ip only." He is
accustomed to say to the people, "Doctor first, god second," from
which I was to conclude, one who heard told me, that the priest was
"rather a civilised man." The Shinto priest had succeeded a relative
in his position. The village had found its Buddhist priest in a
neighbouring district.

The Buddhist priest told me that every year 150 or 160 men and women
made a pilgrimage to a famous shrine some few miles off. The custom
was for every house to be represented in the pilgrimage. Half a dozen
people in the year might go on personal pilgrimages and fifty or so
might visit a little shrine on a neighbouring mountain.

FOOTNOTES:

[195] The village consists of about 270 houses. It is joined
administratively to another village, about two miles off, in order to
form a _mura_ (commune). The village I am about to describe is an
_oaza_ (large hamlet), which is made up in its turn of two _aza_
(small hamlets). These aza are themselves divided into six _kumi_
(companies), which are again sub-divided, in the case of the largest,
into four.

[196] See Appendix LIV.

[197] The horses wear basket-work muzzles to prevent them nibbling the
crops. By way of compensation for these encumbrances they have head
tassels and belly cloths to keep off the flies.

CHAPTER XXXI

"BON" SEASON SCENES

(NAGANO)

As moderns we have no direct affinity; as individuals we have a capacity
for personal sympathy.--MATTHEW ARNOLD

I had the good fortune to be in the village during the _Bon_ season.
The idea is that the spirits which are visiting their old homes remain
between the 11th and 14th of August. The 11th is called _mukae bon_
and the 14th _okuri bon_. (_Mukae_ means going to meet; _okuri_ to see
off.) On the 11th the villagers burned a piece of flax plant in front
of their houses. That night the priest said a special prayer in the
temple and used the cymbals in addition to the ordinary gong and drum.
The prayer seemed peculiarly sad. Before the shrines in their houses
the villagers placed offerings. One was a horse made out of a
cucumber, the legs being bits of flax twig and the tail and mane the
hair-like substance from maize cobs. There were also offerings of real
and artificial flowers and of grapes. In one house I visited I saw
_geta_, _waraji_, kimonos, pumpkins, caramels and pencils. Strings of
buck-wheat macaroni were laid over twigs of flax set in a vase. The
_ihai_ (name-plates of the dead) seemed to b