A Japanese miscellany - University of Oregon

284 Japanese Miscellany
queries unimaginable above the constant verdure
of woods and gardens.
Tliis morning my two students, Alci and Niimi,
have been amusing themselves and the children
by making a Yuki-Daruma; and I have been
amusing myself by watching them. The rules
for making a Yuki-Daruma are ancient and
simple. You first compose a huge snowball, —
between three and four feet in diameter, if pos-
sible, — which is to represent the squatting body
of Daruma. Then you make a smaller snow-
ball, about two feet in diameter, to represent his
head ; and you put this smaller ball on top of the
other, — packing snow around the under-parts of
both, so as to fix them in place. Two round
lumps of charcoal serve to make eyes for Daruma
and some irregular fragments of the same materiaj
will suffice to indicate his nose and mouth. Finally,
you must scoop out a hollow in the great belly of
him, to represent a navel, and stick a lighted
candle inside. The warmth of the candle gradu-
ally enlarges the opening. . . .
But 1 forgot to explain the term Yuki-Daruma,
or Snow-Daruma. " Daruma " is an abbreviation
of the name Bodai-Daruma, — Japanese rendering
;