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Now this, Akira tells me, is the origin of the Segaki, as the same is related in the holy book Busetsuuran-bongyo: Dai-Mokenren, the great disciple of Buddha, obtained by merit the Six Supernatural Powers. And by virtue of them it was given him to see the soul of his mother in the Gakido the world of spirits doomed to suffer hunger in expiation of faults committed in a previous life.
'For, he adds, 'you will not see me here again, as I am going to leave the temple. But I will visit you. 'And your name? I ask. 'Call me Akira, he answers. At the threshold I bow my good-bye; and they all bow very, very low, one blue-black head, three glossy heads like balls of ivory. And as I go, only Akira smiles.
Blessed are they who do not too much fear the gods which they have made! Akira is bowing and smiling at the door. He slips off his sandals, enters in his white digitated stockings, and, with another smile and bow, sinks gently into the proffered chair. Akira is an interesting boy.
Goblin-shaped though they appear in all Japanese paintings and carvings of them, the Tengu-Sama are divinities, lesser divinities, lords of the art of fencing and the use of all weapons. And other changes gradually become manifest. Akira complains that he can no longer understand the language of the people. We are traversing regions of dialects.
The torii may be small or great according to the wealth of him who gives it; the very rich pilgrim may offer to the gods a torii of metal, such as that below, which is the Gate of Enoshima. 'Akira, do the Japanese always keep their vows to the gods? Akira smiles a sweet smile, and answers: 'There was a man who promised to build a torii of good metal if his prayers were granted.
We return her evening greeting; and while I sit down upon the little mat laid before the hibachi, Akira whispers something to her, with the result that a small kettle is at once set to boil over a very small charcoal furnace. We are probably going to have some tea. As Akira takes his seat before me, on the other side of the hibachi, I ask him: 'What was the name I saw on the tablet?
There is nothing in it now; the monolith slab forming the back of it has been fractured by the falling of rocks from the cliff above; and the inscription cut therein has been almost effaced by some kind of scum. Akira reads 'Dai-Nippongoku-Enoshima-no-reiseki- ken . . .; the rest is undecipherable.
There is only a small hole in one end of it; no appearance of a lid of any sort. 'Now, says Akira, 'if you wish to pay two sen, we shall learn our future lot according to the will of the gods. I pay the two sen, and Akira shakes the box. Out comes a narrow slip of bamboo, with Chinese characters written thereon. 'Kitsu! cries Akira. 'Good-fortune. The number is fifty-and-one.
At one little village I see, just beyond, the torii leading to a great Shinto temple, a particularly odd small shrine, and feel impelled by curiosity to examine it. Leaning against its closed doors are many short gnarled sticks in a row, miniature clubs. Irreverently removing these, and opening the little doors, Akira bids me look within.
And at still longer intervals there comes to us a heavy muffled booming, the tap of a great drum, a temple drum. 'Oh! we must go to see it, cries Akira; 'it is the Bon-odori, the Dance of the Festival of the Dead. And you will see the Bon-odori danced here as it is never danced in cities the Bon-odori of ancient days. For customs have not changed here; but in the cities all is changed.
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