Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-06
Festival of the Leaping Tortoise.
BY PIERRE LOTT.

BY PIERRE LOTT.
fpierre Lott, ls5o-is2S, was a French
Mriterr suthor Of that deliehtfui romance
OF old JAPAN Madame chryssntheme'
''How fortunate we are! This very
evening there is to be a pilgrimage to
the great temple of the Leaping Tor
toisel The whole town will be there"
We find the town in all the ANNA
ton of a great festival The streets
are thronged. The crowd passes us by
a laughing, capricious, slow, unequal
tide, flowing onward, steadily in the
same direction, toward the same goal.
There follow lanterns upon lanterns.
Never in my life have / seen so many.
so variegated and so extraordinary!
There are groups of women of every
age. decked out in their Smartest
clothes. There are crowds of young
girls with aigrettes of flowers in their
hair or little silver topknots-pretty
little faces. little narrow eyes peeping
between slit lids like those of newborn
kitten; fat pale little checks; round,
pufTed-out. half opened lips. They are
pretty these little Nipponese, in their
smiles and childishness.
The men wear many pot hat, added
to the long national robe. They carry
boughs in their hands, even whole
shrubs amid the foliage OF which
bangle all sorts of curious lanterns in
the shape of imps and birds.
AS we advance in the direction OF the
temple the streets become more noisy
and crowded All along the houses are
endless stalls raised on trestles. display
ing sweetmeats of every color, toys.
branches of flowers, bouquets. and
masks. There are masks everywhere,
boxes full of them. carts fun OF them,
the most popular being the livid and
cunning muzzle. represented in death
like grimace, the long straight ears,
sharp pointed teeth of the white fox,
sacred to the God of Rice.
There are other masks symbolic OF
gods or monsters, livid. grimacing, con-
Vulsed, with wigs and boards of nature!
hair. All manner of folk, even children
purchase these horrors and fasten them
over their faces. Every sort of tnstru-
ment is for sale, among them many OF
these crystal trumpets which sound so
strangely-this evening they are enor-
nous, s feet long. at least-and the
noise they make is unlike anything ever
heard before-one would say giant tur-
keys gobblinE among the crowd, striving
to inspire fear.
All along the streets leading to the
temple the wealthy inhabitants have
decorated fronts of their houses with
vases and flowers. The peculiar she'd
like buildings with their open platform
frontage, are well suited for the dis
play of choice objects. All the houses
have been thrown open and the in
teriors are hung with draperies that
hide the backs of the apartments.
The streets gradually ascend Che
temples are always built on height
and by degrees as we mount up there is
added to the brilliant fairyland OF Ian
terms and costumes yet another, ethere-
ally blue in the haze of distance. All
Id k@w ffe a
still waters full of the rays OF moon
light. seems to rise up with us into the
air. Slowly, step by step, one may say
1t springs up around. enveloping In one
great shimmering veil all the fore
ground, with its dazzling red lights and
many-colored streamers.
No doubt we are getting near, for
here are the religious steps, porticos and
monsters hewn out OF enormous blocks
of granite. We now have to climb Sc
ries of steps, almost carried by the surg
ing crowd ascending with US. The tenn
pie courtyard-we have arrived.
This Is the last and most astonishing
scene in the evenings fairy tale-a lu-
minous and weird scene, with fantastic
distances lighted up by the moon and
the gigantic trees, the sacred cryto-
merias, stretching forth their dark
sonber boughs liks q vast dome.
Behind us, in the lit-up and wide
open temple, the priests sit, immovable
embodiments of doctrine, In the gilt
tering sanctuary inhabited by divinities
chimeras and symbols. The crowd, mo-
notonously droning its mingled prayers
and laughter, presses around them, SOW
ing its aims broadcast, with a continuous
Jingle. The money rolls on the ground
into the precincts reserved to the
priests, where the white mats entirely
disappear under the mass Of many
sized coins, accumulated there as after
q deluge of silver and bronze.
Glou! Glou! Glou! The crystal
trumpets slowly repeat their notes. the
powerful sorority of which has q la
bored and smothered sound. as though
they came from under water They
rningle with the jingling of rattles and
the noise of castanets. A sort of reli-
gious terror is diffused by the hidden
idols in the temple behind US, by the
mumbled prayers. confusedly heard
above all by the horrible heads in lac
quered wood representing foxes which
as they pass, hide human faces-hide-
Gus. livid masks.
In the gardens and outbuildings Of
the temple the most inconceivable
mountebanks have taken up theil