22

The rain continues. Isabella and Ito continue on through the muck.

There have been rumors on the road that the Japanese Prime Minster has been assassinated and 50 policemen killed. It turns out not have been the case — there was a partial mutiny of the Imperial Guard — but political life is unsettled right now in the country.*

“Very wild political rumours are in the air in these outlandish regions, and it is not very wonderful that the peasantry lack confidence in the existing order of things after the changes of the last ten years, and the recent assassination of the Home Minister. I did not believe the rumour, for fanaticism, even in its wildest moods, usually owes some allegiance to common sense; but it was disturbing, as I have naturally come to feel a deep interest in Japanese affairs.”

They press on and stop for the night in a yadoya that is packed with “storm-staid” travelers.

“Fifty travelers, nearly all men, are here, mostly speaking at the top of their voices, and in a provincial jargon which exasperates Ito. Cooking, bathing, eating, and, worst of all, perpetual drawing water from a well with a creaking hoisting apparatus, are going on from 4:30 in the morning to 11:30 at night, and on both evenings noisy mirth, of alcoholic inspiration, and dissonant performances by geishas have added to the din.”

But Isabella doesn’t want to make the Japanese seem ruder and louder than her British cohorts.

“It would be three times as great were I in equally close proximity to a large hotel kitchen in England, with 50 Britons only separated from me by paper partitions. I had not been long in bed on Saturday night when I was awoken by Ito bringing in an old hen which he said he could stew until tender, and I fell asleep again with its dying squeak in my ears, to be awoke a second time by two policemen wanting for some occult reason to see my passport, and a third time by two men with lanterns scrambling and fumbling about the room for the strings of a mosquito net, which they wanted for another traveler.

“These are among the ludicrous incidents of Japanese traveling.”

Tomorrow, however, the sun comes out ….

* Japan in 1878 was in the middle of the Meiji Restoration, which marked the end of shogun rule and the beginning of Imperial/parlimentary rule. During this time, the country opened its borders and adopted more Western technologies and ideas. It is not a process, however, that went smoothly. More info is here.

21

Isabella is in Odate, which is in a part of the country where they grow a lot of indigo, and the weather continues to be miserable. Her health is declining, too, maybe from all of the travel they’ve had to do on foot because the rain makes it impossible to ride for very long.

“Only strong people should travel in northern Japan. The inevitable fatigue is much increased by the state of the weather, and doubtless my impressions of the country are affected by it also, as a hamlet in a quagmire in a grey mist or soaking rain is a far less delectable object than the same hamlet in bright sunshine. There has not been such a season for 30 years.

“I have lived in soaked clothes, in spite of my rain cloak,* and have slept on a soaked stretcher in spite of all waterproof wrappings for several days, and still the weather shows no signs of improvement, and the rivers are so high on the northern road that I am storm-bound as well as pain-bound here.”

So, in short, it’s not great.

She does provide some more info about the “blind shampooers.”

“In Japanese towns and villages you hear every evening a man (or men) making a low peculiar whistle as he walks along, and in large towns the noise is quite a nuisance. It is made by bling men; but a blind beggar is never seen throughout Japan, and the blind are an independent, respected, and well-to-do class, carrying on the occupations of shampooing, money-lending, and music.”

*It’s made from a waterproof paper. Later on, she’ll switch to an outer garment made of reeds that the Japanese wear. It’s not much better at keeping her dry, mind, but is interesting to look at.

19

As promised, the wedding.

The house-master’s third wife* dressed Isabella in an appropriate outfit for the ceremony. Ito is pouting because he was not invited.

The ceremony Isabella observes does not match what she has read about weddings but realizes that her information was based on those of the samurai class. This couple belong to the heimin.**

The bride’s trousseau and furniture had been moved to the groom’s house earlier in the day, along with six barrels of sake and seven sorts of condiments. The bride is 17; the groom is 22. The bride is “very comely, so far as I could see through the paint with which she was profusely disfigured.”

For the first most solemn part of the ceremony, the bride is carried in a norimon***, accompanied by her family and friends, to the groom’s house. Each member of the procession carries a Chinese lantern. Like our weddings, guests are seated on either the groom’s side or the bride’s side.

“Two young girls, very beautifully dressed, bought in the bride, … dressed entirely in white silk, with a veil of white silk covering her from heat to foot.” The groom is already seated in the upper part of the room, does not rise to meet her, and, indeed, never looks at there during this part. She is seated oppose him. A low table with a two-spouted kettle full of sake, some sake bottles, some cups, small figures representing a fir tree, a plum tree in blossom, and a stork standing on a tortoise, which represents the former beauty of women and the strength of men.

There is then very solemn sake drinking and food eating.

The couple then exit, undergo a costume change (Isabella doesn’t specify into what), but the bride “still wore her silk veil, which will one day be her shroud.”

What follows is *a lot* of sake drinking. The bride presents cups to her new husband’s family, who present more cups back to her. By the end of this bit, Isabella says, “Now if you possess the clear-sightedness which I labored to preserve, you will perceive that each of the three had imbibed nine cups of some generous liquor!”

Then the couple drinks from the two-spouted kettle, which is the concluding of the ceremony and said to be “emblematic of the tasting together of the joys and sorrows of life.”

Then everyone keeps drinking and eating until they fall over or wander home.

* In Nikko, Ito and Isabella talked about how many wives a Japanese man could have. “Only one lawful one,” Ito said, “but as many others as he can support, just as Englishmen have.”

** Businessmen and commoners, mostly

***

20

The weather has changed enough to allow Isabella to leave Kubota/Akita. However, on her way out of town, she is trapped in a festival in honor of the god Shimmai’s* birthday. This was day three of the festival and was its most exuberant.

Police tell her that there were 22,000 strangers in the town and a force of 25 policemen is sufficient, which she finds slightly surprising, given that would never work in Britain.

What I love about this passage is the wealth of detail Isabella gives us — and how familiar it is to anyone with any knowledge of theatre and its history.

Isabella and Ito stay in the kurumas until the crowd gets to thick. “…we dived into the crowd, which was edged along a mean street, nearly a mile long — a miserable street of poor tea houses and poor shop fronts; but; in fact, you could hardly see the street for the people… there were rude scaffoldings supporting matted and covered platforms, on which people were drinking tea and sake and enjoying the crowd below; monkey theaters and dog theaters, two mangy sheep and a lean pig attracting wondering crowds, for neither of these animals is known in this region of Japan; a booth with a woman having her head cut-off every half-hour for 2 sen a spectator; cars with roofs like temples, on which, with 40 men at the ropes, dancing children of the highest classes were being borne in procession; a theatre with an open front, on the boards of which two men in antique dresses, with sleeves touching the ground, were performing with tedious slowness a classic dance of tedious posturings, which consisted mainly in dexterous movements of the aforesaid sleeves, and occasional stampings, and the utterances of the word No in a hoarse howl.”**

These visual treats are just an appetizer. More cars, which are essentially very large parade floats being pulled through the muddy streets by 200 men, appear. One is three cars long and uses smoke, fabric, pine trees to represent a mountain on which Shinto gods slew some devils. “On the fronts of each car, under a canopy, were 30 performers on 30 diabolical instrument, which rent the air  with a truly infernal discord, and suggested devils rather than conquerors.”

* My quick research reveals nothing about this god. I welcome any insight anyone else might have. Does it help if I tell you it’s July 27?

** I’m thinking this is “Noh” theatre. It looks like this.