Percival Lowell

“ The Japanese go upon pilgrimages because they thoroughly enjoy themselves in the process, the piety incident to the act simply relieving them from compunction at having so good a time. Sociability is the keynote of the affair from start to finish. To pool one's pleasure is always to increase it, and for a Japanese to pool his purse is matter of as much account. For a Japanese is not only poor, but impecunious. ”

“ Poverty compels him to do his plodding at home. Want of funds alone seems to stand in the way of the nation's taking the road in a body from the middle of July to the first of September. As it is, the country's thorough-fares at that season are beaded with folk wending their way to some shrine or other.
Now there are three points worth noting about these pilgrimages. The first is that the impulse to them is emphatically of the people. Like so many Japanese traits, art for instance, the pilgrim spirit is not an endowment of the upper classes, but the birthright of everybody. ”

“ In its hands, faith very properly becomes a marketable commodity. In return for ready money it barters its salvation in the shape of charms. These are usually small pieces of paper stamped with the names of the gods, and sometimes lithographed with rude portraits of the same, manufactured by the million and sold for a cent. With such popular prices, sales are enormous, and booths under the charge of holy salesmen do a continuous business from morning to night, for no pilgrim passes on his way without buying his charm. ”

“ The Japanese are not above a monetary system which descends in decimals to the thousandth part of a cent, and, what is more surprising, they keep accounts to the like infinitesimal figures. Small wonder that neither arithmetic nor trade have charms for them. To such microscopic quantities the club treasurer is no stranger. Nothing is too minute to figure in his cash-book, from a fresh pair of straw sandals at a cent and a half a pair to a pickle or two at next to nothing. ”

“ The worthy man is not only the head but the only dead-head of the party. He alone pays no scot. There are thus more substantial benefits accruing to the post of club president than simply a cicerone's gratified sense of importance. That he does not have to pay reminds one of directors' cars at home. However, so holy a person is otherwise superior to money considerations; the purse being carried by the tori-shimari-nin or treasurer.
The treasurer is the club's man-of-affairs, of very small affairs indeed. ”

“ The Buddhist idea, like the early Christian, seems to have been, when confronted by a strong popular superstition: Baptize it at once.
The third peculiarity about these pilgrimages consists in their being probably the most unreligious in the world. Speaking profanely, they are peripatetic picnic parties, faintly flavored with piety; just a sufficient suspicion of it to render them acceptable to the easy-going gods. For a more mundanely merry company than one of these same pilgrim bands it would be hard to meet, and to put up at an inn in their neighborhood is to seem bidden to a ball. ”

“ The pilgrims are very free with these certificates of club satisfaction. On any fairly good inn you shall count from fifty to an hundred of them, and with hostelries of exceptional entertainment the inn's eaves fail to accommodate all its pious indorsements, and stout poles planted in the street in front fly the overplus. Landlords spare no pains to display them, for the pilgrim patronage is individually not unlavish, and collectively is enormously large. ”

“ The thin, pure air of the peaks is conducive to ethereality, and Ontaké is furthermore invested with faith's most potent spell. If to have faith as a grain of mustard seed can remove mountains, it is not easy to set bounds to what a mountain of it might not be able to do.
Each club is a divine dramatic company in itself, containing all the performers necessary to a possession. Only in very small clubs is such organization lacking. But as in this case their president is often president of some larger club, the loan of a nakaza is easily managed. ”

“ Thus, humble though their active members be, the Ontaké pilgrim clubs furnish society not to be found in any other clubs on earth: the company of heaven is to be had for the asking. For the Ontaké pilgrim clubs are the only clubs in the world whose honorary members are, not naval officers, not distinguished foreigners, not princely figureheads, but gods. ”

“ To see her trudging sturdily along, beaming at the least provocation, the very impersonation of vacant good-humor, does one good like a gleam of sunshine. Sometimes she dutifully follows in the wake of her lord and master; sometimes she shuffles along in the exclusive society of her own sex, chattering continuously upon nothing at all. ”

“ At all events, it is the nearest mundane attempt at angelic representation. What is even more saintly, it is quite without vainglorious intent, being simply a combination waterproof-coat and linen-duster. It is also, very conveniently, both a carpet and a bed.
Quite as inseparable a part of the pilgrim is his staff. This is sometimes round, sometimes octagonal, and is branded with the name of the peak, and stamped in red with the sign of the shrine at the place where the ascent is supposed to begin. ”

“ From their general shape, size, and stamping, the stranger will take them, at first blush, for the towels of the guests hung out in all innocence to dry, though their inordinate number slightly tax the credit of even Japanese tubability. Sojourn at the inn, however, will shortly dispel this illusion by showing them to be fixtures, a permanent part of the real estate of the establishment. ”

“ More serious matters are the pilgrimages to the peaks. The seriousness shows itself on the surface in the matter of dress. For according to the character of the pilgrimage is the character of the costume worn by the pilgrim. To the shrines in the plain, the thing to wear is the height of holiday attire; for the peaks, on the other hand, the consecrated dress is as plain as possible.
Theoretically, the costume of the ascensionists is pure white or pearl-gray, according to their sect or pilgrim club ”

“ Pilgrimages to the lowland shrines and to the sacred peaks differ in several important respects; in sex, to begin with. For femininity has always flocked to the one, and, until western ideas broke down all the proprieties, was debarred the other. This was no matter of physique, but of piety. Woman was altogether too godless a creature to tread such holy ground as the peaks; an odd assumption, to our thinking, since woman with us, when not superficially godlike, is pretty sure to be godly. ”

“ Between these various duties the god, and incidentally the poor nakaza is kept pretty busy. To be so frequently divine has its drawbacks. Except for his succès d'estime, a nakaza must wish at times that he were merely mortal. Even in all the club diseases, to be both doctor and patient, which is what it amounts to, is no slight strain on the poor man's constitution. ”

“ When one subject has thus educated his successor he retires from active practice, becoming what is called an inkyo-nakaza. An inkyo, lit. a dweller in retirement, is a singular Japanese conception. It denotes a man who has abdicated all earthly cares, duties, and responsibilities in favor of his son; a man professedly gone from the world while still patently in it. ”

“ Once started, each club is a spiritual law unto itself—a possession Salpétrière perpetuating its own peculiar practices. For it educates its own nakaza under the tuition of its maeza and the previous nakaza. The tuition is one long process in purification. A man begins as a simple member, gradually rises to a lower part in the function, and, if proficient, may eventually rise to be a godpossessed. ”

“ The dues being so modest, the percentage of prizes is necessarily small; only about three members in a hundred being annually recipients of the club fund. Paucity of prizes doubtless conduces to remissness in paying up; and even rotation in eligibility, just though it be, does not add to the desire of past beneficiaries to make present, personally unprofitable, disbursement.
The fortunate winners are held to be especially invited of the gods to visit them. The club fund is turned over to the club treasurer for their benefit, and the others heartily envy them their lot. ”

“ To the great Shrines of Ise it is the fashion for pilgrim clubs to go composed entirely of pilgrimesses, maidens of Kyōto and Osaka, who make the journey in bands of from fifty to a hundred, taking with them only one man, or two, to do the heavy work ”

“ Forgetfulness to discharge one's club dues is the less excusable in the face of their being of the nature of gambling debts. For after the cost of collection and the other running expenses have been deducted, the remainder is raffled for by the members, and pocketed by the lucky winners through the club treasurer, for pilgrimage purposes. ”

“ Once a year, about three weeks before the pilgrim band is to start, the lots are drawn, and in the drawing everybody who has paid up participates except the winners of previous pools. They are barred, to give the unlucky a chance, till each shall have had his journey apiece. Thus are the inequalities of fate corrected and all eventually made happy at the club expense. ”

“ For what a Japanese appears to possess is, ten to one, borrowed of a friend, and what he really owns pledged to a neighbor. He is, in short, but a transition stage in one long shift of loan. We talk of our far-reaching system of mercantile credits. It is financial self-sufficiency beside the every-day state of far-eastern affairs. Everybody there lives as a matter of course upon somebody else. ”

“ Proof, however, that this was an invidious distinction, and that woman is by nature no less devout in Japan than elsewhere, is the way in which she tramps to the lowland shrines, and has a radiant time of it the whole distance. ”

“ The sight of such banner-bedizened inns will probably be the foreigner's first introduction to Japanese pilgrims, unless the equally striking spectacle of itinerants distinguished by—and well-nigh extinguished under—huge toad-stool hats have already caused him to mark such plants as men walking. ”

“ Distrust of his own purity prevents the pious from actually passing under them on the ascent, and he modestly goes round them instead. On the descent, holiness conquers humility.
Shrines, rest-houses, and portals make breathing spots for the pilgrims, which the church instantly turns to business account, for the church is not above trade. ”

“ Nowadays the ascent is specially convenienced for the comfort of the pious climbers. Every sacred peak is well ribboned with paths which are all thoughtfully beaded with rest-houses at intervals suited to the weakness of the flesh. A caretaker inhabits each of these hostelries and dispenses tea, cakes, water, and other fare to the exhausted, besides providing futon and such-like necessaries for spending the night. In the season the huts are crowded with pilgrims. Nominally there are always ten of them on every path from base to summit ”

“ The club charter is obtained from the head of the sect by some energetic individual of the society-founding propensity, who collects about him a few friends and incidentally appoints himself to the club presidency, becoming what is called its sendatsu. When not thus self-appointed, the president is elected by the brethren for his piety, which is another name for the same thing. ”

“ Of the ten modern Shintō sects, all but two are addicted to going upon pilgrimages, and each has its special great goal, as well as innumerable minor ones. These goals are the spots dedicate to their special gods. ”

“ For it is never washed, the travel stains being part of its acquired sanctity. Its hue, self-effacing to begin with, is thus further rendered by nature self-obliterating. It becomes, therefore, doubly expressive of a proper blankness within. ”

“ To become entranced is the club occupation. Instead of simple prayer-meetings in their dead season, these clubs hold regular séances for the purpose of being possessed, séances which they turn to very practical ends. ”

“ And yet the president of one of them once told me that the principal item in his club's running expenses was the cost of dunning the members for their dues. So lamentably lax in paying its debts is humanity the world over. ”

“ This is particularly discernible in the difference between the simpler attitudes of the Ryōbu trances and the more elaborate poses of the pure Shintō ones. The Buddhist feminine fashions, again, are different from either.
To be a club nakaza is pretty hard work. He must be possessed at least two or three times a month, and may be called upon to be somebody beside himself much oftener. It depends upon how much divination work there is to be done. ”

“ Of the other eight, three are devoted to Ontaké, two to Ise, two to Fuji, and one to Izumo. Sects do not mix goals, but it is quite permissible for individuals to mix sects. So that persons of advanced pilgrimage proclivities can indulge them to any extent without too tiresome repetition. ”