Yanari ni yama no
Ugoku kakémono!

[_Even the live tree set in the alcove has fallen down; and
the mountains in the hanging picture tremble to the quaking
made by the Yanari!_[50]]

[Footnote 50: The _tokonoma_ in a Japanese room is a sort of
ornamental recess or alcove, in which a picture is usually hung, and
vases of flowers, or a dwarf tree, are placed.]


X. SAKASA-BASHIRA

The term _Sakasa-bashira_ (in these _ky[=o]ka_ often shortened into
_saka-bashira_) literally means "upside-down post." A wooden post or
pillar, especially a house-post, should be set up according to the
original position of the tree from which it was hewn,--that is to say,
with the part nearest to the roots downward. To erect a house-post in
the contrary way is thought to be unlucky;--formerly such a blunder
was believed to involve unpleasant consequences of a ghostly kind,
because an "upside-down" pillar would do malignant things. It would
moan and groan in the night, and move all its cracks like mouths, and
open all its knots like eyes. Moreover, the spirit of it (for every
house-post has a spirit) would detach its long body from the timber,
and wander about the rooms, head-downwards, making faces at people.
Nor was this all. A _Sakasa-bashira_ knew how to make all the affairs
of a household go wrong,--how to foment domestic quarrels,--how to
contrive misfortune for each of the family and the servants,--how
to render existence almost insupportable until such time as the