# Occult Japan/Pilgrimages and the Pilgrim Clubs

PILGRIMAGES AND THE PILGRIM CLUBS.
I.
VERY traveler in Japan will have been struck by a singular yet well-nigh universal appendage to the country inn: a motley collection of cloths dangling from short fishing-poles stuck into the eaves in one long line before the entire inn-front. Unlike as they otherwise are, the greater part agree in displaying at the top the conventional far-eastern symbol that passes for a peak.
From their general shape, size, and stamping, the stranger will take them, at first blush, for the towels of the guests hung out in all innocence to dry, though their inordinate number slightly tax the credit of even Japanese tubability. Sojourn at the inn, however, will shortly dispel this illusion by showing them to be fixtures, a permanent part of the real estate of the establishment.
​Forced to change his idea as to their character, the unenlightened will next conceive them to be some novel inn allurement, a sort of preposterous bait of landlord ingenuity, dangled thus to catch the public eye. Secularly speaking, both inferences are correct. For they were towels, and are bait, but not of landlord invention. They are the ho-no-tentigui or gift towels of the pilgrim clubs.
Once they were quite simply towels, bestowed ingenuously upon the inn as tokens of favor by clubs that chanced to put up at it and be pleased; just as ladies in tourney times cast their hand-kerchiefs to their knightly choice. Not having handkerchiefs, the Japanese presented as keepsakes their towels instead, rather the more romantic souvenir of the two.
But towels they are no longer. Time has raised them above domestic service. They are now a sort of club advertisement and guide-book combined. For though they are presented to the inn, they are presented for the benefit of those presenting them. Each bears conspicuously the club name and address, and is left with the landlord to be displayed for sign to subsequent brethren ​that this is where the club puts up. It is the inn asterisk in the pilgrim Baedeker.
The pilgrims are very free with these certificates of club satisfaction. On any fairly good inn you shall count from fifty to an hundred of them, and with hostelries of exceptional entertainment the inn's eaves fail to accommodate all its pious indorsements, and stout poles planted in the street in front fly the overplus. Landlords spare no pains to display them, for the pilgrim patronage is individually not unlavish, and collectively is enormously large.
The sight of such banner-bedizened inns will probably be the foreigner's first introduction to Japanese pilgrims, unless the equally striking spectacle of itinerants distinguished by—and well-nigh extinguished under—huge toad-stool hats have already caused him to mark such plants as men walking. Once recognized, he will find both phenomena everywhere, for they form a regular part of the scenery.
Now some of these pilgrim clubs turn out to play a most important rôle in god-possession, being, in fact, clubs for the purpose. Some general account of them becomes, therefore, germane to our subject.
​To one of a poetic turn of thought the very name Shintō or the "Way of the Gods" pictures one long pilgrimage from earth to heaven. But such poesy is after all profane, the "way" here being as unvividly viewed by its followers as are the thousand and one other ways of the world by those who pursue them. Nevertheless, pilgrimages are more than foot-notes to its creed.
Probably at no time and among no people have pilgrimages been so popular as in this same nineteenth century in Japan, temporary excitements like the crusades excepted. Even the yearly caravan of the Mahometan world to Mecca, though it draw from greater distances and be invested with more pomp, does not imply so complete a habit. Every Japanese is a pilgrim at heart, though every summer fail to find him actually on the march. Poverty compels him to do his plodding at home. Want of funds alone seems to stand in the way of the nation's taking the road in a body from the middle of July to the first of September. As it is, the country's thorough-fares at that season are beaded with folk wending their way to some shrine or other.
Now there are three points worth ​noting about these pilgrimages. The first is that the impulse to them is emphatically of the people. Like so many Japanese traits, art for instance, the pilgrim spirit is not an endowment of the upper classes, but the birthright of everybody. Indeed, it is chiefly the simple who go on pilgrimages, the gentle not being sufficiently given to walking.
The next feature is their purely national character. Their patronage is quite insular. Their goals draw no devotees from outre mer, Buddhist though some of them be, no contingent ever crosses from China or Korea to visit them. On the other hand, to the more famous of them pilgrims flock from all over Japan. Men from one end of the empire meet there men from the other, and from all points in between; a fact which in the eyes of the pilgrims adds greatly to the pleasure of the pilgrimage, since socially it is journeying the whole length of the land by only going part way. Regard for the smaller shrines is naturally bounded by a narrower horizon. But considering that till within ten years the means of conveyance were one's own feet, the attraction of even these lesser load-stars is felt surprisingly far.
​That the pilgrim spirit is thus in a twofold sense wholly national,—first in the sense of only, and then in the sense of all—implies one important fundamental fact: that Japanese pilgrimages are not of Buddhist but of Shintō origin. It is the first hint of the groundlessness of the Buddhist claims to spiritual ownership in the mountain-tops, all of which they assert they first made accessible to mankind. But in spite of the very catholic character of the pretension, the right to such eminent domain grows airier and airier the closer we scrutinize it. The Buddhist idea, like the early Christian, seems to have been, when confronted by a strong popular superstition: Baptize it at once.
The third peculiarity about these pilgrimages consists in their being probably the most unreligious in the world. Speaking profanely, they are peripatetic picnic parties, faintly flavored with piety; just a sufficient suspicion of it to render them acceptable to the easy-going gods. For a more mundanely merry company than one of these same pilgrim bands it would be hard to meet, and to put up at an inn in their neighborhood is to seem bidden to a ball. They are far more ​the "joly compagnie" of "fayerie" Chaucer tells us of than the joyless "lymytours" that displaced it.
The Japanese go upon pilgrimages because they thoroughly enjoy themselves in the process, the piety incident to the act simply relieving them from compunction at having so good a time. Sociability is the keynote of the affair from start to finish. To pool one's pleasure is always to increase it, and for a Japanese to pool his purse is matter of as much account. For a Japanese is not only poor, but impecunious. His personal property of impersonality is only matched by the impersonality of his personal property. For what a Japanese appears to possess is, ten to one, borrowed of a friend, and what he really owns pledged to a neighbor. He is, in short, but a transition stage in one long shift of loan. We talk of our far-reaching system of mercantile credits. It is financial self-sufficiency beside the every-day state of far-eastern affairs. Everybody there lives as a matter of course upon somebody else. To these states of mind and money are due the founding of the pilgrim clubs.
The pilgrim clubs (kōsha or kō) are great ​institutions in numbers as well as in other things. Indeed they are numerous beyond belief. Collectively they are said to comprise eighty per cent. of the entire population of the empire, a statement I accept only at a popular discount. Their individual membership consists on the average of from one hundred to five hundred persons apiece. Some clubs are smaller than this, and of some the membership mounts into the thousands. The Tomeye kō, the largest I know of, has about twelve thousand men enrolled in it. That these are drawn chiefly from the small tradesman and artisan class speaks for the hold the habit has on the people.
Ladies are quite eligible for election and even for office in these clubs. The wife of a tobacconist with whom I am acquainted is actually the head of a sub-sect, which comprises several clubs; and the husband is an enthusiastic club-man in one of them.
The constitution of the clubs is delightfully simple. The club charter is obtained from the head of the sect by some energetic individual of the society-founding propensity, who collects about him a few friends and incidentally appoints himself to the club ​presidency, becoming what is called its sendatsu. When not thus self-appointed, the president is elected by the brethren for his piety, which is another name for the same thing.
Besides their simplicity, one great charm about these clubs is their cheapness. Whatever may be argued by domestically inclined individuals against clubs generally on the score of expense, these at least would hardly seem open to the charge. For the initiation fee is from three to five cents (five to ten sen), and the dues from two thirds of a cent to a cent and a third (one to two sen) a month, according to the club. And yet the president of one of them once told me that the principal item in his club's running expenses was the cost of dunning the members for their dues. So lamentably lax in paying its debts is humanity the world over. But indeed it was a serious matter, for it amounted, it appeared, to a fifth of the gross receipts. His club consisted of five hundred members each of whom was supposed to pay eight cents a year into the club treasury; which sum it took eight dollars to collect.
When his club obligations have finally been discharged, the member receives a ​ticket (kansatsu) with the name of the club and of the sub-sect to which it belongs inscribed on its face, and the name of the member and half the stamp of the club seal on its back. The other half remains in the registry books, of which the ticket is a slip. The ticket constitutes a certificate of membership to all whom it may concern, innkeepers principally.
Forgetfulness to discharge one's club dues is the less excusable in the face of their being of the nature of gambling debts. For after the cost of collection and the other running expenses have been deducted, the remainder is raffled for by the members, and pocketed by the lucky winners through the club treasurer, for pilgrimage purposes.
Once a year, about three weeks before the pilgrim band is to start, the lots are drawn, and in the drawing everybody who has paid up participates except the winners of previous pools. They are barred, to give the unlucky a chance, till each shall have had his journey apiece. Thus are the inequalities of fate corrected and all eventually made happy at the club expense.
The dues being so modest, the percentage ​of prizes is necessarily small; only about three members in a hundred being annually recipients of the club fund. Paucity of prizes doubtless conduces to remissness in paying up; and even rotation in eligibility, just though it be, does not add to the desire of past beneficiaries to make present, personally unprofitable, disbursement.
The fortunate winners are held to be especially invited of the gods to visit them. The club fund is turned over to the club treasurer for their benefit, and the others heartily envy them their lot.
The envy is chiefly pecuniary. For though the god is supposed through the lots to show a pleasing preference for the winner's company, he is not considered averse to self-invited visitors. Any one who wishes to join himself to the pilgrim company may do so at his own expense; and very many avail themselves of the privilege.
On the day appointed for the start, the god-chosen and the self-invited rendezvous at what stands to the club for club-house, and thence sally forth under the guidance of their revered president. This individual, being presumably the holiest man in the club, ​if not the actual author of its being, is clothed from the start with a certain fatherly prestige. His importance is heightened by the fact of his having made the pilgrimage several times before. Indeed, he goes usually every year, and paternally expounds the wonders of the way to the brethren, who listen agape and retail it all in their turn to a no less spellbound audience at home. For, like the month of March, though in another way, they come in like lions who went out like lambs.
The worthy man is not only the head but the only dead-head of the party. He alone pays no scot. There are thus more substantial benefits accruing to the post of club president than simply a cicerone's gratified sense of importance. That he does not have to pay reminds one of directors' cars at home. However, so holy a person is otherwise superior to money considerations; the purse being carried by the tori-shimari-nin or treasurer.
The treasurer is the club's man-of-affairs, of very small affairs indeed. The Japanese are not above a monetary system which descends in decimals to the thousandth part ​of a cent, and, what is more surprising, they keep accounts to the like infinitesimal figures. Small wonder that neither arithmetic nor trade have charms for them. To such microscopic quantities the club treasurer is no stranger. Nothing is too minute to figure in his cash-book, from a fresh pair of straw sandals at a cent and a half a pair to a pickle or two at next to nothing. To the bill for which, lilliputian in all but length, the innkeeper with due solemnity affixes his seal.
In spite of the infinitesimal values of the separate items of the expense, the sum total invariably causes the club fund to fall short, the deficit having to be made up out of the individual pockets of the pilgrims. Unlike the club dues, this does not seem to be begrudged, the fact being that a pilgrimage is altogether too delectable a thing not to render those who indulge in it blind to its cost.
In addition to the president and treasurer, there are other officials known as sewanin or help-men, officers whose principal duty would seem to be helping the president dun members for their dues.
​The pilgrim clubs find no counterpart in China. They are therefore not an imported institution, but a custom indigenous to Japan.
II.
Japanese pilgrimages are of two kinds, the distinction being matter of topography. For though some pilgrimages are Buddhist, some Shintō, a much more fundamental point about them is the character of the country concerned—whether they are made to the lowland shrines or to the sacred summits.
In importance, the Shintō pilgrimages come first, measuring importance by patronage. Half a million folk, it is estimated, make the journey to the shrines at Ise every spring, and ten thousand climb Fuji every summer. Of the ten modern Shintō sects, all but two are addicted to going upon pilgrimages, and each has its special great goal, as well as innumerable minor ones. These goals are the spots dedicate to their special gods. Of the two sects without goals, one is a sort of government bureau, and is consequently sedentary. The other would seem to be in the act of evolving the pilgrimage habit, for it has pilgrim clubs which, ​however, go no whither. Of the other eight, three are devoted to Ontaké, two to Ise, two to Fuji, and one to Izumo. Sects do not mix goals, but it is quite permissible for individuals to mix sects. So that persons of advanced pilgrimage proclivities can indulge them to any extent without too tiresome repetition.
Pilgrimages to the lowland shrines and to the sacred peaks differ in several important respects; in sex, to begin with. For femininity has always flocked to the one, and, until western ideas broke down all the proprieties, was debarred the other. This was no matter of physique, but of piety. Woman was altogether too godless a creature to tread such holy ground as the peaks; an odd assumption, to our thinking, since woman with us, when not superficially godlike, is pretty sure to be godly. But the other side of the world thinks otherwise. It was considered favor enough to permit her to climb three quarters way up, where she was obliged to stop; which must have been considerably more aggravating than not to have been allowed to climb at all.
Proof, however, that this was an invidious ​distinction, and that woman is by nature no less devout in Japan than elsewhere, is the way in which she tramps to the lowland shrines, and has a radiant time of it the whole distance. To see her trudging sturdily along, beaming at the least provocation, the very impersonation of vacant good-humor, does one good like a gleam of sunshine. Sometimes she dutifully follows in the wake of her lord and master; sometimes she shuffles along in the exclusive society of her own sex, chattering continuously upon nothing at all. But she is always perfectly happy and apparently never tired. She knows no nerves.
To the great Shrines of Ise it is the fashion for pilgrim clubs to go composed entirely of pilgrimesses, maidens of Kyōto and Osaka, who make the journey in bands of from fifty to a hundred, taking with them only one man, or two, to do the heavy work; veritable bouquets of pretty girls.
Stranger still, to our notions of propriety, little girls of eleven or twelve will surreptitiously club together and slip off some fine morning all by themselves on a tramp to the shrine. There is at first some slight alarm ​when the disappearance is discovered. But the very inquiry that raises anxiety soon lulls it by revealing similar bereavements among the parents' particular friends. Then the financial accomplices to the deed, kindhearted neighbors, wheedled by the children into loaning them the necessary funds, come forward and own up, now that the borrowers are beyond recall. But, indeed, so soon as the cause of the flight is known, there would seem to be no thought of fetching back the fugitives. On the contrary, their act is deemed eminently praiseworthy, which strikes one as perhaps illogical. But religion covers a multitude of sins.
The parental heart is not set quite at rest, however, till other pilgrims returning from the shrine bring word of the waifs; one has met the little girls disembarking at Yokkaichi, another saw them at the Ise inn. All report the truants quite well and happy, as if children at mischief were ever otherwise. Then, with palpitations of pride, the parents make great preparations against their return. Elaborate these are, for honor enough, apparently, cannot be done the young scapegraces. Long before they can possibly arrive, their ​relatives go out to meet them many miles down the road, and then wait sometimes several days at a convenient village till the band heaves in sight. The girls are received with praise instead of blame, and amid great rejoicings escorted into town; a reception which conduces to recurrence of the escapade.
Each lowland shrine has its special festival season, although it may also be visited advantageously at other times. Pilgrimage to the shrines at Ise is made at the time the cherries blow. Then the great highways that lead thither are as gay with pilgrim folk beneath as their flower aisles are bright with blossom overhead. The progress of each band is one long triumphal march. As it nears an inn where it purposes to spend the night, runners are dispatched ahead to notify the place of its coming, which instantly becomes all bustle to receive it. Hastily donning their best clothes, the maids and other servants scamper out to meet the band and escort it in with festival pomp. A feast follows in the evening quite as spirituous as spiritual, pointed with pious song right secularly sung. At the end of it there is ​something very like a break-down by the whole company, maids and all. The pilgrims rising, make a ring about the maids in the middle and then walk round and round chanting the Ise hymn, while the maids join lustily in the chorus. In this unpuritanical fashion is each evening brought to a close.
Upon their departure the next morning the pilgrims present everybody with souvenirs of themselves: the inn with the club banner and the maids with their club visiting-cards. Especially is the president to the fore with this charming attention. Both kinds of keepsakes are carried in large quantities by the band, and distributed unstintedly. For not to scatter such mementos of themselves along their route would be, in pilgrim estimation, to travel in vain. The landlord beams on the threshold, and the maids, all smiles, attend the band some distance out, and then throw good wishes after it till it disappears down the road.
But the supreme moment is when the company reënters in triumph its native town. Careful account has been kept of its whereabouts, and just before it is due horses strangely and gorgeously caparisoned ​are sent out to meet it. On either side the horses' necks are stuck long bamboo fronds, from which hang scarfs of gayly colored crape. Each horse carries a rich riding saddle, to which are fastened two paniers, one on either hand; each steed thus seating three persons apiece, one astride in the middle, and two asquat in the baskets on the sides. With the steeds are sent personal adornments for the pilgrims; hats made of flowers (hanagasa) and gayly embroidered coats, beside cakes and coppers for scattering to the crowd. Thus accoutred, rollicking along and strewing the largess as they pass, the pious pilgrims make their entry home. That evening a banquet is given them by their relatives and friends, regardless of expense, like to some coming of age in the gay middle ages. Saké and merriment flow without stint, and not till the next day do the pilgrims sink back again into private life; holier folk, however, ever after.
III.
More serious matters are the pilgrimages to the peaks. The seriousness shows itself on the surface in the matter of dress. For according to the character of the pilgrimage is the character of the costume worn by the pilgrim. To the shrines in the plain, the thing to wear is the height of holiday attire; for the peaks, on the other hand, the consecrated dress is as plain as possible.
Theoretically, the costume of the ascensionists is pure white or pearl-gray, according to their sect or pilgrim club; practically it is a grimy dirt-color in both cases. For it is never washed, the travel stains being part of its acquired sanctity. Its hue, self-effacing to begin with, is thus further rendered by nature self-obliterating. It becomes, therefore, doubly expressive of a proper blankness within.
It begins with a huge mushroom hat made of wood-shavings cleverly plaited, held on by a complication of straps. Natural deal-color is deemed in this connection as holy as pure white, since both are attempts at colorlessness. Under this hat, umbrella, or parasol, ​for it is most serviceably all of them as occasion requires, the pilgrim wears a handkerchief in fillet round his brow. A long white tunic comes next, which theoretically is the pilgrim's only garment, except of course the ubiquitous loin-cloth. Practically he usually has on something beneath it, first in the shape of a shirt and then of tight-fitting trouserdrawers. The tunic is thoroughly stamped with ideographs; some of them being the names of the gods of the mountain, some those of the pilgrim club. Girdling this is a long belt-sash, round which often runs a row of transmogrified Sanskrit letters, quite illegible to the wearer or to any one else, so caricatured have they been by successive ignorant transmission. Their illegibility of course enhances their religious effect; just as the word "amen" sounds incomparably holier than "so be it." White gaiters, white cloven socks, and straw sandals complete the more intimate part of the costume. The gaiters are sometimes lavender for the ladies.
But the most peculiar portion of the dress is the wing-like mat (goza) which the pilgrim wears over his shoulders by a strap across the breast. As it extends beyond his arms ​on either side and flaps in the wind as he walks, it gives him an ostrich-like effect at a distance, and what I conceive to be a seraphic one nearer to. At all events, it is the nearest mundane attempt at angelic representation. What is even more saintly, it is quite without vainglorious intent, being simply a combination waterproof-coat and linen-duster. It is also, very conveniently, both a carpet and a bed.
Quite as inseparable a part of the pilgrim is his staff. This is sometimes round, sometimes octagonal, and is branded with the name of the peak, and stamped in red with the sign of the shrine at the place where the ascent is supposed to begin. The imprint further takes pains to state whether the pilgrim came in by the front door or by the back one, mountains usually having both entrances, the original path being considered the front approach. The staves are counterstamped again at the summit; the holy seals effectually silencing all skepticism on the pilgrim's return, and permitting his imagination freer play in the domestic circle.
Somewhere about his person each man carries a kerosene-looking tin can in which ​to take home the holy water, a specialty of sacred peaks. With sublime superiority to detail it cures all ills, irrespective of their character.
In his right hand the leader of the party holds a bell which he rings as he walks; others often do the same. The tinkle of this bell, together with the chanting in which all join, imparts a fine processional effect to the march, very impressive to less pious wayfarers.
THE LEADER OF A PILGRIM BAND BLESSING THE HOLY WATER
If the costume seem somewhat destitute of comfort, the mountain itself is not. The traditional ascetics are described, indeed, as having made the ascent on single-toothed clogs, which certainly sounds difficult, and was thought a particularly meritorious thing to do. Its merit lay in thus avoiding crushing stray beetles, it is said. But the mountain knows such rigorous single-mindedness no more. Nowadays the ascent is specially convenienced for the comfort of the pious climbers. Every sacred peak is well ribboned with paths which are all thoughtfully beaded with rest-houses at intervals suited to the weakness of the flesh. A caretaker inhabits each of these hostelries and dispenses tea, cakes, water, and other fare to the exhausted, besides providing futon and such-like necessaries for spending the night. In the season the huts are crowded with pilgrims. Nominally there are always ten of them on every path from base to summit; one at the end of each section into which the path is fictitiously divided. The parts go ​by the rather surprising name of "gills" (go); the first "gill" being just within the mountain's portal, and the tenth welcoming the pilgrim at the top. Amid much that is passing strange in the Japanese method of mountaineering, this startlingly liquid measure for a painfully waterless slope is perhaps the strangest; for it is not the rest-houses that are so designated, but the path itself with what, considering its distressingly dry condition, must be thought very ill-placed humor. In explanation it is said that mountains are likened to heaps of spilled rice, the measure being one for both rice and liquids, and reckoned at a sho, or three pints, quite irrespective of size. The length of the path, by an easy extension, is called a quart and a half, and then divided into tenths, each of which becomes a gill.
Shrines beside the path are almost as numerous as rest-houses. Temples also are not wanting. There are several at the bottom, one at the top, and often others between, for though there be few on the flanks themselves, the foot of a mountain is of indefinite length. Untenanted by priests, they all stand open to the public, and the cords of ​their bells hang in mute invitation to the pilgrim to call upon the god.
But most peculiar and picturesque of the features of the way are the torii or skeleton-archways that straddle the path, Japanese colossi of roads. There are many of them for every shrine, the outermost placed at a seemingly quite disconnected distance away from what it heralds. The several passes known as Torii tōge scattered all over Japan, are all so called from such portals erected on their summits to sacred peaks visible from them in clear weather. One of the most important is the Torii tōge on the Nakasendō, through whose arch the pilgrim, as he tops the pass, catches his first view of Ontaké, a long snow-streaked summit, seen over intervening ranges of hills, thirty-five miles away, as the crane flies, or would fly, were he not practically extinct in Japan. This is the outer portal of all; after this the pilgrim finds gateway after gateway across his path, till the last ushers him on to the holy summit itself. Distrust of his own purity prevents the pious from actually passing under them on the ascent, and he modestly goes round them instead. On the descent, holiness conquers humility.
​Shrines, rest-houses, and portals make breathing spots for the pilgrims, which the church instantly turns to business account, for the church is not above trade. In its hands, faith very properly becomes a marketable commodity. In return for ready money it barters its salvation in the shape of charms. These are usually small pieces of paper stamped with the names of the gods, and sometimes lithographed with rude portraits of the same, manufactured by the million and sold for a cent. With such popular prices, sales are enormous, and booths under the charge of holy salesmen do a continuous business from morning to night, for no pilgrim passes on his way without buying his charm. Some of these (mamori) guard one against special catastrophe, disease, or misfortune; some bring particular good luck, such as a prolific propagation of one's silkworms; others are cure-alls and universal protectors. Charms are religion's epigrams; packet essences of truth, potent for being portably put. When the pilgrims get home, they pin them upon the lintel of their outer doors, and few doors in any Tōkyō street but are placarded with them.
​The pilgrims are much given to chanting as they march. They do it as naturally as some people whistle. The Ise bands go rolling along to the enlivening cadence of the Ise ondō and to many more special odes set to what with good will passes for music. It is rhythm on the road to song, a caterpillar stage in the art of melody, lacking as yet transformation to the winged thing.
The chants consecrated to the peaks are more truly processionals. Common to all of them is the stirring refrain Rokkon shōjō; Ōyama kaisei, chanted antiphonally in two tones, the second about a fifth higher than the first. Literally, the meaning of the refrain is: May our six parts be pure, and may the weather on the honorable peak be fine. But the words are mystic to most of those who repeat them. The first half is a portion of one of the purification prayers, the rokkon shōjō no harai, the second a part of a prayer for fine weather. It is, so I am informed, simply invaluable in dispelling mist.
Unlike the gods of the lowland shrines, which have each their special reception days, the gods of the peaks are all of them ​at home to mankind at the same season—midsummer. This is very considerate on their part, since to visit them at any other time would be troublesome. In consequence, in Japanese eyes, an ascent out of season is not only impious, but actually impossible. Every year, about the 20th of July, takes place what is known as the mountain-opening. At that time, all over Japan, the mountain-paths are repaired, the huts unbarred and put in order, and the peaks climbed with great pomp for the first ascent of the season. The peaks then remain open till about the 5th of September, when they are again deserted till the next July.
In this manner the "Goddess who makes the Flower Buds to blossom" receives her worshipers upon Fuji's crater-crest, to which a temple just without, known as the Goddess' Welcome, ushers them up. Other gods and goddesses are similarly visited upon their special peaks. But on all but one the eye of faith alone perceives them; only on one are they incarnate in the flesh.
IV.
For there is one mountain that makes bourne to a farther journey than any possible to the feet. Ontaké is goal to the soul's pilgrimage into the other world. For Ontaké is the mountain of trance. To its summit pilgrims ascend, not simply to adore but to be there actually incarnate of the gods. Through the six weeks in which the gods deign to receive man, divine possessions daily take place upon it. Furthermore, it is the only peak in Japan where, of the spot's own instance, such communion is thought to occur. It is what the Japanese call the great original (hon moto) of trance; other peaks, such as Ōmanago near Nikkō, getting their power by direct spiritual descent from it.
In keeping with the character of the peak, is the character of the pilgrim clubs that climb it. The Ontaké clubs differ from all their fellows in being divine-possession clubs. To become entranced is the club occupation. Instead of simple prayer-meetings in their dead season, these clubs hold regular séances for the purpose of being possessed, séances which they turn to very practical ends. For ​they direct all the important affairs of their lives by such revelation. Once a month they hold communion of the sort, and every midsummer as many of them as may travel to Ontaké for a yet higher spiritual flight. The thin, pure air of the peaks is conducive to ethereality, and Ontaké is furthermore invested with faith's most potent spell. If to have faith as a grain of mustard seed can remove mountains, it is not easy to set bounds to what a mountain of it might not be able to do.
Each club is a divine dramatic company in itself, containing all the performers necessary to a possession. Only in very small clubs is such organization lacking. But as in this case their president is often president of some larger club, the loan of a nakaza is easily managed. For the president borrows of himself in the one capacity what he needs in the other.
A PILGRIM CLUB ASCENDING ONTAKÉ.
Once started, each club is a spiritual law unto itself—a possession Salpétrière perpetuating its own peculiar practices. For it educates its own nakaza under the tuition of its maeza and the previous nakaza. The tuition is one long process in purification. A man begins as a simple member, gradually rises to a lower part in the function, and, if proficient, may eventually rise to be a godpossessed. The outward ceremonies are of course consciously copied, the inward initiative quite unconsciously conformed to.
When one subject has thus educated his successor he retires from active practice, becoming what is called an inkyo-nakaza. An inkyo, lit. a dweller in retirement, is a singular Japanese conception. It denotes a man who has abdicated all earthly cares, duties, and responsibilities in favor of his ​son; a man professedly gone from the world while still patently in it. This is a state of existence immaterial enough, but to be a retired potential god would seem a doubly etherealized idea. Nevertheless the thing exists, and in case of sickness or other incapacity on the part of the nakaza, the man who represents this abdicated embodiment of immateriality performs in the other's place.
The chief difference between the various schools of divinity consists in the opening or non-opening of the eyes of the possessed during the height of the trance. But all the other actions of the possessed during the trance are likewise stereotyped. His whole behavior in it is no more nor less than a bundle of hypnotic habits. The mechanical raising of the gohei-wand. to his forehead, the peculiar frenzied shake he gives it, the settling of it again to a statesque imperative before his brow, are all but so many cases of unintentional artificiality. This is particularly discernible in the difference between the simpler attitudes of the Ryōbu trances and the more elaborate poses of the pure Shintō ones. The Buddhist feminine fashions, again, are different from either.
​To be a club nakaza is pretty hard work. He must be possessed at least two or three times a month, and may be called upon to be somebody beside himself much oftener. It depends upon how much divination work there is to be done. This work is of two kinds. There is first the regular routine business of the club in the way of prophecy: the foretelling of drought, storms, earthquakes, and other general catastrophes affecting the interest of the club. Some clubs have to interview the gods once a month on such matters; others manage to get along on two questionings a year, at the two great semi-annual festivals. This is probably due to club-temperament, just as it suffices some people to ask a question once for all, while others have to be perpetually putting it under indistinguishably different forms. In addition to this routine work there are the inevitable extras: the unavoidable illnesses, to be cured by divine prescription, and incidentally any other misfortunes to which flesh is heir, all of which the god is expected to relieve on application. Between these various duties the god, and incidentally the poor nakaza is kept pretty ​busy. To be so frequently divine has its drawbacks. Except for his succès d'estime, a nakaza must wish at times that he were merely mortal. Even in all the club diseases, to be both doctor and patient, which is what it amounts to, is no slight strain on the poor man's constitution.
The god's conversation, though not superficially brilliant, is tolerably to the point, and certainly suggests intuition at times, though I know no cases of a very startling nature. The best instance I witnessed was the divining by the god of the pain in the leg of a friend of mine, to which, since the man was unknown to him and betrayed the fact by no outward sign, there was no visible clue.
The prophecies are not striking, though quite satisfactory to the club. They are religiously recorded on slips of paper and filed in the club archives. So that one may find there what the club's history was, or should have been, month by month in the past. The prophecies are laconic and indefinite enough to figure in the predictions of the "New England Farmer's Almanac;" a lack of precision which does not detract from their chance of verification.
​Other-world work is apparently quite compatible with hard work in this. One of my special friends, the nakaza of the August Dance Pilgrim Club is a case in point. His club communes once a month and his duties begin as soon as ever the monthly business accounts are settled. He then comes in for a series of possession engagements. Indeed, if you apply for a sitting you will find his time taken up ahead in a way to suggest more earthly callings. In addition to all of which he works like anybody else at his regular trade, and is a strong, hearty young fellow in spite of his being a god so goodly a fraction of his time.
Thus, humble though their active members be, the Ontaké pilgrim clubs furnish society not to be found in any other clubs on earth: the company of heaven is to be had for the asking. For the Ontaké pilgrim clubs are the only clubs in the world whose honorary members are, not naval officers, not distinguished foreigners, not princely figureheads, but gods.