May 



:909] 



NA TURE 



369 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 (The Editot does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he tindertaUe 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 }nanuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] 



Baskets used m Repelling Demons. 

 U.NTIL about the end of the Japanese ancien regime, 

 i.e. 1867, it was an invariable annual usage with the 

 people of Yedo (now Tokyo), on the eighth of the second 

 moon, to erect high before every house a bamboo pole 

 with a basket on its top (Kawakita, " Morisada Mank6," 

 yd. 1908, vol. ii., p. 251). However, from Tanehiko's 

 '■ Voshabako " (Yedo, 1S41, bk. i., ch. ix.), it appears 

 ihcit about the .seventeenth century a basket or a sieve 

 was displayed on a tall pole or above the main doorway, 

 not only on this so-called Work-start Day (Koto-hajime), 

 but also on the eighth of the twelfth moon, named Koto- 

 osame, or Work-finish Day — both these appellations 

 primarily of agricultural concern, indicating to us a 

 bygone age, when the New Y'ear holidays of the Japanese 

 husbandmen, with their preliminaries and after-games, 

 covered some thirty days besides the whole first moon. 



Citing many an old authority, and, among others, a 

 stranger's statement, that in his native island nobody 

 would stir out of doors on certain dark nights without 

 carrying a basket to ward off the roving spirits, Tanehiko 

 clearlv shows the usage we are describing to have origin- 

 ally been meant for repelling demons. He argues, also, that 

 this Work-start Day usage in Yedo had been first intro- 

 duced — though with a manifest deviation as to the day of 

 its performance — from certain provinces, whence the 

 founders of its governing families had mostly sprung, and 

 where, even so late as in Tanehiko's time, the inhabitants 

 customarily displayed baskets, neither on the Work-start 

 nor on the Work-finish, but only on the Setsiibun, or 

 Last Winter Day. Indeed, the Last Winter Day seems 

 to 'have proved the fittest occasion for repelling or expell- 

 ing malevolent souls, for. In its evening, apparently from 

 'ime out of memory, it has been a universal custom in 

 Japan to eject demons with baked beans forcibly thrown 

 just before shutting all the doors and windows, and to 

 stick upon tha door-case a branch of the tree Osmantluis 

 nquifolium and a half-roasted sardine, the strongly spined 

 leaves of the former, with the unpleasant odour of the 

 latter, sufficing to put to flight the spirits that try to 

 intrude into any human dwellings.' 



Whether or not Tanehiko's view is correct in tracing 

 the Work-start Day usage of the past Yedo folks into 

 an earlier provincial practice on the Last Winter Day, it 

 is very significant in this connection that a Jesuit 

 missionary of the seventeenth century observed every 

 native of Tonquin to plant before his house a pole topped 

 with a basket on the Final Night of the year, in order 

 to scare away the intrusive demons. He relates it thus : — 

 " Gionti all'ultimo giorno dell'anno nel farsi sera, 

 ciascuno dinanzi sua casa vi pianta 'un albero secco, o 

 una longa pertica, nella cui cima, in vece di bandiera 

 legano una cesterella, con attorno appesovi carte dorate, 

 a modo di oro stridente, persuasi, che come ne'seminati, 

 c negli horti si mettono i spauracchi, per tenerne lontani 

 gli uccelli, cosl quella cesta con quell'oro insii la pertica 

 vaglia a fugare i Demonij. e non farli accostare alle loro 

 rase : che se in quell'ultima sera dell'anno, non ritro- 

 vassero quel riparo dinanzi I'uscio, senz'altro entrerebbero 

 loro in casa a fargli sfortunati tutto I'anno. E se avviene, 

 rhe alcuno tralasci di far questa cerimonia, e non curi 

 di esporre la detta insegna, ne k mostrato k dito, e si dic'e : 

 Ecco la casa del Demonic " (Filippo de Marini, " Historia 



1 This Last Winter Eve rite of the Japanese reminds us of the Australians 

 annually driving from their midst the accumulated ghosts of the last years 

 dead : of the modern Bohemians at Pentecost, and the Tyrolese on Walpnr- 

 Elisnhnacht, hunting the witches, invisihle and imaginary*, out of house and 

 stall (Tylor. " Primitive Culture," New YtIc, i883, vol. ii., p. iqq) : and of 

 the archaic Chinese ceremony of JVa, which was to force the demons away 

 from the imperial palace on the Final Night of the lunar year (Cfiti-ye). and 

 which, since its adoption into the Tapanese court ritual, 706 A. D., has become 

 gradualiv confused in vulgar minds with the native observance of the Last 

 Winter Eve. in spite of the but verj- rare coincidence of these two nights 

 (Vashiro. " Kokon Yoran Ko," ed. 1905. vol. !., p. 931). C/. the Tonquinese 

 custom given in the text. 



KO. 2065, VOL. 80] 



ct Relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone," Poma, 1665, 



P- 133)- 



I fully know that I am e.xposing my great ignorance in 

 asking the following questions upon the subject. Are 

 there any other people than the Japanese and the Ton- 

 quinese who used, or still use, baskets in frightening the 

 demons? How has the origin of the custom been scien- 

 tifically described? Also I have a note, taken from Waitz, 

 " Anthropologie der Naturvblker," i., s. 347, Leipzig, 

 1872, to the effect that some Polynesians often apply, to 

 mark a tabooed place, a basket-work moulded into shark 

 or lizard. Why has basket-work been particularly chosen 

 for this purpose? 



The reason Tanehiko (loc. cit.) adduces to account for 

 the Japanese use of baskets in repelling demons is that 

 the Ijasket originally employed in the rite had some of 

 its openings shaped in star pentagon — the figure formerly 

 held as specifically efficacious in averting evil influences, 

 and termed Seimei's signature, after the greatest sooth- 

 sayer Japan has ever produced (921-1005 a.d.). Someone 

 opines that the star pentagon terrifies demons extremely, 

 because it much resembles the eye of Fang-Shang, the 

 principal demon-hunter in the Chinese ceremony of Na 

 (see footnote), whom the " Ritual of the Chau Dynasty " 

 (written c. iioo B.C.) prescribes for this occasion to wear 

 red trousers and black coat, a headdress of bearskin, and 

 a mask with four golden eyes. Y'et another opinion has 

 been advanced which states that some wicker-works, e.g. 

 the sieves, are so fabricated as forcibly to put the spirits in 

 mind of the Taoist, and thence Buddhist, emblem named 

 Kuji (lit.. Nine Letters), formed lattice-like by intercross- 

 ing five vertical and four horizontal lines, and said to 

 represent the nine Chinese characters, that make up a 

 charm most powerful against all manner of demons. In 

 this exposition I see the order of cause and effect quite 

 inverted, it being obvious that the very raison d'etre of 

 the symbol Kuji is the assumed efficacy of the wicker- 

 or lattice-work in keeping all within it in complete safety 

 and well-being. This will be well understood should one 

 inspect an old-fashioned Shinto shrine with its front 

 strongly defended by a lattice, or should he peruse this 

 subjoined passage : — 



" The generality of the huts used as dwelling-houses 

 [in Kordofan] are furnished with a flat-roofed shed of 

 some twelve feet square immediately in front of them, 

 which, in the dry season, forms the usual sitting-room. 

 ... It has a spacious doorway in front, through which 

 light is admitted in sufficient abundance to dispense with 

 windows, and is never closed when any of the family are 

 at home. When they are absent, a piece of wicker-work, 

 placed against it and sustained in its position by a piece 

 of wood, serves to keep out dogs, fowls, and cattle : and 

 being a sufficient indication that the inmates are absent, 

 no one will approach it. Locks are dispensed with, and, 

 as housebreaking is unknown, they are not required " 

 (John Petherick, " Egypt, the Soudan and Central Africa," 

 Edinburgh and London, 1861, pp. 213—4. 



KUMAGUSU M1NAK.ITA. 



Tanabe, Kii, Japan, .^pril 4. 



Vapour-density and Smell. 



In N.ivture of May 13 (p. 30S) Dr. Hill states that " no 

 volatile body, the density of which is not greater than 

 that of air, is a stimulant of our olfactory membrane." 

 I venture to suggest some important exceptions to this 

 rule, if, indeed, it is a rule, viz. ammonia, density 85 ; 

 hydrocyanic acid, 13-5 ; and hydrofluoric acid, 10. Although 

 the last-named consists mostly of molecules H„F. at the 

 ordinary temperature of the air, it contains a consider- 

 able proportion of HF molecules at 40° C. I have never 

 heard of any of these (or, indeed, of formaldehyde) being 

 prepared in such a way as to have no smell, and it does 

 not seem probable that it could be done. I have myself 

 prepared ammonia with the greatest possible care, and in 

 several different ways ; the product obtained has certainly 

 a different smell from the commercial article, but it is 

 still very pungent. It seems to me that the reason for 

 this rule of smells is simply that the atomic weights of 

 the large majority of the elements have a much greater 

 numerical value than the density of air, putting hydrogen 



