Fewer Japanese Births

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31291, 10 February 1967, Page 2

Fewer Japanese Births

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter) TOKY< Japan’s birth-rate for 1966 will be the lowest since the Government began taking an annual census in 1899, according to a preliminary official survey.

Government officials attribute the drop partly to family planning and partly to superstition. For 1966 was the “Year of the Fiery Horse,” and legend has it that women born under this zodiacal combination are aggressive and self-willed—and, at worst, capable of devouring seven husbands. No Japanese wants a

wife like that. Nor does any mother want a daughter who cannot find a husband.

Under the old Japanese calendar, which runs concurrently with the western system of counting the years, there are two sets of signs of the Zodiac.

One is based on the Chinese “elements” of fire, wood, earth, metal and water, from which the universe is held to have been made. The other, whose origin is also In ancient China, gives the names of 12 animals to the years: Mouse, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse,

Ram, Monkey, Cock, Dog, and Boar.

Mediaeval scholars thought that the characters of these animals and elements could be associated with people born in their years, that some people were, for instance, wooden cows or watery rabbits.

Any single combination of element and animrls occurs only once in 60 years.

The number of births for 1966 is expected to be 1,300,000, 70,000 fewer than in the last fiery horse year, 1906, although the population this year is twice as big as that of 1906.