Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 268, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1913 — GIRL OF SEVEN CLIMBS FUJI [ARTICLE]

GIRL OF SEVEN CLIMBS FUJI

At One Time Women Were Forbidden to Ascend Japan’s Sacred Mountain. Tokio.—Mount Fuji, a dead volcanic mountain nearly fifteen thousand feet high, famous around the world for its graceful contour, has been climbed this summer by a Japanese girl, seven years old, who made the trip unaided by her elders. Considering the youthfulness of the climber, this is a record. . / Another ascension will be made before the summer is over, for if all goes well with him, Sajuro Ota, eightynine years old. will accomplish his one hundredth ascension. With the close of last summer his record was eightythree. August saw. him complete his ninety-fourth trip to the summit. From time immemorial, Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan, has been considered a sacred peak, and until about forty years ago women were not allowed to make the ascent. Even now much religious sentiment is attached to the mountain, and group after group of pilgrims from all over the country visit the little shrines on the snowclad summit, murmuring in their ascent up the long slopes “Rokkon Shojo,” meaning “May our six senses be clean and undeflled." Aside from these pilgrims, all

classes of people, including some of the “new women” of Japan, climb up the mountain. Recently a prize climbing coptest was held, and a of the Waseda university made a record ascent by the summit in two hours an'd a half. Prince Hirohito, crown prince of Japan, thirteen years old, often expresses his earnest deßire to climb Fuji. This year he hopes to do so with Prince Yi_ former croyn prince of Korea, who is now studying in Japan. Fuji is coy In summer, and rarely discloses itself to the view of visitors who try to see it from points of vantage. This is due to the prevailing mist and clouds. ' /