Among little toys given to infants is a wooden whistle with either end rounded into a ball. It is given to the child to suck and bite and like the coral, hardens the gums, thereby facilitating the teething. The time for teething varies of course with the individual child and is the source of as much anxiety to the Japanese mother as to that of any other country.
On the fifteenth of November in the second year after the birth, the child is again taken to the shrine of the tutelary deity of the locality. A small offering of money is made; and in return the consecrated _sake_ in a flat unglazed earthenware is given to the child to sip, while the priest purifies its body by waving over it a sacred wand adorned with strips of paper. The ostensible object of the visit is to invoke the God’s blessing upon the child; but it is really made the occasion for dressing up the child in finery, when parents vie with one another in the richness of their children’s apparel. Calls are then made on the friends who made congratulatory presents to the child. The shrine is visited again on the same day of the same month two years later in the case of a boy and four years later if the child is a girl.
As soon as the child is able to toddle along, sandals or plain clogs are tied to its feet when it walks on the ground. It learns first to walk indoors. As there are no go-carts in Japan, it tries to stand up by clinging to pillars and sliding-doors, for it may stumble and flop down on the soft mats without hurting itself; it is when it runs, as children will do, without being able to stop, that the greatest care has to be taken that it does not tumble over the edge of the verandah. In Tokyo perambulators are now pretty common; but in the old days there was no special means of conveyance for children, and they had to be carried in arms or on the back.
There is no fixed time for weaning. After its first birthday, ordinary food is given to the child little by little until in a year’s time it is able to do without its milk. Generally speaking, however, the time for weaning is governed by the arrival of a younger brother or sister; but the youngest is often allowed to take its mother’s milk up to its fifth or sixth year, though of course, as it can’t be common food, it goes to its mother only for diversion.