Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/272

 travelling eastward. The nose of a tiger suspended from the middle of a "ventilating panel" (ramma) ensures the birth of a male child, and barrenness may be cured by swallowing thrice on a certain day of the sexagenary calendar powdered blossoms of the ginko and the peach dried in shade on another fixed day of the same calendar.

The realm of dreamland is peopled with superstitions. As in the Occident so in Japan, the dreamer looks for a reality the opposite of what he sees in his visions, and he also employs the device of placing an object under his pillow to procure a lucky dream. A picture of the "treasure-ship" (takara-bune) laden with riches and navigated by the Seven Gods of Fortune, is frequently used on New Year's Eve for that purpose, and a sketch of the Baku — a tapir supposed to swallow evil dreams — is considered efficacious for averting unlucky visions. The latter purpose may also be achieved by placing one of the person's wooden clogs erect and the other face downward when going to bed. Some rustics never fail to go under a mulberry-tree and repeat three times inaudibly the details of the preceding night's dream. Otherwise calamity is inevitable. Special significance attaches to certain objects seen in dreams, as is the case in all countries. A conflagration witnessed in sleep portends the birth of a child among one's relatives; a woman who has a vision of a sword may expect a lover; and of all objects presenting them-