Manners, Deities and Hanging Clothes
August 4th, 2009 | 0 Comments | Children, Religion, Shintoism, Social Norms, courtesy |
The day before yesterday, my daughter and her classmates went around visiting homes near their kindergarden. They were delivering their own hand-made thank you cards to those houses that a week earlier had given them water, fruits or money during a local festival dedicated to the deities enshrined in Hakusan Jinja (白山神社：White Mountain Shrine), one of the most famous sacred mountains in Japan.
During festivals of Shinto origin, the local deity (神、kami) is ritually placed in a portable shrine (御神輿、omikoshi), which is then carried around in a procession through the neighborhoods that worship said deity or are somehow affiliated with the shrine. In our community, it is common for children to build their own omikoshi with recyclable materials. Each kid enshrines a kami or their choice or imagination into the omikoshi. As their procession moves through the neighborhoods, people come out of their homes to give the kids water, fruits or a small amount of money.
There had been a “real” procession the day before the kids did their own. As part of the adult ritual, the men who carry the omikoshi cross a river so as to be purified by water. Earlier, when they were about to pass by our apartment building they stopped because they had decide what to do once they noticed somebody’s laundry was hanging outside.
I had heard that in the country side as well as in very old neighborhoods in the cities, the members of the procession always carry ladders so they can climb and remove any laundry that may be visible and hanging outside along the procession’s path. The reason is that clothing should not be at the same height as –let alone higher than– the deity or spirit that is being transported in the omikoshi. I always thought this was one of those tall tales that are concocted to ensure people’s compliance with certain behavioral norms. In fact, I had laughed at my wife last year when she ran in great anguish, after seeing in her calendar a “no clothes outside” note, to put the laundry back in the house. Back then I told her that she was taking a ridiculous tale a little too seriously, that it was impractical and illogical for the members of a procession to encumber themselves further by carrying a couple of ladders.
This year I was to learn that it there is no tall tale. As I mentioned above, the procession stopped near my home when they noticed that one apartment had clothes hanging outside. The wayfarers began to make inquiries about who lived in the offending apartment. They learned that it was a foreign family –not mine– who had not just left the laundry out but, worse yet, a bunch of undergarments.
The men in charge of the ladders and of bringing down the clothing were extremely hesitant about what to do. Thus the decision fell upon the most senior of the elder members of the pilgrimage. Without any dithering whatsoever, the old man reminded the younger members of entourage that festival’s date and the omikohi’s procession’s route had been announced well in advance, noting that it was obvious the tenants of the offending apartment had had no interest in finding out more about communal rules and why the notice had been sent. Then, without any fanfare, the old man commandingly gestured the younger members of the cohort to climb and take down the clothes that caused the procession to stop. My only regret about this episode is not to have been around when my neighbors came back. I would have loved to see their puzzled faces when they found their clothing neatly and mysteriously set in a basket.
