Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/27

 ago by a Korean craftsman, and how it used once to be a prominent object in the procession, three men within each leg, and a band of musicians in Korean costume preceding it. The genuine Tōkyō man—the Yedokko, or child of Yedo, as he loves to call himself—and the orthodox citizen of aristocratic Kyōtō have a thousand traditions to relate about these festivals, a thousand respectful tales to tell about their paraphernalia, and each city regards them as the red-letter day of its chronicles. It does not fall to the lot of many Occidentals to see one of the great fêtes, and, indeed, their glory, like the glory of so many of Japan's old institutions, is rapidly passing away. Here, then, may be set down the order of the Sano procession:—


 * Two large and two small hata (strips of white cotton cloth, from one and a half to two feet wide and from ten to thirty feet long, fastened, sail-wise, to bamboo poles and having the names of the tutelary deities inscribed in immense ideographs).
 * A halberdier and a spear-bearer.
 * Two big drums carried by eleven men.
 * Two men with hyoshi-gi (wooden blocks for striking together).
 * Two flautists.
 * A Dog of Fo (Shishi no Kashira) borne by twenty-four men.
 * A Shintō priest on horseback.
 * Three gigantic spears borne by thirty-two men.
 * A Shintō priest on horseback.
 * The sacred horses of the principal deities.
 * The sacred sword.