The Japanese New Year’s Festival: Games and Pastimes

Of the many festivals enjoyed in Japan, none is attended with more ceremony than that which opens with the New Year and is celebrated with more or less formality for fourteen days. It was customary in the old days to celebrate the New Year at the time when the plum first blossomed and when winter began to soften into spring, somewhere between the middle of January and the middle of February. Since the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, this festival opens on January 1st, and is attended by many of the interesting ceremonies that were practised in former times. On the thirteenth day of the preceding month, a special stew (okotojiru) is made from red beans, potatoes, mushrooms, sliced fish and a root (konnyaku). About this time a cleaning of the house takes place. It is partly ceremonial and partly practical, and is known as “soot-sweeping” (susu-haraki). Servants are presented with gifts of money and a short holiday.

According to the lunar calendar, the New Year’s celebration was opened by the ceremony known asoniyarai, “demon-driving.” This occurred at Setsubun, the period when winter passed into spring, and to-day it is generally practised at that time and is quite independent of the New Year’s festival. In some sections of the country, however, it has been moved forward to New Year’s eve, December 31st. As may be seen in the first illustration, this ceremony consists of the scattering of parched beans in four directions in the house, crying at the same time, “Out with the devils, in with the good luck.” Though sometimes performed by a professional who goes from door to door, this office is generally carried on by the head of the family. The custom may be traced back to ancient days when the demons expelled personified the wintry influences and the diseases attendant on them. It is still customary in some regions to gather up beans equal in number to the age plus one, and wrap them with a coin in a paper which has been previously rubbed over the body, to transfer ill luck. This package is then flung away at a cross-roads, with the idea that thereby ill luck is gotten rid of. Again in other places some of the beans are saved and eaten at the time of the first thunder.