Taketori

Our neighborhood association observes the tradition of どんど焼き / Dondoyaki, in which the various religious talismans (may I suggest talismen?), だるま daruma, New Year’s decorations, and other items originating from shrines or temples over the previous year are burned in a bonfire. Over that bonfire, the townsfolk roast 団子 dango balls made from a kind of rice flour called 上新粉 jōshinko. Bamboo sticks are used to roast. They must be narrow enough to be easily held, but firm enough to hold a skewered dango somewhere between a ping-pong ball and billiard ball in size, and long enough to keep the holder sufficiently away from the bonfire. Flaccid bamboo will not do. Our Dondoyaki is next week. Today we went to harvest the 150 or so roasting sticks needed.

I got my small saw and hedge clippers and headed over to our local shrine, whose hillsides have a lot of perfect bamboo spontaneously growing.

It is a lovely shrine. With a lovely priest. Lately the hills behind them are overpopulated with mischievous macaques. Firecrackers, distributed from the city to the neighborhood association and the association to the residents whose properties abut the hills, have been set off quite a bit lately as a deterrent. Sadly though, unless the macaques are very near when the bangs occur, the sounds do not do much to deter them from returning. One of their favorite things to eat is persimmons left on trees by people.

While I waited for the others to arrive, these sibling cats came around. They are young. They crouched behind bamboo stalks and, well, stalked one another. The priest and I chatted about what generation he is in his family line (29th), how long his shrine has existed (about 500 years), and what were the origins of the shrine (Shugendo; the shrine chose Shinto when the government forced what were until then historically syncretic Buddhist/Shinto religious institutions to pick whether they were Buddhist or Shinto).

Regarding the cats, the priest said that they belong to neighbors across the street but spend most of their time in the shrine precincts. The priest is fine with this. Perhaps it helps a bit to deter the macaques. But not much.

Once everyone arrived, the priest directed us to a grove of bamboo not far from where the cats stalked each other. We started cutting.

It is not difficult work, but finding the base of a nice tall stalk can take a second. Then it’s a quick five or six saw strokes and pulling the whole stalk out base-first from the thicket. Satisfying work.

We stacked the cut stalks in a pile with all the proximal bases aligned, then tied them with narrow rope into bunches of 10. The unneeded branches will be removed in the afternoon, after which the distal ends to which the dango will be skewered will be boiled for disinfection.

Let me here head off any fears of environmental unfriendliness: This bamboo grows in such abundance and spontaneity as to vex property owners by its volume and voraciousness in taking new territory from other plants. They are happy to have some of it cut, and next year will bring an equal number to replace the cut ones. Indeed, a major thing happening with Japan’s depopulation is that bamboo is gobbling civilization back up as we type.

Worried that the shrine would not have enough suitable stalks, our president had also asked two owners of bamboo-rich slopes just up the river from our association area if we could cut some of their bamboo. They were happy to accommodate, and two small boxes of treats were prepared by the designated neighborhood association subcommittee to thank them.

Although the shrine supply was proving sufficient, inasmuch as we had asked the other property owners, we needed to go cut at least some there too. I joined the team that went up-river. The president went to the owners’ doors to notify them of the commencement of cutting and proffer the treats. This needed to happen before starting work, even though their assent was gained on an earlier day. 断ってからお邪魔すること.

I climbed up a small stone wall onto the slope and a few steps into the grove. The atmosphere was peaceful. It took so few steps to enter a completely different world. I sawed 15 or so stalks of perfect girth. No need to look up at the heights; the grove as a whole had more than enough height. I paused to take a breath or two of the different-tasting air. I listened to the sounds. I slid the base of each stalk two meters down to the level of the path that runs along the river below the sloped property.

I climbed back down into our world and dragged my stalks and those of the others on our squad to a single pile just out of the pathway, which dog-walkers and others travel at a frequency of maybe one person per two minutes. Then we together separated them into bundles of 10 and tied them off.

Hearing that the other squad had reached a quantity of around 100 at the shrine, we counted and found our harvest to be about the same. We shouldered and partly dragged all our four-meter-long bundles the 150 meters back to the shrine, where my keitora awaited. We loaded all the bundles into the truck bed. The proximal bases were in the bed and the lighter distal ends flopped in front of the windshield.

With hedge clippers I trimmed away enough of the floppery to have a semblance of visibility while driving. A fig leaf, granted, to feign legality of load. Then we tied the bundles to the top of the cab. I drove the kilometer up our main narrow street to the neighborhood hall very cautiously. Passersby in general appeared nonplussed but not unhappy to see the sight; older men’s faces showed outright approval.

It was a supernally satisfying time: I used the keitora. I wore my company-branded work clothes*. I breathed good air. I got my knees dirty. I chatted with the priest. I met cats. I had a laugh with neighbors. This is what is good in life.

*Which fit for the first time in a while!