Japan and the Japanese

MOURNING. 441
pray before it morning and evening. This is kept up for seven
weeks, and during each week, from the day of the death, a priest
attends and reads hymns for an hour before the ifay. He is each
time supplied with ornaments, and paid a fee of from five to six mas.
During these seven weeks the son goes every day, be the weather
what it may, and says a prayer by the
grave. He wears his rush
hat, through which he can see without being seen, speaks tc
nobody, and is dressed in white. With this exception, and a cere
monious visit, in the third, fourth or fifth week, to the relatives and
friends, he remains in his house, with the door fastened. It is cus-
tomary to erect a small hut near the grave, in which a servant
watches, noting down the names of all who come to visit it.
When the seven weeks are over, the mourner shaves and dresses,
opens his door, and goes, if an officer, to inform the governor that
his days of mourning are over. He next pays a complimentary
visit to all who attended the funeral, or have visited the grave,
sending them also a complimentary present. The sisek, or gravestone
(almost precisely like those in use with us), is placed over the
grave, and two ifays, varnished black and superbly gilt, are provided,
one of which is sent to a temple. The other remains at home,
kept in a case in a small apartment, appropriated for that purpose,
in which are kept the ifays of all the ancestors of the family. It
is customary every morning, after rising and dressing, to take the
ifay out of its case, and to
the head in token of respect.
burn a little incense before it, bowing
Though the wearing of white garments and other formalities of
the special mourning, called imi, cease at the end of fifty days at
the longest, bright colors are not to be worn, or a Sinto temple to
be entered, for thirteen months, and this is called buku. For a
husband, imi lasts thirty days and buku thirteen months. For a
wife, imi twenty days and buku three months ; for grand-parents and
uncles, the periods are thirty days and five months ; for an eldest
brother or sister, or aunt on the father's side, and great-grand-parents,
twenty days and three months; for great-great-grand-pa rents
and aunts on the mother's side, fathers and mothers-in-law, brother-in-
law or sister-in-law, or eldest grandchild, ten days and one month ;
for other grandchildren, and for cousins of either sex, and their
children, three days and seven days. For children under th$