expression and of attracting attention direct to oneself, a behaviour privilege reserved to older people.
The songs are accompanied by the samisen,[1] a stringed instrument played by a woman, while the dances are performed by both men and women. The more indecent dances involving suggestive forward and backward jerks of the hips and an occasional loosening of the upper part of the kimono to expose the breast are performed, for the most part, by older women.
These folksongs and dances bring out two interesting contrasts in Japanese peasant life. One of these is the formality of the opening phases of a banquet with elaborate seating arrangements in order of rank, age, and sex, neatly placed trays containing food carefully arranged and of set quality and type according to the occasion, a formal request to partake by the hostess, and perhaps a few formal speeches in regard to a wedding or a departing soldier. Throughout this opening formal period of the banquet everyone sits stiffly on his knees until finally, formalities over, the host tells his guests to be at ease. This is the signal for everyone to cross his legs in front of him, begin eating and exchanging drinks. The conversation becomes general and loud, and the formal seating arrangement is shattered as people go from place to place to exchange drinks, or play Kuma-gen, a special finger game (played only by men). Soon some woman brings out a samisen and the party is on. In general, the more important the occasion, the stiffer the opening formalities of a banquet and the noisier and bawdier the subsequent period of song and dance.
The other marked contrast in village life is the difference in behavior at a party of a young girl and an older woman. While the women at a banquet become literally the life of the party, young girls neither sing nor dance, but instead demurely carry out their duties of serving the guests and pouring drinks. They never drink themselves, neither do they smoke. This contrast between young unmarried girls and old mothers of children, so marked at a banquet, is but an accentuation of a general condition in village life where a woman begins to smoke and drink only after the birth of a child, and where the older she becomes the freer she may be in her conversation. The extreme sexuality of some women at banquets may be a reflection of severe repression or deprivation in daily routine farm life.[2]
- ↑ Called in the local dialect shami.
- ↑ An interesting custom which may also be related to this behavior is that of women masquerading as men on certain occasions, the commonest being the return home of a soldier or other traveller from afar. At this time a number of women from the traveller’s hamlet don some old clothes of their menfolk and join the welcoming group of villagers at the outskirts of the village. In addition to the clothes, makeshift masks are worn to hide the iden-
