r. To find the O Bon
ceremonies in their most perfect form, it is necessary now to go into
the more remote country villages, for though, even in T[=o]ky[=o], this
feast is still one of the most important in the whole year, it seems to
be more distinctly itself in a small village, where all the old forms
are still kept up.

In T[=o]ky[=o], the three days' festival is kept by the new calendar, and
occurs on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth of July. At O Bon, as
at New Year's time, it is customary to square off all obligations by a
general giving of presents. This, while not quite as important a matter
as at the beginning of the year, is still a severe tax upon the time,
purse, and memory of the wife and mother in any large family. At this
time, too, as at New Year's, _mochi_ or some other festival dish must be
provided, but at this point the resemblance between the two occasions
ceases. In accordance with its character as a feast of departed spirits,
the observance of O Bon is distinctively religious. On the twelfth, the
family go to the graveyard and clean and put in order the graves and
tombstones, so that the returning spirits may find all properly cared
for. Fresh water and flowers are placed before each stone, and sometimes
rice and fresh vegetables. At home, the ancestral tablets in the
_Butsudan_ form the centre of the ceremonies. Before the shrine are
placed, on the thirteenth, offerings of food of any kind that can be
made without fish or meat. Great balls of _mochi_, _sake_, flowers, and
choice new varieties of vegetables are appropriate offerings. All are
tastefully arranged, the lamps are carefully lighted every night, and
special services are held before the shrine. For the three days of the
feast, the souls of the dead are believed to be visiting their old
haunts, and to need light and food and all the conveniences that their
descendants can spare them. Each house is decorated with lanterns, that
the spirits may be able to find their way. It is from this custom that
the feast is often called by foreigners the Feast of Lanterns.

As I have already said, in T[=o]ky[=o] and other modernized places, this
feast is not seen at its best. Only the soft glow of the lanterns
swinging from every house, and the decorations in the graveyards and at
the household shrines, indicate to the traveler that anything unusual is
going on. But in the country regions it is quite another matter, and the
welcoming, entertain