Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/269

 is written on the inside of a saké cup, and water from the cup is drunk by the sufferer. In case of dysentery the sick person, facing westward, swallows seven peas with some well-water drawn at dawn on the 1st of July, and intermittent fever is driven away by swallowing a paper on which is written the phrase, "The leaf falls and the ship sails." Such fantastic nostrums are innumerable. Sometimes a malady is treated by tying together a snake-gourd and a section of bamboo, the latter bearing this inscription: "My disease is hereby transferred to you. My name and age are," and throwing the whole into a river; sometimes the shell of a craw-fish is roasted and the odour inhaled; sometimes the skin is smeared with ink on which certain ideographs are traced; sometimes the whole body is rubbed with garlic. One of the most curious is the charm for removing a wen. The swelling is rubbed with a soja bean on the 7th of July; the bean is then planted in the hollow of the second tile on the southern face of the roof, and when the bean begins to sprout, boil- ing water is poured over it so that it withers away, the wen disappearing simultaneously.

Various methods are in vogue for exorcising evil influences. Branches of a peach-tree bending to the south and east are shaped into posts and erected at the corners of the house; or the blood of a white dog is smeared on all the entrances. A man desiring to be protected against calamity or accident traces in the air, with up-