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According to ancient custom, the leader of the Honen-odori always holds an open umbrella above his head while he sings. Suddenly, at a signal from the Guji, who has just taken his place in the pavilion, the voice of the Ondo-tori, intoning the song of thanksgiving, rings out over all the murmuring of the multitude like a silver cornet.
When you see one thus exposed, you may be almost certain that it was found among the effects of some poor dead woman the innocent memento of her girlhood, perhaps even also of the girlhood of her mother and of her mother's mother. And now we are to see the Honen-odori which begins at eight o'clock.
And the voices of all the dancers in unison roll out the chorus: Ya-ha-to-nai! Ya-ha-to-nail Utterly different this whirling joyous Honen-odori from the Bon-odori which I witnessed last year at Shimo-Ichi, and which seemed to me a very dance of ghosts. But it is also much more difficult to describe.
This dance Honen-odori is peculiar to Izumo; and the opportunity to witness it in this city is a rare one, as it is going to be performed only by order of the Guji. The robust pontiff himself loves the sea quite as much as anyone in Kitzuki; yet he never enters a beach hotel, much less a public bathing house.
The songs of the Honen-odori, or harvest dances, with their curious choruses; the chants of the Bon-odori, which differ in every district; the strange snatches of song, often sweet and weird, that one hears from the rice-fields or the mountain slopes in remote provinces, have qualities totally different from those we are accustomed to associate with the idea of Japanese music, a charm indisputable even for Western ears, because not less in harmony with the nature inspiring it than the song of a bird or the shrilling of cicadae.
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