way of elevating marriage from its low standard to a holy rite.
To the fatalistic Japanese death has no terrors, especially as they are a people who seem to take about as much care of the dead as of the living. Funeral ceremonies[1] are very elaborate, expensive, solemn, and yet somewhat boisterous affairs. The Shintō rites are much plainer than Buddhist ceremonies. In the former, the coffin is long and low, as in the West, but in the latter it is small and square, so that the corpse "is fitted into it in a squatting posture with the head bent to the knees." There are other distinguishing features of the two funerals: the bare shaven heads of Buddhist priests in contrast with the non-shaven heads of Shintō priests; the dark blue coats of the Buddhist pall-bearers in contrast with the plain white garb of the Shintō pall-bearers.
The mourning code of Japan is rather strict, and contains two features: the wearing of mourning garments (which are white), and the abstinence from animal food. The regular dates for visits to the grave are the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, thirty-fifth, forty-ninth, and one-hundredth days, and the first, third, seventh, thirteenth, twenty-third, twenty-seventh, thirty-third, thirty-seventh, fiftieth, and one-hundredth years.
As is shown in another chapter ("Japanese Traits"), the Japanese are a merry, vivacious, pleasure-loving
- ↑ See Transactions Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. xix. pp. 507-544.
