Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/35

 a murderer and makes offerings at the shrine of a rebel or a robber. One may "abhor the sin without hating the sinner," "loathe the priest yet love the stole." These subtle distinctions might not receive ready recognition from a Madison Square pugilist or an Alhambra ballet-girl, but tradition has taught them to the wrestler of Ekoin and the geisha of Yanagi-bashi. If the Government held up a ringer, the pilgrimages to Nishino's grave would cease; if the Emperor made a gesture of dissent, the image of a rebellious subject would not be carried in triumphal procession past the Palace gates. But the real significance of these demonstrations is not mistaken in Japan.

Greater than either the Sano festival or the Kanda festival is the Gion-matsuri in Kyōtō, the greatest, indeed, of all such celebrations in Japan. Like the Tōkyō fêtes, however, it consists essentially of a magnificent procession. The difference is in the nature of the objects of worship. Prominent among these is a halberd forged by the celebrated swordsmith Sanjo Munechika. It is supposed to be endowed with the virtue that once belonged to a king's touch in Europe: raised reverentially to the head, it cures the ague. This blessed blade has the honour of riding, a hundred feet high, on a resplendent dashi, at the head of a line of twenty-three cars bearing effigies of celebrated scholars, of Chinese philosophers, of the