Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/335

 skirt of the brightest cardinal-red silk, and a white kimono, with square sleeves and pointed neck filled with alternate folds of red and white. When they dance they wear loose kimonos of white gauze, painted with the wistaria crest of the Kasuga temple, the front of the gauzy garment half covering the red skirt, and the back pieces trailing on the mats. Their faces are plastered so thickly with white paint that they lose all expression, and, following the old fashion, their eyebrows are shaved, and two tiny black dots high up in the middle of their foreheads take the place of them. With lips heavily rouged, the countenance is more a mask than a human face. The hair, gathered together at the back of the neck, is tied with loops of gold paper, and then, folded in soft white paper, allowed to hang down the back. Long hair-pins, with clusters of wistaria and red camellia, are thrust across the top of the head, and fastened so that they stand out like horns over the forehead. In detail the costume is not pretty, but in its general effect it is singularly bright and picturesque.

One may have as many sacred dancers and as long a dance as he will pay for, and as soon as the money is received the two priests get into their ceremonial white gowns and high black hats, and, sitting before the ancient drums, chant, pound, and blow on doleful pipes an accompaniment for the little dancers. The sacred dance is solemn enough, and each dancer has a fan and a bunch of bells, from which hang long strips of bright-colored silks. They advance, retreat, glide to right and left, raise their fans, shake their sacred baby-rattles, and, with few changes in the measure, repeat the same figures and movements for a certain length of time. If one pays more money they repeat the same thing, and the priests can wail the endless accompaniment by the hour. To us the dance was simply a curious custom; but the devout old pilgrims, who have hoarded up their money for 319