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Updated: June 10, 2025
Then after the dinner he said that he hoped that we would not think him guilty of improper action, but that he had invited the best samisen player and singer in Nagoya, and also some dancers. In other words, some geishas were introduced and sang, played and danced before King David.
But no, this Roman matron held in her lap the white disc of a samisen, the native banjo, upon which she strummed with a flat white bone. She was the evening's orchestra, an old geisha. The six little butterflies lined up in front of her and began to dance, not our Western dance of free limbs, but an Oriental dance from the hips with posturings of hands and feet.
A geisha tucks her robe well up to her knees; and the samisen strike up the quick melody, 'Kompira fund-fund. As the music plays, she begins to run lightly and swiftly in a figure of 8, and a young man, carrying a sake bottle and cup, also runs in the same figure of 8. If the two meet on a line, the one through whose error the meeting happens must drink a cup of sake.
Hitherto the samisen had been regarded as a vulgar instrument, and its use had never received the sanction of aristocratic circles. But it now came into favour with all classes of women from the highest to the lowest, and the singing of the joruri was counted a far more important accomplishment than any kind of domestic education.
'Margaret, the high-collared head with a white ribbon; she rides on a bike, plays a violin, and talks in broken English, I am glad to see you." Natural history appears impressed, and says; "That's an interesting piece. English in it too." Porcupine called "geisha, geisha," in a loud voice, and commanded; "Bang your samisen; I'm going to dance a sword-dance."
Samisen tinkle. The dancers withdraw to a clear space at the farther end of the banqueting-hall, always vast enough to admit of many more guests than ever assemble upon common occasions. Some form the orchestra, under the direction of a woman of uncertain age; there are several samisen, and a tiny drum played by a child. Others, singly or in pairs, perform the dance.
One is playing with an ivory plectrum upon some stringed instrument, just as a dancing-girl plays her samisen; and others are sounding those curious Chinese flutes, composed of seventeen tubes, which are used still in sacred concerts at the great temples. Akira says this heaven is too much like earth.
The little girls are very touching, many of them are not over eight or nine, and they wear the elaborate dress and coiffure which is theirs for the part. In cherry season it is bright peacock blue. In Osaka the decorations were butterflies in colors and gold. The samisen players are older and they dress more plainly in black or plain blue, the drum players are young and gay colored.
The two girls strolled along the ridge of the hill as far as the five-storied pagoda. They passed the tea-house, so famous for its plum-blossoms in early March. It was brightly lighted. The paper rectangles of the shoji were aglow like an illuminated honeycomb. The wooden walls resounded with the jangle of the samisen, the high screaming geisha voices, and the rough laughter of the guests.
The crowd wear their gayest kimonos, and the moosmes are brilliant in flowered or striped silks and splendid sashes, and the air is full of the rattle of the shuffling clogs and the tinkling samisen played in almost every booth. At times the crowd opens to let some procession pass through.
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