that the brooms at Japanese funerals were most probably intended largely, even if not entirely, by their mere presence (like, for example, that of weapons laid by a corpse awaiting burial, or of those carried in funeral processions), to preserve the mourners and the deceased from the attentions of evil supernatural beings; colour is lent to this supposition by the presence at a great Japanese funeral in ancient times (e.g. 700 a.d.) of an attendant "arrayed in grotesque fashion, who led the way to the sepulchre, and was credited with the power to scare away evil spirits by his garb and gestures."[1]
We may observe that at some Japanese funerals the brooms in the procession appear to have been replaced by bundles of reeds (compare the ancient Chinese use of "bundles of reeds or twigs," thought by Ching Khang-ch'ing to have been tied together as a broom, referred to on p. 174, supra), for in a picture showing the funeral procession of the Governor of Nagasaki, who was buried in 1784, the leading figures are "Two servants, each carrying a bundle of dry reeds."[2]
The use of brooms for clearing evil influences out of the way of a procession in China and, seemingly, in Japan, appears to me to parallel a certain Fijian practice. Among the natives of the Fiji Islands fans take the place of brooms;
- ↑ Lay, op. cit. p. 521; he points to this as one of the indications of "the influence already exercised by Chinese usages at the Court." de Groot mentions (op. cit. vol. i. bk. i. pp. 162, 163) the same form of attendant as set at the head of Chinese Imperial funeral corteges during the period of the Han dynasty; and also (vol. vi. bk. ii. pp. 973, 977, 978) as leading or otherwise occupied in processions for the expulsion of contagious diseases.
- ↑ M. Titsingh, Illustrations of Japan, London, 1822, pi. 16 of part ii., and p. 249. In another picture (pi. 13 of part ii. ), showing the Buddhist funeral of "a civil officer of distinction," a man carrying a large bundle of straw, tied with a cord of white paper, to all intents and purposes leads the procession; the bundle of straw was said to be "for the purpose of making torches to light the road during the night. This is rather a matter of ceremony than utility, since lanterns are used at funerals which take place in the night" (p. 239; cf. also p. 246).
