days. He calls them "the
great impersonal birthdays"; for, according to his supposition, all
the girls celebrate their birthdays on the third day of the third moon
and all the boys celebrate theirs on the fifth day of the fifth moon,
regardless of the actual days on which they may have been born. With
regard to this understanding of the significance of the festival, I
have asked a large number of Japanese, not one of whom had ever heard
of such an idea. Each one has insisted that individual birthdays are
celebrated regardless of these general festivals; the ages of children
are never computed from these festivals; they have nothing whatever to
do with the ages of the children.[CK]

The report of the discussions of the Japanese Society of Comparative
Religion contains quite a minute statement of all the facts known as
to these festivals, much too long in this connection, but among them
there is not the slightest reference to the birthday feature
attributed to them by Mr. Lowell.[CL]

Mr. Lowell likewise invents another fact in support of his theory by
his interpretation of the Japanese method of computing ages. Speaking
of the advent of an infant into the home he says, that "from the
moment he makes his appearance he is spoken of as a year old, and this
same age he continues to be considered in most simple cases of
calculation, till the beginning of the next calendar year. When that
epoch of general rejoicing arrives, he is credited with another year
himself. So is everybody else. New Year's day is a common birthday for
the community, a sort of impersonal anniversary for his whole world."
Now this is a very entertaining conceit, but it will hardly pass
muster as a serious argument with one who has any real understanding
of Japanese ideas on the subject. The simple fact is that the Japanese
does not ordinarily tell you how old the child is, but only in how
many year periods he has lived. Though born December 31, on January 1
he has undoubtedly lived in two different year periods. This method of
counting, however, is not confined to the counting of ages, but it
characterizes all their counting. If you ask a man how many days
before a certain festival near at hand he will say ten where we would
say but nine. In other words, in counting periods the Japanese count
all, including both the first and the last, whereas we omit the first.
This as a custom is an interesting psychological problem, but it has
not the remotest conn