Page:Japanese Peasant Songs.djvu/71

Weeding Song
(Kusatori Uta, also called Yoshinbo)

Weeding is an arduous task involving backbreaking work in the paddy fields under a hot June sun. As might be expected this work is a woman’s occupation. The words of the “weeding” song have nothing to do with the job, and as a matter of fact the song is little sung in Suye Mura. The third stanza was given as a part of the Bon song (71–4) by some. All three stanzas are given in Tanabe’s Folksongs of Kuma and the version given there is followed here since the author’s text of this song is incomplete. The form is a somewhat irregular dodoitsu.

68	Yushimbu[1] koromo ni Momi[2] no ura tsukete Nan to tsutsume do Iro ni deru Ōsa yushimbu[1]	Neophyte has in his kimono A red lining; However he tries to cover it It still shows.
69	Yushimbu Yushimbu to Na wa yūcha kurunna Yagate Fumonji no Tera wo tsugu Ōsa yushimbu	Neophyte, neophyte, Don’t call me that. Soon at Fumonji temple He’ll be the successor.
70	Fumonji otera kata Motomachi mireba Terujo shengamejo ga Dete maneku Ōsa yushimbu	From Fumonji temple, As you look to Motomachi The girls come out And beckon.

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1. Tanabe gives Yoshinbo, but the local pronunciation is Yushimbu. The word means a neophyte at a Buddhist temple, and also has the meaning of a useless fellow.
2. Momi, ‘red lining,’ also ‘restless’ (from momu). The idea of this stanza is (a) that no matter how he tries that neophyte can’t disguise his lowly status in the temple or (b) that a good-for-nothing person always has some stigmata or (c) a secondary sexual symbolism—this last is not certain as I have nothing definite to that effect in my notes.