Lafcadio Hearn

In Ghostly Japan Lafcadio Hearn

Book Excerpt: ...ire"); together with rules for pressing the ashes of a censer into various artistic designs corresponding to season and occasion.... A special chapter should certainly be given to the incense-bags (kusadama) hung up in houses to drive away goblins, --and to the smaller incense-bags formerly carried about the person as a protection against evil spirits. Then a very large part of the work would have to be devoted to the religious uses and legends of incense, --a huge subject in itself. There would also have to be considered the curious history of the old "incense-assemblies," whose elaborate ceremonial could be explained only by help of numerous diagrams. One chapter at least would be required for the subject of the ancient importation of incense-materials from India, China, Annam, Siam, Cambodia, Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and various islands of the Malay archipelago, --places all named in rare books about incense. And a final chapter should treat of the romantic literature of incense, --the poems, stories, a