Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/191

 sustain a man during violent exercise, since it is only by his profound inhalations under such circumstances that oxygen is supplied to the stomach in sufficient quantities for the digestion of the grain. The same consideration explains the gastric disorders from which the upper classes in Japan suffer; their sedentary habits render a rice diet particularly indigestible.

The kago is indirectly responsible for a considerable growth of the tattooing habit in Japan. A strange conception that prevails in Europe and America about the attitude of the Japanese towards tattooing is illustrated by the fact that a large percentage of the European and American gentlemen visiting Japan get themselves tattooed. But no Japanese gentleman is ever tattooed. Such a thing was never heard of. And the same is true of the Japanese peasant, the Japanese merchant, the Japanese artisan, the Japanese fisherman, and even the Japanese mendicant. Tattooing is nothing more or less than a substitute for clothing; and its use is consequently confined to men whose arduous labour requires them to strip their bodies, and who, while so stripped, come under the observation of the better classes. These conditions were essentially fulfilled in the case of the betto (groom) that ran before his master's horse, and, above all, in that of the kumosuke that carried a kago. Parts of the body visible under ordinary circumstances—as the face, the hands, and the legs below the knee