Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/170

 colored carvings representing groups of monkeys with eyes, or ears, or mouth covered with their paws—the signification being that one should neither see, hear, nor speak any evil. In one superbly-carved gate-way is a little medallion of two tigers, so cunningly studied and worked out that the curving grain and knots of the wood give all the softly-shaded stripes of their velvet coats and an effect of thick fur. One section of a carved column in this gate is purposely placed upsidedown, the builder fearing to complete so perfect and marvellous a piece of workmanship. Above another gate-way curls a comfortable sleeping cat, which is declared to wink when rain is coming, and this white cat has as great a fame as anything along the Daiyagawa.

The strangest hierophant in Nikko is the priestess who dances at the temple of Iyeyasu. She looks her threescore years of age, and is allowed a small temple to herself, where she sits, posed like an altar image, with a big money-box on the sacred red steps before her, into which the pious and the curious toss their offerings. Then the priestess rises and solemnly walks a few steps this way, a few steps that way, poses before each change, shakes an elaborate sort of baby’s rattle with the right-hand, and gesticulates with an open fan in the left-hand. The sedate walk to and fro, the movements of the rattle and fan constitute the dance, after which this aged Miriam sits down, bows her head to the mats, and resumes her statuesque pose. She wears a nun-like head-dress of white muslin, and a loose white garment, like a stole, over a red petticoat, the regular costume of the Shinto priestesses. She seems always amiable and ready to respond to a conciliatory coin, but the visitor wonders that the cool and shaded sanctuary in which she sits, with nearly the whole front wall making an open door, does not stiffen her aged joints with rheumatism and end her dancing days. 154