'Kasugano no tobihi no nomori idete miyo ima ikuka arite wakana tsumite' 'Kasuga plains your keeper of burnt fields I've come to ask Now are the days many before gathering the young herbs.'
The first festival observed each year in Japan is that for the young shoots of spring, nanakusa no sekku. The tenth century poetic anthology Kokinshfl, describes court ladies gathering spring herbs for this recurring engagement that distinguishes the new year. On the first day of the rat in the new calendar, courtiers ventured out to winter's dry fields, searching in the approaching line of spring days, for seven herbs hearty enough to sprout so early. Distributed as offerings and gifts, the various young shoots also top grilled rice cakes in a gruel of one part rice to seven parts water on this auspicious day. Ingesting their vitality and medicinal qualities is believed to ensure good health throughout the year.
The seven herbs of Japan are composed of the following field grasses: seri or wild parsley, whose balmy fragrance graces spring waterside banks; nazuna or shepherds purse, which grows also alongside rice fields with a flavour between radish leaves and spinach; gogyd or cottonweed in whose jade green color shines the flavour of spring along paths through mountain and rice field; hakobera or chickweed, a mild tender green that grows in any field;
hotokenoza or clover found in dry rice beds with a distinctive sharp taste; suzuna, the familiar turnip; suzushiro or the greens of icicle radish. In early times the herbs were eaten separately at their respective zodiac animal hours, that is, the hour of the bird (6pm.), the dog (8pm.), the boar (10pm.), the rat U (midnight), the ox (2am.), the tiger (4am.), and the hare (6am.). U In the waning night or early morning an offering of seven varieties of fresh picked tender grasses is made by family members with a request for a year without incident.
Later the herbs are laid on a board and shredded with a willow stick. The willow is thought to bring long life. Knotted willow wands decorate homes at New Year, and the wood is particularly auspicious used to prepare or eat food at this time. The greens are pounded while singing "Bird of Cathay, Bird of Nihoni before they cross the boundary bridgel seven grasses, shepherds purse, etc./ pound! pound!" The words vary slightly from region to region. Seven identical verses are sung seven times. The shredded herbs are then made into a hot broth.
The bird of the song may be the same one which figures in an old legend associated with the Chinese practice of dedicating spring grasses on the seventh of the first month. A sacred hakuga bird lived on the western slope of Mount Sumeru, the dais for the Buddhist universe. Requiring 8000 years to reach maturity, the bird was sustained by eating seven spring grasses on the seventh day of the first month. Perhaps it was the force of this story which persuaded the Japanese to move the day of their festival from the first day of the rat to the seventh day of the first month. The day of the rat is now associated with the festival of Daikokusan, God of prosperity and the hearth. His other attributes of rice bales and a radish still bear an interesting parallel to the ancient seven herb broth.
This celebration of early spring lives on in modern Japan. Though all seven of the grasses are no longer easily found, if only two whose name holds the syllable 'na' are included, they are thought the equivalent of all seven, na 'na. And so the simple repast of young greens in rice broth may be enjoyed by all members of society for a healthful, invigorating year.