: Critical Miscellanies Vol. 1 Essay 5: Emerson by Morley John - Emerson Ralph Waldo 1803-1882

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The Japanese New Year's Festival, Games and Pastimes

BY HELEN C. GUNSAULUS Assistant Curator of Japanese Ethnology

FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

CHICAGO

Field Museum of Natural History Department of Anthropology

Chicago, 1923

Leaflet Number 11

The Japanese New Year's Festival, Games and Pastimes

THE NEW YEAR'S FESTIVAL

Of the many festivals enjoyed in Japan, none is attended with more ceremony than that which opens with the New Year and is celebrated with more or less formality for fourteen days. It was customary in the old days to celebrate the New Year at the time when the plum first blossomed and when winter began to soften into spring, somewhere between the middle of January and the middle of February. Since the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, this festival opens on January 1st, and is attended by many of the interesting ceremonies that were practised in former times. On the thirteenth day of the preceding month, a special stew is made from red beans, potatoes, mushrooms, sliced fish and a root . About this time a cleaning of the house takes place. It is partly ceremonial and partly practical, and is known as "soot-sweeping" . Servants are presented with gifts of money and a short holiday.

The streets during the New Year's festival are veritable playgrounds; stilt walking, rope pulling and jumping, top spinning and ball playing are all indulged in. Kite-flying is perhaps the most conspicuous sport, for kites of many shapes and sizes are sent up by all lads on these days. In Japan kite-flying is not only more picturesque than with us, on account of the use of such fantastic forms as double fans, birds, butterflies, cuttlefish or huge portraits of heroes in brilliant colors and unusual proportions, but it is also apt to be a very exciting sport. Occasionally opponents try to capture an enemy's kite. Competitive kite-flying is accomplished by covering the first ten or twenty feet of the kite string with fish glue or rice paste, and then dipping it into pounded glass or porcelain. On hardening, this portion of the string becomes a series of tiny blades which when crossed with another string at high tension can soon saw away the kite of the adversary. It is also customary to attach a strip of whale bone or a bow of bamboo to the large kites, so that on ascending a loud humming is produced which adds to the excitement of the flight. Only boys and men fly kites in Japan.

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