asks even while ceremonially
unclean. Thus the old custom is passing away. In the first year after
death, certain days are observed with special honors before the memorial
tablet, and later, certain anniversaries of the death must be kept,
until, at last, at the end of fifty or one hundred years, the
personality of the spirit seems to become merged with that of the other
ancestral spirits, and no offerings are made to it except at the general
feasts of the dead.

With the coming in of the last month of the year begin the preparations
for the great New Year's festival, and the housekeeper finds herself
occupied through every moment of the brief days. A woman who is at the
head of a large household has upon her hands in the month of December
spring house-cleaning and preparations for Christmas, New Year's,
Thanksgiving, and Easter, all at once. The work of getting the family
wardrobe ready for the festival must begin very early in the month, for
every man, woman, and child in the household must be provided with new
clothes, and the thrifty housewife sends no sewing out. In the old days,
it was ordained that the eighth day of the twelfth month should be a
needle festival,--a day on which all women rest from their sewing and
amuse themselves by indulging their own fancies instead of their
husbands', as is their duty on other days. This day was supposed to mark
the dividing line between the old year's and the new year's sewing, but,
as a matter of fact, the forehanded woman will finish up the old and
begin the new even earlier in the month, so as to have this part of her
work well out of the way before the house-cleaning, which should be
begun not later than the fifteenth.

This house-cleaning, even with the small amount of furniture found in a
Japanese house, is an elaborate affair. Every box and closet and
rubbish-hole in the house is turned out and put in order, the _tatami_
are taken up and brushed and beaten, the woodwork from ceiling to floor
is carefully washed, the plaster and paper walls flicked with the paper
flapper that takes the place in Japan of our feather duster. All the
quilts and clothing must be sunned and aired, the kakemonos and curios
belonging to the family unpacked, carefully dusted, and put back into
their wrappings and boxes, and the house and garden put into perfect
repair. This work, if thoroughly done, takes about a week. When all is
finished, even to the final purification by beating everything