TOYS HAVE SOULS.

Hokitika Guardian, 12 June 1922, Page 1

TOYS HAVE SOULS.

AND OTHER JAPANESE PRETTI NESSES.

(By Zoe Kincaid)

TOKIO. The souls of unregarded things are respected and singled out for special ceremonies in Japan, and among them that humble, inanimate object of daily life, tbe needle, is not forgotten. 11l girls’* schools a needle festival is ail annual event, when a meeting is hold to console all the needles, largo or small, that during the year have escaped from fingers to lie unused in some hole or corner, alone, unc-ared for, unwept, and unsung. Offerings of cake or other schoolgirl delicacies are placed before a stand that is heaped with needles, at the sight of which the young pupils are .reminded of their carelessness in losing them.

And to give the hard worked needles a really soft berth for once in their lives, each member of the class, with the school mistress as chief ritualist, places a needle that has seen better days in a pin cushion made of beancurd that is of the consistency and colour of blanc-mango. Quaint as the festival may appear to those unaccustomed to the ways of the East, this custom of Old Japan makes sewing an honoured craft and the needle a worthy instrument, the festival still emphasising the dignity of the human purpose it serves. Toys, too, have souls. One of the keenest pleasures of childhood is the delight in toys, but when the individual grows up he forgets their past benefits. Therefore near Tokio there was erected a short time ago a stone monument to lost or broken toys. A festival is held on special occasions attended by lov-lovers and children, who are attracted by the announcement that their damaged toys will be made as good as new. This honouring of toys brings to memory the blessing they bestowed in the halcyon days of childhood, and recalls to the minds of grown-ups that tho toys of tovland may still ho theirs. Dolls came in for special recognition. At a certain kindergarten in Tokio there is held ail annual Buddhist service for decrepit dolls that have been rejuvenated after treatment at tho hands of the doll specialist, and the doll-mothers sit sedately by, clutching tlieir restored favourites, while a Buddhist priest intones a thanksgiving service in the school-yard before a temporary altar that is all gay _ with flowers, lighted tapers, and offerings. Tn one of Tokio’s pleasant spots known as the Garden of One Hundred Flowers, since the blossoms of all the seasons may lie soon there, a large stone monument has been erected to a play. Some twenty-five years ago Mokuami, one of the most successful playwrights of his time, produced a piece that proved popular and had a long run. His friends and disciples interred the work, placing over it a stone on which a brief account of the play and the playwright was inscribed, thus per-pet-unting the memory of the original manuscript.