Into the life of a Japanese home enter many customs and observances that have not been dwelt upon in the preceding pages, but without some understanding of which our knowledge of the life of Japanese women is by no means complete. In Japan the woman's place is so entirely in the home that all the ceremonies and superstitions that gather about the conduct of every-day affairs are more to her than they are to the freer and broader-minded man. The household worship, the yearly round of festivals, each with its special food to be prepared, the observances connected with birth and marriage and death; what is to be done in time of illness, of earthquake, of fire, or of the frequent flittings that render life in Japan one succession of packings and unpackings,—all [328]these are matters of high importance to the wife and mother, and their proper observance is left largely in her hands.  
Every well-ordered Japanese home of the old-fashioned kind has its little shrine, which is the centre of the religious life of the house. If the household is of the Shintō faith, this shrine is called the kami-dana, or god shelf, and contains the symbols of the gods, gohei in vases, receptacles for food and drink, and a primitive lamp,—only a saucer of oil in which a bit of pith serves for a wick. Daily offerings must be made before this shrine, and reverence paid by the clapping of hands; while on feast days special offerings and invocations are required. In Buddhist families, the Butsudan, or Buddha shelf, takes the place of the kami-dana, and the worship is slightly more complicated. Greater variety of food is offered, and the simple clapping of the hands and bowing of the head that is the form of prayer in the Shintō religion is replaced by the burning of incense and by actual verbal invocation of Buddha. These religious ceremonies [329]must be attended to by the mother or wife. She it is who sets the rice and wine before the ancestral tablets, who lights the little lamp each night, and who sees that at each feast day and anniversary season the proper food is prepared and set out for the household gods.
 
Upon the wife, and her attention to minute and apparently trifling details, depends much of the well-being of the family. Each child, as it grows toward maturity, gathers from various sources a collection of amulets, which, while worn always when the child is in full dress, are frequently too precious for ordinary play times and the risks and perils of every-day life. These must be kept carefully by the mother as a safeguard against the many evils that beset child-life. I have spoken of the amulets given at the times of the miya mairi,—both the first, when the name is given to the baby, and the subsequent visits made to the temple by the children as they pass certain stated points in their progress toward maturity. These amulets are simply written papers or slips of[330] wood with the seal of the temple from which they are issued stamped upon them. Visits to noted temples by relatives and friends often result in additions to the child's collection. One kind of charm is good to keep the eyes strong; another will help its possessor to that much-prized accomplishment, a good handwriting; another acts as an assurance against accident and saves the child from harm in case of a fall. All these are put together by the careful mother and preserved as jealously as Queen Althea kept the charred stick that governed the destiny of her son. As the children arrive at years of discretion, these treasures pass out of the mother's faithful keeping into the hands of their actual owners, and they are usually kept stored away in some little-used drawer or cabinet until death removes the necessity for any further safeguards over life. Perhaps of all the curious things that go to make up these intimate personal belongings of a Japanese man or woman, there is none more curious than the small white parcel containing a portion of the umbilical cord,—saved at birth[331] and preserved until death that it may be buried with its possessor and furnish him the means of a new birth. These little paper packages, each marked with the name of the child to whom it belongs, are kept by the mother.
 
Upon the mother of the family rests very largely the determining of lucky and unlucky days for the beginning or transaction of different kinds of business. A fortune-teller is consulted for important things, such as removals or marriages, but in every-day life one cannot be running to a fortune-teller about everything; and yet there is bad luck lurking in the background that may baffle all our plans if we do not observe the proper times and seasons for our undertakings. Just as the Japanese calendar divides time into cycles of twelve years, each year named for a different animal, so also the days and hours are divided into twelves and bear the names of the same twelve animals,—the Chinese signs of the zodiac. These animals are as follows: the rat, the bull, the tiger, the hare, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the goat, the monkey, the[332] cock, the dog, and the boar. Each animal brings its own kind of good or bad luck into the hour, day, or year over which it presides, and only a skillful balancer of pros and cons can read aright the combinations, and understand what the luck of any particular hour in any particular day of any particular year will be. For instance, the rat, which is the companion of Daikoku, the money god, is a lucky animal so far as money is concerned. A person born in the year of the rat will never need money, and will be economical, possibly miserly; and in one born on the day of the rat in the year of the rat these chances and qualities will be doubled. But the luck of the rat may be very seriously interfered with by the bad luck of the monkey or of the proverbially unlucky dog, when their days and hours occur in the rat year. On the other hand, their bad luck may be counteracted by the good luck of the tiger or hare, for as a rule three animals of different portent are presiding over human prospects every hour. This makes prophecy a ticklish business, requiring a wise head, but it also leaves[333] much room for the subsequent explanation of failures by the superior and unusual influence of one or another of the animals, as the case may require. Momentous questions of this kind have frequently to be settled by the Japanese wife and mother, and she gains dignity and value in her home and neighborhood according to her skill in interpreting the portents of the day and hour.
 
For the greater events of family life the home prophecies are felt to be too uncertain, and the services of the fortune-teller must be called in. No well-managed family would think of building a new house without finding in what direction to face the front door. In an American city this necessity would cause considerable inconvenience, as the position of the front door is usually determined by the relation of the building-lot to the street; but in a Japanese city, where, in all but the business quarters, every house is concealed by a high board fence, and where the gate that admits one within the fence is the only sign by which any one in the street can judge of the worldly condition of the dwellers[334] within, the houses are faced about any and every way, and the position of each is determined by the good luck that it will bring its owner. After this matter has been settled and the house is fairly begun, there are occasional crises in its construction upon which much depends. Of these the most important is the day when the roof is raised. The roof timbers, which are unsquared logs, often rather crooked, after being carefully fitted and framed in some convenient vacant lot, are brought on carts to the site of the new building, and when all is ready, the head carpenter sends word to the house-owner that he is about to set the roof in place. The house-owner then decides whether the day set by the builder is a lucky one for himself and his family. If it is not, a delay in the building is always preferable to any danger of incurring the displeasure of the luck gods. This crisis safely passed, and the last of the roof beams secured in its place, the men take a holiday, and are feasted on saké and spaghetti by the house-owner. A present of money to each workman is also in order, and will[335] conduce to the rapid and faithful execution of the job in hand. When, at last, the house is finished, and carpenters and plasterers are ready to leave it, the local firemen, who have assisted all along in the building as unskilled laborers, often ascend to the roof, and from the ridge-pole cast down cakes, for which the children of the neighborhood scramble joyfully.
 
When the builders have left, and the house is ready for occupation, even to the soft, thick mats on the floor and the white paper windows, the family will move in on the first day thereafter that is both lucky and pleasant. So far as possible, everything in the old house will be packed and ready the day before, and very early in the morning the relatives and friends of the mover will begin to rally around him. All come who can, and those who cannot come send servants or provisions. Every tradesman or kurumaya who has had or who hopes to have the patronage of the moving household sends a representative to help along the work, so that there is always a sufficient force to carry the household[336] belongings into the new home and settle them in place before the day is over. All these visiting helpers must be fed and provided with tea and cakes at proper intervals, and the presents of cooked food that pour in at such times are highly acceptable and of great practical usefulness. When the long day is ended and the visitors return one by one to their homes, it is the mistress of the house who must see that every servant and representative of a business firm receives, neatly done up in white paper, a present of money properly proportioned to his services, and the style and circumstances of the family he has been aiding. And when all are gone, the shutters closed, and the family left alone in their new home, the little wife must make a list of all who have helped in any way during the day, and to all, within a short time, make some acknowledgment of their kindness by either a call or a present. It is upon the wife, too, that the duty falls of sending to each of the near neighbors soba, a kind of macaroni, as an announcement of the family's arrival. The number of neighbors to[337] whom this gift is sent is determined differently according to circumstances. If the house is one of several in a compound, soba will be sent to all within the gate; but if the compound is very large, so that the sending to all would be too great an expense, the five nearest houses will be selected to receive the gift, or all who draw water from the same well. A very late fashion in Tōkyō, but one that is gaining ground because of its convenience, is to send, not the macaroni itself, but an order on the nearest restaurant at which that delicacy is sold.
 
As I have already said, much of a woman's time and thought must be given to the proper distribution of presents among friends and dependents. The subject of what to give, when to give, to whom to give, and how to do up the gift acceptably, is one the thorough understanding of which requires the study of years. No foreigner can hope to do more than dabble in the shallows of it. Presents seem to be used more for the purpose of keeping those persons whose services you may need, or whose enmity you dread, under a sense of obligation,[338] than they are as expressions of sentiment. Every housekeeper, for instance, must need the occasional services of a carpenter or a gardener, and in a large city like Tōkyō the chances are that she will some day need, and need very badly, the services of a fireman. A wise woman—one who is not penny wise and pound foolish—will by timely presents keep herself constantly in the minds of such persons, so that when she sends for them, they may feel under sufficient obligation to her to come at once. So will her house be quickly put in repair after earthquake or other accident; her garden show for only the briefest interval the ravages of the typhoon which has gullied out her lawn and leveled her choicest trees; and when some night "the flower of Yedo" blooms suddenly by her side, she will have the speedy assistance of the firemen, who will seal her storehouse securely with clay, wet her roof and walls thoroughly with water, and light at her gates the great alarm lanterns to tell her friends that her house is in danger and summon them to her assistance. No friend can disregard such a[339] signal, but all will rally round her once more to help in this less orderly and cheerful moving,—will pack and cord and carry out her goods, and if at last the fire consumes her dwelling, will gather her household and belongings into their hospitable homes. But the foolish woman, who neglects or forgets her dependents when she does not need them, finds some day that her roof is leaking, but all the carpenters are too busy to mend it, her garden is destroyed because the gardener had an important engagement elsewhere just when she needed him, and her property is burned up or ruined by water and smoke because the firemen attended to her house last when the fire swept over her compound.
 
When death enters a house in Japan, there are no undertakers to relieve the family of the painful duty of caring for the dead body and placing it in the coffin. There are coffin-makers and funeral managers who supply the great white bier and lanterns and the bunches of paper flowers that adorn every funeral procession, but within the house the preparations [340]are all made by the family and friends, and the heaviest and most painful part of the work falls, as usual, on the women of the family. As soon as the breath finally leaves the body, it is wrapped in a quilt, laid with its head to the north, and an inverted screen placed around it. On one corner of the screen is hung a sword or knife to keep off any evil spirit that may wander into the room in the shape of a cat and disturb the dead.
 
Etiquette requires that relatives and intimate friends of the family call immediately on learning of the death. To receive these calls the mourners, in full ceremonial dress, must sit in the death chamber and remove for each guest the covering from the face of the dead. The visitors then offer the ceremonial bows to the corpse, as if it were alive. During this time, too, presents to the spirit of the dead are pouring in. The proper offerings are flowers, cake, vegetables, candles, incense, or small gifts of money for the purchase of incense. If the deceased is a person of rank or distinction, the house is flooded with cumbersome[341] and useless offerings. This custom has become so great an addition to the trials necessarily incident to a bereavement that one occasionally sees in the newspaper announcements of deaths a request that no offerings to the dead be sent.
 
On the day after the death, often in the evening, the body must be placed in the cask-shaped coffin that until recently was the style commonly in use in Japan. Now, among the wealthier classes, the long coffin has superseded the small square or round one, but the smaller expense connected with burial in the old way makes the survival of the old type a necessity for the majority of Japanese. At an appointed time all the relatives assemble in the death chamber, and preparations are made for the bathing of the corpse. Two of the tatami, or floor mats, are turned over, and upon them are placed a new tub, a new pail, and a new dipper. These utensils must have no metal of any kind about them. In the washing of the body none but members of the family must assist, and respect for the dead absolutely requires[342] that all the relatives of the deceased who are below him in rank must have a hand in these final ablutions. In Japan, the mourning for the dead is the duty of inferiors, never of superiors. There is no official, ceremonial mourning of parents for their children, nor does custom require them to perform any of the last rites, or attend the funeral. Upon the younger brothers and sisters falls the duty of attending to all the last sad ministrations. If the wife dies, her husband does not mourn for her, though her children do; but if the husband dies, the wife must mourn the rest of her life, cutting off her hair and placing it in the coffin as a sign of her perpetual faithfulness.
 
When the body has been washed, it is dressed in white, in silk habutai whenever the family can afford it. The dress, which must be appropriate to the season, in the making of which all the women of the family must assist, is the plain, straight kimono, but must be folded from right to left, instead of from left to right as in life. The body, to be placed in the coffin, must be folded into a sitting [343]posture, the chin resting upon the knees,—the position of the mummies found in many aboriginal American tombs. This difficult, to us apparently impossible feat, safely accomplished, there are placed in the coffin a number of small things that the dead takes with him to the next world. Some of these have been already mentioned, the others are little keepsakes, or perhaps tokens of the tastes and employments of the dead,—dice, cards, saké bottles, the image of a horse, toy weapons,—anything, provided only that it be not of metal, may be used for this purpose. The single exception to this rule about metal is that small copper coins may be put in, to fee the old hag who guards the bank of the river of death. Last of all, the vacant spaces in the coffin are filled in with bags of tea. Then the coffin is closed and nailed up, wrapped with a white silk cloth fastened with a white silk or cotton cord, and placed on a high stand, and food and incense are placed before it.
 
So long as the coffin is in the house, it must be watched over continually. To aid in this protracted vigil, which must[344] be kept up day and night until the burial, the relatives, friends, and retainers of the dead assemble at the house in large numbers. In the case of a person of wealth and influence, there will often be a hundred or more of these watchers, who must be fed and cared for; and who take turns in watching, eating, and sleeping. It is their duty to see that the incense burning before the coffin is never allowed to go out, while the food for the dead is renewed at regular intervals by the mourners themselves.
 
This somewhat detailed description of the duties to be performed by the members of a bereaved family in the house of mourning is sufficient to show that the presence of death in the home is made as terrible as possible by the painful ceremonies, the continual bustle and excitement, and the strain upon the resources and executive ability of the housekeeper and her assistants. There are few enlightened Japanese who will defend the present system of cruelty to the afflicted, or who do not long for some change, but so great is the force of conservatism in this regard, so haunting the fear that[345] any change may indicate a lack of respect for the dead, that reform advances slowly.
 
Individual instances occur in which some of the worst features of these customs are modified. A case in point is that of the late Mr. Fukuzawa, a man whose life was devoted to the advancement of his countrymen in modern ways, and who in his death continued his teaching. In his will he provided that his body was to be buried, without washing, in the clothing in which he died. This provision would seem in most countries to be mere eccentricity, but when one has seen or heard of the gruesome ceremony that follows immediately after death, and the burden of which falls, not on the old and hardened, but on the young and tender, suffering, in many cases, under the weight of a first and crushing affliction, one can see that only through such means as this can the burden ever be lifted from the shoulders of those who mourn. There are young and enlightened mothers in Japan to-day who have felt, in minds awakened to thought and action, the horrors of the[346] system, and who will not allow their children to suffer for them what they have suffered in paying respect to their dead parents. Through this growing feeling and the unselfishness of maternal affection may come in time the release from these mournful ceremonies.
 
While the body remains in the house, a priest comes from time to time to offer prayers, longer or shorter according to the wealth of the family employing him; and when the funeral cortège sets out on its way to the cemetery, the priests in their professional robes form an imposing part of the spectacle. The day of the burial is selected with due respect to the calendar, for, though there may be little good luck about a funeral, there is a chance of extremely bad luck growing out of it unless every precaution is taken. Just before the procession starts, a religious ceremony is held at the house, which is attended by the friends of the deceased, and which is substantially the same as that performed at the cemetery. On the day of the burial, great bunches of natural flowers are sent to the dead, each bunch so large as to[347] require the services of one man to carry it. Sometimes with the gift a man is sent to take part in the procession, but if the giver feels too poor to hire a man, this burden, too, falls upon the bereaved household, for etiquette requires that all flowers sent be borne to the grave by uniformed coolies, who march in the funeral train. Another favorite present at this time, among Buddhists, is a cage of living birds, to be borne to the grave and released thereon. This act of mercy is counted to the deceased for righteousness, and is believed to aid in rendering his next incarnation a happy one.
 
A funeral procession is an imposing spectacle, and, to the uninstructed foreigner, a cheerful one; for there is nothing sad or sombre in the white, or bright-colored, robes of the priests, the white, tinsel-decorated bier, the red and white flags borne aloft, the enormous bunches of gay-colored flowers;—the very mourners in white silk, and with faces apparently unmoved by grief, bring no thought of the object of the procession to the Western mind. It seems more like a bridal than a burial. But if you[348] follow the cortège to the cemetery and there listen to the wailing of the wind instruments, and the droning of the priests as they perform the last rites, and watch the silent company that one by one go forward to bow before the coffin and place upon it a branch of sakaki or burn a bit of incense, the trappings of woe in Japan will impress themselves strongly upon your mind, and the gayly appareled funeral processions will seem to you ever afterward as mournful and hopeless a spectacle as you can find in any country.
 
The house of death remains a place of mourning for forty-nine days after the funeral. During this period the spirit of the deceased is supposed to be still inhabiting the house, and a tablet or shrine is set up in the death chamber before which food and flowers are renewed daily. Visitors are expected to make obeisance to the dead. At the end of this time, some acknowledgment must be sent to every friend who has sent anything to the house at the funeral. For a time after death has come into the fa............