OBSERVANCES AND PASTIMES
drifting homeward on the bosom of the rising tide, with faces that have imbibed the sun's glow and limbs that retain a pleasantly languid sense of recent exertion.
The boys' fête (tango) on the fifth day of the fifth month is a particularly conspicuous event, owing to the fact that at every house where a male child has been born during the preceding twelvemonth a carp, made of paper or silk, is raised, banner-wise. The carp is attached by its mouth to the end of a flag-staff, and being inflated by the breeze, undulates overhead, so that, through-out the days of this observance, thousands of big fish seem to be writhing and gyrating above the roofs of the cities. In Japanese eyes the carp typifies indomitable resolution. As it sturdily faces the stream and leaps up the waterfall, so fond parents hope that their little lads will rise in the world and overcome all obstacles. The sweet-flag and the iris, now in full bloom, play a conspicuous part in this fête. Bunches of the former, together with sprays of mugwort (yomogi), are raised at the eaves of houses,[1] and saké seasoned with petals of the iris is the beverage of the season. In the alcoves, warriors, battle-steeds, armour, and weapons of war—often beautiful and brilliant examples of skilled workmanship and decoration—are ranged, but these relics of bygone days are fast losing their interest for the youth of the nation; and since it is impossible to
- ↑ See Appendix, note 24.
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