Japanese Peasant Songs/Seasonal Songs

by by John F. Embree with Ella Embree and Yukuo Uyehara

Seasonal Songs

These songs concern or are much sung during certain seasons, but this does not mean that some of the verses may not be sung at any banquet regardless of season. This is especially true of the March Sixteenth stanzas.

Song of March Sixteenth^[1]

(Sangatsu Jūroku Nichi No Uta)

On the fifteenth and sixteenth of March (lunar calendar) there is an important festival in honor of Mt. Ichifusa, the sacred mountain of Kuma county. On the fifteenth people from all parts of the county, especially young married couples, make a pilgrimage to the mountain, spending the night at a shrine on the mountain and returning home the next morning. This song is frequently sung by individuals or groups of travelers at this time. The possibility of a rendezvous with one’s lover on the trip, or the night out of the young bride and groom gives point to the first stanza; and since it nearly always rains at this time of the year in Kuma the reference to an umbrella in the second stanza is in keeping with the season. Many male travelers spend an hour or an evening at a tea house, perhaps sleeping with one of the girls who beckon a welcome as in the third stanza. All in all it is a trip marked by good times and high spirits—assisted by wine—in spite of inclement weather and a more or less sleepless night on the hard wooden floor of a mountain shrine. The fourth stanza has no very definite reference to the events of March Sixteenth and may not really belong to this cycle. The order of verses is not fixed, and one or two may be sung without the others, and when Rokuchōshi verses are sung at a banquet one of these may be included. Some informants in Suye give stanza 65 as a part of the Bon song (Nos. 71–4). The song also has a special tune of its own.

Stanzas 64 and 65 are recorded as of Kuma by Kodera and in Tanabe’s Folksongs of Kuma. Bonneau has a variation of stanza 65 as of Northern Japan in his Folklore japonais, Vol. 2, No. 188—this is peculiar since both the people of Kuma and scholars like Kodera regard the song as characteristic of Kuma. Bonneau’s variant has a similar basic thought and the same opening line as the Kuma song, but the other lines are different. Parallelism is possible here since both umbrellas, visits to tea houses, and such sentiments are all common in Japan. Such a problem as this can only be settled by further collections of data in various parts of Japan.

The form of the song is regular dodoitsu 7-7-7-5, except for the last stanza which has an extra five syllable line. In this connection it is worth noting that this stanza may not be part of the March Sixteenth song.

64	Otake gozankei[2] Dokkoi[3] Ucha yute detā ga Otakya nazukete Kinagusan[4] Na yoe	“To worship the gods.”[5] One leaves the house— The gods in name only— One’s heart’s enjoyment.[6]
65	Kasa wo wasureta Dokkoi[3] Menda no chaya de Sora ga kumore ba Omoi dasu Na yoe	The umbrella[7] forgotten At a Menda Inn—[8] If the sky becomes clouded You will remember.[9]
66	Otake[10] yama kara Dokkoi[3] Yuyama o mireba Yuyama onago ga Dete maneku Na yoe	From the sacred mountain If Yuyama were seen, Yuyama women coming out Beckon.
67	Kyō wa hi mo yoshi[11] Dokkoi[3] Shindera mairi Harai baba mo Dete miyare Mago tsureta Na yoe	Today is a good day[12] To visit the Shin temple Grandmother Harai, Come along too With your grandchild.

Weeding Song
(Kusatori Uta, also called Yoshinbo)

Weeding is an arduous task involving backbreaking work in the paddy fields under a hot June sun. As might be expected this work is a woman’s occupation. The words of the “weeding” song have nothing to do with the job, and as a matter of fact the song is little sung in Suye Mura. The third stanza was given as a part of the Bon song (71–4) by some. All three stanzas are given in Tanabe’s Folksongs of Kuma and the version given there is followed here since the author’s text of this song is incomplete. The form is a somewhat irregular dodoitsu.

68	Yushimbu[13] koromo ni Momi[14] no ura tsukete Nan to tsutsume do Iro ni deru Ōsa yushimbu[13]	Neophyte has in his kimono A red lining; However he tries to cover it It still shows.
69	Yushimbu Yushimbu to Na wa yūcha kurunna Yagate Fumonji no Tera wo tsugu Ōsa yushimbu	Neophyte, neophyte, Don’t call me that. Soon at Fumonji temple He’ll be the successor.
70	Fumonji otera kata Motomachi mireba Terujo shengamejo ga Dete maneku Ōsa yushimbu	From Fumonji temple, As you look to Motomachi The girls come out And beckon.

Bon Song
(Shonga Odori Uta)

Bon or, as it is more often referred to, Obon, is a period in the middle of the seventh month when the spirits of the dead are believed to return to earth and revisit their former homes. The season is marked by a number of ritual observances such as cleaning the graves and placing special offerings in the butsudan or household shrine. During the evenings of Bon special dances were formerly performed by the villagers outdoors in some open area. These were group dances, the performers forming a large circle dancing to the accompaniment of a drum and a song leader, both of whom reinforced themselves with wine as the dark hours passed. The dancers joined in on the choruses. Here, unlike the banquet songs, the musicians and leaders were men. Both songs and dances frequently had some sexual elements and possibly some sexual license followed, especially among the young people. The custom of Bon dancing appears to be quite unrelated to Buddhism and the return of the spirits and may have antedated the advent of Buddhism in Japan.

There may be an ancient historical connection and functional resemblance between the old Japanese Bon dance and certain of the summer festivals of South China which formerly served as an occasion for sexual licence and a time of betrothal for the young people of the community (see Granet’s Festivals and Songs of Ancient China, most of which is taken up with this subject, and Waley’s Book of Songs, pp. 28–9.) Today many of the rural Bon dances have been suppressed by the government, while more or less bowlderized and commercialized forms have been retained in some of the towns and cities. The dance of Suye Mura is now forgotten and only a few old people even remember the verses.

Shonga may mean ginger and thus have a phallic significance, or it may be simply a kind of refrain. Kodera says this refrain is widespread in Kyūshū and that it may derive from sōka, ‘is that so?’ He gives a version of the third stanza (72) as coming from Hiroshima.

In form the song follows a regular dodoitsu pattern. Numbers 73 and 74 are simply doubled dodoitsu. The verses and refrain are sung or rather chanted very slowly, each vowel being prolonged and an occasional syllable repeated: e.g., Odoraren becomes ōdo, ōdōrārenu.

71	Shonga odori nya Ashi byōshi te byōshi Ashi ga soro wa nya Odoraren[15]	In the shonga dance Foot beat, hand beat. If feet are not in rhythm One cannot dance.
72	Shonga odori wa Dete mite narota Kuni no miyage ni Shuja naika Dokkoi sho shonga e	The shonga dance— Came out, saw and learned— For souvenir of the county Let’s make it.
73	Shonga baba sama Meizan suki desu[16] Yumbe[17] kokonotsu Kesa nanatsu Yumbe[18] kokonotsu nya Shokusho wa senedo Kesa wa nanatsu ni Shokusho sh’ta Dokkoi sho shonga e	Shonga old lady Likes meizan cakes. Last night nine, This morning seven.[19] Last night’s nine Indigestion did not give, This morning’s seven Indigestion gave.
74	Shonga-batake[20] no Mannaka goto de Sekida kurya[21] chute[22] Damasareta Sekida kurya[21] chute[22] Damashimashita ga Ima wa sekida no Sata mo naka[23]	In the middle Of the ginger field[24] The slipper he promised.[25] I’ve been fooled— The slipper he promised. I’m fooled indeed— Now the slipper He doesn’t even mention.

Rejoice

These lines, said to be rokuchōshi in Suye, were written on a paper attached to a stone Jizō brought into a wedding hall during a banquet by some young men of the hamlet. However, the song is evidently a variation of the Satsuma Shonga Bushi as recorded by Kodera.^[26]

It is the custom in Kuma for a stone image of Jizō to be brought into the house of a wedding by some hamlet young men with their faces covered by towels. These young men rush in with their load during the banquet in the midst of ribald jokes, and then hastily retire to the kitchen where the women give them some wine. The bringing of Jizō into the house is a ritual precaution against the possibility of the bride’s running home. A few days after the wedding the bride makes a little bib for Jizō and he is returned to his usual roadside niche. Jizō is, among other things, a deity of children, so that a more basic significance of this whole custom is to insure fertility in the bride and to emphasize the basic function of marriage, i.e., the begetting of children.

In form this song is dodoitsu 7-7-7-5 with an extra 7-5 couplet.

75

Iwae medetaya Wakamatsu sama yo Yeda mo sakaeru Ha mo shigeru Ie mo sakaeru Ko mo fueru

Rejoice, be happy. The young pine— The branches thrive, The leaves grow thick, The house prospers, Children increase.

On the Eve of the Fifteenth

On the eve of the fifteenth of the eighth month there is held a celebration in honor of the moon, marked by offerings to the full moon. Young people of the village make a rope of rice straw and have a tug of war. This game has a slight ritual value since the winning group is said to have a good harvest. (In Suye this has little significance since the tugging goes on endlessly and if one side is losing some people from the winning end run over to help the other group to pull.) A giant straw sandal is also made and placed by some sacred wayside stone.

The first two stanzas appear in Kodera’s collection as a Kuma song and they also appear in Tanabe’s Folksongs of Kuma. The third stanza (78) is a characteristic modification of the second (77) along phallic lines—the suggestion of the pestle was too good to miss.

Like the Bon song (70–73) the regular Eve of the Fifteenth song is known to only a few old people; it is also, like the Bon song, sung very slowly.

The form is somewhat irregular, the arrangement of syllables for the three stanzas in order being 7-5-5-7-5-7, 7-5-5-5-7-7 and 7-7-5-7-7.

76	Jūgoya ban ni Tsunahiki ga Gozaru choi Eiya to ieba Ne ga kireru Ne ga kireru Iyo ne ga kireru	On Fifteenth Night Comes tug-of-war. ‘Choi!’ We shout ‘eiya!’ The rope will cut, Rope will cut, The rope will cut.
77	Jūgoya ban ni Tsuna hikanu Mono wa choi Saki no yo ja Oni ga kine de tsuku Kine de tsuku Iyo kine de tsuku	On fifteenth night Those who don’t pull, ‘Choi!’ In the next world The devils will pound with a pestle, Pound with a pestle, Pound with a pestle.
78	Jūgoya ban ni Bobo sen[27] mono wa Yoi yoi Saki no yo de Oni ga kine de tsuku Are kine de tsuku Yoi yoi	On fifteenth night Those who do not f—k In the next world The devils will pound with a pestle, Will pound him with a pestle.

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1. So called by people of Kuma.
2. Sometimes a ‘to’ is added to this line and the dokkoi chorus after the first line omitted.
3. Or: dokoe.
4. Or: kinagusami. This is a good example of how a final n sound may come to replace a final m syllable such as mi.
5. Otake literally means mountain or honorable mountain, so this line might be strictly interpreted as to worship the mountain.
6. The idea of this song is that as the young person leaves the house he says it is to visit the sacred mountain to pray at the shrine, but actually he or she expects to meet a sweetheart.
7. Kasa may also mean sedge hat, a headgear commonly worn by rural travelers as a protection against rain and sun.
8. Menda is a small town of Kuma through which many travelers pass on their way to Mount Ichifusa, the sacred mountain.
9. “You will remember your umbrella and by association, me;” presumably a tea house girl speaking.
10. See note 3.
11. Cf. the opening line of song 79.
12. I.e., an auspicious day.
13. Tanabe gives Yoshinbo, but the local pronunciation is Yushimbu. The word means a neophyte at a Buddhist temple, and also has the meaning of a useless fellow.
14. Momi, ‘red lining,’ also ‘restless’ (from momu). The idea of this stanza is (a) that no matter how he tries that neophyte can’t disguise his lowly status in the temple or (b) that a good-for-nothing person always has some stigmata or (c) a secondary sexual symbolism—this last is not certain as I have nothing definite to that effect in my notes.
15. See comment on this word in the description preceding this song.
16. ​

    Or:

    Shonga basan wa Yaki-mochi suki de gozaru

    Shonga old woman Likes roasted mochi.

    Both these variants may have the second meaning of the old woman likes copulation, so that last night’s nine connections she survived, but this morning’s seven were too much for her.

17. From yūbe.
18. Or: yūbe no.
19. “She had” is understood.
20. Here shonga must mean ginger, but if shonga is also a refrain term as Kodera claims, then we have here a typical play on sound as well.
21. From kureyō.
22. Or: chote from to itte.
23. Or: nashi.
24. “We made love” is understood.
25. As a sign of betrothal.
26. Text of Satsuma Shonga Bushi:

    Ureshi medeta no
    Wakamatsu sama yo
    Yeda mo sakaeru
    Ha mo shigeru
    A shonga

27. A vulgar folk term; cf. use of ‘bobo’ in Song 8.