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HINOYOJIN

On cold winter nights like these very ones, back in Tokyo in 1972 I first heard a group of folks wandering the alleyways around my old house in Mita, making a loud clacking sound (like the sound I soon found out precedes Kabuki plays), then sing-songing a strangely affecting chant, "Hiiiinoyoooojin!" over and over. It was the neighborhood firewarders, groups of neighbors taking turns each winter week to stroll the byways every night at about bedtime, warning everyone to be careful of fire at this most fire-prone time of day. Many folks then were still using charcoal, kerosene or occasionally electric heaters to warm themselves, could fall asleep and set a whole neighborhood of conjoined wooden houses ablaze. And here in this rural village the tradition continues even now, though there's much less need for it with modern stand-alone houses. It continues, I suspect, because there's always been more to it than fire safety: it's also a community reminder of residents caring for each other, an affirmation of being neighbors, of being familiarly together in this, of getting together and strolling the dark streets in a group, taking turns calling out: "Hiiinoyooojiiin! Be careful with Fire!"