Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/147

 or four representations, in wood, ivory, or bronze, of the tsuina, or demon-expelling ceremony. In the artist's hands it takes the form of a devil flying from a shower of beans directed against him by a householder in gala costume. The whole ceremony, as practised by the people, is sufficiently depicted by this brief description. On the last night of the old year, the night that divides (setsubun) winter from spring, parched beans are scattered about the house, with repeated utterance of the formula "Out devils, enter fortune" (oni soto fuku uchi). There was a time when this rite was performed in the Imperial Court on an imposing scale. Four bands of twenty youths, each wearing a four-eyed mask, a black surcoat, and a red body garment, and each carrying a halberd in the left hand, marched simultaneously from the four gates of the Palace, driving the devils before them. A great plague at the beginning of the eighth century suggested the need of this ceremony, and China furnished the programme; but modern Japan is content to bombard with beans the sprite of ill-luck, trusting bacteriologists to exorcise the imps of pestilence. Some of the ancient customs, however, have not changed with the times. Industrious women still make offerings of broken needles at the temple of Awashima on the 8th of the month, and still abstain from all sewing on that day. In every home there is still a grand "smut sweeping" (susuharai,) sometimes on the 13th, some-