英語訳
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had been practiced since ancient times. The Tsuina ceremony performed at the Imperial Court on New Year's Eve eventually became a popular practice, and people began scattering roasted soybeans on Setsubun night. On this day, sardine heads, holly, and red peppers are inserted at all entrances—front and back doors—of the house as protection against evil spirits. Bean scattering is performed in the evening. Roasted soybeans are put in a measuring box, first offered to the household shrine and Buddhist altar, then the year man shouts "Fortune in, demons out" while scattering them first at the gate, then in each room. Family members pick up the beans and eat as many as their age in years. Children carry bags and walk through the town at night in groups, chanting phrases like "scatter the demon beans, inya manda makan zo." Besides soybeans, these children receive tangerines, genjimame, and konpeitō sugar candy. This bean scattering is also performed at Fudōin in Kawara-machi, Eireiden in Hanada-machi, and Seihōin in Nakaseko-machi.
A. Insert dried fish heads into bean stalks, wrap hair around them and apply nasal mucus, then insert these around the house while the demon beans are roasting, hang baskets containing old straw sandals and holly at the gate, and scatter beans. (Tsuda)
B. To prevent demons from coming, place eye-baskets on the tips of wood (or bamboo) poles and stand them up. When roasting beans, burn one or two yuzuriha leaves. When inserting holly at the gate, spit while saying "Ya akagashi ya, sōrotta ka ya, inya manda sōro hanu, tonari no bāsan sha arakusai, kāpu." (Takashi)
C. Hang baskets outside the house to have many eyes to watch for demons, hang old straw sandals and waraji at the gate so that many travelers will stop and bring fortune, and char the beans as black as possible so demons' teeth cannot bite them. (Noyori)
D. In the evening, hang at the gate something with seven types of branches—plum, holly, yuzuriha, red pepper, chinquapin, soybean hulls, etc.—and dried fish heads, and as protection against evil say "E kagashi yo, sōdāga, inya manda sōkon yo, otera no baba sa kōunda ga, sharakusai, fūn." Also hang many baskets, straw sandals, and cut waraji on bamboo tips. The baskets show many eyes, and the sandals show many people to frighten demons. When roasting soybeans, use seven types of branch wood and fuel that makes noise to
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frighten demons. Roast beans in two hōroku pans, char one completely black as demon beans, face the direction of good fortune as head of household and call "demons out" three times, then face upward calling "fortune in" three times while scattering beans. Roast the other hōroku skillfully, offer to the gods, and have the whole family eat together; store the remainder to eat during the first thunder, believing it prevents illness. With the fire after roasting beans, burn as many beans as there are months in the year, calling out "January, February" while removing them from the fire, and divine the year's weather from how they burn. (Ueda)
E. While roasting beans, stir with both hands and chant "sasukure dekin na" (no hangnails) to prevent hangnails. Place an eye-basket upside down on a pole in the garden and hang old straw sandals at the gate. (Muro)
46 Yakuotoshi (Misfortune Removal) (3rd or 4th day)
Along with driving away evil spirits on Setsubun night, people perform their own misfortune removal. According to ancient custom, wrap demon beans in paper—the number being one's age plus one—tap oneself from head to toe with this package, then take it out with an old fire-blowing bamboo tube and drop it at a crossroads, returning home without looking back. In this region too, until around Meiji 20, there was something called "nata mochi"—people in their unlucky years would put as many rice cakes as their age into a winnowing basket, dust them with soybean flour, and give them to children or have neighbors eat them. This was called lending or borrowing nata mochi.
A. It was said that people in unlucky years could escape misfortune by wrapping money equal to their age in paper and abandoning it at a village crossroads. (Fukuoka)
B. Each small district would gather and each household would work prayer beads for hyakuman-ben. Furthermore, for people in unlucky years—women at 19 and 33, men at 25 and 42—they would go to crossroads with beans and Bunkyū coins, call out a false age one year older saying "This year I am XX years old," throw the beans and coins, and return home without looking back. (Noyori)
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