly subtle, but he must generally lack the faculty of apprehending the esoterics of the dance, and thus finds himself in the position of a man at an opera who has no libretto, or a play-goer without a knowledge of the plot. It has already been shown that from prehistoric times dancing constituted a prominent feature in the worship of the deities, and that it had its origin in the fable which represents the inhabitants of heaven dancing before the cave into which the Goddess of the Sun had retired. From the sphere of religion it appears to have passed quickly and widely into the everyday life of the people, until at last the practice acquired a vogue unparalleled in any other country. Volumes might be written descriptive of the numerous dances taught to girls from their tender years, and, on a much smaller but still extensive scale, to boys also; and as for the repertoire of the professional expert, it is virtually inexhaustible. There have been occasions when the whole of the inhabitants of a city turned out ​in costume to celebrate some noted event by a universal dance. By such means did the citizens of Kyōtō exhibit their joy when the capital of the Empire was transferred to their city from Nara at the end of the eighth century, and by such means also they evinced their gratitude for a year of prosperity in subsequent eras. The latter dance, known as honen-odori, probably stands at the head of all performances of the kind in so far as concerns the number of those taking part in it and the variety of their costumes. Each district of the city had its distinguishing colour,—light green silk for the east, in imitation of the dragon presiding in that quarter; crimson crepe for the south, in unison with the plumage of the scarlet bird that soared there; black velvet for the north, to typify the dark panoply of military power; and white crepe for the west where the grey tiger dwelt. These, it must be understood, were the ground-colours of the dancer's garments: to the hues of the embroidered or woven decoration no limit was set, nor yet to the designs,—a nightingale perched on a spray of blossoming plum; silver trout gleaming in blue streams; snowy herons roosting among pine-boughs at Gion shrine; fiery maples glowing on the Kwacho hillside; rosy cherry-petals floating over the Otowa waterfall, or the vulgar Venus (Otafuku) embracing a mushroom on Inari mountain,—such and many other fancies the skill of the ​weaver and the embroiderer depicted on the robes of this motley concourse, whose units, each disguised according to his or her fancy, as chair-bearers, as sorcerers, as pilgrims, as sailors, as grooms, as pedlars, as nurses, as dumpling-hucksters, as publicans, as apprentices, as anything and everything that did not ape aristocracy or trespass upon the domain of the patrician, danced, for hour after hour, in a maze of graceful or grotesque movement, to the music of drum and flute. Many words might be squandered on attempts to describe these dances, so delightful to Japanese senses, but the impression verbally conveyed must be at best a mere shadow of the reality. Sometimes the performers are tiny maidens, only seven or eight years old; sometimes men of fifty or upward are alone qualified. The tanabata dance on the seventh day of the seventh month, to celebrate the union of the Herd-boy Prince and Weaver Princess, is an example of the former. Each little lassie is dressed in strict conformity with a traditional model,—a lofty coiffure, gay with pins of silver and tortoise-shell; a damask kerchief jauntily knotted on the forehead; long sleeves tied into shoulder-puff's with white-satin cords; a richly decorated satin robe with crimson undergarment; a broad belt, embroidered and embossed with designs in gold and purple; a miniature drum, gilt and silk-stringed, with lacquered drum-stick, in the hands, and purple socks on the feet. Nurses, scarcely less ​picturesquely attired, and carrying bright-hued umbrellas with crane-and-tortoise patterns, accompany the little girls and take a subordinate part in the dance, during which the children sing a simple refrain in unison, and beat out the rhythm of their movements on their toy drums. The gebon-odori of Wakayama prefecture is a type of elders' dancing. Seventy or eighty merchants join in the performance. They put on hats adorned with artificial flowers; wear black surcoats over white body-garments; carry gourds, umbrellas, gongs, and drums, and recite a religious formula as they dance. Many provincial centres have dances peculiar to the locality, the motives of the performances showing endless variety, and the costumes being of the most fanciful character. These must be seen to be appreciated. The songs chaunted during the dances are innumerable. Generally the ideas are trivial, and the verselets owe their value to the cadence of their five-syllabled and seven-syllabled lines—a kind of metre scarcely capable of being musically reproduced in English words—and to the recurrence of similar sounds in different senses, rather than to the beauty or loftiness of the sentiments they embody. Here are three specimens, the two first translated from the repertoire of the Bon dances, the third from that of the "Flower Dance" of Bingo province:—
Any allusion to Japanese dancing immediately recalls to the memory of foreigners familiar with Japan the image of a girl exquisitely refined in all her ways: her costume a chef-d'œuvre of decorative art ; her looks, demure yet arch ; her ​manners, restful and self-contained yet sunny and winsome; her movements, gentle and unobtrusive but musically graceful; her conversation, a piquant mixture of feminine inconsequence and sparkling repartee; her list of light accomplishments inexhaustible; her subjective modesty a model, and her objective complacency unmeasured. Such is the geisha, written about, sung about, and raved about by travellers whom this novel combination of fair sweetness and sordid frailty has moved to a rapture of bewildered admiration, and by " old residents " whose senses, however blasé, however racially intolerant, never become impervious to her abstract attractions. She is generally spoken of as a danseuse, but dancing, though it figures largely in her training, and though her skill in it doubtless contributes much to her graces of movement, constitutes only a minor part of her professional rôle. She has, in fact, no counterpart outside Japan, for while she is a mistress of all seductive arts, seduction is not necessarily her trade, and whereas she never forgets to be a lady, she takes care never to be mistaken for one. Originally she was simply a dancing child (odori-ko), whose trade was to perform in great folks' mansions on festive occasions, and who never degraded herself by accepting an invitation to restaurants or tea-houses. But by and by (1689) the law recognised her as a demoralising influence in military society, and feudal nobles were forbidden to make her a feature at ​their feasts. Thus, relegated to the places of public resort which she had hitherto eschewed, she lost caste and character, nor was it until the close of the eighteenth century that she again obtained admittance to aristocratic dwellings. In notifications issued thereafter from time to time the reader has already traced the vain efforts of officialdom to limit the range of her charms. The keeping of odori-ko now (1800) became a trade. Instead of living with her parents or guardians, a girl, still in her tender youth, was entrusted to a geisha-ya (a geisha house), and there, with three or four companions, received training in all the accomplishments necessary to the successful practice of her profession. There, also, she lived for a fixed term of years, somewhat after the manner of an apprentice, her family being paid at the outset a sum of money (minoshiro-kin) which greatly resembled a purchase-price, and her earnings, after she had made her début, being divided in exceedingly unequal proportions, between her employer and herself. From ten to twenty yen was—and is—the amount of compensation given to parents in consideration of their binding their child to a geisha-ya for a period of from seven to ten years, but that outlay represents only a fraction of the expenses subsequently incurred by the employer in training the girl and providing rich costumes for her use. From the age of about ten or eleven she begins to do duty as an o-shaku, or cup-bearer, and at sixteen or seventeen she ​becomes what is technically called ippon, a term literally meaning "one stick." The reference here is to the fact that the geisha's honorarium is euphemistically measured, not by the flight of vulgar hours, but by the burning of fragrant incense. For the time occupied in burning one stick of incense she receives twenty-five sen, whereas the o-shaku receives only one-half of that amount. The fact is, twenty-five sen an hour, but the fashion of the incense fiction is scrupulously observed. It is chiefly during the "cup-bearer" period of her career that the geisha dances. When she reaches the ippon stage, she makes music for her little successors of the o-shaku rank; plays accompaniments for the songs of the convives; sings to them herself; becomes their vis-a-vis in the game of ken, or nanko, or some other pastime; laughs merrily at their slenderest joke, and caps it with some bright conceit of her own; dances, if required, with a certain display of pretty protest; carries in and out the lacquered trays of edibles, and throws over the whole entertainment a glamour of grace, sunshine, and maiden mystery, without the least soupçon of indelicacy so far as her own initiative is concerned. It must be plainly recorded, indeed, that in purely Japanese circles the geisha is essentially a refining influence, and that if she errs and leads others into error—as she undoubtedly does—her trespasses are carefully concealed from public gaze. ​Her twenty-five sen (sixpence) an hour is not pay, or wage, or consideration, or any other common kind of earning: it is the "honourable congratulation" (o-shugi.) She receives, in addition, an "honourable flower" (o-hana,) which varies according to the mood of her employer, but is never less than a yen. A statistician might infer from these figures that five hours of "congratulation" plus a "flower"—or, say, a hundred and ten gold cents—represents an excellent daily average. But when a geisha is in vogue, she has invitations to "present her face" at many réunions on the same day, and even half an hour's act of presence entitles her to "one stick of incense" and one "flower." Thus she earns hundreds, not tens, of yen monthly. Then there is the gold that she picks up on the byways of her profession. She may tread them lawfully by purchasing a special license in addition to her geisha ticket, or she may follow them in secrecy and danger. Let it be enough to say that she exploits this mine of wealth to its extreme capacity, but without ever overstepping the limits of feminine reserve. She plays all the time for her own hand. Her quest is a lover sufficiently devoted to remove her from a professional career into private life. If she has been but a pale little star on the public horizon, this process of "redemption" is cheap. But if she has become a luminary, the compensation demanded by her employer for the loss of her services is often very large, ​and her professional eclipse is glorious in proportion to its costliness.
In this context a problem presents itself which deserves some comment, if only for the sake of correcting false impressions that have been created by imperfectly informed critics. It has been shown in a previous chapter that the sale of human beings found a place among the transactions of Japanese trade from very ancient times, and that, though the dimensions of the practice varied at different epochs, prohibitive legislation never succeeded in stamping it out. From that source the ranks of the "priestesses of humanity" were chiefly recruited. Concerning the origin and growth of the social evil in Japan, it may be supposed that, the family being regarded by the Confucian system of ethics as the very pivot of the State, a powerful motive must have operated to preserve the domestic circle against the incursions of irregular passion. It may also be supposed that, since the military structure of Japanese society did not adapt itself to permanent marital obligations, ephemeral agents of indulgence must have been in large demand. Both hypotheses are correct in a measure, but it would be wrong to infer either that an instinctive desire to maintain the purity of family life imparted moral sanction to extra-matrimonial irregularities, or that the samurai's prudent and often necessary abstention from marriage ties created exceptional facilities for less embarrassing relations. As to ​the former point, it will probably be nearer the truth to say that, essentially as the Japanese character differs from the usually defined Oriental type, it certainly includes an element of resignation which has no affinity with the stubborn resistance offered in the Occident even to ills that are recognised as inevitable. The Japanese long ago perceived that the natural force of certain appetites far exceeds the requirements of human well-being or happiness, and instead of setting themselves to redress this hopelessly disturbed equilibrium, they preferred to accept the fact and to subject its consequences to official control. It is unnecessary to seek more recondite causes for the growth and licensing of the social evil in Japan, or to discuss the great question whether to endue virtue with vicarious respect by the uncompromising and inefficient stigmatisation of vice, atones adequately for a consequent failure to check the ravages of the most terrible physical scourge that afflicts mankind. That is a problem inviting world-wide solution. The Japanese view of it is the view of continental Europe: they license prostitution. They proceed, also, a step farther than continental Europe, for they banish all the priestesses and paraphernalia of the vice to remote quarters of their cities, and enforce this ostracism with such successful rigour that the remaining quarters are absolutely free from any evidence of the evil. It has often been urged by the advocates of the non-licensing ​system that the ban which drives into obscurity every manifestation of the sensual passions is specially potent to diminish their indulgence. The Japanese licensing system certainly achieves that end so far as the vast bulk of the population is concerned. On the other hand, within the prescribed quarters no attempt is made to limit the resources of temptation. The unfortunate women, tricked out in rich costumes and splendid coiffures, sit ranged on a kind of proscenium, separated from the street by a widely latticed partition through which passers-by can gaze without obstruction. It is this feature of the system that chiefly shocks the foreign observer. Exceptional moral obtuseness is suggested by its crude practicality, and it seems to inflict harsh degradation on the woman for the sake of catering to the convenience and, perhaps, appealing to the imagination, of the libertine. Arraigned upon that charge, the Japanese reply, first, that when a man's depraved impulses have led him as far as these remote haunts of vice, little deference need be paid to his small remnants of virtue; secondly, that, by granting licenses, the law constructively recognises the holders' right to ply their trade in whatever manner appears most convenient within the prescribed limits; and thirdly, that to soften the hardships of the courtesan's lot may be a suggestion of mercy, but certainly is not an obligation of morality. Such is the Japanese case, whatever judgment be passed ​on its merits. But no one can ignore that the sentence of absolute ostracism and banishment pronounced against the courtesan in Japan, so long as she pursues her evil trade, ought to have a strongly deterrent effect. She is irrevocably exiled, not merely from the society of virtuous people, but even from the vicinity of their habitations and from the places where they congregate for business or for pleasure. She lives in a species of convict settlement, scarcely ever emerging from the precincts of her prison during her term of service, and never suffered for a moment to forget the degradation into which she has sold herself. Her manner of adopting a career of shame constitutes an additional dissuasion. It is always a matter of sale. In consideration of a certain sum paid to her family, she pledges herself to serve as a yu-jo (fille de joie) for a fixed term of years. Such transactions seem to differ little from slave traffic. They appear to perpetuate the old customs referred to in a previous chapter. The law, however, actively endeavours to avert their worst abuses. It is enacted that a girl must have attained the full age of sixteen before her consent can be accounted legal; that she and her parents or guardians must attend at the office of the police de mœurs and signify their united desire to enter into the proposed agreement; that the circumstances of the career she is choosing must then and there be fully ex​plained to her, after which a week's interval must be allowed for her to re-consider her purpose; and that the service she undertakes must be recognised as absolutely terminable by her own free choice at any moment. This last and most important condition is generally overlooked by foreign critics. They imagine that the law sanctions an arrangement by which a girl of tender years is consigned irrevocably to a life of shame and misery, whereas the truth is that the payer of the mundium acquires no right enforceable in opposition to the girl's volition, and cannot recover possession of her person if she quits his service. But though the law withholds all recognition of the principle of coercion, there can be no doubt that, for practical purposes, the girl is coerced. The obligation that dictated her original sacrifice remains valid until the completion of the service for which she has contracted. To abandon that service prematurely, means that her family become liable for the money they received from her employer at the outset. Another obstacle usually stands between the yu-jo and the recovery of her freedom. Things are so managed that she can scarcely avoid contracting debts on account of her wardrobe, and these debts often compel her to accept a fresh term of degradation. Even in such a career ranks and distinctions are contrived, to rouse ambition and encourage extravagance, so that, once entangled in the meshes of shame, escape is cruelly difficult. It has been ​alleged, by slanderers of Japanese ethics, that to have been a geisha or a yu-jo is not a disqualifying prelude to respectable marriage. There is no truth in the statement. The delirium of passion is responsible for offences against social canons in Japan as in Europe, and during the period of general levelling and confusion that immediately succeeded the fall of feudalism, traditions and conventionalities were sometimes neglected. But, for the rest, the antecedents of a wife are, and have always been, scrutinised just as closely in this section of the Far East as in any Western country. The most unsightly feature of the whole system is the part played by parents and guardians in consigning their daughters or relatives to such a life. Where the promptings of filial duty possess almost the force of law, recourse to them may well take the character of coercion. There is no doubt that the Japanese daughter's estimate of her individual rights weighs little against her sense of family obligations, and that, on the other hand, her parents take a greatly exaggerated view of the obedience she owes them. Disciples of Western civilisation cannot choose but condemn such ethics in the most unequivocal terms. It should be distinctly understood, however, that only the pressure of dire necessity is held to justify the sacrifice of a girl's person. The act is counted a misery by those that have recourse to it, and evokes the profound pity of friends and relatives. There are no purely vol​untary victims. No one adopts the career, if any possible alternative offers, and that fact must be placed to the credit, either of the system itself, or of the morality of Japanese women. One of the aspirations of modern Japanese reformers used to be the abolition of licensed prostitution. But it never appeared that they had studied the subject by the light of ethical philosophy, and the public declined to take them seriously.
Reverting to the story of the year's fêtes, the reader finds himself in the eighth month of the old calendar, approximately the ninth of the new. This is essentially the dead season. In the times of the Tokugawa Shōguns, Yedo was required to hold a grand festival in commemoration of the fact that Iyeyasu, the founder of the Shogunate, made his official entry into the city on the 1st of the eighth month. But the Tōkyō of to-day eschews all acknowledgment of the fact that it was once the capital of the Shōguns, and, in September, pays homage to the moon only. There is a Japanese saying that in spring the moon-beams lose themselves among the blossoms; in summer their image reflected from the water is more beautiful than the original; in winter they have an air of desolation; in autumn only their charm is perfect and unmixed. Hence, on the 15th of the eighth month, and the 13th of the ninth, parties are formed to admire the moon; ​verses are composed in her praise, and in each house a table is set, bearing offerings of saké, rice-dumplings, potatoes, chestnuts, persimmons, and pears. This custom, however, like so many of the people's traditional habits, is gradually falling into disuse. In the great cities, Tōkyō, Ōsaka and Kyōtō, it has lost much of its romantic and poetic character, but its vogue is likely to be preserved by climatic and commercial influences. The delightful freshness of early autumn nights renders the moon-fête a welcome excuse for the heat-weary citizens to spend an evening on the water, and owners of river-side restaurants and pleasure-boats contribute industriously to the people's love of these Venetian entertainments. The water of Kyōtō, celebrated for its purity and bleaching properties, comes to the city in little rivulets, and the so-called Kamo River is but a paltry stream trickling seaward over a wide bed of gravel-banks and boulders. But the make-believe faculty with which the Japanese are richly endowed, invests this arid area with all the properties of a broad-bosomed river, and the people sup there under the moonlight, as contentedly as though cool currents were rippling around them and the breath of cataracts fanning their faces. Ōsaka citizens, happier in the possession of the Yodo River, which, taking its way direct from the great lake of Biwa, sweeps generously but gently through their streets, spend much of their summer-evening life floating on the water amid ​the flashing of fireworks and the twanging of samisens. But though owing to the much greater size of the Sumida River and the configuration of the streets, these water picnics are less en évidence in Tōkyō than in Ōsaka, they are in reality more affected. The citizen's ideal of summer pleasure is to hire a yanebune, engage two or three geisha, and travel lazily up-stream, with scull or sail, debarking at one of the many famous restaurants that line both banks of the river, whence he drifts home, after dinner, along the path of the moonbeams, merry, musical, and, perhaps, love-sick. These delights culminate at a fête called the "river opening" (kawa-biraki), which takes place nominally on "moon-night" in August. Those for whom the fête is organised contribute nothing to the preparations. All that part of the affair is undertaken by the river-side restaurants and boat-house keepers, who, for the sake of the throng of customers that the celebration brings, put up a considerable sum to purchase fireworks. It is an excellent speculation. The river in the vicinity of the Ryogoku bridge, the central point of Bohemian Tōkyō, is usually thronged with boats from bank to bank, and every water-side chamber has its party of guests, who pay ample prices for scanty accommodation. It is easy to conceive what a feature the geisha constitutes on these occasions,—a girl with all the daintiest graces of person and costume, all the gentle ​refinements of virtuous womanhood, all the accomplishments of expert training, and all the attractions of vague morality. She is a Japanese invention and a Japanese specialty.
In autumn the chrysanthemum becomes the centre of attraction. The Japanese were once able to claim the premiership of the world as cnltivators of this flower, but their pride of place has been usurped by Western horticulturists. Still the chrysanthemum, their imperial flower, the Emperor's crest, and the nucleus of hundreds of exquisite decorative designs, is far more to them than to any European people. They delight in its quaintly named varieties,—the "jewel of the inner court," the "autumn amulet," the "ten-fingered, ten-eyed flower," the "snow of the pear-bloom," the "sleep of the hoary tiger," the "moon-touched blossom," the "crystal palace," the "five-lake hoar-frost," the "three-treasure petal," and so on; they delight in the wonder of the blossom's dishevelled symmetry, so characteristic of the equipoise and irregularity of their own decorative art; they delight in the wealth of bloom that careful nursing can produce,—as much as from thirteen hundred to sixteen hundred flowers on a single plant,—and they delight in the ingenuity of public gardeners who mould masses of blossoms and greenery into historical and mythological tableaux, which even the country bumpkin and the city gamin are not too ignorant to appreciate. It appears that a ​banquet in honour of the chrysanthemum used to be one of the regular observances at the Imperial Court in ancient times, and that, at a later era, when the Tokugawa ruled in Yedo, the ladies of the Palace there were accustomed to engage in a species of competition, each procuring a chrysanthemum blossom, the choicest of which was selected for presentation to the Shogun's consort, rich rewards and great éclat accruing, of course, to the owner of the "victor flower." All these old fashions have now been merged in a garden-party of Occidental type. At one of the Emperor's detached palaces in Tōkyō numerous chrysanthemum plants of the finest and rarest kinds are cultivated, and during three days in October the park is thrown open to the aristocratic and official classes, the Emperor and Empress themselves appearing among their guests on the first day,—a great occasion for "globe-trotters," who, by the good offices of their country's representative, can generally procure an invitation. The resident foreigner is seldom so fortunate, unless he be in the service of the Government or the recipient of a high-class Japanese decoration, but to be a stranger is to have a warrant of welcome.
Common to all seasons and essentially Japanese in their origin as well as in their developments, are performances held nightly at a species of public-hall called yose-seki, or, in every-day parlance, yose. The most respectable of these entertain​ments is the kōdan, or historical narrative, known until recent years under the name of gundan (war story). In old-time Japan the life of the aristocrat and his doings lay entirely beyond the close scrutiny of every one outside the military class, that is to say, entirely beyond the scrutiny of fully nine-tenths of the nation. The warlike motives and methods of the patrician remained always a mystery to the commoner. Such a state of affairs would certainly have resulted in the growth of a large school of historical romancists had the pen enjoyed any freedom. But the exclusiveness of the samurai asserted itself as sharply in the domain of literature as in that of society, and although records of military incidents were compiled from time to time, they seldom rose above skeleton narratives without a breath of animation to stir their dry bones. To Buddhist priests is due the initiative in a movement which ultimately became a useful means of familiarising the masses with the salient events of their country's history. The priests, however, had no such purpose at the outset. The new rôle that they struck out, in the early years of the fourteenth century, aimed solely at opening to Japanese aristocrats the pages of China's warlike annals. Alike in literature and in the art of war the Buddhist friars of mediæval Japan were the repositories of knowledge, the great majority of the samurai knowing only how to fight. Thus there occurred to a learned abbot (Genkei) ​the idea of critically expounding the military classics of the Middle Kingdom to patrician audiences at the Imperial Court, and the innovation attracted wide favour and patronage. More than two hundred and fifty years elapsed, however, before a popular character was given to these lectures. A samurai (Goto Matabei Mototsugu), who had himself figured conspicuously in the warlike pageant of his time but had fallen into a state of poverty, took his stand one day within the enclosure of the Temma Tenjin temple in Kyōtō at a time of festival, and, as a bread-earning resource, entertained the worshippers with vivid accounts of the scenes in which he had borne a part. He quickly found an enthusiastic audience, as well as numerous imitators among the rōnin, or soldiers of fortune, who, not owing allegiance to any feudal chief, and being without a fixed source of income, were glad to turn their hands to any profitable pursuit that did not involve a connection with vulgar trade. Gradually, by steps which need not be traced, these raconteurs (koshaku-shi) became a recognised class; established halls (yose) for delivering their narratives or readings; divided themselves into various schools distinguished by special oratorical methods; devoted their whole lives to the cultivation of their art, and developed a style to which the possession of very high merits must be conceded. Nothing can be simpler than the method of these experts. Seated on the mats before a ​species of lectern and armed with a fan and a small flat baton of paper, the koshaku-shi carries his audience with him through scenes where all the passions that sway humanity are pourtrayed with admirable force and fidelity. Petty adjuncts as the fan and the paper baton seem, the uses that they serve are extensive. A hesitating poise of the half-opened fan introduces the audience at once to some mood of coyness or expectancy; a graceful sweep of its full spread surface invokes the presence of summer airs, moonlight dancers, or stately ladies; the sharp snap of its suddenly folded ribs suggests fateful resolve or exhausted patience; now its crescent rises slowly in unison with the growth of some sound of menace or the march of some disaster's prelude; now it sinks as hope dies or the power of resistance fades from some hero's arm in mortal peril; and when the tale begins to climb to a crisis, the baton beats out a swift sharp note of warning on the wooden lectern, its startled raps growing quicker as incident crowds upon incident, until the rush and rattle of the armed combat, the din and confusion of the mêlée, the crash of the catastrophe, seem to be actually reproduced before the eyes of the audience. The koshaku-shi uses no book. The stories that he has to tell are not fully recorded in any public document, nor can absolute historical accuracy be claimed for them. The figures that move through the drama and the cardinal incidents are historical; all the en​vironment is in accurate consonance with the customs of the epoch; but the skill of the raconteur or of his predecessors—for these tales are handed down as family heirlooms—adds a large margin of picturesque, the sensational and the imaginary. Yet there can be no doubt about the service these men render in familiarising the masses with the characters and events of the national history, as well as with the social, administrative, and military canons of by-gone ages. The magnitude of the educational work they accomplish may be inferred from the fact that in Tōkyō alone they number over three hundred, divided into twelve schools, each tracing its origin to some celebrated expert, the originator of a special style, and that their repertoire of subjects includes eight sections,—accounts of commotions raised by treacherous clansmen in feudal families, accounts of momentous local interferences by the central administration, accounts of vendettas, accounts of famous judicial decisions, biographies of renowned heroes, lives of redressers of popular wrongs, journalistic records, and critical resumes of contemporary events.
A rival or colleague of the koshaku-shi is the "talker" (hanashi-ka), or "fugitive-words-man" (rakugo-ka), who differs from the raconteur only in the lighter character of the subjects he chooses and in the prominence that he gives to the humorous side of his performance. The founder ​of this school does not belong to a very remote era (1600 A.D.) and is remembered now chiefly for the sake of eight volumes of wit and humour, the first of their kind, compiled by him at the age of seventy. Society had opened its arms to him as a master of the dilettanteism known as cha-no-yu (the tea-clubs' cult), before it recognised him as a humourist, but in the end the most stately circles of aristocrats resigned themselves to laugh with him, and with a scarcely less celebrated contemporary whose extemporised songs suggested or supplemented the wit of the master. Succeeding generations did not neglect these models. Not merely an exceptional fund of humour and large powers of mimicry, but also considerable erudition was needed for the successful pursuit of the rakugo-ka's career, and though it formerly ranked below that of the koshaku-shi, the differentiation is scarcely perceptible in modern times. Often its votaries are broken-down gentlemen whose excesses have exhausted their fortunes, but much oftener they are men of no mean literary capacity, who can weave the events of their time into narratives where tragedy and comedy play equally artistic parts. For the rest, what has been written above about the koshaku-shi's earnings and his performance applies equally to the rakugo-ka. But the latter takes his subjects from the realm of romance or every-day life, and does not seek to inspire his audience with any higher sentiments than sympathy and merriment. It ​would be difficult to decide whether he or the koshaku-shi is the greater artist. Both are certainly great, and each is without parallel in any other country.
To speak of a yose as a "hall" is to suggest a somewhat exaggerated idea of its quality and arrangements. A ruder or more comfortless place could scarcely be conceived,—the building rough and totally undecorated; the floor covered with mats but not divided into compartments; the gallery equally without redeeming feature except a semblance of privacy; the dais for the performers slightly elevated but entirely without ornamentation or scenic background. Such is the yose. A visitor, whatever his degree, pays an entrance fee varying from two and one-half to six sen, makes a further disbursement of half a sen for the hire of a cushion, and, thus equipped, seats himself wherever he can find floor-space. If the weather be cold, he spends a sen and a half on a brazier to be laid beside his cushion, and it still remains possible to squander the same sum on a pot of tea and a tiny drinking-cup, though economical folks find tea at one sen sufficiently palatable. Thus a total outlay of nine and one-half sen may be compassed, the return for which is from three to four hours' entertainment. The raconteur and the humourist are not the only performers. There are also experts in recitative (joruri), in juggling, in puppet playing, and some​times in dancing or music. In Tōkyō alone there are a hundred and eighty yose. The law gives itself little concern about them, except to interdict any displays injurious to public morals, and to post a supervising constable in each hall. They accommodate a total of about forty thousand people, and if each had a full audience, the aggregate expenditure of the whole one hundred and eighty on account of entrance fees, cushion hire, brazier borrowing, and tea-drinking, would be some twelve hundred American dollars a night. So cheaply do the citizens of the Japanese capital take their pleasure.
Out of the mimetic dances so popular in Japan it may be supposed that the histrionic art would have grown at an early era, and that its development would have been rapid. Facts do not endorse such an inference. The drama proper was, indeed, born of the mimetic dance, but its nativity was curiously belated, and that it was born at all seems to have been, in great part, the result of accident. Many writers have been content to dismiss the subject with the curt remark that the Japanese theatre is of Chinese origin, and that the passage of the institution from one country to the other must be classed among the fortuitous incidents of neighbourly intercourse. But there are obstacles to the acceptance of that superficial view. In the days when the Ashikaga Shogunate was at the zenith of its power, the theatre had not yet made its appearance in Japan despite ​the long and, at times, intimate intercourse that had existed with China. The mimetic dances already spoken of under the general name of no were, however, in wide vogue, and elaborate arrangements for their performance on occasions of festivals existed in several of the great temples. They served, in short, not merely as an aristocratic pastime, but also as a means of replenishing the coffers of the shrines. A little later than the middle of the sixteenth century, the national shrine of Izumo was found to be in need of costly repairs, and one of its vestals (miko), O-Kuni, an exceptionally skilled dancer, whose posturing in the kagura (sacred dance) at times of worship had become famous, undertook to visit Kyōtō for the purpose of enlisting assistance. She danced before the Shōgun Yoshiteru, and pleased him so much that he issued orders for the repair of the shrine. There the story might have ended and the evolution of the Japanese drama might have been indefinitely postponed had not a very old-fashioned element come upon the scene. Among the retainers of the Shōgun was one Nagoya Sanzaemon, whose duties consisted in superintending the arrangements for court festivities. Sanzaemon and O-Kuni fell in love with one another; their liaison was discovered, and they were dismissed from the Shōgun's service. The woman's wit suggested that they should earn a livelihood by practising in public the accomplishments they had acquired at the ​shrine and in the Shōgun's court, and thus they took to dancing on the sward of a common which may be seen to-day by any one visiting Kyōtō and making his way to Kitano Shiba-wara (the Kitano moor). The name given to the scene of their performance and still used in the sense of "theatre"—shibai, or the sward (shiba) seat (i)—perpetuates its rustic beginnings. O-Kuni's dance before the Shōgun had been the immemorial Ama-no-iwa-to, the mythological deities inviting the Sun Goddess to emerge from her cave. What modifications she introduced for popular purposes it is impossible now to determine. The main fact is that she and her husband converted the mimetic dance from a religious rite or an aristocratic pastime into a bread-earning profession, and thus laid the foundation of the theatre. History is accurate enough to tell something about O-Kuni's favourite costume—a wide-brimmed lacquer hat, a red rain-coat, a string of beads about her neck,—and also that she often took the role of a man, assigning the female part to her husband, while one Densuke acted as buffoon. They had an immense success, and found many imitators, but always among the lowest elements of the population. The Kyōtō filles de joie seem to have thought this kind of enterprise especially suited to their station and capacities. At the initiative of the still remembered Sadoshima Masakichi, they erected a stage ​in the dry bed of the river, and thus received the name "river-bed folk" (kawara-mono), an epithet significant of the contempt in which their profession was held. Sadoshima and her troupe, now including a number of performers of both sexes, made their way to Yedo at the beginning of the seventeenth century. But if they had any hope of improving their status by this change of location, events disappointed them. Within the crowded precincts of the "eastern capital" not even a river-bed offered space for their purpose, and they were obliged to betake themselves to the degraded quarter,—a suburb which had just sprung up on a site previously overgrown with reeds, the notorious Yoshiwara (reed-moor) of modern times. Thus the reputation of the new enterprise sank still lower, and, by and by, the conduct of the danseuses—whose number had now grown to nearly a hundred and fifty—being deemed injurious to public morals, the law stepped in and interdicted their performance. This happened in the year 1643. It was an event of great moment to the development of the histrionic art in Japan, for from that time actresses were never permitted to perform in company with actors, and it became necessary that the female roles should be taken by men. Apparently such a veto should have proved a serious obstacle, but in truth its effect was small. From the days of Genzaemon, a skilled musician and dancer who went from Kyoto to Yedo in the middle of the seven​teenth century, carrying with him a wardrobe of female finery and astounding his contemporaries by his perfect studies of feminine ways, the playing of women's parts by men has been carried to an extraordinary degree of excellence. It happens again and again that the deception is so perfect as to defy the closest scrutiny. Even to those fully cognisant that mixed acting has not yet been introduced, it is sometimes impossible to believe that an innovation of that kind has not been effected. All the indescribable graces and subtle refinements of feminine deportment are reproduced with absolute fidelity, and it becomes easy to credit an assertion often made by persons familiar with the "green room," that such results are obtained only by acting the woman till the simulation becomes unconscious, and is preserved as faithfully in every-day life as on the stage. It may be added here that although the old interdict no longer holds, the exclusive custom still prevails. Actresses there are,—two or three companies,—but their moral reputation is of the worst, and it is thought that their admission to the stage proper would sink it again to the low level from which it has barely begun to rise. Thus the onna-shibai (women's theatre) remains a thing apart, and until a new generation of artistes are specially educated, the ban of ostracism will continue in force. But these comments depart from the sequence of history. It is a con​fused history, if Japanese records be followed; a history in which the growth of the drama itself has no concern for the narrator in comparison with the biographies of individual performers and the vicissitudes of their enterprise. By the middle of the seventeenth century the student finds a term employed which indicates that the histrionic element of the dance had assumed prominence, but it may be broadly stated that until the early years of the eighteenth century theatrical performances were only a special variety of the mimes already described under the name of no-kyogen and popularised as kabuki. The dancers, by gesture and facial expression, pourtrayed the motives and sentiments attributed to them by a chorus of singers, but remained always mute themselves. Marionette shows had much to do with the development of the true drama. Their use in association with music and song dated from about the year 1605, and gradually attained such a degree of elaboration that the task of composing puppet plays began to occupy the attention of men of letters. Early in the eighteenth century two dramatists, Chikamatsu Monzaemon and Takeda Izumo, adapted for the marionette stage celebrated historical incidents, like the vendetta of the Forty-seven Ronin, and the expulsion of the Dutch from Formosa by the pirate King Kokusen-ya (known in European annals as Coxinga). These men were the fathers ​of the Japanese drama, and it is a noteworthy fact that their talent as playwrights was without precedent in its time, and has remained without peer ever since. The magnificent costumes of the marionettes were adopted by the actors; wigs took the place of the kerchiefs previously wrapped round the head; scenery was added, and at last the drama reached its present stage of development.
This skeleton record has a value not merely historical: it brings into prominence the two factors that have chiefly operated in the development of the Japanese drama, namely, that the performances took place originally in the open air, and that they had a choragic accompaniment. A necessary result of the former was that the dais where the acting had its focus did not constitute the limits of the stage. Instead of emerging from mysterious regions behind doors or partitions, the performers, throughout the whole course of their comings and goings, remained under the eyes of the audience. The very rudiments of art prescribed such a method in the case of dancing, for motion, to be perfectly musical, must be smooth and continuous: the dancer must enter the field of vision without any violent transition from rest to activity. Hence it was quickly understood that he must dance to the dais, and out of that canon grew the idea of making a route from the back of the auditorium to the stage. It was appropriately bounded by ​lines of blossoms, and thus received the name "flower path" (hana-michi). Another result of the al-fresco performance was that the environment of the stage had to be included in the scenic ensemble. The stage became merely a part of a general scheme of decoration in which not only the auditorium, but also the whole space within the range of the spectator's vision, was comprised. At first the dancers set up a dais wherever space was conveniently available; no special steps were taken to provide accommodation for the audience. But by and by a semi-circular platform was erected for the better classes of spectators. This innovation is perpetuated in the nomenclature of the theatre, for inasmuch as "dead heads" made a habit of peeping at the performance through the scaffolding that supported the platform, they received the name of uzura (quails), in allusion to their stooping posture, and by that name the portion of the auditorium immediately below the gallery continues to be called to-day. From the erection of this crescent of seats to the complete enclosure of the place of performance, and the building of a permanent hall, progress was natural and quick. The theatre assumed a form which has varied little during the past century. There is a pit, divided into a number of little cubicals with matted floors, where the people sit, more Japonico; there are tiers of boxes on either side; there is a broad corridor at the ​back, and, to the right and left of the stage, there are elevated boxes for the chorus and the reciters, who are almost concealed from the audience by bamboo blinds. All these arrangements are simple and somewhat rude: the comfort of the spectator is little consulted. The stage revolves. How and when that excellent idea occurred to the Japanese, there is no evidence. They did not get it from China or India, and it can scarcely have come to them through ancient Grecian traditions. The element of naturalness and realism that it adds to the performance cannot be overestimated. It doubles the scope of the representation. The outside of a house is shown, and so is everything that passes outside by way of preliminary to what is about to occur within. Then the stage revolves, and the same actors appear in the indoor scene. Elaborations of such a facility are innumerable and will be easily conceived without detailed description. The "flower road" is an important adjunct. An underground passage enables the actor to get from the back of the stage to a point behind the auditorium, whence he emerges on the hana-michi, and makes his way through the audience to the stage. He is acting all the while—perhaps conferring with a companion as to the course to be pursued when they reach their destination, perhaps stealing along to effect a surprise, perhaps hesitating about the welcome that awaits him, perhaps ​lingering in the reluctance of a final farewell. The effect is not merely to enhance the realism and deepen the interest, but also to make the whole audience participate in the action of the drama, and to enable accessory incidents to be developed simultaneously with the unfolding of the central plot. A similar extension of dramatic capabilities results from the choragic adjunct. On the stage of the Occident, dialogue, monologue, or a "situation" is always necessary. That vast domain of every-day life where the lips are silent, though the mental preludes or consequences of important events are in full progress, cannot be shown without violating truth. The performer is obliged to think aloud, even though breathless silence be prescribed by all the probabilities of the scene. He has to interrupt the action of the plot in order to take the audience into his confidence; in order to unveil sentiments which, did they really control his acts, would never tolerate such interruptions. The Japanese method does not compel speech to play that exaggerated and unnatural part in the drama of life. Monologues are not sanctioned unless the situation is such as to evoke them naturally. Sometimes a great part of a scene takes place without any interchange of words or any use of speech by the actors. They confine themselves to depicting moods or performing acts which the choragic reciter explains. The pantomime is admirable; occasionally a little exag​gerated, but reaching, on the whole, to an extraordinarily high standard of mimetic art. That is the natural result of a system which assigns as much importance to the mimetic side of the drama as to the spoken. It is probably safe to affirm that the Japanese are the greatest mimics in the world.
There is, however, one feature which contrasts strangely with this obedience to the verities. The mechanics of the drama are suffered to obtrude themselves upon public observation through the medium of stage attendants. These persons, draped and veiled in "invisible" colours, are appropriately called "blacks" (kurombo). They openly assist at the intricate transformations of costume occasionally demanded by the progress of the play, and they clear the stage of encumbrances which, in an Occidental theatre, would necessitate a tableau and fall of the curtain. Thus a veiled figure may be seen, now aiding a dancer to emerge, chrysalis-like, from a sombre surcoat into a butterfly robe; now holding a little curtain of black cloth between the audience and a supposed corpse while the latter removes itself. Such discordant notes destroy the realistic harmony of the general action. They are, as will readily be conjectured, defects that have descended from the days of marionettes, and within the past few years they have almost disappeared.
In speaking of the Japanese drama a very notable point has to be recorded: the same plays ​have held the stage for much more than a century. There would be a parallel in the West if English theatres had confined themselves to Shakespeare ever since the publication of his works. The Japanese generally knows beforehand exactly what he is to see at the theatre, and knows that his father and his grandfather saw the same piece. New dramatists are now beginning to make their appearance, but the old may be said to occupy the field still. Thus the value that attaches to the skill of the actors cannot be overestimated. There are farces, of course,—"gossip-plays" (sewa-kyogen), as they are called,—but they serve chiefly to relieve the tension of the drama, and are usually played between the acts of the latter. It must be confessed that until modern times Japanese comedy was distinctly broad. It sometimes employed materials that are banished from the daylight of Western decorum, and derived inspiration from incidents that would shock fastidious delicacy in Europe. But these blemishes were usually softened by an atmosphere of naturalness and simplicity. They did not indicate moral debasement such as would accompany similar absence of reserve in a Western country. To interpret them in that manner would have been to mistake artlessness for obscenity. As reasonably might one confound the undisguised diction of the Pentateuch with the prurient coarseness of "Love in a Wood" or "The Country Wife." If Japanese comedy had ​much in common with the works of Juvenal and Aristophanes, it seldom recalled Wycherley or Congreve. If it sometimes raised a laugh at the grosser phases of life, it scarcely ever became a vehicle for presenting to public imagination the immoral in company with the attractive. And the new civilisation may be said to have purged it of all evil elements. In modern Japan a year's advance represents, in many cases, a decade of progress. The present generation of Japanese are probably as far removed from the license of pre-Meiji days as the English of our era are from the indecencies of "The Rake's Progress" and "Tristram Shandy."
The social status of the actor has not yet been appreciably raised. The theatre, indeed, is no longer avoided by the upper classes, but only as a point of special complaisance do they occasionally admit the stars of the stage to their company. In no small degree the actor himself is responsible for this anomaly. With little hope of improving his station, he pays little heed to the obligations of respectability. He apparently thinks that a vicious life cannot add much to the disabilities under which he already labours. At the same time fate, with its usual waywardness, impels the professional danseuse (geisha) to seek in the actor's unconventional society solace for the orderly services that she is obliged to render in aristocratic circles whence the actor is ostracised. With these "butterflies of the banquet," the ob​ject of making money is generally to spend it on an actor. One can easily guess how it fares with the actor in the absence of social restraint and in the presence of such strong temptation. Besides, he has not even the solace of knowing that worldly prosperity will reward his talents. His pecuniary recompense, indeed, has ceased to be small. It has always been and still is the rule that a play should run for at least twenty-three days. Very often, of course, the period is extended. For such a term the emoluments of Ichikawa Danjuro, incomparably the greatest actor of his era, are twenty-five hundred yen. If, however, he has played in an exceptionally arduous role, an additional honorarium of from two to three thousand yen is given. There are some seven performances yearly. Thus Danjuro's annual income is from ten to fifteen thousand gold dollars. Out of that total, however, he has to disburse large sums for the hire of his costumes, which are not provided by the theatre, and for the support of pupils (deshi) who constitute a kind of society to promote his influence and perpetuate his style. Moreover, the unwritten law of the actor's profession requires that he should live on a scale of lavish expenditure. Apart from the tendency that his art educates to court public notice by magnificent ostentation, there is an instinctive resort to that agreeable method of self-advertisement, and there is also an unconfessed but powerful desire ​to prove that fortune favours him, though aristocrats are unkind. Thus the comings and goings of great actors partake of the nature of royal progresses. They never descend to the rôle of a humble citizen. Everywhere they carry the stage with them, and whether they visit a spa in the dog-days, or take an evening's outing on a river, or organise a picnic to view "snow flowers," or go on a fishing expedition, or stay at home, they are always acting the grand seigneur in fact as well as in fashion. The inimitable Danjuro, indeed, departs somewhat from these extravagances, and it is just to add that he is a conspicuous exception to the common rule of licentious living. But, on the whole, the actor and his art alike suffer from abuses which are, perhaps, the inevitable outgrowth of an unhonoured employment. The lessee of a theatre is at the mercy of a capitalist; the actor, at that of the property man. The lessee generally has no capital but his official license; the capitalist has a list of the theatre's liabilities, contracted some in the present some in the past, and usually aggregating a sum beyond all reasonable possibility of liquidation. The bulk of the theatrical wardrobe is owned by merciless monopolists who extort the last sen for the use of a costume. From the capitalist the lessee receives, at each representation, just enough money to defray current expenses, and for that accommodation he is required not merely to repay the advance, but also ​to set aside from the takings interest at the rate of thirty or forty per cent. Thus actor and lessee alike are weighted by a heavy load of debt. That theatrical enterprise should show little vitality under such circumstances is natural. An attempt has indeed been made to improve the stage, the scenery, and the equipment of the house, but the results have not been so successful as to warrant the extension of the effort beyond one theatre. The low status of the profession is still glaringly displayed in meagre scenery, rough wooden buildings, and accommodation of the crudest and most comfortless description. Only at the one theatre just spoken of, the Shintomi-za, or "New-wealth theatre," has the custom of holding representations that last from morning till evening been cut down by a moiety. The waste of time thus entailed and the unwholesome effects of sitting for so many hours in a crowded, ill-ventilated building are not the only evil features of the habit. People who spend the day looking at a play must be provided with meals, and out of that necessity there springs up around the theatre a little city of restaurants and tea-houses, all adding to the costliness of the entertainment and subtracting from the productive capacity of the nation. The theatre, in fact, has not shared the general progress of modern Japan. Yet it certainly has a great future before it, for, in addition to the unique features described above, there is histrionic capacity of the very highest order. ​Ichikawa Danjuro and Onoye Kikugoro, the princes of the stage at present, would long ago have earned a world-wide reputation had their lot been cast in any Western country. There cannot be any second opinion about their capacities, or about their title to rank with the great tragedians of the world. But in their own country, though their names are household words, the taint of their profession clings to them still. Men speak of them as a ballet-dancer of extra-ordinary agility or a banjo-player of eminent skill would be spoken of in Europe or America,—renowned exponents of a renownless art.
The observances of the twelfth month, the "last child" (otogo) of the year, remain to be noticed. Its opening day brings once more upon the scene the perennial rice dumpling, now eaten by all that go down to the sea in ships, a charm against perils of wave and flood. The part played by this particular comestible in Japanese religious rites and ceremonies doubtless excites the reader's curiosity. It is the sacred bread of the nation, but it owes its exalted character to nothing more mysterious than its circular shape, a type of the mirror used to entice the wayward Sun Goddess from her cave in the days of the beginning of all things. In the cities these quaint customs are gradually fading from public sight, but some of them are preserved from oblivion by the motives that they furnish to artists. Probably no collection of Japanese objects of virtu is without three ​or four representations, in wood, ivory, or bronze, of the tsuina, or demon-expelling ceremony. In the artist's hands it takes the form of a devil flying from a shower of beans directed against him by a householder in gala costume. The whole ceremony, as practised by the people, is sufficiently depicted by this brief description. On the last night of the old year, the night that divides (setsubun) winter from spring, parched beans are scattered about the house, with repeated utterance of the formula "Out devils, enter fortune" (oni soto fuku uchi). There was a time when this rite was performed in the Imperial Court on an imposing scale. Four bands of twenty youths, each wearing a four-eyed mask, a black surcoat, and a red body garment, and each carrying a halberd in the left hand, marched simultaneously from the four gates of the Palace, driving the devils before them. A great plague at the beginning of the eighth century suggested the need of this ceremony, and China furnished the programme; but modern Japan is content to bombard with beans the sprite of ill-luck, trusting bacteriologists to exorcise the imps of pestilence. Some of the ancient customs, however, have not changed with the times. Industrious women still make offerings of broken needles at the temple of Awashima on the 8th of the month, and still abstain from all sewing on that day. In every home there is still a grand "smut sweeping" (susuharai,) sometimes on the 13th, some​times at the close, of the month. "Feasts of year-forgetting" (bonen-kai) are still organised to dispel regrets for the death of another span of life; and in the shadows of the tutelary deities' temples and shrines night fairs are still held, to which the people throng in vast crowds to buy pines of perennial verdure, lobsters of longevity, ropes of sweet airs, and all the other decorative adjuncts of the season, as well as battle-boards for little girls and kites for boys. The fairs themselves are festivals,—bright landmarks in the lives of the young, revivals of fond memories for the old.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 25.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 26.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 27.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 28.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 29.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 30.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 31.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 32.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 33.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 34.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 35.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 36.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 37.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 38.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 39.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 40.
* ↑ ​Note 25.—The feet are little seen in Japanese dancing: their action is subordinate. Probably for that reason there is not a great variety of steps or a rich vocabulary of terms such as the languages of France and Scotland furnish.
* ↑ ​Note 26.—The mimetic dances of Madagascar seem to have some affinity with those of Japan, so far as concerns the ​events represented, but the motions and poses of the dancers are radically different. It may also be noted that the dances imitative of the movements of animals, so common among the autochthons of Africa, Asia, and Australasia, have very few parallels in Japan. The salient exception is the Dance of the Dog of Fo (shisbi-odori), which had its origin in China.
* ↑ ​Note 27.—These conceptions are all of Chinese origin.
* ↑ ​Note 28.—Meaningless interjections, thrown in by the musicians.
* ↑ ​Note 29.—An allusion to a method of divining.
* ↑ ​Note 30.—A game in which one player guesses the number of small objects—generally fragments of a chop-stick—concealed in the hand of the other.
* ↑ ​Note 31.—The Government of the Restoration (1867) distinguished itself by drastic legislation against transactions that pledged women to a life of shame. It issued a law dissolving, without reserve, all existing covenants of that nature and annulling any monetary obligations connected with them. It proclaimed that all capital invested in immoral enterprise should be treated as stolen, and that, since prostitutes and geisha had dehumanised themselves, moneys due by them, or by others on their account, could not be recovered; and it prescribed severe penalties for any attempt to bind a girl to degrading service. But that passion of reform was soon cooled by contact with conditions that have proved too strong for legislation in all ages, and the statesmen of Japan, finding they could not eradicate the evil, adopted the wiser course of regulating it.
* ↑ ​Note 32.—There are, nevertheless, some fifteen thousand licensed yu-jo in Tōkyō and its suburbs. The total sum squandered yearly on this kind of debauchery by the capital, with its million and a quarter of citizens, is two and one quarter million yen, which is found to be an average of eighty-eight sen (about 45 gold cents) per head of those that spend it.
* ↑ ​Note 33.—A boat having its middle part covered by a roof (yane) under which the pleasure-seekers sit.
* ↑ ​Note 34.—The rakugo-ka uses a fan only at his performance. He is not provided with the paper baton (bari) of the koshakushi. This trifling difference is nevertheless characteristic.
* ↑ ​Note 35.—Anrakuan Shakuden, originally called Hira- ​bayashi Heidayu, a name which signifies that he possessed expert musical skill.
* ↑ ​Note 36.—The remuneration earned by the koshaku-shi is small. There are three classes distinguished by degrees of skill. A third-class expert receives one rin per head of audience. Hence two hundred hearers—a good "house"—means twenty sen (ten cents gold). A first-class performer is entitled to ten times that amount. Thus his attendance at a yose generally brings him a dollar (gold). He may give a koshaku at two or even three yose daily, and he is often invited to social réunions, when his guerdon varies from a dollar and a half to four or even five dollars. But there are not more than ten masters in all Japan whose reputation secures lucrative private patronage.
* ↑ ​Note 37.—The origin of the term is interesting. When the Imperial Court was at Nara (eighth century), pestilential vapours were found to proceed from a cave near one of the temples. The dance of Okina Sanbaso, to which allusion has been made in speaking of New Year observances, was danced on the sward before the cave to dispel the evil influence, and people spoke of the performance as shibai, in allusion to the place where it was held.
* ↑ ​Note 38.—It was called kabuki, of which the ideographic significance is a performance (ki) of song (ka) and dance (bu). As to the origin of the word, however, some allege that it was a corruption of katamuki, to sway or overturn, and that it was used with reference to the transports of delight into which the audience ought to be thrown by such displays of skill. However that may be, the point to be noted is that the popular form of mime was named kabuki, as distinguished from the aristocratic no. To this day one of the principal theatres in Tōkyō is called Kabuki-za, and the term might be properly applied to any place employed for histrionic representations.
* ↑ ​Note 39.—There is a well-known and fairly well attested story that, on the occasion of a conflagration at a theatre, one of these male actresses thought only of saving his hand-mirror. That they are constantly courted by amorous rustics unacquainted with theatrical usages is certain.
* ↑ ​Note 40.—Mono-mane kyogen, which literally signifies "imitative divertissement." Kyogen, in its original sense, means farci- ​cal, or burlesque, language, but was used with reference to the entertainment furnished by the choric monologues rather than to any extravagance in their diction.
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