The Foundations of Japan

humanity is a real pol

tiful house there was a showy gilt timepiece or some other thing of a deplorable Western fashion. At all the houses without exception we were waited upon by the host and his son, son-in-law or brother, and for some time after our arrival our host and the members of his family would kneel, not in the apartment in which

ill further by eating apart from them or by partaking of a portion only of the meal. The name of a feast in Japanese is significant, "a running about." The ladies of the house are usually s

e of the charm and dignity of old courtesies exchanged with sincerity between well-bred people in a fine old house. Although all the shoji[30] are open, the trees of the beautiful garden cast a pensive shade. The ancient ceremonial of welcome and introduction would seem

use visiting many ancient pictures of country life and of animals and birds. It was also a precious opportunity to inspect armour and wonderful swords and stands of arrows in the houses in which the men who had worn the armour and used the weapons had lived. The way of stringing the seven-feet-high bow was shown to me by a

o the district, are called ki-ai, which means literally "spirit meeting." They call not only for long training but for courage and ardour. The combats took place on a small patch of grass which was fenced by four bamboo branches. These were connected by a rope of paper streamers such as are used to distinguish a consecrat

The weapons were sharp enough to inflict serious wounds if a false move should be made or there should be a momentary lack of self-control. The flashing steel gave an impression of imminent danger. There was also the feeling aroused in the spectators by the way in which the combatants sought to gain advantage over one another by fierce snarls, stamping o

philanthropist in Japan sees himself as the father of his village.[32] The Japanese word for landlord is "land master" and for tenant "son tiller." The old idea was patronage on the one side and respect on the other. This idea is disappearing. "We wish," said one landlord to me, "to pass through the transition stage gradually. We do not feel the same responsibility to our people, perhaps, now that

told me, a hurricane destroyed the crops to such an extent that the tenants could not pay rent, and the landlords who depended on their rents were impoverished. Things reached such a pass that a hundred thousand peasants signed a paper swearing fidelity to an anti-landlord propaganda. Officials and lawyers achieved not

f all proportion to what the landlord receives. Of landlords generally, an ex-daimyo's son said to me: "Many landlords treat their tenants cruelly. The rent enforced is too high. In place of the intimate relations of former days the relations are now that of cat and dog. The ignorance of the landlords is the cause of this state of things. It is very important that the landlord's son shall go to the agri

ring force of this family was its untarnished name. It was a crime against the ancestors to reduce the prestige or merit of the family. No stronger influence could be exerted upon an erring member of such a family than to be brought by his father or elder brother before the family shrine and there reprimanded in the presence of the ancestral spirits. The head of this house is at present a scho

-do are small and inconspicuous, the interiors are of satisfying quality in materials and workmanship, and the family godowns bring forth surprises. Here as elsewhere the guest is served in treasured lacquer and porcelain. (While we are not accustomed in the West t

ields. The inscription proclaimed the fact that at that spot the late Emperor Meiji, [34]

on, came to be fed when she clapped her hands. In the garden there was an old clay butt still used for archery. In the farmhouse I was taken into a room i

, falls pitifully behind Chinese characters in decorative value, and our mottoes will not readily translate into Japanese. I was often grateful to Henle

d been performed twice a day by succeeding generations of the same family for 350 years. The third object of interest was a little, narrow, flat steel dagger about eight inches long, sheathed in the scabbard of a sword. The dagger was used for "fastening an enemy's head on." After the owner of the sword had beheaded his foe, he drew the smaller weapon, and, thrusting one end into the headless trunk and the other end into the

he thousands of pieces sent in are submitted to a committee. The dozen best productions are read before the sovereign himself, and this is the honour sought by the

anspl

cryptome

the sac

is a

inning of

mmunity and there is seldom a year in which landow

the far-reaching control exercised by fathers and elder brothers. But the good behaviour of some people was due, he said,

chō and was worth about 100,000 yen. Moved by the poverty of his neighbours, he devoted his substance to improving their condition. Now many of them are well off, the village has been "praised and rewar

osophical" and some preached "the kingdom of God is within you." Many people laid stress on the necessity for a better education of the priesthood and for combating superstition among the peasantry, though the schools had

for its erection had been obtained because the figures, vessels and some of the fittings of an old and dilapidated temple were to be used in the new edifice. This temple was on a large tract of land which had recently been recove

ables. I noticed that the gifts of rice-acknowledged on a list hung up in his house-varied in quantity from four pecks to half a cupful. Probably the priest bought very little of anything. If he needed matting for his house, which was attached to the temple, or if he had to make a journey, the villagers saw that

e together." A third of what a tenant produced went for rent and another third for fertilisers, the remaining third being his own. The population was 1,800 in 300 families. The average area per family was 2 chō and colonists were expected to start with about 200 yen of capital. Some unpromising tenants had been sent away and "some had left se

re laid out on the work. The reclaimed land was free of State taxes for half a century, but the landlord made a voluntary gift to the village of 2,000 yen a year. The yearly rent coming in was already nearly 56,000 yen. The cost of the management of the drained land and of repairs to the embankment, 20,000 yen a year, was just met by

n he raised his hand on the approach of the Imperial train. We were further asked not to point at the Emperor and on no account to cry Banzai. (The Japanese shout Banzai for the Emperor in his absence and cry Banzai to victorious generals and admirals, but perfect silence is considered the most respectful way of greeting the Emperor himself.) The Imperial train, which was preceded by a pilot engine drawing a van full of rather anxious-looking police, slowed down on approaching the station so that everyone had a chance of seeing the Emperor, who was facing us. All the school children of the district had been marshalled where they could get a good view. The Japanese bow of greatest respect-it has

TNO

paper. The shoji provide light and are never painted. The sliding doors between two rooms are karakami (fusuma is a literary word). They are a wooden framework with thic

ed on silk, with rollers. The length is about three times the width, which is usually 1 ft.

large property owner

ous tenants' demonstrations in Ai

eriod of his reign. The period of Mutsuhito's reign, 1868-1912, is called Mei

ure in which tea is not grown in larger or smaller areas,