answer for.

This ceremony takes place in the seventh month after death: a white
lamp is its emblem. This is hung up at the entrance of the mourners'
houses, while they offer oblations and burn joss-sticks. Food is also
prepared and laid out, in case the spirit of the departed, finding the
journey to the regions of the 'kamis' a long and wearisome one, should
need refreshment.

No Japanese dreams of entering a friend's house while the white lamp
is hung up, or of disturbing in any way the privacy of a family
engaged in these solemn duties, as the spirits of the departed are
firmly believed to revisit their former dwellings at such times, if
they have not already entered into a state of bliss.

[Illustration: SELLING INDULGENCES BY PUBLIC AUCTION.]

[Illustration: PRAYING A SOUL OUT OF PURGATORY.]

In one of their festivals they make pilgrimages at night to the
graves of their friends, on which they place food and hang lamps. It
is said they believe their ancestors to come from heaven to them on
these occasions, and imagine that they return again in small boats, to
which they attach lanterns, and which they place on the water at
ebb-tide, on the evening of the last day of the festival, and eagerly
watch, out of sight. An old fisherman, however, who was observed
intently watching his frail bark floating out to sea, explained, on
being questioned, that he whose lamp burnt longest caught most fish;
and judging from the old man's solemn manner there was no doubt he had
perfect faith in the truth of his statement.