'"W 
 
 825 
 .P97 
 Copy 1 
 
 Jmld life in japan 
 
 BY 
 MRS..M. CHAPLIN AYRTON 
 
 EdHed by 
 VBLLIAM ELLIOT GRIFF15 
 
Class _i, vr^ uA^ c- ) 
 Book_J^ ^ 
 
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The Lion of Korea. 
 
CHILD-LIFE IN JAPAN 
 
 AHU 
 
 JAPANESE CHILD STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. M. CHAPLIN AYRTON 
 
 II 
 
 EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY 
 WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, L.H.D. 
 
 Author of "The Mikado's Empire" and "Japanese Fairy World" 
 
 IV/TH MANY fLLUSTRATIONS, INCLUDING SEVEN FULL 
 
 PAGE PICTURES DRAWN AND ENGRAVED 
 
 BY JAPANESE ARTISTS 
 
 D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 
 
DSsas 
 ,A37 
 
 Copyright, 1901, 
 
 By D. C. Heath & Co. 
 1 D 2 
 
 
 ts-xiJr tik'r^) 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Over a quarter of a century ago, while engaged in 
 introducing the American public school system into 
 Japan, I became acquainted in Tokio with Mrs. Matilda 
 Chaplin Ayrton, the author of '' Child-Life in Japan." 
 This highly accomplished lady was a graduate of Edin- 
 burgh University, and had obtained the degrees of 
 Bachelor of Letters and Bachelor of Sciences, besides 
 studying medicine in Paris. She had married Professor 
 William Edward Ayrton, the electric engineer and in- 
 ventor, then connected with the Imperial College of 
 Engineering of Japan, and since president of the Insti- 
 tute of Electric Engineers in London. She took a keen 
 interest in the Japanese people and never wearied of 
 studying them and their beautiful country. With my 
 sister, she made excursions to some of the many famous 
 places in the wonderful city of Tokio. When her own 
 little daughter, born among the camellias and chrysan- 
 themums, grew up under her Japanese nurse, Mrs. 
 Ayrton became more and more interested in the home 
 life of the Japanese and in the pictures and stories 
 which delighted the children of the Mikado's Empire. 
 After her return to England, in 1879, she wrote this 
 book. 
 
 In the original work, the money and distances, the 
 comparisons and illustrations, were naturally English, 
 and not American. For this reason, I have ventured 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 to alter the text slightly here and there, that the Ameri- 
 can child reader may more clearly catch the drift of 
 the thought, have given to each Japanese word the 
 standard spelling now preferred by scholars and omitted 
 statements of fact which were once, but are no longer, 
 true. I have also translated or omitted hard Japanese 
 words, shortened long sentences, rearranged the illus- 
 trations, and added notes which will make the subject 
 clearer. Although railways, telegraphs, and steamships, 
 clothes and architecture, schools and customs, patterned 
 more or less closely after those in fashion in America 
 and Europe, have altered many things in Japan and 
 caused others to disappear, yet the children's world of 
 toys and games and stories does not change very fast. 
 In the main, it may be said, we have here a true picture 
 of the old Japan which we all delighted in seeing, when, 
 in those sunny days, we lived in sight of Yedo Bay and 
 Fuji Yama, with Japanese boys and girls all around us. 
 The best portions and all the pictures of Mrs. Ayr- 
 ton's big and costly book have been retained and repro- 
 duced, including her own preface or introduction, and 
 the book is again set forth with a hearty " ohio " (good 
 morning) of salutation and sincere *'omedeto" (congratu- 
 lations) that the nations of the world are rapidly becom- 
 ing one family. May every reader of " Child-Life in 
 Japan" see, sometime during the twentieth century, the 
 country and the people of whom Mrs. Ayrton has writ- 
 ten with such lively spirit and such warm appreciation. 
 
 WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS. 
 Ithaca, N.Y. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface by William Elliot Griffis ...,,, v 
 
 Introduction by the Author ....,., xi 
 
 Seven Scenes of Child-Life in Japan i 
 
 First Month i6 
 
 The Chrysanthemum Show 30 
 
 FiSHSAVE 34 
 
 The Filial Girl 37 
 
 T'he Parsley Queen 38 
 
 Th£ Two Daughters 40 
 
 Second Sight 44 
 
 Gamjis 46 
 
 The Games and Sports of Japanese Children, by William 
 
 Elliot Griffis 50 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The Lion of Korea Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Ride on a Bamboo Rail i 
 
 A Game of Snowball 3 
 
 Boys' Concert — Flute, Drum, and Song 5 
 
 Lion Play ,.6 
 
 Ironclad Top Game , . 7 
 
 Playing with Doggy 9 
 
 Heron-Legs, or Stilts 1 1 
 
 The Young Wrestlers 13 
 
 Playing with the Turtle • ^5 
 
 Presenting the Tide- Jewels to Ilachiman . . . . . .18 
 
 *" Bronze fishes sitting on their throats " . . . . . .19 
 
 The Treasure-Ship .......... 23 
 
 Girls' Ball and Counting Game . 26 
 
 Firemen's Gymnastics ......... ?K 
 
 Street Tumblers . . 29 
 
 Eating Stand for the Children 31 
 
 Fishsave riding the Dolphin 35 
 
 Bowing before her Mother's Mirror 37 
 
 Imitating the Procession ......... 39 
 
 The Two White Birds 41 
 
 Eye-Hiding, or Blindman's Buff 47 
 
 Stilts and Clog-Throwing 48 
 
 Playing at Batter-Cakes 49 
 
 Hoisting the Rice-Beer Keg . . . . . . • • 5^ 
 
 Getting ready to raise the Big Humming Kite ..... 60 
 
 Daruma, the Snow-Image 62 
 
 ix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 In almost every home are Japanese fans, in our 
 shops Japanese dolls and balls and other knick- 
 knacks, on our writing-tables bronze crabs or lac- 
 quered pen-tray with outlined on it the extinct 
 volcano [Fuji San] that is the most striking 
 mountain seen from the capital of Japan. At 
 many places of amusement Japanese houses of 
 real size have been exhibited, and the jargon of 
 fashion for " Japanese Art " even reaches our 
 children's ears. 
 
 Yet all these things seem dull and lifeless when 
 thus severed from the quaint cheeriness of their 
 true home. To those familiar with Japan, that 
 bamboo fan-handle recalls its graceful grassy tree, 
 the thousand and one daily purposes for which 
 bamboo wood serves. We see the open shop 
 where squat the brown-faced artisans cleverly 
 dividing into those slender divisions the fan- 
 
 Fiiji Sail, or Fuji no Yama, the highest mountain in the Japanese 
 archipelago, is in the province of Suruga, sixty miles west of Tokio. 
 Its crest is covered with snow most of the year. Twenty thousand 
 pilgrims visit it annually. Its name may mean Not Two (such), or 
 Peerless. 
 
 xi 
 
xil Introduction. 
 
 handle, the wood-block engraver's where some 
 dozen men sit patiently chipping at their cherry- 
 wood blocks, and the printer's where the coloring 
 arrangements seem so simple to those used to 
 western machinery, but where the colors are so 
 rich and true. We see the picture stuck on the 
 fan frame with starch paste, and drying in the 
 brilliant summer sunlight. The designs recall 
 vividly the life around, whether that life be the 
 stage, the home, insects, birds, or flowers. We 
 think of halts at wayside inns, when bowing tea- 
 house girls at once proffer these fans to hot and 
 tired guests. 
 
 The tonsured oblique-eyed doll suggests the 
 festival of similarly oblique-eyed little girls on the 
 3d of March. Then dolls of every degree obtain 
 for a day " Dolls' Rights." In every Japanese 
 household all the dolls of the present and previ- 
 ous generations are, on that festival, set out to 
 best advantage. Beside them are sweets, green- 
 speckled rice cake, and daintily gilt and lacquered 
 dolls' utensils. For some time previous, to meet 
 the increased demand, the doll shopman has been 
 very busy. He sits before a straw-holder into 
 which he can readily stick, to dry, the wooden 
 supports of the plaster dolls' heads he is painting, 
 as he takes first one and then another to give 
 artistic touches to their glowing cheeks or little 
 tongue. That dolly that seems but " so odd " to 
 
Introduction. xiii 
 
 Polly or Maggie is there the cherished darling of 
 its little owner. It passes half its day tied on to 
 her back, peeping companionably its head over 
 her shoulder. At night it is lovingly sheltered 
 under the green mosquito curtains, and provided 
 with a toy wooden pillow. 
 
 The expression " Japanese Art " seems but a 
 created word expressing either the imitations of it, 
 or the artificial transplanting of Japanese things 
 to our houses. The whole glory of art in Japan 
 is, that It is not Art, but Nature simply rendered, 
 by a people with a fancy and love of fun quite 
 Irish in character. Just as Greek sculptures 
 were good, because in those days artists modelled 
 the corsetless life around them, so the Japanese 
 artist does not draw well his lightly draped fig- 
 ures, cranes, and insects because these things 
 strike him as beautiful, but because he is familiar 
 with their every action. 
 
 The Japanese house out of Japan seems but a 
 dull and listless affair. We miss the idle, easy- 
 going life and chatter, the tea, the sweetmeats, 
 the pipes and charcoal brazier, the clogs awaiting 
 their wearers on the large flat stone at the entry, 
 the grotesquely trained ferns, the glass balls and 
 ornaments tinkling in the breeze, that hang, as 
 well as lanterns, from the eaves, the garden with 
 tiny pond and goldfish, bridge and miniature hill, 
 the bright sunshine beyond the sharp shadow ot 
 
xiv Introduction. 
 
 the upward curving angles of the tiled roof, the 
 gay, scarlet folds of the women's under-dress 
 peeping out, their little litter of embroidery or 
 mending, and the babies, brown and half naked, 
 scrambling about so happily. For, what has a 
 baby to be miserable about in a land where it is 
 scarcely ever slapped, where its clothing, always 
 loose, is yet warm in winter, where it basks freely 
 in air and sunshine ? It lives in a house, that 
 from its thick grass mats, its absence of furniture, 
 and therefore of commands " not to touch," is the 
 very beau-ideal of an infant's playground. 
 
 The object with which the following pages 
 were written, was that young folks who see and 
 handle so often Japanese objects, but who find 
 books of travels thither too long and dull for their 
 reading, might catch a glimpse of the spirit that 
 pervades life in the " Land of the Rising Sun." 
 A portion of the book is derived from translations 
 from Japanese tales, kindly given to the author 
 by Mr. Basil H. Chamberlain, whilst the rest was 
 written at idle moments during graver studies. 
 
 The games and sports of Japanese children 
 have been so well described by Professor Griffis, 
 that we give, as an Appendix, his account of their 
 doings. 
 
Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 SEVEN SCENES OF CHILD-LIFE IN 
 JAPAN. 
 
 HESE little boys all live a long 
 way off in islands called 
 " Japan." They have all rather 
 brown chubby faces, and they 
 are very merry. Unless they 
 give themselves a really hard 
 knock they seldom get cross or 
 cry. 
 
 In the second large picture 
 two of the little boys are play- 
 ing at snowball. Although it 
 may be hotter in the summer 
 in their country than it is here, the winter is as 
 cold as you feel it. Like our own boys, these lads 
 enjoy a fall of snow, and still better than snowball- 
 ing they like making a snowman with a charcoal 
 ball for each eye and a streak of charcoal for his 
 mouth. The shoes which they usually wear out 
 of doors are better for a snowy day than your 
 boots, for their feet do not sink into the snow, 
 
 A. Ride on a Bamboo 
 Rail. 
 
2 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 unless it is deep. These shoes are of wood, and 
 make a boy seem to be about three inches taller 
 than he really is. The shoe, you see, has not laces 
 or buttons, but is kept on the foot by that thong 
 which passes between the first and second toe. 
 The thong is made of grass, and covered with 
 strong paper, or with white or colored calico. 
 The boy in the check dress wears his shoes with- 
 out socks, but you see the other boy has socks on. 
 His socks are made of dark blue calico, with a 
 thickly woven sole, and a place, like one finger of 
 a glove, for his big toe. If you were to wear Japa- 
 nese shoes, you would think the thong between 
 your toes very uncomfortable. Yet from their 
 habit of wearing this sort of shoe, the big toe 
 grows more separate from the other toes, and the 
 skin between this and the next toe becomes as 
 hard as the skin of a dog's or a cat's paw. 
 
 The boys are not cold, for their cotton clothes, 
 being wadded, are warm and snug. One boy has 
 a rounded pouch fastened to his sash. It is red 
 and prettily embroidered with flowers or birds, 
 and is his purse, in which he keeps some little 
 toys and some money. The other boy very likely 
 has not a pouch, but he has two famous big 
 pockets. Like all Japanese, he uses the part of 
 his large sleeve which hangs down as his pocket. 
 Thus when a group of little children are disturbed 
 at play you see each little hand seize a treasured 
 
A Game of Snowball. 
 
4 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 toy and disappear into its sleeve, like mice running 
 into their holes with bits of cheese. 
 
 In the next large picture are two boys who are 
 fond of music. One has a flute, w^hich is made 
 of bamboo wood. These flutes are easy to make, 
 as bamboo wood grows hollow, with cross divi- 
 sions at intervals. If you cut a piece with a 
 division forming one end you need only make the 
 outside holes in order to finish your flute. 
 
 The child sitting down 
 has a drum. His drum 
 and the paper lanterns 
 hanging up have painted on 
 them an ornament which 
 is also the crest of the 
 house of " Arima." If 
 these boys belong to this 
 family they wear the same 
 crest embroidered on the centre of the backs of 
 their coats. 
 
 Korean Lion is the title of the picture which 
 forms the frontispiece ; it represents a game 
 that children in Japan are very fund of play- 
 ing. They are probably trying to act as well 
 as the maskers did whom they saw on New 
 
 Arima was one of the daimios or landed noblemen, nearly three 
 hundred in number, out of whom has been formed the new nobility 
 of Japan, a certain number of which are in the Upper House of the 
 Imperial Diet. 
 
Boys' Concert — Flute, Drum, and Song. 
 
6 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 Year's Day, just as our children try and imitate 
 things they see in a pantomime. The masker goes 
 from house to house accompanied by one or two 
 men who play on cymbals, flute, and drum. He 
 steps into a shop where the people of the house 
 and their friends sit drinking tea, and passers-by 
 pause in front of the open shop to see the fun. 
 He takes a mask, like the one in the picture, off 
 his back and puts it over his head. This boar's- 
 head mask is painted scarlet and black, and gilt. 
 It has a green cloth hanging down behind, in 
 order that you may not perceive where the mask 
 ends and the man's body begins. Then the 
 masker imitates an animal. He goes up to a 
 young lady and lays down his ugly head beside 
 her to be patted, as " Beast " may have coaxed 
 
 "Beauty" in the fairy 
 tale. He grunts, and 
 rolls, and scratches him- 
 self. The children almost 
 forget he is a man, and 
 roar with laughter at 
 kangura, or Korean Lion the funny animal. When 
 ^^^^' they begin to tire of this 
 
 fun he exchanges this mask for some of the two 
 or three others he carries with him. He puts 
 on a mask of an old woman over his face, and 
 at the back of his head a very different sec- 
 ond mask, a cloth tied over the centre of the 
 
Ironclad Top Game. 
 
8 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 head, making the two faces yet more distinct from 
 each other. He has quickly arranged the back 
 of his dress to look Hke the front of a person, and 
 he acts, first presenting the one person to his 
 spectators, then the other. He makes you even 
 imagine he has four arms, so cleverly can he twist 
 round his arm and gracefully fan what is in reality 
 the back of his head. 
 
 The tops the lads are playing with in this pic- 
 ture '^ are not quite the same shape as our tops, 
 but they spin very well. Some men are so clever 
 at making spinning-tops run along strings, throw- 
 ing them up into the air and catching them with 
 a tobacco-pipe, that they earn a living by exhibit- 
 ing their skill. 
 
 Some of the tops are formed of short pieces of 
 bamboo with a wooden peg put through them, 
 and the hole cut in the side makes them have 
 a fine hum as the air rushes in whilst they 
 spin. 
 
 The boys in the next large picture (p. 9) must 
 be playing with the puppies of a large dog, to 
 judge from their big paws. There are a great 
 many large dogs in the streets of Tokio ; some 
 are very tame, and will let children comb their 
 hair and ornament them and pull them about. 
 These dogs do not wear collars, as do our pet 
 dogs, but a wooden label bearing the owner's 
 
 * Sc^ p^e 7. 
 
Playing with Doggy. 
 
lo Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 name Is hung round their necks. Other big 
 dogs are almost wild. 
 
 Half-a-dozen of these dogs will lie in one place, 
 stretched drowsily on the grassy city walls under 
 the trees, during the daytime. Towards evening 
 they rouse themselves and run off to yards ana 
 rubbish-heaps to pick up what they can. They 
 will eat fish, but two or three dogs soon get to 
 know where the meat-eating Englishmen live. 
 They come trotting in regularly with a business- 
 like air to search among the day's refuse for 
 bones. Should any interloping dog try to estab- 
 lish a right to share the feast he can only gain 
 his footing after a victorious battle. All these 
 dogs are very wolfish-looking, with straight hair^ 
 which is usually white or tan-colored. There 
 are other pet dogs kept in houses. These look 
 something like spaniels. They are small, with 
 their black noses so much turned up that it 
 seems as if, when they were puppies, they had 
 tumbled down and broken the bridge of their 
 nose. They are often ornamented like dog Toby 
 in " Punch and Judy," with a ruff made of some 
 scarlet stuff round their necks. 
 
 After the heavy autumn rains have filled the 
 
 Wild-dogs: ownerless dogs have now been exterminated, and 
 every dog in Japan is owned, licensed, taxed, or else liable to go 
 the way of the old wolfish-looking curs. The pet spaniel-like dogs 
 are called chin. 
 
Heron-legs, or Stilts. 
 
12 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 roads with big puddles, it is great fun, this boy 
 thinks, to walk about on stilts. You see him on 
 page II. His stilts are of bamboo wood, and 
 he calls them " Heron-legs," after the long-legged 
 snowy herons ^hat strut about in the wet rice- 
 fields. When he struts about on them, he 
 wedges the upright between his big and second 
 toe as if the stilt was like his shoes. He has a 
 good view of his two friends who are wrestling, 
 and probably making hideous noises like wild 
 animals as they try to throw one another. They 
 have seen fat public wrestlers stand on opposite 
 sides of a sanded ring, stoop, rubbing their 
 thighs, and in a crouching attitude and growl- 
 ing, slowly advance upon one another. Then 
 when near to one another, the spring is made 
 and the men close. If after some time the round 
 is not decided by a throw, the umpire, who struts 
 about like a turkey-cock, fanning himself, ap- 
 proaches. He plucks the girdle of the weaker 
 combatant, when the wrestlers at once retire to 
 the sides of the arena to rest, and to sprinkle a 
 little water over themselves. 
 
 In the neighborhood in which the children 
 shown in the picture live, there is a temple 
 (p. ii). In honor of the god a feast-day is 
 held on the tenth of every month. The tenth 
 day of the tenth month is a yet greater feast- 
 day. On these days they go the first thing in 
 
Seven Scenes of Child-Life in Japan. 1 3 
 
 the morning to the barber's, have their heads 
 shaved and dressed, and their faces pow- 
 dered with white, and their Hps and cheeks 
 painted pink. They wear their best clothes 
 and smartest sashes. Then they clatter off on 
 their wooden clogs to the temple and buy two 
 little rice-cakes at the gates. Next they come to 
 
 • • 
 
 The Young Wrestlers. 
 
 two large, comical bronze dogs sitting on stands, 
 one on each side of the path. They reach up 
 and gently rub the dog's nose, then rub their own 
 noses, rub the dog's eyes, and then their own, and 
 soon, until they have touched the dog's and their 
 own body all over. This is their way of praying 
 for good health. They also add another to the 
 
14 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 number of little rags that have been hung by 
 each visitor about the dog's neck. Then they 
 go to the altar and give their cakes to a boy 
 belonging to the temple. In exchange he pre- 
 sents them with one rice-cake which has been 
 blessed. They ring a round brass bell to call 
 their god's attention, and throw him some money 
 into a grated box as big as a child's crib. Then 
 they squat down and pray to be good little boys. 
 Now they go out and amuse themselves by look- 
 ing at all the stalls of toys and cakes, and flowers 
 and fish. 
 
 The man who sells the gold-fish, with fan-like 
 tails as long as their bodies, has also turtles. 
 These boys at last settle that of all the pretty 
 things they have seen they would best like to 
 spend their money on a young turtle. For their 
 pet rabbits and mice died, but turtles, they say, 
 are painted on fans and screens and boxes be- 
 cause turtles live for ten thousand years. Even 
 the noble white crane is said to live no more 
 than a thousand years In this picture they have 
 carried home the turtle and are much amused at 
 the funny way it walks and peeps its head in and 
 out from u?ider its shell. 
 

 /I 
 
 I l^^ife .i "t ^^fe\ 
 
 
 ^^^M 
 
 .^iM 
 
 Playing wuh ihe Turtle. 
 
1 6 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 FIRST MONTH. 
 
 Little Good Boy had just finished eating the 
 last of five rice cakes called " dango," that had 
 been strung on a skewer of bamboo and dipped 
 in soy sauce, when he said to his little sister, 
 called Chrysanthemum : — 
 
 " 0-Kiku, it is soon the great festival of the 
 New Year." 
 
 " What shall we do then ? " asked little O-Kiku, 
 not clearly remembering the festival of the pre- 
 vious year. 
 
 Thus questioned, Yoshi-san had his desired 
 opening to hold forth on the coming delights, 
 and he replied : — 
 
 " Men will come the evening before the great 
 feast-day and help Plum-blossom, our maid, to 
 clean all the house with brush and broom. 
 Others will set up the decoration in front of our 
 honored gateway. They will dig two small holes 
 and plant a gnarled, black-barked father-pine 
 branch on the left, and the slighter reddish 
 mother-pine branch on the right. They will then 
 put with these the tall knotted stem of a bamboo, 
 with its smooth, hard green leaves that chatter 
 
 Yoshi-san. Yoshi means good, excellent, and san is like our 
 " Mr.,'' but is applied to any one from big man to baby. The girls 
 are named after flowers, stars, or other pretty or useful objects. 
 
First Month. 17 
 
 when the wind blows. Next they will take a grass 
 rope, about as long as a tall man, fringed with 
 grass, and decorated with zigzag strips of white 
 paper. These, our noble father says, are meant 
 for rude images of men offering themselves in 
 homage to the august gods." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I have not forgotten," interrupts 
 Chrysanthemum, " this cord is stretched from 
 bamboo to bamboo ; and Plum-blossom says the 
 rope is to bar out the nasty two-toed, red, gray, 
 and black demons, the badgers, the foxes, and 
 other evil spirits from crossing our threshold. 
 But I think it is the next part of the arch which 
 is the prettiest, the whole bunch of things they 
 tie in the middle of the rope. There is the 
 crooked-back lobster, like a bowed old man, with 
 all 9,round the camellia branches, whose young 
 leaves bud before the old leaves fall. There are 
 pretty fern leaves shooting forth in pairs, and 
 deep down between them the little baby fern- 
 leaf. There is the bitter yellow orange, whose 
 name, you know, means ' many parents and chil- 
 dren.' The name of the black piece of charcoal 
 is a pun on our homestead." 
 
 " But best of all," says Yoshi-san, " I like the 
 seaweed hontawara, for it tells me of our brave 
 Queen Jingu Kogo, who, lest the troops should 
 be discouraged, concealed from the army that her 
 husband the king had died, put on armor, and 
 
i8 
 
 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 led the great campaign against Korea. Her 
 troops, stationed at the margin of the sea, were 
 in danger of defeat on account of the lack of 
 fodder for their horses; when she ordered this 
 hontawara to be plucked from the shore, and 
 the horses, freshened by their meal of seaweed, 
 
 Presenting the Tide-jewels to Hachiman. 
 
 rushed victoriously to battle. On the bronzed 
 clasp of our worthy father's tobacco-pouch Is, 
 our noble father says, the Queen with her 
 sword and the dear little baby prince, Hachi- 
 man, who was born after the campaign, and 
 who Is now our Warrior God, guiding our 
 troops to victory, and that spirit on whose head 
 squats a dragon has risen partly from the deep, 
 to present an offering to the Queen and the 
 Prince. 
 
 The campaign against Korea : 200 a.d. 
 
First Month. 
 
 19 
 
 *' Then there is another seaweed, whose name 
 is a pun on ' rejoicing.' There is the lucky bag 
 that I made, for last year, of a square piece of 
 paper into which we put chestnuts and the roe 
 of a herring and dried persimmon fruit. Then 
 I tied up the paper with red and w^hite paper- 
 string, that the sainted gods might know it was 
 an offering." 
 
 Yoshi-san and his little sister had now reached 
 the ofreat orate ornamented with hus^e 
 bronze fishes sittino^ on their throats 
 and twisting aloft their forked tails, 
 that was near their home. He 
 told his sister she must wait to 
 know more about the great festi- 
 val till the time arrived. They shuf- 
 fled off their shoes, bowed, till their 
 foreheads touched the ground, to 
 their parents, ate their evening 
 bowl of rice and salt fish, said a prayer and burnt 
 a stick of incense to many-armed Buddha at the 
 
 The Queen and tJie Prince: See the story of "The Jewels of the 
 Ebbing and the Flowing Tide" in the book of "Japanese Fairy 
 Tales" in this series. Ojin, son of Jingu Kogo, was, much later, 
 deified as the god of war, Hachiman. See "The Religions of 
 Japan," p. 204. 
 
 The bronze fisJies. called shachi-hoko, are huge metal figures, 
 like dolphins, from four to twelve feet high, which were set on 
 the pinnacles of the old castle towers in the days of feudalism. 
 That from Nagoya, exhibited at the Vienna Exposition, had scales 
 of solid gold. 
 
 " Bronze fishes 
 sitti ng on 
 their throats." 
 
20 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 family altar They spread their cotton-wadded 
 quilts, rested their dear little shaved heads, with 
 quaint circlet of hair, on the roll of cotton covered 
 with white paper that formed the cushion of their 
 hard wooden pillows. Soon they fell asleep to 
 their mother's monotonously chanted lullaby of 
 "Nenne ko." 
 
 " Sleep, my child, sleep, my child, 
 Where is thy nurse gone ? 
 She is gone to the mountains 
 To buy thee sweetmeats. 
 What shall she buy thee ? 
 The thundering drum, the bamboo pipe, 
 The trundling man, or the paper kite." 
 
 The great festival drew still nearer, to the chil- 
 dren's delight, as they watched the previously 
 described graceful bamboo arch rise before their 
 gateposts. Then came a party of three with an 
 oven, a bottomless tub, and some matting to 
 replace the bottom. They shifted the pole that 
 carried these utensils from their shoulders, and 
 commenced to make the Japanese cake that may 
 be viewed as the equivalent of a Christmas pud- 
 ding. They mixed a paste of rice and put the 
 sticky mass, to prevent rebounding, on the soft 
 mat in the tub. The third man then beat for 
 a long time the rice cake with a heavy mallet. 
 Yoshi-san liked to watch the strong man swing 
 down his mallet with dull resounding thuds. 
 
First Month. 21 
 
 The well-beaten dough was then made up into 
 flattish rounds of varying size on a pastry board 
 one of the men had brought. Three cakes of 
 graduated size formed a pyramid that was placed 
 conspicuously on a lacquered stand, and the cakes 
 were only to be eaten on the 1 1 th of January. 
 
 The mother told Plum-blossom and the chil- 
 dren to get their clogs and overcoats and hoods, 
 for she was going to get the New Year's decora- 
 tions. The party shuffled off till they came to a 
 stall where were big grass ropes and fringes and 
 quaint grass boats filled with supposed bales of 
 merchandise in straw coverings, a sun in red paper, 
 and at bow and stern sprigs of fir. The whole was 
 brightened by bits of gold leaf, lightly stuck on, 
 that quivered here and there. When the children 
 had chosen the harvest ship that seemed most 
 besprinkled with gold. Plum-blossom bargained 
 about the price. The mother, as a matter of 
 form and rank, had pretended to take no inter- 
 est in the purchase. She took her purse out of 
 her sash, handed it to her servant, who opened it, 
 paid the shopman, and then returned the purse 
 to her mistress. This she did with the usual 
 civility of first raising it to her forehead. The 
 decorations they hung up in their sitting-room. 
 Then they sent presents, such as large dried carp, 
 tea, eggs, shoes, kerchiefs, fruits, sweets, or toys 
 to various friends and dependants. 
 
22 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 On the ist of January all were early astir, for 
 the father, dressed at dawn in full European even- 
 ing dress, as is customary on such occasions, had 
 to pay his respects at the levee of the Emperor. 
 When this duty was over, he returned home 
 and received visitors of rank inferior to himself. 
 Later in the day and on the following day he paid 
 visits of New Year greeting to all his friends. He 
 took a present to those to whom he had sent no 
 gift. Sometimes he had his little boy with him. 
 For these visits Yoshi-san, in place of his usual 
 flowing robe, loose trousers, and sash, wore a 
 funny little knickerbocker suit, felt hat, and boots. 
 These latter, though he thought them grand, felt 
 very uncomfortable after his straw sandals. They 
 were more troublesome to take off before step- 
 ping on the straw mats, that, being used as chairs 
 as well as carpets, it would be a rudeness to soil. 
 The maids, always kneeling, presented them with 
 tiny cups of tea on oval saucers, which, remaining 
 in the maid's hand, served rather as waiters. 
 Sweetmeats, too, usually of a soft, sticky nature, 
 but sometimes hard like sugar-plums, and called 
 " fire-sweets," were offered on carved lotus-leaf or 
 lacquered trays. 
 
 For the 2d of January Plum-blossom bought 
 
 First of January : The old Chinese or lunar calendar ended in 
 Japan, and the solar or Gregorian calendar began, January i, 1872^ 
 when European dress was adopted by the official class. 
 
First Month. 
 
 23 
 
 some pictures of the treasure-ship or ship of 
 riches, in which were seated the seven Gods of 
 Wealth. It has been sung thus about this Ship 
 of Luck : — 
 
 The Tkeasure-Ship and the Seven Gods of Happiness. 
 
 " Nagaki yo no, 
 To no numuri no. 
 Mina m6 same. 
 Nami nori fune no. 
 Oto no voki kana." 
 
 It is a long night. 
 
 The gods of luck sleep. 
 
 They all open their eyes. 
 
 They ride in a boat on the Nvaves. 
 
 The sound is pleasing ! 
 
 These pictures they each tied on their pillow 
 to bring lucky dreams. Great was the laughter 
 
 TJie seven Gods of W^ealth : Concerning the origin of these pop- 
 ular deities, see "The Religions o+" Japan," p. 218. 
 
24 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 in the morning when they related their dreams. 
 Yoshi-san said he had dreamt he had a beautiful 
 portmanteau full of nice foreign things, such as 
 comforters, note-books, pencils, india-rubber, con- 
 densed milk, lama, wide-awakes, boots, and brass 
 jewelry. Just as he opened it, everything van- 
 ished and he found only a torn fan, an odd chop- 
 stick, a horse's cast straw shoe, and a live crow. 
 
 When at home, the children, for the first few 
 days of the New Year, dressed in their best crepe, 
 made up in three silken-wadded layers. Their 
 crest was embroidered on the centre of the back 
 and on the sleeves of the quaintly flowered long 
 upper skirt. Beneath its wadded hem peeped 
 the scarlet rolls of the hems of their under-dresses, 
 and then the white-stockinged feet, with, passing 
 between the toes, the scarlet thong of the black- 
 lacquered clog. The little girl's sash was of 
 many-flowered brocade, with scarlet broidered 
 pouch hanging at her right side. A scarlet over- 
 sash kept the large sash-knot in its place. Her 
 hair was gay with knot of scarlet crinkled crepe, 
 lacquered comb, and hairpin of tiny golden battle- 
 dore. Resting thereon were a shuttlecock of 
 coral, another pin of a tiny red lobster and a green 
 pine sprig made of silk. In her belt was coquet- 
 tishly stuck the butterfly-broidered case that held 
 her quire of paper pocket-handkerchiefs. The 
 brother's dress was of a simpler style and soberer 
 
First Month. 2C 
 
 coloring. His pouch of purple had a dragon 
 
 worked on it, and the hair of his partly shaven 
 
 head was tied into a li4;tle gummed tail with 
 
 white paper-string. " They spent most of the day 
 
 playing with their pretty new battledores, striking 
 
 with its plain side the airy little shuttlecock whose 
 
 head is made of a black seed. All the while they 
 
 sang a rhyme on the numbers up to ten : — 
 
 " Hitogo ni futa-go — mi-watashi yo me-go, 
 Itsu yoni musashi nan no yakushi, 
 Kokono-ya ja — to yo." 
 
 When tired of this fun, they would play with 
 a ball made of paper and wadding evenly wound 
 about with thread or silk of various colors. They 
 sang to the throws a song which seems abrupt 
 because some portions have probably fallen into 
 disuse ; it runs thus : — 
 
 " See opposite — see Shin-kawa ! A very beau- 
 tiful lady who is one of the daughters of a chief 
 magistrate of Odawara-cho. She was married 
 to a salt merchant. He was a man fond of dis- 
 play, and he thought how he would dress her this 
 year. He said to the dyer, ' Please dye this bro- 
 cade and the brocade for the middle dress into 
 seven- or eight-fold dresses ; ' and the dyer said, 
 I am a dyer, and therefore I will dye and stretch 
 it. What pattern do you wish ? ' The merchant 
 replied, ' The pattern of falling snow and broken 
 twigs, and in the centre the curved bridge of Gojo.' " 
 
20 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 Then to fill up the rhyme come the words, 
 " Chokin, chokera, kokin, kokera," and the tale 
 goes on: "Crossing this bridge the girl was 
 -"^^^^^^^^^^ struck here and there, 
 
 and the tea-house girls 
 laughed. Put out of 
 countenance by this ridi- 
 cule, she drowned herself 
 in the river Karas, the 
 
 Girls' Ball and Counting body SUnk, the hair floated. 
 
 Game. How full of grief the hus- 
 
 band's heart — now the ball counts a hundred." 
 This they varied with another song : — 
 
 " One, two, three, four. 
 Grate hard charcoal, shave kiri wood ; 
 Put in the pocket, the pocket is wet, 
 Kiyomadzu, on three yenoki trees 
 Were three sparrows, chased by a pigeon. 
 The sparrows said, ' Chiu, chiu,' 
 The pigeon said, ' po, po,' — now the 
 Ball counts a hundred." 
 
 The pocket referred to means the bottom of 
 the long sleeve, which is apt to trail and get wet 
 when a child stoops at play. Kiyomadzu may 
 mean a famous temple that bears that name. 
 Sometimes they would simply count the turns 
 and make a sort of game of forfeiting and re- 
 turning the number of rebounds kept up by each. 
 
 Yoshi-san had begun to think battledore and 
 
First Month. 27 
 
 balls too girlish an amusement He preferred fly- 
 ing his eagle or mask-like kite, or playing at cards, 
 verses, or lotteries. Sometimes he played a lively 
 game with his father, in which the board is divided 
 into squares and diagonals On these move six- 
 teen men held by one player and one large piece 
 held by the second player. The point of the 
 game is either that the holder of the sixteen pieces 
 hedges the large piece so it that can make no 
 move, or that the big piece takes all its adversa- 
 ries. A take can only be made by the large piece 
 when it finds a piece immediately on each side of 
 it and a blank point beyond. Or he watched a 
 party of several, with the pictured sheet of Japan- 
 ese backgammon before them, write their names 
 on slips of paper or wood, and throw in turn a 
 die. The slips are placed on the pictures whose 
 numbers correspond with the throw. At the next 
 round, if the number thrown by the particular 
 player is written on the picture, he finds directions 
 as to which picture to move his slip backward or 
 forward to. He may, however, find his throw 
 a blank and have to remain at his place. The 
 winning consists in reaching a certain picture. 
 When tired of these quieter games, the strolling 
 woman player on a guitar-like instrument, would be 
 called in. Or, a party of Kangura boy performers 
 afforded pastime by the quaint animal-like move- 
 ments of the draped figure. He wears a huge 
 
28 
 
 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 grotesque scarlet mask on 
 his head, and at times makes 
 this monster appear to 
 stretch out and draw in its 
 neck by an unseen change in 
 position of the mask from 
 the head to the gradually 
 extended and draped hand 
 of the actor. The beat of 
 a drum and the whistle of a 
 bamboo flute formed the 
 accompaniment to the dumb- 
 show acting. 
 
 Firemen's Gymnastics at New Year's Time. 
 
 Yoshi-san thought the 4th and 5th days of Janu- 
 ary great fun, because loud shoutings were heard. 
 Running in the direction of the sound, he found 
 
First Month. 
 
 29 
 
 the men of a fire-brigade who had formed a pro- 
 cession to carry their new paper standard, bam- 
 boo ladders, paper lanterns, etc. This procession 
 paused at intervals. Then the men steadied 
 the ladder with their long fire-hooks, whilst an 
 agile member of the band mounted the erect 
 
 Street Tumblers playing Kangura in Tokio. 
 
 ladder and performed gymnastics at the top. His 
 performance concluded, he dismounted, and the 
 march continued, the men as before yelling joy- 
 ously, at the highest pitch of their voices. 
 
 After about a week of fun, life at the villa, 
 gradually resumed its usual course, the father 
 returned to his office, the mother to her domestic 
 employmicnts, and the children to school, all hav- 
 ing said for that new year their last joy-wishing 
 greeting — omedeto (congratulations). 
 
3© Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 THE CHRYSANTHEMUM SHOW. 
 
 YosHi-SAN and his Grandmother go to visit the 
 great temple at Shiba. They walk up its steep 
 stairs, and arrive at the lacquered threshold. 
 Here they place aside their wooden clogs, throw 
 a few coins into a huge box standing on the floor. 
 It is covered with a wooden grating so constructed 
 as to prevent pilfering hands afterward removing 
 the coin. Then they pull a thick rope attached 
 to a big brass bell like an exaggerated sheep-bell, 
 hanging from the ceiling, but which gives forth 
 but a feeble, tinkling sound. To insure the god's 
 attention, this is supplemented with three distinct 
 claps of the hands, which are afterward clasped 
 in prayer for a short interval ; tv\^o more claps 
 mark the conclusion. Then, resuming their clogs, 
 they clatter down the steep, copper-bound temple 
 steps into the grounds. Here are stalls innumer- 
 able of toys, fruit, fish-cakes, birds, tobacco-pipes, 
 ironmongery, and rice, and scattered amidst the 
 stalls are tea-houses, peep-shows, and other places 
 of amusement. Of these the greatest attraction 
 is a newly-opened chrysanthemum show. 
 
 The chrysanthemums are trained to represent 
 figures. Here is a celebrated warrior, Kato 
 Kiyomasa by name, who lived about the year 
 1600, when the eminent Hashiba (Hideyoshi) 
 
The Chrysanthemum Show. 
 
 31 
 
 ruled Japan. Near the end of his reign Hashiba, 
 wishing to invade China, but being himself unable 
 to command the expedition, intrusted the leader- 
 ship of the fleet and army to Kiyomasa. They 
 embarked, reached Korea, where a fierce battle 
 was fought and victory gained by Kiyomasa. 
 When, however, he returned to Japan, he found 
 Hideyoshi had died, and the expedition was there- 
 fore recalled. Tales of the liberality and gener- 
 
 Eating Stand for the Children. 
 
 osity of the Chief, and how he, single-handed, had 
 slain a large and wild tiger with the spear that he 
 is represented as holding, led to his being at length 
 addressed as a god. His face is modelled in plas- 
 ter and painted, and the yellow chrysanthemum 
 blossoms may be supposed to be gold bosses on 
 the verdant armor. 
 
32 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 Next they looked at eccentric varieties of this 
 autumn flower, such as those having the petals 
 longer and more curly than usual. To show off 
 the flowers every branch was tied to a stick, which 
 caused Yoshi-san to think the bushes looked a 
 little stiff and ugly. Near the warrior was a 
 chrysanthemum-robed lady, Benten, standing in 
 a flowery sailing-boat that is supposed to con- 
 tain a cargo of jewels. Three rabbits farther 
 on appeared to be chatting together. Perhaps 
 the best group of all was old Fukurokujin, with 
 white beard and bald head. He was conversing 
 with two of the graceful waterfowl so constantly 
 seen in Japanese decorations. He is the god of 
 luck, and has a reputation for liking good cheer. 
 This is suggested by a gourd, a usual form of 
 wine-bottle, that is suspended to his cane, whilst 
 another gourd contains homilies. He was said 
 to be so tender-hearted that even timid wild 
 fowl were not afraid of him. 
 
 Not the least amusing part of the show was 
 the figure before which Yoshi's Grandmother 
 exclaimed, " Why, truly, that is clever ! Behold, 
 I pray thee, a barbarian lady, and even her 
 child ! " In truth it was an unconscious cari- 
 cature of Europeans, although the lady's face 
 had not escaped being made to look slightly 
 Japanese. The child held a toy, and had a 
 regular shock head of hair. The frizzed hair of 
 
The Chrysanthemum Show. 33 
 
 many foreign children appeared very odd to Yo- 
 shi-san. He thought their mothers must be very 
 unkind not to take the Httle " western men " more 
 often to the barber's. He complacently com- 
 pared the neatness of his own shaven crown and 
 tidily-clipped and gummed side-locks. 
 
 Being tired of standing, the old Grandmother 
 told her grandson they would go and listen to a 
 recital at the story-teller's. Leaving their wooden 
 shoes in a pigeon-hole for that purpose, they 
 joined an attentive throng of some twenty listen- 
 ers seated on mats in a dimly-lighted room. 
 Yoshi could not make out all the tale-teller said, 
 but he liked to watch him toy with his fan as he 
 introduced his listeners to the characters of his 
 story. Then the story-teller would hold his fan 
 like a rod of command, whilst he kept his audi- 
 ence in rapt attention, then sometimes, amidst the 
 laughter of those present, he would raise his 
 voice to a shrill whine, and would emphasize a 
 joke by a sharp tap on the table with his fan. 
 After they had listened to one tale Yoshi-san was 
 sleepy. So they went and bargained with a man 
 outside who had a carriage like a small gig with 
 shafts called a " jin-riki-sha." He ran after them 
 to say he consented to wheel them home the 
 two and a half miles for five cents. 
 
 The j'hi-rikz-s ha, man -power-carriage, invented in Japan in 1871, 
 is now used ail over tlie East. 
 
34 
 
 Child-Life in Japan, 
 
 FISHSAVE. 
 
 "^J^HERE was once upon a time a 
 little baby whose father was Japa- 
 nese ambassador to the court of 
 China, and whose mother was a 
 Chinese lady. While this child 
 was still in its infancy the ambas- 
 sador had to return to Japan. So 
 he said to his wife, " I swear to 
 remember you and to send you 
 letters by the ambassador that shall succeed me ; 
 and as for our baby, I will despatch some one 
 to fetch it as soon as it is weaned." Thus say- 
 ing he departed. 
 
 Well, embassy after embassy came (and there 
 was generally at least a year between each), but 
 never a letter from the Japanese husband to the 
 Chinese wife. At last, tired of waiting and of 
 grieving, she took her boy by the hand, and sorrow- 
 fully leading him to the seashore, fastened round 
 his neck a label bearing the words, " The 
 Japanese ambassador's child." Then she flung 
 him into the sea in the direction of the Japanese 
 Archipelago, confident that the paternal tie was 
 one which it was not possible to break, and that 
 therefore father and child were sure to meet 
 again. 
 
Fishsave. 
 
 35 
 
 One day, when the former ambassador, the 
 father, was riding by the beach of Naniwa 
 (where afterward was built the city of Osaka), 
 he saw something white floating out at sea, look- 
 ing like a small island. It floated nearer, and he 
 looked more attentively. There was no doubt 
 about its being a child. Quite astonished, he 
 
 Fishsave riding the Dolphin to Japan. 
 
 stopped his horse and gazed again. The floating 
 object drew nearer and nearer still. At last 
 with perfect distinctness it was perceived to be 
 a fair, pretty little boy, of about four years old, 
 impelled onward by the waves. 
 
 Still closer inspection showed that the boy 
 rode bravely on the back of an enormous fish. 
 When the strange rider had dismounted on the 
 
36 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 strand, the ambassador ordered his attendants 
 to take the manly little fellow in their arms, 
 when lo, and behold ! there was the label round 
 his neck, on which was written, " The Japanese 
 ambassador s child." " Oh, yes," he exclaimed, 
 " it must be my child and no other, whom its 
 mother, angry at having received no letters from 
 me, must have thrown into the sea. Now, owing 
 to the indissoluble bond tying together parents 
 and children, he has reached me safely, riding 
 upon a fish's back." The air of the little crea- 
 ture went to his heart, and he took and tended 
 him most lovingly. 
 
 To the care of the next embassy that went 
 to the court of China, he intrusted a letter for 
 his wife, in which he informed her of all the 
 particulars ; and she, who had quite believed 
 the child to be dead, rejoiced at its marvellous 
 escape. 
 
 The child grew up to be a man, whose hand- 
 writing was beautiful. Having been saved by a 
 fish, he was given the name of " Fishsave." 
 
 Beautiful handwritrng was considered one of the most admirable 
 of accomplishments in old Japan. 
 
The Filial Girl. 37 
 
 THE FILIAL GIRL. 
 
 GIRL once Jived In the 
 province of E c h i g o, 
 who from her earliest 
 years tended her parents 
 with all filial piety. Her 
 BowixNG BEFORE HER MOTHER'S niothcr, whcn, aftcr a long 
 Mirror. illness she lay at the point 
 
 of death, took out a mirror that she had for many 
 years concealed, and giving it to her daughter, 
 spoke thus, " When I have ceased to exist, take 
 this mirror in thy hand night and morning, and 
 looking at it, fancy that 'tis I thou seest." 
 
 With these last words she expired, and the 
 girl, full of grief, and faithful to her mother's 
 commands, used to take out the mirror night and 
 morning, and gazing in it, saw therein a face like 
 to the face of her mother. Delighted thereat 
 (for the village was situated in a remote country 
 district among the mountains, and a mirror was 
 a thing the girl had never heard of), she daily 
 worshipped her reflected face. She bowed before 
 it till her forehead touched the mat, as if this 
 image had been in very truth her mother's own 
 self. 
 
 Echigo : the province on the west coast, now famous for its petro-- 
 leum wells. 
 
38 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 Her father one day, astonished to see her thus 
 occupied, inquired the reason, which she directly 
 told him. But he burst out laughing, and ex- 
 claimed, " Why ! 'tis only thine own face, so like 
 to thy mother's, that is reflected. It is not thy 
 mother's at all ! " 
 
 This revelation distressed the girl. Yet she 
 replied : " Even if the face be not my mother's, it 
 is the face of one who belonged to my mother, 
 and therefore my respectfully saluting it twice 
 every day is the same as respectfully saluting her 
 very self." And so she continued to worship the 
 mirror more and more while tending her father 
 with all filial piety — at least so the story goes, 
 for even to-day, as great poverty and ignorance 
 prevail in some parts of Echigo, the peasantry 
 know as little of mirrors as did this little girl. 
 
 THE PARSLEY QUEEN. 
 
 How curious that the daughter of a peasant 
 dwelling in a obscure country village near Aska, 
 in the province of Yamato, should become a 
 Queen ! Yet such was the case. Her father 
 died while she was yet in her infancy, and the 
 girl applied herself to the tending of her mother 
 with all filial piety. One day when she had gone 
 out in the fields to gather some parsley, of which 
 her mother was very fond, it chanced that Prince 
 
The Parsley Queen. 
 
 39 
 
 Shotoku, the great Buddist teacher,* was making 
 a progress to his palace, and all the inhabitants of 
 the country-side flocked to the road along which 
 the procession was passing, in order to behold the 
 gorgeous spectacle, and to show their respect 
 for the Mikado's son. The filial girl, alone, pay- 
 
 Imitating the Procession to the Temple. 
 
 ing no heed to what was going on around her, 
 continued picking her parsley. She was observed 
 from his carriage by the Prince, who, astonished 
 at the circumstance, sent one of his retainers to 
 inquire into its cause. 
 
 * P?'hice Shotoku Taiski, a great patron of Buddhism, who, though 
 a layman, is canonized (see "The KeHgions of Japan,'' p. i8o). A 
 story much like that of '• The Parsley Queen ''' is told in the province of 
 Echizen. Yamato is the old classic centre of ancient life and historv. 
 
40 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 The girl replied, " My mother bade me pick 
 parsley, and I am following her instructions — 
 that is the reason why I have not turned round 
 to pay my respects to the Prince." The latter 
 being informed of her answer, was filled with 
 admiration at the strictness of her filial piety. 
 Alighting at her mother's cottage on the way 
 back, he told her of the occurrence, and placing 
 the girl in the next carriage to his own, took her 
 home with him to the Imperial Palace, and 
 ended by making her his wife, upon which the 
 people, knowing her story, gave her the name of 
 the " Parsley Queen." 
 
 THE TWO DAUGHTERS. 
 
 At Akita, in the province of Inaba, lived an 
 independent gentleman, who had two daughters, 
 by whom he was ministered to with all filial piety. 
 He was fond of shooting with a gun, and thus 
 very often committed the sin (according to the 
 teaching of holy Buddha) of taking life. He 
 would never hearken to the admonitions of his 
 
 An independent gentleman, a ro7iin or " wave man," one who had 
 left the service of his feudal lord and was independent, — sometimes 
 a gentleman and a scholar, oftener a ruffian or vagabond. Buddhism, 
 on account of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, forbids the 
 taking of life. There are very few storks in Japan, but white heron 
 are quite common. 
 
The Two Daughters. 
 
 41 
 
 daughters. These, mindful of the future, and 
 aghast at the prospect in store for him in the world 
 to come, frequently endeavored to convert him. 
 Many were the tears they shed. At last one day, 
 after they had pleaded with him more earnestly 
 still than before, the father, touched by their 
 supplications, promised to 
 shoot no more. But, after 
 a while, some of his neigh- 
 bors came round to request 
 him to shoot for them 
 two storks. He was easily 
 led to consent by the 
 strength of his natural 
 liking for the sport. Still 
 he would not allow a word ^he Two white birds. 
 
 to be breathed to his daughters. He slipped 
 out at night, gun in hand, after they were, as he 
 imagined, fast asleep. 
 
 They, however, had heard everything, and the 
 elder sister said to the younger : " Do what we 
 may, our father will not condescend to follow our 
 words of counsel, and nothing now remains but 
 to bring him to a knowledge of the truth by the 
 sacrifice of one of our own lives. To-night is 
 fortunately moonless ; and if I put on white gar- 
 ments and go to the neighborhood of the bay, he 
 will take me for a stork and shoot me dead. Do 
 you continue to live and tend our father with all 
 
42 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 the services of filial piety." Thus she spake, her 
 eyes dimmed with the rolling tears. But the 
 younger sister, with many sobs, exclaimed : " For 
 you, my sister, for you is it to receive the 
 inheritance of this house. So do you conde- 
 scend to be the one to live, and to practise filial 
 devotion to our father, while I will offer up my 
 life." 
 
 Thus did each strive for death. The elder one, 
 without more words, seizing a white garment 
 rushed out of the house. The younger one, un- 
 willing to cede to her the place of honor, putting 
 on a white gown also, followed in her track to 
 the shore of the bay. There, making her way 
 to her among the rushes, she continued the dis- 
 pute as to which of the two should be the one 
 to die. 
 
 Meanwhile the father, peering around him in 
 the darkness, saw something white. Taking It 
 for the storks, he aimed at the spot with his gun, 
 and did not miss his shot, for it pierced through 
 the ribs of the elder of the two girls. The 
 younger, helpless in her grief, bent over her sis- 
 ter's body. The father, not dreaming of what he 
 was about, and astonished to find that his having 
 shot one of the storks did not make the other fly 
 away, discharged another shot at the remaining 
 white figure. Lamentable to relate, he hit his 
 second daughter as he had the first. She fell, 
 
The Two Daughters. 43 
 
 pierced through the chest, and was laid on the 
 same grassy pillow as her sister. 
 
 The father, pleased with his success, came 
 up to the rushes to look for his game. But 
 what ! no storks, alas ! alas ! No, only his two 
 daughters! Filled with consternation, he asked 
 what it all meant. The girls, breathing with 
 difficulty, told him that their resolve had been 
 to show him the crime of taking life, and thus 
 respectfully to cause him to desist therefrom. 
 They expired before they had time to say 
 more. 
 
 The father was filled with sorrow and re- 
 morse. He took the two corpses home on his 
 back. As there was now no help for what was 
 done, he placed them reverently on a wood stack, 
 and there they burnt, making smoke to the blow- 
 ing wind. From that hour he was a converted 
 man. He built himself a small cell of branches 
 of trees, near the village bridge. Placing therein 
 the memorial tablets of his two daughters, he 
 performed before them the due religious rites, 
 and became the most pious follower of Buddha. 
 Ah ! that was filial piety in very truth ! a marvel, 
 that these girls should throw away their own 
 lives, so that, by exterminating the evil seed in 
 their father's conduct in this world, they might 
 guard him from its awful fruit in the world 
 to come ! 
 
44 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 SECOND SIGHT. 
 
 A TRAVELLER arrived at a village, and looking 
 about for an inn, he found one that, although 
 rather shabby, would, he thought, suit him. So 
 he asked whether he could pass the night there, 
 and the mistress said certainly. No one lived at 
 the inn except the mistress, so that the traveller 
 was quite undisturbed. 
 
 The next morning, after he had finished break- 
 fast, the traveller went out of the house to make 
 arrangements for continuing his journey. To 
 his surprise, his hostess asked him to stop a 
 moment. She said that he owed her a thousand 
 pounds, solemnly declaring that he had borrowed 
 that sum from her inn long years ago. The 
 traveller was astonished greatly at this, as it 
 seemed to him a preposterous demand. So 
 fetching his trunk, he soon hid himself by draw- 
 ing a curtain all round him. 
 
 After thus secluding himself for some time, he 
 called the woman and asked, " Was your father 
 an adept in the art of second sight?" The 
 woman replied, "Yes; my father secluded him- 
 self just as you have done." Said the traveller, 
 " Explain fully to me why you say I owe you so 
 large a sum." The mistress then related that 
 when her father was going to die, he bequeathed 
 
Second Sight. 45 
 
 her all his possessions except his money. He 
 said, that on a certain day, ten years later, a 
 traveller would lodge at her house, and that, as 
 the said traveller owed him a thousand pounds, 
 she could reclaim at that time this sum from his 
 debtor. She must subsist in the meanwhile by 
 the gradual sale of her father's goods. 
 
 Hitherto, being unable to earn as much money 
 as she spent, she had been disposing of the in- 
 herited valuables, but had now exhausted nearly 
 all of them. In the meantime, the predicted date 
 had arrived, and a traveller had lodged at her 
 house, just as her father had foretold. Hence 
 she concluded he was the man from whom she 
 should recover the thousand pounds. 
 
 On hearing this the traveller said that all that 
 the woman had related was perfectly true. Tak- 
 ing her to one side of the room, he told her to 
 tap gently with her knuckles all over a wooden 
 pillar. At one part the pillar gave forth a hollow 
 sound. The traveller said that the money spoken 
 about by the poor woman lay hidden in this part 
 of the pillar. Then advising her to spend it only 
 gradually, he went on his way. 
 
 The father of this woman had been extremely 
 skilful in the art of second sight or clairvoyance. 
 By its means he had discovered that his daughter 
 would pass through ten years of extreme poverty 
 and that on a certain future day a diviner would 
 
46 
 
 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 come and lodge in the house. The father was 
 also aware that if he bequeathed his daughter his 
 money at once, she would spend it extravagantly. 
 Upon consideration, therefore, he hid the money 
 in the pillar, and instructed his daughter as re- 
 lated. In accordance with the father's prophecy, 
 the man came and lodged in the house on the 
 predicted day, and by the art of divination dis- 
 covered the thousand pounds. 
 
 GAMES. 
 
 HE games we are daily play- 
 ing at in our nurseries, or 
 some of them, have been also 
 played at for centuries by 
 Japanese boys and girls. Such 
 are blindman's buff (eye-hid- 
 ing), puss-in-the-corner, catch- 
 ing, racing, scrambling, a 
 variety of " here we go round 
 the mulberry bush." The 
 game of knuckle-bones is played with five little 
 stuffed bags instead of sheep bones, which the 
 children cannot get, as sheep are not used by 
 the Japanese. Also performances such as honey- 
 pots, heads in chancery, turning round back to 
 back, or hand to hand, are popular among that 
 
Games. 
 
 47 
 
 long-sleeved, shaven-pated small fry. Still better 
 than snow-balling, the lads like to make a snow- 
 man, with a round charcoal ball for each eye, and 
 a streak of charcoal for his mouth. This they call 
 Buddha's squat follower " Daruma," whose legs 
 rotted off through his stillness over his lengthy 
 prayers. 
 
 Eye-Hiding, or Blimdman's Buff. 
 
 As might be expected, some of the Japanese 
 games differ slightly from ours, or else are alto- 
 gether peculiar to that country. The facility 
 with which a Japanese child slips its shoes on 
 and off, and the absence on the part of the 
 parents of conventional or health scruples re- 
 garding bare feet, lead to a sort of game of ball 
 in which the shoes take the part of the ball, and 
 to hiding pranks with the sandal, something like 
 our hunt the slipper and hide-and-seek. On 
 
48 
 
 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 the other hand, kago play is entirely Japanese. 
 In this game, two children carry a bamboo pole 
 on their shoulders, on to which clings a third 
 child, in imitation of a usual mode of travelling 
 in Japan. In this the passenger is seated in a 
 
 light bamboo palanquin 
 borne on men's shoulders. 
 y /^^ M ^ miniature festival is 
 
 A// ^%^ n thought great fun, when 
 
 a few bits of rough wood 
 mounted on wheels are 
 decorated with cut paper 
 and evergreens, and drawn 
 slowly along amidst the 
 shouts of the exultant con- 
 trivers, in mimicry of the 
 real festival cars. Games 
 of soldiers are of two 
 types. When copied from 
 the historical fights, one 
 boy, with his kerchief 
 bound round his temples, 
 makes a supposed marvel- 
 lous and heroic defence. He slashes with his 
 bamboo sword, as a harlequin waves his baton, to 
 deal magical destruction all around on the attack- 
 ing party. When the late insurrection com- 
 menced in Satsuma, the Tokio boys, hearing of 
 the campaign on modern tactics, would form 
 
 Stilts and Clog-Throwing. 
 
Games. 
 
 49 
 
 attack and defence parties. A little company 
 armed with bamboo breech-loaders would march 
 to the assault of the roguish battalion lurking 
 round the corner. 
 
 Wrestling, again, is popular wdth children, not 
 so much on account of the actual throwing, as 
 
 Playing at Batter-Cakes. 
 
 from the love of imitating the curious growling 
 and animal-like springing, with which the profes- 
 sional wrestlers encounter one anothen Swim- 
 ming, fishing, and general puddling about are con- 
 genial occupation for hot summer days ; whilst 
 some with a toy bamboo pump, like a Japanese 
 feeble fire-engine, manage to send a squirt of water 
 at a friend, as the firemen souse their comrades 
 
50 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 standing on the burning housetops. Itinerant 
 street sellers have, on stalls of a height suited to 
 their little customers, an array of what looks like 
 pickles. This is made of bright seaweed pods 
 that the children buy to make a " clup ! " sort of 
 noise with between their lips, so that they go 
 about apparently hiccoughing all day long. The 
 smooth glossy leaves of the camellia, as common 
 as hedge roses are in England, make very fair 
 little trumpets when blown after having been 
 expertly rolled up, or in spring their fallen blos- 
 soms are strung into gay chains. 
 
 On a border-land between games and sweets 
 are the stalls of the itinerant batter-sellers. At 
 these the tiny purchaser enjoys the evidently 
 much appreciated privilege of himself arranging 
 his little measure of batter in fantastic forms, and 
 drying them upon a hot metal plate. A turtle is 
 a favorite design, as the first blotch of batter 
 makes its body, and six judiciously arranged 
 smaller dabs soon suggest its head, tail, and feet. 
 
 THE GAMES AND SPORTS OF JAPANESE 
 
 CHILDREN.* 
 
 How often in Japan one sees that the children of 
 a larger growth enjoy with equal zest games which 
 are the same, or nearly the same, as those of lesser 
 
 * From the paper read before The Asiatic Society of Japan. 
 
Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 51 
 
 size and fewer years ! Certain It is that the adults 
 do all in their power to provide for the children 
 their full quota of play and harmless sports. We 
 frequently see full-grown and able-bodied natives 
 indulo-inor in amusements w^ilch the men of the 
 West lay aside with their pinafores, or when their 
 curls are cut. If we, in the conceited pride of 
 our superior civilization, look down upon this as 
 childish, we must remem- 
 ber that the Oriental, from 
 the pinnacle of his lofty, 
 and to him immeasurably 
 elevated, civilization, looks 
 down upon our manly 
 sports with contempt, 
 thinklno- it a condescen- 
 sion even to notice them. 
 A very noticeable 
 change has passed over 
 the Japanese people since 
 
 the modern advent of foreigners In respect to 
 their love of amusement. Their sports are by no 
 means as numerous or elaborate as formerly, and 
 they do not enter Into them with the enthusiasm 
 that formerly characterized them. The children's 
 festivals and sports are rapidly losing their impor- 
 tance, and some now are rarely seen. Formerly the 
 holidays were almost as numerous as saints' days In 
 the calendar. Apprentice-boys had a liberal quota 
 
 Hoisting the Rice-Beer Keg 
 ON Festr'al-Dav, 
 
52 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 of holidays stipulated in their indentures ; and as 
 the children counted the days before each great 
 holiday on their fingers, we may believe that a great 
 deal of digital arithmetic was being continually 
 done. We do not know of any country in the world 
 in which there are so many toy-shops or so many 
 fairs for the sale of things which delight chil- 
 dren. Not only are the streets of every city 
 abundantly supplied with shops, filled as full as 
 a Christmas stocking with gaudy toys, but in 
 small towns and villages one or more children's 
 bazaars may be found. The most gorgeous dis- 
 play of all things pleasing to the eye of a 
 Japanese child is found in the courts or streets 
 leading to celebrated temples. On a festival 
 day, the toy-sellers and itinerant showmen throng 
 with their most attractive wares or sights in front 
 of the shrine or temple. On the walls and in 
 conspicuous places near the churches and cathe- 
 drals in Europe and America, the visitor is usu- 
 ally regaled with the sight of undertakers' signs 
 and gravediggers' advertisements. How differ- 
 ently the Japanese act in these respects let any 
 one see, by visiting one or all of the three greatest 
 temples in Tokio, or one of the numerous smaller 
 shrines on some renowned festival day. 
 
 We have not space in this paper to name or 
 describe the numerous street shows and showmen 
 who are supposed to be interested mainly in 
 
Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 53 
 
 entertaining children ; though in reality adults 
 form a part, often the major part, of their audi- 
 ences. Any one desirous of seeing these in full 
 glory must ramble down some of the side streets 
 in Tokio, on some fair day, and especially on a 
 general holiday. 
 
 Among the most common are the street theat- 
 ricals, in which two, three, or four trained boys 
 and girls do some very creditable acting, chiefly 
 in comedy. Raree shows, in which the looker-on 
 sees the inside splendors of the nobles' homes, 
 or the heroic acts of Japanese warriors, or some 
 famous natural scenery, are very common. The 
 showman, as he pulls the wires that change the 
 scenes, entertains the spectators with songs. The 
 outside of his box is usually adorned with pictures 
 of famous actors, nine-tailed foxes, demons of all 
 colors, people committing hari-kiri or stomach 
 cutting, bloody massacres, or some such staple 
 horror in which the normal Japanese so delights. 
 Story-tellers, posturers, dancers, actors of charades, 
 conjurers, flute-players, song-singers are found on 
 these streets, but those who specially delight the 
 children are the men who, by dint of fingers and 
 breath, work a paste made of wheat-gluten into all 
 sorts of curious and gayly-smeared toys, such as 
 flowers, trees, noblemen, fair ladies, various uten- 
 sils, the foreigner, the jin-riki-sha, etc. Nearly 
 every itinerant seller of candy, starch-cakes, 
 
54 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 sugared peas, and sweetened beans, has several 
 methods of lottery by which he adds to the attrac- 
 tions on his stall. A disk having a revolving 
 arrow, whirled round by the hand of a child, or a 
 number of strings which are connected with the 
 faces of imps, goddesses, devils, or heroes, lends 
 the excitement of chance, and, when a lucky pull 
 or whirl occurs, occasions the subsequent addition 
 to the small fraction of a sen's worth to be bought. 
 Men or women walk about, carrying a small char- 
 coal brazier under a copper griddle, with batter, 
 spoons, cups, and shoyu sauce to hire out for the 
 price of a jumon each to the little urchins who 
 spend an afternoon of bliss, making their own 
 griddle-cakes and eating them. The seller of 
 sugar-jelly exhibits a devil, taps a drum, and 
 dances for the benefit of his baby-customers. 
 The seller of nice pastry does the same, with the 
 addition of gymnastics and, skilful tricks with balls 
 of dough. In every Japanese city there are scores, 
 if not hundreds of men and women who obtain a 
 livelihood by amusing the children. 
 
 Some of the games of Japanese children are of 
 a national character, and are indulged in by all 
 classes. Others are purely local or exclusive. 
 Among the former are those which belong to the 
 great festival days, which in the old calendar 
 
 Shoyu : the origin of the English soy. 
 A jumon : the tenth part of a sen or cent. 
 
Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 55 
 
 (before 1872) enjoyed vastly more importance than 
 under the new one. Beginning with the first of 
 the year, there are a number of games and sports 
 peculiar to this time. The girls, dressed in their 
 best robes and girdles, with their faces powdered 
 and their lips painted, until they resemble the 
 peculiar colors seen on a beetle's wings, and 
 their hair arranged in the most attractive coiffure, 
 are out upon the street playing battledore and 
 shuttlecock. They play not only in twos and 
 threes, but also in circles. The shuttlecock is a 
 small seed, often gilded, stuck round with feathers 
 arranged like the petals of a flower. The battle- 
 dore is a wooden bat ; one side of which is of bare 
 wood, while the other has the raised effigy of some 
 popular actor, hero of romance, or singing girl in 
 the most ultra-Japanese style of beauty. The girls 
 evidently highly appreciate this game, as it gives 
 abundant opportunity for the display of personal 
 beauty, figure, and dress. Those who fail in the 
 game often have their faces marked with ink, or 
 a circle drawn round the eyes. The boys sing a 
 song that the wind will blow, the girls sing that it 
 may be calm so that their shuttlecocks may fly 
 straight. The little girls at this time play with a 
 ball made of cotton cord, covered elaborately with 
 many strands of bright vari-colored silk. 
 
 Inside the house they have games suited not 
 only for the daytime, but for the evenings. Many 
 
56 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 , '■* .^ 
 
 foreigners have wondered what the Japanese do 
 
 at night, and how the long winter evenings are 
 spent. On fair, and especially moonlight nights, 
 most of the people .are out of docj^s, and many of 
 the children with them. Markets and fairs are 
 held regularly at night in Tokio, and in other 
 large cities. The foreigner living in a Japanese 
 city, even if he were blind, could tell by stepping 
 out of doors, whether the weather were clear and 
 fine, or disagreeable. On dark and stormy nights 
 the stillness of a great city J'ike^Tekio is unbroken 
 and very impressive ; but on a fair and moonlight 
 night the hum and bustle tell one that the peo- 
 ple are out in throngs, and make one feel that it 
 is a city that he lives in. 
 
 In most of the castle towns in Japan, it was 
 formerly the custom of the people, especially of 
 the younger, to assemble on moonlight nights in 
 the streets or open spaces near the castle gates, 
 and dance a sort of subdued dance, moving round 
 in circles and clapping their hands. These dances 
 often continued during the entire night, the fol- 
 lowing day being largely consumed in sleep. In 
 the winter evenings in Japanese households the 
 Japanese children amuse themselves with their 
 sports, or are amused by their elders, who tell 
 them entertaining stories. The Samurai father 
 relates to his son Japanese history and heroic 
 lore, to fire him with enthusiasm and a love of 
 
Games and Sports of Japanese Children, ^y 
 
 those achievements which every Samurai youth 
 hopes at some day to perform. Then there are 
 numerous social entertainments, at which the 
 children above a certain age are allowed to be 
 present. 
 
 But the games relied on as standard means of 
 amusement, and seen especially about New Year, 
 are those of cards. In one of these, a large, 
 square sheet of paper is laid on the floor. On 
 this card are the names and pictures of the fifty- 
 three post-stations between old Yedo and Kioto. 
 At the place Kioto are put a few coins, or a pile 
 of cakes, or some such prizes, and the game is 
 played with dice. Each throw advances the 
 player toward the goal, and the one arriving first 
 obtains the prize. At this time of the year, also, 
 the games of what we may call literary cards are 
 played a great deal. The Iroha Garuta are small 
 cards each containing a proverb. The proverb is 
 printed on one card, and the picture illustrating it 
 upon another. Each proverb begins with a certain 
 one of the fifty Japanese letters, i, ro, ha, etc., and so 
 through the syllabary. The children range them- 
 selves in a circle, and the cards are shuffled and 
 dealt. One is appointed to be reader. Looking 
 at his cards he reads the proverb. The player 
 who has the picture corresponding to the proverb 
 calls out, and the match is made. Those who 
 
 Gartcta^ or karuta, our word "card." as spoken on Japanese lips. 
 
§S Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 are rid of their cards first, win the game. The 
 one holding the last card is the loser. If he be 
 a boy, he has his face marked curiously with ink. 
 If a girl, she has a paper or wisp of straw stuck 
 in her hair. 
 
 The One Verse (from each of the) Hundred 
 Poets game consists of two hundred cards, on 
 which are inscribed the one hundred stanzas or 
 poems so celebrated and known in every house- 
 hold. A stanza of Japanese poetry usually con- 
 sists of two parts, a first and second, or upper 
 and lower clause. The manner of playing the 
 game is as follows : The reader reads half the 
 stanza on his card, and the player, having the card 
 on which the other half is written, calls out, and 
 makes a match. Some children become so 
 familiar with these poems that they do not need ■ 
 to hear the entire half of the stanza read, but 
 frequently only the first word. 
 
 The game of Ancient Odes, that named after the 
 celebrated Genji (Minamoto) family of the Middle 
 Ages, and the Shi Garuta are all card-games of 
 a similar nature, but can be thoroughly enjoyed 
 only by well-educated Chinese scholars, as the 
 references and quotations are written in Chinese 
 and require a good knowledge of the Chinese 
 and Japanese classics to play them well. To 
 boys who are eager to become proficient in Chi- 
 nese it often acts as an incentive to be told that 
 
Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 59 
 
 they will enjoy these games after certain attain- 
 ments in scholarship have been made. Having 
 made these attainments, they play the game fre- 
 quently, especially during vacation, to impress on 
 their minds what they have already learned. 
 
 Two other games are played which may be said 
 to have an educational value. They are the 
 "Wisdom Boards" and the "Ring of Wisdom." 
 The former consists of a number of flat thin pieces 
 of wood, cut in many geometrical shapes. Certain 
 possible figures are printed on paper as models., 
 and the boy tries to form them out of the pieces 
 given him. In some cases much time and think- 
 ing are required to form the figure. The ring- 
 puzzle is made of rings of bamboo or iron, on a 
 bar. Boys having a talent for mathematics, or 
 those who have a natural capacity to distinguish 
 size and form, succeed very well at these games 
 and enjoy them. 
 
 The game of Checkers Is played on a raised 
 stand or table about six inches in heio:ht. The 
 number of " go " or checkers, including black and 
 white, is 360. In the Sho-gi, or game of Chess, 
 the pieces number 40 in all. Backgammon is also 
 a favorite play, and there are several forms of it. 
 
 About the time of old style New Year's Day, 
 when the winds of February and March are favor- 
 able to the sport, kites are flown, and there are 
 few games in which Japanese boys, from the Infant 
 
6o 
 
 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 on the back to the full-grown and the over-grown 
 boy, take more delight. I have never observed, 
 however, as foreign books so often tell us, old men 
 flying kites and boys merely looking on. The 
 Japanese kites are made of tough paper pasted on 
 a frame of bamboo sticks, and are usually of a rec- 
 tangular shape. Some of them, however, are 
 made to represent children or men, several kinds 
 of birds and animals, fans, etc. On the rectangu- 
 
 Getting ready to raise the big Humming Kite with the Sun 
 
 Emblem. 
 
 lar kites are pictures of ancient heroes or beauti- 
 ful women, dragons, horses, monsters of various 
 kinds, the symbol of the sun, or huge Chinese 
 characters. Among the faces most frequently 
 seen on these kites are those of the national 
 heroes or heroines. Some of the kites are six feet 
 square. Many of them have a thin tense ribbon 
 of whalebone at the top of the kite which vibrates 
 in the wind, miaking a loud humming noise. The 
 
Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 6i 
 
 boys frequently name their kites Genji or Heiki, 
 and each contestant endeavors to destroy that of 
 his rival. For this purpose the string for ten or 
 twenty feet near the kite end is first covered with 
 glue, and then dipped into pounded glass, by which 
 the string becomes covered with tiny blades, each 
 able to cut quickly and deeply. By getting the 
 kite in proper position and suddenly sawing the 
 string of his antagonist, the severed kite falls, to 
 be reclaimed by the victor. 
 
 The Japanese tops are of several kinds, some 
 are made of univalve shells, filled with wax. Those 
 intended for contests are made of hard wood, and 
 are iron-clad by having a heavy iron ring round 
 as a sort of tire. The boys wdnd and throw them 
 in a manner somewhat different from ours. The 
 object of the player is to damage his adversary's 
 top, or to make it cease spinning. The whipping 
 top is also known and used. Besides the athletic 
 sports of leaping, running, wrestling, slinging, the 
 Japanese boys play at blindman's buff, hiding- 
 whoop, and with stilts, pop-guns, and blow-guns. 
 On stilts they play various games and run races. 
 
 In the northern and western coast provinces, 
 where the snow falls to the depth of many feet 
 and remains long on the ground, it forms the mate- 
 rial of the children's playthings, and the theatre 
 of many of their sports. Besides sliding on the 
 ice, coasting with sleds, building snow-forts and 
 
62 
 
 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 fighting mimic battles with snow-balls, they make 
 many kinds of images and imitations of what they 
 see and know. In America the boy's snow-man 
 is a Paddy with a damaged hat, clay pipe in 
 mouth, and the shillelah in his hand. In Japan 
 the snow-man is an image of Daruma. Daruma 
 was one of the followers of Shaka (Buddha) who, 
 by long meditation in a squatting position, lost 
 his legs from paralysis and sheer decay. The 
 
 Daruma, the Snow-Image. 
 
 images of Daruma are found by the hundreds in 
 toy-shops, as tobacconists' signs, and as the snow- 
 men of the boys. Occasionally the figure of Geiho, 
 the sage with a forehead and skull so high that a 
 ladder was required to reach his pate, or huge cats 
 and the peculiar-shaped dogs seen in the toy-shops, 
 take the place of Daruma. 
 
 Many of the amusements of the children in- 
 doors are mere imitations of the serious affairs of 
 
Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 63 
 
 adult life. Boys who have been to the theatre 
 come home to imitate the celebrated actors, and 
 to extemporize mimic theatricals for themselves. 
 Feigned sickness and " playing the doctor," imi- 
 tating with ludicrous exactness the pomp and 
 solemnity of the real man of pills and powders, 
 and the misery of the patient, are the diversions 
 of very young children. Dinners, tea-parties, and 
 even weddings and funerals, are imitated in Jap- 
 anese children's plays. 
 
 Among the ghostly games intended to test the 
 courage of, or perhaps to frighten children, are two 
 plays called respectively, the "One Hundred 
 Stories" and "Soul-Examination." In the former 
 play, a company of boys and girls assemble round 
 the hibachi, while they or an adult, an aged person 
 or a servant, usually relate ghost stories, or tales 
 calculated to straighten the hair and make the 
 blood crawl. In a distant dark room, a lamp (the 
 usual dish of oil) with a wick of one hundred 
 strands or piths, is set. At the conclusion of each 
 story, the children in turn must go to the dark 
 room and remove a strand of the wick. As the 
 lamp burns down low the room becomes gloomy 
 and dark, and the last boy, it is said, always sees 
 a demon, a huge face, or something terrible. In 
 " Soul-Examination," a number of boys during 
 the day plant some flags in different parts of 
 a graveyard under a lonely tree, or by a haunted 
 
64 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 hill-side. At night they meet together and tell 
 stories about ghosts, goblins, devils, etc., and at 
 the conclusion of each tale, when the imagination 
 is wrought up, the boys, one at a time, must go 
 out in the dark and brin'g back the flags, until all 
 are brought in. 
 
 On the third day of the third month is held the 
 Doll Festival. This is the day especially devoted 
 to the girls, and to them it is the greatest day in 
 the year. It has been called in some foreign 
 works on Japan, the " Feast of Dolls." Several 
 days before the Matsuri the shops are gay with 
 the images bought for this occasion, and which 
 are on sale only at this time of year. Every re- 
 spectable family has a number of these splendidly- 
 dressed images, which are from four inches to a 
 foot in height, and which accumulate from gen- 
 eration to generation. When a daughter is born 
 in the house during the previous year, a pair of 
 hina or images are purchased for the little girl, 
 which she plays with until growm up. When 
 she is married her hina are taken with her to her 
 husband's house, and she gives them to her chil- 
 dren, adding to the stock as her family increases. 
 The images are made of wood or enamelled clay. 
 They represent the Mikado and his wife; the 
 kuge or old Kioto nobles, their wives and daugh- 
 ters, the court minstrels, and various personages 
 in Japanese mythology and history. A great 
 
Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 65 
 
 many other toys, representing all the articles in 
 use in a Japanese lady's chamber, the service of 
 the eating table, the utensils of the kitchen, trav- 
 elling apparatus, etc., some of them very elaborate 
 and costly, are also exhibited and played with on 
 this day. The girls make offerings of sake and 
 dried rice, etc., to the eiifigies of the emperor and 
 empress, and then spend the day with toys, mim- 
 icking the whole round of Japanese female life, as 
 that of child, maiden, wife, mother, and grand- 
 mother. In some old Japanese families in which 
 I have visited, the display of dolls and images was 
 very large and extremely beautiful. 
 
 The greatest day in the year for the boys is on 
 the fifth day of the fifth month. On this day is 
 celebrated what has been called the " Feast of 
 Flags." Previous to the coming of the day, the 
 shops display for sale the toys and tokens proper 
 to the occasion. These are all of a kind suited 
 to young Japanese masculinity. They consist of 
 efHgies of heroes and warriors, generals and com- 
 manders, soldiers on foot and horse, the genii of 
 strength and valor, wrestlers, etc. The toys rep- 
 resent the equipments and regalia of a daimio's 
 procession, all kinds of things used in w^ar, the 
 contents of an arsenal, flags, streamers, banners, 
 etc. A set of these toys is bought for every son 
 born in the family. Hence in old Japanese fami- 
 lies the display on the fifth day of the fifth month 
 
66 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 is extensive and brilliant. Besides the display in- 
 doors, on a bamboo pole erected outside is hung, 
 by a string to the top of the pole, a representation 
 of a large fish in paper. The paper being hollow, 
 the breeze easily fills out the body of the fish, which 
 flaps its tail and fins in a natural manner. One 
 may count hundreds of these floating in the air 
 over the city. 
 
 The nobori, as the paper fish is called. Is in- 
 tended to show that a son has been born during 
 the year, or at least that there are sons in the 
 family. The fish represented is the carp, which 
 is able to swim swiftly against the current and to 
 leap over waterfalls. This act of the carp is a 
 favorite subject with native artists, and is also 
 typical of the young man, especially the young 
 Samurai, mounting over all difficulties to success 
 and quiet prosperity. 
 
 One favorite game, which has now gone out of 
 fashion, was that In which the boys formed them- 
 selves into a daimio's procession, having forerun- 
 ners, officers, etc., and imitating as far as possible 
 the pomp and circumstance of the old daimio's 
 train. Another game which was very popular 
 represented, in mimic war, the struggles of two 
 great noble families (like the red and white 
 roses of England). The boys of a town, dis- 
 trict, or school, ranged themselves into two par- 
 ties, each with flags. Those of the Heiki were 
 
Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 67 
 
 white, those of the Genji red. Sometimes every 
 boy had a flag, and the object of the contest, which 
 was begun at the tap of a gun, was to seize the 
 flags of the enemy. The party securing the 
 greatest number of flags won the victory. In 
 other cases the flags were fastened on the back 
 of each contestant, who was armed with a bam- 
 boo for a sword, and who had fastened on a pad 
 over his head a flat round piece of earthenware, 
 so that a party of them looked not unhke the fac- 
 ulty of a college. Often these parties of boys 
 numbered several hundred, and were marshalled 
 in squadrons as in a battle. At a given signal 
 the battle commenced, the object being to break 
 the earthen disk on the head of the enemy. The 
 contest was usually very exciting. Whoever had 
 his earthen disk demolished had to retire from 
 the field. The party having the greatest number 
 of broken disks, indicative of cloven skulls, were 
 declared the losers. This game has been forbid- 
 den by the Government as being too severe and 
 cruel. Boys were often injured in it. 
 
 There are many other games which we simply 
 mention without describing. There are three 
 games played by the hands, which every observ- 
 ant foreigner long resident in Japan must have 
 seen played, as men and women seem to enjoy 
 them as much as children. In the Stone game, 
 a stone, a pair of scissors, and a wrapping- 
 
68 Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 cloth are represented. The stone signifies the 
 clenched fist, the parted fore and middle fingers 
 the scissors, and the curved forefinger and 
 thumb the cloth. The scissors can cut the 
 cloth, but not the stone, but the cloth can wrap 
 the stone. The two players sit opposite each other 
 at play, throwing out their hands so as to repre- 
 sent either of the three things, and win, lose, or 
 draw, as the case may be. 
 
 In the Fox game, the fox, man, and gun are 
 the figures. The gun kills the fox, but the fox 
 deceives the man, and the gun is useless with- 
 out the man. In the third game, five or six boys 
 represent the various grades of rank, from the 
 peasant up to the great daimios or shogun. By 
 superior address and skill in the game the peasant 
 rises to the highest rank, or the man of highest 
 rank is degraded. 
 
 From the nature of the Japanese language, in 
 which a single word or sound may have a great 
 many significations, riddles and puns are of extraor- 
 dinary frequency. I do not know of any published 
 collection of riddles, but every Japanese boy has 
 a good stock of them on hand. There are few 
 Japanese works of light, and perhaps of serious, 
 literature, in which puns do not continually recun 
 The popular songs and poems are largely plays 
 on words. There are also several puzzles played 
 with sticks, founded upon the shape of certain 
 
Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 69 
 
 Chinese characters. As for the short and simple 
 story-books, song-books, nursery rhymes, lullabys, 
 and what for want of a better name may be styled 
 Mother Goose Literature, they are as plentiful as 
 with us, but they have a very strongly character- 
 istic Japanese flavor, both in style and matter. 
 
 It is curious that the game of foot-ball seems 
 to have been confined to the courtiers of the 
 Mikado's court, where there were regular in- 
 structors of the game. In the games of Pussy 
 wants a Corner and Prisoner's Base, the Oni, 
 or devil, takes the place of Puss or the officer. 
 
 I have not mentioned all the games and sports 
 of Japanese children, but enough has been said 
 to show their general character. In general they 
 seem to be natural, sensible, and in every sense 
 beneficial. Their immediate or remote effects, 
 next to that of amusement, are either educational, 
 or hygienic. Some teach history, some geogra- 
 phy, some excellent sentiments or good language. 
 Others inculcate reverence and obedience to the 
 elder brother or sister, to parents or to the 
 emperor, or stimulate the manly virtues of cour- 
 age and contempt for pain. The study of the 
 subject leads one to respect more highly, rather 
 than otherwise, the Japanese people for being 
 such affectionate fathers and mothers, and for 
 having such natural and docile children. The 
 character of the children's plays and their encour- 
 
Jo Child-Life in Japan. 
 
 agement by the parents has, I think, much to do 
 with that frankness, affection, and obedience on 
 the side of the children, and that kindness and 
 sympathy on the side of the parents, which are 
 so noticeable in Japan, and which is one of the 
 many good points of Japanese life and character. 
 
 i 
 
ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
Supplementary Reading 
 
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 GRADE I. Bass's The Beginner's Reader 
 
 Badlam's Primer .... 
 
 Fuller's Illustrated Primer 
 
 Griel's Glimpses of Nature for Little Folks 
 
 Heart of Oak Readers, Book I 
 
 Regal's Lessons for Little Readers 
 
 GRADE IL Warren's From September to June with Nature 
 
 Badlam's First Reader 
 
 Bass's Stories of Plant Life 
 
 Heart of Oak Readers, Book I 
 
 Snedden's Docas, the Indian Boy 
 
 Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature, Readers No. 
 GRADE III. Heart of Oak Readers, Book II 
 
 Pratt's America's Story, Beginner's Book 
 
 Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 
 
 Miller's My Saturday Bird Class . 
 
 Firth's Stories of Old Greece 
 
 Bass's Stories of Animal life 
 
 Spear's Leaves and Flowers 
 
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 Brown's Alice and Tom 
 Grinnell's Our Feathered Friends 
 Heart of Oak Readers, Book III . 
 Pratt's America's Story — Discoverers and Explorers 
 Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 3 
 
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 Grinnell's Our Feathered Friends 
 Heart of Oak Readers, Book III . 
 Pratt's America's Story — The Earlier Colonies . 
 Kupfer's Stories of Long Ago 
 
 GRADE VI, Starr's Strange Peoples . 
 
 Bull's Fridtjof Nansen .... 
 Heart of Oak Readers, Book IV . 
 Pratt's America's Story — The Colonial Period . 
 Dole's The Young Citizen . . 
 
 GRADE VII. Starr's American Indians 
 Penniman's School Poetry Book . 
 
 Pratt's America's Story — The Revolution and the Republic 
 Eckstorm's The Bird Book 
 Heart of Oak Readers, Book TV . 
 Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 4 
 
 GRADES VIII and IX. Heart of Oak Readers, Book V 
 Heart of Oak Readers, Book VI . 
 Dole's The American Citizen 
 Shaler's First Book in Geology (boards) 
 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield 
 Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley . 
 
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 A new series, that excels in its 
 
 1. Interesting and well graded lessons. 
 
 2. Masterpieces of English and American literature. 
 
 3. Beautiful and appropriate illustrations. 
 
 4. Clear and legible printing. 
 
 5. Durable and handsome binding. 
 
 6. Adaptation to the needs of modern schools. 
 
 The Heath Readers enable teachers, whether they 
 have much or little knowledge of the art, to teach children to 
 read intelligently and to read aloud intelligibly. They do this 
 without waste of time or effort, and at the same time that the 
 books aid pupils in acquiring skill in reading, they present 
 material which is in itself worth reading. 
 
 The purpose of the Heath Readers is, first, to enable 
 beginners to master the mechanical difficulties of reading 
 successfully and in the shortest time ; second^ to develop the 
 imagination and cultivate a taste for the best literature ; 
 third^ to appeal to those motives that lead to right conduct, 
 industry, courage, patriotism, and loyalty to duty. The larger 
 purpose is, briefly, to aid in developing an appreciation of 
 that which is of most worth in life and literature. 
 
 The series contains seven books, as follows: 
 
 Primer, 128 pages, 25 cents. 
 First Reader, 130 pages, 25 cents. 
 Second Reader, 176 pages, 35 cents. 
 Third Reader, 256 pages, 40 cents. 
 
 Fourth Rtader, 320 pages, 45 cents. 
 I'ifih Reader, 352 pages, 50 cents. 
 Sixth Reader, 352 pagf^^, 50 cents. 
 
 Descriptive circulars sent free 07i request. 
 
 D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, Boston, NewYork, Chicago