Japanese Girls and Women: Revised and Enlarged Edition

								

As soon as the event takes place, a special messenger is dispatched to
notify relatives and intimate friends, while formal letters of
announcement are sent to those less closely related. All persons thus
notified must make an early visit to the newcomer, in order to welcome
it into the world, and must either take with them or send before them
some present. Toys, pieces of cotton, silk, or crêpe for the baby's
dress are regarded as suitable; and everything must be accompanied by
fish or eggs, for good luck. Where eggs are sent, they are neatly
arranged in a covered box, which may contain thirty, forty, or even one
hundred eggs.[1] The baby, especially if it be the first one in a
family, receives many presents in the first few weeks of its life, and
at a certain time proper acknowledgment must be made and return presents
sent. This is done when the baby is about thirty days old.
[1] All presents in Japan must be wrapped in white paper, although,
except for funerals, this paper must have some writing on it, and must
be tied with a peculiar red and white paper string, in which is inserted
the noshi, or bit of dried fish, daintily folded in a piece of colored
paper, which is an indispensable accompaniment of every present.
Both baby and mother have a hard time of it for the first few weeks of
its life. The baby is passed from hand to hand, fussed over, and talked
to so much by the visitors that come in, that it must think this world a
trying place. The mother, too, is denied the rest and quiet she needs,
and wears herself out in the excitement of seeing her friends, and the
physical exercise of going through, so far as possible, the ceremonious
bows and salutations that etiquette prescribes.
Before the seventh day the baby receives its name.[2] There is no
especial ceremony connected with this, but the child's birth must be
formally registered, together with its name, at the district office of
registration, and the household keep holiday in honor of the event. A
certain kind of rice, cooked with red beans, a festival dish denoting
good fortune, is usually partaken of by the family on the seventh day.
[2] A child is rarely given the name of a living member of the family,
or of any friend. The father's name, slightly modified, is frequently
given to a son, and those of ancestors long ago dead are sometimes used.
One reason for this is probably the inconvenience of similar names in
the same family, and middle names, as a way of avoiding this difficulty,
are unknown. The father usually names the child, but some friend or
patron of the family may be asked to do it. Names of beautiful objects
in nature, such as Plum, Snow, Sunshine, Lotos, Gold, are commonly used
for girls, while boys of the lower classes often rejoice in such
appellations as Stone, Bear, Tiger, etc. To call a child after a person
would not be considered any especial compliment.[*3]
The next important event in the baby's life is the miya mairi, a