like leaves bound in sheaves are hung from the eaves of all the houses, are put to perfume all the baths, and are even steeped as tea or drunk in saké. One of the ceremonies of Purification used formerly to consist of waving ferns and rushes (and are not Shobu leaves implied?) over the person to be purified, and later these were flung into the water.[1] In more recent times, first linen and then sheets of paper, called unsa (really gohei), were substituted. I cannot find any reason for this; the fact is recorded by several writers without comment, so I must be my own authority for explaining it. Cleanliness is ever next to godliness, and often ahead of it, in Japan. The fragrance of the Shobu makes cleanliness a joy, and therefore a rite on the day when the plants have first begun to appear. The medicinal efficacy of the root of the plant those persons may know who remember the ‘Sweet Flag Root’ of their childhood. What wet feet we got hunting for it! How nasty it tasted, nibbled raw! And what fabulous prices, the farmers’ children told us, the ‘Shakers’ who made ‘medicine from the Yarbs’ would give for it! Poor, graceful plants, sacrificed to make a spring tonic!
I like better to think that the pretty feminine things have given up their lives in
- ↑ See Mr. Percival Lowell’s Occult Japan for an account of the full ceremonial.
