1985/7 Japan

25 October 1986
Posted 27.10 86; received 04.11.86

Hey guys! How come no letter yet!? I’ve just spent a fantastic morning. Having been to Rub-a-Dub again last night, this time with a woman who makes kimono cloth and a man who buys kimono cloth for sale in the States, and having cycled home in the rain and having gone to bed at 4.30am, I was tempted to lie abed instead of attending the rice harvest festival at the Fushimi Inari shrine. But now I’m really glad I didn’t. This is the shrine where I photographed all the children last year in their kimonos. The deities worshipped here protect basic necessities like clothing, housing and food. An estimated 10,000,000 visitors come to pay their respects each year. This morning prayers were said in a beautiful vermillion hall with highly lacquered floors. Shrine maidens dressed in wide orange trousers and flowing white tops performed a sacred dance using scythes and clumps of rice. They were accompanied by yet more maidens and priests dressed in pale turquoise and white and black. The instruments included drums and flutes and kotos. Shinto music is really haunting. Unusual woody sounds from strange and ancient instruments. All movements slow and precise and synchronised. Offerings of fruit and vegetables and rice cake were made to the deities. And the harvesters blessed as they sat watching the ceremony. Both men and women dressed in strange trousers. The first pair snug and tied to their calves. A second baggy pair, like knickerbockers, over the first. All carrying straw hats. Different shapes for the men and the women. The prayers over, we were led through the woods – priests, maidens, harvesters in the lead – to the ceremonial rice field. There were very few sightseers and it was almost eerie to follow the white-clad priests in their flowing robes thru’ the trees. Like some ancient ritual – which I suppose it is, but you could really FEEL it today. Scythes were taken from a box which had been carried from the shrine, hanging from a pole, by two men. They were distributed and the harvesters, in their straw sandals, moved into the fields where they began to cut the rice. While the maidens danced and sang and made their music magic. And the priests sat tall and straight and watched. Each worker would cut three or four clumps of rice – each cut making a crunching sound like someone chewing a carrot – and then tie them together with a leaf. Ripe rice is the most beautiful colour. Gold and a very light innocent green. The ceremony over, the entire cavalcade made its way back thru’ the woods to the shrine where they dispersed. (The enclosed pic is the rice PLANTING festival, but the costumes are the same, or similar.)

Afterwards I bought a strange little wooden doll which has no eyes painted on its face. The purchaser is supposed to paint in ONE eye and make a wish. When the wish comes true, you paint in the other eye. While buying it, I met an American social worker who is working here and we went out for lunch together. Very pleasant.

Tonight I’m having dinner with Gary and Nancy, the two I met last night.

I’ll call you on the 1st, OK.

WRITE
Lotsaluv
Gail

Sunday morning P.S.

I just had to tell you about last night, so I opened the envelope to add this page. After dinner, I went with Gary and Nancy and Søren from Denmark to John McGee’s house. John McGee is Canadian and has been in Japan studying the Tea Ceremony for 15 years. He has served tea to Nancy Reagan, Charles and Di, Samora Machel, etc, etc. And has some very funny stories to tell. He has a wonderful gentle aura about him and lives in the most beautiful home. He also deals in antiques and has filled his beautiful home – old Japanese in style – with beautiful things. Straight-backed chairs from China. Balinese gongs. Persian carpets. Nancy called her ‘boyfriend’ and he came to join us. Apparently he is very famous for his woodblock prints. He is Norwegian, but has been here for 33 years. He also happens to be an obnoxious piece of work and despite the fact that I took an almost instant dislike to him, of which I’m sure he was aware, he ended up giving me a Japanese foot massage! Nancy, who spent 4 ½ years in the US navy and tells stories of flying a helicopter out to an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific and being the only woman among 5000 men, explained the significance of the wooden doll to me. His name is Daimaru. Daimaru was a Buddhist sage who believed he could achieve his goal of nirvana by sitting at the wall (meditating). This he did for 9 years until his legs rotted away. But even as he toppled over he attained, apparently, the state which he desired. The little doll has no legs and is weighted in such a way that if you knock it over it pops up again – like that ashtray we used to have. It is good for one wish only. Interesting, hey?

Bye for now.