JAPAN
there is no note of asceticism to disturb the glad harmony. For one day, indeed,—the day before the procession,—the parishioners are supposed to fast, but since their fasting is limited to avoiding meat and vegetables of the onion family, which things are regarded as impure, the flesh is not perceptibly mortified.
Even more important and elaborate is the Kanda festival, which absorbs Tōkyō's attention during a great part of the ninth month in the alternate years of the Sano celebration. Long before the fête, preparations are busily commenced,—lanterns hung out; nobori[1] raised; casks of saké and boxes of macaroni piled up to feast the folks in the procession, and all the great modistes and coiffeurs of the capital engage in contriving for the daughters of their customers costumes and headdresses that shall eclipse records and rivals alike. In nothing is Tōkyō more recklessly extravagant than in the sums it lavishes for its daughters' adornment on these grand occasions. A tradesman does not exceed the sanction of custom when he spends a tenth part of his annual income on the dress of one little daughter. The Sano festival inspires similar but less costly effort, for the deities' outing lasts only one day, whereas in the Kanda parish the sacred palanquins and the dashi are three days en route. A special feature of the Kanda matsuri is a band of danseuses (geisha) who follow the dashi, and, from time to
- ↑ See Appendix, note 1.
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