Bon Song
(Shonga Odori Uta)
Bon or, as it is more often referred to, Obon, is a period in the middle of the seventh month when the spirits of the dead are believed to return to earth and revisit their former homes. The season is marked by a number of ritual observances such as cleaning the graves and placing special offerings in the butsudan or household shrine. During the evenings of Bon special dances were formerly performed by the villagers outdoors in some open area. These were group dances, the performers forming a large circle dancing to the accompaniment of a drum and a song leader, both of whom reinforced themselves with wine as the dark hours passed. The dancers joined in on the choruses. Here, unlike the banquet songs, the musicians and leaders were men. Both songs and dances frequently had some sexual elements and possibly some sexual license followed, especially among the young people. The custom of Bon dancing appears to be quite unrelated to Buddhism and the return of the spirits and may have antedated the advent of Buddhism in Japan.
There may be an ancient historical connection and functional resemblance between the old Japanese Bon dance and certain of the summer festivals of South China which formerly served as an occasion for sexual licence and a time of betrothal for the young people of the community (see Granet’s Festivals and Songs of Ancient China, most of which is taken up with this subject, and Waley’s Book of Songs, pp. 28–9.) Today many of the rural Bon dances have been suppressed by the government, while more or less bowlderized and commercialized forms have been retained in some of the towns and cities. The dance of Suye Mura is now forgotten and only a few old people even remember the verses.
Shonga may mean ginger and thus have a phallic significance, or it may be simply a kind of refrain. Kodera says this refrain is widespread in Kyūshū and that it may derive from sōka, ‘is that so?’ He gives a version of the third stanza (72) as coming from Hiroshima.
In form the song follows a regular dodoitsu pattern. Numbers 73 and 74 are simply doubled dodoitsu. The verses and refrain are sung or rather chanted very slowly, each vowel being prolonged and an occasional syllable repeated: e.g., Odoraren becomes ōdo, ōdōrārenu.
| 71 | Shonga odori nya |
In the shonga dance |
- ↑ See comment on this word in the description preceding this song.
