Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/105

 weaver and the embroiderer depicted on the robes of this motley concourse, whose units, each disguised according to his or her fancy, as chair-bearers, as sorcerers, as pilgrims, as sailors, as grooms, as pedlars, as nurses, as dumpling-hucksters, as publicans, as apprentices, as anything and everything that did not ape aristocracy or trespass upon the domain of the patrician, danced, for hour after hour, in a maze of graceful or grotesque movement, to the music of drum and flute. Many words might be squandered on attempts to describe these dances, so delightful to Japanese senses, but the impression verbally conveyed must be at best a mere shadow of the reality. Sometimes the performers are tiny maidens, only seven or eight years old; sometimes men of fifty or upward are alone qualified. The tanabata dance on the seventh day of the seventh month, to celebrate the union of the Herd-boy Prince and Weaver Princess, is an example of the former. Each little lassie is dressed in strict conformity with a traditional model,—a lofty coiffure, gay with pins of silver and tortoise-shell; a damask kerchief jauntily knotted on the forehead; long sleeves tied into shoulder-puff's with white-satin cords; a richly decorated satin robe with crimson undergarment; a broad belt, embroidered and embossed with designs in gold and purple; a miniature drum, gilt and silk-stringed, with lacquered drum-stick, in the hands, and purple socks on the feet. Nurses, scarcely less