Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/212

194 Forced to change his idea as to their character, the unenlightened will next conceive them to be some novel inn allurement, a sort of preposterous bait of landlord ingenuity, dangled thus to catch the public eye. Secularly speaking, both inferences are correct. For they were towels, and are bait, but not of landlord invention. They are the ho-no-tentigui or gift towels of the pilgrim clubs.

Once they were quite simply towels, bestowed ingenuously upon the inn as tokens of favor by clubs that chanced to put up at it and be pleased; just as ladies in tourney times cast their hand-kerchiefs to their knightly choice. Not having handkerchiefs, the Japanese presented as keepsakes their towels instead, rather the more romantic souvenir of the two.

But towels they are no longer. Time has raised them above domestic service. They are now a sort of club advertisement and guide-book combined. For though they are presented to the inn, they are presented for the benefit of those presenting them. Each bears conspicuously the club name and address, and is left with the landlord to be displayed for sign to subsequent brethren