Japan and the Japanese

MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 435
of the second class* is sent to the house of the bride to attend her,
and the bride's father, having invited all his kinsfolk, entertaina
them previous to the bride's departure.
The bridal party sets out in norimons, the mediator's wife first,
then the bride, then the bride's mother, and, finally, her father.
The mediator has already preceded them to the bridegroom's
house. The bride is dressed in white (white being the color for
mourning among the Japanese), being considered as thenceforward
dead to her parents.
If all the ceremonies are to be observed, there should be stationed,
at the right of the entrance to the house of the bridegroom, an old
woman, and on the left an old man, each with a mortar containing
some rice-cakes. As the bride's norimon reaches the house, they
begin to pound their respective mortars, the man saying, " A thou
sand years!" the woman, " Ten thousand!" allusions to the
reputed terms of life of the crane and the tortoise thus invoked for
the bride. As the norimon passes between them, the man pours his
cakes into the woman's mortar, and both pound together.
What is
thus pounded is moulded into two cakes, which are put one upon
another and receive a conspicuous place in the toko t of the room
where the marriage is to be celebrated.
The norimon is met within the passage by the bridegroom, who
stands in his dress of ceremony ready to receive it. There is also a
woman seated there with a lantern, and several others behind her
It was, as already mentioned, by the light of this lantern that for-
merly the groom first saw his bride, and, if dissatisfied with her,
exercised his right of putting
a stop to the ceremony. The bride,
the front window
on seeing the bridegroom, reaches to him, through
of her norimon, her marmori, t and he hands it to a female servant
* There are three classes of women-servants. Those of the first class make
the clothes of the mistress, dress her hair, and keep her apartments in order.
Those of the second wait on her at meals, accompany her when she goes
abroad, and attend to other domestic duties. Those of the third are employed
in cooking and various menial offices.
t The toko, as already described in Chap, xxxii. , is a sort of recess, or open
closet, opposite the entrance, considered the most honorable place in the
room. The above ceremony might call to mind the confarratio of the
ancient Roman marriage.
t Thid is a small, square or oblong bag, containing a small image of metal,