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Page 5
[Footnote 2: This is the Japanese reading of the Chinese name.]
* * * * *
--It is said that the meeting of the Herdsman and the Weaver can be
observed by any one with good eyes; for whenever it occurs those stars
burn with five different colors. That is why offerings of five colors
are made to the Tanabata divinities, and why the poems composed in
their praise are written upon paper of five different tints.
But, as I have said before, the pair can meet only in fair weather.
If there be the least rain upon the seventh night, the River of Heaven
will rise, and the lovers must wait another whole year. Therefore the
rain that happens to fall on Tanabata night is called _Namida no Am�_,
"The Rain of Tears."
When the sky is clear on the seventh night, the lovers are fortunate;
and their stars can be seen to sparkle with delight. If the star
Kengy[=u] then shines very brightly, there will be great rice crops
in the autumn. If the star Shokujo looks brighter than usual, there
will be a prosperous time for weavers, and for every kind of female
industry.
* * * * *
In old Japan it was generally supposed that the meeting of the pair
signified good fortune to mortals. Even to-day, in many parts of the
country, children sing a little song on the evening of the Tanabata
festival,--_Tenki ni nari!_ ("O weather, be clear!") In the province
of Iga the young folks also sing a jesting song at the supposed hour
of the lovers' meeting:--
Tanabata ya!
Amari isogaba,
Korobub�shi![3]
But in the province of Izumo, which is a very rainy district, the
contrary belief prevails; and it is thought that if the sky be clear
on the seventh day of the seventh month, misfortune will follow. The
local explanation of this belief is that if the stars can meet, there
will be born from their union many evil deities who will afflict the
country with drought and other calamities.
[Footnote 3: "Ho! Tanabata! if you hurry too much, you will tumble
down!"]
* * * * *
The festival of Tanabata was first celebrated in Japan on the seventh
day of the seventh month of Tomby[=o] Sh[=o]h[=o] (A.D. 755). Perhaps
the Chinese origin of the Tanabata divinities accounts for the fact
that their public worship was at no time represented by many temples.
I have been able to find record of only one temple to them, called
Tanabata-jinja, which was situated at a village called Hoshiaimura,
in the province of Owari, and surrounded by a grove called
Tanabata-mori.[4]
[Footnote 4: There is no mention, however, of any such village in any
modern directory.]
Even before Temby[=o] Sh[=o]h[=o], however, the legend of the
Weaving-Maiden seems to have been well known in Japan; for it is
recorded that on the seventh night of the seventh year of Y[=o]r[=o]
(A.D. 723) the poet Yamagami no Okura composed the song:--
Amanogawa,
Ai-muki tachit�,
Waga ko�shi
Kimi kimasu nari--
Himo-toki makina![5]
It would seem that the Tanabata festival was first established
in Japan eleven hundred and fifty years ago, as an Imperial Court
festival only, in accordance with Chinese precedent. Subsequently
the nobility and the military classes everywhere followed imperial
example; and the custom of celebrating the Hoshi-mat-suri, or
Star-Festival,--as it was popularly called,--spread gradually
downwards, until at last the seventh day of the seventh month became,
in the full sense of the term, a national holiday. But the fashion of
its observance varied considerably at different eras and in different
provinces.
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