and offerings to the goddess Annomozi-Inazi were made.[1]
The festival of the Bon, or ‘Feast of Lanterns,’ which occurs from the 13th to 16th of August, is the ‘All Souls’ Day’ of Japan. To this the Pæony, though it is not then in bloom,—so that one might consider it as but the ghost of a Pæony,—is dedicated. It is curious that this lusty, buxom, flaunting flower should, on every lantern, every lighted float and illuminated shrine, be the one chosen to typify the dead, or the returned soul of the dead. Of course the Lotus also is there, for this is a Buddhist as well as a Shinto Holy Day, and the spirit food is set out in Buddhist fashion on Lotus leaves. Models of spirit horses and oxen are also supplied—images made of straw, or perhaps of vegetables. A cucumber with four pegs stuck in it simulates a horse; an eggplant, with wooden or bamboo legs, is the usual type of an ox. White lanterns are lit at the grave itself, coloured ones at the gateways of houses, to illuminate the coming and going of the visiting dead. A ghost can find its way back to its own home and haunts by
- ↑ There is a goddess also of the Rice Pot—O-Kama-Sama—worshipped in the kitchen. It should be remarked that the local gods are those usually invoked in these Shinto rites, and that they differ in name and character in different places. Lafcadio Hearn, in Japan, an Interpretation, says: “It is not to the Buddhas that the farmer prays for bountiful harvests, or for rain in time of drought; it is not to the Buddhas that thanks are rendered for a plentiful rice-crop; but to the local god.”
