Japan and the Japanese

PILGRIM BEGGARS. 323
proper ceremonies necessary to make the Siegaki, is at liberty to
do it.
" Others of this tribe, who make up far the greater part, sit
upon the road all day long, upon a small, coarse mat. They have
a flat bell, like a broad mortar, lying before them, and do nothing
else but repeat, with a lamentable singing tune, the word Namada,
which is contracted from Namu Amida Budsu, a short form of
prayer wherewith they address Amida, as the patron and advocate
of departed souls. Meanwhile they beat almost continually with a
small wooden hammer upon the aforesaid bell, and this, they say,
in order to be the sooner heard by Amida, and, I am apt to think,
not without an intent too to be the better taken notice of by pas-
sengers.
" Another sort we met with as we went along were differently
clad, some in an ecclesiastical, others in a secular habit. These stood
in the fields, next to the road, and commonly had a sort of altar
standing before them, upon which they placed
the idol of their
Briareus, or Quanwon, as they call him, carved in wood, and gilt ;
or the pictures of some other idols, scurvily done, as, for instance,
the picture of Amida, the supreme judge of departed souls; of
Semaus, or the head-keeper of the prison, whereunto the condemned
souls are confined ; of Dsisoo, or the supreme commander
in the purgatory of children, and some others, wherewith, and by
some representations of the flames and torments prepared for the
wicked in a future world, they endeavor to stir up in passengers
compassion and charity.
" Other beggars, and these, to all appearance, honest enough,
are met sitting along the road, clad much after the same manner
with the Quanwon beggars, with a Dsisoo staff in their hand. These
have made vow not to speak during a certain time, and express
their want and desire only by a sad, dejected, woeful countenance.*
" Not to mention* numberless other common beggars, some sick,
some stout and lusty enough, who get people's charity by praying,
singing, playing upon fiddles, guitars, and other musical instru-
* The letters of the Jesuit missionaries contain accounts of Buddhist devotees
ivho went so fir as to drown or otherwise destroy themselves. Kampfer,
and the writers since his time, make no mention of such extreme fanaticism,
from the doctrine of the Buddhists
which, however, is a natural outgrowth