FOOTNOTES: 

[30] Shoji are the screens which divide a room from the outside.  They are a dainty wooden framework of many divisions, each of which is covered by a sheet of thin white paper.  The shoji provide light and are never painted.  The sliding doors between two rooms are karakami (fusuma is a literary word).  They are a wooden framework with thick paper or cloth on both sides of it and with paper packing between the layers. Karakami are often decorated with writing or may be painted.  No light passes through them.

[31] A writing or a picture on a long perpendicular strip of paper or silk or of paper mounted on silk, with rollers.  The length is about three times the width, which is usually 1 ft. 3 in. or 1 ft. 10 in.  The kakemono in the tokonoma of tea-ceremony rooms is about 10 in. wide.

[32] For budgets of large property owners, see Appendix III.

[33] There have been several serious tenants’ demonstrations in Aichi during 1921.  See Chapter XIX.

[34] Each Emperor receives on his succession a name which is applied to the period of his reign.  The period of Mutsuhito’s reign, 1868-1912, is called Meiji; that of the present Emperor Taisho.  Thus the year 1912 would be Taisho I.

[35] It will be remembered that there is only one prefecture in which tea is not grown in larger or smaller areas, and that it is served economically without sugar or milk.

CHAPTER VI

BEFORE OKUNITAMA-NO-MIKO-NO-KAMI[36]

Nor do I see why we should take it for granted that their gods are unworthy of respect.—­Valerius

In Aichi prefecture I was asked to plant trees (persimmons) in the grounds of three temples or shrines and on the land of several farmers.  In an exposed position on a hill-top I found persimmons being grown on a system under which the landlord provided the land, trees and manures and the farmer the labour, and the produce was equally divided.

The cryptomeria at one of the shrines I visited were of great age.  All of them had lost their tops by lightning.  It cannot be easy for those who have never seen cryptomeria or the redwoods of California to realise the impression made by dark giant trees that have stood before some shrine for generations.  At the approach to the shrine of which I speak there were venerable wooden statues.  I recall one figure carved in wood as full of life as that of the famous Egyptian headman.