Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
same number, e.g. the fourth, fourteenth and twenty-fourth. Days were numbered within
the month, as in the Western calendar.
The day was not divided into hours, but into 12 periods, which, at the equinoxes, were
equal in length to two hours. The Japanese, unlike the Chinese, used the ancient system
by which the time between sunrise and sunset was divided into equal parts, six for the day
and six for the night. These divisions thus fluctuated in length throughout the year (not so
much, however, as they would in Britain with its greater variation of day-length according
toseason),andwhenclockswerebroughtinbythePortuguese,theyhadtohaveacomplic-
ated mechanism to compensate for this. At midnight the “ninth” time started, the numbers
decreasing so that the eighth started at 2 a.m. and so on until the end of the fourth at noon,
when the series started again from nine. The system may seem complicated to the modern
reader, but familiarity made it simple enough to the Japanese of the time.
Over and above the arrangement whereby units of time were designated by numbers,
there was another, which came from China, and in which a set of signs was used to give a
cycle of 60. Special signs for 12 animals—rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, sheep,
monkey,bird, dog,boar—are combined with those ofthe five elements—wood, fire, earth,
metal, water—to form this sexagenary system, used very commonly for counting years. It
will be seen that a cycle of 60 years will in fact be five cycles of 12 years identified by
the animals. From this arises the association of a year with an animal: for example, the
first year of Genroku, 1688, was the year “earth and dragon,” and 1700, 12 years later, was
“metal and dragon,” so that both 1688 and 1700 were “dragon” years. It was this sort of
calendar lore that was used by the
onmyoshi
(see 118): for example, a girl born during the
year of the horse was believed to devour her husband, and thus would have difficulty in
getting wed; marriages were often postponed to a date which ensured that the first child
would be born outside the unfortunate year, and certainly girl babies born in such a year
were much more likely to be victims of infanticide.
The cycles of 12 could also be used to label months (to make up the year) and the di-
visions of the day (starting from midnight); points 30 degrees apart on the compass-rose
were also designated in this way, the rat being north, the hare east, and so on. All this only
scratches the surface of the influence that the sexagenary signs exerted and the lore they
supported.
Thedayforshopkeepersstartedatthesixthtime(6a.m.),whentheyopenedtheirestab-
lishments. This operation was carried out to the clatter of shutters on the street-front being
slid back along their channels and pushed into the box-covers that concealed them during
thedaytime.Whetherornottherewerebedroomsseparatefromthelivingroomsdepended
upon the size of the house. All that was needed for sleeping was a mattress spread on the
floor, with a padded quilt to keep the sleeper warm. The pillow was wooden, or porcelain,
andwasaslightlyconcavesupportfortheneck.Thehairatthistimewasdoneupintovari-
