 11. A woman's diary, Part 2. On the 22nd day of the sixth month I began to sue a kimono which father had asked me to make for him, but I felt ill and could not do much. However, I was able to finish the work on the first day of the new year 1897. Now we were very happy because of the child that was to be born, and I thought how proud and glad my parents would be at having a grandchild for the first time. On the 10th day of the fifth month I went out with mother to worship Shio-Gama-sama and also to visit Senkakuji. Footnote Shio-Gama Daimyo-jin, a Shinto-diary, to whom women pray for easy delivery in childbirth. Shrines of this divinity may be found in almost every province of Japan. End footnote There we saw the tombs of the Shijin-Shichishi, 47 Ronin, and many relics of their history. We returned by railroad, taking the train from Shinagawa to Shinjuku. At Shio-cho-Sanchome I parted from mother, and I got home by six o'clock. On the eighth day of the sixth month, at four o'clock in the afternoon, a boy was born. Both mother and child appeared to be as well as could be wished, and the child much resembled my husband, and its eyes were large and black. But I must say that it was a very small child, for though it ought to have been born in the eighth month, it was born indeed in the sixth. At seven o'clock in the evening of the same day, when the time came to give the child some medicine, we saw, by the light of the lamp, that he was looking all about, with his big eyes wide open. During that night the child slept in my mother's bosom. As we had been told that he must be kept very warm because he was only a seven months child, it was decided that he should be kept in the bosom by day as well as by night. Next day, the ninth day of the sixth month, at half past six o'clock in the afternoon, he suddenly died. Brief is the time of pleasure, and quickly turns to pain, and whatsoever is born must necessarily die, that indeed is a true saying about this world. Footnote, Ureshiki Mava Vatsuka Nite, Mata Kanashimi Tohensuru, Umare Rumonova Kanaratsushitsu, a Buddhist text that has become a Japanese proverb. End footnote, only for one day to be called a mother, to have a child born only to see it die. Surely I thought if a child must die within two days after birth, it were better that it should never be born. From the twelfth to the sixth month I had been so ill, then at last I had obtained some ease and joy at the birth of a son, and I had received so many congratulations about my good fortune, and nevertheless he was dead. Indeed, I suffered great grief. On the tenth day of the sixth month the funeral took place at the temple called Senpukuji in Okubo, and a small tomb was erected. The poems composed at that time were the following. Footnote, composed by the bereaved mother herself as a discipline against grief. End footnote, omoikia, minisa ekaenu, nadeshiko ni, bakareshi sore no, tsuyu notamotto wo. If I could only have known, ah, this parting with the flower for which I would so gladly have given my own life has left my sleeves wet with the dew. Footnote, nadeshiko literally means pink, but in poetry the word is commonly used in the meaning of baby. End footnote, samidare ya, shimeriga chunaru, sore no, tamotto wo. Oh, the month of rain, all things become damp, the ends of my sleeves are wet. Footnote, samidare is the name given to the old fifth month, or more strictly speaking to a rainy period occurring in that month. The verses are of course elusive, and their real meaning might be rendered thus. Oh, the season of grief, all things now seem sad, the sleeves of my robe are moist with my tears. End footnote. Some little time afterward, people told me that if I planted the sotoba upside down, another misfortune of this kind would not come to pass. Footnote, the sotoba is a tall wooden lath inscribed with Buddhist texts and planted above a grave. For a full account of the sotoba, see the article entitled The Literature of the Dead in my Exotics and Retrospectives, page 102. I am not able to give any account or explanation of the curious superstition he referred to, but it is probably of the same class with the strange custom recorded in my cleanings in Buddha fields, page 126. End footnote. I had a great many sorrowful doubts about doing such a thing, but at last, on the ninth day of the eighth month, I had the sotoba reversed. On the eighth day of the ninth month, we went to the Akasaka Theater. On the eighteenth day of the tenth month, I went by myself to the Haruki Theater in Hongo to see the play of Okubo Hikosaemon. Footnote. It would be unfair to suppose that this visit to the theater was made only for pleasure. It was made rather in the hope of forgetting pain and probably by order of the husband. Okubo Hikosaemon was the favorite minister and advisor of the Shogun Iemitsu. Numbeless stories of his sagacity and kindness are recorded in popular literature and in many dramas the notable incidents of his official career are still represented. End footnote. There, having carelessly lost my sandal ticket, Gezoku Fuda, I had to remain until after everybody else had left. Then I was at last able to get my sandals and to go home, but the night was so black that I felt very lonesome on the way. On the day of the Sikku in the first month, 1898, I was talking with Hori's aunt and the wife of our friend Uchimi when I suddenly felt a violent pain in my breast and, being frightened, I tried to reach a talisman, Oma Mori of Sui Tengu, which was lying upon the wardrobe. Footnote. A divinity half Buddhist, half Shinto in origin, but now popularly considered Shinto. This guard is especially worshipped as a healer and a protector against sickness. His principal temple in Tokyo is in the Nihonbashi district. End footnote. But in the same moment I felt senseless. Under kind treatment I soon came to myself again, but I was ill for a long time after. The tenth day of the fourth month, being the holiday Sanju Nensai, we arranged to meet at Fathers. Footnote. A festival in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Tokyo as the imperial capital, instead of Kyoto. End footnote. I was to go there first with Juno Sukke, perhaps relative, and their wait for my husband, who had to go to the office that morning for a little while. He met us at Fathers' house about half past eight. Then the three of us went out together to look at the streets. We passed through Kyoji Machi to Nakata Machi and went by way of the Sakura Damon to the Hibiya Mezuke and thence from Ginzadori by way of the Meganebashi to Ueno. After looking at things there, we again went to the Meganebashi, but then I felt so tired that I proposed to return and my husband agreed, as he also was very tired. But Juno Sukke said, as I do not want to miss this chance to see the Daimyo procession, I must go on to Ginza. Footnote. Daimyo no Gyoretsu. On the festival mentioned, there was a pageant representing feudal princes traveling in state, accompanied by the retainers and servants. The real armor, costumes and weapons of the period before Meiji were effectively displayed on this occasion. End footnote. So there we said goodbye to him and we went to a little eating house, Tempura Ya, where we were served with fried fish, and as luck would have it, we got a good chance to see the Daimyo procession from that very house. We did not get back home that evening until half past six o'clock. From the middle of the fourth month, I had much sorrow on account of a matter relating to my sister Tori. The matter is not mentioned. On the nineteenth day of the eighth month of the thirty-first year of Meiji, in 1898, my second child was born, almost painlessly, a girl, and we named her Hatsu. We invited to the Shichiya, all those who had helped us at the time of the child's birth. Footnote. Shichiya, a congratulatory feast, held on the evening of the seventh day after the birth of a child. Relatives and friends invited usually make small presents to the baby. End footnote. Mother afterwards remained with me for a couple of days, but she was then obliged to leave me, because my sister Kou was suffering from severe pains in the chest. Fortunately, my husband had his regular vacation about the same time, and he helped me all he could, even in regard to washing and other matters, but I was often greatly troubled because I had no woman with me. When my husband's vacation was over, mother came often, but only while my husband was away. The twenty-one days, the period of danger, thus passed, but mother and child continued well. Up to the time of one hundred days after my daughter's birth, I was constantly anxious about her, because she often seemed to have difficulty in breathing, but that passed off at last, and she appeared to be getting strong. Still, we were unhappy about one matter, a deformity. Hatsu had been born with a double thumb on one hand. For a long time, we could not make up our minds to take her to a hospital in order to have an operation performed. But at last, a woman living near our house told us of a very skillful surgeon in the quarter of Shinjuku, and we decided to go to him. My husband held the child on his lap during the operation. I could not bear to see the operation, and I waited in the next room, my heart full of pain and fear, wondering how the matter would end. But when all was over, the little one did not appear to suffer any pain, and she took the breast as usual a few minutes after. So the matter ended more fortunately than I had thought possible. At home, she continued to take her milk as before, and seemed as if nothing had been done to her little body. But as she was so very young, we were afraid that the operation might in some way cause her to be sick. By way of precaution, I went with her to the hospital every day for about three weeks, but she showed no sign of sickness. On the third day of the third month of the 32nd year, 1899, on the occasion of the Hatsu Sekku, the first annual festival of girls, is thus called, we received presents of Daeri and of Hina, both from Father's house and from Koto's, also the customary gifts of congratulation, a Tansu, chest of drawers, a Kyo Dai, mirror stand, and the Haribako, work box, literally needle box. Footnote. All the objects here mentioned are toys, toys appropriate to the occasion. The Daeri are old fashioned toy figures, representing an emperor and empress in ancient costume. Hina are dolls. End footnote. We ourselves on the same occasion bought for her a Chadai, tea cup stand, a Zen, lacquered tray, and some other little things. Both Koto and Juno Suke came to see us on that day, and we had a very happy gathering. On the third day of the fourth month, we visited the temple Anahachiman, a Shinto shrine in the district of Vasera to pray for the child's health. On the 29th day of the fourth month, Hatsu appeared to be unwell, so I wanted to have her examined by a doctor. A doctor promised to come the same morning, but he did not come, and I waited for him in vain all that day. Next day again, I waited, but he did not come. Toward evening, Hatsu become worse, and seemed to be suffering great pain in her breast, and I resolved to take her to a doctor early next morning. All through that night, I was very uneasy about her, but at daybreak, she seemed to be better. So I went out alone, taking her on my back, and I walked to the office of a doctor in Akasaka. But when I asked to have the child examined, I was told that I must wait, as it was not yet the regular time for seeing patients. While I was waiting, the child began to cry worse than ever before. She would not take the breast, and I could do nothing to soothe her, either by walking or resting, so that I was greatly troubled. At last, the doctor came and began to examine her, and in the same moment, I noticed that her crying grew feebler, and that her lips were becoming paler and paler. Then, as I could not remain silent, seeing her thus, I had to ask, how is her condition? She cannot live until evening, he answered. But could you not give her medicine? I asked. If she could drink it, he replied. I wanted to go back home at once, and send word to my husband and to my father's house, but the shock had been too much for me. All my strength suddenly left me. Fortunately, a kind old woman came to my aid, and carried my umbrella and other things, and helped me to get into a Jinn Rikisha, so that I was able to return home by Jinn Rikisha. Then I sent a man to tell my husband and my father. Mita's wife came to help me, and with her assistance everything possible was done to help the child. Still, my husband did not come back, but all our pain and trouble was in vain. So, on the second day of the fifth month of the 32nd year, my child set out on her journey to the Juman Okudo, never to return to this world. Footnote. Another name for the Buddhist paradise of the West, the heaven of Amida, Amitabha. End footnote. And we, her father and mother, were yet living, though we had caused her death by neglecting to have her treated by a skilled doctor. This thought made us both sorrow greatly, and we often reproached ourselves in vain. But the day after her death, the doctor said to us, even if the disease had been treated from the beginning by the best possible means, your child could not have lived more than about a week. If she had been 10 or 11 years old, she might possibly have been saved by an operation. But in this case, no operation could have been attempted. The child was too young. Then he explained to us that the child had died from a Jinsouen, nephritis. Thus, all the hopes that we had and all the pains that we took in caring for her, and all the pleasure of watching her grow during those nine months, all were in vain. But we too were at last able to find some ease from our sorrow by reflecting that our relation to this child from the time of some former life must have been very slight and weak. Footnote, or very thin and loose. The karma relation being emblematically spoken of as a bond or tie. She means, of course, that the loss of the child was the inevitable consequence of some fault committed in a previous state of existence. And footnote. In the loneliness of that weary time, I tried to express my heart by writing some verses after the manner of the story of Miyagino in Shinobu in the Gidayubon. Footnote, Gidayubon, the book of the Gidayu. There are many Gidayubooks. Gidayu is the name given to a kind of musical drama. In the dramatic composition he referred to, the characters Miyagino and Shinobu are sisters who relate their sorrows to each other. And footnote. Kore kono uchi e enzukishi wa omoeka e seba itsuto semae kondo mokeshi wa onagonoko kawai mono tote soratsuru kato wagami no nari wa uchi wa sure sore teshikoto mo nasakenai koshita koto towatsu yushiratsu kono hatsu wa buchi ni soratsuru ka shubiyo sejin shita naraba yakate mukovotori tanoshimashou doshite to monomi yu san wotashi nande wagakou daiji to oto no koto mo hatsu no koto mo koishi natsukashi omo no wo tanoshimi kurashita kaimono oyako ni narishi wa ureshii ga sakidatsu koto wo miru hahano kokoro mo suishite tamoi no to te wo torikawasu fufu ga nageki nageki wo tachigi kumo morai nage shite omote guchi shouji monuru-ru bakari nari here in this house it was that I married him well I remembered a day five years ago here was born the girl baby the loved one whom we hoped to rear caring then no longer for my person heedless of how I dressed when I went out thinking only of how to bring her up I lived how pitiless this doom of mine never had I even dreamed that such a thing could befall me my only thoughts were as to how my hatsu could best be reared when she grows up I thought soon we shall find her a good husband to make her life happy so never going out for pleasure seeking I studied only how to care for my little one how to love and to cherish my husband and my hatsu vain now alas this hoped for joy of living only for her sake once having known the delight of the relation of mother and child deign to think of the heart of the mother who sees her child die before her footnote that is before she herself the mother dies there is a colloquial phrase in the japanese texts koga oya ni sakiratsu is the common expression the child goes before the parents that is to say dies before the parents and footnote all of the foregoing is addressed to the spirit of the dead child translator now while husband and wife each clasping the hands of the other make lament together if anyone pausing at the entrance should listen to their sorrow surely the paper window would be moistened by tears from without about the time of hatsu's death the law concerning funerals was changed for the better and permission was given for the burning of corpses in okubo so i asked namiki to have the body sent to the temple of which his family had always been parishioners providing that there should be no legal difficulty about the matter accordingly the funeral took place at monjouji a temple belonging to the asakusa branch of the hongwanji shinju and the ashes were there interred my sister ko was sick in bed with a rather bad cold at the time of hatsu's death but she visited us very soon after the news had reached her and she called again a few days later to tell us that she had become almost well and that we had no more cause to feel anxious about her as for myself i felt the dread of going out anywhere and i did not leave the house for a whole month but as custom does not allow one to remain always indoors i had to go out at last and i made the required visit to fathers and to my sisters having become quite ill i hoped that mother would be able to help me but ko was again sick and yoshi a younger sister he mentioned for the first time and mother had both to attend her constantly so i could get no aid from father's house there was no one to help me except some of my female neighbors who attended me out of pure kindness when they could spare the time at last i got hori shi to engage a good old woman to assist me and under her kind care i began to get well about the beginning of the eighth month i felt much stronger on the first day of the ninth month my sister ko died of consumption it had been agreed beforehand that if an unexpected matter a euphemistic expression for death came to pass my younger sister yoshi should be received in the place of ko as goto she found it inconvenient to live all together alone the marriage took place on the eleventh day of the same month and the usual congratulations were offered on the last day of the same month okada she suddenly died we found ourselves greatly troubled pecuniarily embarrassed by the expenses that all these events caused us when i first heard that yoshi had been received so soon after the death of ko i was greatly displeased but i kept my feelings hidden and i spoke to the man as before on the eleventh month goto went alone to saporo on the second day of the second month thirty third year of meiji 1900 goto she returned to tokyo and on the 14th day of the same month he went away again to Hokkaido yeso taking yoshi with him on the 20th day of the second month at six o'clock in the morning my third child a boy was born both mother and child were well we had expected a girl but it was a boy that was born so when my husband came back from his work he was greatly surprised and pleased to find that he had a boy but the child was not well able to take the breast so we had to nourish him by means of a feeding bottle on the seventh day after the boy's birth we partly shaved his head and in the evening we had the shichiya seventh day festival but this time all by ourselves my husband had caught a bad cold sometime before and he could not go to work next morning as he was coughing badly so he remained in the house early in the morning the child had taken his milk as usual but about 10 o'clock in the forenoon he seemed to be suffering great pain in his breast and he began to moan so strangely that we sent a man for a doctor unfortunately the doctor that we asked to come was out of town and we were told that he would not come back before night therefore we thought that it would be better to send it once for another doctor and we sent for one he said that he would come in the evening but about two o'clock in the afternoon the child's sickness suddenly became worse and a little before three o'clock the 27th day of the second month Ayenaku my child was dead having lived for only eight days footnote Ayenaku is an adjective signifying according to circumstances feeble or transitory or sad its use here might best be rendered by some such phrase as piteous to say and footnote i thought to myself that even if this new misfortune did not cause my husband to feel an aversion for me thus having to part with all my children one after another must be the punishment of some wrong done in the time of a former life and so thinking i knew that my sleeves would never again become dry that the rain of tears would never cease that never again in this world would the sky grow clear for me and more and more i wondered whether my husband's feelings would not change for the worse by reason of his having to meet such trouble over and over again on my account i felt anxious about his heart because of what already was in my own nevertheless he only repeated the words from the decrease of heaven there is no escape i thought that i should be better able to visit a tomb of my child if he were buried in some temple near us so the funeral took place at a temple called senpukuchi in okubo and the ashes were buried there her poem bears no date all the delight having perished hopeless i remain it was only a dream of spring footnote a necessarily free translation the lines might also be read thus having awakened all the joy fleets and fades it was only a dream of spring the word sameru very effectively used here allows of this double rendering for it means either to awake or to fade the adjective bakanashi also has a double meaning according to circumstances it may signify either fleeting evanescent or hopeless wretched end footnote no date i wonder whether it was because of the sorrow that i suffered my face and limbs became slightly swollen during the fortnight after my boy's death footnote literally the first two nanuka one nanuka representing a period of seven successive days from the date of death end footnote it was nothing very serious after all and it soon went away now the period of 21 days the period of danger is passed here the poor mother's diary ends the closing statement regarding the time of 21 days from the birth of her child leaves it probable that these last lines were written on the 13th or 14th day of the third month she died on the 28th of the same month i doubt if anyone not really familiar with the life of japan can fully understand this simple history but to imagine the merely material conditions of the existence he recorded should not be difficult the couple occupying a tiny house of two rooms one room of six mats and one of three the husband earning barely one pound per month the wife suing washing cooking outside the house of course no comfort of fire even during the period of greatest cold i estimate that the pair must have lived at an average cost of about seven pence a day not including house rent their pleasures were indeed very cheap a payment of two pence admitted them to theaters or to gidayu recitations and their sightseeing was done on foot yet even these diversions were luxuries for them expenses represented by the necessary purchase of clothing or by the obligation of making presents to kindred upon the occasion of a marriage or a birth or a death could only have been met by heroic economy now it is true that thousands of poor folk in tokyo live still more cheaply than this live upon a much smaller income than one pound per month and nevertheless remain always clean neat and cheerful but only a very strong woman can easily bear and bring up children under such conditions conditions much more hazardous than those of the harder but healthier peasant life of the interior and as might be supposed the weekly fail and perish in multitude readers of the diary may have wondered at the eagerness shown by so shy and gentle a woman to become thus subtly the wife of a total stranger about whose character she knew absolutely nothing a majority of japanese marriages indeed are arranged for in the matter of fact way he described and with the aid of an accordo but the circumstances for this particular case were exceptionally discomforting the explanation is pathetically simple all good girls are expected to marry and to remain unmarried after a certain age is a shame and a reproach the dread of such reproach doubtless impelled the writer of the diary to snatch at the first chance of fulfilling her natural destiny she was already 29 years old and another such chance might never have offered itself to me the chief significance of this humble confession of struggle and failure is not in the utterance of anything exceptional but in the expression of something as common to japanese life as blue air and sunshine the brave resolve of the woman to win affection by docility and by faultless performance of duty her gratitude for every small kindness her childlike piety her supreme unselfishness her buddhist interpretation of suffering as the penalty for some fault committed in a previous life her attempts to write poetry when her heart was breaking all this indeed i find touching and more than touching but i do not find it exceptional the traits revealed are typical typical of the moral nature of the woman of the people perhaps there are not many japanese women of the same humble class who could express their personal joy and pain in a record at once so heartless and pathetic but there are millions of such women inheriting from ages and ages of unquestioning faith a like conception of life is duty at an equal capacity of unselfish attachment end of chapter 11 chapter 12 of koto this is a libervox recording all libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libervox.org recording by summer days koto being japanese kurios with sundry cobwebs by lefkario herne chapter 12 hekegani in various countries of which the peoples appear strange to us by reason of beliefs ideas customs and arts having nothing in common with our own there can be found something in the nature of the land something in its flora or fauna characterized by a corresponding strangeness probably the relative queerness of the exotic nature in such regions help more or less to develop the apparent oddity of the exotic mind national differences of thought or feeling should not be less evolutionally interpretable than the forms of vegetables or of insects and in the mental evolution of a people the influence of environment upon imagination must be counted as a factor these reflections were induced by a box of crabs sent me from the province of choshu crabs possessing that very same quality of grotesqueness which we are accustomed to think of as being peculiarly japanese on the backs of these creatures there are bossings and depressions that curiously simulate the shape of a human face a distorted face a face modeled in relief as the japanese craftsmen might have modeled it in some moment of artistic whim two varieties of such crabs nicely dried and polished are constantly exposed for sale in the shops of akamage seki better known to foreigners by the name of shimonoseki they are caught along the neighboring stretch of coast called dan no ura where the great clan of heke or tyra were exterminated in a naval battle seven centuries ago by the arrival clan of genji or minamoto readers of japanese history will remember the story of the imperial nun ni no ama who in the hour of that awful tragedy composed a poem and then leaped into the sea with the child emperor on toku in her arms now the grotesque crabs of this coast are called hekegani or heke crabs because of a legend that the spirits of the drown and slaughtered warriors of the heke clan assume such shapes and it is said that the fury or the agony of the death struggle can still be discerned in the faces upon the backs of the crabs but to feel the romance of this legend you should be familiar with the old pictures of the fight of dan no ura old colored prints of the armored combatants with their grim battle masks of iron and their great fear size the smaller variety of crab is known simply as a heke crab hekegani each hekegani is supposed to be animated by the spirit of a common heke warrior only an ordinary samurai but the larger kind of crab is also termed taishogani chieftain crab or tatsugashira dragon helmet an old taishogani or tatsugashira are thought to be animated by ghosts of those great heke captains who bore upon their helmets monsters unknown to western heraldry and glittering horns and dragons of gold i got a japanese friend to draw for me the two pictures of hekegani herewith reproduced and i can vouch for their accuracy but i told him that i could not see anything resembling a helmet either in his drawing of the tatsugashira nor in the original figure upon the back of the crab can you see it i asked why yes somewhat like this he answered making the following sketch well i can make out part of the headgear i said but that outline of yours is not according to facts and that face is vapid as the face of the moon look at the nightmare on the back of the real crab end of chapter 12 recording by summer days chapter 13 of koto this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by scott carpenter koto being japanese curios with sundry cobwebs by lofcadio herne chapter 13 fireflies one i want to talk about japanese fireflies but not entomologically if you are interested as you ought to be in a scientific side of the subject you should seek enlightenment from a japanese professor of biology now lecturing at the imperial university of tokyo he signs himself mr s watase the s standing for the personal name of shosaburo and he has been a teacher as well as a student of science in america where a number of his lectures have been published lectures upon animal phosphorescence animal electricity the light producing organs of insects and fishes and other wonderful topics of biology footnote professor watase is a graduate of johns hopkins since this essay was written his popular japanese lectures upon the firefly have been reissued in a single pretty volume the colored frontispiece showing fireflies at night upon a willow branch is alone worth the price of the book and footnote he can tell you all that is known concerning the morphology of fireflies the physiology of fireflies the photometry of fireflies the chemistry of their luminous substance the spectroscopic analysis their light and the significance of that light in terms of ether vibration by experiment he can show you that under normal conditions of temperature and environment the number of light pulsations produced by one species of japanese firefly averages 26 per minute and at the rate suddenly rises to 63 per minute if the insect be frightened by seizure also he can prove to you that another and smaller kind of firefly when taken in the hand will increase the number of its light pulsings to upward of 200 per minute he suggests that the light may be of some protective value to the insect like the warning colors of sundry nauseous caterpillars and butterflies because the firefly has a very bitter taste and birds appear to find it unpalatable frogs he has observed do not mind the bad taste they fill their cold bellies with fireflies till the light shines through them much as the light of a candle flame will glow through a porcelain jar but whether of protective value or not the tiny dynamo would seem to be used in a variety of ways as a photo telegraph for example as other insects converse by sound or by touch the firefly utters its emotion in luminous pulsings its speech is a language of light i am only giving you some hints about the character of the professor's lectures which are never merely technical and for the best part of this non scientific essay of mine especially that concerning the capture and the sale of fireflies in japan i am indebted to some delightful lectures which he delivered last year to japanese audiences in tokyo as written today the japanese name of the firefly hotaru is ideographically composed with the sign for fire doubled above the sign for insect the real origin of the word is nevertheless doubtful and various etymologies have been suggested some scholars think that the appellation anciently signified the first born of fire while others believe that it was first composed with syllables meaning star and drop the more poetical of the proposed derivations i am sorry to say are considered the least probable but whatever may have been the primal meaning of the word hotaru there can be no doubt as to the romantic quality of certain folk names still given to the insect two species of firefly have a wide distribution in japan and these have been popularly named genji hotaru and heike hotaru that is to say the minamoto firefly and the taira firefly a legend avers that these fireflies are the ghosts of the old minamoto and taira warriors that even in their insect shapes they remember the awful clan struggle of the twelfth century and that once every year on the night of the twentieth day of the fourth month they fight a great battle on the uji river footnote by the old calendar according to the new calendar the date of the firefly battle would be considerably later last year nineteen oh one it fell upon the tenth day of the sixth month and footnote therefore on that night all caged fireflies should be set free in order that they may be able to take part in the contest the genji hotaru is the largest of japanese fireflies the largest species at least in japan proper not including the luchu islands it is found in almost every part of the country from kyushu to osu the heike hotaru ranges further north being especially common in yezo but it is found also in the central and southern provinces it is smaller than the genji and emits a feebler light the fireflies commonly sold by insect dealers in tokyo osaka kioto and other cities are of the larger species japanese observers have described the light of both insects as tea colored chayuro the tint of the ordinary japanese infusion when the leaf is of good quality being a clear greenish yellow but the light of a fine genji firefly is so brilliant that only a keen eye can detect the greenish color at first sight the flash appears yellow as the flame of a wood fire and its vivid brightness has not been overpraised in the following hoku kagaribi mo hotaru mo hikaru genji kana whether it be a glimmering of festival fires far away or a glimmering of fireflies one can hardly tell ah it is the genji footnote the term kagaribi often translated by bonfire here especially refers to the little wood fires which are kindled on certain festival occasions in front of every threshold in the principal street of a country town or village during the festival of the bon such little fires are lighted in many parts of the country to welcome the returning ghosts end footnote although the appellations of genji hotaru and heike hotaru are still in general use both insects are known by other folk names in different provinces the genji is called oh hotaru or great firefly ushi hotaru or ox firefly kuma hotaru or bear firefly and uji hotaru or firefly of uji not to mention such picturesque appellations as komosu hotaru and yamabuki hotaru which could not be appreciated by the average western reader the heike hotaru is also called hime hotaru or princess firefly nenei hotaru or baby firefly and yurei hotaru or ghost firefly but these are only examples chosen at random in almost every part of japan there is a special folk name for the insect three there are many places in japan which are famous for fireflies places which people visit in summer merely to enjoy the site of the fireflies anciently the most celebrated of all such places was a little valley near ishiama by the lake of omi it is still called hotaru dani or the valley of fireflies before the period of genroku 1688 to 1703 the swarming of the fireflies in this valley during the sultry season was accounted one of the natural marvels of the country the fireflies of the hotaru dani are still celebrated for their size but that wonderful swarming of them which old writers described is no longer to be seen there at present the most famous place for fireflies is in the neighborhood of uji in yamashiro uji a pretty little town in the center of the celebrated tea district is situated on the yujigawa and is scarcely less famed for its fireflies than for its teas every summer special trains run from Kyoto and Osaka to uji bringing thousands of visitors to see the fireflies but it is on the river at a point several miles from the town that the great spectacle is to be witnessed the hotaru kasein or firefly battle the stream there winds between the hills covered with vegetation and myriads of fireflies dart from either bank to meet and cling above the water at moments they so swarm together as to form what appears to the eye like a luminous cloud or like a great ball of sparks the cloud soon scatters or the ball drops and breaks upon the surface of the current and the fallen fireflies drift glittering away but another swarm quickly collects in the same locality people wait all night in boats upon the river to watch the phenomenon after the hotaru kasein is done the uji kawa covered with the still sparkling bodies of the drifting insects is said to appear like the Milky Way or as the Japanese more poetically call it the river of heaven perhaps it was after witnessing such a spectacle that the great female poet Chiyo of Kaga composed these verses which may be thus freely rendered is it the river only or is it the darkness itself drifting oh the fireflies footnote that is to say do i see only fireflies drifting with the current or is it the night itself drifting with its swarming of stars and footnote four many persons in japan earned their living during the summer months by catching and selling fireflies indeed the extent of this business and titles it to be regarded as a special industry a chief center of this industry is the region about ishiyama in goshu by the lake of omi a number of houses there supplying fireflies to many parts of the country and especially to the great cities of Osaka and Kyoto from 60 to 70 firefly catchers are employed by each of the principal houses during the busy season some training is required for the occupation a tyrone might find it no easy matter to catch a hundred fireflies in a single night but an expert has been known to catch three thousand the methods of capture although of the simplest possible kind are very interesting to see immediately after sunset the firefly hunter goes forth with a long bamboo pole upon his shoulder and a long bag of brown mosquito netting wound like a girdle about his waist when he reaches a wooded place frequented by fireflies usually some spot where the willows are planted on the bank of a river or lake he halts and watches the trees as soon as the trees begin to twinkle satisfactorily he gets his net ready approaches the most luminous tree and with his long pole strikes the branches the fireflies dislodged by the shock do not immediately take flight as more active insects would do under the circumstances but drop helplessly to the ground beetle wise where their light always more brilliant in moments of fear or pain renders them conspicuous if suffered to remain upon the ground for a few moments they will fly away but the catcher picking them up with astonishing quickness using both hands at once definitely tosses them into his mouth because he cannot lose the time required to put them one by one into the bag only when his mouth can hold no more does he drop the fireflies unharmed into the netting thus the firefly catcher works until about two o'clock in the morning the old Japanese hour of ghosts at which time the insects begin to leave the trees and seek the dewy soil there they are said to bury their tails so as to remain viewless but now the hunter changes his tactics taking a bamboo broom he brushes the surface of the turf lightly and quickly whenever touched or alarmed by the broom the fireflies display their lanterns and are immediately nipped and bagged a little before dawn the hunters return to town at the firefly shops the captured insects are sorted as soon as possible according to the brilliancy of their light the more luminous being the higher priced then they are put into gauze covered boxes or cages with a certain quantity of moistened grass in each cage from 100 to 200 fireflies are placed in a single cage according to grade to these cages are attached small wooden tablets inscribed with the names of customers such as hotel proprietors restaurant keepers wholesale and retail insect merchants and private persons who have ordered large quantities of fireflies for some particular festivity the boxes are dispatched to their destinations by nimble messengers for goods of this class cannot be safely entrusted to express companies great numbers of fireflies are ordered for display at evening parties in the summer season a large Japanese guest room usually overlooks a garden and during a banquet or other evening entertainment given in the sultry season it is customary to set fireflies at liberty in the garden after sunset that the visitors may enjoy the sight of the sparkling restaurant keepers purchased largely in the famous dot on bori of Osaka there is a house where myriads of fireflies are kept in a large space enclosed by mosquito netting and customers of this house are permitted to enter the enclosure and capture a certain number of fireflies to take home with them the wholesale price of living fireflies ranges from three sen per hundred up to thirteen sen per hundred according to season and quality retail dealers sell them in cages and in Tokyo the price of a cage of fireflies ranges from three sen up to several dollars the cheapest kind of cage containing only three or four fireflies is scarcely more than two inches square but the costly cages veritable marvels of bamboo work beautifully decorated are as large as cages for songbirds firefly cages of charming or fantastic shapes model houses junks temple lanterns etc can be bought at prices ranging from 30 sen up to one dollar dead or alive fireflies are worth money they are delicate insects and they live but a short time in confinement great numbers die in the insect shops and one celebrated insect house is set to dispose every season of no less than five show that is to say about one peck of dead fireflies which are sold to manufacturing establishments in Osaka formally fireflies were used much more than at present in the manufacture of poultices and pills and in the preparation of drugs peculiar to the practice of Chinese medicine even today some curious extracts are obtained from them and one of these called hotaru no abura or firefly grease is still used by woodworkers for the purpose of imparting rigidity to objects made of bent bamboo a very curious chapter on firefly medicine might be written by somebody learned in the old-fashioned literature the queerest part of the subject is in Chinese and belongs much more to demonology than to therapeutics firefly ointments used to be made which had power it was alleged to preserve a house from the attacks of robbers to counteract the effect of any poison and to drive away the hundred devils and pills were made with firefly substance which were believed to confer invulnerability one kind of such pills being called kanshogan or commander in chief pills and another buigan or military power pills five firefly catching as a business is comparatively modern but firefly hunting as a diversion is a very old custom anciently it was an aristocratic amusement and great nobles used to give firefly hunting parties hotaru gari in this busy era of meiji the hotaru gari is rather an amusement for children than for grown-up folks but the latter occasionally find time to join in the sport all over japan the children have their firefly hunts every summer moonless nights being usually chosen for such expeditions girls follow the chase with paper fans boys with long light poles to the ends of which wisps of fresh bamboo grass are tied when struck down by a fan or a wisp the insects are easily secured as they are slow to take wing after having once been checked in actual flight while hunting the children sing little songs supposed to attract the shining prey these songs differ according to locality and the number of them is wonderful but there are very few possessing that sort of interest which justifies quotation two examples will probably suffice province of choshu hotaru koi koi koi tomose nipponichi no jossan ga chochin tomoshite koi toina come firefly come come with your light burning the nicest girl in japan wanted to know if you will not light your lantern and come dialect of shimono seki hochin koi hochin koi seki no machin no bon san ga chochin tomoshite koi koi firefly come firefly come all boys of seki want you to come with your lantern lighted come come of course in order to hunt fireflies successfully it is necessary to know something about their habits and on this subject Japanese children are probably better informed than a majority of my readers for whom the following notes may possess a novel interest fireflies frequent the neighborhood of water and like to circle above it but some kinds are repelled by impure or stagnant water and are only to be found in the vicinity of clear streams or lakes the genji firefly shuns swamps ditches or foul canals while the heike firefly seems to be satisfied with any water all fireflies seek by preference grassy banks shaded by trees but they dislike certain trees and are attracted by others they avoid pine trees for instance and they will not light upon rose bushes but upon willow trees especially weeping willows they gather in great swarms occasionally on a summer night you may see a drooping willow so covered and illuminated with fireflies that all its branches appear to be budding fire during a bright moonlight night fireflies keep as much as possible in shadow but when pursued they fly at once into the moonshine where they're shimmering as less easily perceived lamp light or any strong artificial light drives them away but small bright lights attract them they can be lured for example by the sparkling of a small piece of lighted charcoal or by the glow of a little Japanese pipe kindled in the dark but the lamping of a single lively firefly confined in a bottle or cup of clear glass is the best of all lures as a rule the children hunt only in parties for obvious reasons in former years it would have been deemed foolhardy to go alone in pursuit of fireflies because there existed certain uncanny beliefs concerning them and in some of the country districts these beliefs still prevail what appear to be fireflies may be malevolent spirits or goblin fires or fox lights kindled to delude the wayfarer even real fireflies are not always to be trusted the weirdness of their kinships might be inferred from their love of willow trees other trees have their particular spirits good or evil hama dryads or goblins but the willow is particularly the tree of the dead the favorite of human ghosts any firefly may be a ghost who can tell besides there is an old belief that the soul of a person still alive may sometimes assume the shape of a firefly and here is a little story that was told to me in Isuno on cold winter's night young shizoku of Matsue while on his way home from a wedding party was surprised to perceive a firefly light hovering above the canal in front of his dwelling wondering that such an insect should be flying abroad in the season of snow he stopped to look at it and the light suddenly shot toward him he struck at it with a stick but it darted away and flew into the garden of a residence adjoining his own next morning he made a visit to that house intending to relate the adventure to his neighbors and friends but before he found a chance to speak of it the eldest daughter of the family happening to enter the guest room without knowing of the young man's visit uttered a cry of surprise and exclaimed oh how you startled me no one told me that you had called and just as I came in I was thinking about you last night I had so strange a dream I was flying in my dream flying above the canal in front of our house it seemed very pleasant to fly over the water and while I was flying there I saw you coming along the bank then I went to you to tell you that I had learned how to fly but you struck at me and frightened me so that I still feel afraid when I think of it after hearing this the visitor thought it best not to relate his own experience for the time being lest the coincidence should alarm the girl to whom he was betrothed six fireflies have been celebrated in Japanese poetry from ancient time and frequent mention of them is made in early classical prose one of the fifty four chapters of the famous novel Genji Monogatari for example written either toward the close of the tenth century or at the beginning of the eleventh is entitled Fireflies and the author relates how a certain noble person was unable to obtain one glimpse of a lady's face in the dark by the device of catching and suddenly liberating a number of fireflies the first literary interest in fireflies may have been stimulated if not aroused by the study of Chinese poetry even today every Japanese child knows a little song about the famous Chinese scholar who in the time of his struggles with poverty studied by the light of a paper bag filled with fireflies but whatever the original source of their inspiration Japanese poets have been making verses about fireflies during more than a thousand years compositions on the subject can be found in every form of Japanese poetry but the greater number of firefly poems are in Hoku the briefest of all measures consisting of only seventeen syllables modern love poems relating to the firefly are legion but the majority of these written in the popular twenty-six syllable form called doduitsu appear to consist of little more than variants of one old classic fancy comparing the silent burning of the insect's light to the consuming passion that is never uttered perhaps my readers will be interested by the following selection of firefly poems some of the compositions are many centuries old catching fireflies mayoi go no knock knock tsukamu hotaru kana of the lost child though crying and crying still he catches fireflies out of the blackness black people call to each other they are hunting fireflies ah having heard the voices of people crying catch it the firefly now flies higher ah the cunning fireflies being chased they hide themselves in the moonlight two firefly catchers having tried to seize it at the same time the poor firefly is trampled to death the light of fireflies fireflies already sparkling under the bridge and it is not yet dark mizu gusa no kururu tomiete tobu hotaru when the water grasses appear to grow dark the fireflies begin to fly footnote more literally the water grasses having appeared to grow dark the fireflies begin to fly the phrase kururu tomiete reminds one of the second stanza in that most remarkable of modern fairy ballads mr. yates folk of the air and he saw how the weeds grew dark at the coming of night tide and he dreamed of the long dim hair of bridget his bride end footnote pleasant from the guest room to watch the fireflies being set free in the garden footnote okunoma really means the back room but the best rooms in a japanese house are always in the rear and so arranged as to overlook the garden the composer of this verse is supposed to be a guest at some banquet during which fireflies are set free in the garden that the visitors may enjoy the spectacle end footnote ever as the night grows deeper the light of the firefly also grows brighter see a firefly flies out of the sleeve of the grass cutter here and there the night grass appears green because of the light of the fireflies how precious seems the light of the firefly now that the lantern light has gone out the window itself is dark but see a firefly is creeping up the paper pain how easily kindled and how easily put out again is the light of the firefly oh a single firefly having come one can see the dew in the garden oh this firefly as it crawls on the palm of my hand its legs are visible by its own light it is enough to make one afraid see the light of this firefly shows through my hand footnote that is to say makes the fingers appear diaphanous as if held before a bright candle flame this suggestion of rosy semi transparency implies a female speaker end footnote how uncanny the firefly shoots to within a foot of me and out goes the light there goes a firefly but there is nothing in front of it to take hold nothing to touch what can it be seeking the ghostly creature in this hokiboshi it certainly appeared to be the firefly but where is it this midnight firefly coming upon the sleeve of my robe how weird footnote the word sabishi usually signifies lonesome or melancholy but the sense of it here is weird this verse suggests the popular fancy that the soul of a person living or dead may assume the form of a firefly and footnote for this willow tree the season of budding would seem to have returned in the dark look at the fireflies ah he is afraid of the darkness under the water that firefly therefore he lights his tiny lantern ah i am going too far the flitting of the fireflies here is a lonesome site ah the firefly lights as the darkness begins to break they bury themselves in the grass love poems oh fireflies gather here long enough to make visible the face of the person who says these things to me footnote the speaker is supposed to be a woman somebody has been making love to her in the dark and she half doubts the sincerity of the professed affection and footnote not making even a sound yet burning with desire for this the firefly indeed has become more worthy of pity than any insect that cries from the fugetsu shoe the speaker is a woman by the simile of the silent following firefly she suggests her own secret love and footnote when evening falls though the soul of me burns more than burns the firefly as the light of that burning is viewless the person beloved remains unmoved footnote from the kokon wakashu enkyo the speaker is supposed to be a woman and footnote miscellaneous here at the water's edge how pleasantly cool and the fireflies go shooting by having reached the water he makes himself low the firefly footnote or he stoops low the word hikui really means low of stature and footnote the rain beats upon the kuzu plant away starts the firefly from the underside of the leaf footnote a kind of arrow root and footnote ame no yo wa shita bakari yuku hotaru kana ah this rainy night they only go along the ground the fireflies how they swing themselves to and fro the fireflies on a night of drizzling rain with the coming of the dawn indeed there is nothing visible but the grass in the cage of the firefly with the coming of the dawn they change into insects again these fireflies oh this firefly seen by the daylight the nape of its neck is red having bought fireflies respectfully accord them the favor of four or five tufts of long grass footnote not literal and i doubt whether this poem could be satisfactorily translated into english there is a delicate humor in the use of the word fuzei used in speaking humbly of oneself or of one's endeavors to please a superior and footnote song of the firefly seller he will not give you the chance to see two or three fireflies set free this firefly seller he leaves in the cage three or four just to make a light this firefly seller for now he must take his own body back into the dark night this firefly seller seven but the true romance of the firefly is to be found neither in the strange fields of japanese folklore nor in the quaint gardens of japanese poetry but in the vast profound of science about science i know little or nothing and that is why i'm not afraid to rush in where angels fear to tread if i knew what professor watase knows about fireflies i should feel myself less free to cross the boundaries of relative experience as it is i can venture theories the tremendous hypotheses of physical and psychical evolution no longer seem to me hypotheses i should never dream of doubting them i have ceased to wonder at the growth of life out of that which has been called not living the development of organic out of inorganic existence the one amazing fact of organic evolution to which my imagination cannot become accustomed is the fact that the substance of life should possess the latent capacity or tendency to build itself into complexities incomprehensible of systematic structure the power of that substance to evolve radiance or electricity is not really more extraordinary than its power to evolve color and that a not to luca or a luminous centipede or a firefly should produce light but not to seem more wonderful than that a plant should produce blue or purple flowers but the biological interpretation of the phenomenon leaves me wondering just as much as before at the particular miracle of the machinery by which the light is made to find embedded in the body of the insect a microscopic working model of everything comprised under the technical designation of an electric plant would not be nearly so wonderful a discovery as the discovery of what actually exists here is a firefly able with its infinitesimal dynamo to produce a pure cold light at one four hundredth part of the cost of the energy expended in a candle flame now why should there have been evolved in the tail of this tiny creature a luminous mechanism at once so elaborate and so effective that our greatest physiologists and chemists are still unable to understand the operation of it and our best electricians impotent to conceive the possibility of imitating it why should the living tissues crystallize or build themselves into structures of such stupefying intricacy and beauty as the visual organs of an ephemera the electrical organs of a gymnotus or the luminiferous organs of a firefly the very wonder of the thing forbids me to imagine gods at work no mere god could ever conceive such a prodigy as the eye of a mayfly or the tail of a firefly biology would answer thus though it is inconceivable that a structure like this should have been produced by accumulated effects of function on structure yet it is conceivable that successive selections of favorable variations might have produced it and no follower of Herbert Spencer is really justified in wandering further but I cannot rid myself of the notion that matter in some blind infallible way remembers and that in every unit of living substance their slumber infinite potentialities simply because to every ultimate atom belongs the infinite and indestructible experience of billions of billions of vanished universes end of chapter 13 chapter 14 of koto this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Scott Carpenter koto being Japanese curios with sundry cobwebs by Lafcario Hearn chapter 14 a drop of dew tsuyuno inochi Buddhist proverb to the bamboo lattice of my study window a single dew drop hangs quivering its tiny sphere repeats the colors of the morning colors of sky and field and far off trees inverted images of these can be discerned in it also the microscopic picture of a cottage upside down with children at play before the door much more than the visible world is imaged by that dew drop the world invisible of infinite mystery is likewise therein repeated and without as within the drop there is motion unceasing motion forever incomprehensible of atoms and forces faint shiverings also making prismatic reply to touches of air and sun Buddhism finds in such a dew drop the symbol of that other microcosm which has been called the soul what more indeed is man than just such a temporary orbing of viewless ultimates imaging sky and land and life filled with perpetual mysterious shudderings and responding in some ways to every stir of the ghostly forces that environ him soon that tiny globe of light with all its fairy tints and topsy-turvy picturings will have vanished away even so within another little while you and I must likewise dissolve and disappear between the vanishing of the drop and the vanishing of the man what difference a difference of words but ask yourself what becomes of the dew drop by the great sun its atoms are separated and lifted and scattered to cloud and earth to river and sea they go and out of land and stream and sea again they will be up drawn only to fall and to scatter anew they will creep in opalescent mists they will whiten and frost and hail and snow they will reflect again the forms and the colors of the macrocosm they will throb to the ruby pulsing of hearts that are yet unborn for each one of them must combine again with countless kindred atoms for the making of other drops drops of dew and rain and sap of blood and sweat and tears how many times billions of ages before our sun began to burn those atoms probably moved in other drops reflecting the sky tints and the earth colors of worlds in some past universe and after this present universe shall have vanished out of space those very same atoms by virtue of the forces incomprehensible that made them will probably continue to sphere in dues that will shadow the morning beauty of planets yet to be even so with the particles of that composite which you term your very self before the hosts of heaven the atoms of you were and thrilled and quickened and reflected appearances of things and when all the stars of the visible night shall have burnt themselves out those atoms will doubtless again take part in the orbing of mind will tremble again in thoughts emotions memories in all the joys and pains of lives still to be lived in worlds still to be evolved your personality your peculiarity that is to say your ideas sentiments recollections your very particular hopes and fears and loves and hates why in each of a trillion of dew drops there must be differences infinitesimal of atom thrilling and of reflection and in every one of the countless pearls of ghostly vapor up drawn from the sea of birth and death there are like infinitesimal peculiarities your personality signifies in the eternal order just as much as the special motion of molecules in the shivering of any single drop perhaps in no other drop will the thrilling and the picturing be ever exactly the same but the dues will continue to gather and to fall and there will always be quivering pictures the very delusion of delusions is the idea of death as loss there is no loss because there is not any self that can be lost whatsoever was that you have been whatsoever is that you are whatsoever will be that you must become personality individuality the ghosts of a dream in a dream life infinite only there is and all that appears to be is but the thrilling of it sun moon and stars earth sky and sea and mind and man and space and time all of them are shadows the shadows come and go the shadow maker shapes forever end of chapter 14 chapter 15 of koto this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by scott carpenter koto being japanese curios with sundry cobwebs by lafcadio herne chapter 15 gaki venerable nagasina are there such things as demons in the world yes okay do they ever leave that condition of existence yes they do but if so why is it that the remains of those demons are never found their remains are found okay the remains of bad demons can be found in the form of worms and beetles and ants and snakes and scorpions and centipedes the questions of king melinda one there are moments in life when truths but dimly known before beliefs first vaguely reached through multiple processes of reasoning suddenly assume the vivid character of emotional convictions such an experience came to me the other day on the suruga coast while resting under the pines that fringe the beach something in the vital warmth and luminous peace of the hour some quivering rapture of wind and light very strangely disturbed an old belief of mine the belief that all being is one one i felt myself to be with the thrilling of breeze and the racing of wave with every flutter of shadow and flicker of sun with the azure of sky and sea with the great green hush of the land in some new and wonderful way i found myself assured that there never could have been a beginning that there never could be an end nevertheless the ideas of the moment were not new the novelty of the experience was all together in the peculiar intensity with which they presented themselves making me feel that the flashing dragonflies and the long grey sand crickets and the shrilling semi overhead and the little red crabs a stir under the roots of the pines or all of them brothers and sisters i seemed to understand as never before how the mystery that is called the soul of me must have quickened in every form of past existence and must as certainly continue to behold the sun for other millions of summers through eyes of other countless shapes of future being and i tried to think the long slow thoughts of the long grey crickets and the thoughts of the darting shimmering dragonflies and the thoughts of the basking thrilling cicade and the thoughts of the wicked little crabs that lifted up their claws from between the roots of the pines presently i discovered myself wondering whether the consequence of such thoughts could have anything to do with the recombination of my soul dust in future spheres of existence for thousands of years the east has been teaching that what we think or do in this life really decides through some inevitable formation of atom tendencies or polarities the future place of our substance and the future state of our sentiency and the belief is worth thinking about though no amount of thinking can enable us either to confirm or disprove it very possibly like other buddhist doctrines it may adambrate some cosmic truth but its literal assertions i doubt because i must doubt the power ascribed to thought by the whole infinite past i have been molded within and without how should the impulse of a moment reshape me against the weight of the eternities buddhism indeed answers how and that astounding answer is irrefutable but i doubt anyhow acts and thoughts according to buddhist doctrine are creative visible matter is made by acts and thoughts even the universe of stars and all that has form and name and all the conditions of existence what we think or do is never for the moment only but for a measureless time it signifies some force directed to the shaping of worlds to the making of future bliss or pain remembering this we may raise ourselves to the zones of gods ignoring it we may deprive ourselves even of the right to be reborn among men and may doom ourselves though innocent of the crimes that cause rebirth in hell to re-enter existence in the form of animals or of insects or of goblins gaki footnote the word gaki is the japanese buddhist rendering of the Sanskrit term preta signifying a spirit in that circle or state of torment called the world of hungry ghosts and footnote so it depends upon ourselves whether we are to become insects or goblins hereafter and in the buddhist system the difference between insects and goblins is not so well-defined as might be supposed the belief in a mysterious relation between ghosts and insects or rather between spirits and insects is a very ancient belief in the east where it now assumes innumerable forms some unspeakably horrible others full of weird beauty the white moth of mr quiller couch would not impress a japanese reader as a novel for the night moth or the butterfly figures in many a japanese poem and legend as the soul of a lost wife the night crickets thin lament is perhaps the sorrowing of a voice once human the strange red marks upon the heads of cicadae are characters of spirit names dragonflies and grasshoppers are the horses of the dead all these are to be pity with the pity that is kin to love but the noxious and dangerous insects represent the results of another quality of karma that which produces goblins and demons grizzly names have been given to some of these insects as for example jigoku mushi or hell insect to the ant lion and kappa mushi to a gigantic water beetle which seizes frogs and fish and devours them alive thus realizing in a microcosmic way the hideous myth of the kappa or river goblin flies on the other hand are especially identified with the world of hungry ghosts how often in the season of flies have i heard some persecuted toiler exclaim kyo no hi wa gaki no yodane the flies today how like gaki they are two in the old japanese or more correctly speaking chinese buddhist literature relating to the gaki the Sanskrit names of the gaki are given in a majority of cases but some classes of gaki described have only chinese names as the indian belief reached japan by way of china and korea it is likely to have received a peculiar coloring in the course of its journey but in a general way the japanese classification of gaki corresponds closely to the indian classification of the pretas the place of gaki in the buddhist system is but one degree removed from the region of the hells or jigokudo the lowest of all the states of existence above the jigokudo is the gaki though or world of hungry spirits above the gaki though is the chikoshodo or world of animals and above this again is the shurado a region of perpetual fighting and slaughter higher than these has placed the ningen though or world of mankind now a person released from hell by exhaustion of the karma that sent him there is seldom reborn at once into the zone of human existence but must patiently work his way upward thither through all the intermediate states of being many of the gaki have been in hell but there are gaki also who have not been in hell certain kinds or degrees of sin may cause a person to be reborn as a gaki immediately after having died in this world only the greatest degree of sin condemns the sinner directly to hell the second degree degrades him to the gaki though the third causes him to be reborn as an animal japanese buddhism recognizes 36 principal classes of gaki roughly counting says the shobo men jokyo we find 36 classes of gaki but should we attempt to distinguish all the different varieties we should find them to be innumerable the 36 classes form two great divisions or orders one comprises all gaki world dwellers gaki sekaiju that is to say all hungry spirits who remain in the gaki though proper and are therefore never seen by mankind the other division is called ninshu ju or dwellers among men these gaki remain always in this world and are sometimes seen there is yet another classification of gaki according to the character of their penitential torment all gaki suffer hunger and thirst but there are three degrees of this suffering the muzai gaki represent the first degree they must hunger and thirst uninterruptedly without obtaining any nourishment whatever the shouzai gaki suffer only in the second degree they are able to feed occasionally upon impure substances the usai gaki are more fortunate they can eat such remains of food as are thrown away by men and also the offerings of food set before the images of the gods or before the tablets of the ancestors the last two classes of gaki are especially interesting because they are supposed to meddle with human affairs before modern science introduced exact knowledge of the nature and cause of certain diseases Buddhists explained the symptoms of such diseases by the hypothesis of gaki certain kinds of intermittent fever for example were said to be caused by a gaki entering the human body for the sake of nourishment and warmth at first the patient would shiver with cold because the gaki was cold then as the gaki gradually became warm the chill would pass to be succeeded by a burning heat at last the satiated haunter would go away and the fever disappear but upon another day and usually at an hour corresponding to that of the first attack a second fit of agu would announce the return of the gaki other zymotic disorders could be equally well explained as due to the action of gaki in the choubonen jokyo a majority of 36 kinds of gaki are associated with putrescence disease and death others are plainly identified with insects no particular kind of gaki is identified by name with any particular kind of insect but the descriptions suggest conditions of insect life and such suggestions are reinforced by the knowledge of popular superstitions perhaps the descriptions are vague in the case of such spirits as the jikiketsu gaki or bloodsuckers the jikiniku gaki or flesh eaters the jikida gaki or eaters the jikifun gaki or eaters the jikidoku gaki or poison eaters the jikifu gaki or wind eaters the jikike gaki or smell eaters the jikikwa gaki or fire eaters perhaps they fly into lamps the shiko gaki who devour corpses and cause pestilence the shinen gaki who appear by night as wandering fires the shinko gaki or needle-mouthed and the kuakushin gaki or cauldron bodied each a living furnace filled with a flame that keeps the fluids of its body humming like a boiling pot but the suggestion of the following excerpts will not be found at all obscure footnote abridged from the choubonen jokyo a full translation of the extraordinary chapter relating to the gaki would try the reader's nerves rather severely end footnote jikiman gaki these gaki can live only by eating the wigs of false hair with which the statues of certain divinities are decorated such will be the future condition of persons who steal objects of value from buddhist temples fujokou hyokku gaki these gaki can eat only street filth and refuse such a condition is the consequence of having given putrid or unwholesome food to priests or nuns or pilgrims in need of alms choukenju jikinetsu gaki these are the eaters of refuse of funeral pyres and of the clay of graves they are the spirits of men who despoiled buddhist temples for the sake of gain juchu gaki these spirits are born within the wood of trees and are tormented by the growing of the grain their condition is the result of having cut down shade trees for the purpose of selling the timber persons who cut down the trees in buddhist cemeteries or temple grounds are especially likely to become juchu gaki footnote the following story of a tree spirit is typical in the garden of a samurai named satsuma shichijiman who lived in the village of ecigawa in the province of omi there was a very old enoki the enoki or celtus chinensis is commonly thought to be a goblin tree from ancient times the ancestors of the family had been careful never to cut a branch of this tree or to remove any of its leaves but shichijiman who was very self-willed one day announced that he intended to have the tree cut down during the following night a monstrous being appeared to the mother of shichijiman in a dream and told her that if the enoki were cut down every member of the household should die but when this warning was communicated to shichijiman he only laughed and he then sent a man to cut down the tree no sooner had it been cut down than shichijiman became violently insane for several days he remained furiously mad crying out at intervals the tree the tree the tree he said that the tree put out its branches like hands to tear him in this condition he died soon afterward his wife went mad crying out that the tree was killing her and she died screaming with fear one after another all the people in that house not accepting the servants went mad and died the dwelling long remained unoccupied thereafter no one daring even to enter the garden at last it was remembered that before these things happened a daughter of the satsuma family had become a buddhist nun and that she was still living under the name of jikun in a temple at yamashiro this nun was sent for and by request of the villagers she took up her residence in the house where she continued to live until the time of her death daily reciting a special service on behalf of the spirit that had dwelt in the tree from the time that she began to live in the house the tree spirit ceased to give trouble this story is related on the authority of the priest shungyo who said that he heard it from the lips of the nun herself and footnote moths flies beetles grubs worms and other unpleasant creatures seem thus to be indicated but some kinds of gaki cannot be identified with insects for example the species called jiki ho gaki or doctrine eaters these can exist only by hearing the preaching of the law of the buddha in some temple while they hear such preaching their torment is assuaged but all other times they suffer agonies unspeakable to this condition are liable after death all buddhist priests or nuns who proclaim the law for the mere purpose of making money although there are gaki who appear sometimes in beautiful human shapes such are the yokushiki gaki spirits of ludeness corresponding in some sort to the incubi and succubi of our own middle ages they can change their sex at will and can make their bodies as large or as small as they please it is impossible to exclude them from any dwelling except by the use of holy charms and spells since they are able to pass through an orifice even smaller than the eye of a needle to seduce young men they assume beautiful feminine shapes often appearing at wine parties as waitresses or dancing girls to seduce women they take the form of handsome lads this state of yokushiki gaki is a consequence of lust in some previous human existence but supernatural powers belonging to their condition are results of meritorious karma which the evil karma could not wholly counterbalance even concerning the yokushiki gaki however it is plainly stated that they may take the form of insects though want to appear in human shape they can assume the shape of any animal or other creature and fly freely in all directions of space or keep their bodies so small that mankind cannot see them all insects are not necessarily gaki but most gaki can assume the form of insects when it serves their purpose three grotesque as these beliefs now seem to us it was not unnatural that ancient eastern fancy should associate insects with ghosts and devils in our visible world there are no other creatures so wonderful and so mysterious and the true history of certain insects actually realizes the dreams of mythology to the minds of primitive man the mere facts of insect metamorphosis must have seemed uncanny and what but goblinry or magic could account for the monstrous existence of beings so similar to dead leaves or to flowers or to joints of grass that the keenest human sight could detect their presence only when they began to walk or to fly even for the entomologist of today insects remain the most incomprehensible of creatures we have learned from him that they must be acknowledged the most successful of organized beings in the battle for existence that the delicacy and the complexity of their structures surpass anything ever imagined of marvelous before the age of the microscope that their senses so far exceed our own in refinement as to prove us deaf and blind by comparison nevertheless the insect world remains a world of hopeless enigmas who can explain for us the mystery of the eyes of a myriad facets or the secret of the ocular brains connected with them do those astounding eyes perceive the ultimate structure of matter does their vision pierce opacity after the manner of the rent can raise or how interpret the deadly aim of that ick Newman fly which plunges its ovipositor through solid wood to reach the grub embedded in the grain what again of those marvelous ears in breasts and thighs and knees and feet ears that hear sounds beyond the limit of human audition and what of the musical structures evolve to produce such fairy melody what of the ghostly feet that walk upon flowing water what of the chemistry that kindles the fireflies lamp making the cold and beautiful light that all our electric science cannot imitate and those newly discovered incomparably delicate organs for which we have yet no name because our wisest cannot decide the nature of them do they really as some would suggest keep the insect mind informed of things unknown to human sense visibilities of magnetism odors of light tastes of sound even the little that we have been able to learn about insects fills us with the wonder that is akin to fear the lips that are hands and the horns that are eyes and the tongues that are drills the multiple devilish mouths that move in four ways at once the living scissors and saws and boring pumps and bracelets the exquisite elfish weapons which no human skill can copy even in the finest watch spring steel what superstition of old ever dreamed of sites like these indeed all that nightmare ever conceived of faceless horror and all that ecstasy ever imagined of phantasmal polkretude can appear but vapid and void by comparison with the stupefying facts of entomology but there is something spectral something alarming in the very beauty of insects for whether Gaki do or do not exist there is at least some shadowing of truth in the eastern belief that the dead become insects undoubtedly our human dust must help over and over again for millions of ages to build up numberless weird shapes of life but as to that question of my reverie under the pine trees whether present acts and thoughts can have anything to do with the future distribution and re-quickening of that dust whether human conduct can of itself predetermine the shapes into which human atoms will be recast no reply is possible i doubt but i do not know neither does anybody else supposing however that the order of the universe were really as Buddhists believe and that i knew myself for doomed by reason of stupidities in this existence to live hereafter the life of an insect i am not sure that the prospect would frighten me there are insects of which it is difficult to think with equanimity but the state of an independent highly organized respectable insect could not be so very bad i should even look forward with some pleasurable curiosity to any chance of viewing the world through the marvellous compound eyes of a beetle an ephemera or a dragonfly as an ephemera indeed i might enjoy the possession of three different kinds of eyes and the power to see colors now totally unimaginable estimated in degrees of human time my life would be short a single summer day would include the best part of it but to ephemeral consciousness of few minutes would appear a season and my one day of winged existence barring possible mishaps would be one unweary joy of dancing in golden air and i could feel in my winged state neither hunger nor thirst having no real mouth or stomach i should be in very truth a wind eater nor should i fear to enter upon the much less ethereal condition of a dragonfly i should then have to bear carnivorous hunger and to hunt a great deal but even dragonflies after the fierce joy of the chase can indulge themselves in solitary meditation besides what wings would then be mine and what eyes i could pleasurably anticipate even the certainty of becoming an amembo footnote a water insect much resembling what we call a skater in some parts of the country it is said that the boy who wants to become a good swimmer must eat the legs of an amembo and footnote and so being able to run and to slide upon water though children might catch me and bite off my long fine legs but i think that i should better enjoy the existence of a semi a large and lazy cicada basking on wind-rocked trees sipping only dew and singing from dawn till dusk of course there would be perils to encounter danger from hawks and crows and sparrows danger from insects of prey danger from bamboos tipped with bird-lime by naughty little boys but in every condition of life there must be risks and in spite of the risks i imagine that an acreon uttered little more than the truth in his praise of the cicada oh thou earth-born song-loving free from pain having flesh without blood thou are nearly equal to the gods in fact i have not been able to convince myself that it is really an inestimable privilege to be reborn a human being and if the thinking of this thought and the act of writing it down must inevitably affect my next rebirth then let me hope that the state to which i am destined will not be worse than that of a cicada or of a dragonfly climbing the cryptomareas to clash my tiny symbols in the sun or haunting with soundless flicker of amethyst and gold some holy silence of lotus pools end of chapter 15 chapter 16 of koto this is the LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Mali Slinhat Koto being japanese koreas with sundry cobwebs by Lafcadio Hearn a matter of custom there is a nice old priest of the sand sect past master in the craft of arranging flowers and in the arts of the ancient time who comes occasionally to see me he's loved by his congregation though he preaches against many old-fashioned beliefs and discourages all faith in omens and dreams and tells people to believe only in the law of the buddha priests of the sand persuasion are seldom the skeptical but the skepticism of my friend is not absolute for the last time that we met we talked about the dead and he told me something creepy stories of spirits or ghosts he said i always doubt sometimes a danka comes to tell me about having seen a ghost or having dream a strange dream footnote danka or danka signifies the parishioner of a buddhist temple those who regularly contribute to the support of a shinto temple are called ogikko and footnote but whenever a question such a person carefully i find that the matter can be explained in a natural way only once in my life i had a career experience which i could not easily explain i was then in kushu a young novice and i was performing my gyo the pilgrimage that every novice has to make one evening while traveling through a mountain district i reached a little village where there was a temple of the sensek i went there to ask for lodging according to our rules but i found that the priest had gone to attend the funeral at a village several miles away leaving an old nun in charge of the temple the nun said that she could not receive me during the absence of the priest and that he would not come back for seven days in that part of the country a priest was required by custom to recite the sutras and to perform a buddhist service every day for seven days in the house of the dead parishioner i said that i did not want any food but only a place to sleep moreover i pleaded that i was very tired and at last the old nun took pity on me she spread some quilts for me in the temple near the altar and i fell asleep almost as soon as i lay down in the middle of the night a very cold night i was awakened by the tapping of a mukugyo footnote the mukugyo is a very curious musical instrument of wood in the form of a fish's head and is usually lacquered in red and gold it is tapped with a stick during certain buddhist chants and recitations producing a dull hollow sound and footnote and the voice of somebody chanting the nembutsu footnote the invocation of amidaba namo amidabutsu hail to the buddha amidaba commonly repeated in behalf of the dead is thus popular renamed and footnote close to where i was lying i opened my eyes but the temple was utterly dark so dark that if a man had sized me by the nose i would not have seen him and i wondered that anybody would be tapping the mukugyo and chanting in such darkness but though the sounds seemed at first to be quite near me they were somewhat faint and i tried to persuade myself that i must have been mistaken that the priest had come back and was performing a service in another part of the temple in spite of the tapping and chanting i fell asleep again and slept until morning then as soon as i had washed and dressed i went to look for the old nun and found her after thanking her for her kindness i ventured to remark so the priest came back last night he did not she answered very crassly i told you that he would not come back for seven days more please pardon me i said last night i heard somebody chanting the nembutsu and beating the mukugyo so i thought the priest had come back oh that was not the priest she exclaimed that was the danka who i asked for i could not understand her why she replied the dead man of course footnote the original expression was at least equally emphatic ah are desu ka are wa hotoke ga kitano desu yo the word hotoke means either a buddha or in this case the spirit of a dead person and footnote that always happens when a parishioner dies the hotoke comes to sound the mukugyo and to repeat the nembutsu she spoke as if she had been so long accustomed to the thing that it did not seem to her world while mentioning end of a measure of custom