Japan and the Japanese

FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 439
before she left her father's house. Seven days after the wedding,
the bridegroom and four or five of his intimate friends are invited
by the parents of the bride to a grand entertainment. A few days
after, the bridegroom invites the relatives of the bride to a similar
entertainment, and so the matrimonial solemnities terminate.
The Japanese have two ways of disposing of the dead dosi, or
interment, yutiso, or burning and persons about to die generally
state which method they prefer.
Of the funeral ceremonies observed at Nagasaki, Titsingh gives
the following account : The body, after being carefully washed
by a favorite servant, and the head shaved, is clothed according
to the state of the weather, and (if a female, in her best apparel)
exactly as in life, except that the sash is tied, not in a bow,
but strongly fastened with two knots, to indicate that it is never
more to be loosed. The body is then covered with a piece
of linen, folded in a peculiar manner, and is placed on a mat in the
middle of the hall, the head to the north. Food is offered to it,
and all the family lament.
After being kept for forty-eight hours, the body is placed on its
knees in a tub-shaped coffin, which is enclosed in a square, oblong
box, or bier, the top of which is roof-shaped, called quan. Two
ifays are also prepared wooden tablets of a peculiar shape and
fashion, containing inscriptions commemorative of the deceased, the
time of his decease, and the name given to him since that event.
The ifays and quan, followed by the eldest son and the family,
servants, friends and acquaintances, are borne in a procession, with
flags, lanterns, &c., to one of the neighboring temples, whence, after
certain ceremonies, in which the priests take a leading part, they
are carried, by the relatives only, to the grave, where a priest,
while waiting their arrival, repeats certain hymns. The moment they
are come, the tub containing the body is taken out of the quan and
deposited in the grave, which is then filled with earth and covered
with a flat stone, which again is covered with earth, and over the
whole is placed the quan and one of the ifays, which is removed at
the end of seven weeks, to make room for the sisek, or grave-stone.
If the deceased had preferred to be burnt, the quan is taken to tho
summit of one of two neighboring mountains, on the top of each of
which is a sort of furnace, prepared for this purpose, enclosed in a