Curls of scented smoke arose last week before a brand new bronze statue in the Kuonji temple gardens of Yamanashi Prefecture, 70 mi. from Tokyo. Musical instrument dealers bought bowls of sacred rice, hoped business would be better. Foreigners inspected the statue with interest. They saw a heroic bronze figure in the robes of a Buddhist priest but with the head of a large shaggy dog. In his lap rested a Buddhist nun with the head of a cat. Balanced precariously on top of the dog-headed priest was a little figure of Buddha, blessing the pair.
What the ukulele is to Hawaii, the bagpipes to Scotland, the samisen is to Japan. A three-stringed, long-necked banjo with enormous decorative tuning pegs and a square wooden drum covered with white dogskin parchment, it makes a noise something like a ukulele-bagpipe merger. No Geisha girl dares hold up her elaborately coiffed head unless she is adept on the samisen. More samisens are made and sold than any other musical instrument in Japan, yet the samisen industry has felt the World Depression.
Samisen men do not blame the introduction of the saxophone, Radio or the changing morals of the younger generation. As good Buddhists, they lay their troubles to the souls of the thousands of dead cats and dogs which have been slaughtered to make samisen strings, samisen drumheads. To appease these departed spirits, the bronze monument was samisentimentally erected.
Reporters interviewed a leading samisen manufacturer of Tokyo, found him smiling toothily behind gold-rimmed spectacles, willing to admit that he was the prime mover for the erection of the dog & cat placater.
"Some of the samisen dealers and manufacturers have always said individual prayers for the spirits of the dead cats and dogs. But there are some," he added severely, "who do not observe this elementary courtesy.
"This neglect has affected our families and business in the past, as it is a well-known fact that no family of samisen manufacturers lasts more than three generations. At present the largest dealer in Tokyo has been in existence for more than three generations but the head of the family has always been an adopted child.
"I think we are accursed by the spirits of the animals which have been killed for samisen materials, but in the endowment of our new statue, everything will be done to comfort their spirits in the way of prayers and incense."