The traveller seems to have spent one New Year's day in this area, and he left Soto-nambu the following year in mid-March 1787. Recently, Hitoshi Nakamichi* discovered a volume of "The Back of Tsugaru", which contains a diary and travelogue of Masumi who spent New Year's Day at Asamushi Hot Springs** in 1787, after crossing the barrier from Makado, Noheji, on the road along the coast between Karibasawa and Kominato, for the first time in many years. However, as he was staying at the hot spring inn at this time, he composes many waka poems without describing the events of the world in detail, but he still notes that the ritual in which farmers in the vicinity pour dung into their fields at the first working day on the 11th is practically a magic, and that he came to the center of Kominato on the 13th to observe the events of the Lunar New Year in detail. This morning they ate porridge and then planted rice on the snow. Instead of Yarakusa of the Shimokita Peninsula, the rituals held in Kominato are reminiscent of the bean-throwing ceremony of Setsubun. It is to put three things in a square of sake cake, bran, and bean skins, and scatter them around the house while chanting the following incantation.

Bean skins honga-honga.

Dive in, both coin and money.

Enter the God of Fortune, too.

barrier......（名）関所

compose......（動）詩を書く

vicinity......（名）近辺、近所

dung......（名）肥料、肥やし

practically......（副）実際的に

porridge......（名）粥

reminiscent......（動）連想させる

sake cake......酒粕

incantation......（名）呪文

This is still called Yarakuro and a similar spell is often used in the villages of Nambu. Or, they chant that it smells like old sake, which means that the good scent will lure the god of good fortune inside, and the bad scent will drive the demons out. Kasegidori is called Kapakapa in Tsugaru, but in those days it was still called Pakapaka in some areas. The custom was to place the doll of a man plowing the rice paddy on a wooden tray and beat its bottom with a small wooden stick, and the name Pakapaka seems to have been derived from the sound. In Kominato, little girls came into the houses and said that,

Sotome arrived at the beginning of spring.

and the boy said that Tajido had visited him and took some money from them and put it in a Darako basket and went home, so it was already no longer an adult ritual around here. Contrary to this, Torioi is most strictly performed at dawn on the 16th, taking a lumbering beat of flutes and drums. The spell at this time is recorded by Masumi as follows.

lumber......（動）重々しく進む

Morning birds are Yori, evening birds are Yori

Wealthy people's Kakuchi

Kakuchi without a single bird is Yori-yori

After this, he traveled to various places and was at the port of Fukaura, Nishi-tsugaru County, on New Year's Day, 1789, according to his diary, "Ochi of Tsugaru". The customs on the Sea of Japan side were mostly similar to those of Akita's territory. For example, the rice cakes of Oka in Ogatsu are called Okaebisu here, and they are in the shape of bird chicks. They seem to have some worthwhile derivation, but he notes that he was unable to find out. There was also a custom of inserting pine needles into coins and giving them to the little pilgrims, but in Fukaura they called it Zeniuma（coin horses）. He carries a diagram of the precise decorations in the house, but the New Year's rituals, especially around here, seem to be more complex than in Kyoto or Edo, just as one could look for a coincidence in an old house in a distant country country. For example, the custom of placing a bale of rice by the hearth and setting up a pine sprout on top of it seems to have been a similar custom in the Kyushu area. The custom of offering various foods to the pine tree with straw tied in the shape of a plate, called Sara-musubi（plate knot）, is the same as the Shinano custom of Yasu. One of the eschewing（monoimi***） on the fourteenth was flattening the ashes of the hearth beautifully and then forbidding them to touch it. It was said that a duck would step on a seedling if it broke that taboo, just as it was said in other parts of the country that a heron would be possessed if it put its foot in the hearth. The same thing was done in Soto-nambu when they stuck rice cakes on a long skewer and blocked up the window with it, but in some houses, they didn't stick the cakes on the skewer but threw them out the window. It is an old custom that can be linked to the rituals held at Saito Hall on Mt. Honzan in Oga.

worthwhile......（形）価値ある

derivation......（名）由来

pilgrim......（名）巡礼者

diagram......（名）図

precise......（形）詳細な

coincidence......（名）偶然の一致

sprout......（名）芽

eschew......（動）避ける、控える

flatten......（動）平らにする

heron......（名）サギ

possess......（動）憑依する

skewer......（名）串

block up......塞ぐ

*Hitoshi Nakamichi:（1892 - 1968） A folklorist born in Miyagi Prefecture. He studied history and folklore in Aomori Prefecture.

**Asamushi Hot Springs: Located in Aomori City, Aomori Prefecture, the hot spring is said to have originated from the fact that around 1190, the monk Honen saw a deer in a hot spring to heal its injuries.

***monoimi: Avoid pollution by refraining from some activities for a certain period of time.