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This park belongs to one of the many temples of the old Shinto faith here in Japan. It is dedicated to a special saint, a Japanese scholar of about a thousand years ago who was in his time unjustly accused of wrong doing and banished from home. The tradition is that during his sad exile he used to ride about on the back of a cow or a bull, so now devout believers like to pray before images of such creatures when they ask his help. Here is one now, made of bronze--the costly thank-offering of some rich devotee who felt sure that Tenjin had answered his prayer. There are a good many other similar images, here and there in different parts of this sunshiny garden.

This poor old woman is not posing for a photograph--she is an honest believer, come to pray for relief from rheumatism, and she is proceeding with her devotions quite indifferent to your observation. She was taught when she was a child, toddling beside her mother, that she could get help in time of bodily pain or sickness, by stroking that part of the bronze bull which corresponds to her own hurt; evidently the poor soul's rheumatism is bad just now in her hips. The image has been worn smooth and polished almost all over, from centuries of just such stroking and rubbing by pious devotees.

Younger women wear no head-covering except in the coldest winter weather. It must be that this stiff-jointed dame is losing her hair as well as her matronly vigor of motion. Her cotton kimono is of more sober-colored stuff than those she used to wear when she was young, and she wears it made quite thick and warm with cotton wadding, even in this bright, summer weather.

Before she began to pray she washed her lips and her hands at a basin in the temple grounds, and before she goes she will give some bit of money to the temple treasury.

From Notes of Travel, No.8, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood. 


Devout woman stroking a Bronze Bull to Cure Rheumatism; Kyoto, Japan. 
Femme Dévote que Caresse un Taureau en Bronze afin de Guérir le Rhumatisme; Kioto, Japon. 
Frommes Weib Streichelt einen bronzenen Stier, um Rheumatismus zu heilen; Kioto, Japan.
Mujer Devota Acarieiando un Toro de Bronce para Curar el Reumatismo; Kioto, Japón.
From kvinna smekande en bronstjur för att kurera reumatism; Kyoto, Japan.
Нобожная Японка ласкающая бронзоваго быка для излѣченія ревматизма; Кіото.