by the pains some people are at to tell you
how they doze in their dentist's chair.
From the head priest's house we made our
way up a hill to the temple. As we turned
the corner of the outer buildings we caught
sight, at the farther end of the grounds,
of so startling a scaffold that we all instinc-
tively came to a point — of admiration —
before it. Evidently this was the material
means to the miracle, for against it a ladder.
66 OCCULT JAPAN.
with notches suggestively vacant of rungs,
led up to a frail plank platform raised aston-
ishingly high into the air. We had somehow-
assumed that the sword-walking took place
on the flat, and not, as it appeared it was to
be done, skyward.
When we had sufficiently recovered from
our first surprise to examine this startling
structure, we found it to consist of four stout
poles, planted securely in the earth, and
braced by cross-ties, holding two thirds way
up the above-mentioned platform, upon which
stood a shrine. The height of this upper
story above the ground proved to be thirteen
feet. Upon a secular ladder at the side some
priests were giving a few finishing touches
to the work.
Inclosing the scaffold stood four fronded
bamboo, one at each corner of a square, con-
nected eight feet up by a straw rope, with
sixteen goJiei, four on a side, pendent from
it. This poetic palisade kept out the evil
spirits ; a bamboo railing below kept out
small boys.
Upon the shrine above, which was simply
a deal table, stood, dignifiedly straight, and
commandingly lined in a row, three gohei
MIRACLES. 67
upon their wands. In front of them, upon a
lower table, stood five others, colored respec-
tively, yellow, red, black, white, and blue, the
five far eastern elemental colors. The upper
row represented the gods of construction,
placed here to keep an eye on the scaftbld-
ing ; the lower, the gods of the earth. Flank-
ing the gohei stood two branches of sakaki,
the sacred tree of Shinto, draped with lace-
like filaments of gohei. At the corners of
the platform four tufted bamboo, joined by a
straw-rope hung with gohei, made a second
palisade, miniature of the one below ; while
from a pole at the back floated a banner in-
scribed : Heavenly Gods, Earthly Gods.
Half way up the scaffold two paper pla-
cards, one on either side the ladder, challenged
the eye. The right-hand one gave the func-
tions and functionaries of the festival : the
Principal Purifier, the Vice-Purifier, the Chief
of Offerings, the Purifying Door, and the
God-Arts ; the offices preceded, the names of
the persons followed. The other specified
the various functions of the God-Arts them-
selves, and the names of those who bore
them, a certain Mr. Konichi being down as
Drawing the Bow. This, it seemed, was to
68 OCCULT JAPAN.
be taken in a purely ceremonial sense, the
real archer being Mr. Kobayashi.
For his benefit, four short posts about four
feet high had been planted directly under the
platform, ready to receive two swords, on
the blades of which he was to stand while
engaged in his act. We could not help won-
dering how he was to get upon them. In-
deed, the elevating nature of the whole per-
formance was not the least impressive part
of it. The reason for this lay, we were told,
in the intrinsic purity of high places, because
above the ordinary level of mankind. Cer-
tainly, with a ladder of sword-blades for sole
means of approach, the platform above did
not seem likely to prove overcrowded.
On the left stood the Kagura-do or dan-
cing-stage, filled with musicians, who were at
the moment engaged in tuning up — not a
highly melodious performance at best. They
kindly desisted to let us lunch upon the
stage, which we did while the other prepara-
tions went on, to the open-mouthed enjoy-
ment of many small villagers, who had already
begun to collect for the occasion. As soon
as lunch was over the swords were brought
out. They had not been lashed in place
MIRACLES. 69
before, in order that we might first inspect
them. This we now did to our satisfaction.
They were, one and all, old samurai blades,
as sharp as one would care to handle — from
the hilt — and much sharper than he would
care to handle in any less legitimate manner.
They certainly did not seem adapted to tread-
ing on, even tentatively. There were twelve
of them, all loans from the neighborhood,
and heirlooms, every one, from knightly
times — not so great an antiquity as it
sounds, since the middle ages were but
twenty years ago. But I should never have
imagined so many retired knights or their
heirs in so very retired a hamlet. The blades
themselves bore evidence, however, of hav-
ing been possessed and probably used for
quite an indefinite time by their owners ; and
this touch of local domesticity imparted a
certain sincerity to the act artistically con-
vincing in itself.
The swords were then lashed in place.
But as the divine archery was to precede
the divine climb, and there were twelve sets
of notches in the ladder and but twelve
blades in all, those destined for its two lower
rungs were lashed first upon the shooting-
70 OCCULT JAPAN.
Stand. The ladder measured fifteen feet in
length, the rungs being about a Japanese
foot, fifteen inches of our feet, apart ; doubt-
less such distance being found in practice
the most comfortable. After securely tying
on the swords, blades up, the priests de-
parted to dress for the function.
Meanwhile a capital pantomime was in
progress upon the dancing-stage. A dance-
hall is an invariable feature of every well-
appointed Shinto temple, and is put in play
on every possible occasion. The performers
are sometimes girls, sometimes men, the
former doing the serious dancing and the
latter the jocose mimes. Both are always
capital, and on this occasion I think the
show outdid itself. Certainly it proved
comic enough to keep the religious in roars.
Three buffoons in fine pudding-faced masks
engaged in turn in an altercation with an
impressive gray-beard. The altercation was
of an intermittent character owing to the
necessity felt by the pudding-faced citizen
• of taking the audience into his confidence
by elaborate asides of side-splitting simpli-
city, digressions which in no wise prevented
the row's proper emotional increase, till at
MIRACLES. 71
last it culminated in a fight which the gray-
beard, who did nothing but stalk round with
a fine woodeny walk, invariably won. This
was due quite simply to his god-like great-
ness, and not to the fact that his adversary
went through the fight with his scabbard in
lieu of his sword, having with elaborate in-
advertence drawn the one for the other, a
mistake at which he was subsequently pro-
portionately surprised. All this, of course,
detracted not a whit from the sanctity of
the performance, which, like that of orato-
rios, came in with the historical characters
the performers were supposed to represent.
In the mean time the countryside had
been silently gathering. The ubiquitous
little girl with the pick-a-back baby appeared
first. Her familiars followed ; the waifs
growing in stature as they grew in numbers.
I did not see them come ; I only saw them
there. And they made as modest a setting
to the miracle as do the mountings to a
Japanese painting. There was about them,
indeed, a little of the ecstatic stupor of the
cow, but the usual bovine stare of modern
Japanese curiosity was here tempered by
instinctive old-fashioned politeness.
72 OCCULT JAPAN.
A Japanese street-crowd pleasingly lacks
that brutality which distinguishes a western
one ; on the other hand, it has a stare of
its own, an unobstrusively obstrusive stare,
which knows no outlawing limit of age, and
has a vacancy in it that almost bars offense.
Apparently it is never outgrown. It alone
would convict the race of a lack of self-con-
sciousness and very nearly of a lack of any
consciousness whatsoever. I love the Japan-
ese urchin for all that, whether staring or
not, but to me advanced age in the starer
stales the infinite unvariety of his act. Or-
derly, however, and good-natured, a Japanese
crowd is past praise, and one would think
past policemen, which is not, I suppose, why
the latter always turn up at such seasons.
Here, however, I was much pleased to note
their conspicuous absence. And still the
concourse grew. When I first counted the
folk they numbered one hundred and fifty.
Shortly after, as near as I could estimate,
there were two hundred and fifty people on
the spot, of all ages, sizes, and conditions.
The whole countryside had turned out, with
or without the baby, according as it existed
or not. Nobody's occupation seemed to in-
MIRACLES. 73
terfere with his presence there in the least,
from the village ragamuffin to the village
belle. Charming girls I noticed in the act
of commenting upon us, I trust favorably ;
for, as one of my friends puts it about his
books, I would rather please the young girls
than the old men.
But though we had not reckoned with-
out our host, we had reckoned, it soon turned
out, without our uninvited guest — the in-
evitable policeman. Just as we had taken
chairs on the oratory platform, and had for-
gotten his existence, he turned up. He did
so inopportunely for himself, for the first
prayer had begun, and he had perforce to
wait till it was over to put his official ques-
tions. The prayer was the first of the puri-
fication rites, and was offered before an im-
provised altar on the oratory. The altar was
set out as the customary divine dinner-table
and displayed the usual choice collection of
indigestibles ; fortunately always to be taken
in a strictly immaterial manner. For every
Shinto service is nothing but a divine din-
ner-party, with the god for sole guest. In
this case the aboriginal banquet was offered
to the gohei of 0-ana-muchi-no-mikoto, the
patron god of the occasion.
74 OCCULT JAPAN.
The adjournment made the policeman's
opportunity. Stiffly lifting his hat, as if the
action were itself part of bureaucratic au-
tomatism, he challenged a lay brother on the
oratory steps and proceeded to interview
him on the cause of the crowd. Apparently
the lay brother worsted him, for at the end
of the colloquy he was so far humbled as
simply to send me his card, with the modest
request to know if I were a noble, as in that
case he wished to salute me properly ; to
which I returned mine with the reply that
T was not a noble, but an American, and
therefore only the sixty-millionth part of
a sovereign, and left him to figure out the
respect due in so complicated a case.
The occasion, however, soon had a human-
izing effect even upon his officialdom, so
that he shortly grew quite tame and ac-
cepted at the hands of the lay brother a seat
upon the platform beside us.
Meanwhile the priests were busy with
prayers and finger-charms on the mats at
the foot of the ladder, and when enough of
them had been restored there took place a
solemn walk-round by the whole company
about the staging.
MIRACLES. 75
Mr. Konichi, the Sacred Bow, and
Mr. Kobayashi, the Chief of God-Arts, then
armed themselves with two beautiful bows
beribboned at the end with a tangle of col-
ored gohei of the five elemental colors, and
proceeded, the one to mount by the secular
ladder, which had not yet been removed, to
the altar above, where he went through much
pantomimic archery ; the other to do like
effigy-shooting below. The Chief of the
God-Arts was specially effective. Stretching
his bow at each corner of the square in turn,
he made semblance to shoot at the demons,
and accentuated his performance by quite
unearthly grimaces. He knotted first his
fingers and then his face in a truly startling
manner. Nature had endowed him with a
remarkably expressive physiognomy, which
even in repose bordered perilously upon
caricature. When this came to be further
heightened by art, as enthusiastic perform-
ance of the rite demanded, the effect was
extreme, quite capable of driving off devils,
which was its object, and very nearly of driv-
ing off the bystanders, which was not. The
pious saw in it the most realistic piety.
What the children saw I will not pretend to
^6 OCCULT JAPAN.
guess, but I can conceive the nightmares
they may have had in consequence.
When he had thus successfully frightened
off the evil spirits without, he entered
within the staging, and before the arrow-
stand further scared the imps. As the exor-
cism drew to an end and we began once more
to wonder how he was going to mount his
hobby-horse, the big drum was brought by
somebody and set up beside the stand. This
solved the enigma and enabled the Chief of
God-Arts, with the help of a pole, to rise
carefully to the ends of the posts and to
place first one foot and then the other
lengthwise upon the blades, the forward
edges coming out between his great and
second toes. He then discarded the pole, as
I have seen more secular performers do, to
the catch of an assistant, and stood poised
upon the knife-edges. Not content with
standing upon them, he must needs tilt
himself up and down as one does in
testing the breaking power of a plank.
This, of course, merely showed how much at
home he felt upon the blades. Then with
due deliberation he fitted an arrow into its
notch, raised the bow, and drew it to his
MIRACLES. yy
shoulder. In this effective pose he re-
mained a long time, uttering what sounded
uncommonly like an oath, but was in fact a
song, sister to this : —
" The God of the Bow bends down from on high,
And at twang of the string, lo ! the demons fly."
The string, however, did not twang. For
the exorcism continued, and the bow stayed
bent. Indeed, the one was as long drawn
out as the other, and the suspense was be-
coming positively painful, when at last he
released the arrow into the air. The de-
mons had evidently taken the hint, for the
arrow buried itself harmlessly in the bushes.
With the assistance of the pole he then
changed his pose a quarter way round, plant-
ing first one foot and then the other care-
fully across both blades. Then discarding the
pole, he again went through the same pan-
tomime as before, ending in a second release.
His pose at this point was quite magnificent,
and his intentness such that as with his eye
he followed the arrow's flight, his whole
audience instinctively did the same. We
failed to see the shaft strike, and, turning
back, behold ! there it was still in his hand.
78 OCCULT JAPAN.
Whether economy or the remains of original
sin prompted this pious framd, I know not,
but he thus deceived us more than once, as
he turned round quarter-wise upon his holy
pedestal. Once he hit a tree, quite by acci-
dent, and the crowd applauded. After he
had* thus revolved several times, he called
again for the pole and carefully descended
from his pinnacle. I examined his soles and
found them not only uncut, but barely lined ;
an unhurt condition which he shortly pro-
ceeded to demonstrate practically upon the
ladder.
The divine shooting was no sooner over
than the purification rites for the climbing
of the ladder began ; the usual thread of
prayer knotted with finger-twists being
gone through with upon the mats in front.
Then, that there might be no mistake in the
minds of the populace as to the genuine-
ness of the miracle, the Chief of God-Arts as-
cended the secular ladder, which still leaned
against the platform, and producing sheets of
paper from his sleeve, cut them elaborately
into little bits upon each blade in succession,
and let the pieces flutter to the ground.
When he had finished the secular ladder
was removed.
MIRACLES. 79
Nothing now led up to the goal of this
acrobatic pilgrimage but the consecrated
ladder of sword-blades. Ad astra per aspera
with a vengeance. Nevertheless the Chief
of God-Arts, calling once more upon the
gods, prepared to mount. Girding up his
loins that his feet might not catch in his
tunic, and grasping parts of the upper blades
with his hands, he planted one foot length-
wise along the lowest sword-edge, and then,
drawing himself up to its level, placed the
other similarly on the blade above. Then
he rose in like manner to the third rung, and
the fourth, and so on heavenward. He did
this carefully but deliberately. Evidently
it was merely a question of foot-placing with
him.
The higher he got the less he seemed to
think of his footing and the more of effect,
till in mid-ascent he was minded to \.xy a.
religious pas sent. Posing on one foot, he
turned deftly to face the crowd, and with
the appropriate swing kicked out with the
other high into the air, flaunting his foot
before the rapt concourse of people in the
most approved p7-wia assohita manner. At
this unexpected terpsichorean touch the
80 OCCULT JAPAN.
populace burst into applause ; and the Chief
of God-Arts, turning triumphantly to his
climb, continued boldly up till amid a gen-
eral gasp of relief from the crowd below he
topped the last rung and stepped out un-
scathed upon the platform.
Instantly he sank in prayer before the
shrine. While he was at his devotions the
second or secular ladder was brought round
to another side of the scaffolding and tilted
up against it, for what purpose did not at first
appear. For, his prayer finished, the Chief
of God-Arts turned again to the ladder of
swords and exorcised it afresh. Then just
as he was about to set foot on it for the
descent, as we thought, he turned back and
to our astonishment came quietly down the
secular ladder instead. I was unavoidably
reminded of the devout but inconsequent
lady who told a friend that " She thought
she should go to New York on Wednesday,
D. v.," but, reflecting a moment, "that she
should come back on Saturday anyway."
That his taking to the back-stairs for the
descent was not due, however, to any in-
ability on his part to come down by the
front ones was shortly evident by his mak-
MIRACLES. 8 1
ing soon after the ascent of the sword-blades
nonchalantly a second time. The truth was,
the miracle was supposed to end at the top,
and the secular ladder to be as invisible a
return to the original position as back-stairs
generally.
As the Chief of God-Arts came down thus
incognito by the back way, a second priest
made ready to go up by the front one. His
performance was largely a repetition of the
first's ; except that before starting the others
weighted him with some boxes full of charms,
which they strapped upon his back, to be
consecrated by the ascent for subsequent dis-
tribution. What he carried made apparently
no difference to him. He stepped up boldly
and, after due suspense on the part of the
populace, stepped out safely at the top.
The next to ascend was the head priest
himself. This was a special compliment to
us, since the head priest no longer habitu-
ally climbs, being well on in years. He
got up, however, with impunity, save for a
slight cut upon one palm. The third blade
from the top did the business. We had no-
ticed that the others had shied at it as if it
were very thin ice, and when it came to
82 OCCULT japan:
the older skin of the head priest, he simply
went through. This mishap conclusively
showed, the priests stated, that for some cause
the blade was impure. They were after-
wards able to prove their prognostication
quite right, for on subsequent investigation
the blade was found to have recently killed a
dog and not to have been properly purified
since.
After the head priest all the others went
up in turn, including the lay-brother ; some
of them several times. Planting the feet
lengthwise was the favorite mode of pro-
cedure, but when more convenient the foot
was put across the blade instead. To one
man in particular it seemed to make small
difference how he trod. He jumped jauntily
up as if the blades were an every-day set
of rungs and he in a hurry.
Inasmuch as imitation is the sincerest
flattery, the priests should have been greatly
pleased when at this point Asa, my house-
boy, fired to emulation, suddenly pulled off
his European boots and socks, rolled up his
European trousers, and presented himself as
candidate for the climb. To my eye the
outlandishness of his dress, amid the archaic
MIRACLES. 83
costume of the priests, gave him at once
that unsuitable appearance to the deed so
consecrated to the supposed countryman
who volunteers at the circus. I should cer-
tainly have had my doubts about the gen-
uineness of his inexperience had I not known
him for my own "boy." The priests, how-
ever, received him most kindly, and after
sprinkling him with a shower of sparks and
properly finger-twisting over him, to purify
him as much as possible, — and I doubt not
he needed it, — showed him how to plant his
feet on the rungs and started him up the
ladder. To my surprise, and I think his
own, he went as well as the best of them.
We watched him with some vanity and more
concern, and were suddenly electrified when,
half way to the top, he turned, and, with a
triumphant smile, made, he too, the approved
corypliie kick high into the air. It brought
down the house but not the boy, who con-
tinued on successfully till at last he stepped
out triumphantly at the top. He was obliged
to abbreviate the prayer, from not knowing
it, and then he too came down the regulation
back-stairs.
Exactly what happened after this is a mys-
84 OCCULT JAPAN.
tery. Whether in his exaltation and hurry
to get back to his place he forgot the pro-
jecting tips of the sword-blades, or whether
in coming round the corner he collided with
one of the priests, was not clear, for the first
thing we knew, the boy was on the ground
bleeding pretty freely from a gash in the top
of his foot, while the priests did their best to
stanch the blood. The point of one of the
swords had ripped him as he passed. Never-
theless, he shortly after hobbled to the ora-
tory veranda and then, while a proper bandage
was being fetched, promptly fainted. When
duly swathed he was dispatched to the head
priest's house, where he underwent consider-
able exorcism, which, as he informed me later,
did him a world of good. Evidently he pos-
sessed more latent piety than I had given
him credit for.
How many more enthusiasts might have
gone up the divine ladder had it not been for
this regrettable diversion will never be
known. For by tacit consent the episode
closed the performance.
It by no means, however, ended the fes-
tivity. Several pleasing adjuncts to this had
miraculously appeared, unperceived, during
MIRACLES. 85
the performance of the miracle itself. A
long hne of booth - mats had suddenly-
sprouted mushroom-like out of the ground
beyond the oratory and was now attempt-
ing to beguile the crowd by every species of
toy and gimcrack, visibly connected or un-
connected with the occasion. There were
paper masks and clay foxes and baby bows
and arrows and papier-mache swords. The
last caught our fancy, as being suited for
presentation to some of the urchins who
were standing interestedly about, and who
instantly put them to proper use by making
us the objects of pantomimic attack as soon
as ever our backs were turned.
Through this running fire we made our
way safely to the head priest's house, from
which, loaded with charms consecrated by
the miracle, we were bundled into our jinri-
kisha and trundled regretfully toward home.
And now to explain the miracle : —
Doubtless credulity is the mother of mir-
acles, but doubtless, also, with the far eastern
family of them a pachydermatous sole step-
fathers the process. For most of them are
questions of cuticle. Of the three great
Shinto rites : the Ordeal by Boiling Water ;
86 OCCULT JAPAN.
the Walking across Live Coals ; and the
Climbing upon Sword-blades, all depend upon
it for easy performance. That the average
Japanese sole is equal to the feat without
preliminary purification is evident from the
success of my boy, who simply picked up his
skirts and walked.
But a certain other physical fact enters
this last miracle not commonly appreciated,
to the innocent manipulation of which by
the priests the miracle is due ; to wit, the
immense difference in cutting power between
a stationary and a moving blade. Everybody
is aware that there is a difference, but few
people realize how very great it is. If you
press your finger upon the sharp edge of
your knife, you will be surprised to find what
a pressure you can put upon it with impu-
nity ; but if, ever so gently, you draw the