Rejoice
These lines, said to be rokuchōshi in Suye, were written on a paper attached to a stone Jizō brought into a wedding hall during a banquet by some young men of the hamlet. However, the song is evidently a variation of the Satsuma Shonga Bushi as recorded by Kodera.[1]
It is the custom in Kuma for a stone image of Jizō to be brought into the house of a wedding by some hamlet young men with their faces covered by towels. These young men rush in with their load during the banquet in the midst of ribald jokes, and then hastily retire to the kitchen where the women give them some wine. The bringing of Jizō into the house is a ritual precaution against the possibility of the bride’s running home. A few days after the wedding the bride makes a little bib for Jizō and he is returned to his usual roadside niche. Jizō is, among other things, a deity of children, so that a more basic significance of this whole custom is to insure fertility in the bride and to emphasize the basic function of marriage, i.e., the begetting of children.
In form this song is dodoitsu 7-7-7-5 with an extra 7-5 couplet.
| 75 | Iwae medetaya |
Rejoice, be happy. |
- ↑ Text of Satsuma Shonga Bushi:
Ureshi medeta no
Wakamatsu sama yo
Yeda mo sakaeru
Ha mo shigeru
A shonga
