Japan and the Japanese

140 JAPAN. A. D. 17791791.
small hut. The coffin is then taken from the quan, and, being
placed in the furnace, a
great
fire is kindled. The eldest son is
provided with an earthen urn, in which first the bones and then the
ashes are put,
after which the mouth of the urn is sealed up.
While the body is burning, a priest recites hymns. The urn ia
then carried to the grave, and deposited in it, and, the grave being
filled up,, the quan is placed over it.
The eldest son and his brothers are dressed in white, in garments
of undyed hempen stuff, as are the bearers, and all females attend-
ing the funeral, whether relatives or not ; the others wear their
usual dresses. The females are carried in norimons, behind the
male part of the procession, which proceeds on foot, the nearest
relatives coming first. The eldest daughter takes precedence
of the wife. The eldest son and heir, whether by blood or adoption,
who is the chief mourner, wears also a broad-brimmed hat, of
rushes, which hang about his shoulders, and in this attire does not
recognize nor salute anybody.
It is a remarkable circumstance that relatives in the ascending
line, and seniors, never attend the funerals of their junior kindred,
nor go into mourning for them. Thus, if the second son should
die, neither father, mother, uncle, aunt, elder brother nor elder sis-
ter, would attend the funeral.
The laboring classes are not required to go into mourning; yet
some of them do for two, three, or four days. With them the
burial takes place after twenty-four hours. With the upper class
the mourning is fixed at fifty days. It used to be twice that time,
but is said to have been cut down by Jesi Jas (founder of the reign-
ing dynasty), that the business of the public functionaries might
suffer the less interruption. Persons in mourning stay at home,
abstain from animal food of any description, and from saki, and
neither cut their nails nor shave their heads.
One of the ifays is left, as has been mentioned, at the grave ; the
other, during the period of mourning, is set up in the best apartment
of the house of the deceased. Sweetmeats, fruit and tea, are
placed before it, and morning, noon and night, food is offered to it,
served up as to a living person. Two candles, fixed in candlesticks,
burn by it, night and day, and a lighted lantern is hung up on
either side. The whole household, of both sexes, servants included,