The Romance of the Milky Way | Page 6

union many evil deities who will afflict the country with drought and other calamities.
[Footnote 3: "Ho! Tanabata! if you hurry too much, you will tumble down!"]
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The festival of Tanabata was first celebrated in Japan on the seventh day of the seventh month of Tomby[=o] Sh[=o]h[=o] (A.D. 755). Perhaps the Chinese origin of the Tanabata divinities accounts for the fact that their public worship was at no time represented by many temples.
I have been able to find record of only one temple to them, called Tanabata-jinja, which was situated at a village called Hoshiaimura, in the province of Owari, and surrounded by a grove called Tanabata-mori.[4]
[Footnote 4: There is no mention, however, of any such village in any modern directory.]
Even before Temby[=o] Sh[=o]h[=o], however, the legend of the Weaving-Maiden seems to have been well known in Japan; for it is recorded that on the seventh night of the seventh year of Y[=o]r[=o] (A.D. 723) the poet Yamagami no Okura composed the song:--
Amanogawa, Ai-muki tachit��, Waga ko?shi Kimi kimasu nari-- Himo-toki makina![5]
It would seem that the Tanabata festival was first established in Japan eleven hundred and fifty years ago, as an Imperial Court festival only, in accordance with Chinese precedent. Subsequently the nobility and the military classes everywhere followed imperial example; and the custom of celebrating the Hoshi-mat-suri, or Star-Festival,--as it was popularly called,--spread gradually downwards, until at last the seventh day of the seventh month became, in the full sense of the term, a national holiday. But the fashion of its observance varied considerably at different eras and in different provinces.
[Footnote 5: For a translation and explanation of this song, see infra, page 30.]
The ceremonies at the Imperial Court were of the most elaborate character: a full account of them is given in the K[=o]ji Kongen,--with explanatory illustrations. On the evening of the seventh day of the seventh month, mattings were laid down on the east side of that portion of the Imperial Palace called the Seir-y[=o]den; and upon these mattings were placed four tables of offerings to the Star-deities. Besides the customary food-offerings, there were placed upon these tables rice-wine, incense, vases of red lacquer containing flowers, a harp and flute, and a needle with five eyes, threaded with threads of five different colors. Black-lacquered oil-lamps were placed beside the tables, to illuminate the feast. In another part of the grounds a tub of water was so placed as to reflect the light of the Tanabata-stars; and the ladies of the Imperial Household attempted to thread a needle by the reflection. She who succeeded was to be fortunate during the following year. The court-nobility (Kug��) were obliged to make certain offerings to the Imperial House on the day of the festival. The character of these offerings, and the manner of their presentation, were fixed by decree. They were conveyed to the palace upon a tray, by a veiled lady of rank, in ceremonial dress. Above her, as she walked, a great red umbrella was borne by an attendant. On the tray were placed seven tanzaku (longilateral slips of fine tinted paper for the writing of poems); seven kudzu-leaves;[6] seven inkstones; seven strings of s[=o]men (a kind of vermicelli); fourteen writing-brushes; and a bunch of yam-leaves gathered at night, and thickly sprinkled with dew. In the palace grounds the ceremony began at the Hour of the Tiger,--4 A.M. Then the inkstones were carefully washed,--prior to preparing the ink for the writing of poems in praise of the Star-deities,--and each one set upon a kudzu-leaf. One bunch of bedewed yam-leaves was then laid upon every inkstone; and with this dew, instead of water, the writing-ink was prepared. All the ceremonies appear to have been copied from those in vogue at the Chinese court in the time of the Emperor Ming-Hwang.
[Footnote 6: Pueraria Thunbergiana.]
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It was not until the time of the Tokugawa Sh[=o]gunate that the Tanabata festival became really a national holiday; and the popular custom of attaching tansaku of different colors to freshly-cut bamboos, in celebration of the occasion, dates only from the era of Bunser (1818). Previously the tanzaku had been made of a very costly quality of paper; and the old aristocratic ceremonies had been not less expensive than elaborate. But in the time of the Tokugawa Sh[=o]gunate a very cheap paper of various colors was manufactured; and the holiday ceremonies were suffered to assume an inexpensive form, in which even the poorest classes could indulge.
The popular customs relating to the festival differed according to locality. Those of Izumo--where all classes of society, samurai or common folk, celebrated the holiday in much the same way--used to be particularly interesting; and a brief account of them will suggest something of the happy aspects of life in feudal times. At the Hour of the