Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/31

 time, give displays of their skill. They are called tekomai, the name of an ancient dance, consisting chiefly of graceful hand-waving. In the course of centuries, performers as well as performance have come to be designated by the same term. These dainty little lasses do not robe themselves for the purposes of the festival in the delicately hued garments and glowing girdles with which they know so well how to enhance the lamplight effect of their charms. They dress in the small-sleeved tunic, tight-legged trousers, and narrow cincture of the common workman (shigoto-shi), and it is their coy fancy to ape the sombre hue as well as the ungraceful shape of that low fellow's habiliments. But beyond the bounds of cut and colour their feminine instinct rises in vehement rebellion. The tunic and the girdle become meadow-lands of embroidered bloom and verdure; things of costly loveliness to be cheered by the delighted crowd, applauded in private by the Don Juans of the district, and discussed despairingly by chagrined rivals. There is a hidden significance in the presence of the arch and innocent-looking tekomai. It is a lover that pays for her elaborate and most ephemeral costume; it is a lover that cuts off her raven tresses,—for even to queue and top-knot the masculine mode is affected,—and it is a lover that defrays the charges of her idle life and the fees of her employers until her hair grows again to evening-party length. So, while she seems to proclaim