OBSERVANCES AND PASTIMES
guage like that of the Japanese. The name of the bullfinch (uso) is homonymous with the term "falsehood." Thus the idea of the worshipper is to hide in his sleeve—for the effigy of the bullfinch is thus carried—all the fibs and falsehoods of which he has been guilty throughout the old year, and to avert their evil results. But the singular fact is that he carries home from the shrine a new symbol of deception. He makes naïve admission that life cannot be lived without lying, whereby he thus avoids at least the lie of pretending to think that it can.[1] It must not be supposed, however, that his fresh bullfinch confers prospective absolution from the guilt of guile. No such idea is acknowledged, though it is easy to perceive that a mechanical device for periodically evading the consequences of deceit cannot fail to create a false conscience towards the fault.
Every year of the "ten-stem cycle" on which the almanack of old Japan was based, has a special point of the compass from which fortunate influences are supposed to emanate. The god controlling these influences is called the "Year-luck Deity" (Toshi-toku jin), and throughout the first month sacred saké (miki) and rice dumplings are offered to this mysterious being at the domestic altar. There is, in truth, no more mysterious divinity in the Japanese pantheon,—a divinity of doubtful sex, said by some to be the youngest
- ↑ See Appendix, note 16.
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