Japan and the Japanese illustrated . ferings given to the bonzes. Ihen comes theturn of the coolies who have washed tlic body, of .those who have carried the coffin, andthe convent servants whose duties lie within the enclosure of the cemetery. JJutthis is not all ; a pious custom ordains tliat all persons of a certain station shall installa servant at the house door charged witli the distribution of alms, in small coins, to u 0 2 284 LIFE IN JAPAN all the poor, indiscriminately, who come to seek tliem. And also, on the return ofthe funeral procession, all the party are expected to take leave
Japan and the Japanese illustrated . ferings given to the bonzes. Ihen comes theturn of the coolies who have washed tlic body, of .those who have carried the coffin, andthe convent servants whose duties lie within the enclosure of the cemetery. JJutthis is not all ; a pious custom ordains tliat all persons of a certain station shall installa servant at the house door charged witli the distribution of alms, in small coins, to u 0 2 284 LIFE IN JAPAN all the poor, indiscriminately, who come to seek tliem. And also, on the return ofthe funeral procession, all the party are expected to take leave of the head of theaflBicted family, who testifies his gratitude by giving them a handsome repast. It is not, however, in these harassing expenses only that we must seek for the sourceof the hardly disguised impatience with which the Japanese discharge the last ofiicestowards their neighbours. The truth is, that though they are hardened to the sightof blood, and to scenes of homicide, they cannot overcome, even in the case of members. Kl-NKUAl. SEIIVUK IN IIJK HOUSK OF THE of their own family, the instinctive repugnance, the profound horror which the presenceor even tln^ vicinity of a corpse causes thrm, when the death has been a natural are, however, nul)le exceptions. Among the Japanese women, we find wivesand mothers, who, overcoming every supeistitious fear, know how to prove that loveis stronger than death; while the men nf the household consider themselves acquitted oftheir task when tluy have .sent for the bonzes to recite prayers, and for a barberand his coolie assistants, who lay out the corpse, and retire to smoke and drink atthe greatest possible distance from the chamber of death, the mother of the family BURIAL. 285 remains to the last beside the corpse of the husband or the son. During the first hoursof mourning, it is she wlio receives the condolences of the friends and prostrated on the reversed mat, at the foot of a screen
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidjapanjapanes, bookyear1874
