Exotics and Retrospectives — Part 16

The object of the present paper is, by elucidating these facts, to show how superficially our travellers might unconsciously judge the most interesting details of Japanese life. But such misjudgments are as natural as they are inevitable. Even with the kindest of intentions it is impossible to estimate correctly at sight anything of the extraordinary in Japanese custom,--because the extraordinary nearly always relates to feelings, beliefs, or thoughts about which a stranger cannot know anything.

Before proceeding further, let me observe that the domestic insects of which I am going to speak, are mostly night-singers, and must not be confounded with the _semi_ (cicadæ), mentioned in former essays of mine. I think that the cicadæ,--even in a country so exceptionally rich as is Japan in musical insects,--are wonderful melodists in their own way. But the Japanese find as much difference between the notes of night-insects and of cicadæ as we find between those of larks and sparrows; and they relegate their cicadæ to the vulgar place of chatterers. _Semi_ are therefore never caged. The national liking for caged insects does not mean a liking for mere noise; and the note of every insect in public favor must possess either some rhythmic charm, or some mimetic quality celebrated in poetry or legend. The same fact is true of the Japanese liking for the chant of frogs. It would be a mistake to suppose that all kinds of frogs are considered musical; but there are particular species of very small frogs having sweet notes; and these are caged and petted.

Of course, in the proper meaning of the word, insects do not _sing_; but in the following pages I may occasionally employ the terms “singer” and “singing-insect,”--partly because of their convenience, and partly because of their correspondence with the language used by Japanese insect-dealers and poets, describing the “voices” of such creatures.

There are many curious references in the old Japanese classic literature to the custom of keeping musical insects. For example in the chapter entitled _Nowaki_[1] of the famous novel “Genji Monogatari,” written in the latter part of the tenth century by the Lady Murasaki-Shikibu, it is stated: “The maids were ordered to descend to the garden, and give some water to the insects.” But the first definite mention of cages for singing-insects would appear to be the following passage from a work entitled _Chomon-Shū_:--“On the twelfth day of the eighth month of the second year of Kaho [1095 A. D.], the Emperor ordered his pages and chamberlains to go to Sagano and find some insects. The Emperor gave them a cage of network of bright purple thread. All, even the head-chaplain and his attendants, taking horses from the Right and the Left Imperial Mews, then went on horseback to hunt for insects. Tokinori Ben, at that time holding the office of _Kurando_,[2] proposed to the party as they rode toward Sagano, a subject for poetical composition. The subject was, _Looking for insects in the fields_. On reaching Sagano, the party dismounted, and walked in various directions for a distance of something more than ten _chō_,[3] and sent their attendants to catch the insects. In the evening they returned to the palace. They put into the cage some _hagi_[4] and _ominameshi_ [for the insects]. The cage was respectfully presented to the Empress. There was _saké_-drinking in the palace that evening; and many poems were composed. The Empress and her court-ladies joined in the making of the poems.”