REPORTS OF JAPAN ad. 



1565. 



they goe in procession as it were round about the quad- 

 rangle thrise. Then setting the litter on the wood built 

 up ready for the fire that Bonzius who then is master 

 of the ceremonies, saieth a verse that no bodie there 

 understandeth, whirling thrise about over his head a 

 torch lighted, to signifie thereby that the soule of the 

 dead man had neither any beginning, ne shall have at 

 any time an ende, and throweth away the torch. Two 

 of the dead man his children, or of his neere kinne, 

 take it up againe, and standing one at the East side of 

 the litter, the other at the West, doe for honour and 

 reverence reach it to each other thrise over the dead 

 corps, and so cast it into the pile of wood : by and by 

 they throw in oyle, sweete wood, and other perfumes, 

 accordingly as they have plentie, and so with a great 

 flame bring the corpes to ashes : his children in the 

 meane while putting sweete wood into the chafer at the 

 table with odours, doe solemnly and religiously worship 

 their father as a Saint : which being done, the Bonzii are 

 paied each one in his degree. The master of the cere- 

 monies hath for his part five duckats, sometimes tenne, 

 sometimes twentie, the rest have tenne Julies a piece, or 

 els a certaine number of other presents called Caxas. 

 The meate that was ordained, as soone as the dead corps 

 friends and all the Bonzii are gone, is left for such as 

 served at the obsequie, for the poore and impotent lazars. 

 The next day returne to the place of obsequie the 

 dead man his children, his kinred and friends, who 

 gathering up his ashes, bones, and teeth, doe put them 

 in a gilded pot, and so carie them home, to bee set up in 

 the same pot covered with cloth, in the middest of their 

 houses. Many Bonzii returne likewise to these private 

 funerals, and so doe they againe the seventh day: then 

 cary they out the ashes to bee buried in a place 

 appointed, laying thereupon a fouresquare stone, wherein 

 is written in great letters drawen all the length of the 

 stone, the name of that devil the which the dead man 

 worshipped in his life time. Every day afterward his 



343 



